A Watcher's Reading Club. Any interest?

Post by **Avatar** » Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:47 am

I like the Gutenberg idea.

Goethe seems a bit heavy going though.

I don't have a nomination yet, but lemme see what's available on Gutenberg.

Something a bit lighter would probably suit me better.

--A

Post by **StevieG** » Tue Dec 13, 2022 10:56 am

I'm happy to go with the consensus. Something on the shorter side would be my preference - I'm a slow reader

Happy to do something longer given a longer time period.

Post by **samrw3** » Thu Dec 15, 2022 1:23 pm

I'm open for anything. I had in the past interest reading Brothers Karamazov or Slaughterhouse Five. But I know those have been widely available or possibly read to death by all of you - so nothing stuck in stone.

Post by **peter** » Fri Dec 16, 2022 8:06 am

Brothers Karamazov has been on my radar for a while.

Slaughterhouse 5 sounds, well, a bit........slaughterhousey!

Yes - the time taken on a book will perforce be determined by it's length. No worries there.

I've not read any Goethe so I come to 'Werther' pretty much blind except for the subject of unrequited love. Guessing that could get pretty heavy by its very nature. Can I change and second my vote in support of Karamazov?

(If you've read this Av, or spot something on PG that strikes your fancy, I still think a draw might be fun. I like the idea of giving 'fate and fortune' their say in the process!

)

Post by **duke** » Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:36 am

Illume brought this 'reading club' discussion to my attention!

I've become the world's slowest reader and I have a LOT of reading to get through for my theology studies. I also run a book club and read for that. And also I like to read some things for fun or curiosity. So adding further reading isn't something I could commit to, unless the readings are short!

YouTube · Post by **Menolly** » Sun Dec 18, 2022 7:57 am

Illume on Facebook = Menolly on the Watch...

Post by **duke** » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:33 pm

Thanks for correcting me Menolly. My apologies!

Regarding reading, I've begun my second read of "Seventh Decimate" and I hope to read all three Great God's War books over the (Australian) summer. I haven't read "War within" or "the Killing God" before, so my reading may be slow going. Reading SRD to me is like sipping a good Scotch, not like downing beer after beer.

It's a plan.

Post by **duke** » Wed Dec 21, 2022 11:37 pm

I'm not sure whether people are interested, but here's the books the book club I'm running are reading for the first few months next year.

Shirley Hazzard - The Transit of Venus
Clare Chambers - Small Pleasures
Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar

Post by **Avatar** » Fri Dec 23, 2022 9:51 pm

Where the hell did you spring from?

(Nice to see you around.)

peter wrote:(If you've read this Av, or spot something on PG that strikes your fancy, I still think a draw might be fun. I like the idea of giving 'fate and fortune' their say in the process! )

Read it many years ago. I'm a fan of Slaughterhouse 5, but obviously also read that.

Sorry, been distracted, haven't put much thought into it...

I am drawn more to say, sci-fi or fantasy stories than dour Russian fatalists...

PG has collections of both...

Sci-Fi

Fantasy

(I was very pleased to see Pohl's novella "The Tunnel Under The World" which I highly recommend if anybody hasn't read it. Strangely apropos for all it was written nearly 70 years ago...)

--A

Post by **peter** » Wed Dec 28, 2022 9:23 am

Read that one as a schoolboy Av - great stuff! Always remember a Pohl and Kornbluth novella "Wolfbane" as one of my favourites - perhaps the book that got me into sci-fi and ultimately led me into fantasy (which to a degree, alas, overtook my interest in the former).

In respect of my reading club suggestion, it was always a bit of a long shot and I'm not sure that the four or so that we have mustered is going to be enough to make it viable.

I'm massively grateful to Sarge, samrw3 and StevieG who agreed to join - and of course to Av who is always to be relied upon when reading is the subject (given his ability to consume books at the rate of about one every ten minutes), but alas I'm thinking that it was a good shot that hasn't quite hit the mark.

Who knows - perhaps our new presented website will pull a few members back and remind them of what a good place this is to be (in comparison with the often - I'm told - toxic environment of Facebook and Twitter) and there will be more traffic for the idea in the future.

But for now, I think we have to put it down as a chicken that won't fight (for the moment at least).

Hey. It is what it is.

Post by **sgt.null** » Thu Dec 29, 2022 3:27 am

Julie bought some William S. Burroughs.

Naked Lunch anyone?

Post by **peter** » Thu Dec 29, 2022 4:45 am

Hey Sarge! Hope you're feeling better man!

The Naked Lunch eh?

Got a feeling I saw a film of that one at some point - seemed to involve giant insects crawling around iirc? Odd, to say the least!

Post by **Avatar** » Fri Dec 30, 2022 9:10 pm

That'll be the one.

Burroughs, the man who made drugs cool before they were cool.

The film was, if anything, even more disjointed than the book. I also wouldn't be surprised if it had at least influenced Burgess' Clockwork Orange, written a few years later.

On a related and more contemporary note, that is perhaps of interest to you, there is a cult classic game, "Disco Elysium: The Final Cut" (recommended to me by JemCheeta) puts me very much in mind of his writing. It is available on console too, probably fairly inexpensively (and frequently in my experience on sale).

It won a ZA/UM Game award for Best Narrative in 2019, and a BAFTA Game award for Narrative in 2020.

Very weird game.

Also, ah well, we'll keep nominations open in that case. My major worry was that I hate reading on my computer screen.

So I would prefer to own the book.

(And I was the other way around...I started with Fantasy (The Hobbit) and then went on to sci-fi. (Probably Isaac Asimov, gifted to me by my Uncle.) And lots of YA sci-fi (and fantasy for that matter) too, much of which I still enjoy.)

But I have no particular preference for one over another. (The GF is only lately come to sci-fi, but prefers so-called "hard sci-fi."

--A

Post by **peter** » Tue Jan 03, 2023 8:38 am

Just been checking out Disco Elysium and I like the look of it.

With a games voucher burning a hole in my pocket, I think you might just have nailed the beast down Av!

Cool!

(Edit: Duly ordered and winging its way toward me as we speak!

)

Post by **peter** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 8:23 am

Now in my possession, I'm deliberately not watching any advance clips of game play or anything. I haven't even read the blurb on the back of the case.

I'm coming to this game with only two words of advance knowledge - 'Disco' and 'Elysium'!

I've seen the picture on the box as well.

I'm currently doing the Dragonborn dlc from Skyrim and I'm going to finish this first, but when I do Disco Elysium is going to be next into my consul and I'll give an update then.

Post by **wayfriend** » Thu Jan 12, 2023 1:42 pm

My book club is reading this thread. The plot, loosely, is several people trying to decide on a book for a book club. I just read the part where they are talking about video games instead of books. I'm finding the story a little dry, but I am committed to seeing it through now.

Post by **peter** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 8:51 am

Well, a solution of sorts.

I've just finished reading my first classic of the year, The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins.

I've read the book before and I simply love it. It's a book that takes you and holds you from page one. There is no padding, no wasted prose and never a page where you are not waiting almost baited breath, for what is going to happen next. The construction of the book to a degree gives a clue as to its original publishing in serialised form, but the minimal editorial work necessary to get it into single book form has been done expertly with no deleterious consequences.

It's very interesting that Collins chooses to use two female heroines, two male villains and one male hero. In effect, the two female heroines are mirror images of each other, as are the two male villains. In both cases the characters could almost be put together to make an composite character that would be a more 'real' rendition of a human being, but to lesser effect in the story.

To our modern ears, the story is to a degree 'quaint' in its assumptions about the roles of males and females in society, but just read as a good story it races along at a cracking pace and probably qualifies as the best melodrama ever written.

(Quite what the essential difference between a melodrama and a Gothic novel is eludes me, but I'd have a stab at guessing which is which.)

Of the characters in the book, Count Fosco is probably the standout individual. Pompous and proud to an almost caricatureish level, he nevertheless stands in a class of his own as a villain, and despise him as you will, like the other characters in the novel, you will find yourself swayed by him and almost liking him at the same time as being repelled. As he would say in drawing himself up to his full height and pronouncing in his bass Italian voice, "Fosco! The one word sums it up. No more need be said!"

Now, I love this book. I'd be pleased beyond question if someone had directed me to it before I'd found it for myself.

On this basis, I'm throwing down the challenge. Find me another Woman in White! Don't steal too much of my time by recommending a book that will take two labourers a morning to move into my house. Keep it of reasonable length - but most of all love it!.

It wants to be a classic, modern or old. It wants to be something that you will take pleasure in knowing that someone else is reading and that it is down to you. If you have the candidate for me that you genuinely believe will take me, and do for me what it did for you, then you have my word that (always assuming I can get access to it) I will read it front to back.

Then I'll post what I think of it and perhaps we'll talk.

As for me, I've done my bit. If you pick up a copy of The Woman in White I believe you'll get one of the reading experiences of your life. It takes courage to avail yourself of someone else's valuable time - we all have too little of it - and I wouldn't make this recommendation if I didn't truly believe that you'd thank me for it.

There you have it.

Post by **sgt.null** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 7:28 pm

Let me know so I can head to Half Price Books.

Post by **peter** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 8:27 pm

Will do Sarge.

(Hope you're fully recovered from your recent poorly spell BTW!)

Post by **Wosbald** » Sat Jan 14, 2023 8:39 pm

+JMJ+

Somethin' tells me no one is gonna be reading the stuff I'm gonna be reading regardless of what everyone else here is reading. Especially since I'm currently reading Hegel's Science of Logic and I wouldn't punish any of y'all like that, even if any willingly offered themselves for the sacrifice.

I've never been a member of what one might call the Literary Cognoscenti, anyways. I'm just lucky that â€” considering my relatively small pool of literary experience â€” there was a fansite for SRD, period.

Kevin's Watch

Kevin's Watch

A Watcher's Reading Club. Any interest?