Favorite books / What are you reading?

Just finished Neal Stephenson's 'Anathem'

It's pretty good!
Kinda similar to his 'Baroque Cycle', but with philosophers this time.
And some space opera theme, too.


Reading 'Generation Kill'.
I think I heard about it here, and since I wasn't really following on the Iraq war I gave it a try.
I like it so far.
 
Carib FMJ said:
World War Z - Matt Brooks
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You do realize that World War Z is really a satire of the Bush years.

I loved the whole bit about the trying to sell a vaccination for the virus that the producers aren't sure will work. Brooks (son of Mel Brooks) is spoofing all the cures for Bird Flu.
 
Daimyo said:
Reading Franz Kafka's "the Trial" these days.

Once in a while I have to dig out some old classics and try to elevate myself to the intellectual level of something more advanced than regular fiction, but I have to say that several of the so-called classics fail to deliver what I have led myself to believe was promised ...

"The Trial" is no exception so far, but it shows potential from time to time.
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i still dont know if kafka is easy to translate or impossible to translate. reading him in german gives me the creeps since i do not know a single author with such a great language. virtually every word in his "final" books belongs just where it is. i read his published oeuvre over and over again and am still amazed about it.

the only author that can compare with that are peter handke and marcel proust (tho it really sucks to read it in french. i can only read french, not speak it, and it is a slow and tedious endeavour. actually i am learning french right now to be able to read french texts. you gotta love the rosetta stone).

right now, i read a compilation of texts from the 70s, mostly unknown authors. i really like the difference in the quality of the texts. some are very very good, and sadly, the authors are totally unknown. just finished a compilation of short stories by tobias wolff (hes american), and i really liked how he artfully omits crisis/pointe. that is something i have accomplished in most of my posts here, but i struggle with this in my "real" writings. good read, you should try some. ah yes, i have just begun to re-read virgina woolfes "waves" and edward albees "who is afraid of virginia woolf". albees piece is just damn excellent... deep care hidden in crustations of cynicism. great.
 
Dune: The battle of Corrin - Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson

And the communist manifesto on the side... sorta...
 
Dopemine Cleric said:
The Raging Russian said:
"Thus Spoke Zarathustra" by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, damn good book.
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Oh really?
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yeah, its a good read. nietzsche beats the crap out of a lot of french philosophers when it comes to literary style. with the possible exception of the early sartre.
 
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman.

Highly recommended. Inept feudal monarchies, deeply rooted superstition, the Black Death, and the Hundred-Years War - just in case you thought the 21st Century was screwed-up.
 
Ah-Teen said:
Dune: The battle of Corrin - Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson
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Shaitan, that book was so bad. Even judged as Dune-lite it's a bomb. What they're doing to that series needs to stop.


I'm reading The 48 Laws of Power by Greene.
Very much a contemporary Machiavelli or Sun Tzu.
Completely amoral look at how to get/increase/keep power.
Loaded with incredible real world examples, it's a fun read, but I would be really worried about anyone who tries to apply to much of this to their everyday life. Pretty ruthless stuff.
 
The Ender Series by Orson Scott Card
though I thought Ender's Shadow was better than Ender's Game

My last book was Dies The Fire, which aside from being totally awesome, has ruined my dreams. Now any dream with a post-apocalyptic theme or which features guns to any degree, I realize they don't work and i can't use them :(, plus it makes me a bit paranoid and wanting to buy camping supplies and a crossbow

i read all of Michael Crichton and got a good kick out of his book Next
 
I'm reading the new Dimitri Verhulst, 'Godverdomse dagen op een godverdomse bol'.

It sucks like pretty much everything he has written so far. It's time for action, dawgunnit.
 
Goweigus said:
The Ender Series by Orson Scott Card
though I thought Ender's Shadow was better than Ender's Game
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Agreed. I also felt the Ender's Shadow books were a better set of sequels than the Ender ones. The Ender ones just seemed like they didn't fit. Unfortunately, I think after Shadow of the Hegemon, it started going downhill.

Goweigus said:
i read all of Michael Crichton and got a good kick out of his book Next
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Is thta the same Next that the movie with Nicholas Cage is based on?
 
alec said:
I'm reading the new Dimitri Verhulst, 'Godverdomse dagen op een godverdomse bol'.

It sucks like pretty much everything he has written so far. It's time for action, dawgunnit.
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got the book for free, like a few thousands of other belgistanis...

didn't bother reading it (yet?).
 
http://www.librarything.com/work/book/36239051

Funny as hell, read it, learn it, laugh and wonder why it took 2000 years before there was any serious study in sex before the Karma Sutra/Yellow Emperor's book on sex.

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/27530461

Awesome book. It explained a few interesting things that have be gnawing at the back of my mind for a while.

http://www.librarything.com/work/book/27530436

I still haven't finished it. It's not as engaging as his previous 2 works, or as amusing.

There are quite a few favourites, but, I'll have to go through my library for info.
 
Thought I'd bump this after the other topic that surfaced. Has anyone read any CS Lewis stuff besides the Narnia books?

I read Til We Have Faces a little while back and really enjoyed its mix of morals and story. My friend recommended The Great Divorce as a follow-up but so far it seems a little too religious.

Over break I read Jhumpa Lahiri's The Namesake which was okay. It was entertaining but it didn't really pull me in.

The last book that did was The Perks of Being A Wallflower which I read just before break and though it was abetter version of Catcher in the Rye.
 
Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

As mentioned in this thread its quickly becoming one of my favorite books. I don't know if i've ever read a book with more violence. Fucking fantastic...
 
I haven't read anything for a year, in my local library (which is the size of two my rooms) i already read all sf and fantasy books i could get my hands on. Last books i read was four George R. R. Martins "A Song of Ice and Fire" books (great), Eragon (bad), Eldest(awful) and Prelude to Dune (good). Can anyone recommend any good sf/fantasy books released recently?
 
Name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss is supposed to be good fantasy marko. It's not brand new but it's fairly recent (A few years old). I don't keep up with new books so i can't go much beyond that.
 
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