Background Pony #6A56
How about poetry? Like Longfellow, John Keats or Yeats?
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Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 18
š“ 
IRL š stallion
Hereās a preview of what Iāve been working on. Itās one of the analysis summary tables. Yes, the words are in the order in which they are first encountered and not alphabetical if that gives you any hints. Take a guess which story this is.
[Title Removed] You guess the story
| Attribute | Value | Related | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total Words | [redacted] | 75000 | assumed length |
| Paragraphs | 11570 | 11644 | Lines |
| Avg Ā¶ Length | 37 | ||
| Unique Words | 16174 | 410 | Frequency Buckets |
| growth factor | 5.55 | 1.23 | stretch factor |
| 2.53 | Double Scale | ||
| Search Range | 34Ā±3 | 20Ā±3 | default |
| reading time | 2.70 | 0.11 | analysis time |
| Total Time | 2.80 |
n=37 (30 words)
awkward, lingered, opposite, sleeves, showed, strumming, apartment, lucky, weeks, rested, project, rising, rolling, flower, below, jumped, ghost, girl, frightened, ice, birth, job, sweat, formed, hot, cracked, desolation, art, desire, parasprite
n=36 (28 words)
happens, gasp, enjoy, glad, small, bag, danced, hasnt, died, grinning, instruments, immortal, tall, hollow, willing, creature, prepared, shouting, madness, fresh, scared, strong, seemed, numb, hah, grow, bench, stones
n=35 (25 words)
earlier, gorgeous, hide, seems, respect, hello, trust, early, planted, colorful, laughter, entirely, edges, brown, happening, curled, ear, steps, bound, apples, proper, collapse, moved, watching, ball
n=34 (33 words)
smiles, daughter, someday, replied, heheh, advent, lavender, downtown, rose, palace, meeting, surely, brief, squatted, sunset, hit, warming, colors, hugging, neither, mmmm, stretched, mac, landed, breaking, tranquil, whether, flash, household, gala, breeze, bon, harpo
n=33 (33 words)
obviously, choice, indeed, equines, wh, foalhood, paper, gets, creatures, clear, forming, blossomforth, shhh, collapsing, equine, endless, spat, marching, melted, pathetic, autumn, eyebrow, chaotic, north, leaving, clouds, everfree, likes, t, twi, cover, divine, growled
n=32 (29 words)
wrote, positively, dinky, child, giggling, month, allowed, bridge, hug, setting, b, listened, frame, yanked, composition, rear, breathed, brushed, spot, y, colored, sheer, utter, shivered, c, follow, spheres, squeaked, landscape
n=31 (33 words)
disappeared, pretend, slumped, cheek, stepped, forehead, hidden, repeated, mana, whinniepeg, eh, dragged, carry, fluttered, wondering, sounded, concerned, gasping, aware, fought, giggles, n, muzzle, heheheh, levitating, courage, sheets, forsaken, fabric, limply, lady, galloping, throne
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 17
š“
IRL š stallion
Finally got around to finishing up Index, A History of the. Funnily enough, its final chapter is an extended discussion of a metaphor from Calvinoās If on a winterās nightā¦
Itās one of the very few history books that doesnāt shit the bed in its last chapter. The need to derive modern relevancy makes most history books ruin themselves in their final chapter. Either they have a non-sequitur about the modern age, itās five years outdated upon publication, or it makes you wonder what the author was smoking to jump to such absurd final conclusions. Often, the books would be better served if they acted like my US history class and pretended that history stopped after Bill Clinton was inaugurated and that everything more recent is current news that you should ask your parents about. Not so for this one. It was engaging right to the very end. In fact, it didnāt even suffer from a slow opening.
That all said, that final chapter inspired some programming for me. In the next week or two, Iāll work on making an essay of my analysisānot sure whether the original should be posted to my Fimfiction blog or Redditāthe form of Reddit is nice because it provides a way for me to include my extensive supplemental data in a format thatās easily collapsed. Itās a discussion on the hypothesis that
In a novel of fifty to one hundred thousand words, you can get a clear picture of the genre, tone, and themes by listing all the words that appear approximately 20 times in the text.
[The actual plot and wordplay, of course, will require actual reading]
So far, I have the following in my to-analyze pile. Suggestions to expand this list are welcome.
- Fallout: Equestria
- Project Horizons
- Some shitty clop I wrote in 2013
- Songs of the Spheres
- Background Pony
- Gadsby
- The Great Gatsby
- War & Peace
- Crime & Punishment
- Triptych (Estee)
- Moby Dick
- Paradise Lost
- North & South
- 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
- The 3 Musketeers
- Journey to the Center of the Earth
- Tom Sawyer
- Silver Glowās Journal
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 16
AaronMk 
Sky funeral
Ended up listening to Blitzed on audiobook format on YouTube to investigate a wild claim I heard about Hitler in an interview that was insane enough I needed to investigate. That being his personal doctor Morell injected him with human fecal matter from Bulgarian peasants for ??? reasons and I had to know more about this insane shit and confirm it. It didnāt come up or it simply came up when my attention lapsed which given that it was so well written and narrated that it was one of those books that absolutely had me glued while I did other things it really difficult to believe. However I did get a better sense of scale of German methamphetamine abuse during the war and instead took away Hitler was being injected with liquified liver for some reason and pigās blood.
Second was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarcĆa MĆ”rquez (translated to English). Had some neat moments but I donāt know if itās what I expected. After all, itās literally set over a hundred years, so a lot of it is dry and high-level family history. 4/10.
I actually found Hundred Years of Solitude a really great book and the terseness of it appropriate for the incredible time scale it takes place in, so it managed to do everything it can in that time for the length of the book. Lord knows there would be or are people who would set out to do a 100 year chronicle but insist on being personal to the characters knowing full well very few of them would survive the end and so produce a 1,000 or 2,000 page tome that just pisses everyone off.
Maybe thereās a factor too of being at least somewhat familiar with Colombian or [Northern] Latin American history since a lot of elements in the narrative run parallel with politics of the time that part of the book is set. So reading it without any familiarity can make things like the corpse train sequence sort of detached
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 15
Litrojia 
Got through three books lately.
First is the aforementioned Dracula by Bram Stoker. Some nice lil bits of adventure in there and of course a cool villain. Nothing mindblowing though. 6/10.
Second was One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel GarcĆa MĆ”rquez (translated to English). Had some neat moments but I donāt know if itās what I expected. After all, itās literally set over a hundred years, so a lot of it is dry and high-level family history. 4/10.
Most recently was Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. I felt obligated to read this after I read Dracula. Pretty short and sweet. The dynamic between Frankenstein and the monster was intriguing. 7/10.
Currently Iām reading Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel, a modern sci-fi book that halfway through I quite like. Bit of a breath of fresh air after all the highbrow gothic stuff. Also pretty short. It loosely ties into and I think spoils another book by the same author though, so maybe take a look at that first if youāre interested.
I already have another book checked out from the library because I couldnāt decide between it and Sea. For personal reasons, not sure if Iāll hold onto it. Trying to keep the books kinda short for now because Iām using the library and also because Iām going through some shit in my personal life right now.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 14
blue-case90 
Half Kitsune
Iām going to start reading āTale as Old as Time: A Twisted Taleā (aka Beauty and the Beast: What if Belleās mother cursed the prince?)
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 13
Litrojia
@PUBLIQclopAccountant
Iāve heard of that in passing, but I didnāt give it much thought. Started reading after it started, though Iām now well past August 13th in the book.
Iāve heard of that in passing, but I didnāt give it much thought. Started reading after it started, though Iām now well past August 13th in the book.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 12
AaronMk
Sky funeral
Since this thread was necroād I guess Iāll do an update:
Reading a book rn in the present status of Burma/Myanmar and how it got there. Itās OK, I donāt have much background on Myanmar so it at least gets to fill me in and catch me up and itās relatively short. Itās not written as a serious and deep technical piece or even a theoretical analysis on Burma.
I will spoiler the rest for reasons of politics.
In brief the book is kind of written for the US DNC NGO types. People who might have voted for Clinton or something. It has pretensions of being radical but doesnāt actually get very deep into it. The entire spirit of its analysis can be summarized as saying it recounts a story of someone in the Myanmar NGO space giving the president or some prominent late Burmese leaders box sets for the West Wing to teach them about how democracy works which had me dying laughing because I always assumed such stories could only exist as a joke about āthe Wonksā who pour over the minutea of inter-party politics in Washington to do their own Kremlinology but for Capital Hill
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 10
Litrojia
Gonna necro this thread. Really wish there was more book talk around here. Iām no huge bookworm, but good discussion and recommendations can be hard to come by.
Anyway, Iām currently reading Dracula. So far I donāt think itās the greatest book ever, but I think itās getting me out of a reading slump Iāve been in over the past year (one book I read and left me disturbed, a few others I quickly gave up on, edit: and another I decently liked but apparently wasnāt too memorable).
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 8
pixel 
@Background Pony #78FA
I havenāt. I remember I wanted to read Maus for a while until I forgot about it but recent controversy has sparked my interest in it again.
I havenāt. I remember I wanted to read Maus for a while until I forgot about it but recent controversy has sparked my interest in it again.
@PUBLIQclopAccountant
I kind of wish I was assigned 1984 now.
I kind of wish I was assigned 1984 now.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 7
š“
IRL š stallion
@Background Pony #78FA
I have not. At least I donāt remember it if I did. Now I want to read it simply because I know itās controversial.
I have not. At least I donāt remember it if I did. Now I want to read it simply because I know itās controversial.
- HoL is a book that you may need to read a little bit at a time. Not so far apart that you forgot what happened, but it can be overwhelming to try to read it in one contiguous week.
- The first assigned book that I enjoyed may be 1984. Actually, that teacher had unusually good taste in assigned reading.
@AaronMk
Iām right there with you about not reading anywhere near as much as I used to (or would like to). Iām looking forward to my overtime months because Iām too busy to browse forums during downtime but still have plenty of micro-breaks for reading.
Iām right there with you about not reading anywhere near as much as I used to (or would like to). Iām looking forward to my overtime months because Iām too busy to browse forums during downtime but still have plenty of micro-breaks for reading.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 6
Background Pony #78FA
Did you guys ever read that graphic novel that depicts World War II through anthropomorphic animals, like the Jews being mice, Nazis were cats and Americans were dogs? We had to read it in middle school, and now Iām hearing people are trying to get the book banned.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 5
pixel
@PUBLIQclopAccountant
Iāve been meaning to read House of Leaves but I have way too much on my to read list that I have no idea when Iāll make the time for it.
Iāve been meaning to read House of Leaves but I have way too much on my to read list that I have no idea when Iāll make the time for it.
@DustyDNez
That might have been the first book I was assigned to read that I actually enjoyed.
That might have been the first book I was assigned to read that I actually enjoyed.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 3
DustyDNez
I am currently reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I am very interested in this book, I would like to finish it
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 2
AaronMk
Sky funeral
I recently started Yukio Mishimaās Life for Sale. But given my tendency to be distracted and having a lot of other stuff to do I havenāt been very good at keeping up with a regular reading schedule. I used to have a habit of reading every day for an hour but not so much at the moment, a change in jobs and such easily broke that and Iām about to change jobs again.
I also have on my phone for a new attempt at reading Marxās 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon to read on break or over lunch at work at what not.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Post 1
Background Pony #78FA
Iāve been reading Spider-Man: Miles Morales - Wings of Fury, the prequel to the PS4/PS5 game of the same name.
Generals » What are you reading? (& general book discussion) » Topic Opener
š“
IRL š stallion
For being a longstanding community focused on a show with a book horse, Iām surprised there arenāt any threads about reading, books, or literature. Now there are a couple.
Discuss whatever youāre reading, be it poetry, fiction, non-fiction, cybertext, technical manuals, TV static, ergodic literature, Funko^Ā®^ POP!ā¢s, or short stories.
Light meta-discussion about reading (such as discussion on the reliability of Amazon reviews, whether Goodreads is worthwhile, or your opinions on /r/bookscirclejerk vs. /r/TrueLit) is acceptable, too.
Light meta-discussion about reading (such as discussion on the reliability of Amazon reviews, whether Goodreads is worthwhile, or your opinions on /r/bookscirclejerk vs. /r/TrueLit) is acceptable, too.
If you want to discuss fanfiction youāre reading, thereās a thread for that in the fanfiction forum
For this year, Iāve decided to limit myself to one fictional story and one nonfiction narrative at a time. Poetry, short story fanfiction, and technical manuals arenāt part of the count. The hope is that the singular focus will mean I actually start finishing books again instead of having two bookshelves full of half-finished books.
Fiction slot: If on a winterās night a traveler by Italo Calvino
Nonfiction: Time Travel by James Gleick
On deck after Time Travel for the nonfiction slot are the remainder of Farewell to the Horse by Raulff Ulrich and then Ride the Right Horse by Yvonne Bartneau. I have not decided what my next fiction book will be after Winterās night. Maybe more Calvino, maybe my Borges short story collection, quite possibly JS&MN or the Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Fiction slot: If on a winterās night a traveler by Italo Calvino
Nonfiction: Time Travel by James Gleick
On deck after Time Travel for the nonfiction slot are the remainder of Farewell to the Horse by Raulff Ulrich and then Ride the Right Horse by Yvonne Bartneau. I have not decided what my next fiction book will be after Winterās night. Maybe more Calvino, maybe my Borges short story collection, quite possibly JS&MN or the Illuminatus! Trilogy.
Some recommendations pulled from turning around in my chair and looking at my bookshelf:
- Danielewski, Mark: House of Leaves. The typical introduction to ergodic literature. I recommend reading the full Whalestoe Letters in addition, as it contains a few more letters than Appendix II-E.
- Gleick, James: The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood. James Geick is a writer who leaves you feeling smarter for merely having read his book. The four chapters of Farewell to the Horse Iāve read so far have the same energy.
- Stoll, Cliff: The Cuckooās Egg.
- Bƶk, Christian: Eunioa and Crystallography. Eunoia [beautiful thinking] is the shortest word in the English language containing all five vowels (oiseau [bird] is its French counterpart). Crystallography is a galaxy-brained melding of materials science and poetry.
- Danielewski, Mark: The 50-Year Sword. Itās a Halloween ghost story in book form. In spite of its nearly 300-page length, its formatting tricks allow it to be easily read in under three hours.
- The Big Book of Jerkcity as well as the Jerkcity-inspired poetry collections Leo the Lion and All those Prostitutes. Theyāre all highly NSFW and often in bad taste, but thatās exactly why you would love them.
- (I canāt see the authorās name because the book is buried in storage) Exploding the Phone. A story of the phreaks who whistled their way into free long-distance calls and stumble upon classified military telephone systems. Steves Wozniak and Jobs make a guest appearance.
- Hall, Stephen: The Raw Shark Texts. Eric Sanderson wakes up with no sense of self or any concrete memories of what happened before he woke up. Letters from the first Eric Sanderson guide him on a journey to discover the truth behind his amnesia.
Showing results 26 - 43 of 43 total
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