What are you reading atm?

[mank!]

I'm reading The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau. I've not read any of it for about a fortnight because I completely forgot about it

I'm also reading a book on The Smiths called Songs That Saved Your Life, pretty essential for hardcore Smiths fans.

 

[Testin da Cable]

I'm reading James Clavell's "Nobel House" atm, a novel about wheeling and dealing in Hong Kong. It's a continuation of "Tai-Pan" in the current day [being the early 70's] and ties in both "ShoGun" and "King Rat". It's rather pacey and complex, but I'm enjoying it.

I've just finished Archer's "The Fourth Estate" but didn't really like it. He harps on a theme he discovered long ago imo, but he does manage to put the devious and hectic PressBarons across well I think.
Also just finished is "The Neutronium Alchemist" by Peter Hamilton. A slight letdown after the brilliant [but violent] "The Reality Dysfunction" I think, but it reads well enough. You'd really need to read the first part of the trilogy or you'd have no idea at all what's going on. Looking forward to the third book.

 

[xane]

Bountiful Harvest by Thomas di Gregori, its actually a factual book rather than a novel.

Last novel was ... Great Expectations by Dickens, I kid you not, got it in eBook form for my Palm and it's a cracking read !

 

[Trebz]

Currently reading Robert Jordan's "Crossroads of Twilight" the 10th novel in the WOT series. I'm not far into it yet so can't offer any opinions, but if its anything like the other books I'm sure it will be a fantastic story.

I've just finished reading Raymond Feist's "Murder in Lamut", not his best effort, but a good read none the less. It's basically a "who dunnit" but theres so much lead upto the murder and then the solving takes all of 2-3 chapters, bit poor.

 

[legendario]

Pete Mcarthey - The Road to Mcarthey

 

[Summo]

Flicking between the following:

The Most Dangerous Enemy by Stephen Bungay. Focuses on the Battle of Britain but covers a great deal of before and after detail. Not bad.

Stupid White Men by Michael Moore. Some interesting points but I get frustrated reading about America.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Good stuff.

 

[PR.]

Currently reading a Star Trek book which continues DS9 from when it finished it reads very much like an episode

Before that I was reading Prey by Michael Crichton and before that the Black House the sequel to the Talisman by Stephen King.

And before that DreamCatcher by Stephen King


I enjoyed them all

 

[doh_boy]

http://forums.barrysworld.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=43493

WOT-Crown of Swords.

I got the McCarthy book for xmas so might get that.

Also I got Schott's Original Miscellany, its full of random facts I enjoyed it.

As for Raymond Feist, is he any good I have a friend how only reads fantasy books and she keeps 'hinting' for me to read them. Those and Anne McAffrey books. So just wondering if it's worth my while.

 

[Trebz]

Feist is excellent, comes a close second to Jordan and WOT.

 

[Munkey-]

at the moment?

Tom Clancy - Sum of All Fears
Iain M Banks - Use of Weapons
Damini - (random but excellent)

I like to have a few books strategically positioned around the house.

e.g. one by each toilet, one in the study, one in the kitchen and one near my bed.

 

[danger]

Reading the Silmarillion ATM.... I like all the background to lord of the rings... but Tolkien's really over packed it with so many Elvish style names that I pretty much forget who's who other than Melkor/Morgoth + his rentboy Sauron = Teh big Evil and Manwe = teh big chief valar dude...

It's also very "and on the 7th day Illuvatar said let their be music and it went forth and it was good but lucifer whoops sorry Melkor was jealous and did loads of bad stuff then took refuge in Utumno and was no longer to take a form that seemed fair to men/elves etc" It gets very biblical

It not only resembles the first testement in the beginning but the whole book also reads alot more like the bible than a real book!

Anyone else read it? I'm looking forward to reading the K-Pax trillogy after this... looks good

 

[old.milou]

Daemons & Angels - A Life of Jacob Epstein - June Rose
The Cold Six Thousand - James Ellroy
Mythology of the British Isles - Geoffrey Ashe

(A commute from Southampton to London makes for good reading time).

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by Summo
A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. Good stuff.

How does it compare to the movie?

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Originally posted by mank!
How does it compare to the movie?

INFIDEL!

GO READ THE BOOK NOW , AT ONCE!



GO, NOW!

 

[whipped]

Currently working my way through Night Watch by the erstwhile Terry Pratchet.

After that I start to read the entire Brentford Trilogy that I picked up from eBay for a tenner. All five books

 

[Sar]

These forums...

 

[dysfunction]

Originally posted by whipped
Currently working my way through Night Watch by the erstwhile Terry Pratchet.

I'm gonna go and buy that! I was hoping someone was going to get it as a christmas prezzy but no such luck!!

 

[djpringle]

Currently reading The Ilse Witch by Terry Brooks (OK) and Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen.

Is Night Watch worth getting???

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

I got NW for crimbo, it's a great book.

 

[caLLous]

• John Case - Trance State,
• John Case - The Genesis Code,
• Karen Slaughter - Blindsighted,
• Harold G. Moore, Joseph Galloway - We Were Soldiers Once... And Young,
• James Patterson - Violets Are Blue.

Read those 5 since the start of December (t'was 2 for a tenner in Smith's so I decided to boost my collection a bit).

 

[gremlin]

Just finished Ian Rankins latest Rebus novel Resurrection Men. One of the best in the Rebus series imho.

Slightly offtopic I notice the BBC have made Messiah II (showing this weekend). The first Messiah was adapted from the fantastic book of the same name by Boris Starling. Definitely recommended.

 

[Lester]

Congratulations to all us non-show offs (reading worthy ten million page factual books, arty stuff and proper sci-fi) who owned up to reading populist pap.

Just finished Robert Ludlum - Sigma Protocol - utter shit (still finished it tho) Such a shame Bourne Identity and Matarese Circle are two of my favourite reads - and he's dead now too. It feels like someone else wrote it (they probably did)

 

[wolfeeh]

oooh yey

a thread i can contribute to in my new fave forum :>

currently flicking between;

psychology for dummies - purchased to give me an insight into psychology as i've been considering a degree in it later this year...

iain m bank's fearsum endjinn - i've read all the other banks sci-fi novels except incursions and loved them to bits... i'm finding this really hard going though... i don't know exactly what's wrong with it, i think it's the phonetic style... it's really getting on my tits...

ben elton's inconceivable - picked it up for a two hour trainride home from newport station - absolutely fucking fantastic, only put it down unfinished because of crossroads of twilight... will finish it straight after, think so much of the dude that i've bought another four of his books to read later.

crossroads of twilight - started this a week or two ago... been very busy lately though what with my new job and all... currently on page 448 or so... this is written in rather a different style to jordan's other WoT novels - basically up until P448 at least (obviously i can't speak for what i haven't read yet) he's covering the events of literally a day or so, from the perspective of around 20 different people... i can't really see any plot threads being closed in this one, and quite a few new ones will be created.... in book 9 it felt like he was getting bored of the series and was aiming for a quick finish, tying off plotlines like mad.... but this book totally bangs THAT idea on its head... it looks like the series is in for another three or four books easily...

and last but not least - ian irvine's dark is the moon - the first two books in the view from the mirror series were fantastic, you just wanted to read faster and faster because the story just got better and better.... it would be wrong to say that there's something wrong with this book there isn't... i just have a very personal <looks for word, can't find one, replaces with a sentence;> [things i like reading about and things i don't]... and he's just taken the plot into territory that i don't like... if you get me... i will start reading it again but only when i get bored... probably take it to work to finish.... not that i'll be able to concentrate on it all there... anyway....

murder in lamut - i have that but i haven't read it yet... it seems to me that the theme is copied from a number of "murder in [insert fictional place here] books i have - typically set in the dragonlance of forgotten realms universises <universii? continua? who cares>

is raymond e feist any good!? jesus... up there with jordan as the world's best fantasy author... i would have said he was until i read wheel of time... maybe he's joint first.... maybe he's second... it doesn't really matter... do yourself a favour though and start at the start, you need feist's magician.

among other books i've noticed you lot have read that i have but haven't read are night watch and prey any cop?

 

[xane]

You really really have to stick with Fearsum Enjinn, its is a good book and that phonetic stuff is only irritating at first, its a bit like Clockwork Orange. I love books with alternative languages in them, another one is 1984.

 

[.Cask]

Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics by Ralph P. Grimaldi.

Hate revision.

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by xane
I love books with alternative languages in them, another one is 1984.

It's been a while since I read 1984, but what 'alternative language' was in it? I honestly don't remember any :/

 

[Trebz]

It had that reduced vocabulary language in it somethingspeech, where they removed all words relating to feelings and individualism etc.

 

[Trebz]

Newspeak

 

[danger]

Originally posted by .Cask
Discrete and Combinatorial Mathematics by Ralph P. Grimaldi.

Hate revision.

Thermodynamics and further inorganic chemistry...

teh sux0r...

 

[mank!]

Originally posted by Trebz
Newspeak

Oh yeah, shit. Can't believe I forgot that

Must read 1984 again!