The Books/Reading Thread

[Satanstoenail]

Anyone read this gem yet?

Save Me from Myself: How I Found God, Quit Korn, Kicked Drugs and Lived to Tell My Story
by Brian “Head” Welch

[Necuratul]

I'm finally making steady progress again in my reading after an unexpectedly long break. Today I read The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft. Not entirely what I expected...more leaning toward his prior Dunsanian writings. I appreciated his incorporating of ideas of many of his previous short stories into the greater meaning of the novel.

[unknown]

He was doing a book signing at the Border's not too far from my house recently...eh


on a side note, I just finished "Snow Crash", and it was fucking awesome. Now, I'm going to start Bear Grylls's latest book, The Kid Who Climbed Everest.

edit:

Originally Posted by Necuratul

I'm finally making steady progress again in my reading after an unexpectedly long break. Today I read The Dream-Quest Of Unknown Kadath by H. P. Lovecraft. Not entirely what I expected...more leaning toward his prior Dunsanian writings. I appreciated his incorporating of ideas of many of his previous short stories into the greater meaning of the novel.

This was probably the only Lovecraft story I started, and then just skipped over...it was really dense and hard to get through. The rest of the Randolph Carter saga is fucking excellent though (especially The Silver Key and Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

[Necuratul]

How far did you get? It's certainly a bit overbearing, but the perseverance is rewarding in my opinion. Certainly not among his best works, but a good read nonetheless, and an interesting break from the more starkly real horror of his later works. I actually believe that I derived more from it as a fascinating chronological divergence than from anything else though, it's certainly an interesting piece in his bibliography, and his use of connecting prior works to this is a simple touch that I quite enjoyed. As an independent, casual read, however, I don't imagine that it would fare as well.

Anyway, The Silver Key is the next enqueue in this compilation...after I'm done with this one, I'm going to have to inquire as to which other compilations I need to purchase in order to have all of Lovecraft's published works, because I know the three that I have from the Penguin series (The Call Of Chthulu, The Dunwich Horror, and The Dreams In The Witch House) are not all encompassing. I'm not sure how many are amiss, though.

[S<issors]

I actually really enjoyed Lovecraft's dream-cycle stuff, I think his Byzantine style of prose is well suited to the whole "surreal dreamscapes" thing

By the way, the casual racism in a lot of his work is hilarious. I particularly liked the constant references to the sub commander's "iron German will" in... whatever that story's name was. If you've read it you know what I'm talking about

[Necuratul]

The Temple, yeah, I quite liked that one, not just for the amusing racism. Other good examples would be "Herbert West - Reanimator" and "The Horror At Red Hook."

[Seraphim Belial]

It's nice to see some others who enjoy Lovecraft - I myself am currently reading a collection of his first stories, and their pretty good if I must say so.

[unknown]

reading his letters are pretty interesting too...he was a racist anti semite type person, but he ended up marrying a Jewish woman...whodathunk it.

I got about halfway through Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath. I was in 10th grade at the time I read it, so it may have been a little too over my head at the time. my friend's borrowing my book right now, so perhaps I'll try it again some time.

[Vossyrus]

I don't read often but I was wondering if anyone can recommend me some good fictional books centered around vampires or gothic themes, aside from obvious the ones like Anne Rice. Vampires in a true gothic sense rather than just about blood-sucking vampires, I prefer something interestering, dark, and deals more with character, mood etc.

[Necuratul]

I wouldn't call it essential reading by any means (and in fact Lovecraft wasn't overly fond of it himself), but it is a good read for avid fans of Lovecraft who can appreciate the more fantastical Dunsanian inspired tales (though this style is of course not strictly adhered to and in fact is far removed from a good deal of the latter half of the book).

Oh, and when you do read it, do me a favor and count how many times he writes "the crawling chaos Nyarlothep."

[Necuratul]

Originally Posted by Ars Diavoli

I don't read often but I was wondering if anyone can recommend me some good fictional books centered around vampires or gothic themes, aside from obvious the ones like Anne Rice.

Uh...Bram Stoker's Dracula.