Author Topic: What books do you read? (Read 36323 times)

Ria Hawk · « **Reply #200 on:** December 15, 2006, 03:13:10 AM »

*steals Moon's format*

Just finished: Chaos of Crime by Dell Shannon

On Deck: Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe

Contemplating: Eldest (no, I still haven't read it) by Christopher Paoli (I think...)

Random Popcorn/Before Bed: Dumbology: The Book of Gaffes, Foul-ups, and Blunders by Geoff Tibbals

MoonHunter · « **Reply #201 on:** December 15, 2006, 12:50:16 PM »

Can I get an ISBN number for Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe from you Ria? If that is the book I think it is, I want to read it. However seraching has come up with confused results.

Ria Hawk · « **Reply #202 on:** December 15, 2006, 04:58:23 PM »

ISBN 0-345-43488-9

Ria Hawk · « **Reply #203 on:** January 04, 2007, 05:39:50 PM »

Just finished: Ancient Mysteries by Peter James and Nick Thorpe

Currently Reading: I Am Jackie Chan: My Life in Action by Jackie Chan

On Deck: MST3K's Amazing Colassal Episode Guide by Michael J. Nelson

Contemplating: Eldest (no, I still haven't read it) by Christopher Paoli (I think...)

Random Popcorn/Before Bed: The Best of H.P. Lovecraft

MoonHunter · « **Reply #204 on:** January 08, 2007, 10:21:55 PM »

Just finished: Darkover Landfall

In process: Missing in Action: Star Trek New Frontier by Peter David

On Deck: Storm Front (Book 1 of Dresen files)

Contemplating: Rogue Angel - Destiny

Random Popcorn/Before Bed: Missing in Action: Star Trek New Frontier by Peter David
What can I say, he writes great crap. While not thought provoking, everything he writes is fun. This is like the 11th book in the series.

Strolen · « **Reply #205 on:** January 11, 2007, 07:50:53 PM »

Recently Finished:
Common Sense on Mutual Funds (j. Bogle)
The Odyssey (Homer)
Multiple Discover and Scientific Americans

Reading:
Black Bodies and Quantum Cats (J. Ouellette)

On the list:
Got a huge, unliftable box of National Geographic at a garage sale that I know will be a treasure of ideas
Multiple Ajax and PHP OOP books that will be read/referenced

Is anybody else like this?
I am an avid reader and go to sleep reading but my taste is so variable that I have trouble accomodating it sometimes. I have a small bedside table that has my clock, light and the following books that I have started but not finished:
A Tale of Two Cities (C. Dickens)
Advanced PHP Programming (G. Schlossnagle)
Godel, Escher, Bach (d. Hofstadter) --started this book in multiple places probably a dozen times.
The Last Kingdom (B. Cornwell)
Gravity's Rainbow (T. Pynchon) --started this one almost as much as GEB. Also never finished

Then I have another end table that sits in the corner of the room for my overflow of other books I have started and lost the taste for. Looking there are probably 4 technical tomes and then a good dozen of misc reading from The Cathedral and the Bazaar to Uncle John's Unstoppable Bathroom Reader (which is awesome).

Are there any other readers out there that have daily mood swings in what they read so that any one time you have 3+ books that you are reading? I currently only have 3 because I finished Odyssey and the Quantum Cats one has caught my interest...otherwise I am about 40 pages into The Last Kingdom and about the same in Two Cities with GEB and Gravity's Rainbow always catching my attention once a month.

Pariah · « **Reply #206 on:** January 11, 2007, 10:06:11 PM »

Yeah Strolen, I'm like that too. It doesn't help that my AP Lit class has me reading loads of books in addition to what I'd read already.

Currently:
SciFi/Fantasy/Horror Anthology for 05' (Ideas for tabletop)
Watership Down by Richard Adams(Kicks and giggles)
Hamlet by Shakespear(School)
Dante's Inferno by Giovanni Boccaccio(Ideas/Kicks)

Recently Finished:
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad Good story, total of 45 pages I think. Apocalypse Now is loosely based off of this.
House of Chains by Steven Erikson

MoonHunter · « **Reply #207 on:** January 12, 2007, 01:39:57 AM »

I used to read 2-4 books at a time, plus my weekly plug of 20 comic titles. Then I realized, I seldom finished a book. So I limited myself to 1 or 1.5 at a time, so I actually finished some things.

Pariah · « **Reply #208 on:** January 28, 2007, 12:26:24 PM »

Over the next 2 weeks:
The Raid and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy
Vellum - The Book of All Hours by Hal DuncanI thought it looked interesting, basic plot is that the Angles and Demons are at war over the world of Vellum, of which the real Earth is just a small part. And the author's picture looked just like one of my friends.
The Crooked Letter by Sean Williams
The Sword of the Citidel by Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch by Gene Wolfe

Strolen · « **Reply #209 on:** January 28, 2007, 06:21:57 PM »

In the weird frame of mind again.
Clockwork Orange is in the mail (couldn't find my copy)
Brave New World is on the hit list and I might end up reading Catch 22 again. For some reason Catch 22 is my favorite book and as soon as I finish it, it doesn't take but a couple months for me to get the urge to read it again. Clockwork Orange hits me probably bi-annually.

Pariah · « **Reply #210 on:** January 28, 2007, 08:38:23 PM »

You know what Strolen, that explains a lot about you. A whole lot.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #211 on:** January 31, 2007, 06:45:13 AM »

I just read "The Bonehunters" by Steven Erikson. 4.5/5 flames. Love anything by that actor, though he gets a bit over the edge with the hack and slash epics every now and then... Heck, who am I fooling? He gets over the edge all the time! He is pure hack and slash. Conan type testestoron all the way home, and then some! He kills his favourites, and a number of guys we've followed for thousands and thousands of pages die in this book too. I like it!

T-Bone · « **Reply #212 on:** February 10, 2007, 11:00:06 PM »

I have just finished Eragon and the sequel to Eragon, Eldest. I am now currently on Ghost Rider. For those of you who don't know who Ghost Rider is, (may God have mercy on you souls) he was a teen that had a dying dad with cancer and without knowing it sold his soul to the Devil to save his dad. Unfortunately, the Devil kills his dad in a motorcylce accident. Since he sold his soul, he became the Devil's bounty hunter who caught all the souls who escaped from Hell. As far as I know he defy's the devil in the end and becomes a super hero. The book is pretty good so far. So if you like super natural stuff, this book is good for you.

MoonHunter · « **Reply #213 on:** February 11, 2007, 12:15:18 AM »

Actually that book is the movie adaption which does a half assed job of duplicating the comic book that came out in the early 70s. (Adapting the name from a Western Hero Marvel had done decades before).

Still it is an okay book (movie adaption and the movie too), as long as you don't know the Ghost Rider comic book.

Eclipse · « **Reply #214 on:** April 18, 2007, 02:09:20 PM »

Not sure if anyone has said these but

On A Pale Horse by Piers Anthony and the rest of the Incarnations of Immortality series they make you think about life, morals and the world alot.

dark_dragon · « **Reply #215 on:** April 19, 2007, 01:02:29 PM »

just finished: Cell, by Stephen King. This grabs hold of you and just doesn't let go. The Strolen's style "new take" on zombies is very neat and well thought out. Gripping enought that I finished it in a single reading (travelling by car at the time).

Altered carbon by Richard K. Morgan.(yet again) Brilliant scifi book, written in a classic noir tone. possibly some of the best opening chapters in any books I have read to date. Strikes perfect balance between action, conspiratory tension, and some mind-bending body switching (the main character (with compulsory VO, of course) is at one point residing in two bodies at the same time and narrates from both points of view).

always reading: Arthur C. Clarke's sci-fi short stroy anthology, from 1964(?) to 1999, and Asimov's the complete robot. Short stories are a great read, and both are peerless masters of sci-fi.

currently reading: Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Superb read so far...(about 1/7 th through), although as can be expected, a bit expository at times. love the way Quegueg is characterised...

slowly going through: What is the title of this book? a mindbending logic book with many hours of fun. from the classic thruthteller/liar problems, to an entire sequence of puzzle culminating in the understanding that none of them could even exist! (i think...)

ASIDE: Reading some of this list has made me want to dig up some of the titles and read them all over again....

Dozus · « **Reply #216 on:** April 20, 2007, 06:44:13 AM »

Currently reading: The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley

Okay, I'll go ahead and fess up to it: this is a fantasy novel for teenage girls. It's about horses and plucky princesses and mysterious foreign princes and magic. But I love it. It's really the setting I enjoy. It's a combination of Imperial British Middle East and Paulo Coelho's Egypt of The Alchemist. Some of the characters and dialogue are a bit juvenile (for obvious reasons), but I thoroughly enjoy the cultural and setting bits. A nice quick read for anyone looking for a spring break escape.

Scrasamax · « **Reply #217 on:** April 21, 2007, 01:53:03 PM »

The Taking
By Dean Koontz

Standard three day read, an interesting apocalyptic tale that is heavy on the Lovecraftian horror but with just a pinch of Revelations.

Ancient Gamer · « **Reply #218 on:** May 22, 2007, 03:54:35 PM »

The Reaper's Gale
by Steven Erikson

The Malazan Book of the Fallen is nearing its end. This is the seventh of ten books and Erikson follows up in his usual style. It is well written and fascinating, grand epic grim fantasy adventure. Everything is extreme; the violence, the sex, everything. Even more: In this book even I was perplexed by the over the top munchkinism, when

<spoiler>
one high mage singlehandedly downed four soultaken (Shapeshifting) Tiste Eleint Dragons (Ascendant Dragons).
</spoiler>

Still: I loved every minute of the book, and those 910 pages sure sped past.

The Malazan world is one where Gods and ascendants dabble in the lives of men and empires. War and strife are central themes, but that does not mean they are the only themes.

Not many people could pull of what Erikson does. The books are munchkin, god-moding, sexually oriented and over the top violence-wise, still he pulls it off.

I take of my hat and salute a great author. IMO, the very best in the fantasy industry.

MoonHunter · « **Reply #219 on:** May 24, 2007, 11:47:17 PM »

Just finished Robert J. Sawyer's Humanoids

Currently Reading Robert J. Sawyer's Humans

On DeckA couple of Darkover books as I can't find Robert J. Sawyer's Hybrid in paperback.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Neanderthal_Parallax
and there are some links on this page to the author's SFwriter.com site

Contemplating Storm Front (Book 1 of Dresen files)

dark_dragon · « **Reply #220 on:** May 25, 2007, 06:29:42 AM »

[aside] Moon, Did you know that they're making an RPG on the dresden files? It looks quite good too: http://www.dresdenfilesrpg.com/

MoonHunter · « **Reply #221 on:** May 25, 2007, 11:58:01 AM »

If this is to be believed, this has lots of talent behind it (odd talent to be sure, so the game system will be ecclectic). If they have managed to secure the license from the book company, this might just fly.

manfred · « **Reply #222 on:** September 12, 2007, 02:48:42 PM »

The Discovery of France by Graham Robb

I haven't read that book at all! Just seen an article about it.

The author has researched and travelled through the actual France very few know. Just a few quotes that grabbed my attention:

Quote

Despite the best efforts of the Church, fertility rites around prehistoric megaliths persisted well into the 19th century and possibly beyond.

Quote

Until the development of mass transport in the 19th century, and in many cases until much later, la France profonde was the "land of a thousand pays" - tiny areas of human settlement delimited neither by state boundaries nor by zones of taxation, but by the distance to which the village bells carried or by how far a patois remained comprehensible.

When Charles de Gaulle complained about the difficulty of governing a country that had 246 different kinds of cheese, he articulated the despair of French government officials since time immemorial: not until nearly the middle of the 1800s did anyone even possess a complete map of the country, still less a lingua franca in which to address its inhabitants.

As Robb points out, before the wide availability of cheap bicycles, "the universe, for many people, had a radius of 15 miles and a population that could easily fit into a small barn".

And there's more... sounds like an interesting book to read if you happen to get hold of it. (And if you do, please write here about it.)

Pariah · « **Reply #223 on:** June 08, 2009, 07:11:25 PM »

A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans

I grabbed it on a whim because I needed something to keep me amused for a couple hours while I waited for my friend at the airport, he'd called to tell me his flight was delayed while I was on my way, and I've been mighty impressed with it so far. It's got 30 very colourful characters that, though they've largely been ignored by history, played a very important role during their times, or at least most of them did. It's good fodder for memorable NPCs.

Murometz · « **Reply #224 on:** June 08, 2009, 10:39:58 PM »

such as?

Do add a few to [http://strolen.com/viewing/NPCs_out_of_History] mega-sub.