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What are you reading? (April 2013)

eattomorro

Neo Member
Finished off Major Karnage by Gord Zajac tonight. Completely loved this book. It's just like an old style pulp story that never lets up.

Started The Stranger by Max Frei.

41DkpDtTtmL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-72,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
Got bunch of new Agatha Christie novels. It's been almost a year since the last one I read so I'm very excited to go through them.

Started with Five Little Pigs first. Seems to be one of those investigating old cases type of mystery which are always fun to read and and too different from the regular cases.
ibeVIlSfwkOgqF.jpg


Also, I think most of her novels got a new refresh cause I'm seeing a lot of newly printed editions. I like the style they went for with most of the new covers.

Good on you!

I love Agatha Christie, and especially her quirkier ones. Don't remember much about "Five Little Pigs" except it's a fairly late one with that weird painter guy in it ("Amyas Crale" - something like that?) - actually I don't remember much about any of them which how I manage to reread them so often.

Personal favourite is the one with that odd architect Santorix in it - Endless Night - probably the last of her good ones; also Crooked House, and Pocketful of Rye if only for the wonderfully characterised overimaginative policeman who was the spiritual precursor to Morse.

I used to have a full set - all 73 of something-or-other (I think that includes short stories), all except one that was only published in the USA. Think I gave them away.
 

Tenrius

Member
Can anyone reccommend me a book about a road trip/ cross country adventure? Something exciting. Seen Into the Wild (movie)... loved it, tried reading On the Road by Kerouac but didn't find it interesting at all.

I'm interested in this too, actually. The only thing that comes to my mind is Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
 

Bonethug

Member
Can anyone reccommend me a book about a road trip/ cross country adventure? Something exciting. Seen Into the Wild (movie)... loved it, tried reading On the Road by Kerouac but didn't find it interesting at all.

Typed road trip into LibraryThing's Book Suggester Here
nsAG97o.jpg

Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure sounded kind of fun so when I went to GoodReads I found this list titled Road Trips

Here are LibraryThing Recommendations based on Into the Wild.
 

Fireblend

Banned
How's Godel, Escher, Bach? It's on my list, but I'm thinking the middle of semester is not a good time to start.

It's incredibly good. I don't think it's as dense as people make it out to be (it's actually pretty good at metaphors and explanations), but you still should probably set some time apart to dedicate to it so you can fully appreciate its contents. A must read.
 
Can anyone reccommend me a book about a road trip/ cross country adventure? Something exciting. Seen Into the Wild (movie)... loved it, tried reading On the Road by Kerouac but didn't find it interesting at all.

Travels with Charley: in search of America - John Steinbeck is wonderful ... he gets in a camper van with his poodle and drives around America

The Songlines - Bruce Chatwin is just beautiful

A Time of Gifts - Patrick Leigh Fermor "In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary."
 

jcutner

Member
Almost done reading You by Austin Grossman
The plot device is fairly fantastical whereas the rest seems somewhat grounded in reality, but an interesting easy read none the less.

Anything else you guys can recommend in the same vain?
I can probably recommend stuff to myself, mainly because I haven't read Snow Crash yet and I know I need to...

I started reading Ready Player One but couldn't completely get into it. The writing in You seemed quite a bit better.
 

phisheep

NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
How's Godel, Escher, Bach? It's on my list, but I'm thinking the middle of semester is not a good time to start.

Phenomenal book. But it's difficult to appreciate if you read it too fast. I reread it recently and a bit slower to get the full fling of it, and the whole thing is a delight - first time round it was fashionable and I read it too fast and got the jokes but missed the point.
 

Seandor

Neo Member
Anyone looking forward to Joe Hill's new book, NOS4A2? It's out tomorrow. Early buzz seemed great, and I just read a glowing review by the Onion A.V. Club. Looks like it's a meaty 700 pages, and according to the aforementioned review Hill is starting to show his father's (Stephen King, if'n you didn't know) influence more. Though I wasn't really a fan of Heart-shaped Box, I very much enjoyed Horns and Locke & Key, so I can't wait for his new one.

Also, if anyone on Goodreads is looking for friends, this is me: http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/269982 I don't really hang out with a bookish bunch, apart from my dad, so my friends list is depressingly small...
 
Almost done reading You by Austin Grossman
The plot device is fairly fantastical whereas the rest seems somewhat grounded in reality, but an interesting easy read none the less.

Anything else you guys can recommend in the same vain?
I can probably recommend stuff to myself, mainly because I haven't read Snow Crash yet and I know I need to...

I started reading Ready Player One but couldn't completely get into it. The writing in You seemed quite a bit better.

Yeah I would NOT recommend Ready Player One if you think the writing in You was better. It's pretty much along the same lines except OMG 80s references in your face forever.

While I'm still only halfway through You and losing steam quickly, the beginning did remind me of a less good Microserfs. If you liked the reality sections of You and the descriptions of the workplace and dynamics, you might like Microserfs:


Microserfs by Douglas Coupland
 
I just finished that and started
thebonehunters1.jpg



Series is kind of in a weird transition phase right now, but based on the review scores I've seen, this one is supposed to be one of, it not the best, in the series. I just hope there's a Kruppe appearance at some point!

Looks like we are at about the same point in the series. Just started the prologue to bonehunters.

I loved the Tehol and Bugg scenes in Midnight Tides. Overall I enjoyed the book even if it was a jarring change from everything up to that point. It'll probably be more relevant as the story goes on.
 

Krowley

Member
Anyone looking forward to Joe Hill's new book, NOS4A2? It's out tomorrow. Early buzz seemed great, and I just read a glowing review by the Onion A.V. Club. Looks like it's a meaty 700 pages, and according to the aforementioned review Hill is starting to show his father's (Stephen King, if'n you didn't know) influence more. Though I wasn't really a fan of Heart-shaped Box, I very much enjoyed Horns and Locke & Key, so I can't wait for his new one.

Yeah, I'm very psyched for it. The basic premise sounds really intriguing. I may not get it right away, just because I've got so many other things I'm reading right now, but I'll probably tackle it sometime in the next few weeks.

I really liked Heart-Shaped Box. There were some problems with it, but when it was good, it was really really good.

I haven't tried any of his other books, although I've been thinking about reading Horns.
 
Finally forced myself to finish this.


You by Austin Grossman

Ugh. The writing was so sloppy. I didn't think the sections that read like a video game manual helped its cause. The characters were as transparent as the plot. I really wanted to like this, but it was just so clumsily put together and had a lot of inaccuracies with regards to engineering work and bug fixes.
 
Got bunch of new Agatha Christie novels. It's been almost a year since the last one I read so I'm very excited to go through them.

Started with Five Little Pigs first. Seems to be one of those investigating old cases type of mystery which are always fun to read and and too different from the regular cases.
https://i.minus.com/ibeVIlSfwkOgqF.jpg

Also, I think most of her novels got a new refresh cause I'm seeing a lot of newly printed editions. I like the style they went for with most of the new covers.

Agatha Christie is one of the few "classic" authors I've been able to really enjoy. Loved And Then There Were None. I really need to check out more of her books, though. My library has a ton on the eBook format.
 

Aleph

Member
How's Godel, Escher, Bach? It's on my list, but I'm thinking the middle of semester is not a good time to start.

Very good, so far. I have read to the point where the author has explained what a formal system is, and how it works, giving some examples as well(luckily I have studied first-order logic, which is a formal system, so I was able to understand easily). It's quite interesting, with some very clever dialogues between chapters (Achilles and the tortoise)
 

suzu

Member
jeEWRFz.jpg


Finally finished The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson.

I really liked it. I can't wait for the next one.

Dunno what to read next.
 

Nezumi

Member
Finished

zeh_juli_schilf_bichtitel.jpg


I thought it was really good. Sadly the whole physiks stuff went right over my head. So I'm not really sure what happend at the end :( But other than that it was an enjoyable read.

Now I started:

200px-Sweet_Silver_Blues.jpg


After reading all that praise this series got from Nymerio I decided to look past those horrible covers. So far I'm liking what I'm reading. Have a bit trouble finding my inner voice for Garret though, he somehow keeps sounding like Harry Dresden... And if Jim Butcher did not get his inspiration from this I'll eat my hat. I read the passage about the Dead Man and he is basically Bob minus the whole being a perv thing.
 

Nymerio

Member
Finished

zeh_juli_schilf_bichtitel.jpg


I thought it was really good. Sadly the whole physiks stuff went right over my head. So I'm not really sure what happend at the end :( But other than that it was an enjoyable read.

Now I started:

200px-Sweet_Silver_Blues.jpg


After reading all that praise this series got from Nymerio I decided to look past those horrible covers. So far I'm liking what I'm reading. Have a bit trouble finding my inner voice for Garret though, he somehow keeps sounding like Harry Dresden... And if Jim Butcher did not get his inspiration from this I'll eat my hat. I read the passage about the Dead Man and he is basically Bob minus the whole being a perv thing.

Hah, I knew I was not the only one who thinks that! The Garret in the first book is a bit different than he is in the following books. He gets snarkier and more lazy as the series progresses and the humor ramps up quite a bit. If you keep reading you'll notice quite a few other parallels to the Dresden Files.
 

Nezumi

Member
Hah, I knew I was not the only one who thinks that! The Garret in the first book is a bit different than he is in the following books. He gets snarkier and more lazy as the series progresses and the humor ramps up quite a bit. If you keep reading you'll notice quite a few other parallels to the Dresden Files.

Well I guess that is to expected since the premises are already so similiar. But from what I read so far Cooks writting style is a lot different from Butchers so I don't mind that. I get a far stonger noir-vibe from this books and I really dig that.
 

TripOpt55

Member
About 200 pages into A Dance with Dragons. Definitely enjoying it more than A Feast for Crows. I think the character split really favored ADWD and it's just been a little more interesting so far. Long ways to go though.
 
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