Slowly chipping away at Brothers Karamazov. Despite all his wordiness and digressions, it contains some of the craziest drama unfolding within the space of hours I’ve ever read. Reality TV doesn’t hold a candle to these passionate, often drunk, Russians. And of course a drip feed of theological dialogues plus extensive detailing of contemporary Russian culture rounds it out.

The man does really have a way woth identifying all the little ways that people behave and navigate an interaction, putting on faces, jockeying for position, getting right up to the threshold of something before their pride stops them.

Sometimes it feels a little slow, but then something just fucking gobsmacking will happen and you’ll put up with a little more talking about an ancillary monk’s ascetic practice so you can find out what cruel trick Grushenka will do next.

I came here to jokingly suggest math books, but then you said

but unless I specify you mfs will recommend theory

Read The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho recently. I don’t read a ton of fiction, I don’t have visual imagination (unless I do DMT or a lot of dabs) so over the top visual descriptions don’t do anything for me.

Oh and Hiroyuki Nishigaki’s “How to Good-bye Depression: If You Constrict Anus 100 Times Everyday. Malarkey? or Effective Way?” which is pretty funny.

This week I’m working through China Meiville’s Bas Lag trilogy. Just started the Third Book. First time reading him, I’m in love.

I recently read Manhunt by Gretchen Felker-Martin, which was really good.

Oh, also read Octavia Butler’s Kindred. Awesome stuff.

Kinda’ wanna’ start Blood Meridian soon, but I don’t think that’s politically agnostic is it?

Excession by Iain M. Banks

very gay story about what would have been an iraq war allegory had it been released a decade later.

Oh so the Communist Manifesto is political now? Fucking commies turning everything into politics.

If you like sci-fi read House of Suns.

I just finished another Discworld book, Moving Pictures. Once again Pratchett is my perfect comfort read.

Read Gideon the Ninth, it is a great sci-fi book and it is incredibly funny.

A confederacy of dunces. Outside of catch-22, it’s maybe the best satire book ever written. Highly recommend the barrett whitener audiobook.

Working my way through The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan right now. Pretty standard high fantasy, Tolkien inspired.

If you’re looking for something more light-hearted, maybe some Discworld?

I read the Three Body series last year, very engrossing hard sci-fi imo.

I recently read For Whom the Bell Tolls by Hemingway. In my opinion a very very good book. It’s about a young American man, Robert Jordan, who is fighting as a dynamiter in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Republic. In particular, the book is mostly about him briefly working with a Republican guerilla group, with him carrying orders that they’re to blow up a bridge.

I’ve owned a copy of the book for a while, but what spurred me to finally read it was a scene from Cyberpunk 2077. The player character, V, will pick up a copy of For Whom the Bell Tolls and then recite an apt and haunting quote at a funeral, if the player makes the correct choices. The only problem is, as I discovered upon finishing the book, the quote isn’t actually from For Whom the Bell Tolls it’s from a book of short stories that Hemingway complied, including some of his own, titled Men at War. I’m not sure if the quoted short story is even one that Hemingway wrote. That said the quote feels like something that could’ve come from Tolls, so I’m not too upset about it.

I can’t say if it’s a good book because I’ve only read a tiny bit of it but I am currently reading Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehöfer. I’m only reading this book because I saw a recommendation to read the book From Cyrus to Alexander by Pierre Briant for people looking for a good work on ancient history that’s still approachable for laypeople. And not even in the introduction to that work but in the fucking Translator’s Preface it says, paraphrasing: “readers not already familiar with the entire history of the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, and the entire corpus of Ancient Greek literature on those subjects will not find this volume useful. I recommend any reader not so familiar to read Josef Wiesehofer’s work on the subject.” So now I’m reading this.

Translation State! It’s about identity; prominently, gender.

Let’s see

The Buccaneers by Edith Wharton - Very good, Edith Wharton is the GOAT, but unfinished at the time of her death. The edition that I had was finished (badly) by some hack in the 90’s, so watch out for that

Education of a Felon by Eddie Bunker - A fascinating memoir by a career criminal turned novelist. Well worth it for a look at the seedy underbelly of midcentury LA and prison culture. Danny Trejo, William Randolph Hearst, and George Jackson are minor characters

Blood and Guts in High School by Cathy Acker - I don’t even know what to say about this one. Visceral, weird and raw. Highly recommend

Some Desperate Glory by Edwin Campion Vaughan - Posthumously published memoir of an English officer during WWI. Great if you’re at all interested in this period of history

The Rifles by William T. Vollmann - If you’re not already Vollmannpilled you need to be. This one mingles the history of the doomed Franklin expedition with the systematic destruction of the indigenous arctic peoples through the present day (well of the 90’s when he wrote it)

Cuckoo by Gretchen Felker Martin - I really liked Manhunt last year and this one is also great. Queer horror in a wilderness conversion therapy camp. I actually saw her on her tour for this one’s release