Red Mosquito

Strat wrote:Do you feel it has enhanced your reading capabilities and productivity?

Sort of. I can put graphic novels and books on the ipad much easier than I could the kindle. And it helps that they're in color now.

I can tell you that I have watched one movie on the ipad and even then I didn't get all the way through. I can't seem to watch videos on anything other than my Vita or the television. I think the Vita is because of it's size - no one but me will know I'm watching terrible movies - and the TV because then it's big enough for the experience. Just feels awkward on the ipad.

Stardog Champion wrote:I know there are a lot of Dark Tower fans on here, so I'm hoping some of them can help. I've started Wolves of the Calla, and I'm incredibly bored by it after the first 100 pages. Am I going to have to force myself through 700+ pages or does this thing get better at some point? Am I expecting too much after the excellence of Wizard and Glass?

To be honest it doesn't surprise me. For me, that was a six-year wait between books and he very nearly didn't get to finish the series so I thought it was great. Loved the pandering with Doctor Doom and Harry Potter and Star Wars. Going from IV to V in a short span of time would be jarring. A little eye-rolly with some of his inside jokes in the book, like where Black 13 ends up.

Though now I want to do a re-read and my queue is already unmanageable so I don't know how I'll do it.

Simple Torture wrote:BTW reading this on my Kindle right now:

Strat wrote:Any Kindle users here?

I strongly back the kindle lines that have the e-ink technology (mine's a paperwhite model, I think? Circa 2014). It's really great on the eyes, and it doesn't keep me up at night the way staring at a phone does. I have a lot of PDF reading and I cannot read on the computer (the blue light, the distractions, etc) so I use mine a lot. I can't imagine reading on an iPad or any of the Kindle Fire models with internet, though--being away from apps and notifications is like, part of the point for me. Also, Kindle titles are great for reading in foreign languages since they have an on-board dictionary that's pretty good.

I still prefer a print book, especially for heavy theory or big tomes, but like ST said, being able to search is huge for academic stuff. Also it's nice when I think about shelf space--there's a lot of books I want to read but don't necessarily want to own.

durdencommatyler wrote:

Stardog Champion wrote:I know there are a lot of Dark Tower fans on here, so I'm hoping some of them can help. I've started Wolves of the Calla, and I'm incredibly bored by it after the first 100 pages. Am I going to have to force myself through 700+ pages or does this thing get better at some point? Am I expecting too much after the excellence of Wizard and Glass?

Oof. Man, I wish I could help you out. Wolves is my favorite in the series. I was hooked from the jump and couldn't put it down.

Sucks that you're into it. But if you plan on finishing the entire series, then you need to push through. It's a linchpin book. So much that came before fand so much that takes us to the end meets and converges in Wolves.

Your comments, along with Bune's above comments, have made me feel a little better about this book. Maybe I just need to get beyond the opening stories. I just didn't care about Eddie and Jake back in '77 NYC, and the introduction of the Mia persona just felt like "oh no, not another one." It sounds like I may find it a bit more compelling once I get beyond the introductions of these particular paths.

Finished The Luminous Dead today.



I think the fungus was the actual big-bad of the book, just in a way so that you never focused on it too hard. Yeah it was there and it glowed, whoop-dee-doo, but I think it was the zombie ant fungus in her system, making her see what she wanted to see so that she would end up killing herself and making herself food for the fungus.

I think, for the first time in the world, you can say that Twilight had the better love story. This one reminded me of 50 Shades of Gray (no I didn't read it, but I've seen enough in popular culture that I get the gist of it) in that it was such an abusive relationship. I mean, the whole scene with the arm getting cut off? "I'm going to do it!" "No, don't do it!" *whack* "I did it! Why did you let me do it? This is all your fault!" That's just one of fifty (at least) parts of the book where I had to grit my teeth and say "there's gotta be something at the end of this rainbow". Nope.

I listened to this via the Libby app. Before I could listen to it I had to wait for someone else to finish. I had it on hold for about two weeks or so, maybe three. I can only imagine it took that long because the previous reader was also having issues with how slow the book felt.

There are also three people in the queue after me (the app lets you know these things). I just returned it so I feel bad for them. I'm sorry for unleashing this fresh hell on you. My bad.

This was my update today:

Me listening to the amount of insane back and forth in this book:

ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ ಠ_ಠ

Almost done with this one:



Fascinating, but fucking immense.

There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

durdencommatyler wrote:There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

That happened to me once, but it was a Pat Conroy novel called Beach Music.

washing machine wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

That happened to me once, but it was a Pat Conroy novel called Beach Music.

How was it?

I get probably about 15 - 20% of my books from the sidewalk.

durdencommatyler wrote:

washing machine wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

That happened to me once, but it was a Pat Conroy novel called Beach Music.

How was it?

I get probably about 15 - 20% of my books from the sidewalk.

You pick books up on the street in New York?
Make sure you’re flicking through them before you take them home.
Often cavities cut out to hide drugs inside.

If that happens take the book and run home like you have won the golden ticket!

dimejinky99 wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:

washing machine wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

That happened to me once, but it was a Pat Conroy novel called Beach Music.

How was it?

I get probably about 15 - 20% of my books from the sidewalk.

You pick books up on the street in New York?
Make sure you’re flicking through them before you take them home.
Often cavities cut out to hide drugs inside.

If that happens take the book and run home like you have won the golden ticket!

durdencommatyler wrote:

washing machine wrote:

durdencommatyler wrote:There was a copy of The Girl on the Train on the sidewalk. I picked it up. I'm about 30 pages in.

That happened to me once, but it was a Pat Conroy novel called Beach Music.

I get probably about 15 - 20% of my books from the sidewalk.

We're more civilized here. Most people dump their books in those take a book/leave a book boxes in front yards.

How was it?

Conroy writes about the Carolina coast, mostly. As the title suggests, it's a good beach read.

We surf-fished in the breakers catching spottail bass and flounder for dinner. I discovered that summer that I loved to cook and feed my friends, and I enjoyed the sound of their praise as they purred with pleasure at the meals I fixed over glowing iron and fire. I had the run of my grandparents’ garden and I would put ears of sweet corn in aluminum foil after washing them in seawater and slathering them with butter and salt and pepper. Beneath the stars we would eat the beefsteak tomatoes okra and the field peas flavored with salt pork and jalapeno peppers. I would walk through the disciplined rows that brimmed with purple eggplants and watermelons and cucumbers, gathering vegetables. My grandfather, Silas, told us that summer that low country earth was so fertile you could drop a dime into it and grow a money tree.

I need to read something by him.

Maybe try Ghosts.

How I Became a Nun was good, but it's been a while since I've read it.

Simple Torture wrote:Maybe try Ghosts.

I have picked that up about half a dozen times over the last few months. I promised myself I'd get through my stack at home before buying more books, though. I have three more to go.

Started this today and it’s already amazing

LoathedVermin72 wrote:Started this today and it’s already amazing

You read?!?!?