The Koran. It's a complete waste of time.

Quote: (08-27-2016 11:52 PM)Hannibal Wrote:  

The Koran. It's a complete waste of time.

I stand by your analysis.

Quote: (02-06-2016 02:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

There is a good thread about must read books. Here you can post shitty books you didnt enjoy. I will start

Dianetics by Steve Hubbard. Couldnt make it past the first chapter.

The Koran.

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?

Quote: (08-27-2016 11:52 PM)Hannibal Wrote:  

The Koran. It's a complete waste of time.

I second and third this.

Quote: (08-28-2016 04:33 AM)Chauncey Wrote:  

Quote: (02-06-2016 02:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

There is a good thread about must read books. Here you can post shitty books you didnt enjoy. I will start

Dianetics by Steve Hubbard. Couldnt make it past the first chapter.

The Koran.

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?

It sounded like mambo jambo. Or maybe I am just thick.

"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.

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-rea...on-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.

Quote: (08-27-2016 11:52 PM)Hannibal Wrote:  

The Koran. It's a complete waste of time.

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.

Quote: (08-28-2016 06:58 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

Quote: (08-28-2016 04:33 AM)Chauncey Wrote:  

Quote: (02-06-2016 02:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

There is a good thread about must read books. Here you can post shitty books you didnt enjoy. I will start

Dianetics by Steve Hubbard. Couldnt make it past the first chapter.

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?

It sounded like mambo jambo. Or maybe I am just thick.

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.

Quote: (09-01-2016 12:00 AM)Alsos Wrote:  

"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.

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...

Quote: (09-07-2016 07:21 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

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-rea...on-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.

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.

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:26 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

Quote: (08-27-2016 11:52 PM)Hannibal Wrote:  

The Koran. It's a complete waste of time.

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.

I still remember being in middle school and listening to the men who went to church and farmed and what they had to say about Islam.

One guy said, "Well, it's all 'death to the infidels' and that's us."

The other guy said, "Then they praise God for it."

Third guy, "Yep."

That was fifteen years ago.

It's amazing how such a simple explanation could get mired down with so much political correctness and bullshit.

It's not like Islam hides it's aggression or anything, the pseudo intellectuals among us crave a more "nuanced" explanation for everything because they don't believe anything could be that simple.

Worth noting that the Koran isn't considered "all Islam". All the details are filled in by the model life of the prophet Muhammed. And if anything that makes it much worse.

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:26 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

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.

I like some science fiction. Part of the issue I have with Dune and many other "science fiction" novels is there doesn't seem to actually be much science to it. What is the Spice, exactly? Why does it do what it does? AFAIK we never find out the "whys" of stuff like that; they're just vehicles for the story. Might as well be magic. For my taste it feels too much like regular "wizards and dragons" fantasy, but set in space.

I like some stuff by authors like Stephen Baxter, Clarke, Larry Niven (Lucifer's Hammer was one of the better books about the aftermath of a comet impact, though a lot of people didn't like its 'race war' overtones...Niven also seems to be one of the few sci-fi writers who can write about relationships as if he might have actually had sex with a woman in his life; George Lucas certainly hasn't.) William Gibson is pretty good, too.

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:37 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

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.

Oh god no. Atlas Shrugged is an utter pile of dog crap. Severely poorly written, poor characterization, poor plotting, severely ham-handed spouting of dogma, and utter shit pacing-- did it really take 1100 pages to say what it had to say?

There are plenty of much more valuable anti-left books, although, there aren't many quality anti-left works of fiction. Atlas is to the literary anti-left kind of like the Republican Party is to the political anti-left-- talks a good game; not quite walking that talk.

I will credit Rand for some good things in it, though. Specifically she nailed the portrait of the socialite parasite class and the whole "You'll think of something Mr Rearden" theme as they expect other people to pay and sweat for their brainless schemes. Also the steady and stealthy implementation of leftist policy while they deny doing any such thing and the third party observers saying "oh, they can't possibly mean it" while those leftists do mean it and once they achieve it start shifting things even farther leftward. That has been the exact homosexualist and immigration agendas over the past 50 years and Rand called it exactly right. And Ragnar Danneskjold's anti-Marxist piracy is a badass concept that would make a great series of anti-leftist adventure stories.

One day I may sit down and write out a long essay on just why Atlas was poop, Objectivism is retarded, and Rand was an insane cunt. Not today, though. If you found solace in her stuff that's cool with me. I don't want to take that away from you. I just like a good heated but respectful debate. I'm definitely down for guys who see things differently from me coming back at me with facts and having some fun with the debate.

^ I'm pretty sure that Rand was cognizant of the fact that to leftists, as a white male everything is always your fault, even when it's not. I dated a woman who used to say when I talked to her about my past and daily life "Wow, you always seem to be getting in trouble." No, my life is pretty trouble-free compared to probably 90% of guys out there. That "trouble" is just the normal everyday bullshit men have to go through day in and day out while alive, you've just never experienced it because you're a college-educated feminist-leaning urban white girl. You wouldn't be able to live with it for two weeks without breaking down sobbing in a psychiatric ward.

Oh well. It is what it is. But I don't need to read 1000 pages to understand this...

Quote: (09-07-2016 09:00 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:26 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

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.

I like some science fiction. Part of the issue I have with Dune and many other "science fiction" novels is there doesn't seem to actually be much science to it. What is the Spice, exactly? Why does it do what it does? AFAIK we never find out the "whys" of stuff like that; they're just vehicles for the story. Might as well be magic. For my taste it feels too much like regular "wizards and dragons" fantasy, but set in space.

I like some stuff by authors like Stephen Baxter, Clarke, Larry Niven (Lucifer's Hammer was one of the better books about the aftermath of a comet impact, though a lot of people didn't like its 'race war' overtones...Niven also seems to be one of the few sci-fi writers who can write about relationships as if he might have actually had sex with a woman in his life; George Lucas certainly hasn't.) William Gibson is pretty good, too.

It's been said that there are two kinds of science fiction-- world building and world exploring. Explorers will build enough of a world to have their characters experience an imaginative story. Builders will explore enough of a story to ensure their world gets built.

Herbert's scientific background was in biology and psychology and it shows. Those are the topics he wants to concentrate on. He's not too focused on the physics of orinthopters or the exact chemical composition of the spice. The spice itself is supposed to be a mystery and the physics of things are supposed to be a bit alien and confusing-- the story takes place something like 30 thousand years from now and it's part of the psychological effect on the reader.

Other science fiction fans eat up the physics and the hard science elements of writers like Clarke or Niven. Clarke is a bit too mechanical for my taste and I've never read Niven by himself but I've read some of his collaborations with Pournelle and those were decent books.

Both approaches have their merits. Me, I'm most into the mind fuck style of SF novel -- Phillip K. Dick, JG Ballard being two of my favorites. I never got into fantasy-- it's silly and anything interesting or cerebral about it you can get from reading European medieval history instead. Fuck Game of Thrones, read a Distant Mirror.

Gibson's not bad, I enjoyed Neuromancer and its sequels, but how you feel about Dune is how I feel about a lot of the Cyberpunk stuff-- it's light on science and heavy on talk about "information" and computer bio-augmentation implants while putting the burden on the reader to scientifically understand it on his own.

Double co-sign on a lot of authors (across all genres) not having a clue on how human sexuality works in the social sphere.

Quote: (09-07-2016 09:17 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

did it really take 1100 pages to say what it had to say?

Of course not, but it was enjoyable! Just like I'm sure the Muslim gets all fuzzy inside reading page after page of "God is Great, disbelievers will be punished!". I got all fuzzy inside reading pages and pages of dialogue of leftists being told why they're degenerate anti-social pieces of shit. I'd never experienced anything like that at the time I read it. At the time I just assumed everyone was a brain-dead leftist idiot and that every other book out there aligned with that.

Quote: (09-07-2016 09:17 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:37 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

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.

Oh god no. Atlas Shrugged is an utter pile of dog crap. Severely poorly written, poor characterization, poor plotting, severely ham-handed spouting of dogma, and utter shit pacing-- did it really take 1100 pages to say what it had to say?

There are plenty of much more valuable anti-left books, although, there aren't many quality anti-left works of fiction. Atlas is to the literary anti-left kind of like the Republican Party is to the political anti-left-- talks a good game; not quite walking that talk.

I will credit Rand for some good things in it, though. Specifically she nailed the portrait of the socialite parasite class and the whole "You'll think of something Mr Rearden" theme as they expect other people to pay and sweat for their brainless schemes. Also the steady and stealthy implementation of leftist policy while they deny doing any such thing and the third party observers saying "oh, they can't possibly mean it" while those leftists do mean it and once they achieve it start shifting things even farther leftward. That has been the exact homosexualist and immigration agendas over the past 50 years and Rand called it exactly right. And Ragnar Danneskjold's anti-Marxist piracy is a badass concept that would make a great series of anti-leftist adventure stories.

One day I may sit down and write out a long essay on just why Atlas was poop, Objectivism is retarded, and Rand was an insane cunt. Not today, though. If you found solace in her stuff that's cool with me. I don't want to take that away from you. I just like a good heated but respectful debate. I'm definitely down for guys who see things differently from me coming back at me with facts and having some fun with the debate.

I half agree with you regarding "Atlas Shrugged." Essentially, its a work of science fiction/ fantasy, and like many science fiction writers of that time the characters are stiff and two dimensional, used merely as oafish foils or mouthpieces for different aspects of the author's philosophy. The dialog between the main characters is so awkward that if I met someone at a party who spoke to me that way I would suspect they had some mild form of brain damage. It probably wouldn't hold up well if you tried to poke holes in Objectivism, because there are so many parts that are easily criticized.

However, that being sad, if you have the patience to wade through it there are a few salient passages that are quite intelligent and insightful. For example, Francisco d'Anconia's long speech at the wedding party about the evils of money, or Hank Reardon's struggle against government mandated mediocrity, are very relevant to today (probably more so than Rand's America at that time).

But I would tend to agree- as a novel it's difficult to read the dreck between the valuable passages, and as a story it leaves a hell of a lot to be desired. Quite honestly, the essays published after her death are a much better summary of Objectivism, and much easier to read.

Quote: (09-07-2016 09:00 AM)XPQ22 Wrote:  

Quote: (09-07-2016 08:26 AM)Germanicus Wrote:  

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.

I like some stuff by authors like Stephen Baxter, Clarke, Larry Niven (Lucifer's Hammer was one of the better books about the aftermath of a comet impact, though a lot of people didn't like its 'race war' overtones...Niven also seems to be one of the few sci-fi writers who can write about relationships as if he might have actually had sex with a woman in his life; George Lucas certainly hasn't.) William Gibson is pretty good, too.

Oh, Baxter. Avoid "Proxima". The plot goes nowhere, the premise for major parts of the book make absolutely no sense (examples: how the "settlers" are chosen, and how they are placed on the planet), and the science makes as much sense as something a five-year-old would concoct.

Niven is one of my favorite SF authors, but you made me chuckle there - I've been reading his stuff since I was about twelve, and even back then the sex-and-nudism parts of his books seemed weird and naive, in a peculiar, dated, 1960s free-love way. Or perhaps "gamma" in a way very common in SF (see Heinlein, Robert). The stuff he co-wrote, especially over the last 20-ish years, tends to be far more realistic and mature in its portrayals of sex and relationships. Which is a nitpick as I see it - his stuff is all quite good regardless.

In the past, when I wanted to learn a subject, I would look for a textbook. It finally dawned on me that textbooks are written to sell to a captive audience, college students. They are written to raise the profile of the professor/author among his peers. The student reader isn't actually the primary audience. Professors don't get points for making their subject area look easy. To see this, ask yourself: how would this text have been written differently if the professor faced torture if his readers failed to learn?

Quote: (02-06-2016 02:40 AM)Pride male Wrote:  

There is a good thread about must read books. Here you can post shitty books you didnt enjoy. I will start

Dianetics by Steve Hubbard. Couldnt make it past the first chapter.

The Koran.

I just picked up a copy of Dianetics in a used book store, since I have heard so much about about. I second your emotion - it's unbearable.

I actually feel like my IQ is sinking with each page. I'll never be able to look at Tom Cruise with a straight face again...

Crime and punishment. The Great Gatsby. Pride and Prejudice. Walden. The Catcher in the Rye.

A good rule of thumb is if it on an 11th grade summer reading list: skip it.

I think Atlas Shrugged's enduring appeal has a lot less to do with the philosophy, and more to do with two particular aspects: the chillingly vivid depiction of a society ruined by leftist pseudo-altruism, and a very original plot idea. The concept of productive people disappearing from society was compelling enough to keep me reading the book all by itself, even if the philosophy/characters/dialogue don't hold up.

I'm a big fan of science fiction but I never liked Dune much, either. While well-written, the world of the novel bored me, and I never cared about the plot or characters. Part of it is that the groundbreaking ideas from Dune were polished and refined by later works it influenced, and which I experienced first - making the original seem under-developed in comparison.

I'm a big fan of Dune, but maybe that just comes from my father.

Not a lot of mentions here for the Harry Potter series, surprising. (Other than the fact that they're predictable and not really that well written, maybe some people here could help me out on what's so particularly damaging about the books, as I haven't read them in a decade. All I've noticed is that the worst kinds of people read them - and over and over again, as adults.)

Quote: (11-18-2016 09:34 PM)stugatz Wrote:  

I'm a big fan of Dune, but maybe that just comes from my father.

Not a lot of mentions here for the Harry Potter series, surprising. (Other than the fact that they're predictable and not really that well written, maybe some people here could help me out on what's so particularly damaging about the books, as I haven't read them in a decade. All I've noticed is that the worst kinds of people read them - and over and over again, as adults.)

Wish fullfillment and Secret Kingery. Losers identifying with characters who start off as unloved outcasts like themselves, only to discover how special and important they really are, and eventually become popular, powerful, and the essential center of great things.