This week, I are mostly reading....

Jay Tomio

I'm putting a few books to rest now, Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies, Tobias Buckell's Crystal Rain, and a reread of Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora before a review.

I recenty started Hamilton's Judas Unchained, and Diana Wynne Jones' Tough Guide to Fantasyland

OfflerCrocGod

Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. An enjoyable read

Tar.Aldarion

A Clash of Kings (2nd book of A Song of Ice and Fire series) - G.R.R. Martin

Closing Doors

OfflerCrocGod wrote:

Knife Of Dreams - Robert Jordan. It's much better then the last two books (finally action and some wars! I even spent a few late night on it ) but I'm seriously wondering if Robert Jordan is writing all of it because the style difference between some books seems odd......maybe it's just proper editorial control.

I think I read somewhere that Knife of Dreams was the first book he actually allowed someone to come in and edit

OfflerCrocGod

Closing Doors wrote:

I think I read somewhere that Knife of Dreams was the first book he actually allowed someone to come in and edit

From the last 4 books yes

OfflerCrocGod

Terry Pratchett - The Last Continent; brilliant take on Australia.

monroe

reading the second book in Maya Angelou's biography..'Gather together in my name'...

follow on from 'I know why the caged bird sings' which i devoured over christmas..

I had avoided this writer because I was expecting some dull old woman's rant...I'm happily surprised...recommend her if you haven't yet read anything by her..

arbeitsscheuer

Ernest Gellner's Nationalism.

Got a project to do on some aspect of Politics And Nationalism, and it has to be in by next Monday. 2,500 words and I haven't done a tap yet.

Fingers crossed anyway!

gaf1983

SebtheBum wrote:

Ernest Gellner's Nationalism.

Got a project to do on some aspect of Politics And Nationalism, and it has to be in by next Monday. 2,500 words and I haven't done a tap yet.

Fingers crossed anyway!

Get a hold of Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" if you can. Although you don't have time if it's due tomorrow. It's still a great read anyway.

Just finished Bill Bryson's "Made in America" - a fantastic book about the history of the American-English language, with loads of anecdotes about American history and culture, for example, did you know that during the Prohibition years the number of vineyards in California increased by a huge amount because what the grape growers simply did was sell a grape-juice drink, with big warnings on the bottle, that "IF THE FOLLOWING STEPS ARE TAKEN THIS PRODUCT MAY FERMENT INTO WINE!"

At the moment I'm reading a Christmas present called "Long Shadows: Truth, Lies, and History" by Enra Paris, a fascinating book about how modern societies deal with their shameful and often very recent histories. The author explores, among others, how modern Germany confronts the Nazi era, South Africa and it's apartheid era and how the history of slavery is treated in the United States.

arbeitsscheuer

gaf1983 wrote:

Get a hold of Benedict Anderson's "Imagined Communities" if you can. Although you don't have time if it's due tomorrow. It's still a great read anyway.

Cheers mate, I will endeavour to grab a copy of that book.
It's not due 2moro anyway, it's for the following monday! Sorry if I made that unclear.:o

Love Bill Bryson btw, altho even I felt that "A Short History Of Nearly Everything" was pretty awful tbh. Will give this new one a look tho, by the sounds of what your saying it might be a return to form for the big man!

Dades

A Storm of Swords (Book 1)

2 down 3 to go.

pukey

starship troopers by robert a. heinlein

much better than the film so far(though i liked the film). about halfway through and this book has aged very well(it was written in 1959), with none of the usual pitfalls that make books about the future seem dated. looking forward to the rest of it

andrewie

CSI:NY Dead of Winter

kyp_durron

Franny and zooey - Salinger

More short stories about the glass family, this time about the two youngest siblings.

adonis

just read glamorama by bret easton ellis -- really good...such a strange book..
im now reading regeneration by pat barker...
oh and i also read the world according to garp, by john irving which i didnt really rate that much...

BlueSpiral

Memoirs of the Geisha By Arthur Golden

Got totally captured by it, I thought it was a great read.

munkeehaven

"The Silmarillion" by J R R Tolkien..about time i got around to reading this..

Lux23

I just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog at Night-time by Mark Haddon and I'm on to The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe.

Demetrius

Ive just read The Travelling Vampire Show by Richard Layman. Its surprisingly good although the final 1-2 pages were too "tidy" by half.

theCzar

finished "Short History of Nearly Everything" by Byson, started and almost finished "Going Postal" by Pratchett. Not his best, but a extremely absorbing book, can't put it down voluntarily.

The Samizdat

Just finished David Foster Wallace's new collection of essays "Consider the Lobster," and I would definitely recommend it. This weekend I’m reading “Gilead” by Marilynne Robinson, which I believe won the Pulitzer a couple of years ago.

Nimrod's Son

I'm reading The Days Run Away Like Wild Horses Over The Hills by Charles Bukowski. I'm hurtling through it as it's a book of poetry. I don't normally read poetry as it's not my cup of tea but I was compelled to try this after I read the third poem which is about a guy who cuts his own balls off :eek: The other themes seem to deal mostly with death, gambling, drinking and whores... So right up my alley then There's lots of humour in there but other parts are morbid and perturbing. Definitely worth a read IMO.

theCzar

finished Pratchett, though I thought the ending was a bit weak.

starting the first of Stephen King's Dark Tower series...

John

theCzar wrote:

starting the first of Stephen King's Dark Tower series...

The Gunslinger is one of my favourite books ever. Not that the rest of the series isn't as good but that book is phenomenal in my opinion.

theCzar

Well nuts to that, Gunslinger is cool, but it's also finished! So short, so very short...

lucky I have those Eason's vouchers, hopefully I can score a 3 for 2 on them or something Also I'm sure the Library must have some tucked away.

Starting Silverthorn now, Feist's sequel to magician to tide me over...

lacuna

I've just started "Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

It seems one of the classic horror books but I never thought to read it.

solas

Just finished "Midas" by Russell andrews. Great read, page flipping thriller ny cop post 9-11 conspiracy theory type story. Unfortunately its one of those books you will finish in a matter of hours because its so enthralling and the world seems an emptier place when its over, so I delved into "The Last Templar" by Raymond Khoury, hoping to keep the flow going. similar Ny post 9-11 type suspense but at the moment its not as nail biting as the former. Sure I'll get through it when I'm bored enough.

Also started Carl Sagans "Contact", based on the movie of the same. Because I'm familiar with the movie it seems difficult to not want to skip forward a few chapters and requires pateience, which is difficult personally.
Seems to be the way with books that have been translated onto the big screen and you've seen the movie first.

I've heard great reviews about memoirs of a geisha, hoping I'll get to read it before I see it.

Nimrod's Son

I've started Adrian Mole And The Weapons Of Mass Destruction.
Funny as always, I love all the Adrian Mole books. Definitely my favourites throughout my early teenage years.

Chinafoot

Bleak House by Dickens

....It hurts!

Dades

solas wrote:

Also started Carl Sagans "Contact", based on the movie of the same. Because I'm familiar with the movie it seems difficult to not want to skip forward a few chapters and requires pateience, which is difficult personally.
Seems to be the way with books that have been translated onto the big screen and you've seen the movie first.

Frickin' love that book. But I love all Sagan's stuff and most sci-fi so go figure!

Dont' skip anything you won't be disappointed.