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>> No. 5153 Anonymous
16th May 2013
Thursday 4:24 pm
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Can an author who's incredibly prolific be any good? When I'm raiding someone's Calibre server, if I see an author's written dozens of books I think they must be shit and don't download them.

It seems like it's usually fantasy authors who write so many.
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>> No. 5180 Anonymous
18th May 2013
Saturday 12:57 am
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>>5179
There is a series called SABBAT he did about some kind of dope smoking occult detective which really is so bad it's funny, I believe Creation Books reissued it as a kitschy thing.
>> No. 5183 Anonymous
18th May 2013
Saturday 10:07 am
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>>5179
Oh come on. "CRABS ON THE RAMPAGE"? That's got to be worth a read.

They look hilarious.
>> No. 5187 Anonymous
18th May 2013
Saturday 8:49 pm
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>>5183

I only got to about page three but I think he was doing things like presaging the coming events by using strange crab words to describe humans. He said someone was "scuttling" instead of walking.
>> No. 5188 Anonymous
18th May 2013
Saturday 8:56 pm
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>>5187

and blithely ignoring the "show don't tell" rule. He had a character say something like "It's a shame about your terribly strained relationship with your father."
>> No. 5191 Anonymous
19th May 2013
Sunday 11:37 am
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>>5188
>"It's a shame about your terribly strained relationship with your father."
Oh God, that's hilarious.

Right, I'm off to ebay.

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>> No. 4856 Anonymous
18th November 2012
Sunday 12:43 pm
4856 ITT: your favourite (obscure) words actually being used
My favourite word was used in the Observer today.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/18/politicians-motives-nadine-dorries-giraffe

>meretricious.

Fuck yeah.
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>> No. 5147 Anonymous
15th May 2013
Wednesday 2:08 am
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>>5146

Are you calling Mr. X a wanker?
>> No. 5148 Anonymous
15th May 2013
Wednesday 9:41 am
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>>5147
Wanking over dirty words in a dictionary? Was he in prison for that long?
>> No. 5149 Anonymous
15th May 2013
Wednesday 3:13 pm
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>>5148

Some words are just seductive little minxes.
>> No. 5151 Anonymous
15th May 2013
Wednesday 3:25 pm
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>>5145

I won't even be able to tell you how dolorous and desolate this turn of events makes me feel.
>> No. 5152 Anonymous
15th May 2013
Wednesday 3:34 pm
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>>5151

Your diatribe is deceptively duplicitous.

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>> No. 5111 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 5:15 am
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Have you ever got a googlewhack or come close?

It's that game where you have to google two obscure real words without quotes and google only comes up with one hit. I thought I got one on two occasions but both turned out to be because of dodgy spelling. The closest I've come using legitimate words is about 200 hits.
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>> No. 5114 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 5:31 am
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>>5113

I think the original rules stated that word lists and glossaries don't count but that's a lot closer than I've ever come to one.
>> No. 5115 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 5:33 am
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I see googlewhack.com have stopped accepting submissions for their "whack stack". Maybe that's because it's too difficult these days.
>> No. 5117 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 9:26 am
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>> No. 5120 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 4:16 pm
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>>5117

That only comes up as one because google hides the rest as they're all identical. Pretty sure that doesn't count.

Also you guys do realise that as soon as you post them here they'll be indexed by google and literally no longer be googlewhacks? Someone think of the children!
>> No. 5137 Anonymous
14th May 2013
Tuesday 5:32 am
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>>5111

Just got it on my second try. "Hanukkah deontologicalism"
Thanks, >>5117

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>> No. 5079 Anonymous
29th April 2013
Monday 10:25 am
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Have you ever read a dodgy scanned ebook and a continuing OCR error really added something to it? I read "Five Go To Smuggler's Top" out of nostalgia and their friend's name Sooty got changed to Booty all the way through. I had a mental image of the character as a sassy black lady.
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>> No. 5080 Anonymous
29th April 2013
Monday 10:52 am
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I have a copy of "The Light Princess and other stories" where some of the names of the stories seem to be written in leetspeak (Something like 'The G0bL1n 814c<5m1th') and at intervals the text itself degenerates into unreadable gibberish.
It doesn't add much, I'll admit.
>> No. 5121 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 4:44 pm
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Not badly scanned OCR, but a bad conversion from EPUB to MOBI caused every third sentence in Skagboys to lose its end and instead be repeated again from its middle. It ended up reading like an amazingly avant-garde piece of beat-poetry.

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>> No. 5108 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 3:38 am
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Are there any words or phrases that are too twatty sounding to use? I can't think of a good reason to say "cogitate" and I also dislike venerable, veritable and smorgasbord.
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>> No. 5116 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 5:40 am
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I agree with cogitate but the other three? Also 'smorgasbord' is one of only a handful of our words that come from Sweden.
>> No. 5118 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 9:50 am
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It depends entirely on the context and who the conversation's with.
>> No. 5119 Anonymous
1st May 2013
Wednesday 9:55 am
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I cogitate often on the matter of when to use 'cogitate'.

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>> No. 5045 Anonymous
23rd April 2013
Tuesday 11:23 am
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This is probably a stupid question but do a disproportionate amount of authors have long faces? When I see one with a long face like William Burroughs or Aldous Huxley or Jonathan Lethem I think he looks like an author.

Will Self and HP Lovecraft took it too far though. They look like they have acromegaly.

I guess Salman Rushdie and Anthony Burgess have little round faces.
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>> No. 5071 Anonymous
24th April 2013
Wednesday 6:47 pm
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>> No. 5072 Anonymous
24th April 2013
Wednesday 7:03 pm
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Number* of authors.
>> No. 5073 Anonymous
24th April 2013
Wednesday 7:36 pm
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Wyndham, Wilde and Gaiman are a bit long faced.
Vogt, Tolkein, Palahniuk, Pynchon and Pratchett don't look abnormal.
Asimov, Greg Bear, E.E. "Doc" Smith, China Mieville, Larry Niven and Arthur C Clarke have quite compact faces.

What the fuck am I doing
>> No. 5074 Anonymous
24th April 2013
Wednesday 7:40 pm
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>>5073
Perhaps we need to start grouping these by genre.

sci-fi/fantasy = smaller rounder faces.

horror/social commentary = longer faces
>> No. 5075 Anonymous
25th April 2013
Thursday 9:40 am
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>>5074

I wouldn't expect pulpy horror authors to have long faces somehow, apart from Stephen King but he just looks mongoloid.

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>> No. 5001 Anonymous
9th March 2013
Saturday 7:35 pm
5001 Children of the Dust
Was anyone else made to read this at school? We studied it in English when I was 12. It didn't occur to me at the time but it was very damaging to my long term mental health. Throughout my late teens and early 20s (and indeed beyond) I have had a deep anxiety about nuclear war and I point the blame firmly at this book.
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>> No. 5023 Anonymous
2nd April 2013
Tuesday 10:21 pm
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I read The Machine Gunners when I was about 10, there was also a CBBC series based on the book.
>> No. 5028 Anonymous
7th April 2013
Sunday 1:36 am
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>>5023
I read that too. Good book, that. Pretty gritty at points too.
>> No. 5029 Anonymous
11th April 2013
Thursday 3:54 am
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>>5023
That's a terrible illustration. That boy looks like he's made of plasticine.
>> No. 5030 Anonymous
15th April 2013
Monday 11:26 pm
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I read Z for Zachariah at school and I was fine.
>> No. 5031 Anonymous
15th April 2013
Monday 11:44 pm
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In a similar vein, I had a dream as a child about my school getting rained on by giant columns of fire from the sky and I've been scared of global warming ever since. Learning about non-linear dynamics in fourth year didn't help either.

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>> No. 5024 Anonymous
3rd April 2013
Wednesday 11:49 am
5024 Author Iain Banks has terminal cancer
Ah, fucksocks.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-22015175

This is not a good thing.
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>> No. 5025 Anonymous
3rd April 2013
Wednesday 12:00 pm
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That has genuinely made me quite sad. I fucking love The Culture novels. What a load of shit. :(
>> No. 5026 Anonymous
3rd April 2013
Wednesday 10:23 pm
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>>5024
>"Typical of Iain to propose marriage to his partner Adele with the words 'Will you do me the honour of becoming my widow?"

What a fucking lad, and I mean that in all seriousness.
>> No. 5027 Anonymous
5th April 2013
Friday 1:01 pm
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>>5024
Man. That's really sad news.

I never made any headway with his M. Banks stuff but I've read all the rest.

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>> No. 5002 Anonymous
10th March 2013
Sunday 4:24 am
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I just finished reading A Farewell To Arms. No one ever told me it was so depressing.
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>> No. 5003 Anonymous
10th March 2013
Sunday 12:27 pm
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>>5002
Just wait until you finish The Sun Also Rises.
>> No. 5010 Anonymous
11th March 2013
Monday 11:24 pm
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>>5003

I read it years ago but I can't remember it very well.
>> No. 5011 Anonymous
11th March 2013
Monday 11:33 pm
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>>5010
It's not very long, definitely worth a re-read.

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>> No. 4766 Anonymous
4th August 2012
Saturday 2:56 am
4766 Help me feel more cleverer
Hi chaps.

Suffering a bit of sleeplessness here, so I'm looking for a bit of new reading material.

Anyone care to recommend some good non-fiction? Preferably about the deeper subjects in life, some good philosophy probably wouldn't go amiss. I'm not a massive literature kinda guy, but I've certainly enjoyed famous books like A Brief History Of Time, The God Delusion, A Short History Of Nearly Everything etc... I suppose I'm just looking for similar titles in that style.

I'm more concerned with it being a good read, I guess, than too heavily factual. I have a collection of Orwell's essays that I try and get into every now and again but I find his writing a little too impenetrable sometimes. I like Dawkin's sarcastic and kind of cuntish tone, so that'd be a plus.

In return, have some cookies? Many thanks in advance chaps.
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>> No. 4991 Anonymous
24th February 2013
Sunday 8:20 pm
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>>4766
If Orwell's essays are 'too impenetrable' then you obviously have shit for brains m8. May I suggest something by Niall Fergusson or Christopher Hitchens?
>> No. 4992 Anonymous
24th February 2013
Sunday 8:22 pm
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>>4988
>Marr really knows his shit
You'll be advising OP to read A.N Wilson's 'The Victorians' next, you utter knob of butter.
>> No. 4993 Anonymous
25th February 2013
Monday 1:21 pm
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Blindsight, by Peter Watts.
>> No. 4994 Anonymous
6th March 2013
Wednesday 1:50 am
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>>4766

Read "the beginning of infinity" by David Deutsch.

Its pretty interesting, although the author doesn't really know what he's talking about at certain points.
>> No. 4995 Anonymous
8th March 2013
Friday 9:20 am
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>>4988
Maybe he should write a book about his shit then, because writing on history is fucking dire.

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>> No. 4296 Anonymous
17th March 2012
Saturday 5:37 am
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Could you please suggest authors who have approached the absurdity of the human condition?

I am really interested in questions like Why I Shouldn't Kill Myself? and Why I Shouldn't Kill Others.
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>> No. 4709 Anonymous
6th July 2012
Friday 2:48 pm
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>>4707

Alright, I admit, I laughed at the 'Wallacised' quotes.
>> No. 4809 Anonymous
14th September 2012
Friday 5:52 pm
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The Stranger has already been mentioned, so I will put my neck on the line and add this:

The American translation is far, far better than the British.
>> No. 4814 Anonymous
3rd October 2012
Wednesday 11:38 pm
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>>4707
Never read Wallace and he sounds shite but I dislike the sophomoric jibes at Selby's Christian-themed novels in that review - which he certainly never 'disguises' as 'avant-garde'. They are simultaneously powerful avant-garde writing and openly/explicitly rooted in Christian thought, the two are not necessarily mutually exclusive.
>> No. 4815 Anonymous
4th October 2012
Thursday 12:50 am
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Finished Infinite Jest a couple of weeks ago and really fucking enjoyed it. I can understand why a lot of people don't, it's pretty hard going in a lot of places and it probably took me until about a third in to start really enjoying it but I honestly thought some of the prose was just beautiful. Haven't enjoyed reading a book that much for a while.

I get that people find him pretentious and whatnot but I liked it, the ending is I guess unsatisfying but that seems pretty intentional and it didn't personally take away from the book as a whole for me.

Have only skimmed the link in >>4707 but will read it properly at some point, all seemed a bit immature and personal on a first skim though.
Also I'd really disagree that he had contempt for mankind, I mean on one level I'm sure he does just as much as any reasonably intelligent person does, but to say that's all there is too him is just a bit blinkered I think. His writing strikes me as intensely humane, he seems to feel deeply for people and the general mess that humans are or can be and in my opinion articulates that really well. Even just hearing him in interviews he seems to genuinely give a shit about people and wants to try and communicate quite subtle and complex ideas about what it is to be a human being living on the planet Earth at this time.

Anyway it's obviously all pretty subjective, especially with a writer like Wallace. I get that he's going to alienate a lot of people with his style but I think if you enjoy that type of writing then he really is fucking great. If anyone is thinking about reading some and is a bit daunted by Infinite Jest then I'd recommend some of his collected essays, a lot easier to get into and just really well done.

Anyways sorry for the long rambling post, been meaning to write something about it here for ages and could only just now be arsed.
>> No. 4972 Anonymous
14th February 2013
Thursday 1:49 pm
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>>4318
knowing that you speak at least 3 fluent languages and studied philosophy in one which isn't your mother tounge makes me feel so shitty

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>> No. 4895 Anonymous
29th December 2012
Saturday 4:11 pm
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Watched this film last night, realised I've never actually read much worthwhile. Last book I read was probably a harry potter 10 years ago.

Could you recommend me a classic, something historical/philosophical. Or just your standard things to read before you die.
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>> No. 4936 Anonymous
18th January 2013
Friday 4:23 pm
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>>4934

Well of course there are bad books, but unless you're devouring Harry Potter and Jeffrey Archer exclusively, you may find that literature provides an insight beyond that of your own experiences.
>> No. 4937 Anonymous
19th January 2013
Saturday 7:16 pm
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A brave new world was very cool
>> No. 4938 Anonymous
19th January 2013
Saturday 9:55 pm
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Interestingly, one of my lecturers was talking about the differences between films and novels yesterday, and mentioned that there has been the suggestion that novels are about conveying ideas, whereas films are about conveying emotions. I think he said he disagreed, and definitely said there are examples where this isn't true, but I can see why some people would have that impression.
>> No. 4939 Anonymous
21st January 2013
Monday 11:52 am
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>>4938
One of the big differences I can see is that novels are something you read, and films are something you watch on the telly.
>> No. 4940 Anonymous
21st January 2013
Monday 2:04 pm
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>>4934
>Spending your entire life reading is just as narrow as spending it on the Xbox.
While I see where you're coming from, there are less than 2000 original xbox games and more than that many books are released every day*, with a much broader range of subject matter, style, cultural context and blah-de-blah. I don't think it's true to say they're equally narrow.


*This is a fact I just made up

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>> No. 4819 Anonymous
16th October 2012
Tuesday 11:56 pm
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Hey there, /lit/. Do you remember any books which inspired you as a child? I'm very interested to see what you were all reading when you were all young'ins, doubly so if those books gave you an interest in science and space.
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>> No. 4915 Anonymous
7th January 2013
Monday 5:00 pm
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This started my passion for Science, it was a rainy Sunday and with nothing else to do I just started reading it.
>> No. 4916 Anonymous
7th January 2013
Monday 5:16 pm
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When I was about five I spent all my time looking at atlases. Even today I still know the capitals and flags and shapes and neighbours and rough populations and relative GDPs of a million countries.
>> No. 4917 Anonymous
7th January 2013
Monday 7:32 pm
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>>4872
Have you read "If you liked school you've love work?"
>> No. 4918 Anonymous
7th January 2013
Monday 9:18 pm
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>>4917
Yes, and the rest, except the most recent one which I only just learned about just now. Might toddle off to Amazon and get it.

Of all his books, Filth left the most lasting mark, being utterly vile. I've read other books that are way off the weird and over-the-top end of disgusting - Naked Lunch being the obvious choice, also pretty much anything published by Savoy (Motherfuckers: The Auschwitz of Oz, yes that is a book) - but nothing else has made me feel physically dirty after reading it to the extent that Filth did. Crime was the least rewarding, being a ham-fisted retelling of Nabokov's finest (the previous one was a take on Dorian Gray and was ok).
>> No. 4935 Anonymous
18th January 2013
Friday 9:31 am
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The Great Big Book of Space is my earliest book memory. I remember looking at a picture of the Horse Head nebula in it. I remember feeling literally dizzy. And then I read that what I was looking at was a photograph.

I also loved the "how things work" books and the giant cutaway books. Basically anything that featured intricate technical illustrations was something I loved as a kid, and still do. Definitely got me interested in engineering in general, though it's not the path I've taken career wise, I'm the only person in my peer group that could rewire a house. I also take apart pretty much everything I buy.

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>> No. 4898 Anonymous
29th December 2012
Saturday 5:51 pm
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History books. Any recommendations?

I've read Agincourt by Juliet Barker and it was fucking excellent. The Perfect King: Edward III was also a good book, and I want to pick up a recent one on Edward I. Anyone got any recommendations for good history books?

I have a particular interest in British and European history from around 400-500AD (When the Romans left Britain) up to around 1600, and European colonial and the development of Empire from 1600 and 1945.

History general.
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>> No. 4903 Anonymous
31st December 2012
Monday 3:10 pm
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>>4898

Richard Gott's book on the British Empire is excellent, as it is based almost completely on the multi volume history of the British Army and contains numerous accounts of eyewitnesses, letters home and so on which humanise the executors of Imperial development with unusual clarity.

It's also full of quirky details, such as Tippu's Tiger- a picture of which adorns the front cover.
>> No. 4905 Anonymous
1st January 2013
Tuesday 10:38 pm
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>>4903

I prefer Lawrence James' Rise and Fall, since it studiously provides global context to Da Empire's wheelings and dealings.
>> No. 4907 Anonymous
1st January 2013
Tuesday 11:02 pm
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>>4898
>I want to pick up a recent one on Edward I

Marc Morris's "A great and terrible king" is very good. I also recommend his new book on the norman conquest

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