The Salon Reads: Book Sperging for the Fairer Sex

[StrawberryDouche]

Sure, there are other threads for books on the Farms, but why the hell would you ever venture out of The Salon? There could be men!

There's been a lot of lit sperging shitting up the fat lady threads, so put on your blue stockings and let's look down our noses at what others are reading.

Give your recs, your faves, your picks, your pans; organize book clubs and read alongs. What's the worst book you've ever read? Fiction, nonfiction, let's do it.

I guess I'll start

Spoiler: Good books you've likely never read but should.

Spoon River Anthology by Edgar Lee Masters

Compelled to Witness: Women's Memoirs of the French Revolution by Marilyn Yolam

Letters From the Earth by Mark Twain

Moses and Monotheism by Sigmund Freud

The Last Fine Time by Verlyn Klinkenborg

Sexual Personae by Camille Paglia

The Doors of Perception by Aldous Huxley

La Bas by J. K. Huysmans

The Hour of Our Death by Philippe Aries

The Foxfire Series by Eliot Wiggington and The Foxfire Fund

Camera Lucida by Roland Barthes

 

[StrawberryDouche]

More book sperging I know, but a book club would be most enticing.
Rushdie's 'Midnight Children' and 'The Satanic Verses' are both well worth a read.
And If 'Jonathan Strange and Mr Norell' were to your taste, I can't hesitate to recommend the short story selection set in the same world 'The Ladies of Grace Adieu'
Back to topic, Amy is fat and I would not have sex with her.

I read this after Strange & Norell which I consider to be something close to a pop fiction masterpiece. I may have perhaps cared for it better had I read it first. I'm not much of a short story person because I like to linger in other worlds and ages and it ended up in a yard sale.

I have a first edition of Satanic Verses. Someone obtained it for me after it was released and bookstores were too afraid to carry it. It came from a hole in the wall vodou shop in New Orleans. I love that book.

 

[FarmerKhourtney]

Love this thread! I’m always looking for new material. Currently reading a book about Osage Indians and the formation of the FBI

 

[Death Grip]

I'm doing my sixth re-read of the Wheel of Time series. I love that series.
Prior to that I read Confessions of a Sociopath, which was interesting and horrifying in equal measures.

 

[Diet Coke 4 Life]

When not reading classified manuals for my job or books on molding parrot behavior because I should be at a point with my job in less than 6 months that I can reclaim my bird from his temporary caretaker and I know he’ll have behavioral issues , I have been reading the Watch series be Sergei Lukyanenko. Finished Night Watch last week. Now on Day Watch. Fun, mindless urban modern fantasy.

eta: Who’s the author of Confessions of a Sociopath? Sounds interesting!

 

[In Memoriam]

Book club thread!!! Thank you Strorbry <3

let’s see, I love Gabriel Garcia Marquez, so cannot wait to dive in to some of the Rushdie recommendations. Favorite book of all time is probably Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass or The Chronicles of Narnia (the whole series).

currently I am reading The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic by Eliphas Levi alongside the Bible (doesn’t sound interesting, I know) and The Cosmic Doctrine by Dion Fortune because Ive recently become increasingly interested in philosophy and the meaning of life. I’m also reading Plato’s Timaeus. This is all simultaneous and I’m going between them. Next I’m planning to tackle Carl Jung.

But for book club, I would love to read something, fiction or non I don’t care, that we can read along together and really sink our teeth into. Book clubs have to be led, though, of course, so maybe we can take turns?

can we have a poll to vote on a book to read together?

do any of you read the blog Ecosophia? I found the author because of his last name being Greer (he was mentioned in the Russ thread as coming up sometimes on a Google, and feeling bad he got confused with the goblin) and got into his book club. It’s only once a month, though, and in between his writing can be very dry (lots of crap no one cares about interspersed with diamonds in the rough). He only does one chapter a month and I can’t stand the wait for the next installment. His comment section is also a gold mine, and frequently better than the blog itself.

i don’t know any people irl who like to read like I do. I’m very pleased to “meet” you all. I just had to go through and delete all my exclamation points. I also do technical writing for a living so, you know. Calm down.

 

[Scolopendra Dramatica]

We're doing a book club now??? Let me know what we're reading and I'll grab a notebook. I haven't done this shit since school.

I ain't got suggestions though unless you fancy diving into 2008 stock crisis or want to do Rowlings new murder book.

 

[Free the Pedos]

I tried to read Cantor’s In the Wake of the Plague but it actually sucked ass. Going to do a retro read of Barbara Tuckman’s A Distant Mirror to satisfy my desire for the 14th century. Any read it before and want to chat about it? I’d like to know how scholarship has moved on since she wrote it.

 

[lightswitchdoll]

Thank you for the thread @StrawberryDouche!

I seem to be doing that thing where I'm pretending my 'to read' list doesn't exist and I'm reading stuff I've read before. At least it's a good kind of procrastination.

So I'm reading The Room again. Unfortunately I think the farms has broken me - I keep thinking it's the kind of thing that goes through Russell Greer's head so I'm managing to ruin it for myself because I'm a dickhead

I'm contemplating reading The Conspiracy Against the Human Race next. And I can't remember the worst book I've ever read, I just remember it being the book that cured me of my need to read to the end even if I hated what I was reading. I'll try to remember what it was called so you can all avoid it.

 

[AbyssStarer]

I've been plucking at Great German Short Stories, I got through the second one, Flagman Thiel, in one sitting and it made me
'Bout to finish Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which drags on a bit at the end when it should have been amped up. Murakami can be really hit-or-miss largely depending on how many Murakami-isms are in a given book.

Next I was going to read The Divine Comedy starting with the inferno since that's the only one I got a hard copy of. I usually read two or three things at once so I have the 20th anniversary Paradise Kiss manga omnibus to read too. I haven't read Paradise Kiss before, but it's from the same great mangaka who made Nana so I'm giving it a shot.

 

[DoodleBerry]

I've been on a weird jag of reading re-imagined fairy tales/mythological tales after finding Christina Henry's "Alice". T Kingfisher's Raven and the Reindeer, the twisted "Food of the God's" by Cassandra Khaw (How could I pass on Robert Wong, Cannibal Chef?).

"Memory Police" by Yoko Ogawa was more literary, and such a poignant metaphorical tale of Communism in the vein of Fahrenheit 451. I also really got into "The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha "Mime Order" Shannon.

The last non-fiction book I read was "The Feather Thief" by Kirk Wallace Johnson which was so fascinating and well done, but with the most anti-climatic ending ever.

Anyway, definitely interested to see what book might be picked for this!

 

[Actually Christian Bale]

I've been plucking at Great German Short Stories, I got through the second one, Flagman Thiel, in one sitting and it made me
'Bout to finish Murakami's Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, which drags on a bit at the end when it should have been amped up. Murakami can be really hit-or-miss largely depending on how many Murakami-isms are in a given book.

Next I was going to read The Divine Comedy starting with the inferno since that's the only one I got a hard copy of. I usually read two or three things at once so I have the 20th anniversary Paradise Kiss manga omnibus to read too. I haven't read Paradise Kiss before, but it's from the same great mangaka who made Nana so I'm giving it a shot.

God, I love Murakami, but Murakami in general is so hit-or-miss.

I rate his books by how many weird sex scenes (bonus points if it's with underage girls) he builds in. At >5 I slowly start checking out mentally. Remind me to post my sliding Murakami scale from A* to The Girl Was Really Underage And There Was A Lot Of Talk About Her Pubic Hair later

 

[StrawberryDouche]

Fahrenheit 451

Ohhh, before I go on a books I've hated sperg, I want to put this here because it's the most cleverly designed book cover I've ever seen and the typeface is sublime.

I have a rule for fiction. If it's 300+ pages, I will give it 50 to grab me or I'm out.

The worst book I ever read is going to cause pearls to be clutched, so I will preface with this: Terry Pratchett was one of the finer authorial wits of the late 20th century. Neil Gaiman is Neil Gaiman - not my bag but I really liked American Gods and was glad to have read it.

Good Omens was so atrocious it made me angry and I only finished it out of pure spite. I thought the first 100 pages were great! Witty dialogue, themes I find interesting, well paced- I was all in. Then, it turned into a morass of every unoriginal trope ever devised. The dialogue descended into sped level self published fanfic. It's as if they conspired to burn every syllable of good will they had earned, and with malice! The contrast in quality between the first third and the remainder was marked and shocking. It felt like a bait and switch betrayal. It now lives in the garage awaiting a future yard sale. I know this book is universally well regarded, and I swear I am not just being contrarian. I hated it and I didn't want to.

The worst edited nonfiction I ever read is a tight contest between two, but I will bitch about the mainstream, popular one. The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty. This just made me sad. The subject matter is both fascinating and culturally important - how the foodways of slaves endured in a foreign land throughout generations, how we find connection to our ancestors through food, and how it absorbed into the dominant culture. Great stuff!

It.is.a.MESS. Structurally, narratively, grammatically; it's meandering, disjointed, and repetitive. It's as if there was no editor at all because there wasn't. What he did was, he gave each chapter to a friend to edit, and boy does it show. No idea how this got published by a major house other than he's black and was having a moment on Twitter.

 

[Diet Coke 4 Life]

What's making me chortle is that I just bought Good Omens for my goblin. I should've hunted you down to steal it from your garage.

 

[Actually Christian Bale]

Ohhh, before I go on a books I've hated sperg, I want to put this here because it's the most cleverly designed book cover I've ever seen and the typeface is sublime.
Wyświetl załącznik 2333876

I have a rule for fiction. If it's 300+ pages, I will give it 50 to grab me or I'm out.

The worst book I ever read is going to cause pearls to be clutched, so I will preface with this: Terry Pratchett was one of the finer authorial wits of the late 20th century. Neil Gaiman is Neil Gaiman - not my bag but I really liked American Gods and was glad to have read it.

Good Omens was so atrocious it made me angry and I only finished it out of pure spite. I thought the first 100 pages were great! Witty dialogue, themes I find interesting, well paced- I was all in. Then, it turned into a morass of every unoriginal trope ever devised. The dialogue descended into sped level self published fanfic. It's as if they conspired to burn every syllable of good will they had earned, and with malice! The contrast in quality between the first third and the remainder was marked and shocking. It felt like a bait and switch betrayal. It now lives in the garage awaiting a future yard sale. I know this book is universally well regarded, and I swear I am not just being contrarian. I hated it and I didn't want to.

The worst edited nonfiction I ever read is a tight contest between two, but I will bitch about the mainstream, popular one. The Cooking Gene by Michael Twitty. This just made me sad. The subject matter is both fascinating and culturally important - how the foodways of slaves endured in a foreign land throughout generations, how we find connection to our ancestors through food, and how it absorbed into the dominant culture. Great stuff!

It.is.a.MESS. Structurally, narratively, grammatically; it's meandering, disjointed, and repetitive. It's as if there was no editor at all because there wasn't. What he did was, he gave each chapter to a friend to edit, and boy does it show. No idea how this got published by a major house other than he's black and was having a moment on Twitter.

I loved American Gods so much. Good Omens was definitely not on par with it, but I'm sort of amused you hated it so much! You're right in that it definitely got worse the more it dragged on. The epitome of "best laid plans".

 

[krazy orange cat]

I am currently re-reading the Outlander series in anticipation of the next book being released before I die. It's history mixed with fantasy and mystery. Small and seemingly inconsequential things come back around full circle in later books.

 

[StrawberryDouche]

As for me, I am busy photographing my vintage cookbooks to share with the BP chat when the next book club convenes there.

I would like to know more about your collection.

 

[krazy orange cat]

I would like to know more about your collection.

As the only one interested in old stuff, I have inherited all of the cookbooks that were passed along throughout the family. I have multiple editions of the Better Homes and Gardens Cookbooks (the oldest printed in 1947, before they went binder style), some Betty Crocker cookbooks and one of some horrifying gelatin salads (jellied beef mold anyone?). Then there are a bunch of random little cookbooks. I really should go through them and make some sort of list of them all.

The prizes are a 1928 "New Cooking Suggestions" cookbook put out by Proctor and Gamble, and a booklet of wartime recipes to stretch rations along with a partial ration book from WWII.

 

[eDove]

Don't even get me started. I'm anal as fuck when it comes to literature.

I've been dubbed "Trash Queen" because I hoard writing that's hilariously (or just erronously) bad. I love reading terrible stories and breaking down why they don't work. I'm a firm believer that you can learn from a lot from failure, just as much as from success. For example, a lot of amateur writers will try to emulate their favorite authors and make mistakes because they've never studied bad writing before or they've never had a "sense" for bad writing.

I've been so maniacally obsessed with my own book that other stories just aren't interesting me, but I've been reading the work of Anna Mckittrick Ros—a lady who's work was so bad that both C.S. Lewis and Tolkein formed societies around making fun of it. I've also been reading Onision's garbage-ass books for the same reason.

I'm planning on starting a book club where we exclusively read stuff that's so bad it's funny, whether it's some Wattpad story created by a thirteen-year-old girl or a New York Best Seller. I don't know where I'm gonna find a group of based shitlords to do it with, but it's a dream of mine.

If anyone has a particularly bad story to show me, please send it my way. I am always growing my stash.

 

[Ephemeris]

Okay I love Ready Player One far more than I have any right to. It surprised me to hear there would be a sequel because I felt the first book wrapped with a finality that would make story-expansion an ambitious task, Still, I had planned to read the second until some reviewers I trust came back with the verdict that the second book is absolute garbage, and now RP Two has joined the RP One movie on the list of Cline-related media I will never consume at the risk of them completely ruining my fragile boner for the first book.

I just started Joe Abercrombie’s sci-fi fantasy series The Age of Madness. Hasn’t exactly sucked me in so far, but it’s too early to judge ether way.