No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai

An entire book of negativity towards every aspect of a guys life. It's no wonder the author actually ended up dieing of suicide.

Not a book to read if you're feeling low....or good.....maybe it is better if you feel low as it kind gives you a feeling of dwelling in your self-pity.

Written by no one on 26.06.2023 at 03:18

No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai

An entire book of negativity towards every aspect of a guys life. It's no wonder the author actually ended up dieing of suicide.

Not a book to read if you're feeling low....or good.....maybe it is better if you feel low as it kind gives you a feeling dwelling in your self-pity.

Is it Japanese author ?

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 06:19

Written by no one on 26.06.2023 at 03:18

No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai

An entire book of negativity towards every aspect of a guys life. It's no wonder the author actually ended up dieing of suicide.

Not a book to read if you're feeling low....or good.....maybe it is better if you feel low as it kind gives you a feeling dwelling in your self-pity.

Is it Japanese author ?

Yes

Written by no one on 28.06.2023 at 07:49

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 06:19

Written by no one on 26.06.2023 at 03:18

No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai

An entire book of negativity towards every aspect of a guys life. It's no wonder the author actually ended up dieing of suicide.

Not a book to read if you're feeling low....or good.....maybe it is better if you feel low as it kind gives you a feeling dwelling in your self-pity.

Is it Japanese author ?

Yes

Is the book in english ? First time ive seen japan asian author reas by Western community, besides Norwegian woods and Dragon tattoo girl.

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 08:25

[ First time ive seen japan asian author reas by Western community, besides Norwegian woods and Dragon tattoo girl.

If you're meaning The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and that it's written by Japanese author, then you're wrong. It's written by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.

Written by Nejde on 28.06.2023 at 09:12

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 08:25

[ First time ive seen japan asian author reas by Western community, besides Norwegian woods and Dragon tattoo girl.

If you're meaning The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo and that it's written by Japanese author, then you're wrong. It's written by Swedish author Stieg Larsson.

Yea the work I meant was made into movie, used to famous 5 to 10 years ago, I just known, the main lady female role was japanese, so that I could be wrong for the book work author.

Oh shit i wrong again, cuz dragon used to be asia, i thought it was Japanese movie, gonna watch it gain, nice stuff.

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 11:50
]
Yea the work I meant was made into movie, used to famous 5 to 10 years ago, I just known, the main lady female role was japanese, so that I could be wrong for the book work author.

If you mean the American version with Daniel Craig, it was Rooney Mara who played the lead role. Noomi Rapace was in the Swedish original so you're wrong again, sorry. I'm starting to wonder if you mean a totally different book and movie.

Written by Nejde on 28.06.2023 at 15:40

Written by [user id=172292] on 28.06.2023 at 11:50
]
Yea the work I meant was made into movie, used to famous 5 to 10 years ago, I just known, the main lady female role was japanese, so that I could be wrong for the book work author.

If you mean the American version with Daniel Craig, it was Rooney Mara who played the lead role. Noomi Rapace was in the Swedish original so you're wrong again, sorry. I'm starting to wonder if you mean a totally different book and movie.

I wronged very much, cuz the movie is famous in vietnam 5 to 10 years ago, I've never seen it. I though it is mixed origin Hollywood and Japanese. Cuz dragon is symbol for Asia, so I was wrong. Just I thought first place Norwegian Woods made by Western, actually its books inspired name by Beatle, but from Japanese author.

Brian Bates - Way of the Wyrd

Second time I've read this book but it was like reading it for the first time as I had forgotten pretty much all of it.
Really cool story about a Christan going to a pagan land to learn about their ways

The Wasp Factory - Lain Banks

Story of a castrated animal torture slash murderer living on a small isolated island in Scotland.

Really good morbid gothic novel, don't read if animal cruelty makes you squeamish.

Mort - Terry Pratchett 1987

The good:

The wit and humor, right up my street
Well thought-out fantastical setting
Surprisingly engaging characters
The exciting A-story and more mellow B-story worked well together
Quality writing style, little to no cliché and fun twists on popular expressions
Obvious, but effective symbolism

The bad:

Final conflict resolution was a letdown, it felt just a tiny bit contrived
The ending was very cheesy

Final score 8/10
I recommend it, especially to fans of whimsical fantasy tales that are just the right length

A Court Of Wings And Ruin by Sarah J. Maas
Published by Bloomsbury in 2017
Number of pages: 699

The good:

Some characters are amusing and likeable.
The prose isn't the worst I've ever read.
Some moments were legitimately surprising/shocking.

The bad:

Countless overhyped MacGuffins
Countless overpowered MacGuffins
Characters that are walking MacGuffins
Characters that are a walking plot convenience
Unsexy romance scenes
Endless supposedly tense situations resolved by the deus ex machina
A disturbing use and overuse of the words "male" "female" and "mate"
A disturbing overuse of expressions like "my stomach turned" or "Rhysand purred into my ear"
Characters that are not engaging
Characters that are too similar to one another and difficult to tell apart
Characters that are insanely inconsistent
Characters that became boring compared to how they were in the first two books
A complete lack of logical and believable consequences

Final Score: 3.5/10
I cannot recommend this book or series, not in good conscience. It's good enough if one's looking for light entertainment, but it's not good overall.

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Published by Picador in 2006
Number of pages: 307

The good:

Everything


The bad:

N/A


Final score 10/10
I recommend it like I'd recommend Lurker Of Chalice. In other words, I don't need to recommend it. But I will.

Written by Metren on 07.09.2023 at 00:55

Mort - Terry Pratchett 1987

Written by Metren on 25.09.2023 at 23:25

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Just bought both, based on your recommendation alone.

Written by nikarg on 26.09.2023 at 09:31

Just bought both, based on your recommendation alone.

I am quite certain that you will like both books. I will also take this chance to expand on why I loved The Road, now that I’ve had a day to think about the book. No spoilers to follow.

The Road, like all works of art that achieve worldwide acclaim, has been called overrated. Having read it once, I can’t imagine what serious faults one might find in it, let alone flaws that critics or readers ignore. The plot is simple and not original, but I have read no praise for The Road that claims otherwise. I’ve not read any reviews that praise the book for its plot at all. The style carries the book, in more ways than one.

I’ve always longed for books where the style of writing conveys the altered state of the world. It’s the same with fantasy or sci-fi. Even writers I love, such as George R. R. Martin and Isaac Asimov, have a rather basic style. They write about fantastical and amazing worlds, but their style just feels normal, familiar, nostalgic. It gives me the feeling of “this is how I’d write, if I were a better writer.” I could never write like Cormac McCarthy. I don’t think anyone else could either, even if they tried.

Literature is all about using words as effectively as possible. Writing advice from every source will say never to use words that sound too weak. Is there a weaker word in the English language than “okay”? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s not my native tongue. Is there a more powerful word than “mamma” or “papa”? For a parent, maybe not. Again, I don’t know, I am not a parent. In The Road, the word “okay” starts weak, and it just gets weaker and more meaningless with every utterance. And I think that’s the point. The word “papa” starts strong and only becomes more powerful.

Some more obvious strengths of McCarthy’s writing are:

Using no quotation marks and very few tags in dialogue, but still making it clear who’s speaking.
Great use of metaphors and similes in appropriately short descriptive passages. One particular simile about daylight passing will stay with me forever.
Not going for shock value at the beginning of the story. This establishes the mood and themes far better than any brutal or over-the-top scene ever could.

There’s also a line of dialogue about God and our relation to God in the book that I won’t spoil, but one that I suspect will haunt me for years.

The more I think back on the book, the better it gets. Happy reading! And thanks for having faith in my recommendation.

McCarthy is very good and very heavy to read (not as in difficult, or even because of the graphic subject matter, but there's something exhausting about the atmosphere he creates that I'm never very quick to jump into another). So I still have a lot of his works to read.

The Road is great, but I would almost say that my least favorite of the few I've read, carried to particular fame (above his Western novels, I mean) by the post-apocalyptic setting. (Kind of like Saramago's Blindness, with the thrilling setting of an internment camp for people struck mysteriously and suddenly blind, is his most famous book even if it's nowhere near as literary as some others, like the Lisbon siege one, actually.) Blood Meridian is in the same vein of horror porn, extremely searing, but ultimately I think the more mundane, less graphically violent All The Pretty Horses (first of the Border Trilogy) may be more well-rounded book.

A Court of Frost And Starlight
Author: Sarah J. Maas
Published in 2018 by Bloomsbury
Number of pages: 233

The book has a front cover and a back cover. The front cover has the title and name of the author on it, the back cover features some quotes by critics who got paid to say nice things. Not much to complain about regarding the covers.

Between the covers, there are pages made of thinner material that have words printed on them. The words make up sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. Not much to praise about regarding any of those.

Nothing happens in this book. Readers that love the world and the characters may enjoy this transitional novella, where nothing happens, but I did not. 233 pages of characters buying Christmas gifts and then giving and receiving Christmas gifts is too much nothing for my tastes.

A personal appeal to SJM and all fantasy and romance authors: stop using the word “predatory” in romance scenes. It’s not assertive, it’s not strong, it’s not sexy. It’s a combination of cringy and creepy, nothing more.

The previous books in the series were no masterpieces, but A Court of Frost And Starlight bores you harder than life itself. Reading it is like watching how a painting dries and the painting itself is depicting how grass grows. It’s the most bland and useless book I’ve read all year. Stylistically poor and devoid of meaningful content, it floats in the ether of bad, causing negative thoughts and ruining lives. And I don’t like it.


Final score:

2/10

Written by nikarg on 26.09.2023 at 09:31

Written by Metren on 07.09.2023 at 00:55

Mort - Terry Pratchett 1987

Just bought both, based on your recommendation alone.

Mort's a good entry point into the world of Terry Pratchett. That said, some of the later era books are even better. While lots of it is just humor and witticism, some of the later ones turn out to be quite deeply philosophical. One of the best in this regard is Small Gods and can be likened to Gaiman's American Gods by tackling similar topics in a different setting.

I.

^ Thanks, Ivor.

Written by nikarg on 26.09.2023 at 09:31

Written by Metren on 07.09.2023 at 00:55

Mort - Terry Pratchett 1987

Just bought both, based on your recommendation alone.

Pratchett is one of my favourite authors and before discovering the wonderful Discworld I read the The Nome Trilogy. Highly recommended.

Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World
Book by Tyson Yunkaporta

This book blew my mind, such a interesting pagan way of looking at the world. Everyone should read this book.

Ended up reading the new testament after the old. That's the whole Bible read which i felt like was quite an accomplishment, it took me just over a year, though I read a lot of other books as well.

I actually liked the old testament better though revelation is amazing and would make an awesome movie. The books of Paul really feel like I'm getting preached to by a Christian cult leader and the misogyny through the whole thing is terrible.

I'm still kind of baffled how this religion is still one of the dominant religions. Kind of weird I have close family who fully believe in this stuff. Maybe I could get on board if these stories were understood as myth or metaphors particularly Jesus rising from the dead.

Sellout: The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007) by
Dan Ozzi

Apart from the Distillers and maybe Rise Against I don't give a shit about these bands, not even in that period. Which is why I was surprised I enjoyed it so much. It really was bizzare how massive record labels were hunting down and making huge offers to un radio friendly emo and punk bands. And really interesting how quickly the phase died off with the internet pirate sites. All thanks to Greenday and Nirvana really. Nothing like that will ever happen again which is why I think the 90s and early 0s is such a unique time for music.

Jurassic Park. There's a huge difference between book Hammond and film Hammond. I'm probably not allowed to say what I think of book Hammond on this site.
The lawyer in the film is 2 book characters rolled into one.
If you liked the film, you'll probably like the book. The book has more in the setup than the film did. More character on the island, too.

I had a pleasure of reading a comic book called "Invincible", that's a three and half thousand pages long series that ran from early 2000's to 2018 or so, it's a one big epic continuous story from the beginning to the end. It took me back to my school days when comic books still were full of creativity and ambition instead of just being some cheap merchandise for big film franchises.

The story tells about a teenager who's old man just happens a superhero. The thing is, the family is about to break up violently and the kid has to take his father's duties and protect the earth from whatever alien criminals there are. Invincible is more like some old mythologies and folklore where the relatives always killed and betrayed each other, lots of family drama, blood revenge and stuff, but in epic fashion. This comic has lot of that stuff.

I just love how the story flows without much filler. From what I gathered, the central theme of the plot is sacrifice, that is many times the central character has to think about the lesser evil and what they're going to lose for saving some other things. For one thing, the main character ends up losing his idealism in favor of more practical and cynical ways of doing things, like killing and seriously injuring his more dangerous enemies without a second thought, sometimes it just has to be done. The violence in this comic is brutal as balls and when characters die, they really are gone, so there are always huge stakes. And let me tell you: lots and lots of characters do die until it's over, even some of the more central ones.

The villain of the story is great, he's like an incarnation of everything that is wrong and evil in every ideology in this world. In his eyes existence is just one big process of natural selection where the weak deserve to die and the cosmos belongs to superior race. This man is willing to sacrifice anything and everything, even every single one of his children, if his higher purpose so requires. There is no forgiveness or compassion, just power.

This year I've read:
• Providence Compendium (8/10)
• The Fellowship of the Ring (10/10)
• Neonomicon (7.5/10)
• Lost in Time (8.5/10)
• The Two Towers (9/10)
• Maus (10/10)
• The Return of the King (9.5/10)
• Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (9.5/10)

Columbine - Dave Cullen

Second time reading this book, such a crazy and disturbing story, one of my all time favorites.

A Country of Ghosts By Margaret Killjoy

A utopian story about a journalist who ends up being in a anarchist society in war against the colonial army he was once part of. Knowing the author is a staunch anarchist it almost felt like a fictional way of her explaining how anarchism could work.

I found it an interesting/different read, my only complaint is that it was much too short and rushed. I felt like the characters and story lacked depth because of this.

Margaret Killjoy is behind the black metal band Feminuzgul.

DAN FRANKLIN - 'COME MY FANATICS - A JOURNEY INTO THE WORLD OF ELECTRIC WIZARD'

Great insightful read even though i got the vibe the band is a little pretentious.