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[Salazar]

it's basically a rundown of all the important philosophers from ancient Greece to the 20st Century. I really have to push through this one but I want to fill a gap here. I know nothing about philosophy, yet.

http://www.vedmehta.com/reviews/fly_observer.html

This is an excellent way to fill some of that gap, not least because Mehta is, or was, himself getting to grips with things.

 

[ghibli99]

Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

 

[thomaser]

Still plugging away at Nabokov's Pale Fire. That is, I've been busy with school-reading so I haven't got very far at all. It's another one of those modern books where you have to go back and forth between pages, this time to read the main character's annotation to a poem that the other main character wrote. The annotation is the largest part of the book by far. It's a bit tiresome to switch between two places in the book constantly, but it's interesting enough to keep reading. And the language is stellar.

 

[Alucard]

I'm also reading this book and am about 100 pages in now. The priest's tale reminded me a lot of The Fifth Head of Cerberus by Gene Wolfe in terms of its colonialistic tone and the sheer strangeness of an alien world and culture. I like how the novel opens in media res, letting the reader piece together things rather than being spoon-fed exposition. Anyway, it's fantastic so far. Here's a quote that really stuck out to me:

"I now understand the need for faith -- pure, blind, fly-in-the-face-of-reason faith -- as a small life preserver in the wild and endless sea of a universe ruled by unfeeling laws and totally indifferent to the small, reasoning beings that inhabit it."

I also really loved that line. Let me know what you think of The Soldier's Tale. I thought it was somewhat lame in comparison to the first story, although the ending of it was pretty graphic and engaging.

 

[Blackace]

Just finished this up series

Really loved every page of it. Great stuff...

Now need a new series. I read so much in fall and winter for some reason...

 

[Night_Trekker]

If you don't hate Poe (the musician) then her album Haunted is a great companion to this book. She's Danielewski's sister, and the album is full of references to the book, and to their family, which informs parts of the book.

Worth it alone for "5 1/2 Minute Hallway".

This is correct.

 

[Vox-Pop]

I have made it a point to go from nothing, to reading AT LEAST one book per month, and I'm starting with

You could say that the hypothesis of the book is that biological and geological factors throughout history determined the fates of civilizations. It is VERY interesting, and it asks the questions: why did Western Europe colonize the New World, and not the other way around.

Very good start.

Sounds interesting, might have to pick it up. I been trying start reading books again so this might be a good choice. Any other good history books out there?

 

[vareon]

I have just finished :

I really should continue this. Great series so far, love the characters.

I'm currently reading :

From, like last May. I like it better than A Clash of Kings already.

When I finish Storm of Swords, I might continue with :

and

Found both at cheap price in local bookstore. I liked Vector Prime, so no reason to skip it if I could find it cheap.

Then finally, I'm going to start :

I hope I can finish them all before A Dance with Dragon :lol

 

[Blackace]

Just finished it. Incredible series overall. I'm kinda saddened, though, that I only ended up reading it because Robert Jordan died, and I wanted to look into the works of the author who was picking up WoT. The quality of the Mistborn trilogy leaves me incredibly hyped for AMoL.

So this is good? really good?????

 

[The Take Out Bandit]

 

[BeautifulMemory]

Chomsky- Hegemony or Survival

Obama: The Audacity of Hope

Auden: The living thoughts of Kierkegaard

 

[Blackace]

I'd say that the guy is a good rather than a great or brilliant prose writer, but his ideas are awesome. Manages to turn most of the standard fantasy tropes on their heads.

Definitely worth a read. (starts with Mistborn: The Final Empire, then The Well of Ascension, and finally The Hero of Ages)

Are his characters good? Being that he is taking over WoT I was also worried...

The series I was just reading had GREAT characters. He isn't the end all of writers with settings but damn were his characters great

 

[Evlar]

I'm still slogging through Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. By God I'll conquer it yet.

Otherwise I'm occupied with non-fictions loosely tied to current events: an abridgment of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and the unabridged audiobook release of Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded.

 

[Benjamin_MFF]

Then yesterday finished Shadow of the Wind

Yes! This book is awesome.

 

[suffah]

I hope I can finish them all before A Dance with Dragon :lol

Take your sweet time. You'll finish way before it's out.

 

[Blackace]

The characters are kind of a mixed bag. Some great, some not-so-great. But he's improved as he's gone along.

I wouldn't worry too much about WoT; with Robert Jordan's wife doing the editing it should be ok.

Well I need a new series like quick fast and in a hurry. So might give Mistborn a try.

 

[Tieno]

Yes! This book is awesome.

Yes, now that I've had some time to think about the book my admiration for it has become bigger and bigger. So much in it and so well told.

 

[FnordChan]

I recently finished Backup by Jim Butcher in one sitting - which is no great feat considering that it's a 70 page novella. Published as a nice little hardcover volume (with illustrations by Mike "Hellboy" Mignola), this is a Dresden Files side story about Thomas Raith. It's a nice little character piece, with plenty of "Boy, being a vampire sucks, as it were" elements, and a bit of action that illustrates his relationship with Dresden. That said, while the story is pleasant it doesn't go much further than that, some of the writing is a bit awkward, and with a list price of twenty bucks (thankfully closer to thirteen at Amazon) Backup is strictly a fans only sort of thing. That said, if you're a gibbering Dresden Files fan - and, hey, who isn't? - it's a nice treat to tide you over until the next book in the series hits.

Meanwhile, I'm currently about a hundred pages into The Haunted Air, the sixth volume in F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series. Our titular hero lives completely outside the system, avoiding the attention of the government and anyone else he can, while working to fix situations for people who have given up on the usual channels and turn to Jack for extra legal solutions. Unfortunately, Jack's status as an outsider, as well as his hazardous occupation, makes things complicated for his friends and family. On top of that, all of the books in this series, spun out of Wilson's Adversary Cycle, have a supernatural element, which really keeps our boy on his toes. This makes for a nice touch in The Haunted Air, where Jack has been hired to help out a psychic who's managed to stumble across something that really is from another world. Wilson, using James Randi as a reference, describes the different kinds of scams that psychics work, as well as the fierce competition within the field. So far I'm digging it.

FnordChan

 

[saelz8]

Starting this as soon as it comes in the mail. (Used books FTW!)

In 2004, when the Dover, Penn., school board voted to require biology classes to use a supplemental textbook that promoted the theory of intelligent design rather than evolution, the conflict that erupted was about far more than semantics. As Edward Humes describes in this lively and thoughtful book, Dover -- like Dayton, Tenn., during the 1925 Scopes "Monkey Trial" -- became a proving ground for clashing beliefs about the origins of life and constitutional questions about the separation of church and state.

Amazon