What are you currently reading?

Sorry if it has already been mentioned here, but are people reading Stephen Graham Jones’s Indian Lake Trilogy? Only the first two books are out so far – My Heart Is A Chainsaw and Don’t Fear The Reaper - but they are very well written and very, very meta. Think of the movie “Screaml for a more modern era – a very interesting, fun story interpolating fandom of modern horror movies into a Stephen King – like narrative. Bonus points for the fact that the author, as well as the main character, is of Native American ancestry. It gives an interesting viewpoint in context that I don’t think I would’ve seen in many other horror books.
 
800px-Maxim_Gorky_1900.jpg


I was looking for some translations of Maxim Gorky's works at the local library, but it and its inter-connected libraries had NOTHING!
Interesting author during an interesting time, but NOTHING!

So I was forced to settle for something I've read before, GORKY PARK by Martin Cruz Smith, which I've named one of my pedals after. I vaguely recall seeing the movie, but of course the book isn't hampered by movie-makers' constraints so is the better option. BTW, if you don't know, Gorky Park has nothing to do with Maxim apart from the park is named after him — it's a murder-mystery and a good one at that.

So I needed a little something extra to fill the hollow of defeat, not finding any proper Gorky. I came across one of my all time favourite plays:

WAITING FOR GODOT.

So I picked that up and IRONIC SAMUEL BECKETT by Pol Popovic Karic, and next to it was a 2-act Beckett play I've not read nor seen performed, HAPPY DAYS. Next to that was FAUST by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (translated by Walter Arndt, edited by Cyrus Hamlin).

So I've got lots to read — 5 books from the library — and dove straight in to Waiting for Godot. He is coming... isn't he?


Meanwhile, I'll have to purchase some Maxim Gorky online. It's so satisfying to say his name, I'm glad I named a pedal after him, well, his namesake park.


GORKY!
 
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800px-Maxim_Gorky_1900.jpg


I was looking for some translations of Maxim Gorky's works at the local library, but it and its inter-connected libraries had NOTHING!
Interesting author during an interesting time, but NOTHING!

So I was forced to settle for something I've read before, GORKY PARK by Martin Cruz Smith, which I've named one of my pedals after. I vaguely recall seeing the movie, but of course the book isn't hampered by movie-makers' constraints so is the better option. BTW, if you don't know, Gorky Park has nothing to do with Maxim apart from the park is named after him — it's a murder-mystery and a good one at that.

So I needed a little something extra to fill the hollow of defeat, not finding any proper Gorky. I came across one of my all time favourite plays:

WAITING FOR GODOT.

So I picked that up and IRONIC SAMUELL BECKETT by Pol Popovic Karic, and next to it was a 2-act Beckett play I've not read nor seen performed, HAPPY DAYS. Next to that was FAUST by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (translated by Walter Arndt, edited by Cyrus Hamlin).

So I've got lots to read — 5 books from the library — and dove straight in to Waiting for Godot. He is coming... isn't he?


Meanwhile, I'll have to purchase some Maxim Gorky online. It's so satisfying to say his name, I'm glad I named a pedal after him, well, his namesake park.


GORKY!
Never heard of him.

He has a cool shirt though.
 
I mostly read Wikipedia, which is such a great rabbit hole. However, I am trying to read for 'fun' like I did as a kid. I am currently on the second book, "The Big Nowhere", from James Ellroy's first L.A. Quartet. I really liked LA Confidential when I saw it years ago, so I figured I would read the source material. Just not sure. "The Black Dahlia" was entertaining enough, but this one, it's taking some work.
 
i never ended up finishing the clive barker book. I did however read Endymion and Rise of Endymion by Dan Simmons. I know some folks didnt like the last two books in the Hyperion series but I enjoyed them. They arent as good as the first two books but they do a good job of bringing the story full circle and tying up loose ends. Some of the mysteries are explained and others arent. All-in-all, very much worth reading if you liked Hyperion and Fall of Hyperion.
 
Further to the North American Lake Monsters ...
I'm not really into horror genres, but I am interested in mythology.
Are the NALM short stories based on mythology or are they strictly works of fiction?



For anyone into horror or mythology...

I'm naming one of my pedals "Le Loup Garou", a sort of Quebecois werewolf-type beast:

8 Mythical Canadian Monsters | Mental Floss


From the same article above, inspiration naming my "Adlet Dzan".

ADLET: Another Inuit invention—they’re human people with dog’s legs, who can run fast like dogs, and are said to be the product of a union between a woman and a giant dog. When this legendary woman birthed 10 puppies, she let five of them run across the ice, which, the story goes, became the original Europeans. The five that stayed behind became abominations and spent their time infighting and wandering the tundra, searching for Inuit villages to feast upon. Ethnologist Franz Boas recorded several native tales about adlets while traveling in Baffin Island and published them in 1889. Correlations were made to other cultures’ stories of half-human/half-dog creatures, including those of the Dakelh tribe of British Columbia and the indigenous Chukchi people in Siberia.


The Adlet Dzan is a hybrid pedal, here's some BG on the "DZAN" part of it:

Muskrat (Ondata zibethicus). — kiggaluk. http://www.labradorvirtualmuseum.ca/english-inuttut.htm





I was going to name my Ibanez 820 clone "Mahaha", from Inuit-lore, a demon that terrorizes the Arctic and tickles its victims to death.

More Inuit inspiration: "Taqriaqsuit", shadow people who are rarely seen but often heard, will (most likely) be what I call my Athabascan OD.




Meanwhile, I'm still reading the plays and books (Gorky Park etc) mentioned in my previous post. Gotta finish those as the library will want them back soon.
 
I just read Dune. Don't know why I waited so long, I liked it.

I never saw the David Lynch movie. I saw the recent Dune Part One when it came out, but found it a slow and didn't pay attention. However, after the book, I rewatched it and enjoyed it much more. Now I've got to see Part Two.
 
I just read Dune. Don't know why I waited so long, I liked it.

I never saw the David Lynch movie. I saw the recent Dune Part One when it came out, but found it a slow and didn't pay attention. However, after the book, I rewatched it and enjoyed it much more. Now I've got to see Part Two.
I was pretty young when I read it and saw the lynch version. Both had a big impact.

I liked the new part one. Part two still looks and sounds great, but I think part one is the best part of the story.
 
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I just tend to bounce around kind of eclectically. Mix of maybe 20% fiction (none of it deep or respectable) and 80% nonfiction (mostly centered around pop culture or music). I just finished “Starter Villain” by John Scalzi (good, fairly light story about a teacher who finds out his late uncle was a super villain and he has inherited his business) and now I veered completely in the other direction and am in the middle of an oral history of the making of the movie Airplane!

M
 
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A few weeks back a car-friend saw the above book on the "Featured" shelf at the local library and alerted me, but I was too late.
Somebody had already taken it out.

Hmm my friend *(and best friend's wife) happens to be the head honcho at the library, so I thought I'd have an "in" on checking it out.
Visited my friend and of course HE had it. However my librarian friend reserved it for me, so I was next in line.


It's very good!
After skimming through it, about half of the pedals we are able to DIY, with the rest being unobtanium, digital/programmed, or otherwise unfeasible.

I'm trying to listen to examples from each artist's pedal-pairing.
 
Just finished up The Wall by Adrian Goldsworthy (historical fiction). Now back to my re-read of the Dune series - I'm on Dune Messiah at this point... I'd read the whole series about 20 years ago, I'm enjoying it more now.
 
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