____twoism

Finished Reading Simon Vs The Homo Sapiens. I haven't read a young adult book since I was probably 13, but decided to give it a try because there really wasn't any LGBTQ+ books like that when I was growing up. It was cute? The movie was cute too? It's nice that things like that are accepted into the mainstream now and hope it helps some kids coming to terms with their sexualities. I added a bunch of gay lit to read; fiction, non, and YA, so we'll see where I end up along the way in 2021.

Biden won, so I'm not afraid to get into reading George W Bush's "Decision Points" right now. About 30 pages in. He writes like a five year old.

Read Mariah Carey's memoir and man, she's had a life. I knew, but I didn't know.

A short and engaging novel.

2020k wrote:
Biden won, so I'm not afraid to get into reading George W Bush's "Decision Points" right now. About 30 pages in. He writes like a five year old.

Not judging in anyway, but genuinely interested in why you're reading this. Morbid curiosity?

Just starting this one. The history, methods, successes and failures of disinformation by state actors/intelligence agencies. Not light reading by any means, but timely and hopefully enlightening.

Josh wrote:

Mexicola wrote:

Dead slow rock and roll.

I still need to start this one. I haven't had time to read much of anything lately.

Finished this one awhile ago. It's a good rock 'n' roll tell-all that leaves you wondering how is he not dead? I mean, I'm glad he's not, but holy shit what a nightmare he put himself and the people who cared about him through. Also, fuck heroin.

I tried a bunch of times to write a fitting eulogy for David Cornwell, the man better known by his pen name, John le Carre, but I find myself lacking. He was my favorite novelist. Also, fuck 2020.

Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell. It follows the story of a young girl seeking a new life and her mother as she takes her small boat on a weeks-long journey down a nearby river. The river itself is in many ways a character, and truly defines the book.

I’ve been reading Dune. I know, its a must-read but better late than never I suppose. Really in love with the world building and the politics of the great houses and Fremen. Will probably pick up the second book afterward.

Josh wrote:

2020k wrote:
Biden won, so I'm not afraid to get into reading George W Bush's "Decision Points" right now. About 30 pages in. He writes like a five year old.

Not judging in anyway, but genuinely interested in why you're reading this. Morbid curiosity?

Knowledge is power.

Took a break after Georgie to read volume 1 of a manga called Nana. Also, I read my first book in the 33 1/3 collection that I thought was a bit too void of the subject matter and stayed far too one-note, which was the one based on Nine Inch Nails' Pretty Hate Machine.

Reading To Kill a Mockingbird now. I want to conquer more novels in 2021.

Currently reading Uzumaki by Junji Ito. Horrifying......

bungler666 wrote:Currently reading Uzumaki by Junji Ito. Horrifying......

Junji Ito is excellent. I love Uzumaki, but my favorite thing by him is a short, The Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Just finished reading 'Cold Earth' by Sarah Moss, and I'm on ch.3 of 'Krakatoa: The day the world exploded' by Simon Winchester.
My Dad is currently reading 'The Solar Greenhouse Book' by James C. McCullagh.

LOVE Lindsay Ellis.

Truth is a human right.

It’s fall 2007. A well-timed leak has revealed that the US government might have engaged in first contact. Cora Sabino is doing everything she can to avoid the whole mess, since the force driving the controversy is her whistleblower father. Even though Cora hasn’t spoken to him in years, his celebrity has caught the attention of the press, the Internet, the paparazzi, and the government—and with him in hiding, that attention is on her. She neither knows nor cares whether her father’s leaks are a hoax, and wants nothing to do with him—until she learns just how deeply entrenched her family is in the cover-up, and that an extraterrestrial presence has been on Earth for decades.

Realizing the extent to which both she and the public have been lied to, she sets out to gather as much information as she can, and finds that the best way for her to uncover the truth is not as a whistleblower, but as an intermediary. The alien presence has been completely uncommunicative until she convinces one of them that she can act as their interpreter, becoming the first and only human vessel of communication. Their otherworldly connection will change everything she thought she knew about being human—and could unleash a force more sinister than she ever imagined

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Decline_of_the_West

One of my favorites:
"Every true history begins with the formation of the primary classes - the nobility and the clergy - that rise above the peasantry. The opposition between the great and petty nobility, the king and the vassals, the secular and spiritual rule is a fundamental form of politics in early Homer, ancient China, the Gothic period, until the emergence of cities, the bourgeoisie, the third class changed the style of history. Nowhere else, but in these classes, in their class consciousness, the whole meaning of history is concentrated. The peasant has no history. The village is close to world history, and all the evolution from the Trojan War to the Mitridat Wars and from the Saxon Emperors to World War I slips over those tiny spots of the landscape, sometimes destroying them, feeding on their blood but never touching their interior.
A peasant is an eternal man, independent of culture, who has nestled in cities. He precedes it, he will experience it instinctively, continuing the lineage from generation to generation, confined to land-related occupations and agricultural abilities — a mystical soul, a dry, practiced adult intellect, the original and eternally flowing source of blood that makes world history in cities."

Having polished off Reinventing Collapse in a couple of days, I moved onto and finished The Dispossessed. Now reading a classic sci-fi novel I started but never finished.

Pretty harrowing read in places but he's so frank and direct you can't not have the utmost respect for him. There's also plenty of interesting social history about London in the 60s and 70s.

Looking forward to reading this, mainly to see how somebody writes over 400 pages about drone and doesn't mention Stars of the Lid once.