Gary Jennings’ Aztec. Come for the historical accuracy of pre-columbian exchange Central America, stay for the depressing twisted sickening outlook.

Infinite Jest - just the part about video conferencing is wild and is even mire wild when you realize it was written in the 90’s before video conferencing really existed:

“Good old traditional audio-only phone conversations allowed you to presume that the person on the other end was paying complete attention to you while also permitting you not to have to pay anything even close to complete attention to her. A traditional aural-only conversation […] let you enter a kind of highway-hypnotic semi-attentive fugue: while conversing, you could look around the room, doodle, fine-groom, peel tiny bits of dead skin away from your cuticles, compose phone-pad haiku, stir things on the stove; you could even carry on a whole separate additional sign-language-and-exaggerated-facial-expression type of conversation with people right there in the room with you, all while seeming to be right there attending closely to the voice on the phone. And yet — and this was the retrospectively marvelous part — even as you were dividing your attention between the phone call and all sorts of other idle little fuguelike activities, you were somehow never haunted by the suspicion that the person on the other end’s attention might be similarly divided.”

Assisted Living (aka Äldreomsorgen i Övre Kågedalen) by Nikanor Teratologen. It’s a very bleak and horrible story about a boy who is in an incestuous relationship with his nazi philosopher grandfather. Together the go around committing murder, rape, and other crimes, while relating everything to obscure authors and texts. The original is written entirely in a swedish dialect which is hard to understand, and it didn’t translate that well into other languages I think. Despite all this, it is very well written and has won prizes and been made into a play and radio reading etc.

anarcho-syndicalism theory and practice by rudolf rocker, it was let’s say enligthening, I was already an anarchist before reading it, but now I’m an anarcho-syndicalist

currently reading networking in the rust programming language btw

Pearl by Josh Malerman (Bird Box).

It’s about a pig on a small farm that can seep into your mind and make you do and see terrible things. I picked it up after reading Bird Box and a few other books of his, which I enjoyed. I expected to give up on it based on the silly 80s horror movie premise, but the book is truly demented and creepy and I felt existentially weird after reading it

Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. I into it blind.

Wild Animus

It’s about a Berkeley graduate who takes a bunch of acid and then dresses up like a mountain Ram in Alaska and becomes increasingly more deranged.

It was on a reading list for a college class. Pirate the book if you decide to read, because the author is a raging asshole.

Diaspora by Greg Egan, it’s one of the best thought out take on what a post human society could look like. Lots of amazing ideas in the book.

Der Prozess (1915) by Franz Kafka, it still is relevant today.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami just a magnificent read, you probably couldn’t go wrong with any of his works.

Currently reading The Illuminatus trilogy. It is a trippy, psychedelic thriller, which assumes many conspiracy theories, both well-known and obscure to be true.

China Miéville - The City & the City is one that I don’t think I’ll ever forget. Wild because as far out as it feels, it’s also a pretty accurate portrayal of how we’ve trained ourselves to intentionally not see. I find myself thinking of the book often.

Santa Steps Out was wild.

'Sex, Death, and Santa Claus

His generosity is legendary. He has a devoted wife, a crack team of sky-borne reindeer, hordes of industrious elves, and the love of good little boys and girls around the globe. But what unholy desires now propel him into the lascivious clutches of a certain fairy? And who was he before the sleigh and workshop, in times forgotten?

She munches on molars, summons drowned sailors to her pleasure, and recalls, sharp as a pinprick, her life as the most savage of ash nymphs. Why then is she stuck, night after night, hovering above pillows to leave coins for gap-toothed brats? More important, how quickly can she captivate the jolly old elf to the north?

He’s huge, fluffy, lonesome, and unbearably horny. On his Easter rounds, he contrives, as often as possible, to get a grip on himself and peer into interesting bedrooms. But who in the world will throw him down and ravage him as the lovers under his gaze ravage one another?

Deadite Press is proud to bring back the ultimate erotic Christmas story from Robert Devereaux’

A long way gone by Ishmael Beah was pretty dark. Story of a boy soldier from Sierra Leone explaining how you get forced into it and the terrible things they did.

Philip K Dick - The three stigmata of palmer eldritch.

It’s like a dream, where you forget where you came from, but at the same time there are powerful themes that are personally and emotionally affecting. Like an acid trip or religious experience, you aren’t the same person after you’ve finished it, whatever lesson you got from it.