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What are you reading? (June 09)

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Not the most intelligent read but they are kind of fun and pass the time. The Jack Reacher series is also the fastest selling series at one a second.
 

X26

Banned
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Just finished it this morning, great book. Now to wait until the end of July for 'The Girl Who Played with Fire'
 

Pikelet

Member
gamer @ heart said:
I just finished this trilogy a few hours ago and found it to be incredibly enjoyable. It has a slightly faster pace than say, a song of ice and fire but manages to maintain some amazing characters. Sure the characters may not have the depth of say Jon or Tyrion in ol' Georgies masterpiece but it comes close and it actually had me laugh out loud, which is very rare for a book, let alone a fantasy novel.

Ive heard a few people mention that some of the dialogue and mannerisms seem out of place in the world such as
Kylar flipping off the titan
, but honestly, every time something like that happened i was having too much fun just reading it to care.

It was a very engrossing read and i recommend it to anyone who finished A feast for crows and wants more.
 
So I just finished reading Band of Brothers (I've watched the miniseries 6 times over) and it was absolutely brilliant. If you love the series it is absolutely worth picking up the book. The series was so true to the book (with the book obviously giving far more insight into characters and situations) that I think its a rare case where I'm glad I watched it before reading it as you have a series of images to relate all the scenes and descriptions to and the combat decisions make a whole lot more sense than if you went into the book blind.

Now I'm about to start reading The Road.
 
Scullibundo said:
Now I'm about to start reading The Road.


Excellent book; very bleak, minimalist.

Reading "Indignation" by Philip Roth and a Beatles biography. Next week planning to start "The Broom of the System" by David Foster Wallace, and "Mao II" by Don DeLillo.
 

Salazar

Member
I raced through 'The Blade Itself', and was very impressed. Keen to get the second in the series; my library doesn't have it, so I might have to buy it. Reread Roald Dahl's 'Boy', too, and was stunned anew. I have Simon Gray's 'The Smoking Diaries', which I've skimmed before and now plan to read properly, and an authorised biography of John Mortimer to get through.
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
gdt5016 said:
I'll take a break from Sci-Fi and read The Road. It's short so I should probably be done by tomorrow.

Edit: Just finished Children Of The Mind. While the weakest Ender book, it was still great. The next book wrapping it all (?) up should be pretty damn great.
The fourth one features a significant uptick in Card's religious proselytizing. I liked Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead but after the third book and the first 50 pages of the fourth, I found it insufferable and quit.
 

Dizzan

MINI Member
About to finish Angels and Demons but I am going to start Dickens, David Copperfield. One of the classics I have never gotten around to.
 

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy

it's 4th of July in my asshole
Hrmmm i been banned for 3 months, read/listened to these over that period.

The Road Audio Book
Not bad, but not brilliant. Enjoyed it. I think "I'm sorry" and "OK" make up half the dialogue in the book.

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Havnt read it cover to cover, just the authors i was interested in, pretty good.

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Same again as above.

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Awesome, young adults book but really really good, its a series read em all, nice and short. Well worth a look.

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READ THEM!

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Eh, was alright.

Zombie Survival Guide Audio Book
Same as World War Z, nice and detailed but yeah.

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Really dug this, cant wait for the next book.

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Reading this now, very long, was gonna stop but Tehol and Bugg are to fascinating to let me! good read anyways.

Got another bunch of books coming next week as well yay and got a few more Audio books, Moby Dick and some other classics + Stephen Kings Dark Tower series.
 

Kildace

Member
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Just finished Hyperion and working on The Fall of Hyperion.
The book deserves all the praise it's been getting on Reading-Age. Possibly the best Sci Fi Book I've ever read, Simmons has Bank's skill at creating a complex, internally coherent civilization with a unique narrative structure. I'm kicking myself for not picking it up earlier.
 
Kildace said:
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Just finished Hyperion and working on The Fall of Hyperion.
The book deserves all the praise it's been getting in this thread. Possibly the best Sci Fi Book I've ever read, combines Bank's skill at creating a complex, coherent plausible civilization with a very tight narrative. I'm kicking myself for not picking it up earlier.
Sounds interesting. I think I'll look into it :D
 
Dan said:
The fourth one features a significant uptick in Card's religious proselytizing. I liked Ender's Game and Speaker for the Dead but after the third book and the first 50 pages of the fourth, I found it insufferable and quit.

Children of the Mind IS the fourth one. I really loved the third (Xenocide, even though the first 100 pages were grueling), but I will agree the fourth was a letdown. My qualms with it have nothing to do with religious preaching though.

gdt5016: Did you read the Shadow saga?
 

Dr.Acula

Banned
BenjaminBirdie said:
Anyone else doing this?

http://infinitesummer.org/



Three months, like a million pages. Spend the summer with the best book ever!

Anyway, that's what I'll be reading this month.

Just started. Am at The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.
Sonic balls? Does Hal really face some kind of blind, tennis-ninja?!
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
Scullibundo said:
Children of the Mind IS the fourth one. I really loved the third (Xenocide, even though the first 100 pages were grueling), but I will agree the fourth was a letdown. My qualms with it have nothing to do with religious preaching though.
Oh... thought it was the third since he was saying the next one wrapped it up. I stopped following the whole series after hating what I'd read of Children of the Mind then.
 

FnordChan

Member
BenjaminBirdie said:

Yep, I'm on page 70 or so, having recently finished Footnote 24. Woo boy. So far I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I got a couple of hundred pages into Infinite Jest when it was first released but got distracted, so I was glad to have an excuse to give it another shot.

FnordChan
 

Karakand

Member
Dan said:
Couples started to use this law in order to allow love marriages without requiring the consent of parents. So a woman would allege that her desired husband had raped her, he wouldn't oppose, and the parents would have to allow the marriage. Now that's crafty!
Love always triumphs :sappy
 

gdt

Member
Scullibundo said:
Children of the Mind IS the fourth one. I really loved the third (Xenocide, even though the first 100 pages were grueling), but I will agree the fourth was a letdown. My qualms with it have nothing to do with religious preaching though.

gdt5016: Did you read the Shadow saga?

Oh yes. My recent read through of CotM wrapped up my second read of the entire thing (plus Ender in Exile for the first time).

I slightly prefer the Original Quartet over the Shadow series. If only because I find Shadow Puppets to be (by far) the weakest book.

I agree with your thoughts on Xenocide (though not to the "grueling" extent). But after the initial hump, I found the Path storyline to be near equally engrossing as the other lines.

Another thought:

I first read the whole thing about 3/4 years ago, I was much younger, and I had no clue about Card's politics/social views. Lets just say that this time certain passages in both series screamed "WTF."
 
Dr.Acula said:
Just started. Am at The Year of the Depend Adult Undergarment.
Sonic balls? Does Hal really face some kind of blind, tennis-ninja?!

Heh. There's a lot of great little future detail in the book. It doesn't often get full blown in terms of scenes of craziness, but DFW did a great job building the world.

FnordChan said:
Yep, I'm on page 70 or so, having recently finished Footnote 24. Woo boy. So far I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I got a couple of hundred pages into Infinite Jest when it was first released but got distracted, so I was glad to have an excuse to give it another shot.

FnordChan

WOO!!!

I'm Twittering a lot as I make my way through it if anyone feels like following it. Same name as here.
 

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy

it's 4th of July in my asshole
Bamp

Finished Midnight Tides by Steven Erikson, good stuff.

Robin Hobbs new book coming out soon as well! The Dragon Keepers, supposedly short stories or something will be getting asap... and the new Spooks book is out as well so will have some ordering to do at the end of the month!

Anyone else read books accompanied with a dictionary, im going to have to start doing that soon.... big words n all ;)
 
gdt5016 said:
Oh yes. My recent read through of CotM wrapped up my second read of the entire thing (plus Ender in Exile for the first time).

I slightly prefer the Original Quartet over the Shadow series. If only because I find Shadow Puppets to be (by far) the weakest book.

I agree with your thoughts on Xenocide (though not to the "grueling" extent). But after the initial hump, I found the Path storyline to be near equally engrossing as the other lines.

Another thought:

I first read the whole thing about 3/4 years ago, I was much younger, and I had no clue about Card's politics/social views. Lets just say that this time certain passages in both series screamed "WTF."

Yet I find Shadow of the Giant to be the strongest, on par with Ender's Game.

Whilst it is directly influenced by Mormonism (I didn't know this till after I read the first two books since I know nothing of the religion) you should give Card's Homecoming series a read. There a five books and the first four are all brilliant (the fifth being utter shit). Whilst it is inspired by Mormon books he twists it into a great sci-fi story and like the Ender series I love the characters. The Ships of Earth is the best one.
 

Mifune

Mehmber
When I finish The Fortress of Solitude, I think I'm gonna take a crack at Infinite Jest. I'll be like a week behind everyone else, but being unemployed and all I shouldn't have too much trouble catching up.

By the way, that Hyperion cover posted above is really NICE. About a million times better than the cheeseball horror that adorns the cover of the paperback I own.
 

ultron87

Member
Kildace said:
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Just finished Hyperion and working on The Fall of Hyperion.
The book deserves all the praise it's been getting on Reading-Age. Possibly the best Sci Fi Book I've ever read, Simmons has Bank's skill at creating a complex, internally coherent civilization with a unique narrative structure. I'm kicking myself for not picking it up earlier.

Awesome awesome book. And holy crap that cover is way cooler than the boring version I have.

I just finished Ilium by Simmons. I was just expecting the Iliad in space, but it is way better than that. I'm starting the sequel Olympos, which I have not read good things about, so hopefully it turns out better than the reviews on Amazon suggest.
 
Tim the Wiz said:
Love Rumpole, might give this a try.



Dust of Dreams is coming out in two months time. :)


I still can't get hold of a paperback version of Revenge of the Crimson Guard(I know I can get the American one but most American fantasy covers are badly drawn & are a bit embarrassing to read on the tube.

Robin Hobbs new book coming out soon as well! The Dragon Keepers

Have you read the Soldiers son Trilogy? I enjoyed her other stuff but was a bit burnt out(I went through the trilogies in a month or so) so haven't picked them up yet.

I've just finished the Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, very interesting but slightly tricky to keepup with(I was reading the collections of 2 books each, it was very jarring at the "join")

Now I've just started to read this its well written, funny but I 0haven't reached the chapters on Hillsborough or Heysel(but at least Istanbul is to come :D
 

gdt

Member
Scullibundo said:
Yet I find Shadow of the Giant to be the strongest, on par with Ender's Game.

Whilst it is directly influenced by Mormonism (I didn't know this till after I read the first two books since I know nothing of the religion) you should give Card's Homecoming series a read. There a five books and the first four are all brilliant (the fifth being utter shit). Whilst it is inspired by Mormon books he twists it into a great sci-fi story and like the Ender series I love the characters. The Ships of Earth is the best one.

SotG is really, really great. Another reason I prefer the Originals is that I find Speaker For The Dead to be equal (honestly, maybe even better) to Ender's Game.

I've had the Homecoming Series sitting here, and have for years (I'm that guy who buys every book, season, album, movie etc in a series before I start it,-see Wheel of Time, which I've been stuck on the first book for years). Just haven't gotten around to it.
 

thomaser

Member
Recently finished Ibsen's play "Emperor and Galilean". Good, interesting historical play. I prefer Peer Gynt, though.

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Now, almost halfway through Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being". Strange, deep little book about love, loss and life. Lots and lots of delicious food for thought. I want to see the film too.

After this, don't know. Maybe "Lady Chatterley's Lover" by D. H. Lawrence.
 
K

kittens

Unconfirmed Member
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And it's sequel, Parable of the Talents. Great sci-fi. Smart and thought provoking, but also accessible.
 

Salazar

Member
nakedsushi said:
I'm happy to see so many people reading. I picked up a lot of good suggestions on what to read next.

Just a question, but do most of you read physical books? Anyone doing ebooks?

If anyone is on GoodReads, add me http://www.goodreads.com/nakedsushi

Still physical books, and the occasional audiobook. I chose Librarything over Goodreads. I've not updated in a while, and I have a mountain of books still to catalogue, but it's a good site.

http://www.librarything.com/home/Cleomedes
 

Wollan

Member
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Finished this today.
I thought it was pretty great, the complexities of ideas and writing is pretty impressive.
I think the latter half dropped a bit but it was a very interesting read all the way.
 

Teddman

Member
nakedsushi said:
I'm happy to see so many people reading. I picked up a lot of good suggestions on what to read next.

Just a question, but do most of you read physical books? Anyone doing ebooks?
Ebooks all the way. I got me a Sony PRS-505 and I LOVE IT.

E-readers are the way of the future, any book buff should pick one up right away. Totally changes the way you read for the better, you tend to read faster, read more, and it's so much more convenient.
 
cody said:
The prose really fits well in the audio version and adds a certain "this is happening" feel to the action. I've got BLOOD MERIDIAN on my reading list, though, and I'm not sure how satisfied I'll be with all the and and anding going on over the course of 300ish pages. I'll give it a shot, but I'm guessing McCarthy is better heard than read.

I know I'm late replying to this, but McCarthy doesn't write in one particular style. Blood Meridian (or something like Suttree, which I'm close to finishing now) is much more complicated, wordy and dense than The Road. No Country for Old Men (which I just finished... even better than the movie) is written in a similar, minimalist style.

I can see myself enjoying The Road as an audio book, but not Blood Meridian. It's just so complicated. You really need to be able to go back and re-read sections until it all sinks in.

Anyway, I guess I'm going to pick up the "Border Trilogy" next, and maybe order his plays and the screenplay he wrote.
 
Salazar said:
Still physical books, and the occasional audiobook. I chose Librarything over Goodreads. I've not updated in a while, and I have a mountain of books still to catalogue, but it's a good site.

http://www.librarything.com/home/Cleomedes

I have a LibraryThing account too. I also like it better than Goodreads b/c it's GREAT as a cataloging tool, but the social network aspects of GoodReads is better. I sent you a friend request to LT.

Teddman said:
Ebooks all the way. I got me a Sony PRS-505 and I LOVE IT.

E-readers are the way of the future, any book buff should pick one up right away. Totally changes the way you read for the better, you tend to read faster, read more, and it's so much more convenient.

I've been using Stanza on my iPhone for the past week for the Southern Vampire Mysteries set and you're right. I'm zipping through those books at a fast speed just because it's so convenient since I have my phone everywhere.

The only downside to ebooks is that they still seem too expensive. With just a few more bucks, I could just buy the physical book and not have to deal with stupid DRM. I wish that buying the physical book would just let you magically download an ebook, so that I could keep the book at home, but upload a digital copy to my phone to take wherever I wanted.
 

Cdammen

Member
I'm re-reading Neil Gaiman's book American Gods and it's still my favorite book read. I like how it's paced and how it doesn't get stale with too elaborate explanations of characters and places. I also really like short stories just because they move quickly.

I'll be buying Stephen King's short story collection Skeleton Crew but I want a full-length novel too. I've read almost all of Terry Pratchett's and Neil Gaiman's work. I like when the fantastic clashes with reality (urban fantasy or whatever it is called). Keeping the things I've mentioned in mind, what should I get?
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
I finished "The Descent" which was a terrible book about an underground civilization that spawned our legends of Demons and Satan. By the time I realized I hated the book I was too far to stop, and forced myself to finish. :)

I started reading "Chaos" by Escober last night. Hope it's good.
 

Cdammen

Member
Hilbert said:
I finished "The Descent" which was a terrible book about an underground civilization that spawned our legends of Demons and Satan.
Have you seen the movie with the same title? Sounds like the movie was based on the book.
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
Cdammen said:
Have you seen the movie with the same title? Sounds like the movie was based on the book.

I have, and other than the title and the underground there is nothing similar between them. I actually really enjoyed the movie. Anyone know if they are related somehow?
 

Undeux

Member
I've been working through the Dark Tower for the last few weeks. I'm about halfway through Wizard and Glass now and loving it. The last three books arrived in the mail yesterday and I'm really hoping that the drop in quality everyone talks about isn't as pronounced as you all make it seem.

Also finished Les Miserables, finally. I'm glad I held out and finished it, but it feels like half of the novel happens in the last 250 pages. That half of the novel was fantastic, but I honestly can't say what "happened" in a lot of the other 1,200 pages.
 

Alucard

Banned
It took me a while, but I finished this classic last night...

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Dune by Frank Herbert
It is impossible to read Dune without being somehow affected by the mass of hype that exists around the novel. Hyperbole adorning it as "the best science fiction novel of all-time" is difficult to avoid.

While I don't necessarily agree with the "best ever" moniker, this is a very unique and special book. There are layers upon layers of detail and intrigue to the plot, as it mirrors our modern society and its complex power structures. It also leaves plenty of discussion open on the mythology of the messianic hero, and whether messiahs simply aren't people who decide to take up the mantle and believe in their own myth.

The reason why I really enjoyed reading Dune was Frank Herbert's incredibly deep and philosophical mind. I felt that every single page held a little treasure, be it a result of clever wordplay, or a disarming insight into power struggles, the human condition, emotions, and our twisted relationships with one another. Because of these little treasures, I cannot help but heartily recommend Dune to anyone who is looking for an interesting messiah story that deals with the fate of humanity. However, it is everything surrounding the story that really places this novel into the upper echelon of imaginative fiction. 4.5/5

Next up: Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb, and The Wind in the Sun, a short story collection by Arthur C. Clarke.
 
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