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What are you reading?

C

calder

Member
Last night I finished Dan Simmon's Ilium. I don't read a lot of scifi, but this book was great once I got into it. Today I'll stop by the mall and pick up the sequel I guess, I didn't realize it was a series until there was like 50 pages left and I got that "hey how are they going to wrap this up" feeling you get when there's 5 minutes left in an eps of X-Files and they still haven't identified a potential villian.

Beyond that, I'm rereading the Malazan books in messed up reverse order that has me reading book 2 after book 1 after book 3 after book 4. I thought the continuity was confusing before. :lol

Next on my list is The Charnel Prince by Greg Keyes. I *loved* the Briar King, a wonderfully compact epic fantasy that's more akin to a great summer action movie than anything else.
 
N

nitewulf

Member
Finished "The Scar" by China Mieville a few weeks ago. I'm in love with his novels...i can't get enough.
Just finished Bangkok 8 by John Burdett....excellent thriller. Already ordered the sequel.
Currently reading "The New York Trilogy" by Paul Auster and "Batman : The Killing Joke".
 
J

JoshuaJSlone

Member
My reading has been pretty light fare recently. The last 5 Star Trek New Frontier books, and the three Star Wars "Thrawn" books from the early 90s.
 
T

thomaser

Member
I just finished "On Beauty" by Umberto Eco before I logged on here. Also reading "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell" by Susannah Clarke. Other books I've finished recently are "Ilium" by Dan Simmons and "Norwegian Wood" by Haruki Murakami. Seems like we all read the same books :)

I just bought a veritable shitload of books to keep me company the next six months. I'll start on Gene Wolf's "Shadow and Claw" later today, but after that I have no idea what to start on. Here's what I have in the line-up:

Haruki Murakami: "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" and "The Wild Sheep Chase"
Claudio Magris: "Et annet hav" ("Another ocean" in English)
Philip K. Dick: "The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch"
Gene Wolfe: "Sword & Citadel"
Thomas Pynchon: "The Crying of Lot 49"
Salman Rushdie: "Fury" and "Midnight's Children"
Umberto Eco: "The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana"
Marco Polo: "The travels of Marco Polo"
Torbjørn Færøvik: "India"
Ovid: "Metamorphoses"
Laurence Sterne: "The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman"
Michael Chabon: "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay"
Milorad Pavic: "Landscape Painted With Tea"
John Kennedy Toole: "A Confederacy of Dunces"
Mikhail Bulgakov: "The Master and Margarita"
Fjodor Dostojevskij: "Brødrene Karmasov" ("The Brothers Karmasov")
Isabel Allende: "Åndenes Hus" ("The House of the Spirits")

Many of these were bought on recommendations from GAF.

I also need to find "Olympos" by Dan Simmons... "Ilium" ended with the grandest cliffhanger I can remember :)
 
M

Musashi Wins!

FLAWLESS VICTOLY!
calder said:
Last night I finished Dan Simmon's Ilium. I don't read a lot of scifi, but this book was great once I got into it.
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I've got this sitting on my bedstand, and I'm having trouble getting into it. I like Dan Simmons, but I haven't read anything of his for a while and it's slow going for me.

Spruce Moose said:
John Ralston Saul - The Collapse of Globalism
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How is this? I read Voltaire's Bastards and the Skeptics Dictionary many years ago and they left very deep impressions.


I'm in the tentative, "what will be my next book?" stage now. I just ordered Unended Quest, the autobiography of Karl Popper and another philosophy book by John Lachs.

I think I'm going to read Carter Beats the Devil on the recommendation of a friend.
 
P

Prospero

Member
Yesterday I finished Stefan Fatsis's book Word Freak (about competitive Scrabble). Today I'm starting Clock Without Hands by Carson McCullers (the only novel by her I haven't read).
 
M

Mifune

Mehmber
Summerland - Michael Chabon

I adore Chabon, and it's pretty inventive, but for some reason I'm not enjoying it all that much. Can't wait to be done with it, honestly.

On deck:

Mao II - Don DeLillo
The Confusion - Neal Stephenson
 
C

Cosmic Bus

pristine morning snow
Finished the outstanding People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia a week or so back, so I'm reading bits of Jonathan Lethem's The Disappointment Artist now and then, while looking for some interesting non-fictiony something or other.
 
M

MrAngryFace

Banned
0765314320.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


Brilliant stuff. I still like Deadhouse Gates better tho. Coltaine owned!
 
N

nitewulf

Member
Chesapeake Silt said:
I've started that Raymond Chandler kick that everybody goes on eventually. Loved The Big Sleep, currently reading Farewell, My Lovely.
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also move onto dashiell hammett right away, personally i think he was better at it than chandler. sharper, grittier, more realistic.
marlow is just way too idealistic, chandler is a more stylish writer though.
 
W

whytemyke

Honorary Canadian.
anyone ever read The Giver? I read it when I was younger, but I think it gets horribly overlooked in the whole 'apocalyptic, big-brother' genre that is farenheit, brave new world and 1984. I dunno. maybe that's just me.
 
Q

Quadrophenic

Member
I just recently finished reading Vonnegut's Slapstick (or Lonesome No More)...great stuff.

Also finished Kafka on the Shore by Murakami. Dunno what I'll read next.
 
M

MrAngryFace

Banned
The Giver rocks, I actually read it over a year ago for the first time. I wont ever read it again tho since it was my last girlfriend that had me give it a read.
 
Forsete

Forsete

Member
"Mellan sommarens längtan och vinterns köld" (Between the summers yearning and the winter cold?) its a detective novel, pretty good. I like Leif GW Persson, I think he shows a pretty honest picture of what the police force is (not a pretty picture :) , incompetent lazy detectives, drunks, racists etc.).
 
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NintendosBooger

Member
MrAngryFace said:
0765314320.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


Brilliant stuff. I still like Deadhouse Gates better tho. Coltaine owned!
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How do you compare these books with A Song of Ice and Fire? I tried to read Gardens of the Moon but it was too jumpy and confusing. I gave up half-way through.
 
H

HooDoo

Member
Just finished Author, Author ! by David Lodge, Haunted by Palahniuk and Super Cannes by Ballard.
Currently reading The Commitments by Roddy Doyle and I'm about to start Moon Palace by Auster and The remains of a day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

I've got to read Hell's Angels (Hunter S. Thompson) and Les zinzins d'Olive-Oued by Terry Pratchett (dunno the english title, I'm reading it in french since I'm not sure i would get all the puns in english).
 
P

psycho_snake

I went to WAGs boutique and all I got was a sniff
0007157339.02._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Ive never been someone who reads much, but anything related to football is interesting :D Its decent, nothing special though, there are many football autobigraphies that are bette than this.
 
E

Excelion

Banned
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finished it today. It was better than "Sophie's world".

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Sequel of "et si c'était vrai". Easy to read, it makes me feel good.

2847897860.08.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

my favorite manga. Volume 8-9 were depressing, volume 11 is funny again :)
 
L

Litigation Manuel

Member
Hotarubi said:
Finished the outstanding People of Paper by Salvador Plascencia a week or so back, so I'm reading bits of Jonathan Lethem's The Disappointment Artist now and then, while looking for some interesting non-fictiony something or other.
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I read People of Paper a bit ago, really enjoyed it. Very clever and interesting. Right now I'm reading Deadeye Dick by Vonnegut, and I'll eventually read The Man Who Japed by Philip K Dick and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Thompson.
 
M

MrAngryFace

Banned
Well to be honest, the Malazan series takes one book to get used to. There's the whole issue of Warrens and the political shit and the military shit. Once you get through book 2 you start seeing the big fuckin picture, and while at the end of book 2 its as epic or close to as A Song of Ice and Fire, but then in Book 3 its actually MORE epic than you previously thought.

Its damn fine writing, and if you pull back enough you wont notice the jumping since every other book the focus is on a different 'group' of characters. For example

The books I have go this way: Moon, Deadhouse, Memories, House of Chains

Gardeans of the Moon shares with the characters in Memories of Ice

Deadhouse Gates shares with the characters in House of Chains

However the stuff that happens in Deadhouse affects Memories of Ice and vise versa.

Its all REALLY neat and to me far more compelling than the EMO Song of Ice and Fire.
 
W

WedgeX

Banned
PunkBubba said:
:) I also might add:

anything by Elmore Leonard
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Damn straight. I just got done with The Hot Kid and I loved it.

Right now I'm reading Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris, great read so far...Teddy kicks all kind of ass.

And at various times I've been trying to get into reading Democracy in America by de Tocqueville but that's not going quite so well.
 
S

Spruce Moose

Member
How is this? I read Voltaire's Bastards and the Skeptics Dictionary many years ago and they left very deep impressions.
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Well, I'm only on page 43, but it's much easier going than Voltaire's Bastards. It will help that you've read both those books to understand what he's talking about, as he assumes the reader is fairly well versed with his point of view. I think he's brilliant and really helps put into words, many of the things I've been trying to get accross to all the people I argue with. :)
 
M

Mama Smurf

My penis is still intact.
snaildog said:
Is the "Malazan" series all he's written? Is it finished?
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No, he's written a novella called The Devil Delivered, which is science fiction, and Fishin' With Grandma Matchie.

Under the name Steve Lundin he's written the novellas:

When She's Gone (about hockey)
A Ruin of Feathers (not a clue)
Revolvo and Other Canadian Tales (shrugs)
This River Awakens (coming of age story...this might be an actual novel)
Stolen Voices (unless there's another Steve Lundin)

Good luck finding most of them though.

As for the Malazan series, we're 5 books into 10 (sort of, more on that below). Up until this point they've turned up about a year apart, which is just remarkable when you see the size and complexity of the books, but between book 5 and 6 the gap will be about 2 years. Still good, especially considering he wrote The Devil Delivered, When She's Gone and Fishin' With Grandma Matchie in that time.

There's also two really short stories set in the Malazan world by him called Blood Follows and The Healthy Dead. Have you read those MAF? My advice: don't bother. Doesn't really reveal much about the world, and frankly I didn't enjoy them much.

What you probably will want to read is Night of Knives. The Malazan world wasn't actually just Erikson's creation, it was made with a guy called Ian Cameron Esslemont (the author of NoK) http://www.clarkesworldbooks.com/book_ESSKNITR.html It's expensive because it's a limited run and a third, maybe even a quarter of the length of the normal books, but that's ok as it focuses on
just the night of the the Emperor and Dancer's assasinations.
Lots of great stuff there, really well written if ever so slightly not up to Erikson level, and apparently the topics covered in it (things hinted at in the main series) aren't going to show up anywhere else.

It is a lot though, so you can cross your fingers and hope it's a success so you can get the cheaper mass produced version, or bite the bullet. And the plan is for ICE to write like..I dunno, 5 or 6 more Malazan books, again focusing (I can't even be certain if it's available anymore) on some characters and groups we hear about in the main books, and if he can't do it we're not likely to get it all in Erikson's books, so let's hope for success.

You have read Midnight Tides, right? Just don't own it?
 
D

demon

I don't mean to alarm you but you have dogs on your face
I'm switching between Flashman (the first book) and 1984.
 
C

calder

Member
MrAngryFace said:
0765314320.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
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Wow. As usual, the US publisher opts for "shittiest cover art available". :lol It took me a minute to figure out who those two were supposed to be, in my mind Gruntle wasn't buff so much as heavily built and strong. Suddenly my UK/Canada published TPB's look worthy of framing.

Further to what Mama Smurf's saying, Erikson has also published 2 novella's in the Malazan universe. I've only read the first novella Blood Follows, but both feature Bauchelain and Korbal Broach, itinerent (and evil) minor characters from the main series in some of their previous adventures. You have to order them from some boutique publisher in the UK, and while it was a bit pricey I thought Blood Follows was a pretty good story.

While I'm talking about the cover art, here's a scan of the cover to Blood Follows, sans text, I made as a desktop.
bloodfollows800x600.jpg
 
Grizzlyjin

Grizzlyjin

Supersonic, idiotic, disconnecting, not respecting, who would really ever wanna go and top that
I just pulled a random book out of my mom's library so I would have something to read on the bus. So currently I'm reading Tom Clancy's Power Play Politika.
 
D

djtiesto

is beloved, despite what anyone might say
I'm reading "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail Or Succeed" by Jared Diamond. It's a sequel of sorts to "Guns, Germs, and Steel", a book I really liked.

Oh yeah, I noticed a lot of Murakami readers on here. I read Hard Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World and absolutely loved it. How do his other books compare?
 
H

homerhendrix

Member
I'll finish Voyage of the Dawn Treader today, then go through The Last Coach which was given to me last week, then jump back into The Chronicles of Narnia (publication order is the only way to live). After that I'm planning on finally reading Invisible Monsters that has been sitting on my shelf forever.
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
I just read Jonathan strange and Mr Norrell. Excellent book,

also just read "the curious incident of the dog in the night time" really good too. A quick read that one, read it cover to cover on a long train ride.
 
B

ballhog

Member
whytemyke said:
anyone ever read The Giver? I read it when I was younger, but I think it gets horribly overlooked in the whole 'apocalyptic, big-brother' genre that is farenheit, brave new world and 1984. I dunno. maybe that's just me.
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I'll have to check The Giver out. I'd also add The Wanting Seed to the list of overlooked 'apocalyptic, big-brother' books.
 
R

ronito

Member
Just Finished:
DaVinci Code: Dan Brown (wow talk about hollywood on paper, dumb fun though)
Three Sea Stories: Joseph Conrad (any Conrad fan needs to read these short stories)

Currently Reading:
Harry Potter and the Half blood prince - yeah yeah late to the party

Next up:
The first crusade: Asbridge
 
X

xsarien

daedsiluap
goodcow said:
I don't really enjoy fiction... I recently finished:

155395484X.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg
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I'm not sure how much weight an author who can't spell "Nepotism" can carry.

Anyway, I'm a bit of a slow reader, so just one book at a time for me. Right now it's "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Just one of those titles that I always meant to read, but never got around to it.
 
D

DjangoReinhardt

Thinks he should have been the one to kill Batman's parents.
Anyone else read "On Beauty" yet? Thoughts?

I'm not going to have time to knock it out until this weekend at the earliest.
 
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