What book are you reading atm??

cloudatlas

Reading 'Mountains of the Mind' by Robert McFarlane. A brief history of perceptions of mountains and exploration of mountainous regions. Brilliant so far.

annascott

Tracey Emin: My Life in a Column

I am finding it laugh out loud funny in places. Have to tear myself away from it to get anything done...

Dostoevsky

Just finished reading Survival in the Killing Fields by Haing Ngor. Ngor was the Cambodian in The Killing Fields film and one of only two people in history to win an Oscar for acting even though he was an amateur. He was a medical doctor by profession but lost all his family during the Khmer Rouge period. Having been to Cambodia in the past month and spoken with several survivors of the period - a visit which inspired reading this book - it is easily one of the most moving books I've ever read.

I'm now reading Morton's China: history and culture. Very interesting but very hard to get my head around China having a centralised state 2000 years ago. The thesis sounds dodgy still. We'll see.

looking_around

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

I've only read the first four but of them I thought that The Gunslinger and Wizard and Glass are by far the best, the other two being pretty mediocre books. I've been told that the last 3 books were pretty poor in comparison to 1 and 4 (the ending in particular gets a lot of stick), and at least 3 people reacted with utter incredulity when I told them that an 8th book was being released

There's an 8th book due?
links?

I quite enjoyed the series, I found the ending quite fitting. Though not the moment just before with the

shoddy defeat

of the Crimson King.

L'prof

looking_around wrote: »

There's an 8th book due?
links?

Already out!

ShaShaBear

Reading Dragon Prince by Melanie Rawn. My favourite book, and series of books, of all time!

JohnMearsheimer

I just finished reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. There's great love out there for this book but I don't quite share it. The book is overly descriptive in parts (AK47s) and Roberts could easily have knocked a fair few pages off it. In fairness the description of slum live in Mumbai was fantastic. There's some awful lines in it as well, a dodgy one from the sex scene I remember, 'my body was her chariot and she rode me into the sun'.

AlanS181824

Gonna start reading Room soon for TY, I'll get a paperback and I'm just about to buy the book on Google Play now.

beano345

The old man and the sea

Gloomtastic!

Just finished a little cracker of a book on Wattpad called Out of the Box. It's a true story and a bit like Midnight Express. It's very well written and pretty compelling reading.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/3820860-out-of-the-box

secretagent

Reading AM Homes books at the moment . Very funny and well written.

Custardpi

Reading a short novel by Mikhail Bulgakov (author of the astoundingly good The Master & Margarita) called The White Guard. Set in the Ukraine in 1918 when the Germans were in the process of withdrawing & conflict between Ukrainian nationalists, loyalists, conservatives & Bolsheviks was raging, with the civilian population suffering great hardship. The plot centres on one conservative family, the Turbins but brings in lots of detail about the wider population. Bulgakov is great at conveying the terrible sense of confusion, fear & foreboding of such conflicts. In one scene a conversation between two civilians reveals that although they somehow know the name of the general who is shelling their neighbourhood, they have no idea whose side he's on. Overall a fantastic book, though it did pay to read up a bit on the history beforehand.

baron von something

currently reading VALLIS by philip k. dick.i don't know why,this is my third philip k. dick book in a row i'm reading and they're all a chore to get through (recently finished Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,and Minority Report)

The One Who Knocks

The Lean Startup, loving it so far.

L.Jenkins

Reading Ashes at the moment.

IvyTheTerrible

JohnMearsheimer wrote: »

I just finished reading Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. There's great love out there for this book but I don't quite share it. The book is overly descriptive in parts (AK47s) and Roberts could easily have knocked a fair few pages off it. In fairness the description of slum live in Mumbai was fantastic. There's some awful lines in it as well, a dodgy one from the sex scene I remember, 'my body was her chariot and she rode me into the sun'.

I didn't like it at all. Lots of pseudo-philosophical BS, and the ego of the author was astounding.

--Kaiser--

Finishing off V for Vendetta by Alan Moore. The writing is very good but I don't appreciate the man's politic views so I'm not enjoying it very much. Quite poorly drawn as well.

After that I think I'll start Slaughterhouse 5 by Kurt Vonnegut

conorhal

I'm reading the 'Glass Books' trilogy by G.W. Dahlquist

'The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters, The Dark Volume, and The Chemickal Marriage.

They're pretty fun novels that follow the travails of a society heiress, an assasin and and a military doctor as they try to thwart a sinister cabal using alchemy to take over the world in Victorian Europe.
They are as the dust cover suggests, part H. Rider Haggard, Arthur Conan Doyle and part Eyes Wide Shut.

If you like the whole steampunk genre, this ones for you.

salacious crumb

Gloomtastic! wrote: »

Just finished a little cracker of a book on Wattpad called Out of the Box. It's a true story and a bit like Midnight Express. It's very well written and pretty compelling reading.

http://www.wattpad.com/story/3820860-out-of-the-box[/QUOTE]

Try The Damage Done by Warren Fellows, an Australian guy who was caught with a load of heroin in Bangkok. Nasty story but a great read.

Currently reading Robert A. Heinlein's JOB

bellinter

The Man Who Cycled The World.

Its alright. I'm about half way through it, he's just entered Australia. The main problem is the repetition. Today I did this, today I did that.

GLaDOS

Just finished The King's Buccaneer by Feist. Really enjoyed it, and much better than the previous book.

Started Maskerade by Terry Pratchett last night.

I Heart Internet

Reading Dan Brown's Inferno for a bit of light relief.

I find his books good old romps.

Cokeistan

Starting Wizard & Glass by Stephen King. This is book 4 in the dark tower series and from what I've read so far the series seems to be improving with each book

MonstaMash

Papillon - Henri Charriére

naughto

oliver tidy
rope enough

http://olivertidy.wordpress.com/

JohnMearsheimer

IvyTheTerrible wrote: »

I didn't like it at all. Lots of pseudo-philosophical BS, and the ego of the author was astounding.

Agreed, the whole I became more Indian than the Indians themselves thing was especially grating.

The book is a novel but Roberts seems to hint that the whole thing is true. I got a strong whiff of total exaggeration off the book. Roberts moving to a slum and becoming a medic I can believe but the whole getting involved with the mob and going to Afghanistan angle was a bit ridiculous.

bellinter

Shantaram - if it had a better editor (or an editor at all..) and if Roberts could take his head out of his arse for more than 3 seconds it could have been a really great book. There are lots of great parts to it and it does have its fair share of great bit-part characters... Didier in particular. However, for every great part in it, or detailed look at Indian life, the fact that Lin is a complete dickhead just lets it down. When he goes all philosophical I almost found myself being embarrassed for him! Example 'some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.'

The most apt description I have read of this book was "Sometimes great, sometimes awful."

Isn't there meant to be a sequel and a prequel appearing at some stage too? With someone on hand to reign in his bull**** and a reduction in his sense of self importance they could be really good. But will that happen? Doubt it.

JohnMearsheimer

bellinter wrote: »

Shantaram - if it had a better editor (or an editor at all..) and if Roberts could take his head out of his arse for more than 3 seconds it could have been a really great book. There are lots of great parts to it and it does have its fair share of great bit-part characters... Didier in particular. However, for every great part in it, or detailed look at Indian life, the fact that Lin is a complete dickhead just lets it down. When he goes all philosophical I almost found myself being embarrassed for him! Example 'some things are so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you.'

The most apt description I have read of this book was "Sometimes great, sometimes awful."

Isn't there meant to be a sequel and a prequel appearing at some stage too? With someone on hand to reign in his bull**** and a reduction in his sense of self importance they could be really good. But will that happen? Doubt it.

Haha a good editor would have taken an axe to it! There are the makings of a good book in there, it's a pity the editor didn't stand up to Roberts more and just cut away the unnecessary parts. Some of the sequences were great, the slum and Arthur Road prison come to mind.

I found the pacing of the book off as well. We would reach a point when things would start to get interesting and Lin would go off and start philosophising about things. Maybe a bit over a 100 pages from the end of the book we are hit with a series of revelations that I thought would have led us nicely into an explosive conclusion. Instead we get 100 pages of mostly waffle and a very short, very rushed and unsatisfying conclusion.

The bit players in the book were a good deal more likeable that Lin and Karla. I did enjoy Didier and Prabaker's characters.

I think the book would have been served better by being portrayed as a complete work of fiction rather than being true to life as is hinted to by Roberts.

I heard that Roberts was working on a follow up to Shantaram. At the end of the book the lads all agreed to head off to Sri Lanka at Kaderbhai's request so there could be something there.

I think Warner Brothers have the movie rights. I've read that Russell Crowe and Johnny Depp expressed an interest in the movie but that was a few years ago and it looks like things have stalled.

sinead88

Currently reading "Maddadam" by Margaret Atwood. I've just started it but loved the first 2 books in the series.

bellinter

He barely mentions New Zealand and how he ended up in jail at all in the book so I assumed that this was being saved for the prequel. Sequel looks to be called the Mountain Shadow but no sign of a release date yet... presumably because he feels that it needs an extra 1000 pages