What book(s) are you reading now?

[Geezer57]

I've started S.M. Stirling's The Protector's War. First book by this author I've read.

My friend Lemur, put the book down NOW! You're reading the middle volume in a trilogy (begins with Dies the Fire , ends with A Meeting at Corvallis), and are missing all the character and setting introductions. Run out and get the other two volumes at your local bargain bookstore, then read them in order - it'll be sooooo much better!

I just finished A Meeting at Corvallis a couple of weeks ago, before moving on to Lois McMaster Bujold's The Hallowed Hunt (third of the Chalion books). I found it slow starting, but accelerating pace in the middle, and with a very moving ending. If you want to appreciate Sterling's best, you should pick up his "Island" trilogy (Island in the Sea of Time, Against the Tide of Years, and On the Oceans of Eternity). They're all available in paperback (cheap!), and well worth looking for. But the "Protector" series is good too.

So we've both been reading the same authors recently! Such coincidence...

[Lemur]

Geezer57, thanks for the tip. I've been in the mood for some post-apocalypse lit, and it looked like this might be the series to give me pleasure. Middle book in a trilogy doesn't necessarily excuse some of the bad writing I've been stumbling over ...

I'll take your advice though, and start over with Sterling. Every author deserves at least two chances.

It is funny that we've been reading the same authors. Bujold's first Chalion novel rocked the house. The second left me lukewarm. Same for the third. And none of them rocks as hard as her Vorkosigan books ...

[Geezer57]

It is funny that we've been reading the same authors. Bujold's first Chalion novel rocked the house. The second left me lukewarm. Same for the third. And none of them rocks as hard as her Vorkosigan books ...

Bujold's Vorkosigan novels, and David Weber's Honor Harrington series, are my favorite tomes to read. The two trilogies from Sterling are very good also, but Miles and Honor are just my kind of characters.

If you're interested in something lightweight, but hilarious, have you heard of Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum series? Highly recommended for a fun time - more info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janet_Evanovich
But stay away from the romance novels, unless you're into that kind of thing...

[Julian the apostate]

wow um right now i'm reading Slaugher house 5 and Rosseau's social contract

but my biggest suggestion ken folliets pilliars of the earth
"the young boys were the first to the hanging"

[Wishazu]

Right now I am reading "Look to Windward" by Ian M. Banks, this is the second time ive read it and it is even more entertaining this time around :)

[Pannonian]

BUMP! +1

Okay, this isn't spam:

I've finally taken that extra step and gone into Chinese literature, and I'm not regretting it. (of course, I'm reading the work of someone whose books are easily the most popular within the Chinese community, Jin Yong) Here's a link for those who might be interested and can't read the Chinese version: http://www.spcnet.tv/jinyong/jyreadingroom.shtml

HEALTH WARNING: not short at all, especially a certain trilogy (though it's more of a series of 2 sagas/stories with one that mentions certain earlier characters). All 3 sagas/stories are 4 books long, each book being roughly 400 pages long. The first installment has over 1500 pages. Also, it's very hard to put down once you get hooked to it.

There are also some historical references if you're into that. It kind of messes with history though: the current main character's just seen Temujin, and I think he grows up with him or something. Lots of mixing of fact and fiction.

May I recommend wuxiapedia?

[melvinio]

If you would like an insight into early medieval life, particularly lords and their adventures, I'd recommend any of the translations of "The deeds of St. Louis/ Louis the Fat"

Primary source, so not an especially easy read, but it's not too bad. Lots of gratuitous violence as well.

[Motep]

The Fellowship of the Ring

[Julian the apostate]

great little book called identity and violence: the illusion of destiney
covers class struggles and how identity causes this and how identity is both hugely benificial and often destructive. written from an economics perspective which i enjoy
its by amartya sen

[Marshal Murat]

I'm reading the Siencwiecz trilogy.
With Fire and Sword
The Deluge
and Pan Wolodjwski (???)
I've also read 'False Gods' in the Horus Heresy Trilogy. Awesome DoW 40k series.

[Lord Condormanius]

I'm reading Self and Society in Medieval France: The Memoirs of Abbot Guibert of Nogent and Erewhon by Samuel Butler.

The first one is pretty cool. It is one of the only examples of a first hand account of everyday life in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. It is a very "human" story. That is, when we learn about history, we tend to look at people in the past as if they are stories in a book. This memior provides a much needed human element to the medieval peiod.

I just started the Butler book. It might be good.

[Tony Furze]

Macbeth by Shakespeare
To Kill a Mockingbird by H Lee
Poems by John Keats
The Afghan by Frederick Forsyth
Cloud of Sparrows by Takashi Matsuoka
Great Expetations by Dickens

[melvinio]

Lord Condo,
I've read most of the Guibert; good innit?
See my lasy post for another from exactly the same period, if you're interested.

[swell]

I have read, I'm reading and I will again :
"Iron coffins : a personal account of the German U-Boat battles of WW2" by Herbert A. Werner. The first book in english I read !
Fascinating, scary...

'Paulssen said, "Start up bilge pump, let's see whether they take that bait."
The impertinent grinding sound tortured us like a dentist's drill. Though it betrayed our position, it produced no response from above. The third enemy had also departed.'

Oh dear

[Lord Condormanius]

Lord Condo,
I've read most of the Guibert; good innit?
See my lasy post for another from exactly the same period, if you're interested.

Yes. I started reading Guibert for a Medieval Europe course I am taking and I kind of got swept up in it. I highly recommend it to anyone who would like to understand the Middle Ages from a different perspective.

...I didn't see the other one you were talking about.

[Cadmus]

What ye all should read... Persian Fire by Tom Holland. Wonderful book, about the Greco-Persian war.
He also wrote Rubicon, about Roman history.

Now I'm reading "Constantinople, the last great siege"

[The Foolish Horseman]

What ye all should read... Persian Fire by Tom Holland. Wonderful book, about the Greco-Persian war.
He also wrote Rubicon, about Roman history.

Now I'm reading "Constantinople, the last great siege"

I thought that Steven saller (sp) wrote rubicon.


Anyway i am reading Red Rabbit by Tom clancy and Pompeii by robet harris

[Lorenzo_H]

i am reading "the fallen leaves" by wilkie collins. No its not a beginner's guide to botany

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

Fighting Teachinques of the Anicent World
3000 BC - 500 AD

and

US Arm Survivial Manual

by the US Defense Department :_) :-)

[Beren Son Of Barahi]

books iv read in the last 3 or so months
non-fiction books,
* state of denial. bush stupid? no never.

* Stalingrad by Antony Beevor great book, its almost impossible get your head around the environment and sheer horror of it all... highly recommended.

*Against All Enemies, Richard Clarke. 9/11 & the white house.

* bravo two zero, andy mcnab. 1st gulf war.

* Kokoda by Peter Fitzsimons the turning point of the ground wars in south pac.
* Tobruk by Peter FitzSimons the first time rommel was restrained or defeated.

while on Rommel has anyone read Infantry Attacks? by erwin Rommel?

fiction books...


Jimmy the Hand (Tales of the Riftwar) by Raymond E. Feist - the series is huge... 23 or so books?

[andrewmuir]

Writing not reading. The Empress and the General. An historical novel about the rise to fame of Theodora and the reconquest of the Roman Empire by the General Belisarius. Based on the writings of Procopius plus some imagination. Published privately here in Chile.

Andrew Muir

[Napoleon Blownapart]

I'm reading The Annals and The Histories by Tacitus. A translated version, of course, as I don't know any Latin besides the bits I saw flash by on the loading screens of Rome: Total war.

[Conradus]

Just finished 'Starship Troopers' of Heinlein. Reading some poems from Shakespeare at the moment before I'll start with the third part in the Corellia trilogy in the Star Wars Universe.