Topic: Nintendo Life Book Club

The Queue by Vladimir Sorokin is worth checking out as well. Neat piece of experimental fiction. Maybe a bit indulgent for some but I dug it.

@Rambler Yeah they both wrote songs inspired by the book but I can't remember which one actually made me think to read it. I specifically remember buying the book after seeing it in the shop and thinking to myself "Oh, that's the book from that song". I'm leaning towards Patti as it might have been around the time I was listening to the old skool CBGB bands whilst I'm not really a Rolling Stones fan but that song is big enough to make me curious about it. I've actually found a few books I really enjoyed as they influenced musicians I like such as Perfume inspired Kurt Cobain, With Teeth by NIN started out as a concept album based on The Lathe of Heaven, Birds of America was an influence of St Vincent etc.

In any case I've started reading First Person Singular which is a collection of short stories by Haruki Murakami. I'm a fan of his work even with how pretentious he can be but you can't away that he's got mad skills when you spend three pages reading about cooking spaghetti like it's epically beautiful poem.

Tried reading the Moviegoer by Walker Percy but after 90 pages I just wasn't feeling it. Now I'm reading War & War by László Krasznahorkai. Kind of difficult to follow along at some points because each paragraph is a long uninterrupted sentence with dozens of commas that trip me up mentally. Otherwise I like it.

@moomin I've had Moviegoer on my to read list for awhile now after hearing it's basically The Divine Comedy but at Mardi Gras. Any issue with it so it should be skipped or were you just not in the right mood for it?

Not in the right mood; if it's on your list then I'd say still go for it definitely.

I finished War & War which may very well have the bleakest ending of any novel I've read. Spoiler for anyone who cares.

It ends (more or less; the epilogue I couldn't really grasp) with a link to the website the protagonist Korin spent most the novel working on. He was copying the text of an anonymous manuscript he found in an archive by chance; so profoundly touching to the suicidal Korin that he decides to upload it into digital immortality to give his suicide some kind of meaning (even though, as he claims, "my life had none"). When you go to warandwar.com (the link) you get a 404 message:

"Not Found
The requested URL / was not found on this server.

Additionally, please be informed that this home page service has been called off due to recurring overdue payment. Attempted mail deliveries to Mr. G. Korin have been returned to sender with a note: address unknown. Consequently, all data have been erased from this home page."

Now I'm reading Omensetter's Luck which is the debut of William H. Gass, who wrote my favorite novel The Tunnel

@Rambler The only other book I read by him was The Pigeon, is that the one? It's about a guy who has a break down as he sees a pigeon at his flat which is as silly and brilliant as it sounds.

Started Pale Fire by Nabokov and ordered a few cheap books on ebay. Gonna dive into Goethe finally, since I've enjoyed German lit so much.

I've heard as much. I really like the framing device employed.

Picked up the Final Fantasy VII Remake Material Ultimania last year and found it really insightful. It's very clear that all the devs working on that game were in love with the original. Especially loved the full-page character renders and the notes on the soundtrack!

I was disappointed when I got the VII-VIII-IX Ultimania book tbh. I was expecting more obscure trivia and developer interviews etc. Also they barely covered VIII compared to the others.

Does the VII Remake Ultimania have more nerd trivia?

@Rambler Yeah, I might read it at some point. Heard decent things

Berlin Alexanderplatz has been interesting so far. It kind of takes the Good Man Corrupted By Society trope but makes it Terrible Man Further Corrupted By Society. There's something very compelling about seeing the protagonist ruining his life and learning absolutely nothing.

Finished the Plague. I don't think Camus has much of an eye for aesthetics but the Plague is more a novel of ideas so I guess that's to be expected. Anyway, I enjoyed the Stranger more. I started on Gass' In the Heart of the Heart of the country. I'm on track with 7 books out of my goal of 52.

I just got the first volume in the official Splatoon manga series from Amazon. This is gonna be my first manga that I'll be collecting.

This month of April besides me still busy with Dune Battle of Corrin, Imi also going to be reading Star Wars High Republic Fallen Star and the Paperbacks From Hell

My background noise while at work for the next few days.

Kafka is great, haven't read Steppenwolf but I loved Siddhartha. Hell I didnt even realize Hesse was German(/Swiss) lol. I'm kind of in the mood for non-fiction. I finished an 800 page political biography of Deng Xiaoping (I like hoarding knowledge about the PRC like weirdo).

@Diogmites that store sounds like it would make a great book. Sounds like you had quite the adventure.