Books

[Emphyrio]

Read a couple of his books when I was getting into sci-fi. I remember Arthur C. Clarke and Asimov being head and shoulders above, quality-wise though. Read A Scanner Darkly years later, apparently it's Axl Rose's favourite book, and again, it's good but not great.

[O Drighes]

I've just finished Christopher Browning's  "Ordinary Men", the study on Reserve Police Batallion 101 and what motivated common people to contribute to the Nazi final solution. Great read!!!

[Doctor Crippen]

Just started Antony Beevor "Berlin 1945"

[Necro Red]

I'm a few pages into the Bone Collector at the moment which is shaping up nicely. I like the writing style, seen the movie years ago and forgot the majority of it which isn't a bad thing. I was reading Being And Nothingness by Sartre, but had to put it down for awhile as it is quite heavy reading, especially during doom and gloom.

[Caomhaoin]

Just started Antony Beevor "Berlin 1945"

That's a savage book. In fact, his Stalingrad one is also one of my favourite books on WW2.

There's a part in that Berlin book, reading from a Russian soldier's diary upon coming across a deserted farm in East Prussia, stunned at the order and relative opulence, incapable of understanding why the Germans wanted to invade Russia.

[Doctor Crippen]

Yeah i am past that alright, the amount of rape that takes place and the level of it is mind boggling, i have all his books, he was one of the lucky few historians who got in-depth access to the Russian archives, i dont think many have since

[StoutAndAle]

I have those two Anthony Beevor books on a shelf to read, I think I'll start one of them soon.

Finished "City Of Bohane" by Kevin Barry - never in my adult life has it taken me so long to read such a slim volume. I've mentioned this before but I don't think my brain as the fiction switch turned on any more. I was at this for ages. It's good in places but he uses the same sort of fictional register/vernacular technique as Anthony Burgess, James Joyce etc. The language flows pretty well but the actual story goes nowhere and becomes a fart smelling exercise by Barry two thirds of the way through.

Picked up Craig Brown's "One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time" - it is excellent so far. Rockets along at a nice pace. As well as being about The Beatles it is a social history of what was going on within and without them. Brown is funny and knows how to use his satirist's blade to cut through a lot of the mystical stuff.

[open face surgery]

Picked up Craig Brown's "One Two Three Four: The Beatles in Time" - it is excellent so far. Rockets along at a nice pace. As well as being about The Beatles it is a social history of what was going on within and without them. Brown is funny and knows how to use his satirist's blade to cut through a lot of the mystical stuff.

Was given that for xmas but haven't cracked into it. Will start that next.

Read Brave New World for the first time a few weeks ago. It was fine. Sorta like The Jetsons with coke. Preferred the oppressive bleakness of 1984. Despite the massive changes in the world technologically in the last 80 odd years a lot of the same issues seem to remain. Suppose it's the nature of man that hasn't changed on a base level. Sometimes reshaped to the times we are in but generally the same. Puts an onus on not giving too much of ourselves to the nonsense we are bombarded with daily.

[Eoin McLove]

The Jetsons With Coke  I agree, it's not as overtly bleak as 1984, mind you it's a long time since I read that,  but its message of mass submission rings true with our addictions to our phones and social media. Less grimy perhaps, but possibly more accurate in its depressing sanitisation.

[open face surgery]

Ya, I would say it's more accurate in most instances. It's the tone rather than the content that's not as bleak.

[Eoin McLove]

Absolutely.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

In short, it's just not quite as excellent a book as 1984, but still very good, and prophetic and all that; soma = streaming services, if you ask me.

[Caomhaoin]

Agree with it being not quite as great as 1984.

As for the soma, Jaysus it's in everything now, like a fucking ubiquitous e-number.

[open face surgery]

Couldn't possibly narrow it down to one thing. It's endless. Just do drugs, kids.

[Black Shepherd Carnage]

I said streaming services, but I meant the mainstream screen entertainment industry in total; the great imagination sedative. It just so happens that, over the last year and a bit, streaming services have been essentially the only globally accessible form of that medium.