Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[SirAaronIII]

Huckleberry Finn. I love how in the prologue thing it says stuff about people finding morals in the book being shot, yet teachers still make students do just that. The accents are kind of throwing me off though.

Also I keep confusing it with To Kill A Mockingbird.

[Vector]

The Fourth Hand.

Read a different John Irving book.  This one is a lot funnier than most, but the plotting is also a hell of a lot weaker.

[The Merchant Of Menace]

Right now, Revelation.
Because my life was lacking books about Lawyers.

Edit: Scratch dat' I am now reading Dissolution, because it makes much more sense to read the first book in a series before the fourth

[Solifuge]

After pushing it off since highschool, I'm finally getting around to reading the "Song of Ice and Fire" series by George R.R. Martin. I needed a break from "A Brief History of Time" and "Civilizations", but I'll likely be getting back to them soon.

[Vector]

Just starting A Son of the Circus, which will be the 8th (of 12 total) John Irving novels I will have read; almost all of those I started and finished this year.  Just finished The Fourth Hand.

Call it addicted behavior, if you like.  I'm just glad that I'm finally back to reading fiction/literature seriously, at least 50 pages a day.  After Irving (this is, regrettably, the last book of his that I own, so at the very least I'll have to take a little break) I'll probably get back to working on Shakespeare and Moliere, maybe the Bronte sisters or (shudder) Ayn Rand.  There's something really satisfying about just sitting down and going through a single author, one book at a time.  It creates a coherence and stability my life tends to lack.  Possibly because I study too wide a variety of subjects, but that's not especially important here.  Reading!  It's fabulous!

(Punny derivative from the word "fable" intentional)

So, I highly recommend the novels, though I'll admit that I'd have to slap wall-to-wall trigger warnings on the things.  For pretty much everything, for pretty much every book--so if you're easily triggered, skip 'em.  There's loads of other great books out there =)

[Lord Shonus]

Huckleberry Finn. I love how in the prologue thing it says stuff about people finding morals in the book being shot, yet teachers still make students do just that. The accents are kind of throwing me off though.

No, no, no. It's people who look for a plot that will be shot. People looking for orals are scheduled for banishment.

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Reading Ulysses.


What is going oooooooooooooon?

You're a far braver man than I. Godspeed.

It's one of the few books I haven't been able to just blast through in a night or two. I refuse to be beaten though. Any book this weird is worth the battle.

[Jashugan]

I'm endeavoring to read every winner of the yearly Hugo Award for Best Novel.  I expected to find some really great reads, but so far I've been pretty disapointed.  A few really great books, but for the most part they have been just "alright/pretty good".  I'm currently in the middle of A Case of Conscience by James Blish and Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang by Kate Wilhelm.  And I'm rereading Ultimates 2 and Blade of the Immortal on the non-Hugo comic book front.

Finished reading I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream.  Kind of disappointing.  Decent enough story...  But it was brief, and the writing style was pretty disjoint.  I guess I expected something more from such an iconic story.

There's more Ellison stories in that book, but I'm not sure I want to read them right now.  I was really kind of looking for some good sci-fi...  Something like Dune or Neuromancer or Snow Crash or Starfish...  And I definitely didn't get that from this story. 

Don't know that I'm in the mood to read more stories in the same vein.

I'm kind of feeling like I did when I've tried to read the LotR books.  Such iconic stories that are beloved by so many people, and I don't like them...  Feels like I'm going to be asked to turn in my geek card or something.

Though I havent read the Harlan Ellison story you are referring to, I would agree with your assessment of his writing.  Seems like he has a lot of amazing ideas, but he really doesnt do a good job of pulling it together into a cohesive whole.

If you liked Dune and Neuromancer (both Hugo winners, by the way) I'd recommend these other standouts from the list:  Stranger in a Strange Land*, Starship Troopers*, and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress all by Heinlein, Rendezvous With Rama by Arthur C. Clarke(avoid the sequels like the plague!), and Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

*Both of these recommendations come with disclaimers from me that readers will likely not get what they expect. 

[Maggarg - Eater of chicke]

Stranger in a Strange Land is an... interesting read. Still don't know if I actually like it at all. Yes, I'm aware I passed up a great opportunity to say that I don't grok it.

[Kaleb702 Games]

Rereading Guardians of Ga'Hoole. A really nice series; a shame it was so short.

[Bohandas]

Various short stories by Jorge Luis Borges

[Jashugan]

Stranger in a Strange Land is an... interesting read. Still don't know if I actually like it at all. Yes, I'm aware I passed up a great opportunity to say that I don't grok it.

I understand where you're coming from.  I actually had to try three times to finish the book.  The first time I tried it I absolutely hated where it went about 2/3 of the way through and quit reading.  I guess by my third attempt, I was prepared for what was coming.  I finally finished it and thoroughly enjoyed the ending.  Still not my favorite Heinlein book by any means though. 

[ChairmanPoo]

Update on the lat ringbearer: it's gray vs gray. Liking it quite a bit so far. It could work quite well as a standalone novel without lotr as background

Orcs are actually arab analogues, and human. They get vilified by gandalf, who's something of a luddite fanatic, in order to justify a genocidal war against them
Elves are much closer to the traditional fae
Aragorn is a machiavellian schemer and a necromancer, of all things, but not really evil
And so on...

[varnish]

Lately I've been trying to find some good, modern short story writers. It's not something I know a lot about, unfortunately. My knowledge of fiction tends to get spotty after 1960 or so, leaving out genre fiction. Any suggestions?

[Grimshot]

 The next three books I plan to buy and read are: Professional Guide to Diseases, Introduction to Cryptography with Coding Theory (2nd Edition), and The Art of Deception: Controlling the Human Element of Security.