What book(s) are you reading?

[Reb]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, I don't know what to think of it yet.

So what you think now?

It was pretty good. It's very much about people and relationships, so it wasn't a traditional "exciting story" read, which I find easier to enjoy. It was filled with keen observations and great concepts, pretty impressive. Bit depressing how everybody was so oblivious to their partners real intentions.

[ch1nchilla]

I kind of started One Hundred Years of Solitude, but I'm too distracted by copy of Norwegian Wood sitting on my table, which I haven't read in 3 or 4 years. That will have to come first.

For manga, I'm just now getting into Vol. 3 of Pluto. Enjoying it quite a bit, despite the totally fucking ridiculous attempts at humanizing robots.

[Hitler Stole My Potato]

Picked it up in LAX during a layover.   It took some time for me to get acclimated to the author's writting style but it won me over in the end.  Seems like a nice companion book to Fallout 3 - not that they share much in common other than a nuclear holocaust and the love between a father and his son - but it was enough to make a connection between the two.  Of course I'd been playing Fallout 3 again so maybe that had something to do with it too. :p

[Tieno]

Recently finished this


Basically a history of science, of what we know and don't know. He also tells alot about the scientist themselves, in often humorous, weird and quirky anecdotes. It's so awe-inspiring, humbling and incredible. I love the chapters on biology, species, origins of life and evolution. He ends on a rather sad, cruel note...yet at the same time wonderfully and fascinatingly beautiful: a chapter on extinct species.

Very well written and put together, with great wit.

Bryson describes graphically and in layman's terms the size of the universe, and that of atoms and subatomic particles. He then explores the history of geology and biology, and traces life from its first appearance to today's modern humans, placing emphasis on the development of the modern Homo sapiens. Furthermore, he discusses the possibility of the Earth being struck by a meteor, and reflects on human capabilities of spotting a meteor before it impacts the Earth, and the extensive damage that such an event would cause. He also focuses on some of the most recent destructive disasters of volcanic origin in the history of our planet, including Krakatoa and Yellowstone National Park. A large part of the book is devoted to relating humorous stories about the scientists behind the research and discoveries and their sometimes eccentric behaviours. Bryson also speaks about modern scientific views on human effects on the Earth's climate and livelihood of other species, and the magnitude of natural disasters such as earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, hurricanes, and the mass extinctions caused by some of these events.
An illustrated edition of the book was released in November 2005

If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here—and by “we” I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.
We have arrived at this position of eminence in a stunningly short time. Behaviorally modern human beings—that is, people who can speak and make art and organize complex activities—have existed for only about 0.0001 percent of Earth’s history. But surviving for even that little while has required a nearly endless string of good fortune.
We really are at the beginning of it all. The trick, of course, is to make sure we never find the end. And that, almost certainly, will require a good deal more than lucky breaks.

[Kestastrophe]

I haven't picked it up yet, but this is going to be next on my list:



There was even a glowing review in WSJ by none other than Burton Malkiel

[BlueTsunami]

[chronovore]

Finished Use of Weapons. What a twist on the last five pages or so. It was a bit of a difficult read, not for the prose, but the structure was hard to follow.

I'ma have to read Use of Weapons next, I think. I barely avoided reading the spoiler in replying to this (wheee~!) and eventually I'm just going to tumble into something that'll spoil, what I hear, to be Banks' best book in a so-far excellent sequence.

If you like twists, try his non-SF Wasp Factory.

Currently reading Charley Stross' Scratch Monkey, which differs in the rest of his work in that it's NOT VERY GOOD. Man, I loves me some Stross, but this work needed an editor like no-one's business.

[Reb]

@Tieno: awesome book!

I just finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
Really liked it, more than the movie.

[OptimoPeach]

I'm planning on going back to school this fall and I haven't really read anything of substance since early high school, so I hit up B&N this morning.



It's mostly just stuff that I've been planning on (i.e. putting off) reading. I'm a little wary of the Howard Zinn book, but I figured I'd take my chances.

[Reb]

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I'm also sleeping with al the girls you slept with this year.

[close]

I'm watching this topics for inspiration, both "The Unbearable..." and "Do Androids..." were somewhere in the back of my mind on a "to read" list. The same goes for "The Great Gatsby", so expect that one to pop up here soon.

[muckhole]

Recently finished this
(Image removed from quote.)

Sounded interesting, so I picked it up yesterday.

[Tauntaun]

Lord of the Rings.  I just started Two Towers this morning.   

[Reb]

Recently finished this
(Image removed from quote.)

Sounded interesting, so I picked it up yesterday.

It's awesome, the writer has great humour, and it's packed with information.
My brother still hasn't gotten it back to me. :'(

[muckhole]

Nice. I`ll likely start it next week after I finish up Kavalier and Clay. I`ve got like three different books on the go right now, which has to stop. I don`t have a ton of reading time in the summer, and combining that with multiple books is killing me.

[Kestastrophe]

I just finished this up today. If you have any interest in economic and/or finance theory, this book provides a fairly comprehensive history of the field's academic evolution. It even delves into statistical and mathematically theoretical territory. Even a good read as a political book, as it deals with the near religous belief in market efficiency by academics through the 1980s, and then their recant of that logic in the 90s to present, as well as the practical implications and how that belief is still held in much of society and the media. Quite honestly, a comprehensive historical look at financial market history, such as this, should be required reading for all business and economic students. I wish I had read this 10 years ago

My rating:
out of

*edit: first post in half a month in this thread? smh

[chronovore]

Still thinking a lot about The Road, am still not sure what I think about the ending. Which is to say, I am wondering if the people who awarded the Pulitzer to it were just as confused as I am, or if they only convinced themselves that they understood it. However, everything leading up to the ending was exceptional, so...

Currently working through Cory Doctorow's "Little Brother" and Palahniuk's "Choke." So far Choke does not impress, and I'm halfway through it. It's dingy, filthy, irredeemable humanity at its least sympathetic. Not sure what I'm after by reading it. I may bail.

[chronovore]

War of the Worlds! Ah, public domain books. Before all this "forever minus a day" copyright horseshit began, we were due to actually see more of these enter into the public commons. War of the Worlds is interesting; I enjoyed how they updated the basement dwelling survivor for Tim Robbins' character in the movie.

I read Gardens of the Moon by Erikson some time ago, greatly enjoyed it. I'll have to pick up that one.

Still reading Choke, still not enjoying it much.

[Cormacaroni]

Just started this, loving it like I have his previous sci-fi.

The most interesting book I've finished recently is 'Replay' by Ken Grimwood, which is an extended riff on the idea of getting to live one's life over again. Highly entertaining, and it deserves it's 'classic' status.

[ch1nchilla]

20th Century Boys, volume 8

[Reb]

I'm done reading The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), Mort and Eric (Pratchett).

Now I'm (partially re-)reading:



and



The second one is a Dutch book about a man's struggle with depression.

[chronovore]

What do you mean by "Before all this "forever minus a day" copyright horseshit began" I didnt hear anything about this.

I read some reader review on Eriksons books and he hit the nail in the head by saying its a political drama book dressed up as fantasy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonny_Bono_Copyright_Term_Extension_Act

[Bocsius]

Transformation by Carol Berg

[BlueTsunami]

Reading various Philip K. Dick stories in succession. They are...

Martian Time-Slip
Dr. Bloodmoney "Or how we got along after the Bomb"
Now Wait for Last Year
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said
A Scanner Darkly

I finished Martian Time-Slip two days ago and its a great alternate reality story and has an interesting fantastical view on schizophrenia.

[BlueTsunami]

I've just started Bloodmoney but I definitely dug Martian Time-Slip. He's really good with mindfucking that doesn't feel forced or generic.

Haven't read Stranger in a Strange Land. From reading its premise on Wiki it sounds very interesting.

[Kestastrophe]

I am about half way through this:



It was hard to follow at first, only because there were 5 or 6 different characters that the book chronicles, but they flesh themselves out and have become distinguished in my mind. Good read, and Brunner comes off as prescient.

[tiesto]

[Cormacaroni]

Read 'The Given Day' by Dennis Lehane (author of Mystic River, Gone Baby Gone, some award-winning eps of The Wire...)

Just a stunning book. Close to 700 pages but it flew by. I am now an expert on Boston in the post WW1 period. Some AMAZING stuff went down back then.

I just started The Terror by Dan Simmons (of whom I am a long-time fan).

[Not Sure]

Nearing the end of this:


And no, I am not a jappa-fagurt; I like dystopian novels.

After that I will either start the following book or Das Kapitial again.

[Fresh Prince]

I am finishing Scanner Darkly.

Finished the first four novels of '5 Great Novels by Philip K Dick'. I think Martian Time Slip and Three Stigmata are my favourites. Ubik was sort of boring though it is one of the more critically acclaimed books???

[Madrun Badrun]

[BlueTsunami]

Finished the first four novels of '5 Great Novels by Philip K Dick'. I think Martian Time Slip and Three Stigmata are my favourites. Ubik was sort of boring though it is one of the more critically acclaimed books???

From what I remember of Ubik, I really dug how he handled the fragile nature of reality and perception. I remember digging it. How did you like "A Scanner Darkly"? I've still yet to read it.

[Fresh Prince]

It's good so far but it been a couple of weeks since I looked at it.

Ubik I think my main problem is that the characters seemed so flat. Very little nuance to them at all from what I remember. Fidelty always seems to be a topic in his work though- from the 5-ish novels I've read

[Cyanista]

I'm reading "Me Of Little Faith"  by Lewis Black. 

It's honestly a bit too light to even be funny.  I like Lewis Black.  How can he be so intense when speaking and come across so lacksidaisical in print? 

[Olivia Wilde Homo]

Tore through this one pretty quick.

I didn't care much for the book at all.  I appreciate the expose on how many midwest towns are basically falling apart because of the meth problem.

- The book is very descriptive but at the same time, a lot of basic information that could be verified with an Atlas or even Map Quest would have been helpful.  Towns are named incorrectly or locations are quite a bit off.

- The book is about 3 years too late.  Meth lab busts have been declining after 2004 due to stronger police efforts and the fact that it is now just easier to smuggle in Mexican meth.  With increasing numbers of immigrant Mexican labor, moving Mexican meth means less lab explosions, less ammonia theft, and less police.  The book would have been great in 2002-2004 when bathtub meth was at its peak in Iowa.

- The author gets it right by suggesting that large corporate run farms are largely the culprit.  A lot of people just up and left because there was no more work.  Also, the author gets it right by saying that meatpacking firms have slashed wages down to the point where it is unsustainable.  The author stumbles by making Kleinist remarks about pharmaceutical conspiracies to keep pseudoephedrine on the shelves just so they can make meth so the broken down masses can take enough crank to work a double shift at Tyson Chicken.

Ignoring the little quibbles here and there, Methland is the perfect counter to the GOP masturbatory fantasy of "Main Street."  You know, the utopian vision of small town America, where the kids are sitting around with Pa talking about Ronald Reagan and how things used to be before the homo agenda conquered this once proud nation.  The worst part is that there really is no future for towns like these.  What is the point of really building anything?  There isn't.  Government projects might upgrade sewers or repave roads but that isn't going to change the fact that the town is just hanging on by a thread - the minimal labor used to run the large corporate run farms and the immigrants and unskilled labor to work the packing plants.

[chronovore]

Picked up several books on the recent vaykay:

Out, Natsuo Kirino
Deadhouse Gates, Steven Erikson
The Scar, China Miéville
Soon I Will Be Invincible, Austin Grossman

Even so, I'm still working my way through Little Brother, Cory Doctorow's best work yet, and Palahniuk's Choke has picked up a bit.

[Bebpo]

This book I'm reading, "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien is soooooooooooooooooo good.  I had to read two chapters for a class and they were awesome so I'm reading the whole thing and it's just one of the most enjoyable books I've read in ages.  The style is clean, quick and funny.  If you even enjoy human war stories a little like Fullmetal Jacket or Apocalypse Now it's a definite must read.  Here's one of my favorite quotes from a chapter I read for class:

You can tell a true war story by the questions you ask.  Somebody tells a story, let's say, and afterward you ask, "Is it true?" and if the answer matters, you've got your answer. 

For example we've all heard this one.  Four guys go down a trail.  A grenade sails out.  One guy jumps on it and takes the blast and saves his three buddies.

Is it true?
The answer matters.
You'd feel cheated if it never happened.  Without the grounding reality, it's just a trite bit of puffery, pure Hollywood, untrue in the way all such strories are untrue.  Yet even if it did happen-and maybe it did, anything's possible-even then you know it can't be true, because a true war story does not depend upon that kind of truth.  Absolute occurrence is irrelevant.  A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth.  For example:  Four guys go down a trail.  A grenade sails out.  One guy jumps on it and takes the blast, but it's a killer grenade and everybody dies anyway.  Before they die, though, one of the dead guys says, "the fuck you do that for?" and the jumper says, "Story of my life, man," and the other guy starts to smile but he's dead.

That's a true story that never happened.

[Diunx]

I'm reading morrison's run of Animal Man, sooooo good.

[Joe Molotov]

For some reason, the upcoming release of the first post-Jordan book in the series made me want to finish reading the whole series. I made it to Book 5 once, but I couldn't remember anything that happened so I started over with Book 1. FML

[rodi]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!!!

[Reb]

Metamorphasis by Franz Kafka.

I'm raiding Project Gutenberg, now that I have the eReader.

[rodi]

Nevermind, I stopped reading the last Harry Potter book after the first few chapters. Pretty bad.

I've switched to I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Maya Angelou.

[Cormacaroni]

fucking awesome piece of work. It's Darwyn Cooke's graphic novel adaptation of a seminal crime novel by Richard Parker AKA Donald Westlake.

The amazon page has some preview pages if you want to check it out. The first 15 pgs or so are wordless but the storytelling is so fluid and the art so expressive, you'd barely notice.

[Tauntaun]

[OptimoPeach]

I'm reading The Wasp Factory. I picked it up a few months back when all the litfags here were plugging Banks like crazy, and I'd completely forgotten about it until the other day.

[Kestastrophe]

being an educated person in economics, I don't know why I have never read this before. No one has ever recommended it to me and I hadn't read much about it, but I picked it up anyways.

Really amazing insight so far. Within the first twenty pages the author attributes falling crime rates in the 90s to Roe vs Wade  . It's awesome.

[Cormacaroni]

Kestastophe: If you haven't, check out the Freakonomics blog on NYT -

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/
they're also on twitter, which is handy for the linkage.

Sadly they rarely go into much depth but they do unearth some cool stuff.

[chronovore]

I'm reading The Wasp Factory. I picked it up a few months back when all the litfags here were plugging Banks like crazy, and I'd completely forgotten about it until the other day.

That's "Little Miss Litfags" to you, baby.

[OptimoPeach]

I'm reading The Wasp Factory. I picked it up a few months back when all the litfags here were plugging Banks like crazy, and I'd completely forgotten about it until the other day.

That's "Little Miss Litfags" to you, baby.

lol

[Bebpo]

I just read this short story Some of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby for class:
http://www.jessamyn.com/barth/colby.html (it's about 6 pages)

Good stuff.  Reminds me of Funny Games.

[BlueTsunami]

I'm halfway through the seventh book in the Dark Tower Series. I cried.

[Kestastrophe]

Finished Freakonomics, great book but very short. Looking forward to the new one coming out in October.

Reading Let the Right One In because I want to read it before I watch the film.

[muckhole]

I need another book along the lines of A Short History of Nearly Everything. Any recommendations?

[Madrun Badrun]

I recommend watching the ascent of man or connections. 

[muckhole]

Cool. I'll look into them.

[Barry Egan]

[etiolate]

It is a whole lot of angry black man and it feels dated at times, but it is only two shorts self-reflections.

[Dickie Dee]

Not as great as I'd hope, but worth reading...

[Reb]

I'm reading Next by Michael Crichton.  It's interesting enough I guess, but none of the characters are very memorable and it jumps around a lot so it's really hard to keep track of who's who.

I liked some of his other books, this one was a bit dry.

I need another book along the lines of A Short History of Nearly Everything. Any recommendations?

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking, it's a bit more technical and narrow though.

Finished Freakonomics, great book but very short. Looking forward to the new one coming out in October.

I liked it, what about a new one? Some sort of sequel with the same kind of thing?

[CajoleJuice]

I liked it, what about a new one? Some sort of sequel with the same kind of thing?

Seems so. Superfreakonomics lolz

[Kestastrophe]

Finished Freakonomics, great book but very short. Looking forward to the new one coming out in October.

I liked it, what about a new one? Some sort of sequel with the same kind of thing?

Super Freakonomics comes out in October
http://www.amazon.com/SuperFreakonomics-Cooling-Patriotic-Prostitutes-Insurance/dp/0060889578/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252890635&sr=8-1