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[Number45]

^ That book is 1,000 x better than the Will Smith movie adaptation. The only other larger book:movie quality ratio disparity I can think of is The Postman.

Enjoyed what I've read so far (seems short - I hate that you can't gauge the size of a book on the Kindle!). A quick question - is this the first book to establish (popularise?) the idea that daylight is deadly to vampires? The book treated it as a revelation, which it's obviously not more than 50 years later.

Obviously I'll go through the wiki when I'm done with it.

Also, I hate introductions to books. I always start reading them and then promptly skip them over (and read at the end) when it becomes clear that they're telling me more about the book than I want to know at that point.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/subscription.php?do=addsubscription&t=443207

Yeah, I do subscribe, but each new month I forget to change it and wonder why it hasn't been updated.

 

[Maklershed]

Enjoyed what I've read so far (seems short - I hate that you can't gauge the size of a book on the Kindle!). A quick question - is this the first book to establish (popularise?) the idea that daylight is deadly to vampires? The book treated it as a revelation, which it's obviously not more than 50 years later.

I'm embarrassed to admit I never read Dracula but I'm pretty sure that was already covered in that book.

 

[FiendAngel]

Very insightful and well written. I am liking it so far.

 

[Number45]

I'm embarrassed to admit I never read Dracula but I'm pretty sure that was already covered in that book.

No need to be embarrassed. I have read Dracula (and really enjoyed it) and I can't remember it being in there either! It talks about him reading Dracula within this book though, so I'm going to assume it's not covered.

 

[Sblargh]

Dear GAF.
I don't know what to say.
Really, I don't. This book is in my blood in a way that my body has not yet decided what to do about.
On one hand, it is one of the greatest love stories of mankind, it is so unapologetic in its romantism and while the historical weight of the word "masochism" seems like will be a distraction, it actually does nothing. It is too imortal to allow psychology to tarnish it. You know, when you start to read, that the main character will experience physical torture - again, you can't escape from that word - and by the first pages, you realize how unapologetic he is in declaring his love; but this is nothing, or it is something, I don't even know. It is possibly one the best treatises on the nature of the union of flesh and soul that mankind has to offer. You can't be ready for the cruelty. You can be ready for the physical suffering, you can't be ready for the cruelty.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

My mom and sister loved this book and told me I had to read it(especially since I love animals):

One of the great fantasy novels.

 

[Number45]

One of the great fantasy novels.

I've always been scared to read this since seeing the film when I was young. :'(

 

[zaryn]

I've started reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace again. I gave up around 300 pages in a few years ago, but I'm determined to finish this time!

 

[Sblargh]

Enjoyed what I've read so far (seems short - I hate that you can't gauge the size of a book on the Kindle!). A quick question - is this the first book to establish (popularise?) the idea that daylight is deadly to vampires? The book treated it as a revelation, which it's obviously not more than 50 years later.

Obviously I'll go through the wiki when I'm done with it.

Also, I hate introductions to books. I always start reading them and then promptly skip them over (and read at the end) when it becomes clear that they're telling me more about the book than I want to know at that point.


Yeah, I do subscribe, but each new month I forget to change it and wonder why it hasn't been updated.

It is actually harder to answer that than I thought. I don't know if the sunlight stuff is in Stoker's Dracula, from what I read, the myths that it "fixates" (and thus canonizes) are that garlic is harmful and that vampires don't reflect on mirrors. I don't see anything about sunlight.
On earlier poems, like "Lenore" by Bürger and "The bride of corinth" by Goethe, vampires move around at night because it makes more sense than in the day.
On Lenore, the dead rises after midnight because it is scarier. and on "The Bride of Corinth", the vampire appears at night because it is when the young man from Athens is in his bedroom sleeping, so the situation have a oniric feel.
To add to the pedantic shenanigan (because I'm too lazy to actually go and study):
On Stoker's short story "The Guest of Dracula", there is a worry about coming back before night, but because of a storm and also because it is Walpurgisnacht, so it isn't that it is not safe after dark, but that is is a specific unsafe night. Again, the vampire walks at night, but because it makes sense for the scary thing to chase the traveler on a dark forest, there is no reference that daylight can save them.

 

[Number45]

I've done a bit of digging (Read: been to Wikipedia. ).

It is also notable in the novel that Dracula can walk about in the daylight, in bright sunshine, though apparently in discomfort and without the ability to use most of his powers, like turning into mist or a bat.

It is only with the 1922 film Nosferatu that daylight is depicted as deadly to vampires

So it looks as though the seeds were sown in Dracula, and expanded upon in later books.

I haven't heard of either of those poems though, going to hunt them down and check them out.

 

[PushTheButtonMax]

I've always been scared to read this since seeing the film when I was young. :'(

That film will scar you for life if you watch it young. I was shown this at a church camp, what were they thinking?!?

And I'm reading:

 

[Sblargh]

I've done a bit of digging (Read: been to Wikipedia. ).



So it looks as though the seeds were sown in Dracula, and expanded upon in later books.

I haven't heard of either of those poems though, going to hunt them down and check them out.

A crash course on how the vampire myth made its way in literature through romantism is this page

The ones I would also recommend from this page is The Giaour by Byron and Christabel by Coleridge. Keats' and Baudelaire's I don't know, but it is Keats and Baudelaire, so why not?

 

[JohnnyPhatsaqs]

Just picked up a Nook Simple Touch last week and loaded it with the A Song of Fire and Ice series and the Dragonlance Chronicles and Legends series.

Started with Dragonlance, and wow....I LOVE it!

 

[Number45]

A crash course on how the vampire myth made its way in literature through romantism is this page

The ones I would also recommend from this page is The Giaour by Byron and Christabel by Coleridge. Keats' and Baudelaire's I don't know, but it is Keats and Baudelaire, so why not?

Thanks, I'll save that and have a read later.

 

[Yasser]

I've started reading Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace again. I gave up around 300 pages in a few years ago, but I'm determined to finish this time!

out of curiosity what made you quit at that point? i'm reading it myself now and circa page 300 is when it all starts to pick up/not feel quite so fractured and unrelated

 

[Shiv47]

This has been quite interesting so far, quite well-written for a musician, but then he's hardly the typical brain-dead rock star type.

 

[zaryn]

out of curiosity what made you quit at that point? i'm reading it myself now and circa page 300 is when it all starts to pick up/not feel quite so fractured and unrelated

I honestly can't recall. I probably got distracted by another book and just never picked it back up. This is a bad habit of my mine with both book and games.

Reading Infinite Jest again now, I regret ever quitting. I'm almost 100 pages in now, and even though what I'm reading seems familiar, I just love DFW's style.

 

[Subterranean]

I haven't been able to put it down.

 

[Hellshadow]

It's ok. It pretty much just sets up the third game.

 

[Doctor_20]

Been reading Michael Connelly after seeing the Lincoln Lawyer. I'm not really reading them in order but so far it hasn't mattered.

Just Finished

and

Now Reading

 

[Kuraudo]

Picked up Necronomicon a couple of years back and was disappointed when I discovered it wasn't a complete collection of Lovecraft's stories, so picking this up was a bit of a no-brainer. Nothing in it's really essential and it feels like the editors have bundled a lot of unnecessary additions to bulk the page count up (does anyone really want Lovecraft's poetry?), but it's a lovely book, with some beautiful illustrations and it looks great beside Necronomicon. Definitely a companion to the first book and not to be read alone.

 

[FlyinJ]

Finished this up yesterday. Absolutely incredible. Favorite book of the year so far.

Intense. Felt very claustrophobic and immediate, a bit of a Dostoevsky vibe. Great prose as well. Loved it.

Great writing and character development. Very witty as well. Enjoyed it immensely.

Mediocre writing, boring story, completely predictable. Why did I read this shit? I wish I remember who recommended it to me. Avoid.

 

[nakedsushi]

^--- hah, that's quite a progression. You went from some pretty good books, to an awful one. I hate when that happens. Usually, I can excuse bad writing if the plot/characters are good, but it is hard to switch from reading a book that's great, to a mediocre one.

We started promoting the Time Magazine non-fiction list at work:
Time 100-best Non-fiction Book

I only read 4 out of the 100 books, which even considering that I don't read that much non-fiction, is embarrassing. Got a lot of good books to add to my long to-read list though.

 

[nakedsushi]

Huh. I've also read only 4. Though I've read portions of probably 10 others.

I dunno. I usually find non-fiction pretty boring.

Same here. I enjoy reading the non-fiction books *while* I'm reading it, but as soon as I put it down for any reason, it's just so hard to pick back up. They're not that engaging because there's not an over-arching plot. Maybe I'm just scarred from reading non-fiction thanks to school.

 

[FlyinJ]

We started promoting the Time Magazine non-fiction list at work:
Time 100-best Non-fiction Book

Wow, there are a ton of books I want to read on that list. Unfortunately, out of the 9 I most wanted, only 1 is on Kindle. I guess that makes it easier!

 

[Hilbert]

Currently I am reading this book. Pretty good so far! Not sure what I will read after this. My sister really wants me to read Genocides by Disch

 

[Dresden]

Reading two right now:

Classic. Every book is better than the one before.

For the book club. Enjoyable so far, about a hundred pages in.

 

[braves01]

After watching The Mist, I decided to read some Stephen King and found this on the cheap:

Early book (<250 pages) thoughts:

Spoiler

I was really worried the book would suck when there a section from a woodchuck's POV within the first five pages, but fortunately there haven't been any more so far. Also, all the pop culture references are fun and generally help make the scenario feel more realistic, but it can be distracting. For instance, when King includes a brief mention of somebody comparing the dome in Chester's Mill to his own work, The Mist, it gets a little too self-referential. That said, I really like the book so far.

And, since I read Lewis' The Monk last month, I thought I'd follow it up with Ann Radcliffe's response to it.

 

[CiSTM]

Started reading Infinite Jest and while I'm only 100 pages in I'm really loving it already. I also ordered Plague by Albert Camus (stranger was so freaking good.). Unfortunately didn't get it before the weekend

Oh and I had to drop Gunslinger. I really liked the world King had created but for some reason I just couldn't get into it. I might try again some time but for now I'll leave it be.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Finished Robert B Parker's "Painted Ladies" -- typical Spenser mystery.

Started Bujold's "CryoBurn", the latest in the Miles Vorkosigan series.

 

[Tenck]

Bought Gone with the wind today at Target for $18. Sounded really interesting, and since I love reading about the past, this might be right up my alley.

Just saw it's $9 on Amazon :/

No problem, I want to read this now rather than later.

 

[KillerMike]

Re-reading this:

I've read/re-read a couple of Murakmi's other books, Norwegian Wood and The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which are both good as well.
Definitely for those who like mind-bending novels.

 

[Deleted member 1235]

Jim Butcher needs to clone himself a few times and write some new series.

how does it compare to the dresden files? Because if it's even half as good I'm in.

 

[Dresden]

how does it compare to the dresden files? Because if it's even half as good I'm in.

I've read the first two books, they're decent. "Half as good" is pretty accurate.

 

[Mumei]

I read the second book of the Mistborn trilogy, The Well of Ascension, yesterday and today. I didn't like it quite as much as the first, but I remember having read somewhere that the second book wasn't quite as good so I wasn't really expecting to.

 

[KidDork]

Still reading

Just been a crazy month with very little free time that isn't spent sleeping or caring for animals. I can say that I'm enjoying this quite a bit: Carriger is pretty adept at introducing her mythology and creating likeable characters. Even the overtly romantic novel aspects of the book are fun, and I usually cringe like a vampire from sunlight at that. If you enjoyed the Dresden books, you should give this one a try.

Braves01--I felt the same way when I started reading Under The Dome. I thought the book held up, but it's greatest strengths are in the characters. Sure, we've seen their like before in other King works, but it doesn't make them any less likable. They make good company.

 

[Edmond Dantès]

 

[joseranulfo]

Been reading Michael Connelly after seeing the Lincoln Lawyer. I'm not really reading them in order but so far it hasn't mattered.

Just Finished

The Narrows
and
Echo Park

Now Reading
Angels Flight

I love this series...

You seem to be reading in reverse order skipping some books but it hardly matters, there's not really a big arch story but you can see a slow evolution on the main character from an skilled detective and somewhat tormented Vietnam veteran to a good family man, mostly on the latest books. The individual histories can be sometimes similar but a rotation on secondary characters and their interactions manage to keep it from being boring.

I actually like the Lincoln Lawyer series also. It's at four books right now and really worth a read and there's a crossover frequently making Bosch a character in a Haller book and Vice-Versa, especially if you are already familiar with this universe and Connelly style.

I still haven't seen the movie yet but I'll see if I can find it.

 

[rando14]

About 100 in, very good.

 

[BanShunsaku]

Just finished:

Moved straight on to:

First time reading WoT, I've only been reading fantasy for the last couple of years and have put off starting the series until now. Loving it so far, I've been told by everyone that it slows down after 4 or 5 books but we'll see how I go with it.

 

[Lafiel]

Currently shuffling between these two.

A Tree Grows under Brooklyn by Betty Smith - Currently 150 pages into this; and it's absolutely wonderful, I've pretty much made it a habit of reading it slowly, because it's so good, and i don't want it to end.
A Clash of kings by George RR Martin - 300 pages in my re-read atm.

 

[Fjordson]

I'm almost finished with The Founding (Gaunt's Ghosts omnibus). Great book. Already finding the Warhammer 40K universe wildly interesting, so I'll definitely be picking up another 40K omnibus soon. Probably Eisenhorn. Concurrent with that, I'm starting a comic series that I've neglected for far too long:

Picked up the two trades from Amazon to start me off. I love it. It's such a strange concept for a comic series initially, and the first issue or two was sort of hard to get into, but it picked up for me pretty quickly. I really like Morpheus and the art in these newer editions is gorgeous.

 

[Cosmic Bus]

Charles Cumming's The Spanish Game at home, David Dodge's Plunder of the Sun on my lunch breaks.

 

[pro_gamer666]

Fantastic so far. Only about 4 or 5 more shorts left.

I will be moving onto this afterward:

Then:

 

[Toby]

Sitting in on a German history class, decided I would follow along in their readings as well. Kinda regretting it though. The author uses far more complicated words than she needs to, and I routinely read through a paragraph and have to ask myself what it was about. The instructor is great, though, so I shouldn't need this so much.

 

[Arcblade]

GAF: by posters beyond counting.

It's still better and more coherent than the last book I read - ADWD, and far less prone to playing to fans and retconning.

 

[umop_3pisdn]

I had a good reading month in August:

Mushishi (Vol 1)
The Souls of Black Folk
The Count of Monte Cristo
Soulless
Siddhartha
Gulliver's Travels
The Complete Fairy Tales (George MacDonald)
Kitchen
Exile and the Kingdom
The Bamboo Sword: And Other Samurai Tales

And I read the first book of the Mistborn trilogy today. It was pretty exciting.

How did you like this one? Hermann Hesse is probably my favorite author, and largely for thematic reasons. In an ideal situation I tend to see storytelling as primarily a means of conveying something greater. For example: if storytelling is ideal for simulating or acting as analogue for experience, then ideally a story may give us some added insight into our own experience. I suppose that's obviously a common ideal, the strongest examples of which being the kind of books that "change people's perspectives about the world", etc. I find Hesse's work has some appreciable aptitude for this. It all seems to deal in basically how to become "whole people", which as a suggestion seems almost universally appropriate and lacking in our daily lives.

Sorry, lol. I read Steppenwolf when I was seventeen. It ended up being a pretty huge turning point in my life, I must have read it at the right time or something because in a weird way I almost feel like I can trace my current path in life precisely back to reading that book, I guess it helped me to become aware of something.

 

[mike23]

how does it compare to the dresden files? Because if it's even half as good I'm in.

I just finished the last book earlier tonight. I read all six in less than a week and it only took that long because I had to move to a new apartment on Wednesday/Thursday.

I have to put the Dresden Files ahead of it, but not by too far. It's more of a classic fantasy story rather than an urban fantasy though, so you're mileage may vary.

 

[Frankenstrat]

this series has straight up sucked me in.

 

[MrOogieBoogie]

Someone left a book in near mint condition in our trash the other day. I was like, "WTF?"

I've never heard of it:

Any of you ever read it?