Books Whats everyone reading atm?

[Vasconcelos]

Just finished Steinbeck's "Mice and men" and onto a re-read of "Grapes of Wrath"

 

[Wazzerphuk]

People can read what the fuck they like. Most people read a wide variety of books from the pretentious toss to the escapism fantasy stuff. A book doesn't have to make you think and sometimes its quite relaxing to read something that isn't trying too hard.

They can read what they like, but as said before, they're missing out if they're the sort that refuse to read outside of a certain genre and tunnel in on one niche only IMO.

 

[SilverHood]

Santiago and The Return of Santiago by Mike Resnick. Excellent space western

 

[Zenith]

Just finished reading Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami, and Norwegian Wood by the same author. Awesome!!!

Also read some Penguin Classics... The Plague and the Stranger by Camus, and The Trial by Kafka.

 

[Lamp]

Almost finished The Hobbit.

Not read it for years. Still a very enjoyable book

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Just finished reading Kafka on the shore by Haruki Murakami, and Norwegian Wood by the same author. Awesome!!!

Also read some Penguin Classics... The Plague and the Stranger by Camus, and The Trial by Kafka.

Norwegian Wood is really highly rated but I think it's by far his weakest novel and not a patch on his other stuff. Kafka on the Shore is great though, check out his other stuff - it's all amazing.

 

[xomer]

i just finished all the Nikos Kazantzakis books. It was a bit ouch :kissit:

 

[Helme]

So I've finished the two first books in Joe Abercrombie's The First Law trilogy and the third book can't get here soon enough. I love his writing style, I love the characters and I especially love how there is no real heroics here. The only real criticism I can give so far is that it's abit anti-climactic, but that is actually sort of refreshing to see, and tbh it actually makes it feel alot more real where nothing really changes after all the heroes' efforts.

I highly recommend them to anyone who likes the genre, and I would almost say to anyone who doesn't aswell.

 

[PLightstar]

Just finished Tanith First and Only was a free ebook from The Black Library as they have gone digital with all their Warhammer fantasy and 40K books and audio dramas. Read it in one week, which is really good for me, just couldn't stop reading it. Will probably buy the rest in the series as they become available to download. Was a good read and was glad that most of the characters survived the book, as the norm is for everyone to die by the end leaving a hand full of people. Showed the political side of war even within ones own ranks, as people are betrayed for others to attain more power.

 

[cHodAX]

Almost finished The Hobbit.

Not read it for years. Still a very enjoyable book

Bleh, horribly written, decent enough story but the writing style is headache inducing.

 

[DaGaffer]

William Gibson - Zero History. Just picked it up this evening.

 

[cHodAX]

William Gibson - Zero History. Just picked it up this evening.

Your avatar is a probable queer.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

J G Ballard - The Drowned World

 

[Shagrat]

J G Ballard - The Drowned World

I really enjoyed that. Might have to dig it out again.

 

[Helme]

I'm currently reading Towers of Midnight, 10 chapters in so far and it's amazing how much has already been resolved. I'm already dreading finishing it knowing that it'll be another year before the conclusion of the series

 

[Ch3tan]

Mine was only just posted to me, but I am reading the last book of the Last Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, it's very good so far.

 

[Vasconcelos]

Just finished "The lies of Locke Lamora". Been unfinished around my desk for like a year hehe

As my old fella Tony would say:
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat book!!!

Now I have to decide btwn reading the sequel ("Red seas under red skies") or starting with "World war Z".

Think I'm gonna take a shot at the zombies

 

[Jupitus]

Just finished "The lies of Locke Lamora". Been unfinished around my desk for like a year hehe

As my old fella Tony would say:
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreat book!!!

Now I have to decide btwn reading the sequel ("Red seas under red skies") or starting with "World war Z".

Think I'm gonna take a shot at the zombies

Read the sequel

 

[inactionman]

Great books, can't wait for the next one!

Starting the towers of midnight.

 

[MrHorus]

"An Introduction to Political Philosophy"

 

[Ormorof]

i just finished Dread Empire's Fall - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

three part series, pretty good sci fi, ends rather abruptly though (like author had a deadline and had to finish book )

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Just finished Blindness by Jose Saramago today. Good, but the style of prose used was deeply irritating and pretty shit. It has a purpose, but made the novel much harder to read and follow than it needed to be. For examples, all speech is reported without any quotes, seperate lines, and most of the time it's not even stated who is talking. The lines of dialogue between people is presented as one long sentence going:

"You're wrong, whatever put such an idea into your head, I see as much as anybody here, Don't try to deceive me, I know very well that you can see, but don't worry, I won't breathe a word to anyone, Sleep, sleep, Don't you trust me, Of course I do, Don't you trust the word of a thief, I said I trusted you."

As you can see that's pretty shit and hard to read. That's one of the shortest passages of reported speech in the novel, and that's only between two people. When it comes to a whole group discussing things (which regularly occurs) it gets plain stupid. Some of these moments of speech go on for a couple of pages at a time without starting a new sentence.

I read a lot of older stuff which can be a bit like a wall of text, with very long sentences, but I really didn't appreciate the style used here. The book would be inifintely better without this prose.

The story is pretty good, although I felt the end was a total cop-out.

 

[Ch3tan]

Is it written like that to convey the feeling of blindness, i.e, not being able to associate a voice with a image of the speaker? If so the author has failed to notice the obvious fact that people's voices are used to distinguish the speaker.

 

[Wazzerphuk]

Yes, that's pretty much it. The other point to mention there is that all the characters talk pretty much in the same style so it's very easy to lose at points.

It results in a lot of distance between the reader and the characters, and in the story you need to be able to associate with them, to compare your own life with theirs and their situation. It's a really flawed method of writing, which could be replicated in other ways that bring the reader in more without making it hard for your brain to physically process.

 

[Helme]

So I've just finished Towers of Midnight and I must say it's probably the best book in the series so far, alot of stuff happens - characters that has been annoying for several years have finally grown some balls and people are finally communicating with eachother again.

My favourite part of the book was in the end;

Spoiler

One of the Two Rivers people finally recognized what Moiraine had done for them, how she sacrificed the majority of her adult life to see them safe and never got any thanks for it - until now that is. It was about time I think, she's deserved better for a very long time.

 

[ECA]

Gyah I went into town on release day to find a copy and couldn't One book shop shut down the other is much smaller and didn't have any copies so I orderd from amazon and apparently got posted thursday evening but didn't arrive fri/today so I probably won't get it until monday.

Last book was pretty damn good w/ the white tower getting resolved and hopefully this one is just as good.

Part of the "drawn out" nature is that in the early books everyone is together in 1 party so it moves more quickly, when they split into 4-5-6 different groups and had to tell each groups story it obv made the pacing really bad.

 

[pcg79]

just finished the millenium trilogy... which were alright.
now on non fiction; at the mo its 'fault lines' by ragu rajan, then 'dead aid' by dambisa moyo.

 

[ford prefect]

just finished the millenium trilogy... which were alright.
now on non fiction; at the mo its 'fault lines' by ragu rajan, then 'dead aid' by dambisa moyo.

I read the millenium trilogy recently. I thought they were quite good, perhaps a bit OTT though.

 

[tierk]

Anyone read The Painted Man Series? I only managed to find the first one here in Qatar and wondering what the rest of the series is like.

 

[inactionman]

Anyone read The Painted Man Series? I only managed to find the first one here in Qatar and wondering what the rest of the series is like.

Pretty good so far, I think only book2 is out, I believe book 3 is released sometime in 2012.