Author Topic: book recommendations  (Read 230009 times)

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Offline DaBigTrain

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1850 on: January 10, 2019, 08:51:47 AM »
I always assumed spracs is a farmie because he's from western Kansas

Oakley IIRC.
"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1851 on: January 10, 2019, 08:52:45 AM »
No, that's timhawk, smdh
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Offline DaBigTrain

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1852 on: January 10, 2019, 08:53:19 AM »
:D
"The Times 03/Jan/2009 Chancellor on brink of second bailout for banks"

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1853 on: January 10, 2019, 09:16:11 AM »
I always assumed spracs is a farmie because he's from western Kansas

his post didn't deny that he is a farmie

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1854 on: January 10, 2019, 09:17:30 AM »
Does he not know himself?? Pretty deep, mocat
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Offline WonderMeal

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1855 on: January 10, 2019, 09:42:46 AM »
I listened to the audiobook of Heartland and overall thought it was pretty good. I definitely think it's A) better than cRusty is saying and B) better in the audiobook format. I also think it's assumed that this book is for all people from Kansas, but it's a pretty safe assumption that the people LOLing at these excerpts aren't who the book is about.

I grew up one town over from her at the exact same time and my parents/grandparents/great-grandparents are all farmers. so, it's like pretty close to being about me or at least about the community I grew up in. No one I knew rough ridin' talks like that or thought "flyover country" meant it was dangerous or was unaware of class. They did get a kick out of feeding cows on christmas though. Also LOL at thinking she stood out at rough ridin' KU because she grew up on a farm :lol:

This book isn't about growing up on a farm. This book is about growing up in poverty, and more specifically what white rural poverty looks like. I don't know your story, but I doubt it mirrors hers closely besides the geographic aspect you mentioned.

She talks about not knowing what graduate school was until she got to college. She talks about the women in their family moving 50+ times throughout their lives, often to escape abuse. The whole point of the book (at least from page 20 on...) is that she had a different experience from the people around her because she grew up surrounded by poverty. This is not a story about someone whose parents are and continue to be the cattle kings of Meade County.

I thought the book was good--not great. My favorite thing of the author's that I've read is a longform piece called "Poor Teeth." Maybe give that a try, since it's less than 20 pages? BAZING

https://longform.org/posts/there-is-no-shame-worse-than-poor-teeth-in-a-rich-world




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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1856 on: January 10, 2019, 11:24:29 AM »
I listened to the audiobook of Heartland and overall thought it was pretty good. I definitely think it's A) better than cRusty is saying and B) better in the audiobook format. I also think it's assumed that this book is for all people from Kansas, but it's a pretty safe assumption that the people LOLing at these excerpts aren't who the book is about.

I grew up one town over from her at the exact same time and my parents/grandparents/great-grandparents are all farmers. so, it's like pretty close to being about me or at least about the community I grew up in. No one I knew rough ridin' talks like that or thought "flyover country" meant it was dangerous or was unaware of class. They did get a kick out of feeding cows on christmas though. Also LOL at thinking she stood out at rough ridin' KU because she grew up on a farm :lol:

This book isn't about growing up on a farm. This book is about growing up in poverty, and more specifically what white rural poverty looks like. I don't know your story, but I doubt it mirrors hers closely besides the geographic aspect you mentioned.

She talks about not knowing what graduate school was until she got to college. She talks about the women in their family moving 50+ times throughout their lives, often to escape abuse. The whole point of the book (at least from page 20 on...) is that she had a different experience from the people around her because she grew up surrounded by poverty. This is not a story about someone whose parents are and continue to be the cattle kings of Meade County.

I thought the book was good--not great. My favorite thing of the author's that I've read is a longform piece called "Poor Teeth." Maybe give that a try, since it's less than 20 pages? BAZING

https://longform.org/posts/there-is-no-shame-worse-than-poor-teeth-in-a-rich-world


Telling a story of generations of poor women is extremely important and a valid story to tell, but she absolutely tries to portray this hard-working farmer image in the first few pages (and on twitter) and the first few pages are filled with sloppy and condescending descriptions, anecdotes, and generalizations of farm and rural life that to me are inauthentic at best, embellished at worst, and make me distrust anything she says about anything. People are laughing at the sloppy text - you don't need to be the product of a teen pregnancy to recognize it as shitty writing.

The teeth piece is interesting...FWIW I definitely should have had braces as a kid and now need to get them as an adult, I think my mom thought boys didn't need good smiles or something. Her writing style in the piece is still pretty shitty and condescending.

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1857 on: January 10, 2019, 01:31:49 PM »
I followed her on twitter already but I've been looking at it closely and my god it makes me hate her even more. such a phony. Pretty much all her tweets are about her being humbled by people mentioning her book but goddam

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Smarsh/status/1081667295913611264

january 4 she retweeted everyone suggesting she run for senate since Pat Roberts retired

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Smarsh/status/1081391116325285889

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Smarsh/status/1079090240537673729

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Smarsh/status/1075806646499246081

(DOUBLE UGH AT THAT ONE^^^^)

https://twitter.com/Sarah_Smarsh/status/1070375332224602112


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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1858 on: January 10, 2019, 01:35:23 PM »
Ok, I'm all in on the yuck now.
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Offline bubbles4ksu

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1859 on: January 10, 2019, 01:45:55 PM »
If you liked Sapiens you'll like Tribe by Junger.

Offline chum1

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1860 on: January 18, 2019, 10:06:30 AM »
Incredible story. Lots of spy stuff. Cold War is a pretty minor theme.


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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1861 on: January 18, 2019, 10:10:34 AM »
about to start Infinite Jest!
:cool:

strap in for a few months!

i am embarrassed to find out i started this book 3 months ago

i took about 6 months off and recently picked it back up again seamlessly. still about a million pages left.

Offline chum1

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1862 on: January 18, 2019, 10:15:10 AM »
about to start Infinite Jest!
:cool:

strap in for a few months!

i am embarrassed to find out i started this book 3 months ago

i took about 6 months off and recently picked it back up again seamlessly. still about a million pages left.

You're ahead of me, but I think I'm on roughly the same schedule.

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1863 on: January 18, 2019, 10:17:58 AM »
mrs mocat: what's happened so far in the book?

mocat:  :dunno:

Offline 8manpick

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1864 on: February 21, 2019, 05:58:26 PM »
This was a fun thread that I found in the replies to a Joe Posnanski tweet

https://twitter.com/bechillcomedian/status/906104599806963713?s=21
:adios:

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1865 on: February 21, 2019, 06:17:40 PM »
Reminds me of kRusty and got
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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1866 on: February 21, 2019, 06:38:47 PM »

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1868 on: February 21, 2019, 06:48:31 PM »
Holy crap that thread is better than the book. (Will not read the book)

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1869 on: February 21, 2019, 06:57:14 PM »
Well now I can never read the book

Offline 8manpick

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1870 on: February 21, 2019, 07:37:14 PM »
The side threads are worth checking out too!
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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1872 on: February 21, 2019, 08:12:57 PM »
The python rant is incredible

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1873 on: February 24, 2019, 09:41:16 PM »
I’ve turning back to one my favorite genres: apocalypse / post-apocalypse.

Lucifer’s Hammer by Larry Nivens was really good. Can’t believe I never read that before. Comet striking the earth. The only thing I didn’t really like is that the story focused more on the post-apocalypse than the pre, and I find pre more interesting. Still really good, though.

Now I’m about halfway through Seveneves by Neil Stevenson. This book is super long, poorly written, almost spectacularly pretentious m, and generally annoying but I’m still slogging through it. It’s so bad at this point that I’m morbidly curious how much worse it can get. The moon spontaneously explodes and the earth is doomed. Except for All The Very Smartest People In The World. Follows a celebrity scientist, who is essentially Neil deGrasse Tyson, who totally figures out exactly what’s gonna happen, along with All The Other Scientists of The World. Who easily concoct a plant to same humanity aboard the ISS. And most importantly - it’s a Super Diverse and Totally #MeToo Humanity. Basically Brooklyn. Instead of good science fiction, it’s basically one cloying liberal trope after another, intermixed with various hookups between various Smart People about the ISS. The earth is almost completely ignored, except for the parts about how all The Wise Leaders perfectly govern their subjects up until the very end.

People are comparing this to The Martian. JFC people - The Martian was 100x better than this piece of crap.
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Offline steve dave

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Re: book recommendations
« Reply #1874 on: February 25, 2019, 07:07:03 AM »
I thought both seveneves and the martian sucked. another one that starts out strong but then eventually sucks is the James Corey Expanse books. get very heavy handed with the politics and all I want is some hot sexy human spaceship alien outerspace action.