Pride male
Hummingbird
^If you havent read Dianetics, dont.
Must-not read books
- Thread starter Pride male
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Truth Teller said:
I put in my post 2nd from the top :angel:
Re: Catcher in the Rye
I think it's an excellent book, and a literary classic.
Holden Caulfield isn't a typical sympathetic narrator though, I don't think you're really supposed to like him at all. I think he's entertaining in an anti-establishment and rebellious sort of way, at first it's kind of funny how he tells everyone off and calls everyone phony. But the more you learn about him the more you realize you are in the mind of a man who is slowly losing his sanity and his grip on reality. I've read it in different times in my life and had very different reactions to it as well. When I was in high school it was a funny rebellious book to me, as an adult it's more of a reality kick to the face for today's youth. It's also quite realistic, young adulthood/college is the most likely time for people to develop mental illnesses, and it's a very true to life picture of a boy trying and struggling to be a man, but coming apart at the seams internally and externally.
I think it's an excellent book, and a literary classic.
Holden Caulfield isn't a typical sympathetic narrator though, I don't think you're really supposed to like him at all. I think he's entertaining in an anti-establishment and rebellious sort of way, at first it's kind of funny how he tells everyone off and calls everyone phony. But the more you learn about him the more you realize you are in the mind of a man who is slowly losing his sanity and his grip on reality. I've read it in different times in my life and had very different reactions to it as well. When I was in high school it was a funny rebellious book to me, as an adult it's more of a reality kick to the face for today's youth. It's also quite realistic, young adulthood/college is the most likely time for people to develop mental illnesses, and it's a very true to life picture of a boy trying and struggling to be a man, but coming apart at the seams internally and externally.
Eat Pray Love
Must not read but more importantly must not buy. I didn't want this cunt to get any more money so I bought a used copy at Goodwill then threw it away.
It is a horrifying tale indeed. Rich bitch leaves her husband who wanted kids to travel around spending money at Indian spiritual retreats and ends up with an old Brazilian man that gives her constant attention.
Must not read but more importantly must not buy. I didn't want this cunt to get any more money so I bought a used copy at Goodwill then threw it away.
It is a horrifying tale indeed. Rich bitch leaves her husband who wanted kids to travel around spending money at Indian spiritual retreats and ends up with an old Brazilian man that gives her constant attention.
FireStarter
Woodpecker
I liked the writing style of On the Road. But there was no story, no plot. Just Jack describing a couple years of his life.
If there was a point to this book I didn't see it.
I'll second anyone who put On the Road by Jack Kerouac on the Must Not Read list.
Another one to second is The Celestine Prophecy. I started reading it but it was just boring.
And one that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He has some valid points but the useful stuff he writes could be said in 10 pages. The rest is either garbage or just filler.
If there was a point to this book I didn't see it.
I'll second anyone who put On the Road by Jack Kerouac on the Must Not Read list.
Another one to second is The Celestine Prophecy. I started reading it but it was just boring.
And one that hasn't been mentioned in this thread is The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle. He has some valid points but the useful stuff he writes could be said in 10 pages. The rest is either garbage or just filler.
emuelle1 said:
It's funny how medieval writers such as Augustine were much more open minded than contemporary pastor-writers on subject of pretty much anything.
Pastor writers are obsessed about seeing satan in everything. Their satan-centered worldview made me try to skip such passages in past, then get annoyed by seeing repetition of that pattern, and ultimately, i just stopped reading what preachers have to say on secular topics.
And i say this as a believer. It's sad when you enjoy more a discussion with a new age liberal nowadays than with a deluded blue pill preacher who cannot move past a 1920's lynch mob Christian mentality, despite displaying high intellectual competence otherwise.
"The female man" by feminist Joanna Russ. Some people say you should read what your enemy wrote to get informations, but I think that advice only holds if your enemy is male. That woman was simply screwed up.
Don't know about Eat, Pray, Love.
Don't know about Eat, Pray, Love.
I realize I am a little late to the discussion here, but I disagree about "Guns, Germs and Steel." If anything, it's a fairly red pill book, with a sort of "might makes right" theme. Or at least, Jared Diamond tries to explain how some civilizations got the "might" (and had no problems using it) while others didn't, or more accurately, couldn't. More importantly, he backs up his assertions with data from archaeologists and paleontologists, as you might expect from someone who is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
When I was younger, I had two roomates who were deep into Scientology. They both woke up one day and realized it was a cult and left. But they both still maintained that the Dianetics auditing was the most effective thing they ever did.
Koran - I'm sick of hearing about Islam and don't intend to ever read this trash.
Koran - I'm sick of hearing about Islam and don't intend to ever read this trash.
Pride male
Hummingbird
Hannibal said:
I stand by your analysis.
Pride male said:
What is wrong with Dianetics? Is that the scientology book?
My current favorite author, speaker, sales trainer, and all around bad mother fucker has recommended Dianetics highly but I've never bothered to look into it.
ETA: The Dianetics book I am referring to is by L Ron Hubbard. Maybe you got the cheap Chinese knockoff version written by Steve Hubbard. Either way, what is the main criticism?
Pride male
Hummingbird
Chauncey said:
It sounded like mambo jambo. Or maybe I am just thick.
Alsos
Kingfisher
"The Road". I've read a lot of books that were not very good. I've read a very few books that weren't worth finishing. Not once have I read a book that inspired in me such visceral, passionate hatred of it.
Five years after reading it I still can't put into words how much I hate that book and why. Suffice to say it had no plot and no explanation for the situation, despicable characters and gratuitous shock-value scenes, and page after page of blatant, ham-fisted, sledgehammer-subtle attempts at emotional manipulation. I forced myself to finish it, hoping that there would be some payoff at the end, some explanation for all that happened, something to make their grocery-cart-pushing quest across post-apolcalypse America meaningful and worthwhile. Imagine my disappointment when the father gets killed pointlessly at the last minute before rescue, leaving the little boy, who repeatedly deserved to die himself, to be taken in by an enclave of survivors, apparently unfazed by everything that's happened to him and the world around him.
I should have known better. It boasted an Oprah Book Club recommendation right on the cover.
Five years after reading it I still can't put into words how much I hate that book and why. Suffice to say it had no plot and no explanation for the situation, despicable characters and gratuitous shock-value scenes, and page after page of blatant, ham-fisted, sledgehammer-subtle attempts at emotional manipulation. I forced myself to finish it, hoping that there would be some payoff at the end, some explanation for all that happened, something to make their grocery-cart-pushing quest across post-apolcalypse America meaningful and worthwhile. Imagine my disappointment when the father gets killed pointlessly at the last minute before rescue, leaving the little boy, who repeatedly deserved to die himself, to be taken in by an enclave of survivors, apparently unfazed by everything that's happened to him and the world around him.
I should have known better. It boasted an Oprah Book Club recommendation right on the cover.
jessaragen
Chicken
Never read Rush by Ive Sylver. I have been translating it for 6 months because I can't make myself do this - it is so boring....
Frank Herbert's Dune. A girl I was seeing gave me a copy of this and I could never make much headway with it. It's the kind of book 14 year olds and women like, the ones who are perpetually 14. What a fucking yawn.
http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/no-really-dune-fucking-sucks-part-one-introduction-project
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, etc. Ayn Rand was a fucked-up bitch like most of 'em. Libertarians need to find some better bibles.
Spengler's The Decline of the West. There are probably some gems in here somewhere, but good luck with this one.
I don't particularly like 1984, but it is a must-read book.
http://www.wetasphalt.com/content/no-really-dune-fucking-sucks-part-one-introduction-project
Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, etc. Ayn Rand was a fucked-up bitch like most of 'em. Libertarians need to find some better bibles.
Spengler's The Decline of the West. There are probably some gems in here somewhere, but good luck with this one.
I don't particularly like 1984, but it is a must-read book.
Germanicus
Kingfisher
Hannibal said:
I tried to read it before my first deployment to Afghanistan to get a try to gain insight into their culture. I tried a couple of different translations. All were awful and I gave up with disgust. I have zero clue how Islam can be so spiritually inspiring to anyone. I can see where and why people would be inspired and devoted to many of the other world's religions, but Islam is drawing a complete zero on that front. The Koran read like bragging and posturing and was short of a sense of spirituality or intellectuality.
Pride male said:
Nope, you're on the right track. Dianetics is made up bullshit by sociopath L. Ron Hubbard who was trying to take advantage of a craze for psychology in the years directly after WW2. This was before he decided that religion was the better con for money and influence and went to pull the even more retarded Scientology out of his ass. What's wrong with it? It's a book that rips off psychological theories and cliches that were popular in the mid 20th century and adds in a bunch of scientific sounding jargon. If anyone recommends it, I recommend you scoffing in contempt. Unless your bad ass motherfucker is seeking a way to rip off the gullible and the ignorant.
Alsos said:
I don't think it was quite that bad, but it still wasn't a good book. Cormac McCarthy is a literary attention whore and notorious for overwriting, being smug, and angling to be a "wordsmith," i.e. what literary critics jerk off to.
Yeah, that the Fat Bitch with the 95 IQ --Oprah-- thought it special definitely makes sense. Birds of a shit feather...
XPQ22 said:
I did read Dune as a 14 year old. I liked it then and I like it now. Some people just can't get into science fiction, which is fine. Frank Herbert's writing style also comes off as pretentious so that can make it hard for some people to warm up to it as well. For all that Herbert had a good amount of red pill truths in his Dune books -- genetics as a determinate in human outcomes, human inequality as a fact and not something to be upset about, and the inherent inefficiency and tendency to tyranny in large-scale government being three off the top of my head. He also displayed a ridiculous beyond blue pill worship of women in the Dune books. He was raised by his aunts and they were devout Catholics and very learned and intellectual so his dealings and ideas of women were colored by this. Because he grew up with positive, quality women he just could not understand that most of the rest of femaledom wasn't anywhere near that standard. The follow-up sequels and prequels written by his son are utter garbage. He had another son who became a gay rights activist, and then died of AIDS (go figure).
Spengler is dense, there's gems in there, all right. But you're going wadding that's for damn sure. Same thing with any large literary or historical surveys like Toynbee.
1984? We had this tussle already
It's all good, brother.Lol, I loved Atlas Shrugged. Still my favourite book ever. I can't remember what I searched for to discover it, something like "what is a book thats actually against leftist bullshit". Man it really was that. I used to come home every day after work, pour a drink, and enjoy. It certainly doesn't belong in this thread. I recognize that Ayn Rand was messed up in the head, but so was Mozart. If you ignore her fucked up or empty attitudes towards sex and family, everything else is great. Give credit where it's due.