yeah. generally when i decide i want a book to read, i just go buy it. i had no idea that music and movies were fair game for a library. i went in today, borrowed a couple of national geographic videos (one on egypt and one on vikings) and a book full of soup recipes. i looked for 'neverwhere'. the library has 7 copies, but all are out. theres a nice park next to the library, so i got on a swing with my son for a while too. it was a pretty good day. i think im gonna have to hit barnes and noble tomorrow for neverwhere tho. based on the recommendations here and the fact that all the librarys copies were checked out, i probably need to read this one.

so going to the library is a lot of fun. ill probably try to make that a weekly trek from now on.

~james

I just finished up "Naked" by David Sedaris, one of the funniest books I have read in a long time...

I'm now reading "The Natural: The Misunderstood Presidency of Bill Clinton" by Joe Klein...

If you're not familiar with libraries, you may not know that you can ask to be put on the waiting list for a book that's checked out. They'll call you when it comes in and usually hold it just for you for a certain period of time. (Course it sounds like this book would probably have a list a mile long.)

I just finished <i>Choke</i> by Chuck Palahniuk, which was a fantastic read, and tried to finish <i>How to be Good</i> by Nick Hornby. The book was great, I just had a problem with a few of the characters. Maybe I'll try some other time.
I'm getting ready to start (tonight, maybe tomorrow) a collection by Robert Parker (of <i>Spencer</i> fame).

sorry about resurrecting my own dead thread, but i just finished reading bringing down the house by ben mezrich. its about a bunch of MIT students who devised a way to beat vegas at blackjack. this isnt a how-to book at all, but about what they went through, how they planned things, the lives they lived and how vegas caught on. i found it to be a very interesting read, and easily read in a day or two. a good weekend book.

~james

Just got done reading Destiny's Way, the latest Star Wars book. Yeah, I'm a junkie.

On my shelf (other than SW):

- Anything by Harry Turtledove. Turtledove deals in alternate history, a subgenre of Fantasy/Sci-Fi. The idea is that one pivotal moment in history pivots the other way (Washington doesn't escape New York, Constantinople falls to the Muslims early, Pilate pardons Jesus, etc.), and the story deals in what happens in the world afterward. His latest book, The Center Cannot Hold, is part of a thread in the aftermath of World War I, if the South had won the Civil War and was on the opposite side of the US. Really good stuff.

- Microserfs by Douglas Coupland. For the uninitiated, Microserfs is quite possibly the chronicle of early 90's geek culture. The book is written like a journal, telling the story of Daniel Underwood, a bug checker for Microsoft, who's been having trouble sleeping, so he starts the journal to find out why and it snowballs. Fun read.

- The Illuminatus! Trilogy This is the freakiest book I have ever read. I actually haven't finished it. I got half through it, and my mind was so blown, I had to read some Grisham to take a break. Illuminatus! was recommended to me by a friend, and when I told him of my difficulty, he said it helps to be stoned while reading. So there you go.

- The Lord of the Rings, one-volume edition All three books, w/ appendices, genealogies and maps. The maps help. Oh Lord do the maps help.

- Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong I got extra credit from a teacher because he saw me reading this book. The author, James Loewen, is a history professor in college. For this book, he read the dozen most widely-used High School US History textbooks and summarily points out how they alter, leave out, or outright lie about facts to paint America in the best possible light. Unbelievably valuable.

- Lamb: The Gospel According To Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal The funniest book. Period. There is nothing else. This is the gospel written by Levi bar Alphaeus, the friend since childhood of Jesus chronicling the "Lost 18", the eighteen years of Jesus' life that are unrecorded in the other four Gospels. Picture the movie "Dogma", in text form, and tenfold better. That's "Lamb".

Right now in my hand - The Hitchhiker's Trilogy, all five (that's right, five) books by Douglas Adams. Right now, I'm about midway through "Hitchhiker's Guide". So help me God, anyone ruins anything, and there'll be hell to pay. Much much hell.

~mike

At the moment I'm trying to read the second book in Terry Brooks Voyage of The Jerle Shannara trilogy. I'm also planning on picking up Stephen Kings newest book. From what I've read it sounds like another great one.

Speaking of Watership Down, I've become and addict of the Redwall Series, yeah it's a bunch of talking animals and if this is going to bother you then stay away.

without giving anything away, the second one gave me the creeps towards the end. the 3rd one is out now, i havent gotten it yet, but i really do hope its as creepy as that one. i bet terry brooks could write a mean horror novel.

~james

I'm reading Harry Turtledove's World War series. I felt guilty about it but since Chewey already justified it for me there it is.

Also by the bed, I'm occasionally flipping through Our Enemy, The State : A Study of Social Power vs State Power and of the State in Colonial America by Albert Jay Nock just in case the jackbooted thugs can't find anything to prosecute on. :)

I still have the third book The Return of the King in the Lord of the Rings series by Tolkein to read.

I also had a breakthrough in the one I've been scratching out but set aside until last night. Now if I can just keep myself from going pyro on this one maybe...

Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem.

Excellent. I also enjoyed "Shampoo Planet," also by Coupland. I like both of those more than "Generation X," the novel that coined the name we all know and lo{v|ath}e.

[Oddly enough, Microserfs is probably the only novel my dad has read in 40 years. I've never seen the man with a piece of fiction in his hands, and he once told me he had to take freshman English four times before he passed it in college, so it was a great surprise to me when he & mom were visiting a couple years ago and he picked up Microserfs and started reading it. My mom got hold of Tales of the City on the same trip, and when I asked her how she liked it, she said, "Well, I never knew there were so many perverts in the world."]

I just started "On Basilisk Station," the first book in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. Weber came to my attention primarily because his publisher, Baen Books, also publishes Lois McMaster Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan books, and I was poking around their web site. Too early to tell if I like it.

I read Watership Down when it was published, and several times since then ... I've always liked it, and so did many of my friends, nearly all of whom know exactly what I mean when I talk about "going tharn" ...

I read a LOT. Not as much as I'd like to, of course. Work keeps getting in the way of my reading. Hmmm ... I also think perhaps I've not been reading as much since I've been spending time on line, but well, that's KIND of like reading too, isn't it??

On the recent completed pile:

Slander Ann Coulter
Let Freedom Ring Sean Hannity
Atlas Shrugged Ayn Rand (which I'd actively avoided for years until my boyfriend made me read it -- thank you, honey!)
Debt of Honor Tom Clancy (I've gotten behind on his books)
Pain Management Andrew Vachss
Shakedown Kenneth Timmerman
Bee Season Myra Goldberg (lots of local (Montgomery County) flavor ... and a really interesting story.

There's more, but that's what I remember right now ...

I've read a lot of Brian Jacques Redwall Books. They all are completely based on an animal world. There all quite good. I havn't read Watership Down so I don't know how they compare, but if your willing to read Watership Down , I recommend the Redwall Series.

Jack London-
 

I don't have a whole lot to say about books lately, but have written several myself. But of the one's I didn't, I read "watership down" and felt that even with the occasional drawing added it was overall a depressing experience for me and perhaps it was what I was going through at the time (middle school). I was however very pleased with Jack London's "dog's eye view" of our world and the justices these animals reaped against their abusers. I have written some animal stories as well and it is so much fun to wear those tiny shoes for a little while! Earnest Hemmingway is another big fave of mine as well as Jimmy Buffet but that is a whole other topic of discussion. As for my own books, I love lousy reviews! Did you know that Dean Koontz has thirty pseudonyms he has written under himself? Inside word is that he has also sponsored others to fulfill their wishes by even allowing other authors to publish under his name. I sure hope they were paid for their endeavors, individualy.