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[Secks4Food]

Just finished The Idiot yesterday, and I loved it. I've read Crime and Punishment before which I fucking loved, but this one made me fall in love with the characters.

The simplicity of the Prince makes you feel so sorry for him. He shakes hands with people that have betrayed him, and when people openly laugh at him he genuinely joins in the laughter not understanding that it's at his expense.

I might keep going with Dostoevsky.

Hell yeah, read Brothers Karamazov, I'd say the two you read are his second and third best works, but Karamazov is undoubtedly his best and it is one of my favorite books of all time.

As for me, I'm about 250 pages away from finishing:

This is also shaping up to be one of my favorite books of all time, I love everything about it (except for the many erudite references that my pleb-ass doesn't get, but it does add color to the already exceptional writing). Highly recommended, and for anyone considering reading it, don't cheat yourself with an abridged version, all the little subplots and characters make it an experience you can really sink your teeth into.

 

[JoJoShabadoo]

Hell yeah, read Brothers Karamazov, I'd say the two you read are his second and third best works, but Karamazov is undoubtedly his best and it is one of my favorite books of all time.

I was thinking of going with Notes from Underground, since I have it. Have you read it?

 

[Drake]

Just finished Words of Radiance last night. I'm starting American Gods today. This is my first attempt at reading Gaiman. I've heard good things. Wish me luck!

 

[Nuke Soda]

Just finished Words of Radiance last night. I'm starting American Gods today. This is my first attempt at reading Gaiman. I've heard good things. Wish me luck!

American Gods was my first Gaiman too and it was amazing. So good one to start with.

 

[KingGondo]

Just finished Words of Radiance last night. I'm starting American Gods today. This is my first attempt at reading Gaiman. I've heard good things. Wish me luck!

American Gods is very polarizing.

I personally think it has a great premise and some great parts, but ultimately the potential is wasted and it drags on for far too long.

 

[Lafiel]

Finished: Howard Zinn on War by Howard Zinn - This was pretty damn good. While Zinn seems to take a more emotional centre argument for arguing against war of all kinds, I do like how it doesn't appear to have a double-standard when it comes to his portrayal of imperialism from all angles, really ought to read a peoples history of a united states someday.

Now Reading : Emma Goldman Reader by Emma Goldman - Goldman views on the ideal society are incredibly out-of-touch of reality but considering she was active during WW1 I gotta admire how a person like this can exist in that period espousing a lot of progressive views towards gender, feminism, class etc and her clear passion for it all makes it easy to read.

 

[Nuke Soda]

Oancitizen, a reviewer from thatguywiththeglasses posted this between the lines for A Game of Thrones and it is pretty cool. There is a massive spoiler for the first book and season so if you want to be surprised you know don't watch it. Anyways I thought it was a cool video.

 

[Mifune]

I was thinking of going with Notes from Underground, since I have it. Have you read it?

Notes from Underground is phenomenal. Short, disturbing, funny as hell. The first section which is essentially one long rant can be trying but the rest of the book brings it all together in amazing fashion.

 

[Necrovex]

Thinking about reading Michael Lewis. What are the overall thoughts on him?

 

[aidan]

Fantasy Fans: Tad Williams has announced The Last King of Osten Ard, a direct sequel to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

I won't post the first blurb, since it contains major spoilers for M,S&T, but... it sounds great!

 

[Drake]

Fantasy Fans: Tad Williams has announced The Last King of Osten Ard, a direct sequel to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

I won't post the first blurb, since it contains major spoilers for M,S&T, but... it sounds great!

Yeah, I've only read the 1st book in that series, which I enjoyed. I saw that link earlier today and read the blurb and got a pretty big spoiler. I kinda figured it was going in that direction though, so I wasn't that surprised.

 

[Empty]

continuing my trek through classics of short fiction after dubliners, cathedral and what we talk about when we talk about love, i'm reading about love and other stories by chekhov. he's so good, his stories are quite funny but with a real generosity of spirit that gives them genuine warmth and a great eye for a subtly resonant ending. really looking forward to getting to the more famous stories at the end of the collection like the lady and the dog.

i also bought eleanor & park which my young adult obsessed friend has been badgering me to read. hope i like it!

 

[EverythingShiny]

Finished:

Now onto:

I'll probably get distracted though, as I'm going to try and read The Making of the Atomic Bomb for the book club. Luckily my library has a copy that I'm going to try and pick up tomorrow!

 

[studyguy]

Just finished Words of Radiance last night. I'm starting American Gods today. This is my first attempt at reading Gaiman. I've heard good things. Wish me luck!

I heard American Gods was getting an adaption to television or something.

 

[Mumei]

Hell yeah, read Brothers Karamazov, I'd say the two you read are his second and third best works, but Karamazov is undoubtedly his best and it is one of my favorite books of all time.

As for me, I'm about 250 pages away from finishing:

This is also shaping up to be one of my favorite books of all time, I love everything about it (except for the many erudite references that my pleb-ass doesn't get, but it does add color to the already exceptional writing). Highly recommended, and for anyone considering reading it, don't cheat yourself with an abridged version, all the little subplots and characters make it an experience you can really sink your teeth into.

If you're into history, you should give this a try:

It's a book about Alex Dumas - not the author, but his father. General Alex Dumas was born the son of a French aristocrat and a Haitian slave. His father brought him to France as an adolescent, where he joined the army under his mother's name (Dumas) and eventually reaching the rank of général de division with 50,000 men under his command during a racially egalitarian period in France. It's fascinating, and the author makes a good case that his father's life also helped to inspire the story of The Count of Monte Cristo.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Fantasy Fans: Tad Williams has announced The Last King of Osten Ard, a direct sequel to Memory, Sorrow and Thorn.

I won't post the first blurb, since it contains major spoilers for M,S&T, but... it sounds great!

Day 1

 

[Mumei]

Just finished Words of Radiance last night. I'm starting American Gods today. This is my first attempt at reading Gaiman. I've heard good things. Wish me luck!

If you don't like it, don't worry. American Gods seems to be his most polarizing novel, so maybe it's just not for you.

 

[Square Triangle]

Roommate bought me Ready Player One

I now want to have sex with said roommate.

 

[Piecake]

Hell yeah, read Brothers Karamazov, I'd say the two you read are his second and third best works, but Karamazov is undoubtedly his best and it is one of my favorite books of all time.

Demons is actually my second favorite work by him (The Brothers Karamazov is obviously first)

 

[Teptom]

I'm about 20% into The Picture of Dorian Gray and I'm enjoying it. The writing is beautiful.

 

[Paganmoon]

I heard American Gods was getting an adaption to television or something.

HBO had the rights, but couldn't get a satisfactory pilot script (not enough boobs?), but another company has now acquired the rights, but it still seems a few years out.

 

[Maklershed]

I can recommend one of the Kindle daily deals today ..

Wilderness - $1.99

I read this a few months ago and enjoyed it a lot. Its about a Civil War vet who moves to the Pacific northwest and lives alone with his dog until he gets forced into interacting with society (for better and worse).


Wilderness by Lance Weller

 

[rocketskates]

Anyone read The Strain? I saw a teaser for the show, looked it up online and it seems pretty interesting. Plus its Guillermo Del Toro, which can only mean good things.

 

[Reyne]

Halfway through so far and enjoying it more by the page as we gets past the character introductions and the story gets rolling. The banter between the characters is pretty good as the the author is pretty clever with his choice of words, though it sometimes gets a bit excessive as it seem like every character is trying to outdo the other by saying something wittier.

 

[Seanspeed]

Anyone read The Strain? I saw a teaser for the show, looked it up online and it seems pretty interesting. Plus its Guillermo Del Toro, which can only mean good things.

Yea, I read it a while back. Didn't think it was that great. Maybe worth reading if you really like horror stuff, I suppose.

Had no idea there was a show being made from it.

 

[iosefe]

Hey guys is there a best order to read Asimov's Books? Or just go with publication Dates?

Currently reading Forever War and its so far so good

Here is the guide I use.
I actually skipped the empire novels because some said they were closer to filler. But I'll get back to them eventually.

 

[duckroll]

Finished this a day ago, but wanted to have some time to think about it before posting:

Wolfe continues to surprise with his cryptic narrative games even in a familiar universe and with familiar characters. What's extra interesting about this trilogy is that it differs from the norm of his series formats. While there is no actual narrative break between each individual book in the New Sun and Long Sun series, there is here. Not only is each book distinctive different in narrative tone, but it appears that they are also viewed to be separate books by the narrative author in the story.

While they appear to share the same author and are written sequentially, they chronicle not only the different locales the author intended to write about (as the titles suggest), but also each have a different framing narrative of where the author was and what he is doing while he was writing each book. The first book took a relatively traditional approach (by Wolfe's standards anyway) in the narrative, but this one starts to get pretty tricky. It's clear the author's grasp on reality is starting to be suspect, and most of the narrative is no longer about the adventure he actually intends to write about, but rather his present circumstances. It's an interesting approach because it makes it feel effectively disjointed as a continuation of aspects of the first book, requiring more piecing together, and at the same time it makes it clear that the story being "told" is not actually over and the events the author narrates about the now is just if not more important than the events he personally seems to feel were more important to document when he first started the account.

This intentional narrative maze is one of my favorite things about reading Wolfe, because he does it so well and it makes the reader an active participant in trying to understand the story rather than just reading through it. There are also quite a number of stories-within-stories here, where the author himself, or characters in the narrative, are telling stories to other characters, and these form interesting short stories of their own - some supposedly personal accounts, some fictional, which are interesting to read while also developing characters and the setting of the world(s).

There's a lot more variety in this book, and I enjoyed it a lot more than the first.

 

[soontroll]

I just started reading Animal Liberation by Peter Singer after a friend recommended it.

 

[ShaneB]

I can recommend one of the Kindle daily deals today ..

Wilderness - $1.99

I read this a few months ago and enjoyed it a lot. Its about a Civil War vet who moves to the Pacific northwest and lives alone with his dog until he gets forced into interacting with society (for better and worse).


Wilderness by Lance Weller

Know you recommended this to me quite a while ago, so I'll be picking it up.

Still stumped what to read next, but I think I might settle on The Last Policeman.

 

[KingGondo]

Yea, I read it a while back. Didn't think it was that great. Maybe worth reading if you really like horror stuff, I suppose.

Had no idea there was a show being made from it.

I'm with you on that.

I mainly finished it because I bought it blind and felt like I was wasting my money otherwise.

Very meh.

 

[Stairouais]

Just started:

 

[Jag]

Any recommendations for books on the Eastern Front during WWII? I'm listening to Dan Carlin's Hardcore History Ghosts of the Ostfront and as usual he has me jonesing for more information.

I'm not looking for a deep treatise, but something that gives a good, easy to read overview of the conflict.

 

[FUBAR McDangles]

I'm reading my first Jack Reacher novel right now, the Affair. I really like how the chapters are short and fast, it really keeps me motivated to truck on with a lot more reading in one sitting than I normally would.

 

[Switch Back 9]

Halfway through so far and enjoying it more by the page as we gets past the character introductions and the story gets rolling. The banter between the characters is pretty good as the the author is pretty clever with his choice of words, though it sometimes gets a bit excessive as it seem like every character is trying to outdo the other by saying something wittier.

Pretend it's only a single book and not the first of a series and you'll be golden. The entries get worse and worse as the series goes on. Red Seas was fun but lots of people seemed to think it was weak, and Republic of Thieves just sucks all around.

 

[Mr.Towel]

Finished up Grasshopper Jungle by Andrew Smith. What a strange, great read. Essentially imagine Perks of Being a Wallflower violently mashed together with a 1960s B-sci fi horror movie and you kind of get the idea. It covers the confusion of a teenager in a small Idaho town hit hard by recession, struggling to understand who he is. And then the giant man-eating praying mantises show up. I haven't been seeing much buzz about this book, but I think it's one of my favourite modern teen books I've read in a while.

 

[AngmarsKing701]

Pretend it's only a single book and not the first of a series and you'll be golden. The entries get worse and worse as the series goes on. Red Seas was fun but lots of people seemed to think it was weak, and Republic of Thieves just sucks all around.

I've got Lies and Red Seas in paperback on my shelf, but I've been wary about diving in because I've seen others with similar comments.

So simple question: does Lies stand alone? If I read only it and bail, will the story be complete, or is there a series arc involved?

 

[obin_gam]

I've got Lies and Red Seas in paperback on my shelf, but I've been wary about diving in because I've seen others with similar comments.

So simple question: does Lies stand alone? If I read only it and bail, will the story be complete, or is there a series arc involved?

All of them are stand alone.

 

[Mackenzie 92]

I can recommend one of the Kindle daily deals today ..

Wilderness - $1.99

I read this a few months ago and enjoyed it a lot. Its about a Civil War vet who moves to the Pacific northwest and lives alone with his dog until he gets forced into interacting with society (for better and worse).


Wilderness by Lance Weller

Bought it last time and still haven't gotten around to it ha. Might be my next read.

 

[PassiveObserver]

Working my way through

and

but feel a bit slogged down. I should put one on hold, as both are long books (~1000 and ~600 pages respectively) and bouncing between the two has killed my reading rhythm. That said, I do want to finish a book sometime soon and am thinking of starting

 

[Drake]

So I read the 1st 60 or 70 pages of American Gods. That scene has to be the weirdest thing I have ever read. If you have read the book you'll know what I am talking about. I liked what I have read so far. Gaiman's writing style is a little weird though and I find myself having to re-read sentences 2 or 3 times to understand what he is saying.

 

[Jintor]

So I read the 1st 60 or 70 pages of American Gods. That scene has to be the weirdest thing I have ever read. If you have read the book you'll know what I am talking about. I liked what I have read so far. Gaiman's writing style is a little weird though and I find myself having to re-read sentences 2 or 3 times to understand what he is saying.

Hahahahaha. So true.

 

[Haly]

I can't wait for the live action adaptation of THAT SCENE.

 

[rudieboy77]

I finished this today.

Started and almost immediately stopped listening to this.

So then I started listening to this instead.

 

[Nuke Soda]

I really want that Guillermo Del Toro At the Mountains of Madness movie.

 

[postcyberpunk]

Reading this again for the fourth time:

Favorite author; favorite book.



As to that edition of Mountains, Mieville wrote a great intro.

 

[Jintor]

I got a job, so I can finally feel okay about ordering another $100 worth of books from bookdepository. Time to scour old threads!

On a side note, does anyone have any ideas about fantasy universes that have progressed past medeval stasis? I'm not talking about urban fantasy; I'm talking about places where elves and dwarves and stuff didn't get stuck for a thousand years without inventing the telephone, or something.

Besides Discworld.

 

[Rest]

I just got about 2/3 of the way through Julie/Julia, but had to stop. Early in the book, she compares preparing eggs to

1. Handjobs
2. "Painful Japanese sex" and
3. Piss sex

I thought that was weird, but the author has kind of a foul sense of humor and I just took it as a failed joke. But then she compared a raw chicken to a kidnapped, bound, tortured and raped person and I began to feel that this woman has a very very sick sexual food fetish.

She started projecting for food based sex fantasies onto a (supposed) real set of encounters with David Straithairne, and then outright stated she has a food/sex fetish soon after recounting a story of shooting down her husband's attempt to actually have sex with her. That wouldn't have bothered me, but she complains throughout the whole book about how she doesn't get enough sex. There after everything I read in the book that involves food she directed equates to sex.

That also didn't stop me from reading the book, though it put me on the path. What finally tipped the scale for me is that she stated that she believes that everyone has a food/sex fetish, and as someone who loves buying, preparing, and eating food, and enjoys the art of cooking for its self, I found such a projection onto all of humanity too much to bear.

I found the author bitchy, bitter (which she admits,) self centered, and arrogant, and considering the whole book is about her, I got sick of it.

It's kind of a disappointment that the personality of the writer was so repulsive, because other than that it was a really well written book. I wouldn't exactly call her witty, but the author was funny and her words were entertaining.

 

[nakedsushi]

^--- Wow, sounds like an awful book. I watched the movie and it was okay for what it was, probably because they left the weird food fetish stuff out.

 

[fredrancour]

I got a job, so I can finally feel okay about ordering another $100 worth of books from bookdepository. Time to scour old threads!

On a side note, does anyone have any ideas about fantasy universes that have progressed past medeval stasis? I'm not talking about urban fantasy; I'm talking about places where elves and dwarves and stuff didn't get stuck for a thousand years without inventing the telephone, or something.

Besides Discworld.

Technology-wise, Mistborn starts out feeling like a world on the cusp of an industrial revolution (minus gunpowder) , and then after the trilogy is a standalone novel that advances the setting a century or so, at which point i think the industrial revolution is actually happening? I'm not that far yet.

I can't actually say why it feels so much more modern and economically developed, given that technology isn't explicitly stated all that often.

 

[Drake]

I got a job, so I can finally feel okay about ordering another $100 worth of books from bookdepository. Time to scour old threads!

On a side note, does anyone have any ideas about fantasy universes that have progressed past medeval stasis? I'm not talking about urban fantasy; I'm talking about places where elves and dwarves and stuff didn't get stuck for a thousand years without inventing the telephone, or something.

Besides Discworld.

Brain McClellan's Promise of Blood. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Promise_of_Blood

No elves, but the setting is Napoleonic(guns, cannons etc). The mages in that book get a lot of their power ingesting gun powder. The 2nd book comes out in May. I loved the 1st one. Brian also took Sanderson's class at BYU, so you can definitely see the similarities between the 2 authors. He's kind of like an R rated Sanderson.