JUburton wrote:OK maybe by 'usually' I meant if there's a critique it's usually the ending.

didn't mean to single you out, it's just gotten kinda crazy how often I hear it. I think it's partly true I guess, but his good overall books usually have good endings, imo

WheelsFellOff wrote:The It ending works in the context of the Dark Tower though.

might need to re-read it then, haven't touched it since before I read DT

I agree with Didn't I with regards to not really liking the ending of 11/22/63 as well as enjoying the book overall.

Here's my analogy

slugsrbad wrote:Here's my analogy

[Reveal] Spoiler:

11/22/63 was much like LOST. I really enjoyed the build up with the island/time travel, but then it became about love and the ending fell flat.

Good call. Had the same thought while watching the terrible mini series version of it. Time travel stories are hard to wrap up because logic often goes out the window.

Didn't I? wrote:

slugsrbad wrote:Here's my analogy

[Reveal] Spoiler:

11/22/63 was much like LOST. I really enjoyed the build up with the island/time travel, but then it became about love and the ending fell flat.

Good call. Had the same thought while watching the terrible mini series version of it. Time travel stories are hard to wrap up because logic often goes out the window.

The book was always about Jake Epping the person and his experience in that reality like LOST was about Jack and Kate and Sawyer and Sayid etc. Now LOST built up the mythology and the island wayyyy more and thus had a little more payoff but there probably would never be an overall satisfactory ending to that mythos.

11/22/63 could really end one of two ways revolving around whether he did what he was sent to do.

Devil in the White City -- sounds like a biography of the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, amirite -- is really good, and I'm no history buff by any means

the ending is obdurate

Bucky wrote:the ending is obdurate

Blew through Matthew fitzsimmons' "the short drop" a few days ago because it was free on Kindle. Bit cheesy but held my interest til the end

Is it still a right of passage for a certain kind of person to read On the Road as a teenager? I definitely went through that phase, and while I didn't like Kerouac enough to read Dharma Bums or anything else, I liked and still think fondly of Howl and probably read more Burroughs than anyone should. (Though I never did read Junky, and probably won't ever do it.)

I thought this was interesting as far as it goes.

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/the-bea ... eadspin%29

TenuredVulture wrote:Is it still a right of passage for a certain kind of person to read On the Road as a teenager? I definitely went through that phase, and while I didn't like Kerouac enough to read Dharma Bums or anything else, I liked and still think fondly of Howl and probably read more Burroughs than anyone should. (Though I never did read Junky, and probably won't ever do it.)

I thought this was interesting as far as it goes.

http://adequateman.deadspin.com/the-bea ... eadspin%29

My son read it in his mid-20s. Followed up with one of Corso's books, I forget which. That was about it.

Cast your vote for The Diagram Prize for Oddest Book Title of the Year 2015, after reading some of the peculiar/amusing winners from past years' contests

My fave book series:

1. Necroscope - Brian Lumley
2. Hyperion/Endymion - Dan Simmons
3. Game of Thrones - GRR Martin
4. Dune (original series) - Frank Herbert
5. Ender's Game (original series) - Orson Scott Card
6. The Vampire Chronicles (books 1-4) - Anne Rice
7. Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien

Along comes a biography I'll wind up reading: The Whole Harmonium, being about poet/insurance guy Wallace Stevens.

In my life I've memorized 2 poems. One was written by Stevens

If Stevens isn't a model for all us scribbly interneters, I don't know what.

Grotewold wrote:Devil in the White City -- sounds like a biography of the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, amirite -- is really good, and I'm no history buff by any means

I may be weird but I ended up way more interested in the fair and how it came together than in Holmes.

Has anyone here read The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August?

JUburton wrote:

Grotewold wrote:Devil in the White City -- sounds like a biography of the president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts, amirite -- is really good, and I'm no history buff by any means

I may be weird but I ended up way more interested in the fair and how it came together than in Holmes.

Most striking to me is all the gum disease. Here are the titans of industry who would probably suck a dick for some Nyquill

Read Slade House the other week and now Billion Dollar Spy which is interesting but I probably could have done as well with a longform piece rather than a 350 page book.

Also who the hell is the market for a $300 kindle?

http://gizmodo.com/what-your-need-to-kn ... 1770691363

reading Think Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman. it's a pretty well known book about cognitive science, and the different "systems" we have for thinking. our intuitive/impulsive side as "System 1" and the more analytical side of "System 2." a lot of it is about how System 1 will take short cuts to quickly solve problems because we're inherently lazy, and how we use what they call heuristics to solve easier an easier, somewhat associated question when faced with a difficult question. it's quite hard to read big chunks at a time because it engages System 2 quite frequently, but I really like it so far.

Youseff wrote:reading Think Fast & Slow by Daniel Kahneman. it's a pretty well known book about cognitive science, and the different "systems" we have for thinking. our intuitive/impulsive side as "System 1" and the more analytical side of "System 2." a lot of it is about how System 1 will take short cuts to quickly solve problems because we're inherently lazy, and how we use what they call heuristics to solve easier an easier, somewhat associated question when faced with a difficult question. it's quite hard to read big chunks at a time because it engages System 2 quite frequently, but I really like it so far.

I liked it but holy hell did it take me forever.