What Are You Reading?

bythewoods

Finished "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" in 2 short stretches of reading it. So unbelievably touching, I actually teared up at points. What an unbelievable read!

jumpguy

Reading "Super Freak-onomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubnerr (just noticed now they're both Stephens...or Stevens) and it really is an excellent read. Mind-blowing stuff really, can't put it down!

amacachi

jumpguy wrote: »

Reading "Super Freak-onomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubnerr (just noticed now they're both Stephens...or Stevens) and it really is an excellent read. Mind-blowing stuff really, can't put it down!

You just reminded me that I haven't read a fiction book in years. :pac:


I'm reading If This is a Man/The Truce at the moment, would highly recommend it. It's one of those books that make you really wish you knew the language it was originally written in because if it's this good in English...

jumpguy

amacachi wrote: »

You just reminded me that I haven't read a fiction book in years. :pac:

Ehhhh, how say you? :P All their sources are fairly decently recorded. I think their points on global warming, doctor's washing hands, child safety restraints and the debunking of all the crap that the human race is incredibly altruistic are all well backed-up, and just merely underreported by modern media (for commercial reasons, mostly), and hence unbeknownst to many people.

I think it's a bit like "Bad Science" (which I haven't read yet but have heard plenty about), except with a more general focus rather than just science.

tim_holsters

amacachi wrote: »

You just reminded me that I haven't read a fiction book in years. :pac:


I'm reading If This is a Man/The Truce at the moment, would highly recommend it. It's one of those books that make you really wish you knew the language it was originally written in because if it's this good in English...

I think If This Is A Man/The Truce maybe the best book I've ever read.

It must be 10 years since I read it, must do it again.

I wonder what Mr Levi would say (if he was still around) about what's happening regards the settlers today.

Jay P

I've officially put War & Peace to the side, which is annoying because I was really keen to read it, but my mood hasn't been great, so I can't get motivated enough to read it. Instead, I started reading a book I got for Christmas called Freedom by Jonathan Franzen, who funnily enough, has been described as a modern-day Tolstoy. I'm not sure what to make of that, but I'm liking the book so far anyway. A few chapters in and it's already quite moving.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Read this last night. Not as good as I thought it would be, but thats probably because two chapters were essentially devoted to praising Margaret Thatcher and George W Bush neither of whom I'm very fond of.

tim_holsters

If it's Andrew Roberts the historian who wrote that he's a known right winger.

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

tim_holsters wrote: »

If it's Andrew Roberts the historian who wrote that he's a known right winger.

Yeah I looked him up after reading it and realised why I wasn't a fan. My friend who loaned it to me is even more to the left than me so its no surprise he didnt like it either.

tim_holsters

Duffy the Vampire Slayer wrote: »

Yeah I looked him up after reading it and realised why I wasn't a fan. My friend who loaned it to me is even more to the left than me so its no surprise he didnt like it either.

You gotta be careful out there

Insect Overlord

Based on all yer lovely recommendations, I recently invested in The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat and Trainspotting. Together with Tender Is The Night, they make up the 3 books I most look forward to reading in the near future.

First, however, I must finish the last 150 pages of this silly teenage vampire story!

Lawliet

^I use to read that series when I was a kid! I didn't know there was a new book out, I thought the series was over seeing as how they retconned Alisa's life as a vampire

Insect Overlord

Lawliet wrote: »

^I use to read that series when I was a kid! I didn't know there was a new book out, I thought the series was over seeing as how they retconned Alisa's life as a vampire

Pike found a fairly tenuous way of getting around that :rolleyes:

I re-read the whole series over Christmas so I could get the new one. It's ridiculous, but there's something addictive about it!

Colm!

jumpguy wrote: »

Reading "Super Freak-onomics" by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubnerr (just noticed now they're both Stephens...or Stevens) and it really is an excellent read. Mind-blowing stuff really, can't put it down!

I haven't read Superfreakonomics but I have read the original, it's a brilliant book.

Aoibheann

Aoibheann wrote: »

Neither of you will regret it, awesome read.

I bought The Black Swan. I've been interested in reading it for ages, but never got around to buying it. It's supposed to be excellent, and I think the wiki article I linked there gives a decent idea of what it's about. It sounds like the sort of thing a few people here might enjoy.

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME book. A really interesting mix of philosophy, stats/maths, economics.. You all should read it. *nods* One of the more intriguing books I've happened upon in a while.

Slow Show

Finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Brilliant stuff. It's easily the most disturbing book I've ever read, and quite graphic, but it was such a page turner and absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to get the sequels now.

Ah, the remaining books in my pile are a bit bleeeh, they're at the bottom for a reason. Hopefully this might actually make me study...

Namlub

Slow Show wrote: »

Finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Brilliant stuff. It's easily the most disturbing book I've ever read, and quite graphic, but it was such a page turner and absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to get the sequels now.

Ah, the remaining books in my pile are a bit bleeeh, they're at the bottom for a reason. Hopefully this might actually make me study...

What are they? I need book suggestions because On Chesil Beach is boring me tbh...

Slow Show

Namlub wrote: »

What are they? I need book suggestions because On Chesil Beach is boring me tbh...

The Da Vinci Code and Jane Eyre. Excitement central.

Cows Go µ

I left my book in work so I have nothing to read and I don't want to start anything in the mean time anyway. So I'm just going to read The Book of the Bitch that I bought for my mum this evening. Or at least I'm going to try. Its all about girl dogs and having puppies and stuff as we think we may have a pregnant dog and I'll probably be there for them being born

Screaminmidget

:mad: i lost my (unread) copy of freakenomics, and i dont want to go buy a new copy just for the first one to turn up after I buy a new copy

KnifeWRENCH

Started reading The Road last night. Saw the film and really liked it, so decided to buy the book.

About 50 or 60 pages in. It's ok but not spectacular so far.

Insect Overlord

Finished that Last Vampire book last night. Now I need to choose between the list of books I mentioned last week or the mountain of reading I have to do for this semester of Irish...

Carl Sagan

Aoibheann wrote: »

Awesome, awesome, AWESOME book. A really interesting mix of philosophy, stats/maths, economics.. You all should read it. *nods* One of the more intriguing books I've happened upon in a while.

Just googled it. Looks like my kind of book. Hopefully I'll remember to read it when I'm finished Quicksilver.

EuropeanSon

Finished The Book Thief, excellent book. Now onto Innumeracy by John Allen Paulos.

Censorsh!t

Halfway through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce. You really have to concentrate while reading it, I find, but a good book.

Also halfway through Life, The Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams. Unfortunately taking a while to get through it because of college being in the way

Duffy the Vampire Slayer

Censorsh!t wrote: »

Halfway through A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by Joyce. You really have to concentrate while reading it, I find, but a good book.

I'll have to re-read that soon for college, its excellent. Right now I'm reading The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins which was apparently the first detective novel published in English. Seems good.

Slow Show

Reading Room by Emma Donoghue. I think I'd enjoy if it wasn't for the child narrative. Ah well, I knew it was gonna be like that before I bought it, so it's my problem. I'd love to read a book based on the same subject with a different narrative though, the prisoner aspect and knowing nothing but the room you've lived in your whole life is fascinating.

jefreywithonef

Just finished Frankenstein. It can get a bit repetitive (the eponymous character's incessant falls into desolation, only to see a tree and be slightly rejuvenated, before becoming depressed again, etc.) but overall it's a decent, at times fantastic, read. Never watched the film or had much knowledge about it all so I was surprised to see the actual creation given a sufficient amount of emotional depth, meaning you could sympathise with both creator and creation.

Read The Death of Bunny Munro by Nick Cave a couple of weeks ago and as you'd expect from Cave it's bustling with the vulgar and the grandiose in equal amounts. The title character is one of the biggest anti-heroes of all-time (he goes to masturbate half way through his wife's funeral) so it's testament to Cave's brilliance as a writer that the reader can actually root for the character. So yeah, excellent book, both poetic and humorous; hopefully the proposed television mini-series based on it can do it justice.

Asphyxia

I'm reading two books Ulysses and The Lost Symbol Both started funny but at the same they're getting pretty good. I'm usually reading more than one book at a time :rolleyes:

merlie

I love autobiographies! I'm currently reading Roger Moore's, 'My word is my Bond!' It is full of wit, behind the scenes look at the various movies Mr Moore starred in, people he knew, Bond movies, and of course, his ego! Overall so far, a witty read!