What book are you reading?

[Rhyfelwyr]

I'm reading "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, and I was meant to have finished it by last September. I have an exam (mock GCSE) on it on January 9th, so I need to finish it soon.

I read that for my Standard Grades as well. I think my class spent as much time watching the film version where Gregory Peck plays Attacus as we did reading the book.

Right now I'm reading... the Bible! Quick, evacuate the Frontroom!

[Martok]

Ugh. Had to put down Ship of Magic by Robin Hobb. Will probably come back to it eventually, but I end up hating most of her characters. She does too a good a job of making them "flawed" -- usually she overshoots all the way over to "unsympathetic".

Am now reading A Burning House by Keith R.A DeCandido, a Star Trek novel about the Klingon Empire. He's quickly established himself as my favorite Trek author the last several years, especially when he writes about Klingons.

I just finished another run through the Foundation series, and I'm actually thinking about buying Benford and Bear's follow-ups. Anyone care to recommend or bash them?

No.

Wait, let me rephrase that: NO.


The books of the so-called "second" Foundation trilogy are bloody awful, with the first one (Foundation's Fear) the worst of the sorry lot.

Don't buy them. Don't check them out from a library. Don't borrow them from a friend. Don't steal them from a dumpster. Forget they ever existed.


I'm serious.

[Hooahguy]

"a bridge to far"
cornelius ryan

[||Lz3||]

skin -Ted Dekker

[Fragony]

JUst finished 'Lessons of Terror' by Caleb Carr, could have wrapped it up in an essay I think but it's a good book. Could have made it more juicy, call me nuts but when you talk of 'grave atrocity's or 'sickening cruelty' my uber-es wants to know what the hell it is they did, is like being allowed to sniff at a good meal but not being allowed to have a taste. Still fun to read how over time in (western) europe war became a gentlemen's game where civilians where increasingly less seen as valid targets, only to have terror tactics come back in full effect in WWII.

[Ramses II CP]

No.

Wait, let me rephrase that: NO.

The books of the so-called "second" Foundation trilogy are bloody awful, with the first one (Foundation's Fear) the worst of the sorry lot.

Don't buy them. Don't check them out from a library. Don't borrow them from a friend. Don't steal them from a dumpster. Forget they ever existed.

I'm serious.

Thanks, I should've figured. Between these and the way the Dune universe has been raped by prequels I fear for the future. Is there a 'Ringworld: Invasion of the Teela Clones' sitting around waiting for Niven to die?

Ye gods authors, protect your legacy!

[Big_John]

well, since my last installment in this thread, i've read a few books. mostly sci-fi.

quite a bit of robert charles wilson. it took a couple of books to realize his main theme that pervades everything he writes, apparently: vast alien/future technological networks, and the (usually initially unwitting) human interaction therewith. i read spin, a bridge of years, the chronoliths, and blind lake. spin is great. chronoliths is good. bridge is not bad. skip blind lake. all of them except spin are let down by their endings, which just kind of fizzle out. chronoliths is hampered by wilson's overuse of a boring character, but an interesting concept.

started reading a canticle for leibowitz by walter miller, but i got sidetracked. will return to it, what i read of it was generally well written and entertaining, but a little long winded.

flanders by patricia anthony is a great, great book. i suggest everyone to read it. the writing is top notch, and what other first world war book are you going to read? all quiet on the western front? been there, done that. only mildly fits into 'sci-fi'.. more like quasi-spiritual fantasy. the 'point' of the book is a bit maudlin, but it's actually not a very important aspect of the story, oddly.

the books that side tracked me from leibowitz are the song of fire and ice books by martin. i just started a feast for crows, after blowing through the first three. not great writing by any stretch, but not bad either, and martin keeps the reader captivated with the pacing and structure. i was a little weary after the third book (i sure i'm not alone there), but i'm soldiering on. right now, the main storylines i'm interested in are daenerys and maybe the wall. i've grown a bit tired of the hyperbolic plots and counter plots and schemes within schemes within plots of other scheming plots, etc of the lords of westeros. at this point i just want dany's drogons to fly over and melt all the lannisters, tyrells, greyjoys, baratheons, etc, etc into slag.

been reading some history too, but i'm done typing.

[Ser Clegane]

Just finished Irvine Welsh's "If You Liked School, You'll Love Work" - I especially liked the "Kingdom of Fife" story (although the "Scottish speak" takes some time to get used to )

Will start with John Irving's "Until I Find You" tomorrow on my way to work

right now, the main storylines i'm interested in are daenerys and maybe the wall.

You might be "slightly" disappointed with "A Feast For Crows" then and join the rest in waiting for the next installment

[Mouzafphaerre]

.
Tolkien's Letters, by H. Carpenter
.

[ajaxfetish]

I just finished reading '1984' for the first time, after somehow making it through an entire public education without facing it. I thought the writing was decent and the warning certainly timely, though it left me a little depressed (naturally) for awhile.

Ajax

[Ronin]

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

[Ironsword]

Pulp - Charles Bukowski.

It's absolutely wicked.

[Martok]

Thanks, I should've figured. Between these and the way the Dune universe has been raped by prequels I fear for the future.

Ye gods authors, protect your legacy!

Yeah, I'm appalled by what the second trilogy did to the Foundation series. Actually, the 2nd & 3rd books -- Foundation and Chaos and Foundation's Triumph -- by Bear & Brin (respectively) weren't that bad in and of themselves (although neither were they home runs). However, they suffered from being the "poisoned fruit" of the original "tree" (Foundation's Fear), and could not redeem Benford's crappy storytelling.

[Fragony]

American Psycho - Bret Easton Ellis

That is one excellent book, I adore Bret Easton Ellis he is the american Houellebecq. Had to skip a few parts because it was just too much. I love a writer that just does.

[woad&fangs]

Is "House of Leaves" worth reading?

[Ramses II CP]

Is "House of Leaves" worth reading?

If you dig experimental fiction, sure. Personally I'll take less creativity in the page layouts and more in the writing. I prefer the less drastic stylistic oddities, like Irvine Welsh or Cormac McCarthy, to this kind of intentional, overstated attempt to needlessly confuse the reader. Either way start at the source (If you haven't already)! Faulkner. Absalom, Absalom.

(Okay, bias confession, I'm Southern.)

[Veho Nex]

The things they carried

[Meneldil]

Just finished Robin Hobb's whole Realm of the Elderlings serie (meaning "The Farseer" trilogy, "The Liveship Traders" trilogy aswell as "The Tawny Man" one, which is roughly equal to 21 books in France).

It's by far, with "A Song of Ice and Fire", the best Fantasy serie ever written in my opinion, though it has some flaws (the beginning of The Liveship Traders is kind of boring, and the ending of The Tawny Man feels like rushed).
I was actually kind of sad to close the book and think that all these characters I've learnt to love (or to hate) and to live with for all these weeks would just disappear. Sure as hell I'm going to read it a third time.
Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm sure makes a great job creating living and credible characters, especially by describing all the flaws that plague the average human being (jealousy, fear, need for attention, stupidity). Some time I would just think "Oh well, FitzChivalry is definately almost as stupid and emo as myself" or "Okay guy, go and get her, or you're going to regret it for the rest of your life !"

I'm currently reading "Fever Dreams" by George R. R. Martin, and it looks quite nice aswell. The average vampire-ish story, in a cool and original background (a steamboat sailing on the Mississippi) and without the emo-crap and pseudo erotic touch that usually makes vampire novels boring as hell (hello Anne Rice !)

Once I'm done with it, I'm either going for Cloven Hooves (by Robin Hobb/Megan Lindholm) or 1984 in english (already read it in French a few weeks ago).

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Anyone read A Song of Ice and Fire? Is it any good?

[Martok]

Just finished Robin Hobb's whole Realm of the Elderlings serie (meaning "The Farseer" trilogy, "The Liveship Traders" trilogy aswell as "The Tawny Man" one, which is roughly equal to 21 books in France).

It's by far, with "A Song of Ice and Fire", the best Fantasy serie ever written in my opinion

No offense (truly), but remind me to never accept book recommendations from you. Anyone who thinks those books are the best fantasy ever written clearly has a different set of criteria of what constitutes good writing than I do. I honestly fail to see how either author ever managed to get their books published.

I managed to force myself to read the first two books of Martin's Ice & Fire series (A Game of Thrones and A Clash of Kings) before giving up. I can't stand most of his characters. The "bad guys" are mostly shallow, cookie-cutter villains with no interesting/redeeming qualities, and even the supposed "good guys" are generally some combination of Lawful Stupid/Stupid Good who are too dumb to live. (Also, many of the good guys tend to be rather whiny, ala Luke Skywalker.) Tyrion Lannister and Jon Snow are about the only people I liked.

I am both bemused and appalled at the acclaim this series has received, and even more so at the fact it's being adapted for TV. Why so many people think it's so great is beyond me.



As for Hobb, I already decided a couple days ago that I'm not going back to Ship of Magic. Like Martin, in her attempt to create flawed characters, she overshot her mark; as a result, most of her characters are downright unsympathetic. Aside from Burrich and Chade in the first Farseer trilogy, I didn't even remotely like any of her other characters. It's a bad sign when I find myself wishing that the author's whole imaginary world would be destroyed -- heroes, villains, and all.

Anyone read A Song of Ice and Fire? Is it any good?

Heh. See my rant (above). I think I already said just about everything I could've.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Heh. See my rant (above). I think already I said just about everything I could've.

Any good series along a similar vein that you can recommend?

[Fragony]

Is "House of Leaves" worth reading?

YES

It is genuinly brilliant. A descent into madness is the best way to describe it, it gets freakier and freakier and to use typography as a storytelling-device was the best idea since chunks in peanutbutter.

[Ramses II CP]

Any good series along a similar vein that you can recommend?

Have you read The Black Company books by Glen Cook? Fantasy series are not really my thing, but I remember reading some called Pelmen the Powershaper years ago that were pretty interesting.

Fantasy series authors tend, IMHO, to very often get caught up in a game of 'top my bad guy/crisis' from the last book, which makes for extremely predictable storylines. There are ample exceptions, of course, but that's the trend.

[Meneldil]

No offense (truly), but remind me to never accept book recommendations from you. Anyone who thinks those books are the best fantasy ever written clearly has a different set of criteria of what constitutes good writing than I do. I honestly fail to see how either author ever managed to get their books published.

The fact that most fantasy novels are actually poorly-written crap about some Zomg "Ub3r hero(es) fighting an even more Ub3r lord of evilness hidding in his Zomg-so-badass-castle" might explain why both Hobb and Martin's series got that much coverage.

I mean, from LotR to The Whell of Times, from D. Edding to G. Cook, the fantasy genre, while entertaining, is kind of subpar. Most of the times, main characters are so bland that you've the weird feeling they're just a copy&past of another book. Most of the time aswell, you can guess the ending after a few hours of reading.

Do Martin's characters sometimes seem whiny ? Yeah, sure, but at least, they are living, unlike the average Aragorn-like fantasy hero.
Are Hobb's character sometimes unpleasant ? Yeah, but that's why I loved almost all of them so much. FitzChivalry is about as egocentric, stupid, naive and emo as I am. The same thing goes on for most of these characters. They have flaws (and some of them are even real bastards ie. Kennit), but I've grown tired of the "Chivalric guy who's trying to reclaim his kingdom while fighting teh evil dude".

So yeah, I you have a decent fantasy book to recommend to me, go ahead, 'cause as of now, bar LotR, and Robb/Martin's book, I've yet to read a fantasy novel in which I was living and hoping with the main characters.

(Not that fantasy novels are all crap, I had a good time reading most of them, but I also forgot most of them because they weren't that great).

[Ironsword]

Just finished Robin Hobb's whole Realm of the Elderlings serie (meaning "The Farseer" trilogy, "The Liveship Traders" trilogy aswell as "The Tawny Man" one, which is roughly equal to 21 books in France).

Agreed Menedil; I quite enjoyed the farseer trilogy, but the tawny man trilogy was disappointing in my opinion. There were a lot of characters that weren't fleshed out enough, and the narrative seemed to plough relentlessly through the Fitz/Fool plot, at the expense of all the more intriging subplots.

I mean, from LotR to The Whell of Times, from D. Edding to G. Cook, the fantasy genre, while entertaining, is kind of subpar.

I agree with your overall sentiment that not all heroes should be square jawed, a demon with a sword and swing off into the sunset with the smokin' elf maiden...

But I don't think you can call Lotr, the book that catapulted fantasy to the mainstream, sub-par!

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Anyone know any good History books I could read?

[Warmaster Horus]

Look at this list. It's the EB bibliography, with plenty of history books in it.

This thread has several users proposing historical novels - the difference being that it's fiction based on history.

[Ironsword]

Anyone know any good History books I could read?

The best historical book I've read recently was Agincourt by Juliet Barker.

[Martok]

To be honest, I've not actually come across that many fantasy books set in fictional worlds that I felt were truly decent -- I've read some that I liked okay, but few have been good enough that I felt warranted actually purchasing. For me at least, the Lord of the Rings and Wheel of Time series are among the few exceptions that prove the rule.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Unless you also count Star Wars, in which case I will admit to liking several (and owning) several novels. My favorites are Timothy Zahn's first trilogy (featuring the popular Grand Admiral Thrawn) and Michael P. Kube-McDowell's Black Fleet Crisis trilogy.

Oddly enough, I find that overall, I seem to prefer historical fantasy novels that take place in the "real world" more than those set in fictional universes. One example would be some of Judith Tarr's works, which I admit I rather enjoy even though her books tend to distort history to an extent that even Rome Total War cannot aspire to.

Far and away my favorite author in this sub-genre, though, is Stephen R. Lawhead. He likes to set his stories in early medieval Wales and/or Ireland, and often includes the theme of Celtic mythology & magic mixing with that of Roman Christianity. He's probably best known for the 5 books -- 6 books if you include Avalon -- of his Pendragon Cycle, an (obviously) Arthurian epic which I find to be superb. I also strongly recommend his Celtic Crusades trilogy, as well as the stand-alone novel Byzantium.

Anyone know any good History books I could read?

Which era(s)? Real or fictional?

[Veho Nex]

The things they carried Tim O' Brien