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NoLongerHuman

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Hello everyone, I’m NoLongerHuman but you can call me Asterion, Minotaur or Jimmy. I used to be a massive reader in my youth but all of those pesky, annoying mandatory reads enforced by the education system drove me away from books as I couldn’t separate them from tedious study. Thankfully, a year ago, around this time, I decided to go back to my forgotten passion and well, it’s been a great time. I’m mostly going through the classics and I have five large clusters of books on my to-read list, but I’m open to suggestions for whenever I’m done with my current assingments.

 

I’d say my favourite genres are sci-fi, mythology and whimsical adventures, anything that has a fair amount of existencialism or some sort of religious revelation or seeing a twist in reality… well that’s my jam. Tormented men as protagonists, morally grey choices and sour fates are also a plus, so hope that my help you if you want to recommend me something. No extra points for guessing what my favorite book is though.

 

I’ll attempt to make use of the best English I can but sometimes there might be misunderstandings so I ask for your patience in that front, most of the English I know is self-taught. My hope is that this forum might be the place where I recover something long lost and well, maybe I get to talk about other people about books. That’d be cool.

 

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Hi, welcome to the forum! 
 

It’s great that you’re finally enjoying reading again. I’m going to be the first to jump in with a recommendation for you: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It is strange but brilliant. 

 

I also love mythology (and whimsy!). Which books are your favourites? 
 

(Your English is excellent by the way, I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t your first language if you hadn’t pointed it out!) 
 

 

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14 hours ago, Hayley said:

Hi, welcome to the forum! 
 

It’s great that you’re finally enjoying reading again. I’m going to be the first to jump in with a recommendation for you: Piranesi by Susanna Clarke. It is strange but brilliant. 

 

I also love mythology (and whimsy!). Which books are your favourites? 
 

(Your English is excellent by the way, I wouldn’t have known it wasn’t your first language if you hadn’t pointed it out!) 
 

 

 

Why thanks, I'm just trying to make up for how terrible most people in my country are at English xD 

 

I'd say right now my favorites are No Longer Human, Rendezvous with Rama, 1984, Treasure Island and the first half of Faust I'd say they're the closest thing to a top five right now for me. I'm halfway done with the Dune saga and I'm also juggling Heike Monogatari, Paradise Lost and Gulliver's Travels, plus I also have The Three Musketeers, One Thousand and One Nights and 20.000 Leagues Under the Sea giving me the bed eyes. Plus this massive 5kg illustrated book talking about (almost) all mythologies in the world. I'm drowning in books but I keep fattening my backlog as if I'm trying to be the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

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On 15/06/2022 at 12:50 PM, NoLongerHuman said:

I'd say right now my favorites are No Longer Human, Rendezvous with Rama, 1984, Treasure Island and the first half of Faust I'd say they're the closest thing to a top five right now for me.

Adding Rendezvous with Rama to my list :). I also liked 1984.

 

On 15/06/2022 at 12:50 PM, NoLongerHuman said:

  I'm drowning in books but I keep fattening my backlog as if I'm trying to be the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

That is very relatable :giggle2:

 

What is the mythology book you’re reading? 

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On 23/6/2022 at 8:31 PM, Hayley said:

What is the mythology book you’re reading? 

 

Mitología: todos los mitos y leyendas del mundo. So you might need to brush up on Spanish, since I don't know if there's even an English version. It roughly translates to "Mythology: every myth and legend from around the world". Published by RBA, a Spanish publishing group mostly known for their magazines about history.

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8 hours ago, NoLongerHuman said:

 

Mitología: todos los mitos y leyendas del mundo. So you might need to brush up on Spanish, since I don't know if there's even an English version. It roughly translates to "Mythology: every myth and legend from around the world". Published by RBA, a Spanish publishing group mostly known for their magazines about history.

I don't think there is an English version! I really wanted to learn Spanish at school but the Spanish teacher left, meaning French was our only option. Maybe one day! I'd like to read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in Spanish, as it was originally written. 

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On 29/6/2022 at 9:09 PM, Hayley said:

I don't think there is an English version! I really wanted to learn Spanish at school but the Spanish teacher left, meaning French was our only option. Maybe one day! I'd like to read The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón in Spanish, as it was originally written. 

 

Turns out RBA is the publisher that prints the Spanish translation of National Geographic's magazine, or at least some surrogate publication birthed from National Geographic. Go figure. If one day you learn Spanish, even if it's just to read a single book, then I'd personally recommend Luces de Bohemia by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (it's actually meant  to be a stageplay but works perfectly as a book). I haven't read much literature steming from my own country but we were the original rappers that came up with beefing. Just look up stuff about Francisco de Quevedo and Luís de Góngora. Two published authors living in the same age (16th century) and hated eachothers guts, writing poems to taint the other's reputation. All because at the time the kingdom of Spain had a trend of fascination towards classical culture, Greek myth and fantastic, whimsical tales of fairies and monsters. While Góngora rode that wave pretty hard and became it's poster boy, Quevedo saw that trend as a bunch of posh pansies that tried to deny the harsh reality of the world, so as a response he led a contrarian movement of writers that wanted to depict the grim reality of life with down to earth stories about thieves, scoundrels and people who weren't very nice, something that grew to be known as it's own genre as "picaresca" since pícaro in Spanish means rogue. Góngora wrote about pretty princesses, idealistic heroes and carried the sensibilities of a less tragical Shakespeare, while Quevedo painted grim, dire worlds with painful accuracy that felt oddly dirty and unsafe.

 

Quevedo wrote about Góngora like this in a very well known poem: "Érase un hombre a una nariz pegado..." it begins, roughly meaning "Once upon a time, a man was stuck to a nose..." in which he createvily berates Góngora for having a massive fudgeing snoot it's hilarious as he pretty much uses every word imaginable to describe the nose he claims to be a fleshy pyramid. Quevedo was also one of the few people back then with glasses, so I believe Góngora dissed him for how dumb his tiny little glasses looked like. All in all, pretty fun stuff, almost as much as that Spanish author that loved gross humor and would claim he could drink from his asshole. We are built different here.

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On 02/07/2022 at 1:39 AM, NoLongerHuman said:

If one day you learn Spanish, even if it's just to read a single book, then I'd personally recommend Luces de Bohemia by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (it's actually meant  to be a stageplay but works perfectly as a book).

Okay, I'll make a note of it! 

 

On 02/07/2022 at 1:39 AM, NoLongerHuman said:

I haven't read much literature steming from my own country but we were the original rappers that came up with beefing.

Old literary rivalries are the best :lol:

 

On 02/07/2022 at 1:39 AM, NoLongerHuman said:

"Once upon a time, a man was stuck to a nose..."

Subtle, yet brutal.

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