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The annual 'What are you reading thread' # 98650486 ?

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
Jack Random said:
So i take it that i should continue to stay the fuck away from Market Forces?

I, and the handful of people I know who have read it, would advise you to do so.
 
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right now im reading:

The Aeneid of Virgil
November 1916 (Red Wheel pt. 2) by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

on deck:

The Three Kingdoms attr. to Luo Guanzhong
I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max

future:

thinking about picking up A Game of Thrones by Martin and possibly Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, anyone have any opinion on these?
 
I started Middlesex a couple days ago. Read Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Breakfast of Champions last week.
 

kablooey

Member
enjoy bell woods said:
I started Middlesex a couple days ago. Read Catcher in the Rye, Franny and Zooey, The Heart is a Lonely Hunter and Breakfast of Champions last week.

I just finished Franny and Zooey a couple of weeks ago too. I liked it a lot. Better than Catcher in the Rye even.
 

Spencerr

Banned
My brother gave me Game Over, but I'm not really interested in it. I started Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk the other day though.

Edit: because we aren't using Amazon's images enough:
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I was on a lot of airplanes lately, so I burned through two of those Isaac Adamson books that I saw on somebody's bookshelf in a 'post a picture of your bookshelf' thread. (Isn't it weird how gaf works?) I think he finally got it right in Dreaming Pachinko, the first two were kind of stunted. Anyway.

Now I'm working on Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré. Love it. It gave me a headache when I tried to read it in a crowded airport next to a screaming baby, but I still love it.
 
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Read until the end of Song of Susannah in German. Then started to read in English which is much better.

When is a door not a door? ;)
 

Nander

Member
Maskrosguden.jpg


Written by one of my mum's old class mates. Very odd (the whole book is written in a very peculiar swedish dialect that is spoken in some parts of Finland) and very good :)
 

coldvein

Banned
Schafer said:
This:
Idoru
All Tomorrow's Parties

Nice. You've read Neuromancer, I guess? One of the best books evar.

As for me, I'm just finishing American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Pretty good.
And just starting Cowboy Feng's Spare Bar and Grille by Steven Brust..Don't know how I'm feeling about this yet.

And working on a couple books of poetry:
burning in water/drowning in flame (charles bukowski)
personae (ezra pound)
complete poems (blaise cendrars)
 

Dilbert

Member
kablooey said:
I just finished Franny and Zooey a couple of weeks ago too. I liked it a lot. Better than Catcher in the Rye even.
Agreed. There are parts of Seymour: An Introduction which are even better than Franny and Zooey, but as a whole, it isn't as consistently good.
 
I just finished reading Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut, and now I am reading The World According to Garp by...I can't recall the author's name off hand.
 

Sinatar

Official GAF Bottom Feeder
coldvein said:
Nice. You've read Neuromancer, I guess? One of the best books evar.

Yea I've read all of Gibson's books but those 2. I've had All Tomorrow's Parties for quite awhile now, didn't know it was a sequel to Idoru until I bought it, and after that I couldn't for the life of me find a copy of Idoru until a couple of weeks ago.

But yea, Neuromancer is an amazing book, I've read it several times.
 

tralfazz

Member
Just finished:
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Started:
0743406567.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg


Next Up:
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To those reading Chuck P. stuff, enjoy them. The first 4 books are just mesmerizingly great reads.
 

nitewulf

Member
well i'm writing as much as i can these days, so i went back to my inspirations, and have been re-reading them.

the short stories - earnest hemingway
pulp stories and other writings - raymond chandler

just finished 3 ross macdonald novels featuring lew archer, all of which were brilliant. must read for mystery fans. currently reading, the short stories of f. scott fitzgerald by f. scott fitzerald. i started "portrait...", and err yeah. james joyce isnt my thing, and i wont even pretend to try and understand him in order to fullfil some sort of an intellectual criteria.
 

iapetus

Scary Euro Man
Quadrophenic said:
The World According to Garp by...I can't recall the author's name off hand.

John Irving.

And I strongly recommend A Prayer For Owen Meany by the same author.
 
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Fantasic, well-written book of the historical Jesus is *actually* based on archealogical evidence to back his theories, instead of the usual Jesus fluff crap released these days.
 
currently- Collapse by Jared Diamond, the guy who wrote Guns, Germs and Steel. It's a rad book about why civilizations collapse from an anthropological and environmental perspective. and it's a really fast read too.

in the queue- Virtual Light by William Gibson and The World is Flat by Thomas Freidman.
 

coldvein

Banned
Lakedaimon said:
thinking about picking up A Game of Thrones by Martin and possibly Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, anyone have any opinion on these?

My opinion: Game of Thrones (and the rest of the series) are absolute 100% MUST-READS if you're into fantasy at all. Probably even if you aren't. Everybody should read these shits right away.
 

RevenantKioku

PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS PEINS oh god i am drowning in them
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It's good so far.
I haven't read nearly as much lately as I did when I was a child. I really should pick up the pace again.
 
So I'm going to another city to work for two weeks and besides my lap top and DS I can't bring much so I need some recommendations for books. I have a huge...huge list of books I want to read and well I need help choosing.

- Paradise lost (this is a defiant, but will I have a hard time if I'm not totally formilar with everything in the Bible?)

- Atlus Shrugged

- A brief history of time and a briefer history of time

- Moby Dick

- the catcher and the rye (I think my only reason for wanting to read it is because it's a clasic. I hate the lost innocence theme).

- romance of the three kingdoms (and the other 3, 4 classics)

- outlaws of the marsh, journey to the west, a dream of the red chamber.

- the tale of genji (what’s the best translation?)

- do androids dream of electric sheep (I'm big into ghost in the shell right now and want more material on modern philosophy, while still having a story)

- Beowulf (I couldn't get past the 2nd canto in Devine Comedy like 2 years ago. my biggest problem was that there isn't really a translation into modern English, like say the Homer epics which I could read because they were translated. so basically what I'm asking is, is this stuck in medieval English? or has it been translated into modern English?)

- the Devine Comedy (I should take another stab at it)

- sir Gawain and the green knight (same question as Beowulf)

- I want a complete collection of Poe’s short stories. Does any one have something like this?

- same goes for love craft

- the metamorphosis

- all the Asian saga books (Shogun, tai - pen, Gai - jin, King rat, noble house, whirlwind)

- the 6 Dune books

- I also really like Greek mythology and other ancient Greek things, but I cant really find any (ancient) books in fiction form other than the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid. I was thinking about

- apollodorus' library

- the history of the peloponnesian war

- the campaigns of Alexander the great

- and a book with all of Plato's dialogs in them.


Also I really need recommendations on books on VB.Net. I want a reference book and a learning too book. Are “learn vb.net though game programing” and programing Microsoft VB.net: version 2003" any good?

Jesus and thats only half the books I want to read. I need more time.
 

Eric P

Member
a lot of what you're looking to read is in the public domain and things like project gutenburg should be able to provide the full texts for you electronically

if you're looking, though, for something hard copy to take with you, i'd suggest moby dick. it's a big meaty book. i haven't read it in 15 yrs though, but i loved it at the time. While you're at it, pick up Bartleby the Scrivener. It's one of my favorite works in the English Language.

It's summer so I'm taking it easy on my brain.

My Current Reading List:

Hairstyles of the Damned- Joe Meno
The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare- G.K. Chesterson
Dirty Tricks- Micheal Dibdin.

I almost bought something by Eco, but I wanted to take it easy. It's too hot to think.
 

snaildog

Member
0006486010.02._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1056412126_.jpg

Robin Hobb's third trilogy, carrying on the story of Fitz from the Assassin books. Hobb and Martin are the two best fantasy authors in my opinion.
 

Cosmic Bus

pristine morning snow
0385340001.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_V55663002_.jpg


Simultaneously depressing and quite funny. Certainly hammers home the point that no matter how bad I think my situation might be, it isn't even close to what things could be.
 
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