literature
Geek literature from the New York Times or the recesses of online. Our favorite stories showcase geeks.
Book Review: "The Book of Goose" by Yiyun Li
There have been times where I have picked up a book because of its artwork. Unfortunately, in these cases I had in fact, judged a book by its cover. There have also been times I had picked a book up because of its title. I had found it interesting or wanted to know exactly what it meant. Then there are times like these where the book has been looking at me, following me, for ages. I first came across this book on the Amazon Bookstore. I saved it to my wishlist. Then it came up on my Amazon Recommendations. Finally, I was in a bookstore in Birmingham and gave up trying to stop it. I bought the book. I knew I was in for one hell of a ride but honestly, this book simply blew me away.
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "At Your Own Risk" by Derek Jarman
“I was another young man corrupted and co-opted by heterosexuality, my mind still swimming about in the cesspit which is known as family life, subjected to a Christian love whose ugliness would shatter a mirror. I had to destroy my inheritance to face you and love you.”- At Your Own Risk by Derek Jarman
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Insomniac City" by Bill Hayes
Full Title: Insomniac City: New York, Oliver Sacks and Me by Bill Hayes “I suppose it’s a cliché to say you’re glad to be alive, that life is short, but to say you’re glad to be not dead requires a specific intimacy with loss that comes only with age or deep experience. One has to know not simply what dying is like, but to know death itself, in all its absoluteness. After all, there are many ways to die—peacefully, violently, suddenly, slowly, happily, unhappily, too soon. But to be dead—one either is or isn’t. The same cannot be said of aliveness, of which there are countless degrees. One can be alive but half-asleep or half-noticing as the years fly, no matter how fully oxygenated the blood and brain or how steadily the heart beats. Fortunately, this is a reversible condition. One can learn to be alert to the extraordinary and press pause—to memorize moments of the everyday.”Insomniac City by Bill Hayes
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Zero-Sum" by Joyce Carol Oates
Joyce Carol Oates is probably best known for her darker fiction. Her air of mystique comes from presenting the ordinary as something to be afraid of. The theme of, you don't really know your neighbours, pervades throughout her fiction from her short stories all the way to her novel The Babysitter. Very recently, I found myself reading a book of her short stories which seemed incredibly recent in its writing (though I regret I didn't look up when it was written and still haven't). The book was called The Doll-Master and Other Tales of Terror. The normal is made to look abnormal, uncanny valley is brought in as reality and normality shift around and make everything seem askew and discordant. This is what she does best and out of most authors, she also does it the best.
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Ultra-Processed People" by Chris van Tulleken
“The food security that many of us enjoy is the product of a system of production that has kept costs low by destroying wild land and not paying for the costs of atmospheric carbon. These approaches will, ironically, create huge food insecurity. This is happening already around the globe, but nowhere more directly than in the areas of the Amazon that have been deforested to grow soy.”
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Queer" by William S. Burroughs
“The rudeness of many Americans depressed him, a rudeness based on a solid ignorance of the whole concept of manners, and on the proposition that for social purposes, all people are more or less equal and interchangeable.”- Queer by William S. Burroughs
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
Lisa Frankenstein
*SPOILERS WARNING* -also for those of you who are NOT fans of CAMPY movies this is not for you... sorry because- in my best hipster voice "this movie is 100% Camp bruh." Which for me and anyone else who loves over dramatics, theatrics, homages to the classics, and all things 80's it's an absolute treat!!
By Hayley Matto3 years ago in Geeks
Book Review: "Dancing Ledge" by Derek Jarman
“Oh how Shakespeare would have loved cinema!”- Dancing Ledge by Derek Jarman As I hope you all know by now, Derek Jarman is one of my all-time favourite people ever. A great film director, a brilliant writer and a man who simply has one of the greatest artistic imaginations out there. Derek Jarman was a testament to everything film is meant to be. The creator of masterpieces such as Edward II and Caravaggio, the book 'Dancing Ledge' starts off with the difficulties of making them, the funding that was not there and goes through the incredible hard work that Jarman put in to creating these masterpieces and many more. A man who had a wild life and an even wilder mind proves to be one of the most intelligent men that the film world has ever seen.
By Annie Kapur3 years ago in Geeks
