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  • 16 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 18th, 2023
  • Bldck@beehaw.orgtoBooks@lemmy.ml•Have you read Babel by R.F. Kuang? Did you like it?English
    3·
    6 hours ago

    Honestly, I read the book 2 years ago. I rarely review books when I read them, but this book I took the time to write one.

    Like I said, the academic linguistics side of this was fascinating. I still refer back to the lesson on translation the word ciao and how complex one word is. Before you even get to tone, content, sentence structure or any of the other complexities of language.

    The magic side of it felt shoehorned into the book to make writing a conclusion easier. As you read it, imagine removing the magic and the plot is guided by less arcane happenings. How much could happen with just the bureaucracy, imperialism and capitalism?

    Let alone… this is a world with literal magic. And history happened exactly as the real world? No difference except shellfish at a ball in the 1800s

  • Bldck@beehaw.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What books do you consider must reads?English
    1·
    2 months ago

    The Passenger is mild… but only half the story. You want to read the companion novel Stella Maris too

    Some of his books are fucked up. The Road and Blood Meridian are stomach turning, gut-wrenching explorations of the awful side of humans.

    All the Pretty Horses is: young man likes horses. Moves to Mexico to work on a ranch. Young man falls in love with woman. Hijinks. horses. Done

  • Bldck@beehaw.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•What books do you consider must reads?English
    81·
    2 months ago

    • All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing are beautiful western novels by Cormac McCarthy. Both are very much “a boy and his horse” kind of stories about learning to be yourself. They’re loosely related and there’s a third book that brings the boys together and concludes their stories

    • The Jungle and Oil! by Upton Sinclair are novelizations of Sinclair’s investigative journalism work in the meat packing industry and the nascent workers rights movement respectively. Oil! was very loosely adapted into the film There Will Be Blood (the film covers maybe the first 3-4 chapters by greatly expanding upon the material

    • Hatchet by Gary Paulsen was a very impactful book for me as a child. It’s a YA novel, but still worth a read. The main character Brian survives a plane crash in the Canadian wilderness and is forced to find a way to survive on his own

    A few more recent novels that I enjoyed:

    • Prophet Song by Paul Lynch. Won the 2024 Booker Prize (best English language novel) about an authoritarian government taking power in Ireland and how that unfolds from the perspective of a mother with young children. It’s a hard read, but very well written

    • Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez. Translated into English. A friend described it as “sexy witches in South America deal with authoritarian rule.” And that’s pretty close…

    • Same Bed Different Dreams by Ed Park. A semi-fictionalized history of the Korean Peninsula and the desire to have a unified identity. Many people come to the peninsula (same bed) with very different goals for its use (different dreams). Really fascinating book and engaging

    • Tomorrow, and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin. Follows a trio of friends as they explore the world of video game design. Starts in the early 80s and runs through the 2000s. Reminder me very much of the show Halt and Catch Fire.

    • My Friends by Hisham Matar. Follows a Libyan immigrant living in England in the 80s through 2010s as he wrestles with his identity, his homeland, his friends and family. Khaled’s closest friends serve as foils to his own feelings, reacting to the same circumstances very differently from himself

  • Bldck@beehaw.orgtoAsklemmy@lemmy.ml•TV nerds: what should I watchEnglish
    3·
    3 months ago

    My top ten-ish tv shows

    1. The Wire
    2. Bojack Horseman
    3. Patriot
    4. The Americans
    5. Better Off Ted
    6. Arrested Development
    7. Pushing Daisies
    8. Gravity Falls
    9. The Bear

    Honorable Mentions

    1. Over the garden wall
    2. Luther
    3. Friday Night Lights
    4. The Queen’s Gambit
    5. GLOW
    6. Mindhunter
    7. Sports Night
    8. The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
    9. Atlanta