racketboy.com

I am not reading this...but I find the cover hilarious for some reason.



(On topic...I finished up the Hound of the Baskervilles last week, and I need to dive back into Why Nations Fail at some point soon...)

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I finished up the Hound of the Baskervilles last week

nice

dsheinem wrote:

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I finished up the Hound of the Baskervilles last week

nice

It was a really fun book, BTW...easily my favorite of the Sherlock Holmes novels.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:

dsheinem wrote:

prfsnl_gmr wrote:I finished up the Hound of the Baskervilles last week

nice

It was a really fun book, BTW...easily my favorite of the Sherlock Holmes novels.

I need to read Baskerville, I had a paperback edition with all of the Sherlock Holmes novels and short stories in their full length, and I got around 500 pages in and put it down. That print was so, so tiny.

I borrowed this and currently about to wrap it up.. The plot is a copy-pasta of the earlier novels. What's so thrilling about a purported thriller if you know the outcome in advance? I suppose it's more entertaining than reading a nonfiction book but Dan Brown isn't my type of writer.



Scifi noir that I enjoyed thoroughly, more so thanks to the excellent audiobook narration.

I always forget this thread exists:

Autobiography and Essays of Frederick Douglass - If you have never read this, make it a reading priority. If you have already read it, read it again. It's like a movie where you notice something new every time you watch it, but in this case you get a bit smarter every time you read it.

The Cat in The Hat - A buddy of mine stopped by with his wife and one and a half year old. Anytime I have a friend with a kid over I bring down books and a few stuffed animals. Not only does it make the kid and parents happy, it keeps the kid from messing with valuables.

A Naked Singularity - This will probably be adapted into a movie. There is something for everyone in this novel.

The recently-departed Pohl with one of his better novels; in a post-coldwar era that sees nations engage in low-level sabotage and skulduggery over scarce resources and fuelled by hubris, a lot reminiscent of today's world. It also has a focus on hypnosis, which we now understand better but I imagine back then it was a smoke-and-mirrors topic for many.

I really should post in here more often...




I just finished up Brendan Keogh's "Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line" which you can probably read in a few sittings, but is nonetheless fascinating on several levels. It captures much of what I felt while playing the game, it offers a version of long form criticism on games that is compelling as a model, and it provides a very ethnographic approach to evaluating a single-player game. Spec Ops: The Line is probably one of my top ten games of this generation, and this book is one of the more interesting game-related books I've read (and I've read a lot, especially lately). Anyway, it's Kindle-only and just $4.99 on Amazon, so consider giving it a look!

A couple weeks back, I read Timothy B. Tyson's Blood Done Sign My Name, a look at race relations and the civil rights movement in the late 60's/early 70's through the lens of a murder and the ensuing race riots in Oxford, NC. It works well with the autobiographical take and the small southern town feel (well, the events taking place right down the road from me helped grab my interest too). Hits a number of tones from humorous to saddening, and it reads like someone telling you the story while sitting on your porch—complete with at times a little too much repetition. Despite that, it was a quick, entertaining, and informative read. Recommended.

dsheinem wrote:I really should post in here more often...




I just finished up Brendan Keogh's "Killing is Harmless: A Critical Reading of Spec Ops: The Line" which you can probably read in a few sittings, but is nonetheless fascinating on several levels. It captures much of what I felt while playing the game, it offers a version of long form criticism on games that is compelling as a model, and it provides a very ethnographic approach to evaluating a single-player game. Spec Ops: The Line is probably one of my top ten games of this generation, and this book is one of the more interesting game-related books I've read (and I've read a lot, especially lately). Anyway, it's Kindle-only and just $4.99 on Amazon, so consider giving it a look!

This one slipped me by. Must get it! *scrambles for wish-list*