BOOK THREAD! PART DEUX

[darkswordsman17]

I'm debating which book to read now. I've got Feast For Crows (George R.R. Martin), Knife of Dreams (Wheel of Time), Phantom (Sword of Truth), and then Ghosts of Onyx (most recent Halo book).

The most recent book I had read is Chainfire (book in the series before Phantom), so its fairly fresh in my mind. The Halo book would help get me interested in that and with the third game coming out soon it'd be nice. Its been forever since I've read any books in the Song of Fire and Ice or Wheel of Time series. To be honest, I don't really want to read the latter but I've already read them all up to now, so I figure I might as well finish it. Also, it'd probably be a better idea to get the book I will probably dislike the most out of the way first. I'll probably go Phantom, then the Halo book (should fairly easily get through them before the 3rd game comes out on the 25th or whenever). Then maybe I'll suffer through Knife of Dreams and finish with Feast For Crows (when's the next book due?).

I guess I do still have the last Harry Potter book to read, but I'm really not much in the mood for it, maybe later this fall. I'm debating on whether to re-read the Golden Compass before the movie comes out, but I'll probably hold off on it so that I can maybe enjoy the movie more and not be overly critical. I'm really hoping that it turns out to be good complements to each other, but we'll see.

And of course, I'm hoping to at some point buckle down and read some of the defacto classics and a lot of the books that spawned popular movies (Fight Club, Bourne, etc). Ah, forgot about Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. I just realized recently that I don't even know where the public library here is.

I'm glad that some of these series are starting to come to an end, as I think they're starting to outstay their welcome. I read quotes really early in the Wheel of Time and they were comparing it to Lord of the Rings, which I doubt anyone would really do anymore. I don't think any of them are going to go down as great series when they're finally done. I hate that about Science Fiction and Fantasy these days, it seems like they're more intent on making money and the fans are possibly the key cause of it. We (I'm as guilty as any) keep buying the books in the series even though we don't like it much anymore. I think 5 books is really the max that an author should let their series run. Not only that, but why does every book have to be 600+ pages these days? Some of the most memorable books manage to get things done in less than 200. While I would hate it to be formulaic, but I would say 5 books tops and keep them in the 200-300 page range, at least try to keep things to under 500. I don't even read them critically, but all too often, I sit there wondering why they even bothered to put some of the stuff in the book.

 

[Reckoner]

Just ordered Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl off of Amazon. It's about a man sent to 4 different WWII Concentration Camps and the importance of finding meaning in our lives.

 

[HombrePequeno]

I'm currently reading Ghosts of Berlin by Brian Ladd. It's boring as hell but I have to read it for my study abroad program.

I just got done reading Stasiland which is a damn good book filled with true stories about East Berliners and their run-ins/careers with the Stasi.

I'm also slowly reading Essays on the Great Depression by Ben Bernanke. It's a dry read but I get a better understanding of the economic causes of the Great Depression.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Title: The Immortals
Author: Tracy Hickman
Genre: Science Fiction

Comments: In the near future, AIDS has been cured by a government-created counter-virus that destroys the HIV virus and reboots the human immune system. Unfortunately, it mutates, as viruses are wont to do, and soon the gay community is blamed for the new plague that grows out of it, called V-CIDS.

Throw in a President that uses the ensuing plague to declare martial law, and some death camps in the desert of Utah where they ship the infected to die. Then the son of a internet mogul gets thrown into one of the camps, and the father decides to sneak in, either to rescue him or at least resolve the differences that separated them.

The story concept was interesting, but it was very poorly executed. The whole book was written like a melodramatic role-playing game module, which I guess is not all that surprising, considering the author. I almost didn't finish the book, which says something about it as there are only a couple of books that I have ever read that were so badly written and so poorly executed that I wasn't able to complete them.

 

[ModerateRepZero]

Finished reading a medical thriller Seizure by Robin Cook

 

[videogames101]

Jane Eyre, for my honors english class

it's so boring i want to shoot myself

 

[OrByte]

Just finished "Stranger in a Strange Land" and it was.....strange.

Reading "World War Z" for the second time. I'm so pumped its going to be a movie!!!

 

[Kadarin]

Just started Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, on the recommendation of my brother. No review yet, as I'm not far enough into it.

 

[jme5343]

About 200 pages into Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I kinda wrote off the Harry Potter crowd and the books at first But, at the urging of a few co-workers, I picked up the first one from the library a couple months ago. I read right through it and expect to finish this one by this weekend.

Looking for suggestions on other good books... Before the HP books, I read the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time since sixth grade. I enjoyed it as well, but honestly not as much as HP. I've read the Dark Tower books, anything from King up to like '95, etc. I will often read a Grisham book when it comes out as well.

I'd like to read another series, but it's not a requirement. It will, however, need to be fairly common so I can pick it up at our small town library.

 

[pontifex]

Making Money, by Terry Pratchett. This is the latest book in his Discworld series.

 

[Brainonska511]

Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith for my Social Science class. And of course, there are the other text books that I need to read for Bio, Physics, and Math.

Before school started, it was Galapagos by Kurt Vonnegut.

 

[MegaVovaN]

Galapagos is awesome, read it in summer


I just picked up the book in the lib...
Just Say NO to Microsoft by Tony Bove

 

[jandrews]

I am on a fantasy kick right now I have always been more of a classical fiction the last 5 books I read were

Dark Tower 7 Stephen King -not bad
Spell for Chameleon - good but somewhat childish
dead zone - Stephen King - not bad
budding prospects - pretty entertaining


currently reading something dangit I cant remember what it is called for some reason, an age of kings or something like that. The first book in the song of ice and fire chronicicles.

 

[CraKaJaX]

Helter Skelter: The Manson Murders.

 

[jandrews]

Originally posted by: everman

Originally posted by: Descartes
Rereading Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom
Collapse by Jared Diamond

Collapse is very interesting, about 1/3 through it now.

Also reading various stories by H.P. Lovecraft, The Brethren, and a few other books.

hp lovecraft stories are pretty good, i like the antartic one the best or the call of the cthulu, i think it was madness at mount something. Anyway some of the stories arent as good because he wrote before we knew what space was made of and they basically called the stuff in space 'space ether'

 

[Drekce]

I am working my way through The Dark Tower series. Currently on "The Wastelands." I read "The Talisman," also by King in between "The drawing of the Three" and "The Wastelands."

 

[iotone]

Right now I'm reading Water for Elephants and Neuromancer. Just finished JPod, which was excellent.

 

[Bryophyte]

Almost finished with Steven Erikson's 'House of Chains' and have the next book in the series ('Midnight Tides') waiting.

 

[KeithTalent]

I actually just started re-reading the Lord of the Rings. Finished the Hobbit and am now about halfway through the Fellowship. Have not read them since I was a kid, so it almost feels totally brand new.

KT

 

[kilnsea]

resurrection post? sorry.

Isn't there a post here somewhere that has a list of 'recommended sci-fi books' in it? I found it and then.. I lost it.

Best of Robert Silverberg Vol 1.
Ringworld (Larry Niven)
Wintersmith (Terry Pratchett)

 

[Kirby]

Originally posted by: irishScott
Mere Christianity - C.S. Lewis

My sister is trying to convert me.

Normally I wouldn't read this stuff, but the fact that C.S. Lewis started out Agnostic and converted is intriguing.

Same here.

 

[ShotgunSteven]

Title: Beggars In Spain
Author: Nancy Kress
Genre: Science Fiction

Comments: Lovers of space opera, ray-guns and cloned soldiers that can't hit the broad side of a barn (from INSIDE of the barn) and wear white armor that can't stop a rock wielded by a teddy bear need not bother with this book. This book is solidly in the realm of conceptual science fiction with a side dish of politics.

A multi-billionaire, overachieving workaholic has discovered that a genetics lab is running human trials with specimens that will never need to sleep. Always one to get what he wants, he bullies them into using their technology on a fetus that his wife conceives through in vitro fertilization. A second egg is unknowingly fertilized at the time, though only the primary fetus receives the Sleepless genemod.

Growing up as fraternal twins Leisha and her sister Alice are separated by more than Leisha's genetic modifications, but also by their father's preference for Leisha. He sees her as his heir apparent, lamenting all the time he wasted in his life by having to sleep.

Growing numbers of Sleepless are created as time goes on, and those that can afford the genemod for their children are of course going to mod other aspects, such as looks, intellect, et cetera. As the Sleepless begin to come of age and carve their own niche into society, people begin to feel threatened economically and otherwise by these brilliant people that can spend an extra third of a day, every day, working, creating, and beating them at their own game. The fires of discrimination and hatred are whipped into an inferno when it is later discovered that the tissues of the Sleepless also regenerate to a much greater degree than those of Sleepers, rendering them immortal, at least to the degree that they could live several lifetimes compared to a Sleeper.

The Sleepless eventually remove themselves to an orbital habitat, with a few exceptions. Leisha continues to try and make both sides, Sleepers and Sleepless, meet in the middle, but is scorned by both sides. Finally the Sleepless in orbit move to secede from the United States, but the children they have created for themselves in orbit have surpassed even their mental abilities, and are themselves being treated as less than human by their own parents without their parents even realizing it, and they want a say in their own future.

The book has some very interesting things to say about class warfare, economics, prejudice, and discrimination against minorities. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

 

[Bryophyte]

Originally posted by: Bryophyte
Almost finished with Steven Erikson's 'House of Chains' and have the next book in the series ('Midnight Tides') waiting.

Finished those two books, and am back to reading some books I got my kids. Finished Garth Nix's 'The Fall', 'Lirael', and am partway through 'Abhorsen'. Got a pile of Suzanne Collins' 'Gregor the Overlander' books to read next. Gonna hit Powell's for more of Erikson's 'Malazan' series after that.

 

[BooGiMaN]

Recently I have read:

The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte - which is the book the movie the Ninth Gate by Polanski is based on. It is about a book dealer hired to authenticate a rare book on how to summon the devil.

Storm Front by Jim Butcher - which is the first book in the Dresden files series

Off Season by Jack Ketchum - a story about cannibals feeding on unsuspecting tourists

The Drawing of the Darl by Tim Powers - Powers always has an interesting story to tell. I recommend The Anubis Gates as well as this book, from wikipedia about The Drawing of the Dark:

'The siege of Vienna was actually a struggle between Muslim and Christian magicians over the spiritual center of humans in the West, which happens to be a small inn and brewery in Vienna. The "dark" of the title is a beer that has been brewing for centuries, which the Fisher King will eventually drink.'

I wish Martin would hurry up and release the next installment in Ice and Fire series...

 

[pontifex]

Last 3 books:

Patches of Sunlight
While the Sirens Slept
The Sirens Wake (still reading)

All 3 are autobiographies by Lord Dunsany.