This is a brilliant slice of true crime. In 2010 Raoul Moat killed his ex-partner's new boyfriend then wounded her and a police officer. He evaded police for over a week before committing suicide. This book is an exploration of why he did all this. The whole thing is written in second person, as if you are Moat, apart from some sections taken from letters and recordings that he made while on the run. It thrusts you inside the head of an angry, confused man and tests the limits of your empathy. Really compelling

Can see why this one is regarded as a classic even if I found it a bit clinical and drab at times. It's an enlightening glimpse at pre-colonial African culture and the evils of colonialism itself. It made me very angry

I struggled to warm to this one but I gotta give it props for being unique and deeply weird. The premise - a young man (who could be the spawn of the devil) has a particularly keen sense of smell that drives him on a murderous rampage - is f***ing great. But that premise is stretched quite thin over a lot of repetitive and inconsequential plot points. Like 50 percent of the book is just descriptions of smells and how perfume is made! It suddenly jolts into life with about 50 pages left and culminates in the most bizarre, goth ending ever, completely devoid of all meaning and so nonsensical that it actually kinda rules

Recently finished The Rebel by Albert Camus. Really f***ing amazing.

Now reading The Last Days of Socrates by Plato. First Plato I've ever read, it's much more accessible and entertaining than I figured it would be. Socrates' sort of aloof, slightly cynical approach toward debate and life is really interesting.

The Philosophy of Modern Song by Bob Dylan

Not bad for a Nobel Prize laureate

whew Anna Kavan goes so hard, Ice is one of my all time favorite books. Gives a feeling unlike anyone else I've ever read

On the Platos reading if your talking about Phaedos, i think its mentioned in the text but Plato wasnt there for Socrates death, and Plato is using the event of Socrates death to tell his philosophy, Socrates in this case is a character rather than the real life Socrates in Protagoras for example, still an amazing read tho

For sure, appreciate you pointing that out. From what I understand Socrates never actually wrote anything down so our interpration of him is more or less based on other writers "character" of Socrates, Plato's being the most famous.

Are the writings of Protagoras supposed to be more accurate to who he really was? Or are their "true" conversations he recorded between them?

The Last Days of Socrates is a collection of four writings by Plato that all detail different phases of the accusations, trial, jailing and death of Socrates: Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, and Phaedo. I'm currently on Apology and it's pretty amazing.

I read about this, sounds pretty interesting. Dylan is the greatest.

Yeah Socrates was against writing lol. All we know of him is based off on other people writing socratic dialogues which can help us develop a sense who Socrates was.

In Phadeos the character mention that Plato wasn’t with Socrates on his final day due to being sick. Plato leaves this in part of the dialogue is important cause it tells Plato is telling us his philosophy using Socrates death as a narrative to carry it out.

The earlier dialogues like Protagoras are more about the actual Socrates, with Protagoras being an actual dialogue between the two while the later dialogues are more of Plato’s thoughts

Word I'll have to check that out eventually. I'm gonna read The Republic next, anything else you'd recommend as essential?

honestly i really can’t making my way through the ancients slowly right now as well just read Protagoras, Euphrythro, Phadoes and some Aristotle. Just took an ancient philosophy class this semester i’m gonna go through Apology, Crito and Meno during my break

I’ve heard Republic is surprisingly tough compared to the dialogues good luck with that, if your getting into philosophy the Ancients are always great place to start since it really sets up the basics where you can decide to read anyone after, like you can skip right to 20th century Philosophy with Heidegger since he basically only cares about the ancients and finds everyone after them rubbish and he’s probably the most influential 20th century philosopher though incredibly hard to read

Just finished Metro 2035. I read the first one (2033) after playing the first video game and found it to be a really thoughtful, explorative book that established the mythology far beyond what the game had done. I skipped the second because I heard it sucked lmao.

2035 was fantastic, I love a good subverted messiah story a la Dune. Again it was more thoughtful and compassionate than I expected, and ordinarily I hate the "both fascists and communists are bad" trope but I guess I can excuse it coming from a Russian author. Other than kind of a rushed ending I would definitely recommend this book to anyone that enjoyed the games or like's post-apocalypse fiction.

I'm just gonna keep bumping this thread lol. Just finished The Mad and the Bad by Jean-Patrick Manchette this weekend. I enjoyed it a lot, it's a short book (only 160 pages) and written almost like a screenplay without extraneous detail, so it moved fast. It's violent as hell, which is a lot of fun. Almost like John Wick in how matter-of-fact the violence is portrayed. I guess there's supposed to be political commentary in there too about affluenza and how disaffected the rich are, which rocks when it shines through but is easy to lose in the spray of gore.

My only complaint is that the ending feels rushed, the climax starts with about 8 pages left in the book so there's not a lot of time to savor the eventual carnage the book has been building to the previous 150 pages. 4/5 stars.

gonna check this one out

got a recommendation for you if you want another fast paced, violent read (yet much more dark than fun) : Paradais by Fernanda Melchor

s*** looks gas. And new! I don't read a lot of new books I'll put it on the list

“When we hear another person's thoughts, beliefs, and feelings, it is more difficult to project on to them our perceptions of who they are. It is harder to be manipulative.”

my first experience with bell hooks is a complicated but overall positive one. all about love is well-written and I totally stand behind the message of putting love at the forefront of one's life but some parts left me scratching my head. some of her teachings can feel so narrow and sometimes really preachy. reading into bell hooks' background helped me to understand the place she was writing from. I think this book is great for everyone but I do think those (like myself) who grew up with an almost instinctual understanding of love due to my family will sometimes feel that her message, while being a good message, can come off a little rugged.

we all got healing to do though. if I had to rate this, i'd give it around a 3.5/5

Finished Don Delillo's Libra last night. I loved White Noise and Mao II from Delillo, wasn't as big a fan of this one. It seems like if you're going to write a book about the most famous assassination in American history you should probably have something to say, and I couldn't get much meaning out of this book. It seemed like just an interpretation of how things could have gone.

I think too the postmodern style of Delillo doesn't give me what I wanted from this story. The book felt too removed from the emotions of the characters participating in the conspiracy, I would have appreciated more of a sense of paranoia or urgency to what was happening.

I'm being critical, but I did enjoy the book overall. The ending in particular where Oswald's mother talks about how she experienced life with her son got some emotion out of me. There were a few parts of the book that made me think "what could happen to a 24 year old to make them assassinate the president?" and unfortunately I don't feel like the book presented any compelling answers.

this goes straight to my top 10

Have you seen the JFK movie by Oliver Stone, that’s been the most interesting / enthralling piece of media I’ve come about on the subject

is the King book about the subject matter better? I remember watching and enjoying the series with Franco but they changed a lot of things apparently

I haven't but I'll check it out! It's not necessarily the actual assassination that's most interesting to me but rather how someone can be radicalized into killing the president. but I love a good political thriller

I've never read it, but I have to imagine it's more fictionalized than this one. Libra is ultimately fiction but I think Don Delillo tries to use as much that we know from the actual story as possible. it's fiction, but it's an attempt to write a non-fiction book by expanding on the facts that are available, whereas King's book is through and through fiction.

So in short I have no idea lol, but they probably serve different purposes so who can say which is better?

You got a recommendation on a particular translation/edition?

Unfortunately no since I've read it in french (my native lang)

But I only heard good things on Lydia Davis's one (she made one of the best Proust translation I've read).
And to be honest it can be really difficult to be faithful to the cadances and rhythms of Flaubert’s sentences. Same for his splits up and his carefully measured paragraphs.

Thank you for this, glad you could read it without a translation

I love all these nyrb covers they're so slick looking