No.13968 [View All]
Post the last book(s) you have read. It would be nice if you add a synopsis or review as well, but it's not a requirement. Just seeing a snapshot of what other image-board anons are reading is itself awesome.
New feature for 2018! This thread is set to Cycle mode. Here's to a forever book reading thread.
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No.16536
Finished this collection of E. F. Benson’s ghost-stories spook stories a while back. M. R. James ranked Benson’s ghost stories highly, but accused him of sometimes “stepping over the line of legitimate horridness”. IMHO that is not all that accurate, as I found that his stories lacked that final stab of horror you tend to get in James’ stories. The ghosts are more often actual ghosts, instead of the elementals, daemons or enteties that are far harder to categorise in James’ own stories. I believe James could be alluding to Benson’s depiction of atrocities like suicides, murder, and cruelty.
Benson’s protagonists are also very sociable and outdoor types, who enjoy bathing in the ocean, hiking, skiing, ice skating, playing golf, driving motorcars, and hunting. They are bachelor gentlemen who enjoy their surroundings with close friends, playing golf and bridge and staying at seaside towns in peace and quiet during the silly season. His female characters are rare, but when they occur they are fleshed out and interesting, and there is even a female protagonist on occasion.
In terms of writing-style, Benson uses a richer, more colourful language than James – the dialogue is also better and more natural IMHO. His stories are also more often set in the then present day, and they are much more varied – his stories includes ghosts, elementals and vampires and undead ghouls from the grave. Some are science-fiction-esque, and there is mention of Einstein’s theories of space and time as well.
Like with James I did pick up certain recurring themes, plot ideas, characters and names in his stories; the limping ghost, a ghost who takes its time approaching and entering a house, the ghostly apparitions of someone who has committed suicide by slitting their throat, and some philosophical ideas about time and ghosts. Séances and spiritualism are also common topics, which is understandable given the time these stories were written.
My favourite spook stories by E. F. Benson:
The Room in the Tower – Vampire story
How Fear Departed from the Long Gallery – Quite a sweet story, but one scene of body horror is quite revolting and terrifying
Caterpillars
The Man Who Went Too Far – A favourite of H. P. Lovecraft
Between the Lights
Outside the Door
The Other Bed
The Thing in the Hall
The House with the Brick-Kiln
“And the Dead Spake…” – Similar to H. P. Lovecraft’s ‘Herbert West — Reanimator’
The Outcast – References the myth of the Wandering Jew?
Negotium Perambulans – Very fine story; another favourite of H. P. Lovecraft, and feels like a blend of HPL & MRJ
Mrs Amworth – Very fine and eerie vampire story. Underrated! Adapted two times (1975 & 2008)
The Horror-Horn – Very interesting and fine story with several allusions to the works of Friedrich Nietzsche
The Face – Female protagonist! Features the motif of a eerie recurring dream
“And No Birds Sing” – Very good and eerie story; feels very Jamesian, and features an elemental similar to the one in ‘Negotium Perambulans’
The Temple – Truly great! Very interesting mystery. Another Cornwall setting, with two gentlemen friends looking for the remnants of a prehistoric Stonehenge circle
The Wishing-Well – Witchcraft in Cornwall
Pirates – A wonderfully melancholic, sweet and deeply personal and semi-autobiographical story
The Sanctuary – Comfy setting & eerie atmosphere; very underrated story about Satanism/Devil worship & ghosts
https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/b/benson/ef/
https://archive.org/stream/spookstories00bensuoft
http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/1906/benson-more-spook-stories
http://vaultofevil.proboards.com/thread/5013/benson-night-terrors-ghost-stories
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No.16539
>>16536
I'm intruiged. How does his writing style compare to Lovecraft's?
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No.16541
>>16539
“Lovecraft’s prose style has engendered widely divergent judgments, from the towering condemnation of Edmund Wilson to the adulation of his colleagues and disciples, who have sought to imitate (usually in vain) both his stylistic richness and his verbal witchery. Put very simply, Lovecraft’s style is a melding of scientific realism and evocative prose-poetry. One is certainly free to dislike the style and to prefer the spareness of Hemingway or Sherwood Anderson; but it would be difficult to deny its appropriateness for Lovecraft’s type of imaginative effect. At its best Lovecraft’s work becomes a kind of incantation, seducing the mind into a momentary acceptance of the fantastic incidents being related. At worst it becomes pompous and bombastic.”
— S. T. Joshi in the Introduction to his annotated “The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories”
Benson is more “modern” and less “dense” than Lovecraft in writing-style, but he is no less colourful and enchanting, and there are some beautiful and some ghastly parts that stick with you long after you’ve closed the book. Unlike Lovecraft he doesn’t use the story within a story within a story narrative device, where a character finds a document telling a story of a story that author had heard. There is less purple prose (“evocative prose-poetry”), but a more refined, to-the-point technique. Quite a few of his spook stories are satirical and take shots at fraudulent mediums and the public’s perception of ghosts. Think the style Lovecraft used for the hotel and subsequent chase scenes in ‘The Shadow Over Innsmouth’.
Some of the elementals that appear are quite Lovecraftian in their description, but there is no sense of cosmic dread at the end. Instead of some uncaring, malevolent entity threatening humanity at large, there tends to be a vengeful spirit or elemental. Quite a few stories concern two gentlemen spending holidays at some sea-side town and them being the witness to some vengeful ghost seeking revenge on someone. Often the protagonist and his friend(s) are observers to this revenge. In his best stories he makes the protagonist more involved and brings them into direct contact with unseen forces of malice.
Benson, like M. R. James, wrote traditional ghost stories – standalone stories meant to spook the reader, rather than the more difficult, esoteric cosmic horror and dense writing-style of Lovecraft. James’ stories were meant to be read aloud at Christmas, perhaps Benson’s were as well. His spook stories often follow the same structure and “rules” of M. R. James – establishing a comfy atmosphere with characters who enjoy themselves, and then introducing the malevolent force. Some stories suffer from being predictable, but at his best his stories feel more natural than James’ antiquarian ghost-stories.
If you want stories that are closest to Lovecraft in terms of themes, I’d recommend these:
Caterpillars
The Man Who Went Too Far
Between the Lights
The Thing in the Hall
“And the Dead Spake…”
Negotium Perambulans
The Horror-Horn
“And No Bird Sing”
The Temple
The Sanctuary
I first encountered Benson’s stories in a collection called ‘The World’s Best Ghost Stories’. Two of his stories were included: The Man Who Went Too Far & Negotium Perambulans. I would probably recommend you start with Negotium Perambulans – it has a very Lovecraftian eldritch elemental, and makes you familiar with Benson’s writing-style at the same time. “And No Bird Sing” is another great story to start off it.
Negotium Perambulans was covered a while back in an episode of A Podcast to the Curious: http://www.mrjamespodcast.com/2019/03/episode-70-negotium-perambulans-by-e-f-benson/
You can find free, professional readings of several of Benson’s spook stories available for download here: https://corvidae.co.uk/benson/
“These stories have been written in the hopes of giving some pleasant qualms to their reader, so that, if by chance, anyone may be occupying in their perusal a leisure half-hour before he goes to bed when the night and house are still, he may perhaps cast an occasional glance into the corners and dark places of the room where he sits, to make sure that nothing unusual lurks in the shadow. For this is the avowed object of ghost-stories and such tales as deal with the dim unseen forces which occasionally and perturbingly make themselves manifest. The author therefore fervently wishes his readers a few uncomfortable moments.”
— E. F. Benson
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No.16549
Red Badge of Courage. Does anybody have any thoughts on this book?
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No.16550
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No.16564
Red Badge of Courage. Does anyone have any thoughts on this book?
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No.16572
Sorry for making a new thread; I meant to post this here. I'm reading this. The writing is dry. Does anybody have any suggestions for books about the Russian Revolution?
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No.16573
>>15468
Can you provide an example of something that would have been censored?
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No.16641
just re-read Gold in The Furnance pretty good account of post-war Germany and The allies's occupation. A bit too much Hindu stuff but I see where of fits in, alot of religons have similar themes of the natural order but Natsoc can be a religion in it's self so I don't see the point.
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No.16647
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No.16661
After finishing E. F. Benson’s collection of ghost stories I was on the lookout for more classic ghost stories, and this 1943 collection of nine stories by Richard Henry Malden caught my attention. The nine stories in his collection “were written at irregular intervals between the years 1909 and 1942.”
Devotees of M. R. James antiquarian ghost-stories will be very pleased with this collection, as Malden’s stories are very much in the vein of the Jamesian antiquarian ghost-stories; male bachelor protagonists with antiquarian and genealogical interests and a love for old country houses and church architecture, Latin inscriptions, old documents, brass rubbings in churches…
Like James, Malden attended Eton & King’s College, Cambridge, and his love of the past is obvious from the first, and earliest, story in the volume. James & Malden were lifelong friends, and Malden acknowledges James as a source of inspiration in his preface. There are several similarities in the stories that carry over from James’ to Malden’s stories, and two bits in particular must be deliberate nods to James.
The two finest stories in the collection would IMHO be The Dining-room Fireplace & The Sundial. These are top notch. A Collector’s Company, Stivinghoe Bank, Between Sunset and Moonrise, The Blank Leaves & The Thirteenth Tree are also very fine ghost-stories that are well worth a read, and some of the best antiquarian ghost-stories we are likely to find.
In fact, the only stories I found somewhat lacking in that final stab of horror/“Jamesian wallop” would be the two last stories in the collection: The Coxswain of the Lifeboat & The Priest’s Brass.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Malden
Nine Ghosts: http://archive.vn/TaR0I / http://web.archive.org/web/20181226113218/http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0605461h.html
R.H. Malden: http://archive.vn/wZwK
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No.16669
We need to create a situation the next(?) administration won’t want to deal with. We must go protest in front of congress and draw the attention to us and not allow business as usual! We can’t allow totalitarians silence our voices and we need to make ourselves known!
The people totalitarians always imprison is the intellectuals. Intellectuals are always murdered and we must not forget that!
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No.16689
Seems like this board is now claimable. Is the old BO still around?
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No.16690
>>16689
Had to take a bit of a vay kay.
Back. Although, I have some catching up to do.
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No.16726
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No.16727
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No.16747
>>16572
Read Trotsky and John Reed.
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No.16810
The Blood of Elves was kinda boring in my opinion. Nothing quite happened, it set up some plot points for future books I guess. And it didn't focus on Geralt too much more on Ciri. I guess some might like it but I found it to be a drag. Still will continue reading because I don't want to watch the tv series and I don't have a good enough pc to play the games
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No.16811
The Blood of Elves was kinda boring in my opinion. Nothing quite happened, it set up some plot points for future books I guess. And it didn't focus on Geralt too much more on Ciri. I guess some might like it but I found it to be a drag. Still will continue reading because I don't want to watch the tv series and I don't have a good enough pc to play the games.
Now I'm currently reading The First Man in Rome and this is some quality read, just by this I learned a lot about pre Caesar (he is 20 years old or something in the stroy) Roman Republic.Still reading it and half way right now. Love the characters Marius is my favorite but I think Sulla will out wit him some how since he is set up to be ambitious.
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No.16814
I've just finished Roadside Picinic. It's the type of book that has a good concept and that's enough for people I guess because reading through it was a slog. Same goes with Hard to be a God. That one truly was god awful.
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No.16821
>>16811
Decided to drop the Witcher series, it's pretty damn shit. Read the plot on wiki instead.
Still haven't finished The First Man in Rome, still dope.
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No.16830
Any of you guys read this?
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No.16834
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No.16844
Just finished "Meditations" (Marcus Aurelius); just the bits Aurelius wrote, I still have the comments etc (added recently, not in antiquity) to go.
Good read if you're into philosophy.
I was reading some treatises on Sophic rhetoric but I lost the links, will probably seek them out again.
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No.16892
>>16834
Pointless reply: why do that?
>>16830
I read it long ago, and suspect that much depends on the translator (I don't know Latin well enough to do without facing page English). Do you sense the authorial voice is the same man who wrote about bees, and composed anti-modernist eclogues? It's not as compelling, for me, as the Homeric epic which it imitates, but the story of the author's attempts to regain his lands; and then his attempts to merely to keep his life; makes this offering-to-empire tragically interesting. Also, the Dido episode is the reason that ordinary folk in our era have heard of Carthage.
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No.16902
>>16892
I haven't read the Eclouges or the Georgics so I would not be able to compare Virgil's epic poetry to his pastoral poetry. I felt that the translator did a good job because I was felt so impressed and moved by Virgil's poetry that I re-read the Aeneid like five times in less than half a year.
Nice pic. I'm reading the Metamorphoses now.
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No.16914
I only read textbooks. Hey, I also wouldn't mind going to a сollege and most importantly, do you know how to get the best grades? It's quite simple. Now there are a lot of online companies that provide writing services for students, for example, I really trust this one https://8kun.top/lit/
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No.16935
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No.16938
>>16572
Bulgakov's The White Guard; Gladkov's Cement; Platonov's The Foundation Pit; Babel's Red Cavalry
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No.16939
>>16830
>>16892
I agree Homer is more compelling than Virgil, though I love Virgil equally. Do you prefer the Iliad or the Odyssey?
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No.16940
>>16830
If you enjoy the Aeneid, you may like Euripides as well; I'm not quite sure why, but his style of characterization in places seems similar to Virgil's.
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No.16941
>>16902
How are you liking the Metamorphoses? I couldn't get into it as much as I could with the Aeneid, which was weird because I love Ovid. Have you read the Art of Love?
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No.16942
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No.16943
>>16572
Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is post-revolution but one of the best books I have ever read. It gives a good feel for St. Petersburg during the 1940s, and makes for even more interesting reading in conjunction with Andrei Bely's Petersburg, as Bulgakov seems to be taking the almost inscrutable Symbolist fracturing Bely exemplifies and turning it into a more coherent, compelling narrative.
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No.16944
>>16123
Agree re. Kleist. Have you read The Monk by Monk Lewis?
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No.16961
Good afternoon! Found a cool site https://smuglo.li/fanfic/ with reviews by experts on completing math assignments. If you want, go and select the one you need. I was saved more than once. It's hard to trust just anyone, and on the review site, everything is checked for quality. And I have not yet been let down.
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No.17003
The last book I finished was Save Yourself and Other Stories by Merin Wexler. It says on the cover it makes life crises hilarious and painful at the same time and in a way it did. However I was expecting milk and I got periods. After a while it got better and I'll probably read it again and again. Then I got Cat Person and Other Stories by Kristen Roupenian and that was even worse. It had the life crises again only this time it left me feeling filthy. I only read a few of the stories and I don't plan on finishing it.
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No.17019
No, really.
Not my kind of pro-White, NatSoc literature. Kind of strange Siege has been memed as cutting edge for years, when it reads as very dated. It was published as a series of newsletters in the 1980s and has that feel.
Mainly read as an experience.
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No.17031
A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
equally as jaded as these concentrated fags
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No.17039
I read the book Cat Man. In a way, it made an impression on me. It's a short story that made American Kristen Rupenian famous in an instant. And afterwards I engaged in a search for the best sop editing services https://www.sopservices.net/ because the deadline for submissions was about to expire. And I still haven't found anything to write. The specialists promise to do it promptly for me.
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No.17043
It's a great book, I even thought about writing an essay. But the topic was not quite simple, and I needed help. I turned to https://www.essaygeeks.co.uk, and the experts helped me better understand what I should write about. I'm glad I found this service. Without it, I wouldn't have written such an exciting essay. If you're interested, I can let you read it.
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No.17045
Hello to all book lovers! The last book I read was The Fire Next Time. I really liked it, so I recommend you to go to https://freebooksummary.com/category/the-fire-next-time and check out the summary of this story. Perhaps my recommendation will please some of you. From your advice, I have already added a few books to my list, thanks!
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No.17058
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No.17077
I also read the book of Euclid's Elements, but I forgot a lot of things and haven't understood the subject too well.
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No.17078
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No.17080
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No.17120
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No.17145
To earn the highest badge, you will need to finish every single challenge with a score of exactly 100 points, as this is the minimum requirement. https://moto-x3m.io/
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No.17267
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No.17669
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