Discovery Book Club

[Jazz]

Im thinking a good thread about books in general, what are you reading, what have you read, what do you plan to read? Is a book good? is it controversial? Do you just want to go on about your favorite Author's new master piece?

Here's teh place!

I just picked up a new book today, its called "Hey Mac" Its a WW2 diary written by my sunday School teacher. Its really very very good.

Edit: Forgot, the man's name is Jack Holman, he's in his mid eightys and going strong. One of my role models.

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Some say that he is allergic to a fungus found only between the toes of Corsairs,
and that he is oblivious to 98% of Liberty Law. All we know is...
He's called the Busdriver!

[Boss]

Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise by Charles Stross

Far-future, evil people plotting, only to be deterred by the Eschaton, a strong AI (see Wikipedia article on Strong AI)
"I am the Eschaton. I am not your God.
I am descended from you, and exist in your future.
Thou shalt not violate causality within my historic light cone. Or else."


Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Everyone should know these ones.

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Just go play the game and have fun dammit.

all in all the conclusion is that disco doesn't need antagonist factions, it doesn't need phantoms, it doesn't need nomads, it doesn't need coalition and it doesn't need many other things, no AIs, the game is hijacked by morons to confuse the game with their dickwaving generic competition games mixed up with troll-of-the-day.

[Drake]

I have many suggestions, but to narrow it to one, I'd go with The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss. One of the best books I've read.

I could also throw out the names of authors such as Steven Erikson, Jim Butcher, Terry Pratchett, Glen Cook, Neil Gaiman and numerous others. All very good authors with very good books.

[Magoo!]

Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Win.

I just finished Brisngr, so I'm falling back on my brother's collection of Halo books. Not bad not great, but then again I'm like... 15 pages in.

[Malaclypse 666]

Let's see.. our moms gush on for hours at those book club socials.. but I don't think your moms would approve of my favorite books and authors. This author should be relatively safe, for the relatively mature reader who enjoys a bit of.. well, a whole lot, of quirky humor in hir reading, as Drake apparently does.

A little background.. the conversation in the TAZ Skype chat today turned to cabbages.. common enough, but then turned to turnips, and finally beets, which brought a favorite book and author to mind.

I wracked my brain trying to remember the title of an amazing book which prominently featured beets as a plot element, and as a minor hero as well, it turned out.

It was agonizing.. I knew the author, but had one of those blank spots the elderly and entheogenically challenged often have..

"Aaargh.. lets see.. beets, longevity.. i'll get it.. perfume.. bathing, breathing.. beets! Dammit! Kudra and Alobar.. you know! Beets? The Bandaloop??"

Finally in desperation, I turned to Google and pulled a list of the author's titles, and there it was!: "Jitterbug Perfume", by Tom Robbins. Not Tom's first, and certainly not his last, but one of my favorites.

From my "stream of consciousness" attempt to remember the title, you may deduce that Tom Robbins uses rather unusual themes in his work. Always. Guaranteed. You can bet the farm on it.

A bit later, I found a delightful review of Tom and his work. Rather dated, but it certainly covered all the reasons I love him, and a few more I've never even considered. the treatise is rather long, and requires concentration and an appreciation for metaphor and mirth, but I'd like to share it with you here, rather than in a link you might never click.

I warn you, if you begin to find your beliefs, sense of decency, or safe little reality tunnel stretched, tune out quickly, or suffer the consequences. Here we go:

"laughing at the black iron prison: tom robbins
by Sara Aronson (hermes23w@disinfo.net) - December 22, 2001

Never before has a Bard had a ray gun, that futuristic contraption capable of bursting readers' skulls like an universal embryo, laying contents prey to scrutiny, manipulation, and conversion into a cosmic daiquiri of ah-ha juice. Like archetypical spy flicks, once the cryptic knowledge is demystified, its destined for self-destruction in five seconds, taking the cranium with it and shouting "WHOOPJAMBOREE!" Initiated by Robbins' Certified-Ontological-Ray-Gun for the Repressed, Depressed & Chronically Jovial, the reader dips a timid brain toe into the waters of transcendence, taking gray matter astral skinny dipping.

Naturally, explosive effects might occur for connoisseurs of fine novels that happen across Tom Robbins like enlightened early birds across acres of hashish (when did the Assassins ever need worms?). Cocktail parties of his characters would include outlaws of Woodpecker and cowgirl variety conversing with a former CIA agent and full-time pedophile about duality, perhaps around carafes of Ripple supplied by a middle-aged male countess. Timbuktu University staff (alumni include no less than Robert Anton Wilson, Timothy Leary, Terence McKenna, and John Lilly) listen as a shaman chuckles sublimely. An octogenarian monarch toots cocaine while hobnobbing with a geriatric hacker about authority of choice. Robbins appears, complete with psychology doctorate and a mustache so abused by ponderous munchings it must be thinking of packing up its follicles and moving.

As captivating as showgirls performing mesmerism while hovering two inches above the apex of a lawn sculpture a la Giza, Robbins has stolen hearts of people worldwide like a reluctant magnetic pickpocket in a land of metal wallets. Does his Zen Master Ray Gun convey something emanating newness like sephiroth? Or does he titillate palettes like wine with vintage center Tree of Life ring with insight that's common of art, literature, drugs, and the famed Tantric double lotus?

Pynchon, Joyce, and Dada (who isn't dead) weave chaotic tapestries of the phantom elixir termed alternately God-Allah-YHVH, Tao, Buddha, Slack, and That-Which-Cannot-Be-Named. They make it as easy as cold fusion to understand and labyrinthine to navigate. Although the craftsmanship inherent in compositions such as Finnegans Wake are revered by the clandestine C.R.A.F.T. club haunting Robbins' latest book, Robbins is beloved for the yippeewahoo of life he provides without inscrutability.

What further sets Robbins apart from the deluge of pineal can openers is that he camps not at the top of the mountain with the gurus of impenetrability, nor in the valley in the shadow of self-help. Avoiding the wholly holy and the soulless, he camps at the middle slope and proceeds to whip out a Hibachi to cook up cream of intuition soup. He brings the checkered moments of human existence full vividness and inherent futility.

As described in his new book, Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates (2000), people may be at the second story window of a burning building, but if they enjoy the view, then the inferno is forgotten in rapture.

Invalids is a Mobius strip juxtaposing Switters with the CIA, his hacker grandmother, her Matisse blue nude, and desert nuns carrying the Lady of Fatima's secret prophecy. The book heralded future's horns because although it was written before the papacy divulged the Third Fatima secret, Invalids tells different secrets that are a favorite Robbins' theme: pyramid energy.

Yes, the plot beckons, the visuals entrance, the books beg to make a cerebral cocktail. They do vivacious neural belly dances, glimmer like a Sutra jewel, and generally hint of candy, laughter, and ability to ray-gun consciousness to a place of sacred musk and sacrilegious ecstasy. Pulling heartstrings and beating humor's drums, they create symphonies of such purity it can ultimately be felt, whether purposely or not, as waves of music dancing around a grandiose conductor's baton."

(From the Disinformation website, http://discoverygc.com/forums/index.php?sh...p;#entry615205)

I never thought of myself as a "pineal can opener" before, but I suppose in a way, I am. You may think I'm just a crazy old fart.. but perhaps I do have a purpose here in the Discovery Community.. to pass along the favor Tom and his Timbuktu U fellow Alumni did for me; And to open a few cans myself... one pineal at a time.

23's
Mal

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[n00bl3t]

1984 by George Orwell.

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Anything I say is not intended as offensive, and to try and deliberately misinterpret it as such would be an attempt at trolling via misrepresentation.

It's not a conspiracy, it's localised bias. They're not intelligent enough to form a conspiracy.

[tazuras]

Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad.

The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver.

Many others.

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[reavengitair]

Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini

Ive read them... I don't particularly like them anymore.

The first two were good. I didn't like the last one for some reason.

[NerdRage]

Terry pratchett and David eddings FTW.

I'm also reading a fairly odd book called Jpod, it's pretty indescribable and odd

(a computer game graphics desighner with a mother who grows weed and a people-smuggling friend who wears a cowboy hat and spent his schildhood growing up in a lesbian community, who tries to write a letter to make friends with ronald mcdonald, or something like that)

This does not really seem that different than a Mother's book club

::tucks 20 dainty cupcakes into bag and shuffles away::

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[joshua_cox]

I'm currently reading The Lord of the Rings and Tom Clancy's Rainbox Six. I'm also trying to restrain from killing the girl I like for liking Twilight.

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