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Salazar · Mar 2, 2010

Stuff for work. Interesting, but dry after all the fantasy I've been reading.

The Norton Anthology of Theory and Criticism.
FR Leavis' letters.
Michael Oakeshott on intellectual life as conversation.
John Crowe Ransom - still, possibly, one of the coolest names in literary criticism.

Duke Togo · Mar 2, 2010

Love the setting, but I don't really care about the characters. At all. :lol

Escape Goat · Mar 2, 2010

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 3, 2010

A Storm of Swords 1: Steel and Snow, i should slow down though since the second book will take a while to get here.

Tank da lord the text is a bit bigger though :lol

Anyone on GOODREADS.COM? i have no friends :'(

Jedeye Sniv · Mar 3, 2010

Just wanna remind people that comics aren't books...

if that was the case then I'd fill this thread up with the constant glut of GNs that I work through. If there are so many of us reading comics other than the weeklies, why not have a seperate thread for it (even just a 'Comics you have read and enjoyed' thread)? I know I'd join in.

Just finished up reading Nightwings last week on recommendation from Alucrid (was it?? it's been over a month and I'm forgetful). It was a fun read and was certainly a unique setting, a marriage of sci-fi and fantasy. It wasn't perfect by any means though, the world that Silverberg built was impressive but the plot was paper-thin to the point of non-existence. Still, there were some excellent touches like the

mutant/alien that stabs out the Prince's eyes, the slutty Remeberer and sexy naked flying ladies

. In all I'm glad I read it, although it's not something I would readily recommend (apart from the interesting setting).

Just about to start off The Girl Who Played With Fire, although the size is fairly intimidating...

-Kees- · Mar 3, 2010

subzero9285 · Mar 3, 2010

Finishing off Stephen King's IT.

After that's done and dusted, I'll move on to this;

blazinglord · Mar 3, 2010

Currently reading:

eznark · Mar 3, 2010

What does a bowl of strawberries have to do with the english legal system?

Maklershed · Mar 3, 2010

tart reform

Fuzz Rez · Mar 3, 2010

Any good books about Jack the Ripper ? Fiction and non-fiction will both do.

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 3, 2010

Jedeye Sniv said:
Just wanna remind people that comics aren't books... if that was the case then I'd fill this thread up with the constant glut of GNs that I work through. If there are so many of us reading comics other than the weeklies, why not have a seperate thread for it (even just a 'Comics you have read and enjoyed' thread)? I know I'd join in.
.

Text Books as well........ your is school/college/university whatever, we get it.

eznark · Mar 3, 2010

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy said:
Text Books as well........ your is school/college/university whatever, we get it.

Sometimes I read textbooks, I am no longer in school.

British Monsoon · Mar 3, 2010

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy said:
Anyone on GOODREADS.COM? i have no friends :'(

Just signed up for it, seems like exactly the type of site i've been looking for. Feel free to add me if you like; http://www.goodreads.com/bootaaay

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 3, 2010

Added

eznark · Mar 3, 2010

good reads looks pretty cool, I'll sign up at some point today

Stealth · Mar 3, 2010

Haven't posted in one of these for a while, so this is what I've brought with me to keep busy while studying over in Barcelona.

Free by Chris Anderson

Read through this one fairly quickly, as it's only about 220 pages or so. The idea that free is almost an inevitability and that companies should embrace it sooner rather than later is compelling, but not always applicable. The title is actually is quite misleading. Instead, this is more of a book of how you give away the meat of the product for free and then sell the little add-ons once you've established market share and become the preferred choice of users. I can see a lot of businesses being able to make good use of the information in here.

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

OK, this was my first Murakami book and I went into it with absolutely zero expectations other than the synopsis on the back of the paperback. I really enjoyed the first part of the book. It was casual, almost coming across as if the narrator were as bored by his daily life as it comes across to the reader. But then weird stuff starts to happen: random calls from strangers, late nights out on the part of his wife, and then a missing cat. I loved what Murakami did here. The missing cat as an allegory for the breakdown of a marriage is really brilliant. It perfectly captures the narrator's utter ineptitude at both achieving any sense of self worth or serving as a respectable husband. Through his search and interactions with new characters to find this cat, its as if he receives his own little Christmas Carol look at the past, present, and future.

But then the novel completely changes about halfway through, and it almost completely lost me. The drive, the urgency and the constant revelations and coming and going of the wonderful array of supporting characters all but ends. Instead we get fed what amount to almost pointless, and very forced, tangential stories, loosely connected (Toru states that the answer to his dilemma lies in the deserts of Manchukuo, but never finds it) to the main plot. The amount of time given to the here and now is vastly reduced in favor of telling in full these handful of stories, but by the book's conclusion, it's almost as if none of them matter at all. It's one of those books that makes you feel as if the author deliberately hurried through the ending and stopped writing without a proper denouement so as to make the reader sit and pontificate on what he had just read. Purposefully obtuse, I guess you could call it. Which is all well and good; I did enjoy the story quite a bit, and I can understand why certain elements were included and certain elements were cut and pasted together. My problem lies mostly with the narrator, who strives so hard to understand his predicament by doing almost nothing but waiting for answers to present themselves. I guess that's a unique element, but the quirkiness of it I'm still having trouble digesting. I could say a lot more on the subject, but I'll save that unless Book-GAF wants to discuss it. Overall, though, Murakami was interesting enough to make me want to check out another book to see if he's a trick pony or if he'll change his style a bit. Perhaps over the summer.

About 150 pages into this one. It's a pretty brisk read and the type is pretty large, so when I initially thought this would make for an excellent timesink I'm finding it's going by a lot faster that I was planning on, which is by all means a very good thing to say about a book. Not enough has happened in the story other than establishing the setting, though, so I haven't much to say other than I'm reading it and liking it. Hope to roll through the whole trilogy this spring, so I'm timing this to match up to the release of Hornet's Nest. We'll see how that goes.

Jedeye Sniv · Mar 3, 2010

eznark said:
Sometimes I read textbooks, I am no longer in school.

LOL, nerd!!

Jedeye Sniv · Mar 3, 2010

Stealth said:
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

OK...

If you want to read more Murakami, I've only read Dance Dance Dance but I really enjoyed it. It has a similar sonambulistic feeling to the one you describe, but it also functions as a fairly interesting mystery and has some great characters in it.

This book is brilliant fun, let us know what you thought of it! Also, I love the new trade design on this.

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 3, 2010

My names Scrambles on goodreads as well if anyone wants to add.

FnordChan · Mar 3, 2010

Fuzz Rez said:
Any good books about Jack the Ripper ? Fiction and non-fiction will both do.

Two fictional works come to mind for me immediately. First, Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell. Moore takes a theory from Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution and runs with it, and while the theory is far fetched it makes for a terrific yarn. The story is told from the viewpoint of Jack the Ripper - here an upper class doctor - and is packed full of historical detail (including extensive footnotes) and grim imagery. Opinions vary - someone in a recent reading thread didn't care for it, I believe - but I'm a great fan and recommend it highly.

Second, I'm adore Kim Newman's Anno Dracula, which is out of print but readily available used. Yes, it's a vampire book, with the setup being that Van Helsing's team failed to kill Dracula, who then went on to become a part of British high society, become consort to Victoria, and popularize vampirism throughout England. In the midst of all this radical reform someone is killing vampire prostitutes in Whitechapel, with the press starting to refer to the killer as Jack the Ripper. Anno Dracula spends a lot of time dealing with the implications of a vampire society, but it also spends a lot of time showing our heroes hunting down the Ripper. Either way, it's one hell of a read and I pimp it in the reading threads every chance I get.

FnordChan, who, alas, can't help with a non-fiction recommendation though he has the notion that Philip Sugden's Complete History of Jack the Ripper is a good start

blazinglord · Mar 3, 2010

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy said:
Text Books as well........ your is school/college/university whatever, we get it.

The textbook I'm reading has nothing to do with academia, I'm reading it because I want to. Silly me for thinking that this thread was titled 'what are you reading'.

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 3, 2010

blazinglord said:
The textbook I'm reading has nothing to do with academia, I'm reading it because I want to. Silly me for thinking that this thread was titled 'what are you reading'.

You're alright. Any wenches in your text book?

blazinglord · Mar 3, 2010

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy said:
You're alright. Any wenches in your text book?

'fraid not. :lol It is kind of dry, but incredibly informative. Next time I watch Law and Order, I will know my stuff.

eznark · Mar 3, 2010

I bought a f' ton of ebooks lately and been bouncing around reading the first ten pages trying to find something to stick. Settled on a book I've had for a couple years

About 60 pages in and it's "cool." You can sort of tell just how clever Ferris thought every single sentence he came up with is. "Walking Spanish" is not a term that needs to be used ten times a page. It just doesn't. Especially when you establish that the characters have dozens of words and phrases to describe the same thing.

That said, I am enjoying the book.

PersonaX · Mar 3, 2010

I'm thinking about buying this. Should I? Anyone have any experiences about this book?

Verdre · Mar 3, 2010

PersonaX said:
I'm thinking about buying this. Should I? Anyone have any experiences about this book?

http://thewritingspider.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/lovelybones2.jpg

Most of it's okay, but I thought the ending was horrible. In a "something happens that seems completely out of character for what the book was up until that point" kind of way.

zaxor0 · Mar 3, 2010

afternoon delight said:
[/IMG]

I had to read this for a class once, didn't think I would like it but it is actually pretty good. So, good choice!

Falch said:
How is it? I've always been meaning to read some Nietzsche after I heard a series of lectures by the teaching company about him. I don't think my grasp of the German language would allow me to read it in German, though.

Human, All Too Human is a good one. I recommend starting off with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Twilight of the Idols, or The Genealogy of Morals.

I'm still reading

and I think I am going to read a few more essays out of

but as of now I'm sucked into

What stories should I read? So far I've read Call of Cthulhu, Dunwich Horror, and am almost finished with Colour From Space. I am thinking Herbet West - the re-animator and also At The Mountains of Madness.

KingGondo · Mar 3, 2010

zaxor0 said:
What stories should I read? So far I've read Call of Cthulhu, Dunwich Horror, and am almost finished with Colour From Space. I am thinking Herbet West - the re-animator and also At The Mountains of Madness.

I just started reading Lovecraft, but I definitely enjoyed Dagon in addition to the ones you listed.

Looking back on it, it definitely seems like Stephen King's The Tommyknockers is conceptually based on The Colour from Space... I remember it being a good novel if you haven't read it.

Anyways...

I'm also reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, which is finally picking up after the rather methodical first 15% or so. It's nice to read some fiction again after months of nothing but Gladwell, Bourdain, and Richard Dawkins.

Speaking of Dawkins, which of his books besides The God Delusion and The Selfish Gene would Gaffers recommend?

FnordChan · Mar 3, 2010

zaxor0 said:
What stories should I read? So far I've read Call of Cthulhu, Dunwich Horror, and am almost finished with Colour From Space. I am thinking Herbet West - the re-animator and also At The Mountains of Madness.

I've always been fond of "A Shadow Over Innsmouth", though you can't go very wrong with anything in that volume.

FnordChan

Maklershed · Mar 3, 2010

Fuzz Rez said:
Any good books about Jack the Ripper ? Fiction and non-fiction will both do.

I really enjoyed Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell. It non-fiction about the murders and who she thinks is the best possible candidate to be the Ripper. Just a warning - she gets very detailed in the forensic evidence and its a bit gruesome at times.

Fuzz Rez · Mar 3, 2010

FnordChan said:
Two fictional works come to mind for me immediately. First, Alan Moore's graphic novel From Hell. Moore takes a theory from Jack the Ripper: The Final Solution and runs with it, and while the theory is far fetched it makes for a terrific yarn. The story is told from the viewpoint of Jack the Ripper - here an upper class doctor - and is packed full of historical detail (including extensive footnotes) and grim imagery. Opinions vary - someone in a recent reading thread didn't care for it, I believe - but I'm a great fan and recommend it highly.

Second, I'm adore Kim Newman's Anno Dracula, which is out of print but readily available used. Yes, it's a vampire book, with the setup being that Van Helsing's team failed to kill Dracula, who then went on to become a part of British high society, become consort to Victoria, and popularize vampirism throughout England. In the midst of all this radical reform someone is killing vampire prostitutes in Whitechapel, with the press starting to refer to the killer as Jack the Ripper. Anno Dracula spends a lot of time dealing with the implications of a vampire society, but it also spends a lot of time showing our heroes hunting down the Ripper. Either way, it's one hell of a read and I pimp it in the reading threads every chance I get.

FnordChan, who, alas, can't help with a non-fiction recommendation though he has the notion that Philip Sugden's Complete History of Jack the Ripper is a good start

Maklershed said:
I really enjoyed Portrait of a Killer by Patricia Cornwell. It non-fiction about the murders and who she thinks is the best possible candidate to be the Ripper. Just a warning - she gets very detailed in the forensic evidence and its a bit gruesome at times.

Thanks for both of you. I bought Complete History of Jack the Ripper and Portrait of a Killer. I will also check out other recommendations after those two books.

HiroProtagonist · Mar 4, 2010

moojito said:
LEAVE YOUR FUCKING BRAID ALONE, WOMAN! Seriously.

I'm also reading The Dragon Reborn. So far it's great, but is the entire book told from

Perrins

POV? It wouldn't be a bad thing - i'd just need to alter my expectations.

flake · Mar 4, 2010

Reading World War Z at the moment

Judderman · Mar 4, 2010

This is my first month of just reading for pleasure so if you guys have any suggestions of some great books I'd appreciate it (I already have holds on Under The Dome, Shades of Grey, You Are Not a Gadget, Just Kids, The Hunger Games, and Chronic City)

For this month I am starting with:

A Confederacy of Dunces

A suggestion from a friend, just started reading it on the train back from class and I already have a strong dislike for Ignatius :lol

After I finish with that I will be reading:

Saw it on the "For Sale" pile at the library for 50 cents so I picked it up. I love Fight Club (The movie, haven't read the book yet) so I'm going to give it a shot.

malboroking · Mar 4, 2010

Recently finished the first one and loved it. Found this one and Garden of Rama at the local thrift store. Just need to find Rama Revealed and I'll have the complete collection.

DesertEater · Mar 4, 2010

just finished

reading now :

Karakand · Mar 4, 2010

blazinglord said:
The textbook I'm reading has nothing to do with academia, I'm reading it because I want to. Silly me for thinking that this thread was titled 'what are you reading'.

Textbook posts are a little dry but alright and much better than inappropriate graphic novel posts.

Karakand · Mar 4, 2010

Tim the Wiz · Mar 4, 2010

Finished: Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, a rollicking sci-fi adventure which follows a crew of unlikely heroes - in accordance with the word's most forgiving interpretation - as they flee and fight, in the airship Ketty Jay, those who would see them framed for the murder of a royal son. It stands alone well, but that doesn't stop it from being something of an introductory volume. Those who would compare this to Firefly are far from incorrect. Good fun.

Should really get back to The Master and Margarita and Iron Council. Also picked up Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars (again), Gogol's Dead Souls and NK Jemisin's The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, although I might slot them in behind my heavy backlog.

sparky2112 · Mar 4, 2010

eznark said:
About 60 pages in and it's "cool." You can sort of tell just how clever Ferris thought every single sentence he came up with is. "Walking Spanish" is not a term that needs to be used ten times a page. It just doesn't. Especially when you establish that the characters have dozens of words and phrases to describe the same thing.

That said, I am enjoying the book.

Yeah, I hear you, but it's still one of my all-time favs. It was nominated for The National Book Award for a reason.

Trust me, the vernacular will grow on you, and there's no letdown; it's that rare book that's both snarky and empathic at the same time. Brilliant.

FnordChan · Mar 4, 2010

Tim the Wiz said:
Finished: Retribution Falls by Chris Wooding, a rollicking sci-fi adventure which follows a crew of unlikely heroes - in accordance with the word's most forgiving interpretation - as they flee and fight, in the airship Ketty Jay, those who would see them framed for the murder of a royal son. It stands alone well, but that doesn't stop it from being something of an introductory volume. Those who would compare this to Firefly are far from incorrect. Good fun.

That's about the Nth positive review for Retribution Falls I've read so far, so I reckon I'm going to have to break down and pick up a copy for myself.

FnordChan

Falt · Mar 4, 2010

Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City by Joe Austin (now if only I could find a smaller picture).

operon · Mar 4, 2010

Got through these in last 2 weeks.

sparky2112 · Mar 4, 2010

operon said:
Got through these in last 2 weeks.

And? General opinion seems to be that they get better as they go. I read the first and was mildly entertained, but also underwhelmed. If it really ramps up, I will likely revisit.

ItAintEasyBeinCheesy · Mar 5, 2010

I didnt think it ramped up to much, was very consistant though, which is good.

seal_club · Mar 5, 2010

Judderman said:
A Confederacy of Dunces

A suggestion from a friend, just started reading it on the train back from class and I already have a strong dislike for Ignatius :lol

there's a statue of him in new orleans

began the month with this:

such an awesome book. i have a midterm on the subject tomorrow but i would have read this regardless. if you're at all interested, you should pick it up - it's super accessible [in the format of a graphic novel] and really helpful for a qualitative understanding. [well, to some extent - it is quantum fucking physics. let's collapse a wave function and kill some cats]

now i'm reading this:

6a00d8341c3b2653ef0105364a8216970b-250wi

good stuff.

Blackace · Mar 5, 2010

sparky2112 said:
And? General opinion seems to be that they get better as they go. I read the first and was mildly entertained, but also underwhelmed. If it really ramps up, I will likely revisit.

I loved them all... for his first novel/series he did a wonderful job at creating a world that is deep and easy to understand. There was one point of the series I didn't really like but that is more of an opinion rather than a writing issue..

The follow-up book set in the same world is awesome as well...

thetechkid · Mar 5, 2010

I think I have a theme going on here...

neoanarch · Mar 5, 2010

Judderman said:
This is my first month of just reading for pleasure so if you guys have any suggestions of some great books I'd appreciate it (I already have holds on Under The Dome, Shades of Grey, You Are Not a Gadget, Just Kids, The Hunger Games, and Chronic City)

For this month I am starting with:

A Confederacy of Dunces

A suggestion from a friend, just started reading it on the train back from class and I already have a strong dislike for Ignatius :lol

I just read it also on the suggestion of a friend. By the end of the book Ignatius was my favorite character in the book.

I will read

as soon as I'm finished with

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