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What are you reading? (June 2013)

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bengraven

bengraven

Member
Caul is supposed to be fairly young.

Young, tall, and Norse-like - I'm sorry but I pictured "flavor of the month" Chris Hemsworth as Caul.
 
P

Phoenix4

Member
They're no literary masterpieces, but i really love Michael Crichton novels, especially those about technology gone wrong (Jurassic Park, Prey, State Of Fear).

Does anyone have recommendations on novels with the same topic/atmosphere/writing style?
 
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putarorex

Member
Last month I read:

Best served cold by Joe Abercrombie--a decent, quick read
On killing by Lt. Col. Dave Grossman--pretty fascinating though I am not sure about the bit on movies, video games and children
Leviathan wakes by James Corey--It started off great but I had a harder time getting into it toward the end.
House of chains by Steven Erikson--I am really started to get into Erikson. His lack of descriptions can make things difficult though. There have definitely been times when I have an image of certain character in my mind and then he gives some description of them 100 pages into their story that is completely different from what I was imagining. I read the book on the train with the Malazan wiki open on my iphone to keep track of everything.

Just started reading Midnight Tides. I hope it is good.
 
P

Professor Chaos

Member
Half way through:

The+Twelve+USA.jpg


Enjoying it so far, although
Grey meeting up with Wolgast's wife
seemed a bit contrived. Or did I miss something there?
 
M

Maklershed

Member
Switch Back 9 said:
Valhalla Rising. Kick-ass movie about vikings taking a boat to the new world and scrapping it up with the natives.
Click to expand...
Whoa sweet its on Netflix streaming. Added to the queue. Thanks for the info.

Morrigan Targaryen said:
You pictured a Northman as looking like a Samoan...? lol, okay. :p
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Ha fair enough. I thought it described Caul as a tall with long black hair and a black beard but I very well could be wrong. I dont why, sometimes an image of a character gets stuck in my brain and rather than reason it out I just go with it.

BONUS: I picture Ray Stevenson (Titus Pullo / Frank Castle) as Logen.

iWyHcQD0wnVGe.jpg


(I don't always picture celebrities as characters)
 
E

Easystride

Member
Finished off A Farewell to Arms and immediately started:

LnOR2tc.jpg


I am really loving Hemingway's humor. Now I really wish I would have also picked up The Sun Also Rises during the Amazon sale.
 
Andrew Korenchkin

Andrew Korenchkin

Member
I've been reading The Brothers Karamazov on and off. I usually don't read that novel in long reading sessions. It's a novel that I need to really absorb myself into, and I don't always have the emotional motivation to read it everyday. When I do get the time to finally dive into it, its pure magic. What an amazing masterwork.

Other than that, I've been reading Thomas Pynchon's Inherent Vice. Not as hard to read as his other novels, which I find to be positive. Newcomers should start with that instead of, say, Mason & Dixon.
 
S

Shadow Red

Member
City_of_Bones.jpg

YA guilty pleasure. Not too great...feels like Buffy in a Harry Potter world except that unlike Buffy, the main character rarely take actions.
 
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Piecake

Member
Phoenix4 said:
They're no literary masterpieces, but i really love Michael Crichton novels, especially those about technology gone wrong (Jurassic Park, Prey, State Of Fear).

Does anyone have recommendations on novels with the same topic/atmosphere/writing style?
Click to expand...

read Sphere?
 
N

Nymerio

Member
Finished Deadhouse Gates and went on to Memories of Ice.

51VAt4oktZL.jpg


I'm at about 20% and I'm already liking it more than Deadhouse Gates. So far every book has been an improvement from the the one before.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
I'm having a hell of a time finding any sort of recap for Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War. Want to refresh my memory for tomorrow. Anyone care to help out with a link to something?
 
J

jtb

Banned
Finished The Marriage Plot. I really liked the arc of Madeline and Leonard but it seems Eugenides really struggled to weave in Mitchell's story properly into the story. It didn't help that he was pretty uninteresting and, frankly, a bit pathetic. I get that going to India was a life-changing experience for Eugenides and all that, but those passages just dragged. Also, while the novel was much stronger because of its frankness about sex, there are only so many euphemisms for various genitalia that aren't completely laughable or eye-roll worthy. He exhausted most of them by page 100.
 
C

ClassyPenguin

Banned
American-Prometheus-Triumph.jpg

American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer
Finished a while back but finally did my blurb about it on goodreads.
American Prometheus is the quintessential biography of Robert Oppenheimer, the so-called “Father of the Atomic Bomb”. From his early days at the liberal Ethical School to his troublesome college education, Oppenheimer proposed to be an unstoppable force in new scientific thinking. Unlike most physicists, whose passions verily stray from math, Oppenheimer showed considerable appreciation for the arts and the social sciences. His rise in the world of physics came at the start of the rise of Fascism in Europe and the fear of Communism in the United States. It was Oppenheimer's liberal education and sympathy to those in the lower classes to overcome their barriers and become more than cogs in a machine, was his ultimate demise.

Oppenheimer's upbringing and education led him to believe not only the purity of science but the sympathy of human rights. During his stints as a professor and student of physics, Oppenheimer became part of the Progressive cause of labor rights, free inquiry and opposition to Fascism. In that time in America, the few Progressive causes were under Communist Party organizations and affiliations. Even those organizations like the ACLU, were under the term “Communist-affiliated” and sought to fight for rights and liberties. In the US government and other political and educational institutions where staunchly anti-Communist, members constantly hid their identities and contributions to the fight of civil rights and liberties.

Europe was the center of theoretical physics for most of the early 20th Century and as the various countries succumbed to violence of World War II, so did the world of physics. The United States became a safe haven for scientific thought. When the United States became involved, it became a part to the various physicists and scientists that Germany may have the means to acquire a new weapon of mass destruction. Because of this, the Manhattan Project was born and the race went on to build the nuclear bomb. Oppenheimer, because of the way he could parse through various physics theories and papers to find problems and summarize them, was chosen to lead this team of civilian scientists, while the military provided a role in logistics and security.

On July 16th the world's first atomic bomb was exploded in the desert of New Mexico. What followed was various high-level meetings of logistics and targets for the new weaponry. The civilian scientists were consulted but not relied upon and the Truman administration drew its own conclusion of where and how to use the bomb. As the war in Europe was dying down, the war with Japan was viewed as the next concentration of military power. What is known is that many of the scientists and experts agreed that Japan was close to surrendering and that the bomb meant something to show the Soviets how the balance of power needed to be shifted after the war. Oppenheimer was grieved and hurt by the use of the bomb in an almost nondiscriminatory way. As he put it “physics has known sin”.

After the War, the tensions between the US and the Soviets grew. Much of the military and the Eisenhower administration came to believe that the balance of power should favor the US by escalating its nuclear arms program. Oppenheimer opposed to it for philosophical reasons, namely to stop what had happened in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The military and anti-communist forces colluded to go after opponents of the new hydrogen bomb, the buildup of arms and the openness of nuclear and military knowledge.

What followed was a brutal witch-hunt against Oppenheimer. The once proud scientists was brought down by slander, political hacks and the members of the fervently anti-communist FBI. His phones had been tapped since before work began in the Manhattan Project. He was followed, accosted, treated to a humiliating illegal intrusions of privacy and legal hearings.

The result of all of this was the ended of the era public scientists in the United States. Science was now something to be feared and practiced only for profitable and military gain. The repercussions of the trial Oppenheimer can be felt to this day, where scientists have to cower before the might of public opinion. Now the battlefields of Climate Change and GMO technology of the cries of the fearful. The story of Oppenheimer is a great metaphor for the loss and persecution of those who are willing to practice science for the public good.

American Prometheus is an engrossing read of the rise and fall of the Public Scientist. A brilliantly researched and nuanced portrait of a man, a scientists and the world in which conspired to take everything that he worked for.
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Currently reading:
home_book_cvr.jpg

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness

and

book-review-the-emperor-of-all-maladies-2010-11-4-13-0-52.jpg

The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer
 
Lamel

Lamel

Banned
51rzESBFPeL._SY346_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_.jpg


I will start in 2 days.

My body is ready.


I also haven't been in this thread since college started, but I am back for the summer!
 
Monocle

Monocle

Member
Lamel said:
51rzESBFPeL._SY346_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_.jpg


I will start in 2 days.

My body is ready.


I also haven't been in this thread since college started, but I am back for the summer!
Click to expand...
You're in for a great ride. Do the right thing and don't give in to any temptation to skip ahead. Letting the story unfold naturally is so worth it.

Also, Google and Wikipedia are the enemy. Spoilers everywhere.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
ShaneB said:
I'm having a hell of a time finding any sort of recap for Leviathan Wakes and Caliban's War. Want to refresh my memory for tomorrow. Anyone care to help out with a link to something?
Click to expand...

Anyone? I just bought Abbadon's Gate, would love to jump right in, but I want a recap again :( edit: god dammit this is pissing me off =/ fuuuuuck.
 
P

phoenixyz

Member
I am currently reading A Storm Of Swords (about 35% iirc). After the Internet outcry following the last episode of GoT TV series I am really excited what is going to happen. In times like this it gets really hard to dodge the spoilers. I'll only rest easy when I am further into the story than the TV series :D
 
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sparky2112

Member
513b5ku5lcL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-64,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg


Pretty good - a really quick read. Some have billed it as the Catch-22 of the Iraq war, which it sort of is, with the obvious caveat that it's nowhere near as good as Catch-22, nor is it intended to be, I think. Still, it's a solid, askew look at the occupation from the perspective to trying to put a positive spin on a situation so messed up it's unreal. Oh, and the author actually did a tour over there, so this isn't 'some liberal MFA, blah, blah' bad-mouthing America.
 
J

Jarlaxle

Member
A+Betrayal+in+Winter.jpg


I'm a couple of chapters into this. While I liked "A Shadow In Summer" and thought it was well written, the plot never really went anywhere imho. Are these next three books the exact same or are some of them better than others?

I'm invested enough in the main character and I like some of the other characters and the plotline a little more in this second book to definitely finish off the series. I'm just curious if the general consensus is if the books remain at the same quality throughout.
 
T

TheKaeptain

Banned
Going to go through these this week:

ZKEIdy2.jpg


1200 pages of the best Marvel comic of all time.

and

5zFIFka.jpg


I've read Razor's Edge and Of Human Bondage over the last few months. Maugham was a genius. Razor's Edge jumped up into my favorite novel's of all time.
 
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Professor Chaos

Member
Jarlaxle said:
I'm invested enough in the main character and I like some of the other characters and the plotline a little more in this second book to definitely finish off the series. I'm just curious if the general consensus is if the books remain at the same quality throughout.
Click to expand...

It's been a while since I read the series, but they do retain their quality in regards to being well written and remaining extremely character focused throughout. The plot can be slow moving at times but it's well worth staying with. The whole concept of what it is like for one side to possess what basically amounts to weapons of mass destruction, the andat, comes into play more and is handled really well imo. One of the most emotionally engaging fantasy series I've ever read.
 
F

Fou-Lu

Member
Just finished the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson and greatly enjoyed it, not sure what I'm going to read next, but I'm open to recommendations!
 
Emerson

Emerson

May contain jokes =>
Jarlaxle said:
A+Betrayal+in+Winter.jpg


I'm a couple of chapters into this. While I liked "A Shadow In Summer" and thought it was well written, the plot never really went anywhere imho. Are these next three books the exact same or are some of them better than others?

I'm invested enough in the main character and I like some of the other characters and the plotline a little more in this second book to definitely finish off the series. I'm just curious if the general consensus is if the books remain at the same quality throughout.
Click to expand...

Yeah I really encourage you to see that series through. I liked it at first but by the end my opinion of it was much, much higher. Unfortunately I can't remember exactly where that transition happened. Well worth it though.
 
H

HoJu

Member
alright i finished BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS, which was hilarious and very true at parts. The paramedic that wanted to go home after being criticized had me laughing for a good couple of minutes for some reasons. It became tedious when Vonnegut went off in some weird tangents.
But i enjoyed it and now i'm just deciding which Vonnegut to buy next.

I just started
51LNl4WdD7L.jpg

EMBERS by Sandar Marai and I have no idea what to expect.

I'm also flipping through
57612.jpg

THE FILMS OF AKIRA KUROSAWA by Donald Richie. Loving it.
 
E

ElectricBlue187

Member
Still reading Revelation Space and The Hobbit. Sort of mixed feelings on Revelation Space. I like how unique the situations are but I feel like a lot of it goes unexplained and not in a Philip K. Dick good way of not explaining how things work but more in a "this is a convenient plot device for me to use right here" sorta way.
 
J

Jagxyz

Member
n3gKL5G.jpg


Just finished the 5th book of the Iron Druid chronicles, definitely enjoyed it.

It's kinda similar to American Gods, in that the gods all exist and wander modern day America, interacting with people. It's definitely less serious, but still a very interesting series that manages to (so far) stay strong throughout.

Also, it's pretty cool to have a story where the main character is a 2000 year old druid who is already at "ultimate badass" level, rather than having a zero to hero journey.
 
N

Nymerio

Member
Still reading Memories of Ice, I'm about half-way through and goddamn, that 3-man punitive army of the Seguleh is just badass. I hope I'll see more of them.
 
S

ShaneB

Member
So much for finding a recap of LW and CW.... will now dive start diving into this on my first break here at work..

12591719.jpg
 
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