Whatcha reading?
 

So, have you read anything interesting lately? Here's what I've recently read:


Darwin's Radio by Greg Bear - Hard sci-fi. It spent a lot of time developing the charactors, but that isn't what's really good about this book. The story is very thought-provoking and written in a style that makes it feel a bit too real. As the title implies, it's about evolution, but it's set in modern times. Good stuff.

American Gods by Neil Gaiman - Modern mythology. I'm not so good with mythology (I can never get all the names straight), but it didn't really diminish my appreciation for this book. It is a bit violent and explicit, but no more than say, an old Stephen King book. The story is compelling, but a bit disjointed. A basic knowledge of mythology would have probably deepened my appreciation for this book.


So, what are you reading, and is it any good?

book 5 of the wheel of time (the fires of heaven, robert jordan) - i dig this series. its fantasy, but you really get the sense that its a bigger world, well thought-out and compelling.

neverwhere (neil gaiman) - recommended in a previous thread by jeni i think. good stuff.

the castle of otranto (horace walpole) - considered the first gothic novel, its got atmosphere. not especially scary, but defininitely an interesting read.

~james

<i>Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies</i>, by Jared Diamond.

This book asks the question, "Why did civilization develop at such different rates on the different continents?" For example, why didn't the Africans or the Native Americans grow in power and then conquer the Europeans? On the surface, the answer seems to be because the Europeans developed certain technologies first. Thus, they were more powerful, and were able to conquer peoples. But why were they able to do this before anyone else? The author proposes that it was not just random chance, but the evironment they lived in. It was the domesticatability of the plants and animals in the area they lived in (and the areas to the east and west of them) that enabled them to change from hunter-gatherer societies to agricultural societies. The better food production then enabled some people to do nothing but research a certain topic.

It's a history book, and it won the pulitzer prize. It's written from a biological evolutional perspective, though, and I really like the scientific approach the author uses to try to take on these historical questions. The way that the different fields that the author has studied merge into one grand theory is really interesting.

I just got this book, so I have yet to get very far into it. But I can't wait to see what the author's ideas are.

Essential Biology

Hehe, it's actually been the most interesting thing I've read in a long time. Well besides the few times I've gotten to read a bit of Everythings Eventual by Stephen King.

I don't read books...hurts my head too much.

Well, it may be a bit easier on you if you dont hit them against your forehead :D

*duckin*

Dagney

Well, you see, the problem is...I try to read one. Then I get frustrated. This starts the head-hurting. Then, in frustration, I hit them against my forehead. That makes my head hurt even more. :)

Hee hee... did you used to do marketing for the Book of the Month Club, sycamore?

I'm reading the first volume of Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler. I believe it's called "Hubris: 1889-1936", but I'm too lazy to look up the exact title. Anyway, it is fascinating. I highly recommend it if you're interested in Hitler or the 3rd Reich. (Though it is long, and somewhat dry in places. And man, all those German political parties get to be a confusing alphabet soup.)

And yet, you read all of our nonsense all day?

Holy shit Steve! That's where I stole my post from...I used to send back the "no" sticker all the time on those.

In one of the teen magazines we used to get in high school (not Tiger Beat or shit like that, but ones that were produced by a company like Scholastic), there was this one ad...I believe it was something about staying in school or something. And it said something like, "If you don't want to go to school anymore, cut this out and paste it on your forehead." The cutout read:

<center>I'M AN IDIOT
AND I DON'T GIVE A DAMN
ABOUT MY FUTURE</center>

I saw that during freshman year...and it became my mantra all through high school.

The scary part about the Cellar, Pimp Daddy Juju, is that sometimes you can learn more about the ways of the world here than you can from a book.

The Hitler Bio sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out. I read Toland's massive version back when I was in high school.

Right now I'm reading Executive Decision by Tom Clancy, although wading through it is probably a more accurate description ... it's not that I'm not liking it ... I AM.

It's just damn long ... the paperback is over 1300 pages! :eek:

And is essentially a continuation of the previous Ryan novel, Debt of Honor.

It's fantastic, though, edge of my seat reading. IMNSHO, it took Clancy a while to get ahold of the idea of evoking an emotional response in his readers, but man, he's got it down good for this one.

I'm going to have to read something light and fluffy afterwards before I start searching around to see where the hell I put the copy of the next Clancy. I KNOW I bought it. It just ended up underneath something else probably.

Even if you don't intend to read the whole thing, you may check out the introductory mini-chapter. He talks a little bit about "why ANOTHER Hitler biography?"

Every few year, I reread my list of essential books. I'm in the middle of that right now. They include

The Brothers Karamazov
THE trilogy (tolkein)
Critique of Pure Reason by Kant
Christ the Center by Deitrich Bonhoeffer
Beneath the Underdog by Charlie Mingus
So Long and Thanks for all the fish (and all associated nonsense)

In the middle of the Kant right now. A nice glass of Walker Black label, a hot bath, three or four paragraphs before my brain explodes behind my eyes into a thousand contradictory pieces. I hate Kant.

-sm

Salman Rushdie - Satanic Verses
Tom Wolf - The bonfire of vanities
Willian Giibson - Party Time
Andrew Hunt, David Thomas - Pragamatic Programming

Just finished Niel Stepherson - Diamond Age and Cyptonomicon, legendary stuff.

Also got a stack of books on cognitive AI, relational databases and parallel/grid computing. nice light reading ;)


The Brothers Karamazov ????? Argh! It's so SLOW!

THE trilogy? Okay, I'm new to posting here and now I'm going to make some folks hate me...

...

I hated reading THE trilogy. I liked the story, the charactors were cool, but if I had to read one more freakin poem or song, I was going to hold my own private book burning.

I've had people tell me, "Oh, give it another chance. You read them as a kid." Good point. So, prior to seeing any of the LOTR movies, I read the trilogy again (skipping The Hobbit this time). I'm sad to admit that it still didn't really do much for me. I'll go hide my face now..

Jaguar - how did you like Diamond Age? I thought that Zodiac was a ton of fun.

yep, i hate you. seriously though, give it another chance. :)

honestly, i had a hard time getting through it the first time. thats not to say you should keep trying, because i know people who are the same way. they love the story, but cant stand the writing. and thats fine. i heard they made a movie of it, so watch that instead.

are you into fantasy much in general? if so, what do you like? myself, i always liked terry brooks' shannara series (but hated magic kingdom) and the wheel of time. i read lotr every once in a while and i love it, but as far as the writing goes, i agree it can be dry and *gasp* even boring. :)

~james

THe third LOTR is the really boring one, i was fine up till then but damn if i read something to the effect of "...terrain was boring...he'd never felt so lonely in his life...." i was going to use the damn thing for archery practice...

Diamond age was fantastic, remarkably different to cryptonomicon, the style seemed closer to Gibson, certainly drew me in, some facinating concepts and ideas. Stepherson has a certain....raw? way of writing that really drags me in, i only discovered his books recently but damn, they're good. I haven't managed to track down a copy of Zodiac yet, working on it at the moment (though most of my waking hours involved one screen or another and page after page of code :violin: )

i am a HUGE fan of neil gaiman.

jakeline, i thought american gods was really good. a little eccentric, maybe, but very well thought out and more of an "and the moral of the story is..." book than a story itself. i think it was written to provoke thought.

i find that neil gaiman, being the incredibly intelligent and well-written individual that he obviously is, is a wonderful read.

that is why i recommend all of his books. as perth said, i recommended neverwhere, which still remains one of my favorite and most memorable books. coraline was very good (even as a children's book, it leaves a big impression on the adult mind), as was stardust (a sort of fairytale. called by some a "girl's book", even the author himself. still worth reading if you've been impressed so far by gaiman's style).

i am currently reading good omens, a collaboration of gaiman and terry pratchett (of discworld fame). it's a tale of the apocalypse, written in a humorous manner.

and it's REALLY, REALLY funny.

i'm going to give you an excerpt, here. right now we're reading about this guy's car, an obsolete ancient little japanese car called the wasabi.

BUY THIS BOOK.

Lets see, just finished Prey and Dracula, still nibbling on Nocks Jefferson,(yummy) started Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence haven't opened Crockers Triumph lately, should finish Rothbards little pamphet Education Free and Compulsory when I'm in the mood. Just started Paul Goodman's Utopian Essays and Practical Proposals and have no idea what I'm in for. If it sounds messy its because it is. I need to rationalize this pile.

You are not Alone ...
 

LOTR also left me cold.

I know a lot of Tolkien Freaks. (Totally big capital "F" Freaks).

You know, the kind of people who read everything 15 times or more ... the kind of people who try to learn Elvish, fergodsakes ... THOSE kind of people.

I don't get it. I don't get them.

I'm a BIG fantasy and SF fan. I read a lot from both genres. I should be RIPE to be a huge Tolkien fan.

Can't stand LOTR. (Yes I did read it more than once. It did not get any better. Even tried the 'let a few years pass and you'll like it better' thing. NOPE. Read it in high school, college, and after. Still sucks.)

Frankly, I think the ONLY thing it was truly good for was to serve as a basis for satire for the Harvard Lampoon in their most excellent, but slim, volume, Bored of the Rings.

Pratchett rocks! Good omens is great along with the discworld series, huge fan =).

Civilization likely to end ... no film at 11
 

Agreeing with Jaguar again :eek: (I must be feeling ill. it's the stress of the upcoming surgery.)

Terry Pratchett is easily the funniest, most consistently entertaining writer I have encountered. (and he doesn't seem to fall into the fits of depression that kept Douglas Adams from writing more, although I do love every bit of Hitchhiker's Guide, et. al. ... the BBC TV series is available on DVD incidentally)

It says a lot when the later books in the series fail to suck wind. (Piers Anthony for example ... good out of the gate, falls flat by book 3, doesn't give a damn but has to finish out the sequence ...)

I've got a good sized Pratchett backlog ... I have the books, just haven't made it to the top of the reading pile. I keep going back and forth on who the most favored character is ... DEATH, certainly, and The Librarian (ook).

Whee! LOTR haters unite!
 

Wolf, Jaguar: Word.

I love Good Omens, but I have a huge problem with it. I can't keep a copy for myself. I keep loaning my copy to a friend, who invariably says, "This was SO funny, I had to loan it to a friend. I promise you'll get it back." A few months elapse, then I buy a new copy, and start the whole cycle again. Right now, I've decided not to buy another copy, and feign ignorance when a friend tells me about it.. so I can steal someone else's copy. Karma be damned!

I also liked Stardust a lot. Girl book or not, it was a very high quality "beach book" for me.

Yay.. another Sandman fan! Have you ever seen Cages by Dave McKean (the guy who did all of the cover art)? It's the most amazing book I own. Need a forklift to move it, though.

Good Omens was definitely a treat! (Incidentally, if you don't think that you'll be able to scam a copy off a friend soon enough, amazon.com used has it for 3.99, and half.com has copies for 3.49 ... all +S/H, of course, but you'll have one for yourself then ...)

One book that I thought was delightful, and no longer have for the same reasons is Snow in August by Pete Hamill.

Absolutely magical book, with descriptions and characters that create awesome sensory images of the places and times decribed. (I gave the book to a friend who was only slightly older than the child described in the book during the same time period, and was resident in that part of NY and he said that the author had totally nailed the places and feelings of the time)

The Getaway Man - Andrew Vachss

I've been reading his Burke books since he started writing, as well as the short story collections.

Really compelling writer, with interesting characters, if you like crime/mystery kind of stuff.

I recently started reading The Faded Sun Trilogy by C.J. Cherryh, but luckily I managed to stop about halfway through. I disliked the characters and I disliked how Cherryh had done the book. I have a difficult time trying to stop reading books that I don't like -- this might be the fourth time that I've actually succeeded.

Speaking of which, the first time was The Return of the King. After they destroyed the Ring, I couldn't figure out why they had what felt like Aragorn's fifty page walk through the garden, so I just stopped reading.

I've also stopped reading The Wheel of Time, because it has become sessile. I've come to hate reading about Perrin, not because Perrin is all that bad but because I hate everything that has to do with Berelain or Faile. I detest reading about them for hundreds of pages. That's the reason that I use now, but I think that the original reason that I stopped reading the Wheel of Time was that I found The Path of Daggers to be terribly anticlimatic. It felt like things were going to happen, it felt like the Daughter of the Nine Moons thing would come into play -- but there was nothing. It was just about Rand's neurotic problems. Argh!

I have the same problem with Cherryh. I read the Chanur books because a friend made me, but can't voluntarily make it through any of her other stuff.

Um...er...I'm a little embarassed to say that I'm reading The Puppet Masters by Heinlein. I never actually got around to reading that one before, and I found what must be a nearly first paperback printing laying around in a box of old books we picked up when my wife's grandparents' neighbors died, so I thought, "What the hell?"

I love Heinlein. He would have made a damn fine tabloid writer...plus, he was a local boy.

Your secret's safe with us El ... besides, there ARE more embarrassing Heinlein books you could be reading ... the juveniles for example.

I enjoy Heinlein too, but more the golden age stuff. The books he wrote through the 80s and onward weren't as good for me. My favorite thing to do is reread the Future History short stories collection ... those are great.

I've packed for the hospital and may have made a mistake by including Terry Pratchett's The Truth. Laughing out loud following abdominal surgery is often challenging ...

Challenging, painful but probably good for the expansion of alveioli...

Heinlein got almost self-parodying in his final books, but there were notable exceptions. Number of the Beast was a true Heinlein classic, chock full of Heinlein's nutty goodness. Intelligent people having carefree but non-graphical sexual encounters with each other, all while adventuring in a flying car which was bigger on the inside than the outside.

Doesn't get much better than that. I wonder if Heinlein saw himself as the older, wiser, mature but still lusty kindly gent that he wrote about so often, ala Jubal Harshaw?

ssssshhhh! im only on book 5! and perrin is my favourite character. :)

~james

Good Omens is great, i loved carpet people too.
Consistently damn funny and enjoyable writing, churned out once or twice a year, it's great!

I hate lending out books, i never seem to get them back, and it's always my favorites, my list to hunt down at the moment

Fury - Salman Rushdie
Letters from Earth - Mark Twain
About 5 Pratchett books
Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Cryptonomicon - Neil Stepherson

No doubt 10 or 20 others as well i'll never seen again, along with around 100 CDs...*sigh*

Where did the Karamazov lover go? I want to know how anyone can finish that book without someone standing over them with a branding iron.

Thieves don't steal books. Friends steal books.

:D

Just picked up The Three Musketeers...

I just finished Catch-22 (Joseph Heller), which is about the damn funniest book I've read since The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy . It's just well written.

bump -


the bible

Just finished Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. The majority of the book was quite readable and was an interesting exploration of conflicting cultures. But the ending sucked scummy pond water. 'Abrupt' is much too kind a word for it.

The Shaman's Coat, A Native History of Siberia by Anna Reid
picked up for a $1 off of the clearance shelf at Half Price. I'm trying to branch out and read more non-fiction, and so far its working out well.

delayed...LOL!!!

V.S.Pritchett-Midnight Oil

*spoilers*World War Hulk

It's all about:

Rage

People who think they know what's best for everybody.

Rage

Unintended consequences.

Rage

Retribution

Rage

Reconciliation