What book are you reading?

[Furunculus]

the second prequel to the newly re-released Chung Kuo books by David Wingrove.

[Beirut]

Currently reading India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy - quite interesting

Hey Ser,

I'm about to order a book on Ghandi, his views/interpretation of the Bhagavadgita. I went to grab something out of my library a few weeks ago and took the Bhagavadgita out by mistake - I bought it and only cruised it briefly before - but what a glorious mistake it was. I've been spending a good deal of time with it and thinking about it. I'm finding it to be of great value to me, and I am anxious to read Gandhi's views on the book.

I've had few books hit me as hard and fast and deeply as the Bagavadgita, except perhaps Walden, and the Consolation of Philosophy.

[Xenon]

"Der Ruf ins andere Land" original title: "A dark Horn blowing"

"Symbol"

Ponds Bvlarian dictionary

[Furunculus]

last book of wheel of time.

[HopAlongBunny]

Currently reading India After Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy - quite interesting

Bah! Not available outside UK :( at least on Kindle

[HopAlongBunny]

double posting goodness :p

[HopAlongBunny]

Presently reading: The Origin of Feces: What Excrement Tells Us About Evolution, Ecology, and a Sustainable Society [Paperback]
David Waltner-Toews (Author)

The author gets into the "problem(s) of excrement" in a very interesting way. Yes, it piles up everywhere, can be toxic, renewing, nutritious or annoying depending on your PoV. We have also managed to concentrate it like never before due to expanding population, urbanization and factory farming; at the same time globalizing its effects as a transfer of resources and disease vector.

Highly recommend it; never knew there was so much to know about st

http://www.amazon.ca/The-Origin-Fece.../dp/177041116X

[a completely inoffensive name]

I just remembered I never actually finished Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Even though I know all the astronomy the book covers, I still enjoy reading it with his voice in my head and the parts where he gets more abstract and philosophical are great. After this I will probably start on another graphic novel, Persepolis which is a semi-fictional account of a girl living during the Iran Revolution.

[Xiahou]

Legend.

I can't believe I haven't read this book before now. I'm 8 chapters in and it promises to be epic.

[Lemur]

Legend.

I can't believe I haven't read this book before now. I'm 8 chapters in and it promises to be epic.

Oooh, heroic fantasy I ain't heard about. Will have to check it out.

I've been gnawing through books like a starving rodent. Recent stuff: Dmitry Glukhovsky's Metro 2033 (very weird book), Steven Baxter's Flood series (typical Baxter, big ideas, nobody to care about), John Scalzi's B-Team stories (which I would give a B-minus to), Mira Grant's zombie books (good fun), and some random Charlie Stross stuff.

My only real "discovery" of the past six months or so has been Ian Tregillis, who has a wonderfully weird trilogy of books about British sorcerers fighting Nazi science-monsters in WW2. Not just strange, but skillfully strange.

-edit-

Speaking of skillfully weird, @Xiahou, if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Joe Abercombie's heroic fantasy work, a good example of which is The Heroes. The dude knows how to describe a battle.

[Xiahou]

My only real "discovery" of the past six months or so has been Ian Tregillis, who has a wonderfully weird trilogy of books about British sorcerers fighting Nazi science-monsters in WW2. Not just strange, but skillfully strange.

-edit-

Speaking of skillfully weird, @Xiahou, if you haven't seen it, you might enjoy Joe Abercombie's heroic fantasy work, a good example of which is The Heroes. The dude knows how to describe a battle.

Both of those sound like they're worth checking out. Thanks.

[Visor]

Just finished Storm of Swords Part 2. God that was a good book. I raced through them, but that one was packed full of so much. Tired me out, having a break before I start on Feast.

[Ibrahim]

I'm currently reading the Saxon regulations of 1753 (as in the communist part ), and it's boring. don't read it.

OK, jokes aside, try out a book called Jane Eyre: interesting reading. very dark in its tones with themes involving insanity, love, lust, shame, etc. The Brontes were pretty unusual people I must say.

[Xiahou]

I finished Legend quite a while ago. It was a fantastic book. A likeable cast of characters defending a fortress against impossible odds- all of them having their own reasons for facing certain death. Loved it.

When I finished that, I quickly jumped on to the next book in the Drenai series, The King Beyond the Gate, which took place 100 years after Legend. It was a worthwhile read, but it didn't live up to its predecessor while having a similar plot.

However, after finishing that I moved on to Quest For Lost Heroes, which takes place several decades after The King Beyond the Gate. This is good stuff. I don't know that it will be Legend good, but I'm really enjoying it. For me, the easiest way to tell how much I'm liking a book is when I read it in my spare time vs. when I make time to read it. The King Beyond the Gate was the former, where Legend & Quest For Lost Heroes are in the latter category.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Gotta finish reading The Republic by Plato for my class since we are about to move onto Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle.

[Fisherking]

Oh great!

You may want to reevaluate your views on caffeine

[Lemur]

Given how many books I read, I should update back here more often.

Currently in the middle of: Neptune's Brood.

Interstellar financial fraud (and an incidental genocide) with murderous androids. Space pirates who double as loss-prevention auditors. Trippy stuff, very well thought-out. Equal parts trashy space opera and thoughtful economic treatise.

I don't understand why Charles Stross isn't the biggest of all possible deals in modern literature.

[The Outsider]

Well i can advice you giys to read metro 2033 though i cant remember the name of the writer. Its a russian fellow. It take place in the moscow metro after a nuclear war. Has elements of sci-fi, horror and action but in the greater picture its much deeper than that. In my opinion its one of the best post apocalyptic books written really. You can find a free legit copy online, so give it a try.

Ps. Also there is a sequel but i dont think that it has been translated to english yet.

[Lemur]

i cant remember the name of the writer. Its a russian fellow.

The author is Dmitry Glukhovsky. I talked (very briefly) about the book here.

And no, there is no English translation of the second book, which is a bummer. You can buy a single English chapter on Amazon, but that seems kinda ... cruel.

[rajpoot]

Reread Three Men in a Boat and it is still incredibly funny after so many years. So decided to get the second one, Three Men on the Bummel, enjoying it a lot. Some bits are simply hilarious.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Read the part about Harris and Clara's cycling mishap. Just cannot stop laughing

[Lemur]

Reread Three Men in a Boat and it is still incredibly funny after so many years.

It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form. The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt. [...]

The only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first; it seemed somehow to be a sort of slight. Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee? Why this invidious reservation? After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed. I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without housemaid's knee.

[rajpoot]

I remember that.
This one's from the second book.

Harris, in his early married days, made much trouble for himself on one occasion, owing to this impossibility of knowing what the person behind is doing. He was riding with his wife through Holland. The roads were stony, and the machine jumped a good deal.
“Sit tight,” said Harris, without turning his head.
What Mrs. Harris thought he said was, “Jump off.” Why she should have thought he said “Jump off,” when he said “Sit tight,” neither of them can explain.
Mrs. Harris puts it in this way, “If you had said, ‘Sit tight,’ why should I have jumped off?”
Harris puts it, “If I had wanted you to jump off, why should I have said ‘Sit tight!’?”
The bitterness is past, but they argue about the matter to this day.
Be the explanation what it may, however, nothing alters the fact that Mrs. Harris did jump off, while Harris pedalled away hard, under the impression she was still behind him. It appears that at first she thought he was riding up the hill merely to show off. They were both young in those days, and he used to do that sort of thing. She expected him to spring to earth on reaching the summit, and lean in a careless and graceful attitude against the machine, waiting for her. When, on the contrary, she saw him pass the summit and proceed rapidly down a long and steep incline, she was seized, first with surprise, secondly with indignation, and lastly with alarm. She ran to the top of the hill and shouted, but he never turned his head. She watched him disappear into a wood a mile and a half distant, and then sat down and cried. They had had a slight difference that morning, and she wondered if he had taken it seriously and intended desertion. She had no money; she knew no Dutch. People passed, and seemed sorry for her; she tried to make them understand what had happened. They gathered that she had lost something, but could not grasp what. They took her to the nearest village, and found a policeman for her. He concluded from her pantomime that some man had stolen her bicycle. They put the telegraph into operation, and discovered in a village four miles off an unfortunate boy riding a lady’s machine of an obsolete pattern. They brought him to her in a cart, but as she did not appear to want either him or his bicycle they let him go again, and resigned themselves to bewilderment.
Meanwhile, Harris continued his ride with much enjoyment. It seemed to him that he had suddenly become a stronger, and in every way a more capable cyclist. Said he to what he thought was Mrs. Harris:
“I haven’t felt this machine so light for months. It’s this air, I think; it’s doing me good.”
Then he told her not to be afraid, and he would show her how fast he could go. He bent down over the handles, and put his heart into his work. The bicycle bounded over the road like a thing of life; farmhouses and churches, dogs and chickens came to him and passed. Old folks stood and gazed at him, the children cheered him.
In this way he sped merrily onward for about five miles. Then, as he explains it, the feeling began to grow upon him that something was wrong. He was not surprised at the silence; the wind was blowing strongly, and the machine was rattling a good deal. It was a sense of void that came upon him. He stretched out his hand behind him, and felt; there was nothing there but space. He jumped, or rather fell off, and looked back up the road; it stretched white and straight through the dark wood, and not a living soul could be seen upon it. He remounted, and rode back up the hill. In ten minutes he came to where the road broke into four; there he dismounted and tried to remember which fork he had come down.

[Perditrix Mvndorvm]

I just picked up a book from the library about Japanese history. It's very general since I'm new to east Asian history. Soon I'll be finished with that and will start on 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. I've seen the movie a couple of times and loved it.

[naut]

I don't understand why Charles Stross isn't the biggest of all possible deals in modern literature.

I own and have tried reading Accelerando having heard good things about it/him. Couldn't get into it, from memory the amount of technical detail, '-isms' and '-ists', while impressive in creating a rich interesting world, was ultimately off-putting for me.

Edit: Was that a good one of his to start with? You know how bibliographies can be; often books for the baptised and unbaptised so to speak.


---


Half-way through The Man in the High Castle, not his best imho but all his usual themes are present. About a third of the way through The Man with the Golden Arm, very good and very quotable (Everything arrived in nothing flat; great stuff).

[Fragony]

Soon I'll be finished with that and will start on 'The Road' by Cormac McCarthy. I've seen the movie a couple of times and loved it.

People are going to hurt me for saying it, but the movie is better than the book imho.

[Kralizec]

Finished Dit zijn de namen a couple of days ago, written by a Dutch writer called Tommy Wieringa. It's seriously overrated.

On the bright side, just an hour ago I bought 2001: A Space Oddessey and Stranger in a strange land, so I should be in for something good.

[a completely inoffensive name]

I am reading a collection of American short stories from 1820-1880s. 90% of the ones which are not written by Mark Twain suck.

[Lemur]

Just polished off Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan.

The first few chapters, detailing the political/military situation in Judea and the eastern Roman empire at the time? Golden. Wonderful. Page-turners.

The rest? There's so little documentary evidence about Jesus of Nazareth, it all gets a bit speculative. How can it not?

But I would have happily read a few hundred more pages about the political shenanigans.

[a completely inoffensive name]

Just polished off Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth, by Reza Aslan.

The first few chapters, detailing the political/military situation in Judea and the eastern Roman empire at the time? Golden. Wonderful. Page-turners.

The rest? There's so little documentary evidence about Jesus of Nazareth, it all gets a bit speculative. How can it not?

But I would have happily read a few hundred more pages about the political shenanigans.

Be honest Lemur, did you only read it because of that interview Reza had on Fox News? The controversy of whether Jesus actually existed always seemed to me to be.....irrelevant I guess, for all intents and purposes.

[Lemur]

did you only read it because of that interview Reza had on Fox News?

That was part of it, yeah, the viral video made me aware of the book. But honestly, it's also that Rome II is coming out, and hits the same time period.

I was also curious to see if more third-party, non-religious figures had been found writing about Jesus. The only semi-contemporary I know about is Josephus -- had more been found? Answer: Nope.

So yeah. Good primer on the history of Judea under Roman occupation, and a blood-chilling description of the destruction of Jerusalem circa 70 AD. The rest ... meh. I don't doubt for one minute that Jesus of Nazareth was a real person. But getting contemporary accounts, third-party testimonies? Lost cause.