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Jacob_King

Jacob_King

Joined April 2016

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.
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How I Became a Nun by César Aira
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Jacob_King
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A densely layered postmodern fairytale where fairyland is reimagined as a factory and the factory is reimagined as a critique of consumerism. Dahl exhausts the possibility of the moral tale through excess, rebuking sentimentality about childhood and parents while still celebrating children.

4 likes2 stack adds
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Jacob_King
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"She's going where all the other bad nuts go," said Mr. Willy Wonka. "Down the garbage chute."

4 likes1 stack add
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Jacob_King
Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood
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To quote William Gibson "the future is already here-it's just not evenly distributed." The apocalyptic world of the Handmaid is at once allegorical and far off but also recognisably familiar and not just from ISIS and FLDS. A visceral thoughtful thriller with lots of sex and religion.

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Jacob_King
How I Became a Nun | César Aira
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I briefly envisioned the horrific prospect of eating the whole ice cream just to please him. It was only a thimbleful, the tiniest kiddie size cup, but at that moment it might as well have been a ton.

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Jacob_King
Handmaid's Tale | Margaret Atwood
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Catching up on a classic you missed is always a risk. What if that book everyone else likes is a boring drag? Then again it could be an amazing gut punch of awesome. I'm 70 pages in and am loving it.

Bookgirl I love this book. Have read it several times! 9y
Jacob_King I'm a lot further in and it just gets better. Very gripping with spots of humour. 9y
Zakia Gave me nightmares. But so good! 8y
6 likes1 stack add3 comments
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Jacob_King
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Some books hit you so hard you end up buying copies just to give as random gifts.

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Jacob_King
Nazi Literature in the Americas | Roberto Bolaño, Chris Andrews
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The most accessible Bolano is also a weird off-putting joke without a punchline. By creating a fictional history of Nazi poets and authors he puts the reader in the position of defending modernism against an unmade charge - a reverse Godwin's law situation. File next to Invisible Cities.

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Jacob_King
Peripheral | William Gibson
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A murder mystery where the key witness exists in a parallel dimension. A thoughtful thriller where meditations on technology, time travel, nostalgia and the ethics of inter-dimensional colonialism are cut with action and violence. A fun fast paced read that covers a lot of ground with little slack.