Books You Are Reading...

Discussion in 'Entertainment Lounge' started by Maroon_Faithful, Jul 4, 2010.

Page 66 of 71

  1. Sultan Pepper HG Emm

    Finished 1984 last night, really didn't like it.
     
    Sultan Pepper, Feb 27, 2015
    #1301

  2. Rego RS Hutchinson

    How come?

    It's not exactly a edge of the seat read but gets you thinking at least.
     
    Rego, Feb 27, 2015
    #1302

  3. Sultan Pepper HG Emm

    Admittedly I'm not big on fiction in general and it started out fairly interesting before fizzling into a love story. It showed glimmers of promise once they were busted, but just became a twisted torture story with a very unfulfilling and disenchanting ending.

    All I took from it was that torture can break people, which I already knew.
     
    Sultan Pepper, Feb 27, 2015
    #1303

  4. Alec AD Funkotron

    I remember there was a short discussion about it a couple of weeks back. I think the main story is pretty ordinary, kinda boring. But the background story of how the world turns out is fascinating.
     
    Last edited: Feb 27, 2015
    Alec, Feb 27, 2015
    #1304

  5. Hurricane JD Hurricane

    Alec has basically given my answer. The plot is irrelevant. There is a 1 in 100 chance we may end up living in a world like that. If the book had not been written there would be less privacy protection advocates and possibly even less privacy laws in place and hence there would be a 1 in 10 chance we would have ended up with that world.
    I am obviously pulling those numbers out of my ass. And probably overstating the influence of the book.
    There is a rather hackneyed expression that gets used in debating clubs all the time "the pen is mightier than the sword" in this instance Orwell's pen has influenced much of the society we live in today.

    All of the decision makers have read that book. Every leader, every committee member, every law maker.

    The point of the book is not to entertain you but to scare you shitless.

    Right now we already live in a world where some believe that the government remotely turns on your camera on your laptop to watch anyone who is suspicious. America is considering deploying domestic drone planes to fly across suburban cities taking footage of people in their back yards (who are suspicious).

    Sorry for getting carried away. i happen to have read that book many times. And I recently had to study privacy legislation for work and came across many surprising articles.

    Most people react to infringes on privacy by saying 'they are welcome to look at me on my laptop as I am doing nothing wrong'.
    That is not the point. While we have benevolent governments nothing may happen indeed but you can not always guarantee you will have a sensible or even democratically elected government forever in the future.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2015
    Hurricane, Feb 27, 2015
    #1305

  6. Dan DB Wayne

    Yeah, 1984 is less about the book itself and more about the overarching themes, I guess. It's not about the character or what happens specifically to him, it's the "oh shit, this could be us soon if we're not careful" realisation you get in reading it.

    World-driven more than plot- or character-driven, I suppose.
     
    Dan, Feb 28, 2015
    #1306

  7. Dan DB Wayne

    Knocked over my 7th book of the year today. Some mediocre teen dystopian thing, to go with the other two in that genre I've knocked over recently. At least this one was set in a medieval context, rather than a dodgy current-earth-but-not one like most of the others.

    Also read Life of Pi, a couple of cricket books (Gideon Haigh's The Summer Game and the Tendulkar autobiography) and Keynes Hayek while in India.

    Still a stack to go. The Kite Runner, stacks of Terry Pratchett, more of that medieval teen dystopian series (loaned to me by my girlfriend and they're a very easy read), and an ever-increasing pile of cricket books. Not to mention all the other stuff I bought years ago but have yet to read.
     
    Dan, Feb 28, 2015
    #1307

  8. Cobra Commander CC Classified

    Bloody hell. Did you spend all your time cooped up in buses and hotel rooms?
     
    Cobra Commander, Feb 28, 2015
    #1308

  9. Dan DB Wayne

    Well it was about 16 hours to get over there by plane, and then there were two 6-hour bus trips that most people spent sleeping, so I read instead. Then I got through about half of Life of Pi on the way home, in between sleeping.

    EDIT: Oh and my hard drive died, so I had no music, movies or TV shows to entertain me in the various 1 hour breaks we had between meals and lectures while on remote campuses.
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2015
    Dan, Feb 28, 2015
    #1309

  10. cpr CP Raftery

    I get where people are coming from with 1984. Its a long time since I read it and I've no desire to read it again, partly for that reason - the story is not very thrilling when you take away the message. I suppose Brave New World has a bit more story to 'enjoy' in that sense. I'd probably put H.G Wells in the same boat, though his is very much easier to read
     
    cpr, Feb 28, 2015
    #1310

  11. Sultan Pepper HG Emm


    I've come to appreciate it's importance since reading it, I reckon I've heard it referenced at least once a day for the past few weeks with all this metadata retention nonsense, so the bolded certainly rings true.


    Found a great little book at the local second hand book shop called 30 second economics that I'm reading alongside 'How to speak money' by John Lanchester.
     
    Sultan Pepper, Mar 23, 2015
    #1311

  12. hedger OX Gbagbo

    The concerning thing is that some of the more unnerving things that occur in the book are now literally happening right now. In fact things have probably gone even further than depicted in the book in some cases.
     
    hedger, Mar 23, 2015
    #1312

  13. Dan DB Wayne

    John Lanchester is brilliant. Makes economics so accessible.

    He did a fantastic book on the GFC that's well worth a read. The name escapes me, but I really enjoyed reading parts of it for uni.
     
    Dan, Mar 25, 2015
    #1313

  14. Sultan Pepper HG Emm

    Capital or whoops?
     
    Sultan Pepper, Mar 26, 2015
    #1314

  15. Harps ZAF MacDonald

    Read Revival by Stephen King recently. That ending kept me sleepless for a few nights.
     
    Harps, Mar 31, 2015
    #1315

  16. Dan DB Wayne

    Whoops, iirc.
     
    Dan, Apr 1, 2015
    #1316

  17. SmellyStuff MP Chung

    Just finished Gallipoli by Les Carlyon. Considering its the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli this year, now seemed as good a time as any to actually learn about it.

    Fuck it made for some depressing reading.
     
    SmellyStuff, Apr 1, 2015
    #1317

  18. Fiery GR Smith

    We will be heading into Central London later this month for the 100 year commemorative events. There's a Dawn Service at Hyde Park Corner at 5am, then heading over to St. Paul's cathedral for another ceremony there. Gallipoli has always fascinated me.

    <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GPFjToKuZQM" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
     
    Last edited: Apr 1, 2015
    Fiery, Apr 1, 2015
    #1318

  19. Dan DB Wayne

    Knocked over Good Omens, The Kite Runner and We'll Get 'Em in Sequins over the Easter break. The former is brilliant, Pratchett/Gaiman is such a good combination. The latter was ok, an interesting take on changing conceptions of masculinity analysed through the lens of leading Yorkshire cricketers. The Kite Runner underwhelmed me though. Every single depressing trope you could think of was jammed into the thing, and yet even when the lead character went through the whole road to redemption thing in the latter half of the book, he was still amazingly dislikable. Perhaps that's the point, but for a book of that reputation, it was rather disappointing.

    Onto another Pratchett book now, Raising Steam.
     
    Dan, Apr 13, 2015
    #1319

  20. Starris ER Starris

    Dangerous women. Reading the GRRM one with the westeros back story on the dance of the dragons. So far it's definitely worth the read.
     
    Starris, Apr 18, 2015
    #1320
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