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Starting Shogun by James Clavell. It's beach reading, essentially; it's obviously not what you'd want if you're in the mood for The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses, and there is a fair amount of tour guide type explication centered around the historical Japanese setting, but it's fun (and I'm on vacation so it fills the bill) and the story remains a good read if you're in the mood for lighter fare.
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Jul 6, 2009 17:11
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Almighty Pod posted:Having started The Dark Tower series by Stephen King last week, I'm smack in the middle of it. I'm about to start the fourth one, Wizard and Glass. Bit nervous since I've read that the series begins to lose its flavor around this one, but I'm pretty determined to finish the series out now that I've gotten this far. Wolves of the Calla is pretty much the last good book in that series. After that, King himself stars in one of the books as, you guessed it, Stephen King! Ugh.
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Jul 6, 2009 17:57
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nate fisher posted:It is funny by the end of the book I enjoyed reading about the fair more than Holmes. Yeah, I'm getting that too. Especially when Ferris shows up and its the world's first Ferris wheel. Or just random famous people linked to the fair. But going from "oh thats interesting" to "he skinned her face off and you're not going to talk about it? goddamnit!" Then it happens over and over.
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Jul 6, 2009 22:25
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Just picked up Hairstyles of The Damned by Joe Meno today. I had to pace myself so I didn't finish it in one night, so good.
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Jul 7, 2009 07:16
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I just started reading Carson McCullers - The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter. For some reason, nobody in Australia stocks it so I had to get it shipped from the US and the first 20 pages are in the wrong order even though everything else about it seems perfectly new. Not sure what's going on there. Anyway, I'm only a chapter or so in but it's great so far. The pace and tone is really subdued but I don't find it boring, it's just as simple as it needs to be I think. She gets a lot across with few words.
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Jul 7, 2009 09:18
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Just picked up Dune last night. I'm about 50 pages in at this point; so far, I like it a lot.
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Jul 7, 2009 18:11
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half done with Shadow of the Hegemon that I snagged at half price books (hardcover for 5$..yoink) picked up Agincourt and The First world War (Keegan)
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Jul 7, 2009 22:50
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metachronos posted:Just picked up Hairstyles of The Damned by Joe Meno today. I had to pace myself so I didn't finish it in one night, so good. Hey, what's that about? It sounds cool.
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Jul 8, 2009 01:54
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I just started this.
juliuspringle fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jul 12, 2009 |
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Jul 11, 2009 01:56
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I just got Tortilla Flat by Steinbeck today for my reading at work book. I liked Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men so I imagine this will probably be good too.
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Jul 12, 2009 21:01
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Eely posted:Starting Shogun by James Clavell. It's beach reading, essentially; it's obviously not what you'd want if you're in the mood for The Brothers Karamazov or Ulysses, and there is a fair amount of tour guide type explication centered around the historical Japanese setting, but it's fun (and I'm on vacation so it fills the bill) and the story remains a good read if you're in the mood for lighter fare. I guess you could consider it beach reading compared to Dostoevsky but it's certainly not as 'light' as you're letting on. The story is quite a bit more complex than you describe and rewards those who have a long attention span. Not to give it more credit than it's due, but it's on a level above Tom Clancy.
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Jul 13, 2009 00:18
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6025 posted:Hey, what's that about? It sounds cool. The title is misleading, kinda. It's about a kid in HS who has a crush on his longtime friend, and the book is him sorta growing up. Think coming of age, with a narrator somewhat like Holden Caulfield, with a lot of talk about punk and 90's mainstream metal music. It's good.
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Jul 13, 2009 08:20
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Just started Celine's Journey to the End of the Night. It's this phantasmagoric, semiautobiographical, [b]extremely[b] french novel written by a nazi sympathizer. I don't know what to think yet.
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Jul 13, 2009 21:00
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Just started reading Armageddon detailing 1944-45 Germany by Max Hastings. I had just finished Retribution which is by Max Hasting as well, but on Japan 44-45. Both are pretty good.
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Jul 14, 2009 03:50
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Taking a break from my more typical fare with Ten Days that Shook the World by Reed. It's a firsthand account of the Russian revolution, focusing on the events of November 1917 (when Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power) that by all accounts is a superb bit of journalism. I've wanted to read it for years and am very much looking forward to it.
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Jul 20, 2009 00:26
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I found the first Dying Earth book by Jack Vance, and i'm deciding to read that or Dhalgren by Samuel Delany. I just finished some Vance, but Dhalgren looks really weird and confusing from the first pages. I'll probably give it the old 50 page test and then read The Dying Earth if it hasn't grabbed me.
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Jul 20, 2009 00:29
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Popular Human posted:I found the first Dying Earth book by Jack Vance, and i'm deciding to read that or Dhalgren by Samuel Delany. I just finished some Vance, but Dhalgren looks really weird and confusing from the first pages. I'll probably give it the old 50 page test and then read The Dying Earth if it hasn't grabbed me. The Durdane series by Vance is pretty good I reckon and I really hate most sci-fi novels. 6025 fucked around with this message at 03:39 on Jul 20, 2009 |
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Jul 20, 2009 02:07
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The Poetic Edda, just to be as old school as possible. I'm on the the Hávamál now, it isn't the deepest read, but culturally it is fascinating.
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Jul 20, 2009 03:47
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Spent must of last week on vacation in Wimberley. I'm not really into the epic fantasy along the lines of Martin and the Malazan stuff, but my brother gave me the first of this Way of the Shadow series by Brent Weeks. I do like assassins, and have spent many hours playing them in RPG's so I decided to try it out. It's not bad. It moves slow, and for whatever reason I equate teen/pre-teen protagonists with books geared toward that age group. Still, so far I'm enjoying it.
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Jul 20, 2009 22:54
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Rim, by Alexander Besher, book one in a VR/Eastern Mysticism/cypberpunk/espionage trilogy. I read the series when it first came out back in the mid 90s and am interested to see how well its held up against both my improved taste in scifi and the technological advances of the last fifteen years. Historical perspective can make early-internet-era scifi seem pretty fatuous, but I'm a couple chapters in and so far so good.
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Jul 20, 2009 23:20
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Popular Human posted:I found the first Dying Earth book by Jack Vance, and i'm deciding to read that or Dhalgren by Samuel Delany. I just finished some Vance, but Dhalgren looks really weird and confusing from the first pages. I'll probably give it the old 50 page test and then read The Dying Earth if it hasn't grabbed me. Dhalgren is weird as hell. It might take a lot longer than 50 pages for anything to start making sense for you. Last book I bought was Sun of Suns by Karl Schroeder, first part of the Virga series. So far its really cool and I've already ordered the second volume. Depending on how much it grips me though I may stop after the third and move on to something else, as I have a considerable backlog. It's a really awesome SF/steampunk universe that takes place entirely in a giant balloon thousands of miles across filled with miniature sized fusion suns and spinning cities to generate artificial gravity. Swashbuckling and high adventure and semi-plausible world building.
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Jul 21, 2009 00:43
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Just picked up Thirsty by M.T. Anderson, a YA novel about a teenaged boy with vampire issues, which is a quick, decent read and about the furthest from Twilight it could possibly get. Also, The New Diary by Tristine Rainer with forward by Anaďs Nin, a nonfiction researching and suggesting new techniques for journalling.
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Jul 21, 2009 01:00
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I actually bought it about 6(?) months ago but I just got an email from Amazon letting me know my copy of Zack Parson's (Of SA and My Tank Is Fight! fame) new book had just shipped.
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Jul 21, 2009 01:16
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Oh gee, I've been reading (non-stop!) a variety of science-y stuff. Been trying to make sense of some unusual things I've noticed, and make absolutely sure that I'm not missing something obvious. I've always been fond of old science texts (pre-1900, ideally!) but more for the history than o the science. There's a world of difference between a modern-day text on EE and an archaic meditation on the earth sciences, I'll tell you that much.
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Jul 21, 2009 01:29
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About a fourth of the way into American Psycho. So far not seeing what all the fuss is about. Apart from gratuitous sex and a couple of mildly disturbing murders it doesn't seem nearly as hosed up and crazy as people make it out to be. Does it get better or can I just chuck it now and save myself the trouble?
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Jul 21, 2009 01:48
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I liked the book, but I have to say that if you're not into it at this point, you'll never be. There is one (at least to me) hilarious telephone scene, but you might as well just rent the movie (which I honestly liked better than the book).
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Jul 21, 2009 02:59
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Mushboom posted:I liked the book, but I have to say that if you're not into it at this point, you'll never be. There is one (at least to me) hilarious telephone scene, but you might as well just rent the movie (which I honestly liked better than the book). I love the movie version. Never read the book (and I mean to), but the movie is fantastic. To contribute, I just started Dune Messiah after finishing the first book. I can already tell that it's not as good as Dune, but it's still going to be good. And it's pretty short to boot, which is good. I also started slogging through Aesop's Fables in the original Latin. It's slow going, but I enjoy it well enough.
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Jul 21, 2009 06:14
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Tiborax posted:To contribute, I just started Dune Messiah after finishing the first book. I can already tell that it's not as good as Dune, but it's still going to be good. And it's pretty short to boot, which is good. Still pondering if I should buy these (good thing there's a seperate thread for them),but we'll see. This week I bought Never Have Your Dog Stuffed: and Other Things I've Learned by Alan Alda and Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself. Read the first few pages of the first one and it's pretty amusing so far. Looking forward to next week when I am in spain and have time to read them both.
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Jul 21, 2009 13:37
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Dan Simmons' Lovedeath, a collection of novellas. Read the foreword and the beginning of the first piece and it's already better than anything I've read in the last week or so.
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Jul 21, 2009 16:16
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A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, translated by Victor Harris. I used to practice kenjutsu and I probably should have acquired this and read it at the beginning instead of now where I have to take a huge hiatus, but apparently it's applicable to individual life as well as swordsmanship, so we'll see.
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Jul 21, 2009 21:05
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spixxor posted:About a fourth of the way into American Psycho. So far not seeing what all the fuss is about. Apart from gratuitous sex and a couple of mildly disturbing murders it doesn't seem nearly as hosed up and crazy as people make it out to be. Does it get better or can I just chuck it now and save myself the trouble? If you're into reading social criticism about 80s America, go for it. If you're there for shock value, new ideas, or great insight into larger truths about humanity go ahead and put it down. It's sort of like how The Great Gatsby is great as a literary portrait of people in the roaring 20s but isn't actually a great book.
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Jul 22, 2009 03:11
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From my amazon order tracking page: Items Ordered 1 of: First Among Sequels [Paperback] By: Jasper Fforde 1 of: House of Leaves [Paperback] By: Mark Z. Danielewski 1 of: Infinite Jest [Paperback] By: David Foster Wallace 1 of: On Intelligence [Paperback] By: Jeff Hawkins, Sandra Blakeslee 1 of: Incandescence [Paperback] By: Greg Egan + a couple of Hellblazer graphic novels. edit: I also pulled Peter Watt's back catalogue from his website last night and burned them into .mobi format for my Cybook. M_E_G. ADI. K fucked around with this message at 15:26 on Jul 22, 2009 |
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Jul 22, 2009 15:17
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Finally started reading Ender in Exile by Orson Scott Card. It's off to an alright start, I guess, but it's really nothing spectacular.
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Jul 23, 2009 05:30
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I bought South of the Border, West of the Sun by Haruki Murakami and started reading it yesterday. It's short, but very good. This is my second Murakami, having read Norwegian Wood not too long ago. I'm liking it a lot so far.
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Jul 23, 2009 13:09
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I just started Infinite Jest. Hopefully, I'll make it through this one. I made it through House Of Leaves, but it took me months. So far I'm 50 pages in and I like it, even if poo poo doesn't really make sense, but I have a feeling it will all tie together.
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Jul 24, 2009 06:01
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Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose. I'm 200 pages in and the main plot is Sherlock Holmes in medieval Italy. There's also philosophy (Eco studied/studies? semiotics) and a lot of descriptions of the political struggles within the Church. It's getting a little boring, but I like the interactions between William, Adso and Jorge.
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Jul 24, 2009 06:29
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I'm reading The Third Reich in Power by Richard J. Evans. Enjoying it immensely.
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Jul 24, 2009 20:41
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Finished Breakfast of Champions and I'm 25 pages into Infinite Jest
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Jul 25, 2009 05:28
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Started Cell after seeing it in the big 'ol list of apocalyptic type deal books. Pretty drat good so far.
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Jul 25, 2009 07:10
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Currently I'm halfway into Egil's Saga by Anonymous and 30 pages into Saturn's Children by Charles Stross. Both are turning out to be very good.
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Jul 25, 2009 07:29
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