Author Topic: What are you reading? (Read 1059282 times)

Devoted135 · **Reply #1875 on:** July 07, 2011, 06:15:34 PM

wanted a fantasy novel that wasn't a tome or the first of a billion tomes so I picked up Hawk of May by Gillian Bradshaw. It's yet another re-imagining of the Arthurian legend, but I haven't read too much of that so I'm not jaded by it yet.

It's told from the perspective of Sir Gawain starting from when he was an eleven year old boy with no idea of what his future would hold and I'm really enjoying it so far.

Gamercow · **Reply #1876 on:** July 07, 2011, 08:57:54 PM

Quote from: Bdoomed on July 07, 2011, 05:56:32 PM

Finished Clash of Kings, on to Storm of Swords.

As did I. I also might take a break to read N.K. Jemisen's Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, which I purchased this weekend.

kibitzer · **Reply #1877 on:** July 10, 2011, 04:12:54 AM

As a result of watching the Cohen Brother's excellent version of True Grit, I bought the Kindle ebook. I can say that their film is a very faithful version. The book is great, too. It has a very economical, straight-forward prose style which suits the historical period and the narrator (young Mattie Ross) very well indeed. Recommended.

stePH · **Reply #1878 on:** July 10, 2011, 09:10:57 PM

Finished Stark's Nobody Runs Forever last night; the end was left hanging (pretty much a first in the Parker series).

Next on deck is Huxley's Brave New World, which my father bought me for my birthday in 1982 and I really should have read it by now. No Twain from the library yet.

Faraway Ray · **Reply #1879 on:** July 13, 2011, 02:11:36 AM

Starting on Game of Thrones and will continue with it as soon as I can find where the hell the book went. Damn you, paperback! You're as elusive as Robert Denby!

DKT · **Reply #1880 on:** July 13, 2011, 04:11:41 PM

Quote from: kibitzer on July 10, 2011, 04:12:54 AM

As a result of watching the Cohen Brother's excellent version of True Grit, I bought the Kindle ebook. I can say that their film is a very faithful version. The book is great, too. It has a very economical, straight-forward prose style which suits the historical period and the narrator (young Mattie Ross) very well indeed. Recommended.

I've been really tempted to check that book out - so, thanks! May even grab the audio, as I imagine it's a pretty good listen.

stePH · **Reply #1881 on:** July 14, 2011, 03:13:46 AM

Finished Brave New World ... and today at the library happened across Escape from Hell by Larry Niven. Did anyone already know there was a 2009 sequel to Inferno?

Scattercat · **Reply #1882 on:** July 16, 2011, 12:19:09 AM

Santa Olivia by that lady I forget her name who does the Kushiel novels I don't like

This was a very good read. Nice, subtle characterization (mostly) and a willingness to have characters with multiple layers who change over time. I'd recommend it more or less unhesitatingly, with perhaps a small caveat that the back cover information has NOTHING to do with the actual plot, which is more akin to a Rocky movie.

---

Stuff and Snoop

More nonfiction, this time about hoarders and personality types as expressed through living spaces. "Stuff" was more fun, but they were both pretty worthwhile. "Snoop" would have been a lot more worthwhile if I hadn't already read "Quirk," which went in-depth on the Big Five personality scales and thus rendered large chunks of "Snoop" redundant to me.

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The Invisible Gorilla

An excellent book. It's a good overview of a lot of recent research/discoveries in terms of perception and the brain, written in a very approachable and readable style. It even had some genuine chuckle moments. I appreciated reading a book by actual scientists and not just science journalists. (The co-authors were the ones who invented the original Invisible Gorilla study.) If someone is looking for a nice pop-sci intro to the various ways your brain just flat-out lies to you like all the time, I'd recommend this strongly.

Talia · **Reply #1883 on:** July 16, 2011, 01:44:53 AM

Quote from: Scattercat on July 16, 2011, 12:19:09 AM

Santa Olivia by that lady I forget her name who does the Kushiel novels I don't like

This was a very good read. Nice, subtle characterization (mostly) and a willingness to have characters with multiple layers who change over time. I'd recommend it more or less unhesitatingly, with perhaps a small caveat that the back cover information has NOTHING to do with the actual plot, which is more akin to a Rocky movie.

---

Jacqueline Carey!

I liked the first few Kushiel novels, but I kind of lost interest. Too much politicking. I enjoyed 'Olivia' too, though.

stePH · **Reply #1884 on:** July 16, 2011, 07:45:32 PM

Quote from: stePH on July 14, 2011, 03:13:46 AM

...Escape from Hell by Larry Niven.

Damn! He puts Carl Sagan in the eight circle's fourth pit, with the fortune-tellers! Apparently because Dr. Sagan was predicting an ice age in the '70s, and then later was with the global warming predictors. For that he gets to walk around with his head on backwards?

...currently reading Tom Sawyer.
On a related note, I have no more idea why the Rush song is called "Tom Sawyer", than I do why the Gorillaz song is called "Clint Eastwood".

Talia · **Reply #1885 on:** July 17, 2011, 01:27:52 AM

Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente. I'd heard great things about it and picked it up a while back, just getting to it now. I'm finding the characters difficult to relate to, and don't really think any of them are acting like people really tend to behave, but the writing is lush and the world is dazzlingly surreal. To quote one particular line that made me positively gleeful, one character, in reference to books and why she doesn't like them, observed - "Their natural state was to be shut, closed, to grin pagily from shelves, laughing at her...".

Grinning pagily. GRINNING PAGILY. I can't quite express how much I adore this phrase.

There are a few other such gems tucked in here and there as well. Delicious.

Listener · **Reply #1886 on:** July 17, 2011, 01:31:43 PM

Spectyr, by Philippa Ballantine

Sandikal · **Reply #1887 on:** July 17, 2011, 10:55:26 PM

I finished "Home Fires" by Gene Wolfe yesterday. It was weird, really weird. It took me 2/3 of the book to realize that one point of weirdness is that it read like something by Sheridan, Wodehouse or Wilde. I think I might describe it as a zany comedy of manners set it the future.

I'm still trying to get through "Consider Phlebas" on my Nook. I'm just not feeling this one. I did start The Parasol Protectorate trilogy on the Nook. All three books are available for $9.99. It's fairly amusing.

In audio, I'm listening to Dan Simmons' latest, "Flashback". It's a near-future SF murder mystery. I think he's in need of a good editor as the book contains way too much back info and keeps going off track. I suspect the actual story is really only half of the book. It's sad because the Hyperion books were some of the best SF that I've ever read.

kibitzer · **Reply #1888 on:** July 18, 2011, 02:52:49 AM

Quote from: Sandikal on July 17, 2011, 10:55:26 PM

In audio, I'm listening to Dan Simmons' latest, "Flashback". It's a near-future SF murder mystery. I think he's in need of a good editor as the book contains way too much back info and keeps going off track. I suspect the actual story is really only half of the book. It's sad because the Hyperion books were some of the best SF that I've ever read.

Yeah, I think Simmons has been going overboard a bit. Try reading "Drood" or "The Terror". Yeesh. A lotta words.

Sandikal · **Reply #1889 on:** July 19, 2011, 03:29:23 AM

I haven't read "Drood", but I loved "The Terror" up until the last 50-100 pages when it went totally off track into la-la land. "Flashback" is a lot like "Black Hills". I liked that book, but it did digress a lot and try to throw in too much history.

I'm on the last third of "Flashback" now and the story is really good when it's not digressing.

stePH · **Reply #1890 on:** July 21, 2011, 04:13:11 AM

Finished Tom Sawyer yesterday, and began attempting to read The Sound and the Fury.

I may end up bouncing off this one. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up with the disjointed chronology, to say nothing of differentiating one character from another... it's not even that clear which characters are the Compson family and which are their black servants. And I can't tell if Quentin is supposed to be a boy or a girl.

Marguerite · **Reply #1891 on:** July 21, 2011, 08:26:08 PM

Working on "The Urth of the New Sun" hard on the heels of the previous four.

And with Patrick Rothfuss' "Wise Man's Fear" laughing and taunting me from my 'To Be Read" shelf.

NomadicScribe · **Reply #1892 on:** July 21, 2011, 09:36:19 PM

Just finished Amsterdam by Ian Mcewan. Now reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Next: The rest of the Hunger Games trilogy.

Bdoomed · **Reply #1893 on:** July 22, 2011, 01:38:15 AM

Finished A Storm of Swords yesterday, moved on to A Feast for Crows. These books are really friggin great! I can't stop reading them!

Spindaddy · **Reply #1894 on:** July 22, 2011, 08:34:42 PM

Quote from: stePH on July 16, 2011, 07:45:32 PM

On a related note, I have no more idea why the Rush song is called "Tom Sawyer", than I do why the Gorillaz song is called "Clint Eastwood".

IF you ever do, please clue me in on that as I have been wondering those two questions myself.

Scattercat · **Reply #1895 on:** July 23, 2011, 09:14:34 AM

Read a couple of mediocre to awful anthologies. ("Visitations," themed on angels, in which the only good story was Neil Gaiman's, which I'd already read, and "Girl's Guide to Guns and Monsters" or something like that, which was just pure mediocrity with a couple of truly boggling WTF stories. I'm thinking particularly here of the one where the mother obsessively raises her massively disabled daughter to the extent that her husband leaves her and then gets attacked by a snake demon that has to have a host to die with it in order to be killed and she ends up shooting it and her disabled daughter at the same time and then going on for like two pages about how God's perfect plan led to her having a vegetable for a child just so she could kill the snake demon and just what the goddamned holy hell people?)

Then I read "Y: The Last Man" because we picked up the last six books from a garage sale. Brian Vaughan gives good story, although this one felt a little more padded and awkwardly self-referential/postmodern than "Ex Machina." It was still really well done and definitely ended strongly. Highly recommended, but be ready for a fair amount of (only occasionally gratuitous) blood and (mostly tasteful) nekkid tits, i.e. don't read on the subway unless you're not easily embarrassed.

Spindaddy · **Reply #1896 on:** July 23, 2011, 02:47:49 PM

Quote from: Scattercat on July 23, 2011, 09:14:34 AM

I'm thinking particularly here of the one where the mother obsessively raises her massively disabled daughter to the extent that her husband leaves her and then gets attacked by a snake demon that has to have a host to die with it in order to be killed and she ends up shooting it and her disabled daughter at the same time and then going on for like two pages about how God's perfect plan led to her having a vegetable for a child just so she could kill the snake demon and just what the goddamned holy hell people?)

I laughed so hard right here I choked on my orange juice.

danooli · **Reply #1897 on:** July 23, 2011, 07:38:21 PM

i'm at the halfway point in A Dance With Dragons, wishing I had at least 2 clones of myself so I can do nothing else until I finish this book!

Scattercat · **Reply #1898 on:** July 23, 2011, 08:32:58 PM

Quote from: Spindaddy on July 23, 2011, 02:47:49 PM

Quote from: Scattercat on July 23, 2011, 09:14:34 AM
I'm thinking particularly here of the one where the mother obsessively raises her massively disabled daughter to the extent that her husband leaves her and then gets attacked by a snake demon that has to have a host to die with it in order to be killed and she ends up shooting it and her disabled daughter at the same time and then going on for like two pages about how God's perfect plan led to her having a vegetable for a child just so she could kill the snake demon and just what the goddamned holy hell people?)
I laughed so hard right here I choked on my orange juice.

I forgot to mention that nearly her first words after shooting her disabled daughter boil down to, "Hot damn, now I can get my husband back!" It's just super-effed-up, the whole thing.

stePH · **Reply #1899 on:** July 25, 2011, 02:01:20 AM

Quote from: stePH on July 21, 2011, 04:13:11 AM

Finished Tom Sawyer yesterday, and began attempting to read The Sound and the Fury.

I may end up bouncing off this one. I'm having a lot of trouble keeping up with the disjointed chronology, to say nothing of differentiating one character from another... it's not even that clear which characters are the Compson family and which are their black servants. And I can't tell if Quentin is supposed to be a boy or a girl.

Finished the first section, and decided to stick it out now that I'm done with the stream-of-conscious narrative of Benjamin Compson the retarded man-child. Now into the stream-of-consciousness narrative of his brother Quentin, somewhat more focused, and the story is beginning to take shape for me.

I admit, I went to the novel's Wikipedia entry just to get a handle on who the characters are. In my defense, Benjy wasn't making it easy on me.