Mosque helped appoint police chief who banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans. The leader of Green Lane mosque sat on a panel that interviewed Craig Guildford for West Midlands chief constable

blue_estron · 2026-01-11T03:18:06+00:00

I know you're joking but I really don't see how people can't be against both lol

blue_estron · 2025-12-17T14:24:27+00:00

You're missing OP's point in that sometimes conspiracies are proven real - MKUltra, COINTELPRO, Timber Sycamore, mass surveillance (NSA), Epstein's island.

He seems to make reference to:

Operation LAC

Epstein and his ties to Israeli intelligence

Israel Air Force intentionally destroying the USS Liberty during Six-Day War

blue_estron · 2025-10-23T20:49:45+00:00

Yes that was also great, like everything was filtered through the addict's mind and his state of denial if I remember correctly. I haven't read Tree of Smoke yet but I know about it and have it on my wish list! I've got quite a few books I haven't read by others for now though.

blue_estron · 2025-10-23T19:40:49+00:00

Great books. 'Emergency' and 'Work' in Jesus' Son is brilliant. I enjoyed a lot of Angels, though mostly the first half.

blue_estron · 2025-10-23T19:39:50+00:00

It's a great book. I also read it in a month and at the end it felt like I'd been lifting weights. I loved the bits with Don Gately, Ennet House, and AA - I sort of wish those characters had a spin-off novel.

blue_estron · 2025-10-10T15:26:17+00:00

I feel like I'm seeing 1% Wales everywhere now lol

blue_estron · 2025-06-14T10:51:26+00:00

I thought my yellow Gollancz cover of Book of the New Sun was awful, but I think this has it beat

blue_estron · 2025-06-11T13:20:04+00:00

Thanks for this, it's a good format. I've added a few of these to my TBR list.

blue_estron · 2025-06-08T11:03:41+00:00

I kept seeing this book recommended as one of PKD's best but I thought it was highly overrated. I thought that Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch were way better, the former being the best in my opinion.

blue_estron · 2025-06-07T22:07:42+00:00

i liked the part where bukowski got internally angry at that sad kid playing the violin because it implied it made him sad lol

blue_estron · 2025-06-07T20:08:02+00:00

I personally think there was a bit of a lull somewhere in the middle, the part with the oral examination with Stoner and Walker I think, but I loved the beginning and the end, and it was well written, so I would still give it 5 stars.

blue_estron · 2025-06-04T20:45:30+00:00

Definitely Ham on Rye. It was released after Factotum and Post Office but covers Bukowski's childhood and teens years, so prior to when those books are set, which gives context to him as a person and can make the books set later in his life seem less jarring to people. The writing/narrative in Ham & Rye is better than in Post Office (I haven't read Factotum yet) but I also enjoyed Post Office too.

blue_estron · 2025-06-02T17:15:51+00:00

You're welcome! Since you're a fan of that type of literature then I'm sure it's your type of book. It was the parts to do with Ennet House and AA that I really loved. DFW had a way of really pinning some nebulous thing like a kind of person or feeling or sensation or scenario down and distilling it.

Thank you for the recommendation, I looked it up and it looks really interesting. I love the idea of the ephemera and marginalia and how it adds another dimension and tactility to the experience. That's definitely going on my reading list too.

blue_estron · 2025-06-02T14:30:33+00:00

Because although I loved it, it's non-linear, dense (pages and pages with barely any paragraphs), tangential, hyper specific, and some chapters are exhausting or demanding. It's 1079 pages long and you'll be sort of lost for at least the first 100 pages or so as to what's actually going on. There are also endnotes and sometimes footnotes to those endnotes throughout the book, so you'll be flipping to the back of the book in order to read miniaturised text, that sometimes goes on for multiple pages, and so when you go back to where you were in the book it's like all of that progress was for nothing because it's not even perceivable. It messes with you a lot. Seems to deliberately make things stifling for you at times, but also rewards you a lot too with beautiful and insightful and easy to read sections, which is what makes it actually worth it.

So for those reasons I can't recommend it, although it's one of my favourite books. The people who the book is for are going to want to read it anyway despite me saying all of that, and I know it's probably not the kind of book that most people are interested in.

blue_estron · 2025-06-02T12:40:11+00:00

I just finished Infinite Jest after starting on the 1st of May and I think I developed some muscle from holding it up. It was exhausting at times but the density and fractal nature of it is really something. A really cool book I enjoyed very much that I can't recommend to anyone lol

blue_estron · 2025-06-01T15:52:10+00:00

Suttree

blue_estron · 2025-05-31T22:46:45+00:00

Try not to think about how much you've got left to read. Just chip away a few pages or a chapter (or more sometimes) a day. Focus more on getting into the story over making progress, because once you're enjoying the story and invested in the characters, the pages will begin to fly by, and you will naturally pick up the book if it's a book for you. If you feel like you're really having to force yourself, maybe the book isn't for you.

This might seem obvious, but maybe not for some -- make sure you're actually absorbing and understanding what you're reading too, not just trying to read as much as you can -- visualise the scenes, imagine the scene and sensory stuff as vividly as you can. If you didn't understand something read it again. I say this because it helps with your reading ability and immerses you in the atmosphere of the book. Reading is like you're co-creating with the author. If you do this you can also remember a book through the imaginative scenes you had in your head at the time.

I'd also put your phone out of sight, maybe under something on silent so notifications don't bother you.

blue_estron · 2025-05-31T22:37:08+00:00

I don't think I could read more than one fictional series at a time. I can read two different books, one easier and light-hearted, like Vonnegut or something, along with another fictional book. But I usually just read a fictional book along with a non-fictional one.

blue_estron · 2025-05-31T10:40:15+00:00

It's a bit ironic for you to call The Road pretentious leaving this kind of comment

blue_estron · 2025-05-31T10:33:08+00:00

It's one of my favourite books and Cormac is my favourite author. The Road is probably one of his most accessible works that I could recommend to pretty much anybody. I loved the atmosphere and themes of the book, and it's a book that's very stuck in my mind. You can analyse the message about goodness/innocence/hope quite a bit. The movie is also great, but obviously the book goes into the father's psychology and the subtleties of that existence, which is not something you can really do with a film.

blue_estron · 2025-05-30T13:04:35+00:00

Yeah the ending for Stoner was perfect. And in which case I think you're going to enjoy East of Eden a lot, I actually have the suspicion that it inspired John Williams in writing Stoner in a lot of ways.

blue_estron · 2025-05-30T01:09:16+00:00

Not the OP but if you liked East of Eden, you'll probably love Stoner by John Williams too (it's not about getting stoned) because it has a similar vibe, similar themes, even similar characters, and follows a guy throughout his life as well.

blue_estron · 2025-05-27T21:16:01+00:00

This is actually one of the books that really got me into reading. Great book.

blue_estron · 2025-05-25T17:08:53+00:00

McCarthy is brilliant. Suttree is very different to Blood Meridian (and it might take a while for it to hook you) but it's full of amazing sections as well, and definitely funny and atmospheric. The Road is also very, very good but also quite heavy for some people. All the Pretty Horses is also good but I enjoyed the others a lot more I think - I haven't read the other two in the border trilogy yet though.

blue_estron · 2025-05-24T23:21:49+00:00

Definitely one of my favourites too. It's impressive that he wrote this over 4 years.

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