Yeah I was telling my wife last night that I have never had to read one page of Shakespeare either. I minored in English in college and took a lot of English classes over the years and somehow it never came up. Guess it is all dependent on the instructor.

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Flew too close to the sun on wings of pastrami

Not a fan of Tess or wuthering heights. Read them both for classes. Not sure I had to read the Orwell books for a class or not. Maybe Animal Farm but not 1984. Read them both a long with The Road to Wigan Pier. Cant say I recall much from that one.

Definitely. Animal Farm is goofy, but worth reading. Some idiot I know once described 1984 as a relic of another time, an interesting book but one that described a world that had passed, but the book will always be relevant.

That commercial with the people working out in front of the mirror and having a coach talk to them through the screen had me thinking of 1984. I mean, we're pretty much ready for the takeover, what with our technology, our culture of informing on others, and the Orwellian discourse favored by our politicians during Covid.

Damn, that first chick was smoking, too. Not a great picture, but Sox fans will get the idea

Something is wrong with that picture.

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I had to read Wuthering Heights in HS....I thought it was a God-Awful soap opera.

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I'm loving how you italicized the names of these books! Well done. One less person making bar-bar noises around here.

It’s a pain though on the phone to do it if you miss doing it the first time (see Wuthering Heights Between autocorrect and trying to place it right on my dying phon.. yeah, I’ll pass on fixing it. Really, I feel lucky if 83% of my post is 50% understandable.

I forgot you usually post via phone. This only increases my being impressed. Seriously.

Kind of wondering where you and BigW stand on matters of sexuality, though, after ignoring that photo I posted and then blathering on about how much you both loved Wuthering Heights. To each his own, I suppose.

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WOULD
I still think Wuthering Heights is hot garbage.

Animal Farm is a masterpiece. One of the best books ever written.
1984 wasn't as enjoyable to read, but it is very good and it's disturbing to see how prophetic it was, having been written in 1949.

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"Ready Player Two" wasn't as awful as I thought it would be.

"Recursion" was outstanding. Liked it so much I'll go back and read some more Blake Crouch stuff.

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Dark Matter is great. I also liked the Wayward Pines trilogy.

Another author of a similar - but somewhat creepier - style is Peter Clines.

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Thanks Peeps I want to Read Ready Player Two. All I hear is it is shit.

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When I am stuck and need to figure something out I always remember the Immortal words of Socrates when he said:"I just drank what?"

It grew on me as I kept reading.

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Horror recommendations, please.

I read a bunch of the stories in The Year's Best Horror Stories series. It ran from about 1974 to 1994, and I cannot recommend them. Like one story in every book was worth reading; most of the rest I abandoned because they were dull af. Volume VI is pretty good, and Volume XIII has a real good Stephen King story. I like having anthologies like this on my phone, but I wish these books had some better stories. I should also point out that I was born to skank. #dealwithit

I second Tommy's request for some good horror reading. I am undertaking immersion in this genre so I can better understand what it is like to be deprived of eating at restaurants and to avoid going to the gym.

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Richard Bachman's Thinner and also The Long Walk. Other faves of mine are Interview with a Vampire, The Exorcist and Pet Semetary.

Horror is a tough one. I've faced the facts that the best are short stories. Tell Tale Heart is like 25 pages

Obscura was the last book I read of what you are looking for ...a world pandemic of dementia. Kinda silly but not dull.

this one's more horrific than horror, as everything that takes place within its page could have been culled from news reports emanating from the real fucked up world of southern Ohio/upper Appalachia.

Well, Nardi, you were right on the mark with the last one (Eifelheim), so I'll give this one a spin. I really enjoyed Eifelheim, as sad as it was.

Noted all of them. Gracias!

Sour Candy was pretty good, though I was surprised at how short it was and I wanted more. I also thought that the narrator just sort of told you what happened at the end; Pendleton didn't really discover it. Also, I am not even sure I totally understand who the boy was and who the baby is at the end. It was still a fun read and genuinely creepy. Definitely worth the read.

RE: Wuthering Heights
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWSSD8_sAF4

Killers of the Flower Moon - David Grann, the author of Lost City of Z, does a deep dive into the many, many murders of Osage Indians in the ‘20s after oil was discovered on the Osage reservation. Really good and at times, totally bananas story about a criminal conspiracy orchestrated by the local Whites in power. Unfortunately, COVID hasn't stopped Scorese from turning this into a film, starring DeNiro and DiCraprio.

Tip of the cap to McCareins_Fan! Just started reading this as I wait for the Nardi and Hussra books.

You are right--this story is "totally bananas." The balls on these people.

Even crack? But you love crack! It's your favorite.



used an audible credit on this one, triple narrator, see how that goes

Just finished. Effing insane. "Bananas" was the right descriptor. Really enjoyed this.

Thinking of switching from podcasts to audio books.


Most are on YouTube

Should I start with:
A Tale of Two Cities
1984
To Kill a Mockingbird

3, 2, 1

I agree with Tommy's rankings but would add that To Kill a Mockingbird is also great in movie form. Terrific performance by Gregory Peck, and a very young Robert Duvall makes an appearance as Boo Radley.

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Picked up Houskeeping by Marilynne Robinson again. Probably my favorite book of all time. Reads more like poetry than narrative fiction. Probably why I'm drawn to it year after year.

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