Books you're currently reading???

[Troubleshooter]

Originally posted by Torrere
A) Have you read The Genealogy of Morals? I am currently reading this book and find it to contain many 'awesome moments of philosophy'.

'Must not our actually German word gut (good) mean "the godlike, the man of godlike race"? and be identical to the national name (originally the noble's name) of the Goths?'

B) From your blurb, I couldn't actually figure out where he claimed that morals come from. Amazon gave me a better idea of it, and given the names (Micheal Shermer, Steven Pinker) I assume that it is more credible than I first thought.

Sorry for the delay in responding, lost in the wash and all that...

I'll have to look it up.

You have to like a guy whose organization has Penn Jilette (sp) on his board.

Edit: went back and answered the first point

[OnyxCougar]

I'm getting desperate.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude". Supposed to be this literary masterpiece. Nobel prize winning author.

I'm over 300 pages in, and I don't get it.

The names are mostly the same, which gets very confusing after the first 3 generations, and the writing style is jumbled and goes from present to future to past with very little segue.

This is supposed to be the best book he's written. And I still don't get it.

Has someone else read this? Can you tell me what I'm missing?

edit: corrected the spelling of segue.

[wolf]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast
Has anyone hear read A Fire Upon the Deep, by Vernor Vinge? While I'm not currently reading it, I think it is the next book I am going to read, when I finish slogging threw Narnia.

I never thought of Narnia as a slog ... you reading them in the "traditional" order, or the "order of events" order?

Your mentioning A Fire Upon the Deep caused a disused synapse to fire, and one rummage and book avalanche later, it turns out that I have a copy I never got around to reading. A friend of mine thrust it into my hands in a book store some years back and said "buy this." I did, but never got around to reading it. I'll have to do so now.

(I also found out during this that I appear to have both the paperback and the hardback of "slippage" by Harlan Ellison.)

[Slartibartfast]

Originally posted by wolf


I never thought of Narnia as a slog ... you reading them in the "traditional" order, or the "order of events" order?

It just seems to be going a bit slow. I'm reading them in the order the books are numbered. Lion, Witch..., Caspian, Dawn Treader.

Originally posted by wolf


A friend of mine thrust it into my hands in a book store some years back and said "buy this."

That's very funny, because I did exactly the same thing to a friend of mine. I though it would be his type of book, so I was pretty ticked off when he gave up reading it saying he wasn't getting into it. He said he didn't like Vinge's style of throwing you into what is going on, and then only bit by bit explaining what the hell is going on. Funny, that was one of the things I liked about Fire Upon the Deep.

So wolf, just be aware that there will be times in the book (up to about half way) when things don't completely make sense, expect to understand it all later.

[richlevy]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar
One of my favorite books is "Flowers for Algernon". I love that book.

Great book and very good movie. Cliff Robertson nailed it. Some books can make you cry. The scene where he drops in on his teacher after regressing is a tear jerker.

[Beestie]

Originally posted by OnyxCougar

I'm getting desperate.

"One Hundred Years of Solitude". Supposed to be this literary masterpiece. Nobel prize winning author.

I'm over 300 pages in, and I don't get it.

Has someone else read this? Can you tell me what I'm missing?

I don't think you are missing anything. A college English prof recommended that book to me so I bought it, read about 50 or so pages, and tossed it away. It sucked. I remember having the same problem you are having: who are these people, what's going on, where am I, what is he talking about, etc.

Sometimes, these masterpeices are masterpieces for reasons other than "its a really gripping page-turner" or "what a really insightful point of view he has" or some other sound byte reason. I never figured it out, shrugged my shoulders and forgot about it until now. That was 27 years ago.

I read enough of that stuff during college - from Hegel to a whole cadre of deconstructionists who can write the most tortured prose imaginable. I'll take a page turner or a good sci-fi or whatever over that stuff anytime.

I just got to the point where I figured my time was more important than figuring out why a book I couldn't stand to read was really important.

[Beestie]

I just listened to the audio version of Crichton's Prey, the nano-technology thriller.

Before you torch me for "reading" Crichton, my neighborhood branch library has a limited selection of books on cassette that I can listen to in my car during my long commute.

Bottom line: Chaos theory meets Pandora's box done to the tune of undercooked chicken. Literally, Jurassic park but with molecule-sized villians and a lot more of them. It wasn't thrilling and no one, not even an "out-of-ideas-Hollywood," will ever make a movie of it.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by Slartibartfast
It just seems to be going a bit slow. I'm reading them in the order the books are numbered. Lion, Witch..., Caspian, Dawn Treader.

You must have an older publication. The recent publications rearranged the order.

I just reread my three Moomintroll books (Finn Family Moomintroll, Moominland Midwinter, Moominvalley in November). Those are fun.

[jaguar]

Fydor Dostoevski's Crime and Punishment.

Both painful, utterly excruciating. Fantatstic piece of writing, brilliantly crafted. Makes me want to learn russian to read the original. Neil Stepherson's Suicksilver is on the todo but too daunting list.

[glatt]

Just finished Quicksilver last week. It's not quite as good as Cryptonomicon, but I think that's because Crypro really stands on its own. Quicksilver is part 1 of 3. I think it's building the foundation for the rest of the series. I've been dropping hints liek crazy that I want the next book for my birthday next month. It's coming out at the end of April.

Anyone else notice that Stephenson really seems to change his writing style from chapter to chapter. Some are real fast paced page turners, and others are real dry technical ones. Both are good, but the switching back and forth from one style to another is sometime abrupt. I realize the style usually changes as he follws one character over another, but sometime the style changes when writing about the same character.

I really enjoyed Stephenson's earlier works. Diamond Age and Snow Crash were outstanding.

[Happy Monkey]

Originally posted by glatt
Just finished Quicksilver last week. It's not quite as good as Cryptonomicon, but I think that's because Crypro really stands on its own. Quicksilver is part 1 of 3.

That's (along with the ton of unread books staring at me) why I'm waiting until they're all out to read them. I hate waiting for the rest of the story.

When will the next "Song of Ice and Fire" be out?

[Cam]

Originally posted by Happy Monkey
[B

When will the next "Song of Ice and Fire" be out? [/b]

I don't know, but it better be soon, I've already forgotten half the story. Between that and the Dark Tower series I was beginning to think King and Martin were out to drive me insane waiting for the next piece of the puzzle. Luckily King finally finished Wolves of the Calla. But Martin has left me hanging for far too long.

[jaguar]

Snow Crash and Diamond Are are both legendary books, I keep copies of both. I enjoy Stepherson's writing style but christ, he needs to learn hwo to end a fucking book. Seriously, take the ending of Cryptonomicon for example, talk about quick! It's like he got bored and just wrapped it up in a page. It's not terrible and doesn't really detract from the books but it's...distinctive.

[glatt]

It's been a year or two since I read Cryptonomicon, but I agree with you. He spends 600 pages building an excellent story, and the ending takes less than 10 pages. Still, Crypto was an amazing book. He has so many ideas floating around in his head that he tries so hard to link together into a story.

Quicksilver is almost 1000 pages. So you get your money's worth. Forget about taking it out of the library though, most people don't have time to read a book that long before it's due back. And it's a popular book, so the waiting list keeps you from renewing.

[wolf]

Just finished "Northern Mysteries and Magick" by Freya Aswynn, so I'm back onto "Fire Upon the Deep" by Vernor Vinge, which I'd interrupted for the research.

Just got a big tasty box of books from the Conservative Book Club too (*rubs hands together*). Hannity's new one is in there, and Treason (yeah, the one by the Devil in the Blue Dress) and a book about the atomic spies at Los Alamos.

(oh and the current "bathroom book" is "An Idiot's Guide to Shamanism.")