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What are you reading? (January 2012)

Lerozz

Member
4901-streit-um-das-heilige-land.jpg


enforcer.jpg
 

Kuraudo

Banned
I was recently posed the question of which book I'd regret not having read if I died tomorrow. Rather than saying I had greater things to worry about if I died tomorrow, I gave the question some thought and decided it would be Ulysses, so I'm making it a point to read it before anything else this year.

ulysses-classics-wordsworth-classics-book_SWBOTc4MTg0MDIyNjM1NQ==.jpg


Only through the first chapter, but it's pretty awesome.

Anyone know of a good online reading guide?
 

thomaser

Member
murakami-underground.jpg


Haruki Murakami: Underground. A non-fiction work where he writes about the terror attack on Tokyo's underground system some years ago. He interviews both victims and perpetrators. Murakami is one of my favourite fiction writers, so I'm very much looking forward to seeing how he deals with this.

Just got done reading through Pynchon's Against the Day. Started it on July 17th (spent 168 days on it, around 6,5 pages a day), so this is the seventh "What are you reading"-thread I mention it in. Won't do it again, promise!
 

mike23

Member
Did anyone else set/hit a yearly goal on Goodreads for 2011? I originally had a goal of 52, but I ended up hitting that around May-June I think, so I upped it to 70. Ended the year with 73 books read.

Fairly certain that 73 new books is a record for me. Could be close though to when I was 13ish and read all 54 main Animorphs books + the extras in a month or two. Can't remember what else I read that year.

I upped it to 81 for next year.
 

Forsete

Member
My bro recommended this, he said he has read it 4 times. :p

American Tabloid - James Ellroy
37tuE.jpg


Going to start tonight.
Btw, I loved 11/22/63
 
I really slacked on my reading this year. I set my Goodreads goal for 20 and made 20 but honestly I should've hit at least 30. I guess that's what I'll set it for this year.

EDIT: Wait a tick - I did do better than 20. There's a bunch of books that I set as read that it didn't catch the entry date for therefore it didn't count towards my goal. I read 25 books last year so I'm gonna make my goal 35 this year.
 
I'd like to set a Goodreads or equivalent goal but given that I'm in school I never feel like I can set a reasonable goal. A quarter of what I read in a given year are criticism, and more than half is work for my studies. I'll just be happy if I finish one book a month for leisure reading.
 

Mikeside

Member
Bit of an odd request here, but I was hoping to find a novel about game development in some way - not sure if anything exists, so I thought GAF is definitely the place to ask! Anyone? Looking for fiction here, not a biography or something.
 

Milchjon

Member
Just finished the God Delusion. I quite liked it.

I think it's too antagonistic to achieve its goal of converting belivers, but for people like me who are without faith anyway, it offers a lot of food for thought.

I actually liked the parts about evolution and biology better than the stuff that was just about how stupid religion is.
 
I was recently posed the question of which book I'd regret not having read if I died tomorrow. Rather than saying I had greater things to worry about if I died tomorrow, I gave the question some thought and decided it would be Ulysses, so I'm making it a point to read it before anything else this year.

ulysses-classics-wordsworth-classics-book_SWBOTc4MTg0MDIyNjM1NQ==.jpg


Only through the first chapter, but it's pretty awesome.

Anyone know of a good online reading guide?

I've been meaning to get into this. Are you reading the original 1922 text? Is it hard to decipher? I've heard that without a reading companion, the dialogue can be almost impossible to grasp at times.
 

SolKane

Member
I've been meaning to get into this. Are you reading the original 1922 text? Is it hard to decipher? I've heard that without a reading companion, the dialogue can be almost impossible to grasp at times.

Unless you have several PhD's (in classical mythology, Catholic theology, English etymology) it will be very difficult to get through even several pages without some set of annotations. The first chapter is essentially a series of (apparently) non-sequiturs. It takes a lot of work to bleed anything out of Ulysses, so it's funny to me anyone would regret not reading this book before dying, as opposed to something like Madame Bovary or Brothers Karamazov. Here's a pretty robust set of annotations available online (not as good as a reference text from a university library however):

http://www.columbia.edu/~fms5/ulys.htm
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Found both of these in a used paperback shop that I paid a spontaneous visit to. I haven't actually read much Clarke outside of his short fiction, so I'm looking forward to it.

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Can't wait for the film! Also it is pretty great book, I wouldn't count is as historical book like it's promoted. Still awesome read.

There's gonna be a movie?! That's awesome. I was just thinking today how I'd love to see something like that. I really love modern movies (& shows .. Deadwood) set in late 1800s US.
 

Atruvius

Member
I'm reading Lord of the Rings, and for the third or fourth time. Started reading it since second half of December and I'm at Return of the King. I'm surprised by how much better the book is than I remembered. When I read it many years ago I remember hating Frodo & Sam parts of the book, but now I find them almost as good as the other.

I also watched the movies (theatrical) during the holidays so it was cool to see in what ways the two differ and what got excluded.

What a great book!
 

CiSTM

Banned
There's gonna be a movie?! That's awesome. I was just thinking today how I'd love to see something like that. I really love modern movies (& shows .. Deadwood) set in late 1800s US.

2013. DiCaprio owns the rights and at the moment seems like he will play the role of Holmes.
 
Does anyone know if there's a site (Gooreads perhaps?) where you can enter your favorite authors and it will notify you when they'll have a new book published?

2013. DiCaprio owns the rights and at the moment seems like he will play the role of Holmes.

That sounds great. Thanks for the info. Now that I started up again I'm tearing right through this book. I might finish it by the end of the day even.
 

Tapiozona

Banned
Game-of-Thrones.jpg


I'm trying to savor this book. Is the rest of the series as good as the first book?

Oh man, you have no idea. The third bookk, A Storm of Swords, is by far the best book of the series. It's too bad that book was so good because it made A Dance with Dragons somewhat disappointing even though it in itself was a great book.
 

mike23

Member
Does anyone know if there's a site (Gooreads perhaps?) where you can enter your favorite authors and it will notify you when they'll have a new book published?



That sounds great. Thanks for the info. Now that I started up again I'm tearing right through this book. I might finish it by the end of the day even.

pretty sure goodreads does something like that via a monthly newsletter..

Yeah, Goodreads does this. I get an email every month which has the new books by authors who wrote a book I gave at least 3 stars.
 

LProtag

Member
I'm slowly working my way through the complete Sherlock Holmes, the novels are all pretty short and of course there's plenty of short stories.

I'm debating what 'major' work to read next. I've been hearing good things about Umberto Eco since his new book came out and there's been plenty of "If you like Murakami you'll like Eco" statements floating around.

Not really sure where to start with him though. I'm assuming either his new book or Name of the Rose.
 

Dresden

Member
I'm debating what 'major' work to read next. I've been hearing good things about Umberto Eco since his new book came out and there's been plenty of "If you like Murakami you'll like Eco" statements floating around.

Not really sure where to start with him though. I'm assuming either his new book or Name of the Rose.

I've read Name of the Rose and Baudolino by that author, and I don't quite see where the Murakami comparison comes from. Great book (sorry Baudolino), though.
 

thomaser

Member
I'm debating what 'major' work to read next. I've been hearing good things about Umberto Eco since his new book came out and there's been plenty of "If you like Murakami you'll like Eco" statements floating around.

I love both Murakami and Eco, but I honestly don't see any resemblance at all between them other than that both write enjoyable books that make you think. Their styles and themes are completely different.
 

Kisaya

Member
But libraries are wonderful places! Where did the bad books touch you?

When I was younger there was this library I used to go to all the time. The people there were horrible and you would just see the same ones all the time. One day this girl started coming a lot and I used to get bullied pretty bad by her, and none of the staff or anyone would do anything about it :( So yeah, just get those bad feelings whenever I go to a library. I eventually went back years later and it's creepy cause the same people I used to see are still there...

I like book stores though :) Especially local ones~
 

Emitan

Member
Local book stores are the best thing. But now I own a Kindle so I don't really have any reason to visit them ;_;

I might rebuy The Way of Kings from one, because I really want to own the series in hardback.
 

LProtag

Member
I love both Murakami and Eco, but I honestly don't see any resemblance at all between them other than that both write enjoyable books that make you think. Their styles and themes are completely different.

I've read Name of the Rose and Baudolino by that author, and I don't quite see where the Murakami comparison comes from. Great book (sorry Baudolino), though.

I dunno, Library of Congress even has it under similar authors. I'm still willing to check it out because I heard some interesting bits about him on NPR.
 
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