Books motherfuckers, do you read them?

[Valentine Wiggin]

looking forward to reading this thread when i get home from work i'm currently reading the first half of the book of the new sun by gene wolfe.  i'm into sci-fi and fantasy, so it's right up my alley.  i tried starting it several times before and got bored, but now that i'm finally trucking through and near the end it's been worth it.

[Greatbacon]

Oh man, I love summer, it makes it a lot easier to want to read books when I'm not doing it for school.

Anyway, I just busted through The Man Who Was Thursday, The Great Gatsby, and A Confederacy of Dunces.

The Man Who Was Thursday was certainly an interesting read and sort of fits in with the whole conspiracy element of Deus Ex.  Still, it seems a bit odd out of context from the game.

The Great Gatsby is actually a re-read for me, and I think I appreciate it a lot more than my tenth grade self did.  Also, I noticed it and Braid happen to have similar messages, losing the girl you love, trying to turn back time, it won't work if she doesn't want to, etc.

A Confederacy of Dunces is... odd.  It's not a bad book, and maybe it'll be like Gatsby in that when I go back and re-read it, it'll be awesome.  Still though, the first hundred pages at least were painful to read because of just how much of an asshole the main character is.  The only thing I really managed to get out of it was how ironic it is that Ignacius keeps going back to the movie theater to watch films with characters he absolutely hates, and I kept reading this book.

[Surf314]

I wanna read the Great Catsby just cause.

Also I'm super curious about Umberto Eco but all his books seem so hard to get into.

[at0m]

I wanna read the Great Catsby just cause.

Also I'm super curious about Umberto Eco but all his books seem so hard to get into.

The Name of the Rose is pretty good, the movie's decent too.

[fyre]

I started Rabbit, Run. It's pretty good so far.

The Man Who Was Thursday was certainly an interesting read and sort of fits in with the whole conspiracy element of Deus Ex.  Still, it seems a bit odd out of context from the game.

This is one of my favorite books. It's one of the very few books that I actually own. His visual imagery is just great.

Chesterton's Father Brown stories are very good also. They are about a Catholic priest who solves mysteries. Which doesn't sound like a particularly great premise. But they're really quite good.

A Confederacy of Dunces is... odd.  It's not a bad book, and maybe it'll be like Gatsby in that when I go back and re-read it, it'll be awesome.  Still though, the first hundred pages at least were painful to read because of just how much of an asshole the main character is.  The only thing I really managed to get out of it was how ironic it is that Ignacius keeps going back to the movie theater to watch films with characters he absolutely hates, and I kept reading this book.

I started reading this once. I didn't get very far though, because it was quite depressing how much of Ignacius I could see in myself. Except, of course, for the fact that I am neither fat nor unkempt. I should probably give it another try though.

[at0m]

This shit needs to stay on the first page. Books are important, people.

Just finished Old Man's War by John Scalzi. It's a good book about the military in a semi-posthuman space colonizing society. It was interesting to read this after reading Joe Haldeman's The Forever War, a book to which it is compared constantly but ironically wasn't read by Scalzi until after he'd finished writing OMW. I was turned onto Scalzi by the foreword to TFW in which he talks about how much respect he has for Haldeman and how he would've taken OMW in a completely different direction if he'd read TFW first, since the plots are so similar. As a result of that foreword I'd recently read The Android's Dream by him and was glad that it wasn't a one-hit-wonder. I'll have to go pick up the sequel to OMW, The Ghost Brigades.

I'm also flipping through Love + Sex with Robots which is an interesting nonfictional examination of the changing nature of our interactions with technology. It's a difficult book to sit down and read, so I haven't made much progress. It keeps putting me to sleep, honestly :/

Another one I just got and have been flipping through is Upgrade Your Life, the second Lifehacker book. I know self-help seems pretty cheese around here, but I've been struggling with a lot of things related to how I want to be running my life and how I need to change the way in which I approach my job. It has helped a little, time will tell if I can manage to make any of it 'stick', as I'm notorious for not being able to make any lasting changes to my habits or my life in general :/

Next on my list, besides flipping through the two above, is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I finished reading Good Omens a few months back and was very pleasantly surprised by it, and look forward to reading his iconic series. I've heard that the first few books are pretty blah, as he was a beginning writer at the time, but I'm determined to read them in order and bought The Colour of Magic last week to get myself started.

[Surf314]

Next on my list, besides flipping through the two above, is Terry Pratchett's Discworld series. I finished reading Good Omens a few months back and was very pleasantly surprised by it, and look forward to reading his iconic series. I've heard that the first few books are pretty blah, as he was a beginning writer at the time, but I'm determined to read them in order and bought The Colour of Magic last week to get myself started.

I've read almost every Terry Pratchett book ever so if you need any recommendations ask me.  His writing starts off pretty average and goes to amazing.  I wouldn't worry about reading the books in chronological order, the way his books work is that there are different sets of characters and then some stand alone ones.

As far as character sets my personal opinion is night watch books > death books > Tiffany Aching books > Moist Von Lipwig > Rincewind Books > Witches Books.  Once you make it to Night Watch it is easily one of the best books I've ever read.  Darker and more serious than he usually gets but super mega badass.  The Fifth Elephant was also really good.

[Surf314]

Also this is pretty helpful:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discworld#Bibliography

[Surf314]

Reading Brave Story and I am really enjoying it.  Length wise it's a childrens' War and Peace.  But I actually like really long books because if they are good it keeps me from having to look for another book I like for a while.

[cannedpeahes]

Reading David McCullough's 1776 right now. I'm not very much of a nonfiction type but this has kept me engaged. Now if only I could get the nerve to read more of it. Damn you, ADD!

[Surf314]

Damn Brave Story has gotten pretty heavy.  All sorts of drama and murder/suicide and attempted murder/suicide.

[Eschatos]

Karrde link=topic=1145.msg87199#msg87199 date=1243804203]
I just finished reading the third "The Twelve Kingdoms Book" entitled "The Vast Spread of the Seas"  Glad they're finally bringing these books over here.  They're really quite Japanese though in many respects   Rather enjoyable fantasy books.  Overly quick reads for me though (only like 300 pages or so I think)

If you like that, then read The Chronicles of Master Li and Number Ten Ox.  It combines Chinese mythology with detective fiction.  That might sound stupid, but it's an amazing book.  Hard to find, though.

[Tragic Hero]

Read both Volumes of Romance of the Three Kingdoms.  Truly a great war epic

[Kor]

Just finished Sunstorm by Clarke/Baxter. Near future stuff is always awesome.

Reading Spin by a guy I never heard of, but a story about the Earth being surrounded by a relativistic shield that makes a hundred thousand years pass every decade? Sure, its's sci-fi.

The big one on the horizon, Einstein biography! Love the guy, see my quote!

[rumsfald]

I'm still working on Gravity's Rainbow. Hunny pages left. Despite what Prince of Canned Peaches said Pages Back, it is ossum. I will likely do another post to commemorate actually finishing this book.

Also just put Julian Comstock in the cart, because the boingboing review this week was so good.

Speaking of amazonian carts, does anyone use a Kindle? While I like the tech, I prefer having an actual book to loan out to friends and co-workers.

[zaneyard]

Currently reading Psychology Modules for Active Learning Eleventh Edition by Dennis Coon and John O. Mitterer, The Writing Process by John M. Lannon, Sociology by Jon M. Shepard, and Making Diversity Work by Norma Carr-Ruffino

pretty riveting stuff

[Tragic Hero]

Speaking of amazonian carts, does anyone use a Kindle? While I like the tech, I prefer having an actual book to loan out to friends and co-workers.

I heard it works fantastic.  But like you I would rather own a actual book than a bunch of data.  Besides, one of the best parts of reading is putting your books on a shelf so you can brag to your non-reading friends about how much smarts you have

[cannedpeahes]

I'm still working on Gravity's Rainbow. Hunny pages left. Despite what Prince of Canned Peaches said Pages Back, it is ossum. I will likely do another post to commemorate actually finishing this book.

Also just put Julian Comstock in the cart, because the boingboing review this week was so good.

Speaking of amazonian carts, does anyone use a Kindle? While I like the tech, I prefer having an actual book to loan out to friends and co-workers.

You're probably the only person alive who still calls me that, Rummy. Yeah, I mean, it was good. It was just very tough. I'm in love with the setting and language but not with the length. It's intensely cerebral in writing, plot, and symbolism.

[Luinbariel]

I'm reading "Storm Glass" by Maria Snyder.

It's the fourth in a series. Well, rather, it seems tacked on to a three-part series. The characters in this one were somewhat prominent in the major story arc, and this one is just as promising, but I still wouldn't call it an official part of THAT series.


<3 it all the same, an interesting fantasy world and a neat take on magic and magicians.

[Surf314]

Brave Story was amazing.  Dylan Dog has been dissappointing so far