literature
Geek literature from the New York Times or the recesses of online. Our favorite stories showcase geeks.
Book Review: "Watermark" by Joseph Brodsky
“Local fog in Venice has a name: nebbia. It obliterates all reflections ... and everything that has a shape: buildings, people, colonnades, bridges, statues. Boat services are canceled, airplanes neither arrive, nor take off for weeks, stores are closed and mail ceases to litter one’s threshold. The effect is as though some raw hand had turned all those enfilades inside out and wrapped the lining around the city... the fog is thick, blinding, and immobile... this is a time for reading, for burning electricity all day long, for going easy on self-deprecating thoughts of coffee, for listening to the BBC World Service, for going to bed early. In short, a time for self-oblivion, induced by a city that has ceased to be seen. Unwittingly, you take your cue from it, especially if, like it, you’ve got company. Having failed to be born here, you at least can take some pride in sharing its invisibility...” - Watermark by Joseph Brodsky
Annie KapurPublished 17 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "Paris" by Julian Green
“Paris is a city that might well be spoken of in the plural, as the Greeks used to speak of Athens, for there are many Parises, and the tourists’ Paris is only superficially related to the Paris of the Parisians. The foreigner driving through Paris from one museum to another is quite oblivious to the presence of a world he brushes past without seeing. Until you have wasted time in a city, you cannot pretend to know it well. The soul of a big city is not to be grasped so easily; in order to make contact with it, you have to have been bored, you have to have suffered a bit in those places that contain it. Anyone can get hold of a guide and tick off all the monuments, but within the very confines of of Paris there is another city as difficult to access as Timbuktu once was.” - Paris by Julian Green
Annie KapurPublished 18 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "The Old Devils" by Kingsley Amis
At one time this had come after instead of before putting his underpants on, but he had noted that that way round he kept tearing them with his toenails. ... The socks went on in the bathroom with the aid of a particular low table, height being critical. Heel on table, sock completely on as far as heel, toes on table, sock round heel and up. .... Pants on in the bedroom, heel and toe like the socks but at floor level, spot of talc around the scrotum, then trousers two mornings out of every three or so. On the third or so morning he would find chocolate, cream, jam or some combination from his bedtime snack smeared over the pair in use and he would have to return to the bathroom specifically to its mirror for guidance in fixing the braces on the front of the fresh trousers, an area which needless to say had been well out of his direct view these many years. - The Old Devils by Kingsley Amis
Annie KapurPublished 19 days ago in GeeksLord of the Flies by William Golding
Published in 1954, ‘Lord of the Flies’ is one of the most decorated novels of the 20th century. It is a survival story that challenged the survival stories of its age and brought towards us a realistic depiction of the collapse of civilisation through a plane crash on an island that involved young children. R.M Ballantyne had already written his novel ‘The Coral Island’ which tells of how young boys who were stranded worked together to overcome adversity, making the most of a sort of boy-scouts situation. Golding read it and thought that this is not the way it would go at all. He wrote his own version entitled ‘Lord of the Flies’ which not only went on to become more successful but, Ballantyne’s novel has practically fell into obscurity now.
Annie KapurPublished 20 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "Fantasticland" by Mike Bockoven
After reading “Hide” by Kiersten White, many people started recommending the book ‘Fantasticland’ and no matter how terrible the premise initially sounded I gave it a go. I really quite enjoyed “Hide” because of its nature to be a slow burn from the beginning. It had a relatively interesting idea which circulated around the ‘final girl’ story but in a different way. When I started reading ‘Fantasticland’ I was initially unimpressed. It was very much a horror novel trying too hard to be frightening and tense - it ended up being a bit underwhelming in the first few chapters.
Annie KapurPublished 21 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "The Book of Goose" by Yiyun Li
There have been times where I have picked up a book because of its artwork. Unfortunately, in these cases I had in fact, judged a book by its cover. There have also been times I had picked a book up because of its title. I had found it interesting or wanted to know exactly what it meant. Then there are times like these where the book has been looking at me, following me, for ages. I first came across this book on the Amazon Bookstore. I saved it to my wishlist. Then it came up on my Amazon Recommendations. Finally, I was in a bookstore in Birmingham and gave up trying to stop it. I bought the book. I knew I was in for one hell of a ride but honestly, this book simply blew me away.
Annie KapurPublished 22 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "At Your Own Risk" by Derek Jarman
“I was another young man corrupted and co-opted by heterosexuality, my mind still swimming about in the cesspit which is known as family life, subjected to a Christian love whose ugliness would shatter a mirror. I had to destroy my inheritance to face you and love you.” - At Your Own Risk by Derek Jarman
Annie KapurPublished 23 days ago in GeeksBook Review: "Insomniac City" by Bill Hayes
Full Title: Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks and Me by Bill Hayes “I suppose it’s a cliché to say you’re glad to be alive, that life is short, but to say you’re glad to be not dead requires a specific intimacy with loss that comes only with age or deep experience. One has to know not simply what dying is like, but to know death itself, in all its absoluteness. After all, there are many ways to die—peacefully, violently, suddenly, slowly, happily, unhappily, too soon. But to be dead—one either is or isn’t. The same cannot be said of aliveness, of which there are countless degrees. One can be alive but half-asleep or half-noticing as the years fly, no matter how fully oxygenated the blood and brain or how steadily the heart beats. Fortunately, this is a reversible condition. One can learn to be alert to the extraordinary and press pause—to memorize moments of the everyday.” Insomniac City by Bill Hayes
Annie KapurPublished 24 days ago in GeeksThe Martial God Who Regressed Back to Level 2 Chapter 51 (English) Release Date & Where to Read
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Book Review: "Zero-Sum" by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is probably best known for her darker fiction. Her air of mystique comes from presenting the ordinary as something to be afraid of. The theme of, you don't really know your neighbours, pervades throughout her fiction from her short stories all the way to her novel The Babysitter. Very recently, I found myself reading a book of her short stories which seemed incredibly recent in its writing (though I regret I didn't look up when it was written and still haven't). The book was called The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror. The normal is made to look abnormal, uncanny valley is brought in as reality and normality shift around and make everything seem askew and discordant. This is what she does best and out of most authors, she also does it the best.
Annie KapurPublished 25 days ago in GeeksDevil Returns To School Days Chapter 54 (English) Release Date & Where to Read
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Book Review: "Ultra-Processed People" by Chris van Tulleken
“The food security that many of us enjoy is the product of a system of production that has kept costs low by destroying wild land and not paying for the costs of atmospheric carbon. These approaches will, ironically, create huge food insecurity. This is happening already around the globe, but nowhere more directly than in the areas of the Amazon that have been deforested to grow soy.”
Annie KapurPublished 26 days ago in Geeks