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In the latest theme of threads prying into your personal lives.
What are you reading atm?
I'm about a quarter of the way through Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, in my attempt to read it before I watch any of the movies. And it's really really quite good.
Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2012-02-29 01:18:27)
I actually am reading the Beast by Peter Benchley. Found it my wife's library and have never read it. It's pretty good. Just an ol' fashion monster story but very good so far.
Made a Kindle version of this book on Robert Fripp by Eric Tamm:
http://www.progressiveears.com/frippbook/contents.htm
From the looks of things it's about to start going way over my head, but I like the way the guy writes.
Bad Astronomy by Phil Plait and The History of The Lord of the Rings by Christopher Tolkien.
I just finished reading Drive, which was rather different than the film and interesting to compare, and Zombie Bible: Death Has Come Up Into Our Windows, the first volume of a series of novels taking Biblical stories and treating them as veiled descriptions of zombie outbreaks through the ages. The two released so far forego the low-hanging fruit of zombie Jesus, but maybe the series is building to that. This one was based on the book of Jeremiah. I quite enjoyed it and it was a fast read.
TONS, at the moment.
- A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin
- The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan
- The Stranger by Albert Camus
- The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson
Just finished King's 11/22/63 and John Green's The Fault in Our Stars, about to start some other book by Green.
Ghost in the Wires by Kevin Mitnick
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Feast for Crows (re-reading) by GRRM.
I've been slowly getting through a complete volume of HP Lovecraft. There's a lot of really good stuff in it that has nothing to do with the cthulu mythos. The cthulu/dagon/elders stuff is just so awesome, tho...
Dude. You guys. This wasn't the last book I read, but I read it recently enough to still be enthusiastic about it: House of Leaves. It's got a reputation for being pretentious and having its head up its own ass, and maybe those things are true, but … seriously. So worth it. It's a lot like a good genre movie: It's got visual effects in it (yes, a book with visual effects; if you've read it you know what I'm talking about), but those visual effects are skillfully employed in service of the story.
Really can't recommend it highly enough.
Last edited by Jeffery Harrell (2012-03-01 02:00:57)
I second Jeffery's recommendation. House of Leaves is crazy good. It's like no other book I've ever read.
I've been rereading Hemingway's "The Sun Also Rises" and "Operation Mincemeat" a non-fiction book about how British Intelligence used a dead tramp to help win WWII
Just My Type - it's a book all about the history of fonts
on deck is - Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy - i think it's going to be a VERY slow read, but as a jaded ex Catholic HS student, i'm curious to read it
+1
My reading habits are schizophrenic at best.
Currently I'm reading
- Grafísk Miðlun - On graphic design
- The Five C's of Cinematography
- Noble House - James Clavell
- Shock Wave - Clive Cussler (hate, hate hate that author)
- Sects 'Cults' & Alternative Religions
- Karitas (unpublished children's book written by a friend of mine).
Last edited by AshDigital (2012-03-13 17:28:06)
Currently reading "A Clash of Kings" by George R.R. Martin.
Strongly debating to start reading Lord of the Rings again (making it the 8th time.)
+1
I'm about 20 pages away from the end of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Excellent read btw), and I'm trying to figure out what to read next.
The marathon has me pretty fired up to finally tackle LOTR, but I have A Game Of Thrones just sitting on my shelf calling my name. Thoughts?
Game Of Thrones for sure. You can read LOTR while waiting for the rest of the books from George R. R. Martin.
Just finished Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Really really great read. And I think I'll be starting Game of Thrones next.
I'm reading Game of Thrones right now. And Story by Robert Mckee (taking a lot of time to digest it).
I had a quick question for the people who've read or are reading Song of Ice and Fire.
Is it advisable to read rest of the books before watching the tv series or to watch a season and then read the corresponding book afterwards?
Before I started reading the books (having watched the show first), I thought I'd wait to watch each season before reading the corresponding book. I bought the first book only, figuring I'd read it and then decide what to do. But then, when I was done with it, I was like "Yyeeaaaaaah no, can't wait".
I didn't like the idea of having the show spoiled, but I don't really care anymore, because the show is different in its own way, and there still is the excitement of discovering how well they've adapted the books.
I've watched the trailers for season 2 and I think I'm even more excited than I'd have been without the books.
Now, the other choice is fine too, but you'll have to wait for years before being able to read all the books. It's up to you, but you can wait until you've finished book 1 before making the choice.
Last edited by Saniss (2012-03-15 13:53:22)
I've been doing the Star Wars EU thing lately, in audiobook form.
For the 20 year anniversary of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy, they released an unabridged edition of Heir to the Empire read by Marc Thompson (who, if you're not in the EU audiobook loop, has been the voice of the EU since the Legacy of the Force series, and is by far my favorite EU narrator). Naturally I'm quite familiar with the story, but it's nice to re-visit it, particularly with Thompson's narration. Unfortunately the word is sales haven't been stellar, so we may not get the rest of the series.
Next up was James Luceno's Darth Plagueis, read by Daniel Davis (you might remember him as the Holodeck creation Professor Moriarty in TNG). As you can imagine, it tells the story of Palpatine's Sith master, from just prior to HIS master's fall, to just after the events of Episode I. If you're curious about how Palpatine became Sidous it's worth looking into. The narration by Davis is excellent, so I can heartily recommend the unabridged audio version.
Currently I'm finishing off the Fate of the Jedi series; the ninth and final book in the series, Apocalypse by Troy Denning, was released yesterday, and I should finish it today.
Edit:
For those attempting the Stieg Larsson Millenium Trilogy, I quite enjoyed the unabridged performance by Simon Vance. He gives each character a unique voice, so you know who's speaking right away, and he handles the various Swedish names (people, streets, towns, etc.) with ease.
Last edited by Matt Vayda (2012-03-15 18:32:18)
Just finished the first Discworld book, The Colour of Magic. It was fun, I can see myself reading others but I'm not dying to do so. If anything I'd read them to try to osmose the sense of humor.
I tried to read Moby-Duck, which Trey mentioned in some episode or another, but I just couldn't do it. The topic was interesting but the writing style was so overwrought it was turning into an endurance test to look past the overuse of adjectives and thesaurus abuse and appreciate the topic. When it got to the point where he described his newborn son as "meconium-besmirched" I was like:
I also just finished Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy, which I enjoyed and had some myths I held busted. Been a while since I read a science book and was a good one to get back into.
Right now I'm reading On Stranger Tides, the non-PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN book they strongarmed into being the fourth POTC movie (which I still haven't seen). I'm enjoying it a lot, it's a really fast read and I'm looking forward to comparing it to the film when I'm done.
Also reading Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth, which I was surprised to realize came out almost three years ago and I still hadn't gotten around to it. It's interesting because at that time creationism seemed to be going through a resurgence and the book was especially appropriate, and reading it now just makes me realize how thoroughly beat-down the creationist movement got. Obviously they're still out there, but as a political force to be reckoned with, I never hear about creationism/"Intelligent Design" any more.
Re: Game of Thrones, I say read the book first, but that's always my position. My roommates watched the series having not read anything and they loved it and tracked with it just fine.
Yes, Dawkins is a great writer, and despite the current crop of crazy Republican candidates, the Creationist moment has been beat, at least for a while.
In the same class as Dawkins: for his clarity, accessibility, and provocative slaying of sacred cows is Steven Pinker, the Harvard psychologist. Books like 'The Blank Slate' and 'Better Angels of Our Nature' are up there with Carl Sagan's 'Demon Haunted World' in literally changing the way we think by busting dozens of myths society just takes for granted as 'collective received wisdom'.
+2
I'll have to check him out. Also good in that vein is Richard Wiseman, whose Paranormality ought to, IMO, be required skeptical reading. 59 seconds is pretty darn good too.
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