Book: What Book Are You Reading?

[Munsu]

Interesting that you decided to post in this thread now, just when I was about to do the same.

The First Law trilogy by Joe Abercrombie is a series that I just finished, and it really is a must read of the fantasy genre. The first book, The Blade Itself, was Joe's debut novel in 2006. The whole series is great. Awesome characters, great plot, good twists, top notch dark comedy, very good action, lots of violence... it really has everything.

So put this series in you to read list, I doubt you'll be disappointed. Here's a review for the first book:
http://www.sffworld.com/brevoff/293.html

I got the next novel set in the same world as the trilogy already ordered (Best Served Cold).

[NarutoAngel221]

I usually read books but romance pocketbooks but after it I shift to reading Harry Potter novels and now I am hooked again in reading romance pocketbooks again

[Death BOO Z]

Finally finished reading 'the fountain' by Ann Rand.

it was horrible the 400 first pages, and got somewhat better the next 200 pages. still a pile of crap.

at some times, it felt like I was reading twilight again.

I'll try looking for some more superman fiction in the library again.

[Kraco]

I have been reading slowly Cathedral of the sea by Ildefonso Falcones. Although all fantasy readers know the depictions of Middle Ages are extremely romanticized in sword and sorcery, it's still quite interesting to read a realistic description of just how shitty life was back then in a non-fantasy historical novel. I still have about a fourth or fifth of the book unread and while things have occasionally taken a turn to better for the main character, it's still a hellish place. An interesting novel in any case, but not one you would necessarily read in a few evenings like your standard fantasy book.

Looking at an earlier pages of this thread and noticing Sword of Truth I have to mention it was the first fantasy book series where I started skipping pages towards the end. Terry Goodkind's editor must have really given in to the pressure of how high selling a series it was; 33% of the last books could have been cut away and it would have made them a lot better and nobody would have thought it's missing anything. Seriously, the Soviet Union is 20 years dead and the guy is still spending a third of his books repeating the same preachings against communism...

[Munsu]

Speaking of Sword of Truth... Terry Goodkind is releasing a novel this month called The Law of Nines, and it's rumored to be somewhat related to the Sword of Truth series. I really enjoyed the Sword of Truth, but I have to say that some of those preaching monologues that were abundant in the series sucked major ass, and 1/3 of most novels were repetitions of things we already knew. But if I focus on the plot and characters solely, I enjoyed the series... Goodkind just failed in many regards.


I'm still reading The Wheel of Time, I'm in book 8 at the moment. I also bought myself the Shadows of the Apt trilogy, which looks like it's going to be a ton of fun.

[Munsu]

Well finished reading Empire in Black & Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky, the first book of the Shadows of the Apt series, and I thought it was a really good read. Fun characters with interesting characteristics and abilities. I hear the next two books are even better. So at the moment I'm highly recommending it because in all it's an easy read and it has some interesting elements.

It has some elements of steampunk, but it's mostly fantasy in nature. The characters are human, but each "race" is depicted by insect characteristics, and it's interesting how each race is characterized by which insect it is.

Next book in the series is Dragonfly Falling followed by Blood of the Mantis.

[Ryllharu]

I started reading The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson. It definitely has a stronger start than Snow Crash, and the postcyberpunk or almost steampunk-reaction-to-cyberpunk setting is very interesting. It's hard not to like most of the characters, and even in the first hundred or so pages, I've laughed out loud a few times.

As with all of Stephenson's works, the language of the text has a lot uncommonly used words and even more fabricated words with the occasionally hint of pretensiousness, but in this book, it fits the theme a bunch of neo-Victorians using nanotechnology for everything. It certainly gives my vocabularly a workout though.

[masamuneehs]

after going for almost two years just reading textbooks and language books, i finally got on a reading streak during the time i was away from gotwoot. while nothing like what i used to do as a kid, it sure felt like a lot. here, in no particular order

Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns
Never read 'The Kite Runner', and this was just sorta sitting on my shelf at my new apartment. I picked it up one weekend night and finished it 36 hours later, staying up almost all the second night to read it. Has the 'historical drama' market cornered. There's a reason this guy is talked about. For those who don't know, he writes about Afghanis, and this one focuses on the lives of two women from about 1965-2003. Some pretty gripping stuff.

Nelson DeMille's By the Rivers of Babylon
I love thrillers, and although I really have some staunch views on the whole Israel-Palestine issue, I still enjoyed this book. The characters were awfully human and the action was enamored in those gritty, realistic details that I just live for. Lots of action and not as much politics as I'd feared there would be.

Terry Pratchett's Pyramids
It's Pratchett. He's fucking awesomely funny. I honestly thought the first part of the book was best, and although there were a few scenes towards the end that were great, I sort of lost interest. Some of the story events you could see coming miles away and only a few of the characters were memorable.

Terry Pratchett's Reaper Man
Read it after Pyramids, so I was a little Pratchett'd out. I love Death as a character, but I found the other story in this book to be absolutely mediocre, nothing good, nothing awful. The plot-line with Death is quite good though.

Joseph Heller's Catch-22
A re-read for me. Every time I discuss this book with someone, it really strikes me how much this is a polarizing novel. You either love it or hate it. I absolutely love it. Insanely confusing and the sheer amount of characters is off-putting at first, but it's totally worth it if you just don't worry about catching everything the first time. Even on my second re-read I caught more stuff.

Haruki Murakami's Norweigan Wood
If you ever get into any kind of discussion about Japanese authors, this guy's name will drop. I got this book as a recommendation from a work colleague, so I was sorta railroaded into reading it. I found it unnecessarily depressing and, overall, disappointing. A few good scenes and a fistful of interesting characters get lost in the otherwise run-of-the-mill "I had a sad life" autobiographical novel type.

[Munsu]

I started reading The Diamond Age or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson. It definitely has a stronger start than Snow Crash, and the postcyberpunk or almost steampunk-reaction-to-cyberpunk setting is very interesting. It's hard not to like most of the characters, and even in the first hundred or so pages, I've laughed out loud a few times.

As with all of Stephenson's works, the language of the text has a lot uncommonly used words and even more fabricated words with the occasionally hint of pretensiousness, but in this book, it fits the theme a bunch of neo-Victorians using nanotechnology for everything. It certainly gives my vocabularly a workout though.

I need to try my hand on sci-fi, but there are so many fantasy books out there that I don't know when I'll try some sci-fi novels. One of the things that makes me hesitate in trying some sci-fi novels.

@Masa, those are some Discwolrd novels right? I keep seeing people recommending those, but when I see that there are about 30 Discworld novels, it turns me off a bit in trying the series.

[Death BOO Z]

try it, You won't regret it.

having read around six or seven of the discworld books (not nearly enough to understand what's going on in the series), I can still say that the books range from all over the specterum, so as long as you don't pick a sequeling book (I think there are a few of those, but I can't name them right), you should be fine.
it's funny as hell, and after reading them a few times, you can also look past the jokes and understand whatever crazy plot was going on.

catch22 is an amazing book. it's the kind of shit that school should teach you, instead of of Shakespeare.

[dragonrage]

Neverwhere, by Neil Gaiman : Richard Mayhew is an unassuming young businessman living in London, with a dull job and a pretty but demanding fiancee. Then one night he stumbles across a girl bleeding on the sidewalk. He stops to help her--and the life he knows vanishes like smoke.

Sex Sells, by Roger Paul Mosconi : An inside look at life of the advertising world through the eyes of a man that lived and is living it.

Thank You for Arguing, by Jay Heinrichs: The art and Rhetoric.

[Death BOO Z]

I recently read World War Z by Max Brooks. Surprisingly well thought out book about what would happen in today's world if there was a sudden massive outbreak of zombies. Told as a series of interviews with various survivors of the war it's a quick and fun read.

finally got around to read it. it's a real easy book, and some 'stories' have a really good punch to them.

and then it got me thinking that my house isn't zombie-proof. I need a big hammer.

[Munsu]

Just finished reading Dragonfly Falling, 2nd installment of the Shadows of the Apt series by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

Once again, I'm highly recommending this series, I'm sure most of you fantasy readers will really enjoy it. It really has a good mixture of interesting characters, with peculiar characteristics, some great individual fights and mass battle, science vs. magic, political drama...

Really, take my word for it with this series. Reading the 3rd book now.

[Munsu]

And now I'm done with all that's out from Shadows of the Apt after finishing Blood of the Mantis. Again, this is really good series, and I'm really recommending it.

Now I'm back to continuing The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher which I started a couple of weeks ago, and I'm really enjoying the series. Up the the 4th book at the moment, Summer Knight.

[Death BOO Z]

It was Yom Kippor this week, so I had time to finally go through the 'His Dark Materials' trilogy (Philipp Pullman).
the books are nice, although they hardly go anywhere. but I can say that the golden compass movie seriously messed up things. bunch of morons who missed the entire point, the books had almost perfect foreshadowing. the movie was piece of what the hell?

edit: turns out I wrote the wrong name for the trilogy. fixed.

[Munsu]

It was Yom Kippor this week, so I had time to finally go through the 'Dark matters' trilogy (Philipp Pullman).
the books are nice, although they hardly go anywhere. but I can say that the golden compass movie seriously messed up things. bunch of morons who missed the entire point, the books had almost perfect foreshadowing. the movie was piece of what the hell?

My bro had the omnibus for this but it turned to shit, so I had to trash it. Guess I should go find the trilogy... I've been skeptical about reading it since I've seen a multitude of mixed responses.

[fahoumh]

Right now I'm reading "The Prince" by Niccolo Machiavelli. It's a pretty intense read but pretty good so far.

[Death BOO Z]

I've read it a few months back.
A good book, though it requires someone to explain all the examples (unless you happen to be an expert of the subject of Italian politics) and how the chapters reflect Machiavelli's situation at that time.

[Sapphire]

I love the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman, it's one of my favorite trilogies of all time.

[fahoumh]

I've read it a few months back.
A good book, though it requires someone to explain all the examples (unless you happen to be an expert of the subject of Italian politics) and how the chapters reflect Machiavelli's situation at that time.

The copy my cousin lent to me has notes in the back which give brief explanations of his political examples. I'm trying not to get too hung up on who's who right now and just try to focus on the philosophical and political aspects of his writing (which can be pretty hard because I tend to become a little obsessive over minute details). I'll probably re-read this at later to get a more in-depth understanding of the material.