Current / Recent Books

[sahgwa]

For horror I've always been a Dean Koontz fan, you cant beat Watchers. I haven't picked up a King book except tommyknockers in years just because I can't stand his sky screaming TDS and his weird detailed child rape scenes in several stories of his.

Damn that's gross and tmi news to me lol :|  
My favourite horror writers deserve their own thread but it all started with Lovecraft and grew from there.

The best and most relatable to me is probably Thomas Ligotti. 

You should check it out if you haven't, it's very existential which makes it more relatable. 

A great horror novel in it's own write ha. is King's kid's book NOS4ATU.  It's very riveting.

[Byrd]

I'm currently reading (thank you Kindle Unlimted)

Lady Hardcastle Mysteries (much fun) https://www.amazon.com/A-Lady-Hardcastle...B074C6W8F7

Just finished the Retired Assassin's Guide (much fun; a bit like Murderbot Diaries) https://www.amazon.com/Retired-Assassins...B0DSTSTZZT

Dying Every Day - Seneca at the Court of Nero (and you think politics NOW is bad!!! : https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Every-Day-S...B00F8F7OZQ

And Lakoff's Moral Politics  https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Politics-Li...B01JLREM7E

[sahgwa]

I'm currently reading (thank you Kindle Unlimted)

Lady Hardcastle Mysteries (much fun) https://www.amazon.com/A-Lady-Hardcastle...B074C6W8F7

Just finished the Retired Assassin's Guide (much fun; a bit like Murderbot Diaries) https://www.amazon.com/Retired-Assassins...B0DSTSTZZT

Dying Every Day - Seneca at the Court of Nero (and you think politics NOW is bad!!! : https://www.amazon.com/Dying-Every-Day-S...B00F8F7OZQ

And Lakoff's Moral Politics  https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Politics-Li...B01JLREM7E

Thanks for posting- the one that catches my eye is Dying Every Day. I used to love the Romans. I still kind of do but I don't like their assholeness much in regards to Empire but nothing ever changes does it ? 

Were you ever on that old site in the 90s, Ancientsites.com? I think thats what it was. It was super fun. It was all fans of history and archaeology and we all picked an ancient society to be a part of. I was a Roman.
Nowadays I would pick like Celt/Gaul or something like that.  It was a fun way to role play but learn about history.
https://ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/37138

It was part of what made the early Web awesome; community, discussion, patience, and imagination and fun, with some role play but not necessary.   It had guestbooks, messaging, scrolls, walls, animated gifs, light and shade, carefully curated spaces.  We had personal homes and stuff. 

That all really died after 9/11 like most things cultural.  
By design. 
Sorry for the tangent but Nero brought it out.



Anyway, books.

[Moon68]

Getting ready to have a slowdown at work so I'm thinking of re-reading the Revelation Space Series by Alastair Reynolds. I read through the series at least once a year and it takes a couple weeks barring much side-tracking.

Revelation Space Series

[Byrd]

Thanks for posting- the one that catches my eye is Dying Every Day. I used to love the Romans. I still kind of do but I don't like their assholeness much in regards to Empire but nothing ever changes does it ? 

Were you ever on that old site in the 90s, Ancientsites.com? I think thats what it was. It was super fun. It was all fans of history and archaeology and we all picked an ancient society to be a part of. I was a Roman.
Nowadays I would pick like Celt/Gaul or something like that.  It was a fun way to role play but learn about history.
https://ancientworlds.net/aw/Article/37138

It was part of what made the early Web awesome; community, discussion, patience, and imagination and fun, with some role play but not necessary.   It had guestbooks, messaging, scrolls, walls, animated gifs, light and shade, carefully curated spaces.  We had personal homes and stuff. 

I think you'd find Seneca interesting because it's the story of how someone becomes more involved in a corrupt government, while struggling to reform it.  The atrocities are many (and very Roman), including Seneca's account of one man whose son was executed by the Emperor and was invited to a feast immediately after where he was told to give a toast praising the Emperor.  He did so, because he knew that "the Emperor (and praetorian guard) knew that the man had another son."

It's an interesting study in those who "speak truth to power" and those who attempt to influence a fairly unreasonable leader.  The author does tell a good tale -- and if you like that sort of thing, look up S.P. Somtow's recent book (on Kindle, I think, in multiple parts) about Sporos, the slave (male) who became Empress of Rome for awhile (no kidding.)  Nothing graphic there, but you can read between the lines, and Somtow is -- an amazing man (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S._P._Somtow) who is a very sophisticated researcher.

Two fascinating reads. (Another good series along this line but less grim and gritty realism is Lindsey Davis' Falcos series (which undoubtedly you've read but linked here for newcomers) https://www.good)reads.com/series/42173-...dius-falco)

Was not a part of ancienthistory.net but it sounds amazing.

[sahgwa]

Was not a part of ancienthistory.net but it sounds amazing.

Thanks for the reccos!

[sahgwa]

I found a use for Google technology which does not make me feel sick guilty or stupid.
I got a new German book (2 actually) from one of my favourite authors Walter Moers.

They stopped translating him in the English market because sadly, the amazingly creative and erudite translator John Brownjohn passed away at the ripe old age of 90 or so back in 2020.
As such, a good 5 books of this wonderful Zamonia fantasy and humour series have not been translated.

I got 2 from Amazon.de, and Have a really cool system since my German from school is only like 50%.

(p) Skim page in German and get a very rough gist.
1. Take photo with Google Translate on phone/google Lens - read it real quick in English on the screen
2. Pencil in the 20 to 50% of the vocabulary into the book that i don't know
3. Read the whole page in German

It's fun and its like a treasure hunt.  And I am learning :)

Just thought I would share.

You can read the first 6 Zamonia books in English from Overlook Press. I highly Recommend them.


The book I am reading/translating is
The Book Dragon:
https://www.amazon.com/B%C3%BCcherdrache...oks&sr=1-1

The book to start with is:
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Bluebear
https://www.amazon.com/Lives-Captain-Blu...1585678449

Zamonia is a lost continent that existed in the long-ago times, when Atlantis was still around.  It is peopled by strange creatures and magic, but aboveall, the search for knowledge , and The Orm.  The Orm is like gnosis, the primal knowledge. When a work of art, like a novel or a painting is so overwhelming and perfect, it, and it's author, can be said to be permeated by the Orm.  Kind of like an artistic Tao. 

 Moers was fist known in Germany as a comics artist and author, and he still does his own drawings in the books, which are really nice. 

[UltraBudgie]

Current read: My Friends by Fredrik Backman. This is a very nice beach read (well, lake read) and I am enjoying it quite a bit. I read Backman's A Man Called Ove a few years ago and liked that, so I got this one for my reader, and am not regretting it. Laugh out loud moments, and a very heartfelt story, doesn't get bogged down. Recommend!

[sahgwa]

Current read: My Friends by Fredrik Backman. This is a very nice beach read (well, lake read) and I am enjoying it quite a bit. I read Backman's A Man Called Ove a few years ago and liked that, so I got this one for my reader, and am not regretting it. Laugh out loud moments, and a very heartfelt story, doesn't get bogged down. Recommend!

[Image: https://denyignorance.com/uploader/images/217163697.jpg]

Thankee for sharing!

I just finished one of my designated nonfiction books, which was 
The Afterlife Revolution by Whitley and Anne Strieber.  Which shows sometimes empirically, and sometimes subjectively , the survival of the soul after physical death, and the conscious choices we can make to become soul-aware and to strengthen our own souls. 
Highly recommended and not just uplifting but useful.



To replace that in my pile, now I started a new nonfiction book which is crazy thought-provoking, Microcosm and Medium by Joseph P. Farrell.
In a nutshell it shows how mind control is not just high technology, but also embedded, even subconsciously, into culture and media, like music, art, and architecture. 
I am in the beginning part on Baroque music vs Classical and Romantic and later, and Pop music and Affectlehre, or 'Passions' and evoking and invoking them.  Very fascinating.    


https://www.lulu.com/shop/joseph-p-farre...pageSize=4


In this latest book Joseph P Farrell examines the subject of mind control, but from a very unusual perspective, showing that its basic underlying philosophy, and goal, is not only cosmological in nature, but that the cosmology in view is very ancient, and that mind control of any sort, from the arts to hypnosis, remote electromagnetic technologies and "electroencephalographic dictionaries" has cosmological implications.

[Sirius]

Kenneth Grant - Hecates Fountain

For there are Thrones under ground
And the Monarchs upon them
Reign over Space and Beyond

Invoke Them in Darkness, Outside
The Circles of Time

In Silence, in Sleep, in Conjurations
Of Chaos, the Deep will respond . . .

--From the Qabalahs of Besqul

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.

-The Necronomicon