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Post by _ on Mar 28, 2019 19:40:57 GMT -6
Nice! Beowulf is definitely interesting and I really enjoyed Harry Potter. LOTR has never tickled your fancy?
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Mar 29, 2019 10:37:09 GMT -6
I might Tolkien's works someday. I know a fair bit about them just from all I've seen online, and all I've read in black metal bands' lyrics, so it'd be interesting to read the texts that inspired all of it. Same with Lovecraft. The ideas in both authors' works seem interesting enough. Heck, I've referenced both in lyrics I've written (both published and unpublished).
But at the same time I don't have a lot of free time to dedicate to reading novels. I would like to, but I would need to work more on my time management skills, etc.
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Post by _ on Mar 29, 2019 11:26:42 GMT -6
But at the same time I don't have a lot of free time to dedicate to reading novels. I would like to, but I would need to work more on my time management skills, etc. hashtagworthit. an alternative is listening to them as audibooks, which I've done so I can "read" them while I do the tasks of life that take me away from my work anyways but dont require too much thought (e.g., grocery shopping, cleaning, for some people exercise but i'd rather listen to music then).
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Post by pravoslavac on Mar 30, 2019 20:09:55 GMT -6
I recently finished a book that is utterly horrifying in its implications. it's definitely not for the very impressionable or faint of heart. There are things in this book that once you read them, you'll never "unknow" them. Again, I am coming to believe that salvation is a far more serious business than many or most realize. www.amazon.com/EVENTS-Secret-Government-Demonic-Afterlife/dp/1933665483
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Mar 31, 2019 14:41:05 GMT -6
"The group believes that our purported alien visitors are, in reality, deceptive demons and fallen angels."
I'm very skeptical about the idea that (outside of the very specific events in Revelation) demons are being permitted to manifest themselves physically. Granted, I'm not saying I believe in the traditional idea of aliens, either, just that the whole "demon" interpretation carries implications I'm not sure I agree with.
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Post by pravoslavac on Apr 1, 2019 14:05:31 GMT -6
As an Eastern Orthodox, we definitely do believe that demons can and do manifest physically.
Only a minute here, but there is some very interesting info in the Book of Jasher that also points to this and in a very unsettling way when considered in light of some of the recent lore concerning this topic.
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Post by _ on Apr 10, 2019 18:09:07 GMT -6
Didn't someone post about Tolkien's The Children of Húrun recently? I read it again and it is truly a great story -- *Ollivander from Harry Potter tone* terrible, yes, but great.
I am currently reading the following: Phantases by George MacDonald Tales from the Perilous Realm by J. R. R. Tolkien Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David. G. Benner Maps Are Lines We Draw: A Road Trip through Haiti by Allison Coffelt
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Post by barabbas on Apr 10, 2019 23:02:48 GMT -6
I am currently reading the following: Phantases by George MacDonald Wha?!? Me too! I like some of it, but some it has been a slog. I'm almost done, so I'll finish it.
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Post by _ on Apr 11, 2019 3:21:31 GMT -6
barabbas that is actually pretty strange ha. I'm enjoying it a lot so far. The "old-timey" language sometimes is funny; for example, I didn't know the 1858 version of "eh, idk but yolo" was "I could not conjecture what she meant, but satisfied myself with thinking that it would be time enough to find out her meaning when there was need to make use of her warning, and that the occasion would reveal the admonition."
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Post by anfauglith on Apr 11, 2019 10:26:26 GMT -6
I started to read "Summer of night" and "A winter haunting" by Dan Simmons (They where released over here in one book simply called "Elm Haven"). So far I quite enjoy it. Dark, scary, but also with lots of likeable characters so far. Has a touch of H. P. Lovecraft whose works I loved in my time as a teen and also some M. R. James-like atmosphere.
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Post by anfauglith on May 16, 2019 9:57:50 GMT -6
I started to read "Summer of night" and "A winter haunting" by Dan Simmons I definitely liked "Summer of night"! Very enjoyable to read for friends of old school (the term "old school" is funny to use here, because the story is build upon an old school house... ) horror (without blood, gore, etc.) and storys about ehm... childhood friendship and shotguns... "A winter haunting", which is a kind of second part is not that great. It nevertheless helped me killing time, but the story has a great deal of flaws and is at no point able to catch up with "Summer of night"s majestic darkness and atmosphere of lurking menace. Started Hugh Howeys' "Silo" yesterday. Time for some post apocalypse!
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Post by _ on Jun 14, 2019 14:34:22 GMT -6
Recently Finished A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin Phantases: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women by George MacDonald The Golden Key by George MacDonald Surrender to Love: Discovering the Heart of Christian Spirituality by David G. Benner
Reading [in order of priority] The Life and Diary of David Brainerd by David Brainerd & Jonathan Edwards What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine by Danielle Ofri (have read before) How to Survive a Plgaue: The Inside Story of How Citizens and Science Tamed AIDS by David France The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien (have read before) A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn Tales from the Perilous Realm by J.R.R. Tolkien (have read before) Maps Are Lines We Draw by Allison Coffelt The Adult ADHD Tool Kit: Using CBT to Facilitate Coping Inside and Out by J. Russell Ramsay The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien
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Post by _ on Jun 17, 2019 12:30:52 GMT -6
Despite listing nine books i'm currently reading I started and finished another, namely 'Beasts Made of Night' (Beasts Made of Night, #1) by Tochi Onyebuchi. Here's a brief description by Margaret Kingsbury: "Another [Young Adult] fantasy by a Nigerian American author, Beasts Made of Night features mythical creatures made from sin. Taj is a sin-eater, indentured to a mage to slay the sin beasts. Most sin-eaters eventually go mad. Beasts Made of Night is full of political intrigue and injustice."
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Post by anfauglith on Jun 29, 2019 4:03:53 GMT -6
After reading the first two volumes of Hugh Howey's "Silo", I started reading "The Lord of the rings" again. In english this time.
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Post by Borndead on Oct 2, 2019 18:26:48 GMT -6
Just got this from my lil bro and sister for my birthday.
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Post by _ on Oct 20, 2019 16:02:18 GMT -6
Books I've Read This Year That Get a 5/5 For Me:
Maps Are Lines We Draw by Allison Coffelt The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness by Elyn R. Saks The Collected Schizophrenias: Essays by Esmé Weijun Wang The Middle Earth Traveler: Sketches from Bag End to Mordor by John Howe Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France Oblivion by David Foster Wallace Phantastes: A Faerie Romance for Men and Women by George MacDonald The Lord of the Rings (The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, The Return of the King) by J.R.R. Tolkien The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien The Children of Húrin by J.R.R. Tolkien Suicide by Édouard Levé
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Post by _ on Oct 30, 2019 18:40:07 GMT -6
Just finished Andrew Tompkins 'Within The Ancient Forest' for the ~4th time. It's the kvlt book companion to Paramaecium's second album. Anyone ever read it?
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Post by nocturnaliridescence on Oct 30, 2019 19:12:08 GMT -6
Just finished Andrew Tompkins 'Within The Ancient Forest' for the ~4th time. It's the kvlt book companion to Paramaecium's second album. Anyone ever read it? A metal musician claimed to be writing a book, and then actually published it?? That's practically unheard of, lol. If I ever find it for less than $90 USD online, I'll have to pick it up!
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Post by _ on Oct 31, 2019 9:31:53 GMT -6
Just finished Andrew Tompkins 'Within The Ancient Forest' for the ~4th time. It's the kvlt book companion to Paramaecium's second album. Anyone ever read it? A metal musician claimed to be writing a book, and then actually published it?? That's practically unheard of, lol. If I ever find it for less than $90 USD online, I'll have to pick it up! Amazon prices are almost exactly what you referenced. I ordered it in early 2016 for $0.01
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Post by _ on Nov 23, 2019 20:06:34 GMT -6
Today I read a paper called 'The pleasures of sad music: a systematic review' by Sachs et al., 2015. I don't think I should say I "disagreed" a lot with what they said because I don't have a background in psychology or data to back up my opinions, but I suppose I didn't like a good amount of the paper as the conclusions they included and the assumptions/premises they made didn't resonant with how I understand my own experience with sad music.
One thing I did find interesting was the correlation of certain personality traits with the liking of sad music, namely absorption ('absorption in their mental imagery, especially fantasy' is the description I got from wikipedia on this psych term), empathic concern, openness to experience, not extraversion, and rumination, the lattermost "suggesting that certain people listen to sad music not because of the resulting positive feelings, but because of some maladaptive attraction to negative stimuli." Identifying as one who likes sad music, I see all those traits in me.
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Post by _ on Nov 29, 2019 10:08:29 GMT -6
I didn't know what thread to put this in. It's a passage from a book I'm reading (on and off) called 'Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide'.
"When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ... This sense of the unmanageable, of hopelessness, of invasive negativity about the future is, in fact, one of the most consistent warning signs of suicide. ... People seem to be able to bear or tolerate depression as long as there is the belief that things will improve. If that belief cracks or disappears, suicide becomes the option of choice." (italics my own)
I think about this passage when I am in despair.
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Post by _ on Dec 7, 2019 21:16:50 GMT -6
I was checking out a book on a particular type of therapy and while trying to figure out if the book would be evidence-based or one of the infinite self-help books that are opinionated bs, I looked at what else the co-authors wrote. U hate to find out one also wrote a book called 'Calling Evil Good: The Lie of "Christian" Rock and Roll'...
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Post by anfauglith on Jan 8, 2020 13:35:14 GMT -6
Ordered myself the first book of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series for to read after my next second-reading-slot-book. I hope I'll like it and I almost wished I'd have read no review because of the very strong oppinions that seem to be about those books. People either love them or find them dull, boring, repetetive, etc. Let's find out in which of the rivaling camps I will jump in.
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Post by barabbas on Jan 9, 2020 14:55:03 GMT -6
Ordered myself the first book of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series for to read after my next second-reading-slot-book. I hope I'll like it and I almost wished I'd have read no review because of the very strong oppinions that seem to be about those books. People either love them or find them dull, boring, repetetive, etc. Let's find out in which of the rivaling camps I will jump in. Having read the whole series, including the prequel, I definitely have thoughts. But I'll keep them to myself if you'd rather not have them affect your reading experience.
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Post by _ on Jan 10, 2020 13:30:15 GMT -6
I just finished His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and I was excited to ask if anyone here read them, which I didn't think was unlikely because they are Christian fantasy. Well, folks, jokes on me because they are not Christian; I haven't been this bamboozled since '09 when the short stack of "all" Christian metal albums I got for Christmas included Asking Alexandria.
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Post by barabbas on Feb 22, 2020 9:42:37 GMT -6
I just finished His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman and I was excited to ask if anyone here read them, which I didn't think was unlikely because they are Christian fantasy. Well, folks, jokes on me because they are not Christian; I haven't been this bamboozled since '09 when the short stack of "all" Christian metal albums I got for Christmas included Asking Alexandria. It's worse than that because I believe Pullman meant the books be the atheist answer to Narnia. In a certain sense, they're anti-Christian.
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Post by _ on Apr 28, 2021 21:50:52 GMT -6
Any of you fantasy readers read Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive? I read the first book, The Way of Kings, last spring. Now I'm reading book two, Words of Radiance.
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Post by tolencual on Dec 2, 2021 10:54:38 GMT -6
I finished Starlight Enclave last month, so I'm finally all caught up with the Legend of Drizzt series!
Before that, I finished the Erevis Cale trilogy by Paul S. Kemp. I recently aquired the Halls of Stormweather collection of short stories, as I kinda just jumped into the Erevis Cale trilogy without being familiar with the Sembia: Gateway to the Realms books, which occur before that trilogy.
I'm also in the process of reading the Legend of Drizzt books to my wife at bedtime. We're currently on Siege of Darkness.
I guess I'm a Forgotten Realms fan 😅
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Post by julienbakerfan on Dec 4, 2021 12:15:29 GMT -6
Ordered myself the first book of Robert Jordan's "The Wheel of Time" series for to read after my next second-reading-slot-book. I hope I'll like it and I almost wished I'd have read no review because of the very strong oppinions that seem to be about those books. People either love them or find them dull, boring, repetetive, etc. Let's find out in which of the rivaling camps I will jump in. Having read the whole series, including the prequel, I definitely have thoughts. But I'll keep them to myself if you'd rather not have them affect your reading experience. I've read the entire series and am currently re-reading it (almost done with book 5 atm) Mild spoilers ahead: Pros: The worldbuilding is incredible; I don't know of any other series that has such a well-fleshed out world apart from Lord of the Rings. In a similar vein, the plotting is very strong for a 14-book series. There are threads introduced in the first book that continue throughout the entire series. Jordan manages to juggle hundreds of named characters who are part of different cultures and factions. The writing is pretty good on a sentence-by-sentence level. There are also a lot of satisfying moments in the books. Cons: >Jordan really needed an editor. Just about every book in the series could have 100-200 pages worth of material cut out. Sometimes this takes the form of entire chapters that consist of little development, other times this takes the form of: >pointless descriptions of minor details (let's list every ingredient of this soup that a character eats) or: >internal monologues that re-hash character details that have already been made clear in earlier chapters. Most often these monologues relate to: >an ongoing "boys vs. girls" theme that gets tiresome. Every female character spends at least 50% of her time complaining about men and every male character who isn't evil spends at least 50% of his time thinking about how confusing and frustrating women are. This is probably because: >every female character in the books, with the exception(s) of Moiraine and maybe Min Farshaw, is just a variation on Nynaeve, who is basically a temperamental b*** on a power trip. I like Nynaeve; she's one of my favorite characters in the books and she has a great arc that involves her overcoming her flaws. But EVERY OTHER FEMALE CHARACTER is basically some variation on Nynaeve--an obnoxious, b----y, meninist caricature of what a "strong woman" is. Siuan Sanche is Nynaeve, but with a little more self-control; Avhienda is Nynaeve, but sulky and passive-aggressive; Elayne is Nynaeve, but boy-crazy; Faile is Nynaeve, but as a female action hero/beta male wish fulfillment fantasy. Speaking of beta-male wish fulfillment fantasy: >the books have this weird sexual tension element. Unlike, say, The Witcher or A Song of Ice and Fire, there's nothing explicit here. Instead, after about book II or so, Jordan seems intent on making sure that every chapter has something sexual in it that isn't actually a sex scene. "'Here's this arcane magic ritual, and you have to do it naked.' Egwene was shocked. *5 paragraphs of inner monologue.*" The whole thing feels like a book adaptation of a really fanservicey anime--complete with a harem element. This really stuck out to me on the re-reading. >Also, the pace slows to a crawl at some points--most notably books 10-11, but also the beginning of book IV, which is a snoozefest. The last three books are faster, but you have to deal with the Brandon Sanderson cheesiness.
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Post by julienbakerfan on Dec 4, 2021 12:19:28 GMT -6
Any of you fantasy readers read Brandon Sanderson's The Stormlight Archive? In the process of reading the latest book right now. I really enjoyed the first three books, but so far book IV has felt like more of a slog (though still fast-paced because it's Sanderson). I have faith that it will pick up before the end. I've enjoyed all the Drizzt books I've read. The R.A. Salvatore Drizzt novels feel like a continuation of The Hobbit for me, in terms of tone and the overall setting.
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