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What are you reading? (December 2010)
- Thread starter Maklershed
- Start date
CF_Fighter
Member
Yes "The Passage" does take an unexpected momentum slow down in the second third of the book, but honestly I liked that and it builds up quite nicely from there. The author said he did this because he wants the book to take on a feel of being in a small town, to focus on the characters. Just remember that this book is the first part of a trilogy. It was one of my favorite books I read this year. I can't wait for the next installment in 2012.
nakedsushi
Member
Drewsky said:
It only gets worse! I liked the first 1/3 and then it just went way downhill after that. I don't say this about a lot of books and I've read some pretty awful books, but I wanted the wasted portion of my life I spent reading that book back.
jonnybryce
Member
nakedsushi said:
:lol Oh man. Thanks, I will lower my expectations immensely.
Just finished The Way of the Kings and I quite like it. The last 150 pages or so was a pure adrenalin rush. It was a slow burn at the beginning though, and there were some stuff that I didn't care for (one reveal is particularly hard for me to accept), but the foundation is solid. I guess it's time for the waiting game until the next book comes out, 2012 by Sanderson's own estimate.../sigh.
Gonna read a sample of The Long Ships before I commit to it. I know it's got nothing but glowing reviews here, I'm just not sure if it's for me.
Gonna read a sample of The Long Ships before I commit to it. I know it's got nothing but glowing reviews here, I'm just not sure if it's for me.
sparky2112
Member
Zalasta said:
Is this where I insert the obligatory 'it'll still be out before Martin'?
nakedsushi
Member
Nymerio said:Started
I should have followed your example and read a good vampire book for once. Instead, I started this, and by the time I realized I didn't care for it, I was already 30% done with the book, so I felt I should finish it. Mostly, I couldn't stop because I was hoping it would get better:
Sunshine by Robin McKinley
It ends with a fracking LOAD BEARING BOSS. I'm not kidding. Okay vampire story, but the thing that killed it for me was that the author is *really* repetitive and the main character just has pages and pages full of useless inner monologue.
Lagspike_exe
Member
Really incredible book. I can't remember when was the last time something influenced me as much as this book.
Will be starting The Art of War soon, along some books for school (Milos Crnjanski: Migrations).
Finished:
...
.
and
So good, it really got to me... people were looking funny at me in the train :lol
Waiting for the movie, looks nice.
Now i don't have anything to read because bookdeposit messed up and sent my books to an empty address (and i have to wait until they recieve the package back to get a refund).
Anyway, ordered:
...
the kid should have died, annoying little fucker!
and
So good, it really got to me... people were looking funny at me in the train :lol
Waiting for the movie, looks nice.
Now i don't have anything to read because bookdeposit messed up and sent my books to an empty address (and i have to wait until they recieve the package back to get a refund).
Anyway, ordered:
- A Game of Thrones
- The Lies of Locke Lamora
- The Final Empire: Mistborn Book One
- The Well of Ascension: Mistborn Book Two
- The Hero of Ages: Mistborn Book Three
Work:
Selected letters of Virginia Woolf. Enormously humorous, for the most part. To a surprising degree. The letter she wrote asking, with what in retrospect is a creepy flippancy, what were the arguments against suicide is less amusing.
Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement by Derwent May. Superb, if bland and unscholarly.
Quarrels and Calamities of English Authors by Isaac Disraeli. The most wonderfully mischievous book ever written about literary culture. On the other hand, mischief supposes a sort of offhandedness and reflexivity, but I think Isaac might well have been a bit mad.
Pleasure:
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Rereading it. Finding it splendid, again. Looking forward to the third book. I'm apprehensive about how bonkers the plot will be, but impressed that Lynch will doubtless have the balls to try it and conceivably the talent to make it work.
Selected letters of Virginia Woolf. Enormously humorous, for the most part. To a surprising degree. The letter she wrote asking, with what in retrospect is a creepy flippancy, what were the arguments against suicide is less amusing.
Critical Times: The History of the Times Literary Supplement by Derwent May. Superb, if bland and unscholarly.
Quarrels and Calamities of English Authors by Isaac Disraeli. The most wonderfully mischievous book ever written about literary culture. On the other hand, mischief supposes a sort of offhandedness and reflexivity, but I think Isaac might well have been a bit mad.
Pleasure:
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. Rereading it. Finding it splendid, again. Looking forward to the third book. I'm apprehensive about how bonkers the plot will be, but impressed that Lynch will doubtless have the balls to try it and conceivably the talent to make it work.
nakedsushi
Member
Nymerio said:
No, never even heard of it till you mentioned it. I read the blurb and it sounds good. I added it to my to-read list.
I just finished reading this book this afternoon. I started it last night. I couldn't put it down. Loved it!
The Native Star by M.K. Hobson
My review:
Now that it's so close to the end of the year, I looked at my book stats and realized I read a lot of books this year! I'm disappointed that I didn't make it to 100 books, but I certainly read more than I did last year:
29,603 pages total
DOBERMAN INC
Member
This series is very much a guilty pleasure of mine.
Book 4 in the series of 6 so far.
desertmunky
Neo Member
Presently reading Brave New World. Liking it so far. Pretty f-ed up though with the grouping and manipulation of genetics. Interested to see how it turns out in the end.
Night_Trekker
Member
I'm reading The Best American Short Stories 2010 for a fiction writing class next semester. So far I've only been disappointed a handful of times. Thumbs up.
I'm also still going through the short stories of Franz Kafka. So good.
I actually felt the same way when I finished it.
I'm also still going through the short stories of Franz Kafka. So good.
Drewsky said:
I actually felt the same way when I finished it.
The ending comes across like a huge cop-out. The kid not only finds another person (the cannibals are not people anymore), he finds a guy who makes/reloads his own ammo, has a wife who can be a mother figure for the kid, has a boy who can be his friend AND has a daughter who can be a potential mate? That's a little much, and without the last paragraph it would be totally unacceptable.
But the ending has to happen the way it does because it's McCarthy pledging himself to human goodness in a world he has revealed to be filled and overwhelmed with human evil. And besides, the world of the novel isn't producing food anymore, and now there are five mouths to feed. None of the big problems have been solved, and there are no solutions. All five of them will continue to struggle towards an inevitable death by starvation, with nothing but hope to spur them on. When you think of it that way, it's not so unreasonable.
But the ending has to happen the way it does because it's McCarthy pledging himself to human goodness in a world he has revealed to be filled and overwhelmed with human evil. And besides, the world of the novel isn't producing food anymore, and now there are five mouths to feed. None of the big problems have been solved, and there are no solutions. All five of them will continue to struggle towards an inevitable death by starvation, with nothing but hope to spur them on. When you think of it that way, it's not so unreasonable.
Maklershed
Member
On the outside chance that anyone cares, I just got an alert that Fast Food Nation on Kindle just dropped from $8.09 to $2.99.
Maklershed
Member
http://www.ereaderiq.com/eznark said:
It tweets/emails when there are price drops. You can also set it to notify when new Kindle books are added on Amazon. Also has a nifty search feature that's much better than searching on Amazon itself.
Maklershed
Member
I don't know about the notifications and such but I do know they have a paper book search.
Maklershed
Member
Gave up on Galileo's Daughter. I thought it was fiction but it turned out to be non-Fiction and rather dry. Decided to move on to The Forever War. I'm about 70 pages in and I'm really enjoying it so far. Kinda brings back memories of exploring planets in Mass Effect 2. 
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
The Forever War by Joe Haldeman
nakedsushi
Member
Maklershed said:Gave up on Galileo's Daughter. I thought it was fiction but it turned out to be non-Fiction and rather dry. Decided to move on to The Forever War. I'm about 70 pages in and I'm really enjoying it so far. Kinda brings back memories of exploring planets in Mass Effect 2.
How often do you give up on books? I do it more often now because I can't bear to think that I'm wasting time reading a book I dislike, but I try to at least read 10% of it before calling it quits. Do you have a guideline too?
Phaethon0017
Member
I got these for Christmas.
Liking the Godzilla one so far, explains a lot I was either too young to pick up on or simply forgot about the films.
Walking Dead I know I'll love because the TV series was epic.
Liking the Godzilla one so far, explains a lot I was either too young to pick up on or simply forgot about the films.
Walking Dead I know I'll love because the TV series was epic.
PhoncipleBone
Banned
Maklershed
Member
Honestly I don't do it very much. The only other time I've recently called it quits was on American Gods. I give it about 100 pages (or around 15% on Kindle). If I can't get into it by then I figure its not gonna happen.nakedsushi said:
And I probably wouldn't have quit Galileo's Daughter at any other part of the year but its too clinical and slow for me to deal with right now that I have this big influx of books from Christmas presents.
MaizeRage25
Member
May try the new Clancy novel after finishing this series. Loved his old stuff and heard his newest book isn't complete crap.
nakedsushi
Member
Finished this around 1am:
Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
My review:
It took me a few chapters to warm up to this book because the magic system, if you could call it that, was so strange yet rooted well enough in reality that I was skeptical things could happen that way. Eventually, I threw my cynicism out the window and enjoyed the ride.
Justine Jones is a hypochondriac who learns to channel her fears into other people. Really. That's her super power. She joins a group of superfriends complete with a criminal mastermind that plans all their victim's demises.
The plot's engaging. The characters are funny and snarky. The book pokes fun of itself. The big reveal was somewhat predictable but still sort of surprised me just how it came together. The ending left me craving more, yet mainly satisfied.
There were mentions of naughty bits and a handful of steamy scenes which makes me want to categorize this as Paranormal Romance, but I think the non-romance plot is the main point, so I didn't. Oh yes, and the word cucumbery was used in one of the steamy scenes. I cringe just thinking back to that. Vocabulary, people.
Some highlights from the book:
Mind Games by Carolyn Crane
My review:
It took me a few chapters to warm up to this book because the magic system, if you could call it that, was so strange yet rooted well enough in reality that I was skeptical things could happen that way. Eventually, I threw my cynicism out the window and enjoyed the ride.
Justine Jones is a hypochondriac who learns to channel her fears into other people. Really. That's her super power. She joins a group of superfriends complete with a criminal mastermind that plans all their victim's demises.
The plot's engaging. The characters are funny and snarky. The book pokes fun of itself. The big reveal was somewhat predictable but still sort of surprised me just how it came together. The ending left me craving more, yet mainly satisfied.
There were mentions of naughty bits and a handful of steamy scenes which makes me want to categorize this as Paranormal Romance, but I think the non-romance plot is the main point, so I didn't. Oh yes, and the word cucumbery was used in one of the steamy scenes. I cringe just thinking back to that. Vocabulary, people.
Some highlights from the book:
Boozeroony
Member
aidan said:
It was a magical ride for me aswell.
sharkmuncher
Member
In the middle of this, will probably finish by the end of the week. Never read any Bukowski, but this is a damn entertaining read. Will definitely be grabbing Post Office and Women shortly.
Also, just finished Brave New World and enjoyed that as well.
NotTheGuyYouKill
Member
Currently reading...
Once I'm done that, I'll be reading...
Once I'm done that, I'll be reading...
Guileless
Temp Banned for Remedial Purposes
I got the collected works of Charles Dickens on my Kindle. All I've ever read by him is A Tale of Two Cities and that was way back in high school. I have started Bleak House twice but couldn't get more than 1/4 of the way through it. Any suggestions? Great Expectations maybe? I watched Little Dorritt on Masterpiece Theater and it was excellent.