351–360 of 651 posts
438 days. A memoir of a Mexican fisherman that spent over a year drifting across the Pacific Ocean. I’m a sucker for a good survival story and finished it in a day.
Given you like survival stories, I'm guessing you've also read Unbroken. But on the off chance you haven't, definitely check it out!
Thanks for recommending "438 days" - I'm adding it to my list. And yes, I really enjoyed "Unbroken".
That would have to be One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. What a profoundly human book. The kind of book that is very difficult to describe in any meaningful way, but which I unreservedly recommend to anybody.
I read (more accurately listened to) this book a couple of years back. The story itself was engaging and I remember I liked the way everything was described. Once I finished the book though I didn't feel like I took away anything from it. I kind of enjoyed the story, but I have always wondered whether I missed something. Was I supposed to get some understanding of something that was "between the lines"? Did I miss so…
This is a book about the Colombian Caribbean, but also the whole country and the region. At the end it is a book about life. I have always noticed that Anglo readers get too caught up on minor details (the number of Aurelianos, who did this or that) but that is missing the point, this is about the flow of life, the absurdity of human struggles, the magic and terror of being alive, love, senseless violence, hope, all of that expressed in a brilliant prose.
I could continue but this short youtube review has pretty animations and touches some other points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2zhLYz4pYo
In any case, I've read "Mantel Pieces" which is a collection of Hillary Mantel's reviews for the London Review of Books, and it's an insane display of powerful language. Mantel has a brutal clarity coupled with restrained playfulness that just blows me away.
Take this picture of what it must feel like to be a small child:
> “For some time now you have been able to take your eyes off your own feet without the general danger of falling over; that’s the stage of walking you are up to.”
or
> “I’m sticking by my joke. I know it’s ridiculous, but it’s the only joke I’ve got.”
or on Robbespierre:
> “For most people, the era of selfless risk-taking is a phase. It irritates their elders while it lasts; though sometimes, in political movements, those elders find a way to exploit it. But then, if young persons survive their ideals, something happens which surprises them: they learn a trade, they develop ambitions, they fall in love, they get a stake in life. Or simply time passes, and middle age beckons, with its shoddy compromises. But for the Incorruptible, idealism was not a phase. He kept his vision carefully in his head through his twenties and carried it carefully to Versailles, where he arrived a few days before his 31st birthday.”
- the blacktongue thief ; if you love rothfuss, then you’ll love this.
- between two fires ; same author. Really great book about the Black Death but also demons.
- hench ; a normie uses Zersetzung against the alter egos of superheroes. It’s great
- five decembers ; great read, and a clever take on the traditional noir genre
- against the grain
- pre industrial societies
- the other face of battle
The Overstory by Richard Powers. A few touching stories about trees and Americans. One of the best things I've read this decade, perhaps this lifetime.
The final section of The Baroque Cycle. Clever, detailed historical fiction epic about the 1600s and 1700s in Europe, The Middle East, and a bit of North Americas east coast. Interactions between fictional and real characters, without anything that can be proved didn't happen (like The Thee Musketeers). And, just a hint of magic. See Isaac Newton as a precocious Cambridge student probing the universe by maneuvering a…
Although the writing techniques the author presents sound obvious in hindsight, having them all-in one place as an comprehensive framework you can follow helped me a lot for the writing and research in my work
Fiction: The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries
A curated and annotated collection of locked-room mystery stories. All the stories are accompagnied by a small introduction into the author and the main character written by the curator. His enthousiasm shows in these small introductions, making the stories themselves even better.