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Maklershed · Apr 1, 2012

Maklershed · Apr 1, 2012

Is there a book club book this month? If not, any interest in doing one?

And here is what I'm reading ...

Physical book:

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

Kindle book:

The Eden Hunter by Skip Horack

Deleted member 81567 · Apr 1, 2012

DOBERMAN INC · Apr 1, 2012

Fascinating so far but very grim and disturbing.

Maklershed · Apr 1, 2012

^ Just got that from Amazon. That's next on my physical book list.

ReturnOfTheRAT · Apr 1, 2012

Dr Eggman said:

Kindle e-book version

BorkBork · Apr 1, 2012

Been too busy writing the last little while to read much, but I'm a couple chapters in:

Includes this amazing quote:

Carl Sagan said:
"Look the pale blue dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there - on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors, so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

GabDX · Apr 1, 2012

Lasthope106 · Apr 1, 2012

About a fifth of the way done. Started really strange, a style of writing I hadn't encounter before, but the story is really picking up. When I read the general description of the book at Amazon I really thought the book was going to be lame given how many years it has passed since it was written, but so far the technology described so far sounds plausible.

TheKaeptain · Apr 1, 2012

Wonderful. Guy knew his shit when it came to film.

Karakand · Apr 2, 2012

When I read The Golden Calf, I didn't quite understand why Nabokov enjoyed Ilf and Petrov, but The Twelve Chairs is far more Russian (and Nabokovian) so at least I've finally got that cleared up now.

Good Job Bob · Apr 2, 2012

+

I watched S1 of the TV show already, but I figure I'd read the book before watching S2 this time

Salvor.Hardin · Apr 2, 2012

Very awesome. I've always wanted to gain some knowledge about the Roman Republic but it always seemed like a daunting task, what with not knowing where to start and what specifically to read. This book is crazy accessible for someone who knows next to nothing about that period in time.

Neffarias_Bredd · Apr 2, 2012

Has anyone here read The Three Musketeers by Dumas? I remember reading it awhile ago and absolutely hating it, but after somewhat recently re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo I've been thinking about giving it another try. Good or bad idea?

amrod · Apr 2, 2012

Hope its good

Ramblin · Apr 2, 2012

Redux · Apr 2, 2012

Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team

vengeance-true-story-israeli-counter-terrorist-team-george-jonas-paperback-cover-art.jpg

Only 10 pages in, plan on finishing it by Friday.

Lindbergh · Apr 2, 2012

Hypnerotomachia Poliphii

The premise is a trip; reading its English translation is a trip as well.

John Rabbit · Apr 2, 2012

Lasthope106 said:
About a fifth of the way done. Started really strange, a style of writing I hadn't encounter before, but the story is really picking up. When I read the general description of the book at Amazon I really thought the book was going to be lame given how many years it has passed since it was written, but so far the technology described so far sounds plausible.

snow crash is a great book. easily one of the top cyberpunk tales ever written. it's going to take a long time before the tech stephenson describes sounds out-dated. he practically paints a future vision of google maps and wikipedia toward the later chapters.

currently reading:

and upon finishing it (i'm about 4-5 chapters from the end i think) i'll move onto:

after which i will probably take a break from WH40K and move onto either the millenium trilogy or 1Q84.

JoJoShabadoo · Apr 2, 2012

About 1/3 of the way through, excellent so far. I think I like it better than The Stranger so far. Normal people in an off-balanced world is a bit more engaging than an off-balanced man in a normal world.

Also reading...

About 40 pages left to finish it. I've been reading it for the past month and a half, very slowly, little by little. There's just too much to appreciate, I can't sit down and read 30 pages in one sitting.

BrokenFiction · Apr 2, 2012

The criminally ill-treated Barry Hughart's THE STORY OF THE STONE -

Barmaley · Apr 2, 2012

Just started this. I expect to have it through in a day or two.

Also apparently I'm suffering some kind of burnout on wh40k literature. This one is pretty good (actually, for a wh40k book its great) but enough speeehrs meehrines are enough, even when corrupted and evil. It's going rather slowly

After many recommendations, many of which from this very forum, I decided that it's time for a change of scenery. Next up is probably this book

Diatribe1974 · Apr 2, 2012

I'm reading the trilogy starting with:

Gordon0Freeman · Apr 2, 2012

About 45% in.... I Absolutely Love books and stories like this.

dubc35 · Apr 2, 2012

BorkBork said:
Been too busy writing the last little while to read much, but I'm a couple chapters in:

http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170592650l/61663.jpg

Includes this amazing quote:

Wow, looks good.

As for me, I read a couple chapters in this:

...and I'm undecided if I'm going to read further or just play the game again, lol.

Uriah · Apr 2, 2012

ClovingWestbrook · Apr 2, 2012

In preparation of the new MLB season and thanks to some great Kindle sales:

Grakl · Apr 2, 2012

Paradise Lost. Never read it before, gonna tackle it this month.

Only read a bit; so far it's a great read.

LiQuid! · Apr 2, 2012

Still workin on this bad boy.

The writing is beyond annoying but I still find the setting fascinating.

Monocle · Apr 2, 2012

Didn't realize the April thread was up. Repost from the March thread:

A Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin

So I read A Game of Thrones recently. I'd bought the first season of the HBO series on the strength of GAF's recommendation and figured it would be best to finish the book before watching. It's definitely as great as people have claimed. I'm hooked now. My plan is to read the next four books by the time Season 2 is out on Blu-ray.

JoJoShabadoo said:
http://www.wonderlandla.net/store/images/lolita_nabokov_lolita_lips_cover.jpg

About 40 pages left to finish it. I've been reading it for the past month and a half, very slowly, little by little. There's just too much to appreciate, I can't sit down and read 30 pages in one sitting.

That's what I did with Moby Dick. Melville's prose is so rich and dense that I had to crawl through the book chapter by chapter over a number of months. It's a challenging but hugely rewarding read.

ClovingWestbrook · Apr 2, 2012

FYI: Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich Kindle edition is on sale for $2.99.

Canuck76 · Apr 2, 2012

Guys make me a feel a little better. I was trying to read Ananthem by Neal Stephenson. Couldn't. Just got so bogged down in all of the descriptions and 150-200 pages in, nothing's happened i go to wiki and the first sentence (of the sequence of events) has not happened

I've given up and moved on to Clash of Kings. I had Ananthem for a while so i decided to pause my song of fire and ice reading but i just can't guys.

Tell me I'm justified please

I just wanted to repost tell me I'm somewhat justified. Are all Neal Stephenson's book's super slow/really descriptive?

Cfh123 · Apr 2, 2012

On a whim I picked up "Alex" by Adam J. Nicolai. It is highly rated on Amazon and was only $2.99.

It's about a man whose infant son was murdered - a sort of ghost story / psychological thriller. Plus the protagonist works in tech support and plays MMO's.

It is a self-published first novel which you would think would mean stay clear of it. But it is very very good. Highly recommended.

Donthizz# · Apr 2, 2012

Quite enjoying the series, reading the 3rd book now..

TheSchwab_7 · Apr 2, 2012

I'm a few chapters in and I'm loving it so far. Just finished A Clash of Kings a few days ago and enjoyed that as well.

I'm about halfway through this book. I started in January, but it dragged on in the middle, so I put it down for awhile until recently.

gabbo · Apr 2, 2012

Thought it was worth reading after finishing Pattern Recognition. Glad I did.
Any recommendations for more of Gibson's work or authors similar to him?

nakedsushi · Apr 2, 2012

Fire by Kristin Cashore

Pretty good so far. Such a different world than the first book.

eattomorro · Apr 2, 2012

Beginning was a little rough, but I'm half way through now and glad I stuck with it. Can't wait to finish this series!

Salazar · Apr 2, 2012

Salvor.Hardin said:
Very awesome. I've always wanted to gain some knowledge about the Roman Republic but it always seemed like a daunting task, what with not knowing where to start and what specifically to read. This book is crazy accessible for someone who knows next to nothing about that period in time.

Saw him yesterday, and started reading his new book (suggesting non-supernatural causes for and influences on the germination and nature of Islam).

Mumei · Apr 2, 2012

GabDX said:

Excellent choice!

I finished reading Jussi (and it was a great read, and seems even more sad that he died when he did now from a professional standpoint)...

I'm starting the first volume of Prince Valiant tomorrow, which is a newspaper comic strip that began running in 1937 and has been telling a continuous story each Sunday since its inception (and is now continued by other artists). It's not particularly long (~120 pages) so if I don't like it I can just forget about reading any more.

Jintor · Apr 2, 2012

eattomorro said:
Beginning was a little rough, but I'm half way through now and glad I stuck with it. Can't wait to finish this series!

I have always been curious about this series (I got a little burned on a similar series, Kushiel's Dart). Could you tell me more about it?

I was going to grab Pale Blue Dot but there's no Kindle Edition and I'm going overseas in a week so I don't really want to order it off Bookdepository right now. Maybe when I get back. In the meantime, stocking up on Kindle samples to see what I like.

TCRS · Apr 2, 2012

The Thousandfold Thought by Scott Bakker, the third book of the Prince of Nothing trilogy. It's so good.

One thing I realised recently is that the story won't finish with this third book. The Prince of Nothing is only one sub-series of the Second Apocalypse series; there are two more. The second sub-series is called Aspect-Emperor of which two books have already been released and the third one will be out soon. The third sub-series will either be a duology or another trilogy.

Keen · Apr 2, 2012

Maklershed said:
Is there a book club book this month? If not, any interest in doing one?

And here is what I'm reading ...

Physical book:

Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds

Kindle book:

The Eden Hunter by Skip Horack

What do you think of Pushing Ice?

Still reading:

SCULLIBUNDO · Apr 2, 2012

Redux said:
Vengeance: The True Story of an Israeli Counter-Terrorist Team

Only 10 pages in, plan on finishing it by Friday.

Great book! I assume you've watched Munich?

Castor Krieg · Apr 2, 2012

My Kindle arrives today, I have a 5-hour train trip tommorow. I'm going to be reading this:

Burger · Apr 2, 2012

And after that...

red731 · Apr 2, 2012

The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari

Rootbeer · Apr 2, 2012

quiet-the-power-of-introverts-in-a-world-that-can-t-stop-talking-amz03073521450us-1-1.jpeg

Kindle version.

charlemagne · Apr 2, 2012

Zulithe said:
Power of Introverts.img[/IMG]
Kindle version.

That's on my list - I'd be interested to know what you thing.

ShinobiFist · Apr 2, 2012

Finally in the final chapters of 11-22-63(What a ride)Needed to take a break from it. But, it did put in a mood to learn about the final days of the USSR, so I grabbed this book.

Moscow-December-25-1991-O-Clery-Conor-9781586487966.jpg

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