Favorite books / What are you reading?

Philip K. Dick's novels are very entertaining, yes, but i prefer the detectivesque style of Asimov's Foundation trilogy, and his robot stories... nothing like Dune of course when it comes to sci-fi...

I seem to remember reading somewhere that PKD's novels "detachment" had to do something with his own mental health, or lack thereof...

As for favorites:

The Odissey (always loved it and always will)
Francisco de Quevedo's La vida del Buscon (a very funny medieval story that offers a little insight into a very nasty and unfortunately very actual cultural heritage among my people)
Ise Monogatari - Ariwara No Narihira (very nice, and very old, japanese poetry)
Hojoki - Kamo No Chomei (same as the above)
My sister and I - F. Nietzsche
G. Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm

The poetry of Kavafis, Wallace Stevens's Aforisms, K. Rexroth essays, E. Cioran's books...

can't think of anything else right now...
 
Am a major Sci-Fi fan, but have not read Dune until now.

Am soon done with the first book and Frank Herbert deserves all the praise he has been given.

Am loving Dune and looking forward to the following books.



Also @ x'il: Asimov is great indeed; the thing I love about the Foundation series is the decay of an overgrown empire (easily transferrable to an organization etc) - the loss of overview for the leaders and thus the inevitable yet slow crumbling of morale, maintenance and cohesion.
 
Mainly reading The Postman, but been working on LOTR trilogy and The Stand for a couple months

Anyone ever read any of Robert Parker's Spencer novels? Moms gave me nearly all of them but I haven't cracked one open yet.
 
x'il said:
I seem to remember reading somewhere that PKD's novels "detachment" had to do something with his own mental health, or lack thereof...
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No doubt about it. Psychoanalysis and mental illness are major themes in his writing. I notice that Martian Timeslip and Dr. Bloodmoney are early PKD novels, and from what I remember from reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his writing may become less detached as he matures as an author.

As it is, I can't read them back-to-back. It's too grating. I have to sandwich something else in between. This time I've picked up Oliver Twist.

"Please sir, I want some more." :D
 
UniversalWolf said:
No doubt about it. Psychoanalysis and mental illness are major themes in his writing. I notice that Martian Timeslip and Dr. Bloodmoney are early PKD novels, and from what I remember from reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, his writing may become less detached as he matures as an author.
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Yes, Do androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is still pretty "cold", fortunately, is just the precise and perfect amount of it.

UniversalWolf said:
As it is, I can't read them back-to-back. It's too grating. I have to sandwich something else in between. This time I've picked up Oliver Twist.
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That's no sandwich... that's a full blown lunch with malted vanilla milkshake in between :)
 
Finished reading Legends of Dune a prequel trilogy that is set some 10000 years before original story. Its pretty good with last book filling somewhat rushed. But a must have for Dune fans.
 
I'm reading the Accursed Kings series, by Maurice Druon. They remind me of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire (apparantly Druon was one of Martin's inspirations), only in a historical setting, with historical characters.

The main problem is that the books are out of print (the English editions, anyway), and the last book in the series was never published in English at all, for some bizarre reason.
 
The Black Swan by Nassim Taleb.
Not nearly as good as his Fooled by Randomness, sadly.

Also recently read the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks. Sometimes I'm still a sucker for fantasy, although this was a surprisingly good series.
 
currently reading Heinlein's "The Moon is a harsh mistress".

starts off nicely, but the writing style is a tiny bit annoying on a grammatical level.
 
I'm reading Apocalypse in Retrospect by Kurt Vonnegut, basically a collection of essay, short stories and speeches collected after his death. They are almost all about war, and in particular his POW stint in Dresden... great book all around, really pushes pacifism and at one point does a great job of mocking those who have practically masturbatory fantasies about past wars.

Also I'm reading The Whole Beast, for those who like cooking with every part of the animal.
 
Just recently begun reading "Black" by S.King.
It is the first King book I'm reading and really like it sofar (I'm normally really not into Horror).
 
Just finished reading the two last books, chronologically, of Dune. Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, written by Franks son Brian Herbert.

While it is nice to have an end to the series, Chapterhouse: Dune ended in an extremely weird fashion, Brians books can't compare to the originals in any way. The characters are stupid. Even the Mentats miss obvious conclusions. The whole Kwisatz Haderach thing gets blown completely out of whack. Supposedly they follow an outline left by Frank Herbert... to me it feels like they completely lack the depth of the first books. The "evil" characters are banal and oversimplified, and frequently lack motivation for their actions. Dialouges between certain main characters (particularly near and at the end) are repetitious and uninteresting. To top it off, Brian even fails to properly recite the litany against fear properly. Wow.

Back to waiting for part 5 of A song of Ice and Fire. I love Martins books. Few characters are very polar, most of them have clear motives for their actions and he's not afraid to kill off main characters which adds suspense. The point of view style of the chapters are great, I think it takes away the "good guys vs bad guys" a lot.
 
Dead Guy said:
Just finished reading the two last books, chronologically, of Dune. Hunters of Dune and Sandworms of Dune, written by Franks son Brian Herbert.

While it is nice to have an end to the series, Chapterhouse: Dune ended in an extremely weird fashion, Brians books can't compare to the originals in any way. The characters are stupid. Even the Mentats miss obvious conclusions. The whole Kwisatz Haderach thing gets blown completely out of whack. Supposedly they follow an outline left by Frank Herbert... to me it feels like they completely lack the depth of the first books. The "evil" characters are banal and oversimplified, and frequently lack motivation for their actions. Dialouges between certain main characters (particularly near and at the end) are repetitious and uninteresting. To top it off, Brian even fails to properly recite the litany against fear properly. Wow.
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You know, one really wants to enjoy those new Dune books, and you can't realistically expect them to fill the very large literary shoes FH left behind but goddamn those books are trash. The writing is insulting to the intelligence of anyone with a reading level above a 6th grader. Herbert and Anderson blow - but the books are so bad the blame goes beyond them - where the fuck is their editor?

Shamefull cash-ins. Avoid them like the plague.
 
Cimmerian Nights said:
You know, one really wants to enjoy those new Dune books, and you can't realistically expect them to fill the very large literary shoes FH left behind but goddamn those books are trash. The writing is insulting to the intelligence of anyone with a reading level above a 6th grader. Herbert and Anderson blow - but the books are so bad the blame goes beyond them - where the fuck is their editor?

Shamefull cash-ins. Avoid them like the plague.
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I'll keep that in mind: Just finished Dune and Dune Messiah, and am now starting on Children of Dune. Frank Herbert's pen is a mighty one indeed and the experience has, of course, left me wanting more.
 
Finished Gibson's Pattern Recognition. Pretty good, entertaining.
 
Currently reading The Foresight War by Anthony Williams. It's about two men that live in 2004, but are send back to WW2 where they get the chance to change the outcome of the war in Hitler's or Churchill's favor. Lots of descriptions of vehicles, weapons and technologies, mixed with modern stuff (angled decks, sloped armour, etc.). It's a fun book (esspecially with all the alternate battles), but can get a bit lecturing at certain moments. :P
 
Dreadwolf said:
Just recently begun reading "Black" by S.King.
It is the first King book I'm reading and really like it sofar (I'm normally really not into Horror).
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I enjoy King's short stories far more than his novels. The novels I've read always seem to be one or two hundred pages longer than needed.

On the other hand, I very much enjoyed the first book in the Dark Tower series, even though I never read the second. It's got a great setting with some similarities to Fallout.
 
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