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I just finished The Man in the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick. It was very interesting, and I enjoyed how the alternate history was not the entirety of the plot. I was very confused by the ending, since the existence of true reality was not really present throughout the book, just kind of tacked on to the end. I really don't know what my overall impression was, because I'm still kind of confused, but I enjoyed reading it.
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Feb 11, 2007 01:01
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I just finished reading The Amber Chronicles again. And uh...some David Eddings series. I can't even remember what it was, but it blows. I also started the first part of Sheri Tepper's The True Game and I think I will pick up the other 2 parts now. Edit: I can't find it for sale gently caress SilentAsTheDeath fucked around with this message at 13:19 on Feb 11, 2007 |
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Feb 11, 2007 13:11
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I just finished The Brothers Karamazov, like the rest of the Book Club folks. But that thread is pretty devoid of discussion, so I'll go into it more there. It's very good though and completely changed my outlook on life. I also just ripped through Mark Twain's Letters From the Earth, which is a scathingly funny collection of sarcastic letters written by Satan. Basically, it tears apart religion bit by bit, and is pretty drat amusing. It's quick and definitely worth a perusal.
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Feb 12, 2007 23:16
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I just finished "Love and War in the Apennines" by Eric Newby. It's an account of his escape from an Italian POW cam during WWII and his life on the run from the Germans in the Apennine mountains. It's an amazing glimpse into a way of life that was coming to an end even then.
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Feb 13, 2007 03:22
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I finished Waiting for the Barbarians yesterday. It's an allegory for apartheid, so it's mostly about the inhumane treatment of prisoners and "othering" of certain groups of people. Some of it is a little heavy handed and awkward, but overall it's a pretty good book.
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Feb 13, 2007 05:35
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I just finished Snow Crash; I figured that I needed to read it so I could keep up in geek conversations. Everyone I've ever talked to has loved it, and now that I've finished it, I can't imagine why. It was poorly paced and juvenile throughout - it'd go from the adventures of the fifteen year old sex object shreddin' the future streets on her unstoppable skateboard, to twenty five pages of our athletic sociable attractive master-swordsman hacker hero talking to a computer program about some Sumerian myth that, as far as I could tell, has no bearing on the story. There was also some weird racial fetishism going on in that book, seriously. I don't know if it's one of the worst books I've ever read, or if it just seems that way because it was so hyped up. In any case, it was pretty bad.
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Feb 13, 2007 11:56
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Xenophon's Persian Expedition. Sometimes it's really hard to separate an appreciation and critical analysis of history from "GOD THOSE GUYS WERE BADASSES."
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Feb 13, 2007 18:16
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The first four books of A Song of Ice and Fire by George R R Martin, on a re-read. It's still an utterly awesome series.
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Feb 13, 2007 19:13
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I just finished Johnstown Flood by David McCullough. I think it's absolutely must-read for people who can stick through nonfiction. It's a bit dry at the beginning but it's such an amazing story that you really can't miss it. I finished it very quickly because it was so engrossing. It's also interesting that I was able to get through it quickly when I've really been struggling through 1776. It's a good book too but I feel sometimes like he's just not moving along anywhere or I just can't stick with his writing. I'll get back to it. Unfortunately a great deal of my reading time is on the bus so that sometimes makes it hard to concentrate. I also read Devil Loves Prada last Saturday because I was bored and finally wanted to know what "chick lit" was all about. Well, I wish I didn't know what chick lit was all about. My god. I'll see the movie if only because the boss is such a horrible person but the book was an absolute snooze anytime she was out of the office. I imagine that the problem she had at first was that she assumed (or publishers assumed) no one would be interested solely in the Runway magazine crap and had to include some other stuff as well. So there's some half-baked poo poo about romance and about an alcoholic friend that seemed just shoved in for padding or in a lame attempt at characterization. Talk about sloppy writing! I know you guys will probably never read that book so I've just done you the favor of telling you all about how vile it was. I'm working on Lisey's Story now by Stephen Kingn despite being warned not to touch it by those who know I'm a huge King fan. All I can say about it so far is that I wish he could write a book with a couple that doesn't have a zillion in-jokes that we're subjected to. The "smucking" instead of "loving" thing is driving me nuts. Including a couple's in-jokes and catchphrases seems to be a forced way of getting the reader to sense intimacy or get the sense of how long they've been together or how well they get along. It works, but in moderation. Thus far I'm just not getting much of a sense of how the relationship between husband and wife worked because it's so one-sided from her POV with just spotty characterizations of her husband thrown in. He doesn't seem like he could have been a real person from the way they're putting it together.
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Feb 13, 2007 21:35
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I just finished Joseph Conrad's Victory: An Island Tale and I've got to say, it's pretty decent. The first 2/3 of the book is great and the last 80 pages or so made me want to tear my hair out in frustration. Things just drag on and on. The plot and characters are pretty simple and a lot of the dialog is dull and repetitive. The best stuff, in my opinion, takes place before Samburan becomes the focus of the story.
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Feb 14, 2007 00:27
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I finally got around to finishing Robert Sapolsky's A Primate's Memoir. It's an engrossing reflection about the authors life as a neurologist amongst the Baboons in Africa. Full of scientific observations on the life of Baboons, it's also ripe full of very amusing anecdotes about his experiences in Africa, 'a country hampered by instability, corruption, violence, and authoritarianism' and his adventures with the tribal cultures of the country. A worthy read, indeed, for anyone interested in biology, adventure, foreign cultures or just in need of a good laugh.
How Bout That Shit fucked around with this message at 11:42 on Mar 8, 2007 |
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Feb 14, 2007 02:14
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robayon fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Aug 5, 2020 |
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Feb 14, 2007 06:49
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I just finished up Demons by Dostoevsky. I've read Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, The Brothers Karamazov, etc, ad absurdum, and this novel surprised me. Dostoevsky full explored his ideas on socialism, and it is a good read. He maintains his idea th Nihilism is the fool's philosophy, but seemingly approves of several philosophies nearing Nihilism. His only regret with Nihilism seems to be that it doesn't require chaste, virtuous hearts.
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Feb 14, 2007 09:29
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The last few: About A Boy by Nick Hornby Feast for Crows by GRRM Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris Next by Michael Crichton
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Feb 14, 2007 18:28
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Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim - David Sedaris Much better than Me Talk Pretty One Day. It was hilarious and a quick read, I highly recommend it to all.
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Feb 14, 2007 20:06
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Okay, I finally finished reading the Southern Victory series by Harry Turtledove. Or at least until the last book comes out this July. It covers an alternative world history after a Confederate victory during the American Civil War. After 10 books and 7,000 pages, it's going to feel weird reading something else. Here's a brief recap for those interested since the books aren't numbered or even officially named the same: SPOILERS IN LINKS -How Few Remain - 1862-1882: The Second Mexican War The Great War series - 1914-1917: World War I -American Front -Walk In Hell -Breakthroughs American Empire series - 1917-1941: The Great Depression -Blood and Iron -The Center Cannot Hold -The Victorious Opposition Settling Accounts series - 1941-unfinished: World War II -Return Engagement -Drive To The East -The Grapple -In At The Death - FORTHCOMING Yes, Turtledove repeats himself A LOT, and yes, his sex scenes are pretty uncomfortable. Yes, he can be pretty slow at times. I really really really have enjoyed this series and anyone with an interest in alternative history should at least try the first book. I've read 18 books by this guy and find them all very entertaining.
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Feb 15, 2007 02:45
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I just finished the second book of the A Song of Ice and Fire series. These books are crazy page-turners.
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Feb 15, 2007 03:17
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Bangkok 8, John Burdett. Kind of mediocre. A little too heavy on the supernatural for my tastes. I see he's got a couple sequels but I'm not going to read them. Maze of Stars, John Brunner. Early 90s sf that I first read back when and was identified for me in a recent thread. The first few sections were good but then it just dragged on and dissolved into a series of vignettes. The Spriggan Mirror, Lawrence Watt Evans. Latest completed installment of his long-running Ethshar series, self-serialized online because the publishers wanted him to write stuff that sells better. If you read the earlier books you'd recognize the plot by the title, if you didn't read the earlier books they aren't bad if (a) you like light fantasy and (b) you can find them; also (3) they are mostly better than this one.
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Feb 15, 2007 04:24
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I just finished The Stars My Destination and wow what a great book. Probably, the best sci-fi I've ever read. loving awesome story.
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Feb 15, 2007 05:35
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Just finished Cell. I kept hearing how bad the ending was but I didn’t mind it. Sure It was reminiscent of The Stand but I thought the book was a good read. Short though.
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Feb 15, 2007 08:59
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American Pyscho An amazing read...dizzing, absolutely hypnotic....i just wish i could the Ellis thread so i could discuss, but alas it is long gone. Blue Of Noon, Story of the Eye My first foray into George Bataille, both were very fast reads and gratifying, with the Story of the Eye being a bit too surrealist for my tastes, but Blue of Noon had a perfect pitch of absurdity and straight forward narrative. vivisectvnv fucked around with this message at 03:19 on Feb 16, 2007 |
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Feb 16, 2007 03:16
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The Conscious Mind by David Chalmers. First off, I'm majoring in philosophy, so it's not like I jumped in cold. Still, some of his conclusions...  . Panpsychism? Perhaps there's something to epiphenomenalism? Most importantly, Everett's interpretation of quantum mechanics? My mind is spinning, and I only have a few major objections to his points. He knows way too much. I'll probably look over the sections on 2-dimensional semantics, possible worlds (gently caress you Kripke. Also, because I haven't expressed my hate for Leibniz lately, gently caress you Leibniz), and supervenience for shits and giggles. That stuff was fun. I should finish the book for the event that happened recently in a day or so, and then I should finish House of the Spirits by Isabelle Allende. During this, outside of school, I'm going to continue working on Beyond Good and Evil and Philosophy of 'As If' which seems to hit on the main directions my thought has been taking recently.
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Feb 16, 2007 08:12
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The Litigious Athenian by Matthew Christ. It is a good compilation of modern scholarship on the nature of the courts in classical Athens, though Christ's points of view often tend to be rather conservative.
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Feb 16, 2007 14:54
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Finished re-reading Count Zero by William Gibson. Second book in the Sprawl Trilogy (Neuromancer, Count Zero, and Mona Lisa Overdrive), though I didn't find they had much in common beside some reoccurring characters and brief references (and of course a common setting and world). I plan on reading Virtual Light next, because I've read just about every other William Gibson novel. (for those who liked Neuromancer, you might want to check out Burning Chrome, which is a collection of his short stories and its pretty awesome) ADINSX fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Feb 17, 2007 |
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Feb 17, 2007 02:15
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I just finished The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown.  It was okay as far as thrillers and mainstream novels go. I didn't think it was that good, and I really don't see why everybody went crazy about it. Really, just an okay thriller, which translates into a pretty terrible book.
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Feb 17, 2007 22:22
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Scar Night, Alan Campbell. Angels of dark gods, dark gods, assassins, poisons, crazy tribesmen, crazy fathers, fighting zeppelins, general ickiness. Kind of tedious in places but overall surprisingly decent. A poor man's China Mieville.
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Feb 18, 2007 04:32
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I just finished American Facists by Chris Hedges. It was interesting and scary. It is about the Christian Right in America and how some elements want to turn the US into a Theocracy that lives by a strict Bible moral code. I really liked how he discussed why people would turn to follow such crazy ideas and their motivations behind it. I also just finished Casca by Barry Sadler. I picked it up at a used book store and it was pretty cool. It was about the Roman who stabbed Christ on the cross and is condemned to live forever (until the second coming of Christ) going about the Earth as a soldier and kicking various kinds of rear end. It was a fun read, pretty light and actually more enjoyable than what I thought it would be like. Also, Lucky at Cards by Lawerence Block. Block is the king of cool. It is about a guy who is a complete card cheat, he deals from the bottom of the deck, peeks at cards and has such fast hands that he is rarely caught. He gets caught up with some girl and they concoct a scheme to get rid of her husband so she can get his money. It was a fast read and had the typical Block/noir feel. I reccomend it to anyone who enjoys his books.
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Feb 18, 2007 06:10
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I just finished Normandy 1944 by Niklas Zetterling. It was pretty much entirely raw data, and was very thoroughly researched and documented. It presented sound arguments against several long standing thoughts about the fighting in Normandy, and about the losses that the Germans suffered. Fascinating book.
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Feb 18, 2007 06:47
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I just finished Hour of the Cat by Peter Quinn. This short transcript by Quinn immediately prompted me to buy it. I didn't regret it one bit.quote:Eugenics wasn't home-grown but imported from England. http://www.abc.net.au/rn/perspective/stories/2006/1803803.htm KingEup fucked around with this message at 11:51 on Feb 18, 2007 |
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Feb 18, 2007 11:46
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Just finished Absolution Gap by Alistair Reynolds, the end of his trilogy and following Revelation Space and Redemption Ark. I reread those two as well before starting on this one. Reynold's ideas are huge and mind-blowing, and there's some really great stuff in his books. But it's true hard SF, so you can mostly forget about characterization. Some characters have more depth than others, but most serve as fluff. As a final book the ending was OK, I guess. I'll insert a spoiler just to be sure: the ending is too deus ex machina for me. Thing's aren't really solved but something new and big is introduced to suddenly mop things up. That and the ending is sort of open, which I normally don't mind but in this case it's a bit of a cop-out after the build-up.
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Feb 18, 2007 13:57
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Hannibal Rising. It's a bit poo poo, really. It has some real highs and lows, chapters where I couldn't stop myself from reading just one more page, and chapters where I couldn't bring myself to read one more page. And the entire thing is so dangerously close to being over the top, it's a wonder it never really just capsizes. Overall though, it was the lows that stuck with me most and left me with the impression that it was all a bit silly in an un-fun way. A step down from Hannibal. I've since read half of The Minotaur Takes A Cigarette Break, but it wasn't working out for me, so I've started Gates of Fire instead. Hey, the 300 movie IS just around the corner.
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Feb 18, 2007 15:37
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I just finished A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore. It is full of laughs and highly recommendable...and "stark wie Bär", (sorry, I read the German translation and this catchphrase must be mentioned... I would like to translate it, but I don´t know how... Perhaps somebody who read the original English version can tell me?)
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Feb 18, 2007 21:30
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I recently read and summarized The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin for a history class, and was thoroughly pleased by it. Of course, he doesn't mention much of his personal life or the millions of ladies he porked, but he was a neat guy nonetheless. Won't be selling the book back at the end of the semester.
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Feb 18, 2007 21:37
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I just finished A Farewell To Arms. I sort of ruined it by reading the ending a long time ago in a Spark Notes or something, it didn't hit me as hard as his others. I also read The Rum Diaries and had a lot of fun through it. Definitely need to read more Thompson now.
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Feb 19, 2007 03:42
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High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. I've already read it once, but that was years ago and I forgot most of it. It's a really great book, and I think the movie was almost as good.
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Feb 19, 2007 03:44
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I just finished God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut. I was a fan, but I don't think I've come across a Vonnegut book I haven't liked yet. Next up is 'The Sun Also Rises'. I only read one other Hemingway book, A Farewell to Arms, and I am hoping this one is as good.
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Feb 19, 2007 06:24
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'The Ringed Castle', by Dorothy Dunnett It's the 5th in a series of 6 books that is, without question, the second best historical fiction series I've ever read--the first being The House of Niccolo by the same author, beginning with 'Niccolo Rising.' She does an incredible job with every detail, from the historical settings to the characters that have more layers than an onion. 'Red Shift', by Alan Garner An exceedingly strange book with incredible dialogue. I'm going to look for more of his books.
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Feb 19, 2007 07:43
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Usually I manage to read for a good four hours solid as I attend lectures each day and I typically read a ton of books at once and write down a few paragraphs of analysis afterwards to keep it separate in my head so forgive the sheer amount of WORDS present in this post. I completed reading these in the last three months along with a few forgettable series like Gregory Keyes The Age of Unreason and a bunch of Iain Banks Culture books. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon The style was different and I enjoyed that about it. Some of the story was a bit heartbreaking too, but overall I would have to say that it wasn't as good as I was led to believe by the many people who recommended it. Altered Carbon,Broken Angels, and Woken Furies by Richard Morgan Awesome books that are pure cyberpunk and great for being so. Though his writing style can be a bit confusing as to what is actually happening and who is talking from moment to moment I think that was a good thing as most of the three books had to do with identity. From book to book you get almost an entirely new character in Takeshi Kovachs than the previous one hinting at just how strangely the sleeving process affects all humans, even Envoys. Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay Books one and two in his Dexter series, I heard of them through watching the Series on HBO. Besides it being Dexter they rapidly diverge from the shows storyline for the worse. The television show is compelling to watch and each page these books were tough to plow through from one poorly written characters dialogue to the next Mr. Lindsay also is not anywhere near being even an okay writer and I doubt i'll be reading anything more from him. Besides those I'm currently reading John Gardner's Grendel, Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next series, Haruki Murakami after Haruki Murakami titled book, The Black Company by Glen Cook, David Sedaris's Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, which is tough reading since his homosexuality jumps in your face as he details a sleepover with other youth's, and I'm still attempting Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid, which with all of the material on music will more than likely take me all of 2007 and early 2008 to complete. pazetihutih fucked around with this message at 08:39 on Feb 19, 2007 |
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Feb 19, 2007 07:49
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Just finished Three Hearts and Three Lions by Poul Anderson. It's a fast read and a good one as well. It's a re-telling of the Matter of France and Ogier the Dane. Definitely worth a read if you like European mythology and all that.
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Feb 19, 2007 15:43
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Stephen King's Cujo. I loved it because it was horror, but all the supernatural stuff was just in peoples' heads. It was just a sequence of events that happened just right to produce a situation of exquisite shittitude.
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Feb 19, 2007 18:46
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