What book are you reading atm??

jank

Just finished Contact by Carl Sagan, onto "The Happy Isles of Oceania, Paddling the Pacific" by Paul Theroux. Going to the Cook Island on Saturday so will be reading it under a palm tree by a Lagoon!

Smidge

I'm reading "The Church of the Dead Girls" atm.
Has anyone read it?
If so, is it just me or bloody hell does the author go into major detail?
I mean, serious detail:(

StinkySocs

I know people here have already read Catch 22....

I'm got half way through chapter 2 and it's utter nonsense, does it get any better? Sorry!!! Just 4/5 insane men sitting in a hospital ward, just doesn't do it for me..

How do you pronounce the lead character's name? If I can't pronounce it then that's a big let down.

steddyeddy

Any Umberto Eco fans here?

quickbeam

StinkySocs wrote: »

I know people here have already read Catch 22....

I'm got half way through chapter 2 and it's utter nonsense, does it get any better? Sorry!!! Just 4/5 insane men sitting in a hospital ward, just doesn't do it for me..

How do you pronounce the lead character's name? If I can't pronounce it then that's a big let down.

Tried two or three times to read this and never got past about chapter 2 also. It's my mission in life to one day finish this. Sorry I can't offer more hope.

Doesn't bother me not being able to pronounce a character's name though - I read a lot of fantasy and in most of those I can't pronounce them either. It doesn't matter as I'm not reading them out loud.

cloudatlas

StinkySocs wrote: »

I know people here have already read Catch 22....

I'm got half way through chapter 2 and it's utter nonsense, does it get any better? Sorry!!! Just 4/5 insane men sitting in a hospital ward, just doesn't do it for me..

How do you pronounce the lead character's name? If I can't pronounce it then that's a big let down.

I have the audio book so I'm cheating. I've read that it picks up 3/4 of the way through. It's so highly regarded that it must be worth the hassle.

Birneybau

--Kaiser-- wrote: »

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

Read Slaughterhouse Five in a day last week, really loved it.

secretagent

steddyeddy wrote: »

Any Umberto Eco fans here?

Reading The Name Of he Rose at the moment. Saw the film with Sean Connery. Had to get the book after seeing it. Really enjoying it.

steddyeddy

secretagent wrote: »

Reading The Name Of he Rose at the moment. Saw the film with Sean Connery. Had to get the book after seeing it. Really enjoying it.

In the name of the rose is one of my favorite books and the writing is superb. The film is also good but doesn't come near the book IMHO.

Weevil

Smidge wrote: »

I'm reading "The Church of the Dead Girls" atm.
Has anyone read it?
If so, is it just me or bloody hell does the author go into major detail?
I mean, serious detail:(

I read it a few years back and the word that comes to mind is 'gratuitous'. I haven't been on the look-out for more from the author.

jprboy

steddyeddy wrote: »

Any Umberto Eco fans here?

Yep, well based on one book only.

I was on my first sun holiday back in 1990 (Torremollinos) and, not having brought any books with me, set off to buy one. I was lucky enough to happen upon a fairly meaty looking tome named "Foucault's Pendulum". I have to admit I had never heard of Eco but... Wow! It was brilliant and I'd highly recommend it.

Years later I read my wife's copy of Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" and after a while I began to think "Hey, this is all a bit too familiar.... it's like that great book I read years ago called .... what was it? Oh, yes, "Foucault's Pendulum" And it's a pretty poor imitation"

I never mentioned this to anyone else but tonight I did a quick search online and found this which says it all really:

While interviewing Umberto Eco in a 2008 issue of The Paris Review, Lila Azam Zanganeh characterized The Da Vinci Code as "a bizarre little offshoot" of Eco's novel, Foucault’s Pendulum. In response, Eco remarked, "Dan Brown is a character from Foucault’s Pendulum! I invented him. He shares my characters’ fascinations—the world conspiracy of Rosicrucians, Masons, and Jesuits. The role of the Knights Templar. The hermetic secret. The principle that everything is connected. I suspect Dan Brown might not even exist."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Da_Vinci_Code

G.K.

I am the Secret Footballer

hairyprincess

The Dinner by Herman Koch. I had heard it was great, people had it on their top ten. But if there was something to get then I didn't get it. Glad it was only a 50c charity shop purchase :P

Clandestine

"The Hot Zone", about half way through it. Pretty good so far, but quite morbid

WSobchak95

I'm re-reading Battle Royale by Koushun Takami for the 3rd time. There is so much happening that you can miss bits on your first reading. It is a quite gory, action-packed thriller and I highly recommend it.

prizefighter

I, Partridge : We Need to Talk about Alan. It is brilliant.

anncoates

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_Quartz

--Kaiser--

StinkySocs wrote: »

I know people here have already read Catch 22....

I'm got half way through chapter 2 and it's utter nonsense, does it get any better? Sorry!!! Just 4/5 insane men sitting in a hospital ward, just doesn't do it for me..

How do you pronounce the lead character's name? If I can't pronounce it then that's a big let down.

I thought it was very clever and funny in parts, but it's so long and circular and repetitive that I can't fully recommend it. If it was edited down to about half the size it is and most repitition removed I think it was be excellent. As it is, it's a bit annoying

I pronounced it YOS-Arion, not that it really matters

Paddy Dangerfield

Jude: Level 1 by Julian Gough.

I read it a few years ago, but saw it for £2.99 on the kindle store. It's easily one of the funniest books I've ever read.

SEPT 23 1989

2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson

NothingMan

StinkySocs wrote: »

I know people here have already read Catch 22....

I'm got half way through chapter 2 and it's utter nonsense, does it get any better? Sorry!!! Just 4/5 insane men sitting in a hospital ward, just doesn't do it for me..

How do you pronounce the lead character's name? If I can't pronounce it then that's a big let down.

I found it a struggle scattered with hilarious one liners and amusing rambling for the first half but the second half it started to progress and come together and I quite enjoyed the second half. It is definitely a struggle but I am glad I persevered. I'm by no means one to read something just because it's revered by pseudo intellectual knobs but this was funny enough to keep me going til the writing or story found it's feet.

Has anyone read any of the Jack Reacher books and if so are they worth reading? Found one in my house over the weekend, not sure where it came from!!! Will give it a shot though if worth it.

bellinter

Deleted User wrote: »

Has anyone read any of the Jack Reacher books and if so are they worth reading? Found one in my house over the weekend, not sure where it came from!!! Will give it a shot though if worth it.

a guilty pleasure of mine! They are fast, action packed, no sentence is more that about 7 words long, full of nonsensical twists and Jack kicking the crap out of everyone... Easy reading!

PaulieC

Deleted User wrote: »

Has anyone read any of the Jack Reacher books and if so are they worth reading? Found one in my house over the weekend, not sure where it came from!!! Will give it a shot though if worth it.

Reading his latest one now. As mentioned, it's easy reading and a guilty pleasure.

Collie D

Currently reading The Black Banners by Ali H. Soufan. He was one of the lead FBI agents investigating al-Qaeda pre 9/11. As with a lot of non-fiction there are a ton of characters which makes it hard to remember who is who especially when a lot of the al-Qaeda members had various aliases on top of their (extremely long Arabic) real names. Despite that I find that I'm flying through it.

Quite interesting and haven't got to 9/11 part yet. Currently on the section where he is in Yemen investigating the USS Cole attack. Interesting little insight into how things worked like working through diplomatic red tape.

Before that I read World War Z which I enjoyed. I liked the interview style of writing. No idea how they managed t make a film out of it though. Had been reading a lot of heavy stuff before that so was nice to switch brain off for a while.

Chipperf

prizefighter wrote: »

I, Partridge : We Need to Talk about Alan. It is brilliant.

Yip, a funny book.

--Kaiser--

Deleted User wrote: »

Has anyone read any of the Jack Reacher books and if so are they worth reading? Found one in my house over the weekend, not sure where it came from!!! Will give it a shot though if worth it.

Appalling ****e. I read one chapter of a random Lee Child book and it's almost so terrible that it's funny. Almost. So it's just really badly written, unrealistic, cliched action hero bollox

GLaDOS

Just started Stephen King's Carrie, seeing a trailer for the upcoming film remake made me realise I'd missed one of his most well known books.

Mars Bar

I was reading John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas" but there was a moment in the book when he spent a paragraph describing a scenario, then he wrote another sentence that explained that summed up the paragraph and decided I'd had enough. I was only 22% in.

I love John Grisham books but this one is different.

So I've moved on to QI: The Book Of General Ignorance (The Stouter Edition). Really enjoying it so far!

Pumpkinseeds

Mars Bar wrote: »

I was reading John Grisham's "Skipping Christmas" but there was a moment in the book when he spent a paragraph describing a scenario, then he wrote another sentence that explained that summed up the paragraph and decided I'd had enough. I was only 22% in.

I love John Grisham books but this one is different.

So I've moved on to QI: The Book Of General Ignorance (The Stouter Edition). Really enjoying it so far!

I love John Grisham books but I preferred the film version of skipping Christmas, Christmas with the Kranks.