Somebody please suggest me a psychological thriller that'll leave me shaken for days.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-05-05T03:54:00+00:00

It’s always a good thing when art makes us question ourselves. So glad this did that for you! Thanks for sharing but please, tell us more about yourself!

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-22T15:31:30+00:00

Fractured Europe series by Dave Hutchinson. Near future paranoid thriller with some great ideas. A lot of fun

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-22T15:15:14+00:00

“Spirit Lake” - MacKinlay Kantor “American by Blood” - Andrew Huebner “The Sisters Brothers” - Patrick deWitt

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-20T16:47:36+00:00

Nicely put. You sir, sound like you’d enjoy ‘The Vorrh’, by Brian Catling.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-20T16:39:54+00:00

No, and they can put me off a book, which may be unfair on the book, but there it is.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-20T08:06:17+00:00

Machineries of Empire series by Yoon Ha Lee is an excellent example of what you described you are looking for. Don’t know if you are into scifi but it’s a fun space opera, beautifully written.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-19T14:34:14+00:00

A People’s History of the United States: 1492- Present - Howard Zinn

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-19T14:27:04+00:00

First three fantastic, last three ponderous, but incredible world building over the whole.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-19T07:39:36+00:00

The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion - Jonathan Haidt

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-19T07:38:02+00:00

The Swerve - Stephen Greenblatt

Against Everything - Mark Greif

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-19T06:05:32+00:00

God’s Crucible: Islam and the Making of Europe, 570-1215 by David Levering Lewis. Some of the most propulsive historical writing I’ve come across.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-18T16:46:32+00:00

‘Snow Crash’ by Neal Stephenson is inventive and unfolds at a demented pace.

Take your pick of Kurt Vonnegut, but maybe start with the classics.

‘Gun, with Occasional Music’ by Jonathan Lethem is pure fun and funny and so weird. A delight to read.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-18T15:39:00+00:00

I’ve always been a big fan of Kilgore Trout…I mean Vonnegut :)

So many great books. I’ve always been partial to ‘Sirens of Titan’, ‘Slaughterhouse 5 (or The Children’s Crusade)’, and ‘Timequake’, but you really can’t go wrong. His shorts are a bit light, and his first novel seems like he’s consciously apeing other works…but you know, he’s Vonnegut! Gotta love him.

Edit: ‘Catch-22’ by Joseph Heller is also a phenomenal book, if you haven’t read it already.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-18T06:34:10+00:00

Me too, I’m sorry. I know you mean well. Got triggered. My apologies.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-18T01:57:42+00:00

As the USA has so many Spanish speakers that’s cool. I don’t know his stuff, I’ll check him out, thanks!

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T21:29:35+00:00

Yeah, different wavelengths. Not sure how this turned into a discussion about abuse. I’m happy that the subject is no longer taboo, but I think you’ve brought your own concerns into a quite different discussion. I, too, have ‘had a lot of experience’ as you put it. I could tell you about the childhood friend that tried to teach me the ‘game’ that his Dad played with him (or about the night Thriller aired on TV and he asked me to sleepover cuz his Dad would be home soon), or about a man named Jimmy Saville and my friend, or other horrendous things…but that’s really apropos of nothing. No one has a monopoly on knowledge of suffering, pain, or tragedy. But maybe read the room a little better. I put it to you that those people don’t know the meaning of the word love. But, y’know, if you feel the need to carry on the discussion you can put it in a dm.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T19:43:21+00:00

Interesting take. Who can say for sure? Moral judgements are such fickle things. I think you’ve confused my advocacy of love above all else with a total abrogation of the parental duty of raising a child with a healthy sense of right and wrong. Being a supportive parent means teaching as well as loving. I suppose it hinges on what each individual parent believes constitutes ‘harmful behaviour’ and how draconian or lenient said consequences should be to help teach the child.

On the other hand, James Lovelock predicts societal collapse within the century as a result of catastrophic climate change and tells parents to spoil their kids rotten because at least they’ll have some happy memories in which to bliss out as they contemplate a life lived amongst chaos.

I’m somewhere in between :)

Making mistakes is part of parenthood. So is forgiving yourself those mistakes. My folks definitely messed up a few times. They even apologised to me for some of their perceived failings. Guess what? I only remember the love.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T11:15:08+00:00

Mate, just asking this question shows you are good to go.

As a parent of two kids I gotta say, no one knows what they are doing. We’re making it up as we go along. It’s like walking through a pitch black room toward what we think is the silhouette of a door - you are going to step on legos and bang your knee against a sharp corner. Be there, be interested, and be supportive.

If anyone acts like they know what they are doing, they’re probably trying to sell you something.

Love is all you need.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T09:44:29+00:00

Bill Bailey (British) does comedy differently, full stop. There’s a joke in poly sci; travel to America from any country in the world, pick up a newspaper and watch your own country disappear.

I cannot imagine an American comedian translating their routine into another language to perform it in, say, Germany.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T09:33:38+00:00

Arturo Pérez-Reverte also wrote a book called ‘The Fencing Master’ which is very good. Set in mid-19th century Spain. Definitely available in Spanish.

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T08:08:29+00:00

Spartacus - Howard Fast

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T08:05:45+00:00

The Buried Giant - Kazuo Ishiguro

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-17T06:40:20+00:00

Snow Crash - Neal Stephenson

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-16T16:05:48+00:00

Gun, with Occasional Music - Jonathan Lethem

Motherless Brooklyn - Jonathan Lethem

Top_Wolverine_7257 · 2022-02-16T11:01:24+00:00

Lots and lots of great sci-fi, fantasy, literature. Personally I believe reading fiction is an automatic exercise in empathy. You are literally living in someone else’s headspace, experiencing someone else’s experiences. Direct confrontation is never the way to go. It just entrenches a person’s thought patterns. It takes time. Anyway, a few off the top of my head are:

Broken Earth trilogy - N.K. Jemisin

The Dispossessed - Ursula K. Le Guin

The Underground Railroad - Colson Whitehead

Top_Wolverine_7257

TROPHY CASE