obligatory what are you reading, what have you read-

I'm rereading The Name of the Rose by Eco. It's teeth-gritting work, seriously. I forgot how terrible this book is. Nothing but a lot of fancy names and Latin quotes being thrown about to make the readers feel like smartypants. That's no way of writing. The Holmes-esque plot is nice, but pretty damned contrived. I forgot why I'm rereading it, but now that I am I might as well finish.

Also reading Thomson's Europe Since Napoleon. Pretty good book, but very centered on France and Great Britain so far. Not much of a European history, ey?

Recently read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code. I didn't want to, but situation compelled me (someone shoved it in my hands, had to read it out of respect to her). They're both pretty horrible, though Angels & Demons is better-written. The plot is contrived and lacks even a thin veneer of credibility, the characters are predictable and uninteresting and the amounts of factual mistakes about Catholic history and tradition and dark matter are so numerous that even I with very limited knowledge on both subjects had difficulty wading through the bullshit.
 
The_Vault_Dweller said:
I began to read The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger only last Saturday (its now Thursday)
Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 18:38
Huh? What the hell kinda timezone are you in? I thouht you were a Yank?
The thing is my first book is the large paperback and I think the illustrations are the best I've seen to represent a story.
Meh, other than childrens books (or books designed to be illustrated (esp. graphic novels)) I've never liked the illustrations in books. The characters never look "right" to me, as they are the story through someone else's eyes, mind and hands, not my own. It's even worse if I've already read another version of the book/story and see some illustrations from an illustrated (usually "limited edition" style hardback) version.

Whatever floats your boat tho' VD.

I wish I could go back and read the first four books for the first time, which I obviously cannot, short of electroshock therapy.

Kharn said:
I forgot why I'm rereading it, but now that I am I might as well finish.
Heh, I do that all the time. I've got a book at the moment that I started reading and just stopped because I'm no longer enjoying it. But I'm loathe to start another book because I've not finished this one.
Recently read Dan Brown's Angels & Demons and the Da Vinci Code. I didn't want to, but situation compelled me (someone shoved it in my hands, had to read it out of respect to her). They're both pretty horrible, though Angels & Demons is better-written.
Yeah, but they are "The International Bestest Seller!", so they must be good.
I saw them on a billboard.
 
Kharn said:
I forgot why I'm rereading it, but now that I am I might as well finish.

The only reason is because in the movie version, Valentina Vargas is a really hot underaged whore who is nude in almost every scene she is in.
 
Just finished reading another China Mieville book, The Scar. It was good, much better than Perdido Street Station anyway, but the ending sucked again. It's like he's trying so hard to make the ending totally unexpected and out there to the max!!! that he just ends it without any real consideration as to what happened in the rest of the book. Which is a bugger, since the rest of the book is very entertaining, it just ends on a real downer and leaves me with a bad impression.
Now reading Earth by David Brin, but really slowly because it's boring as fuck.
 
I picked up Jered Diamond's Guns Germs and Steel, the fate of human societies. Haven't gotten too far into it yet, but is is well written and based on peer-reviewed articles and notes. It describes a new way of looking at why Europe was the center of technological change over the past 10 millenia. I heven't gotten to the punchline yet, but I think it will involve domesticaed animals in one way or another (not the Orderite way though).
 
Just read the English translation of Ring. I found the book to be captivating, creative, and original. I wasn't to keen on the idea of it after watching the abysmal western movie, but its nothing like that (in a good way).
 
Recently finished the Hyperion quadrilogy (HYPERION, FALL OF HYPERION, ENDYMION, RISE OF ENDYMION) by Dan Simmons and I can sincerely say that it's the best SF I've ever read.

If you're into fantasy I'd warmly recommend the Dragonlance saga by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman:
Dragons of autumn twilight
Dragons of winter night
Dragons of spring dawning
Dragons of summer flame
Time of the twins
War of the twins
Test of the twins
Dragons of a fallen sun
Dragons of a lost star
Dragons of a vanished moon
If you love fantasy you'll love these, I know I did.
 
Shall soon begin on patrick o'brians the yellow admiral. And seeing how the other books are, i'm looking forward to it.
 
i'm currently reading a collection of the greatest h.p. lovecraft stories. good stuff! and for my education i'm reading the colums and letters of andre bazin (a pretentionistic French film critic), which really is not a nice read.
 
I recently read Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.. pretty exciting and easy to read, I didn't have to look up any word (: (it's not been translated into German yet).
Currently I'm reading Dean Koontz - The Taking. Frightening Aliens-come-to-earth-and-kill-nearly-everything Book.

Btw. I decided to read only English books in order to improve my English
 
I just now started reading the Wheel of Time series.The Eye of The World is fantastic!I also read the LOTR books again as well as Starship Troopers.
 
Just started on 'The light fantastic' by Terry Pratchett after having finished 'The color of magic'. My review: Teh kool.

Though I misread Rincewinds name as 'Ricewind' for like half the first book, so for me he will always be known as Ricewind. It sounds way cooler.
 
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