Hello Jim, I recently bought and read your book. (After having found this godsend of a blog and commenters.)
Anyway I found the book fucking awesome. Extremely readable, funny, yet serious and hard-hitting throughout. It makes me want to write a book about this shit myself, and my own lifelong similar thoughts.
There's so little lit, and thanks for this GREAT contribution. Haven't read the Benatar book, the excerpts feel too cerebral/academic/dry/verbose. I prefer direct prose such as yours, with no ponderous referential arguments to anything. (Life not only sucks, it's too short for too many words.)
If I have any quibble, it's the cover design being a little too grand-guignol. I could probably do something much cooler for your next printing. :)
Anyway, thanks for this sanity-saving blog, I'm sure I'll be blathering further. And anybody who reads this comment - GET THIS BOOK, srsly.
I'm the guy behind Nine-Banded Books, Jim's publisher. Thanks so much for the kind endorsement.
It may interest you -- and others here -- to know that the cover image is adapted from a multi-panel woodcut print that appeared in various editions of a sensationalist 19th c. Christian tract called "Hell Opened to Christians." In its original context the image of demonic serpents rending the flesh of an absurdly conceived sinner amounted to a crude expression of what theologians sometimes call the "abominable fancy," that is, the derivation of pleasure from the knowledge of the torments that await the damned. The joke may have been too "inside," but I thought there was a bit of comic irony to be indulged by appropriating and recontextualizing the image for Jim's book. (This might become clearer when you consider the suicide-baiting spleen that inevitably belches up wherever antinatalist heresy is encountered.) I also liked that Jim's Ouroborus metaphor might invite another interpretation.
Anyway, that's the backstory. We'll surely redesign the cover in the event of future printings.
5 comments:
The YouTube screen grab is hilarious. You look drunk!
LOL! I noticed that. However (in case my public's interested) I am clean and sober most days of the month, discounting holidays and special occasions.
Hello Jim, I recently bought and read your book. (After having found this godsend of a blog and commenters.)
Anyway I found the book fucking awesome. Extremely readable, funny, yet serious and hard-hitting throughout. It makes me want to write a book about this shit myself, and my own lifelong similar thoughts.
There's so little lit, and thanks for this GREAT contribution. Haven't read the Benatar book, the excerpts feel too cerebral/academic/dry/verbose. I prefer direct prose such as yours, with no ponderous referential arguments to anything. (Life not only sucks, it's too short for too many words.)
If I have any quibble, it's the cover design being a little too grand-guignol. I could probably do something much cooler for your next printing. :)
Anyway, thanks for this sanity-saving blog, I'm sure I'll be blathering further. And anybody who reads this comment - GET THIS BOOK, srsly.
Sharkbabe,
I'm the guy behind Nine-Banded Books, Jim's publisher. Thanks so much for the kind endorsement.
It may interest you -- and others here -- to know that the cover image is adapted from a multi-panel woodcut print that appeared in various editions of a sensationalist 19th c. Christian tract called "Hell Opened to Christians." In its original context the image of demonic serpents rending the flesh of an absurdly conceived sinner amounted to a crude expression of what theologians sometimes call the "abominable fancy," that is, the derivation of pleasure from the knowledge of the torments that await the damned. The joke may have been too "inside," but I thought there was a bit of comic irony to be indulged by appropriating and recontextualizing the image for Jim's book. (This might become clearer when you consider the suicide-baiting spleen that inevitably belches up wherever antinatalist heresy is encountered.) I also liked that Jim's Ouroborus metaphor might invite another interpretation.
Anyway, that's the backstory. We'll surely redesign the cover in the event of future printings.
Hey, Sharkbabe, thanks for the positive review. Glad to have you here. I hope you'll stop by from time to time and throw in with the rest of us.
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