Drusas

I don’t think the broader populace has any link between the two of them in their minds.

You should be a TV writer.

Harassment, intimidation, and false imprisonment are not free speech.

This was an act of terrorism clearly intended to terrorize those inside the bus.

The locals, obviously. If they don’t like it, they should speak to their representatives and protest their shitty police force.

Jesus fucking christ, imagine getting arrested and losing your leg because you were living in your car. That’ll definitely help you improve your financial situation.

Also, the cops turned their cameras off at various points. What is the point of cameras if they are allowed to turn them off? They shouldn’t even have the ability to do so.

I hope she gets a huge payout and those cops land in prison.

A former neighbor and landlord of the Grays told The Post the teenager came from a neglectful home that, according to police, was frequently visited by the state’s child protective services agency.

The alleged school shooter’s mother, Marcee Gray, who has a lengthy rap sheet with drug and domestic violence busts, is a bit of a black sheep on her side of the family, the relative explained.

Unlike the rest of her kin, she got into the wrong crowd, dated some bad guys and often got into trouble, the family member said.

Lauren Vickers, who lived next door to the Grays in Jefferson, Ga., told The Post the children were always wearing dirty clothes and sometimes were hungry.

This is practically the definition of white trash.

Just because part of the family isn’t trashy doesn’t mean that this particular family unit isn’t.

To be fair, in many, many places “white trash” people are the “regular people”.

Looking at you, my family from Kentucky who thought it was totally okay and not-weird to have us visit them for a week with no functional toilet.

Edit: They also thought that me being a vegetarian meant that all I could eat is plants. So they bought two bunches of bananas for me. And that’s it. I don’t even like bananas.

I don’t know where you’re from, but I have only ever heard somebody use the phrase “white trash” to refer to lower income white people, usually who behave in a trashy manner but not always (wherein a trashy manner means things like wearing wife beaters or raggy clothing, men walking around without shirts on, living in a trailer park–though that alone doesn’t necessarily make you white trash, being undereducated and poorly spoken, being bigoted and outspoken, likely being on drugs or drinking too much, or living on disability payments while not being disabled and still hating “welfare” for others, having a criminal record–penchant for fighting, drunk driving, theft, drug dealing, etc, etc).

And it’s very much a racist term because it’s implying that regular “trash” is not white.

I’ve heard that about The Dispossessed. I tried to listen to it on audiobook and the narration was terrible, so I just couldn’t get far into it. I need to pick up a physical or digital copy.

Oh, and Malazan is great. That one took me two tries to really get into as well, mostly because I initially had trouble keeping track of so many characters.

Enjoying a classic book is not pretentious. Conversely, gatekeeping what people think is a must-read is pretty pretentious.

Reading books which make you think is also not pretentious, and I get the idea that you sure think it is. There’s nothing wrong with light reading for fun, but some people enjoy more variety than that.

The sequels are worth it.

No. The Count of Monte Cristo is a much better and deeper novel, but The Three Musketeers is much lighter and more fun. They’re both good reads for different reasons.

I’ve been thinking the same myself. I remember it having such an impact on me as a kid.

I don’t mean to be replying to every post on this thread–I guess I love a lot of books–, but I’m going to have to recommend these in particular for people who don’t usually read.

I had this friend in college who had never read a book of his own volition. He wasn’t the sort of person who was proud of the fact, he just thought books were boring and had trouble getting through them. This horrified me, as somebody who had a collection of some 500 books or so at that point (almost all of them read). Anyway, he read Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and then Catch-22, and he was hooked. He’s been a reader ever since.

I agree with more than one of these, but I would call out The Metamorphosis as one that everybody should read. You can appreciate it at any age (well, within reason–maybe not for the 8-year-olds), it’s dramatic and captivating, and it’s short.

I always try to recommend books of short stories to my friends who like to read but don’t have much time for it.

I really loved The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Cristo. I was surprised at how well they held up over time.

I’ve gotta reread that. Haven’t read it since something like 1997. Still count it as a favorite book, though.

The dystopic books that warn us of what we could be.

1984, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World, Animal Farm, The Giver (and yes, you should still read The Giver even if you’re an adult if you’ve never read it before).

But the first book that flashed through my mind when I read the question was Slaughterhouse Five.

Wholeheartedly agree with The Stranger, but I think most people would not quite get it/appreciate its theme.

Funny. I absolutely hated Stranger in a Strange Land. It felt like a 14-year-old boy’s fantasy/im14andiamsmart. Pretentious and masturbatory.

Maybe I would have loved it if I read it when I was 14 instead of when I was something like 22.

It’s actually my go-to example for a book that I dislike. I think it’s the only book I’ve really actually hated. I would have just thought it was tripe if it hadn’t taken such a wonderful title away. Now there will never be a good book with that fantastic title.