Books

[Carnage]

It's 30+ years since I read Brave New World, I can barely remember it. I read that and 1984 around the same time, much preferred the latter. Very different books I know but always seem to be mentioned as the definitive dystopia novels.

[Eoin McLove]

Long time since I've read 1984 but my impression from a distance is that it has more impact due to being darker in tone, and more gritty. Brave New World is about the dulling of the senses through gluttony and luxury, which is probably more true of modern western civilisation than the ultra bleak Stasi-esque grimness of 1984. It seems less harrowing in many ways. You get to chill out and fuck whoever you want but there are few, or no emotional highs to be experienced. But then, there is no obvious suffering either- if you're on Soma, at least. It's maybe harder to sell a future of being drug hazed and banging babes as an existential threat than it is having rats chew off your face 

[Necro Red]

Long time since I've read 1984 but my impression from a distance is that it has more impact due to being darker in tone, and more gritty. Brave New World is about the dulling of the senses through gluttony and luxury, which is probably more true of modern western civilisation than the ultra bleak Stasi-esque grimness of 1984. It seems less harrowing in many ways. You get to chill out and fuck whoever you want but there are few, or no emotional highs to be experienced. But then, there is no obvious suffering either- if you're on Soma, at least. It's maybe harder to sell a future of being drug hazed and banging babes as an existential threat than it is having rats chew off your face 

couldn't put it better myself man. It isn't as dark as I thought it would be like 1984.

[Eoin McLove]

Long time since I've read 1984 but my impression from a distance is that it has more impact due to being darker in tone, and more gritty. Brave New World is about the dulling of the senses through gluttony and luxury, which is probably more true of modern western civilisation than the ultra bleak Stasi-esque grimness of 1984. It seems less harrowing in many ways. You get to chill out and fuck whoever you want but there are few, or no emotional highs to be experienced. But then, there is no obvious suffering either- if you're on Soma, at least. It's maybe harder to sell a future of being drug hazed and banging babes as an existential threat than it is having rats chew off your face 

couldn't put it better myself man. It isn't as dark as I thought it would be like 1984.

And yet, BNW is potentially more of an accurate imagining of where much of humanity was headed. Between drugs, TV, and the ever encompassing reach of technology into our lives, that dulling of the senses, the dropping out of reality, becomes a much bigger threat. Again, that's dependent on where you happen to have been born,  but it was prescient none the less.

[ochoill]

Love 1984 but never read BNW even though it is on my shelf for years.  Might give it a shot this week if I finish The Plague.  (Enjoying that as it happens but sort of dropped out of reading from the ongoing go of life and just continued on the manga reads and re-reads instead since that is easier to deal with in short bursts).

[Don Gately]

Just started Independent People by Harold Laxness, big Icelandic book from the 1930s.
Also a bit of Ray Carver on the side.

[Eoin McLove]

440 pages left of The Books Of Jacob and I'm throwing in the towel. If you're giving me a 900 page book, the pages better be turning themselves! This was a slog from the start, so fuck it. I gave it 560 pages and several weeks of my life. Enough is enough.

Today I bought

Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne. I've been meaning to read something by him for years so let's see if it's been worth the wait.

Twist by Colum McCann. I liked Let the Great World Spin but found Apeirogon a chore so this could go either way. At least it isn't a tome, like Apeirogon...

Phantom Days by Angela O'Keeffe. She's new to me but the cover is really nice and the story promises to be mysterious and unusual. Can't ask for better than that.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

Historians' historian Carlo Ginzburg has passed away. If you're of a literary mind, may I recommend this absolute trip of a paper as an introduction:

https://beasley.sdsu.edu/Ginzburg.pdf

[Maggot Colony]

Just started Fatherland by Richard Harris. I've never read any of his books before. Very good so far.

Also reading The Exile: The Flight of Osama bin Laden which reads like a thriller.

[Carnage]

Fatherland is great, as is almost every book I've read by Robert Harris    (The Fear Index was fairly shite). His Cicero trilogy is mighty, Pompeii, Enigma, Archangel, etc.

He's doing an appearance in Galway for the release of his new one, I might go along to that.

[Maggot Colony]

Fatherland is great, as is almost every book I've read by Robert Harris   

 What?! I only started reading it because I thought Dumbledore wrote it! 

[Carnage]

I do the same thing with Robert, Richard and Thomas Harris. "Howya Clarice."

[Born of Fire]

Just started Fatherland by Richard Harris. I've never read any of his books before. Very good so far.

Also reading The Exile: The Flight of Osama bin Laden which reads like a thriller.

Read that recently too and it was also my first time reading one of his. Flew through it and looking forward to getting stuck into a few more of his.

[Don Gately]

Imperium is his best I think

[Carnage]

His new one (Agrippa) is goung back to Rome, you should enjpy it so. I'm looking forward to it anyway. I still have a few of his to read (An Officer And A Spy, V2, Precipice), I must get back to them.