Jump to content

What Books Are You Guys Reading?


Recommended Posts

Ooh, if it's as enjoyable as A World Lit Only by Fire, I'm in.
Oh it's probably more enjoyable. At first I wasn't sure because it was billed as a sort of travelogue type book. When I started reading I was thrilled when I got that he was actually "taking" us there by going to the scene of all the events and comparing them from present day to the past. There are so many amazing stories, past and present that are just fantastic. I am just amazed at the difference between the history we were taught in school vs what actually happened. It is presented in a very honest viewpoint, as he is relating the story as he discovers it himself and it has a ton of humor and insight. I highly reccomend it.The Poisonwood bible was fantastic as well and can't give it enough good reviews.
Link to post
Share on other sites
  • Replies 978
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

Popular Posts

It's fun to look up that race and see how they all turned out.

I finally started reading Moneyball yesterday. I'm about halfway through and so far it's great. I'm really happy I'm finally reading it.   It's fun to insta lookup all the players they talk about

Done and done. Man, that was epic.

So yesterday I finished Pillars of the Earth.Obviously this will ruffle some feathers since it seems everyone totes it as a masterpiece but I don't think it really was.Did I like it? Oh yeah, loved it. Great "story". Loved his characters. They were not one dimensional like Phillip who he could have made the perfect little monk but he definitely had flaws. At times I loved him and at times I was angry with him. William was a great bad guy as well. All in all I really liked the book and the story and would read again in the future.What I didn't like was how it seemed he got really bored/tired of writing towards the end and changed the pace of the novel. I won't pinpoint where because I don't feel like doing spoiler tags but with 12% to go (I read this on a kindle so that is pretty accurate) he switched gears and tried to get everything cleaned up as fast as he could. Might have been the editor who made him do that because I think if he kept his same pace for that last 12% it might have added another 250-350 pages. Wouldn't have bothered me but I know some people shy away from large books and at over 1000 pages already that might have been an issue. King does it all the time as well and it annoys the eff out of me. Ken said that the Thomas Beckett part of the book was one of the reasons he wrote the story and this was the part that seemed incredibly rushed. Also I have to say that the book was in large part about the building of the Cathedral and there was absolutely nothing more than, "well it is done". Really, the crux of the book was about the building of this grand Cathedral and it gets finished and it gets essentially a sentence in a 1000 page book? Wow, that is pretty weak. But as I said, King does the same thing so I am used to it but I don't always enjoy it. Luckily the story was amazing anyway so I can essentially look past it. Now in front of me is World Without End.

Link to post
Share on other sites
So yesterday I finished Pillars of the Earth.Obviously this will ruffle some feathers since it seems everyone totes it as a masterpiece but I don't think it really was.Did I like it? Oh yeah, loved it. Great "story". Loved his characters. They were not one dimensional like Phillip who he could have made the perfect little monk but he definitely had flaws. At times I loved him and at times I was angry with him. William was a great bad guy as well. All in all I really liked the book and the story and would read again in the future.What I didn't like was how it seemed he got really bored/tired of writing towards the end and changed the pace of the novel. I won't pinpoint where because I don't feel like doing spoiler tags but with 12% to go (I read this on a kindle so that is pretty accurate) he switched gears and tried to get everything cleaned up as fast as he could. Might have been the editor who made him do that because I think if he kept his same pace for that last 12% it might have added another 250-350 pages. Wouldn't have bothered me but I know some people shy away from large books and at over 1000 pages already that might have been an issue. King does it all the time as well and it annoys the eff out of me. Ken said that the Thomas Beckett part of the book was one of the reasons he wrote the story and this was the part that seemed incredibly rushed. Also I have to say that the book was in large part about the building of the Cathedral and there was absolutely nothing more than, "well it is done". Really, the crux of the book was about the building of this grand Cathedral and it gets finished and it gets essentially a sentence in a 1000 page book? Wow, that is pretty weak. But as I said, King does the same thing so I am used to it but I don't always enjoy it. Luckily the story was amazing anyway so I can essentially look past it. Now in front of me is World Without End.
I haven't read it for a lot of years but I don't really remember the ending feeling rushed. You are probably right though. I thought it was one of those books that was just really enjoyable to read. It didn't build up to a grand finale, but it didn't really need one, as the journey to get the end was just really enjoyable.
Link to post
Share on other sites

The Accidental Billionaires....(The Facebook Book). I guess I could have just watched the movie, but I like to read so why not the book and the movie. Sounds like Zuckerburg is a pretty strange dude but a computer genius obviously. I thought it was an entertaining read.

Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm reading the entire Douglas Adam's series now.
I'm having trouble wrapping my brain around this. How's it going? Are you enjoying them?
Link to post
Share on other sites

I've recently started reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I don't like it much yet, but it is still early. This was translated form Swedish, right? You can really tell sometimes, the writing seems really bad at times. I'll stick it out though, I'm still enjoying it a bit and everyone tells me it starts slowly.I just got Fall of Giants (Follett) from my parents for Christmas. I'm pretty excited to give it a go. It's the first of a trilogy too, which is awesome, as long as he doesn't go GRRM on us. Has anybody read FoG yet?

Link to post
Share on other sites
I just got Fall of Giants (Follett) from my parents for Christmas. I'm pretty excited to give it a go. It's the first of a trilogy too, which is awesome, as long as he doesn't go GRRM on us. Has anybody read FoG yet?
I have read a ton of bad reviews for this but I think I still will get it when the Kindle price goes down. Seems pretty interesting. I bet there is a lot of rape in it. Actually a few of the 1-star reviews on Amazon are because they think it is just porn. I am all for a good sex scene but so far what I have read in PoE and WWE, he doesn't write good sex scenes.
Link to post
Share on other sites
I have read a ton of bad reviews for this but I think I still will get it when the Kindle price goes down. Seems pretty interesting. I bet there is a lot of rape in it. Actually a few of the 1-star reviews on Amazon are because they think it is just porn. I am all for a good sex scene but so far what I have read in PoE and WWE, he doesn't write good sex scenes.
As long as he writes good rape scenes.
Link to post
Share on other sites
I have read a ton of bad reviews for this but I think I still will get it when the Kindle price goes down. Seems pretty interesting. I bet there is a lot of rape in it. Actually a few of the 1-star reviews on Amazon are because they think it is just porn. I am all for a good sex scene but so far what I have read in PoE and WWE, he doesn't write good sex scenes.
Hmm, this got me worried, so I started checking out some reviews. Seems like it is polarized on Amazon between 1-star and 5-star reviews, and a lot of the 1-stars are just moaning about the price, and haven't actually read the book. Most of the reputable book reviews that I have found (NY times, globe and mail) are giving the Book a glowing review.
Link to post
Share on other sites
?
It's odd because he's an outspoken atheist and you're you.
Finished it in July..3rd time I've read them all.
Does 'them all' include the Dirk Gently books? Last Change to See? Salmon of Doubt?
Link to post
Share on other sites

Over Christmas break I read The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson, based on a recommendation here. Very good -- it was one of the few books I kept opening in the middle and skimming large chunks of before I sat down to read it from the beginning, so I'd sort of half-read it already.I also read Neuromancer. I like the genre, I liked Neal Stephenson's Snowcrash a lot, but I don't think I like Gibson at all. Spook Country was okay but largely unmemorable to me, and I rather disliked Neuromancer.All reading from here on out will be academic, even my pleasure reading -- over break I picked up a few books on the history of the library, the novel, and reading, none of them assigned texts but all likely to be useful to have read for the program I'm in.

Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm currently e-reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.Here's some wikinfo on Henrietta Lacks.
My New Year's resolution: if I bought myself a book, or asked someone to buy it for me, then this is the year it gets read! I'm a third of the way through Asterios Polyp, and have Henrietta on my nightstand. What are your thoughts?
Link to post
Share on other sites
My New Year's resolution: if I bought myself a book, or asked someone to buy it for me, then this is the year it gets read! I'm a third of the way through Asterios Polyp, and have Henrietta on my nightstand. What are your thoughts?
I'm enjoying it. I'm only 68% through according to the ereader. It's a very interesting story and raises a lot of questions. I like how the author has emphasized the human aspect of the story. It's a story I often think about when I'm not reading the book...which is a compliment to someone or something, I guess.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished World Without End. I enjoyed it. Not as good as Pillars but all in all entertaining. I will refrain from being nitpicky though.Reading The Shining right now and then I have Game of Thrones and Freedom ready to go afterwards.

Link to post
Share on other sites
I'm currently e-reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.Here's some wikinfo on Henrietta Lacks.
Finished it...reading Packing For Mars: The Curious Science Of Life In The Void by Mary Roach now.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Asterios Polyp by David MazzucchelliThe synopsis is from Amazon:For decades, Mazzucchelli has been a master without a masterpiece. Now he has one. His long-awaited graphic novel is a huge, knotty marvel, the comics equivalent of a Pynchon or Gaddis novel, and radically different from anything he's done before. Asterios Polyp, its arrogant, prickly protagonist, is an award-winning architect who's never built an actual building, and a pedant in the midst of a spiritual crisis. After the structure of his own life falls apart, he runs away to try to rebuild it into something new. There are fascinating digressions on aesthetic philosophy, as well as some very broad satire, but the core of the book is Mazzucchelli's odyssey of style—every major character in the book is associated with a specific drawing style and visual motifs, and the design, color scheme and formal techniques of every page change to reinforce whatever's happening in the story. Although Mazzucchelli stacks the deck—few characters besides Polyp and his inamorata, the impossibly good-hearted sculptor Hana, are more than caricatures—the book's bravado and mastery make it riveting even when it's frustrating, and provide a powerful example of how comics use visual information to illustrate complex, interconnected topics. Since high school I've never had a design, drafting, or art/art history class, and I felt a lot of this book go over my head. The story lines and arc about formal design, and it's terms, I really struggled with, and felt like I missed a great deal. What I did understand and respond to is the use of negative space--both for Asterios in his designs, and in his life. This character lived his life with a large bubble of negative space (and there's some literal depiction, he had a twin who did not survive out of the womb). I also really liked the novel showing smart, really smart people struggle with their personal lives. I really, really liked this book.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Finished The Shining. Wow, the movie was not even close...now I understand all the animosity from King fans. It was decent but not one of my favorite. Now onto Game of Thrones. Read a little last night and it was okay. I hear that the first half is slow and boring but then picks up the next 2.5 books.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Finished The Shining. Wow, the movie was not even close...now I understand all the animosity from King fans. It was decent but not one of my favorite. Now onto Game of Thrones. Read a little last night and it was okay. I hear that the first half is slow and boring but then picks up the next 2.5 books.
This is like Steve's journey through Dubey's favourite books. Haven't read The Shining, but the Two Follett Books and the Song of Ice and Fire series are among my favourites.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Now seems a good time to answer a question I've been asked many times on here but have never answered. Namely, Hey Tim, what is your custom member title in reference to? (I have literally never been asked that question.) Well I'll tell you. It references this story, from Richard Feynman's autobiographical Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Feynman was a brilliant physicist, who worked on the atomic bomb, for one, as well as quantum physics, and he was also an incredible story-teller. The book's title references the fact that he was also a famous embellisher, although in the book you find out that the title also references something else. Anyway, I found this online so I figured I'd copy-paste it here. *************************************************One day I got a telephone call: "Mister, are you Richard Feynman?" "Yes." "This is a hotel. We have a radio that doesn't work, and wouldlike it repaired. We understand you might be able to do some- thing about it." "But I'm only a little boy," I said. "I don't know how-" "Yes, we know that, but we'd like you to come over anyway." It was a hotel that my aunt was running, but I didn't know that. I went over there with -- they still tell the story -- a big screwdriver in my back pocket. Well, I was small, so any screwdriver looked big in my back pocket. I went up to the radio and tried to fix it. I didn't know anything about it, but there was also a handyman at the hotel, and either he noticed, or I noticed, a loose knob on the rheostat -- to turn up the volume -- so that it wasn't turning the shaft. He went off and filed something, and fixed it up so it worked. The next radio I tried to fix didn't work at all. That was easy: it wasn't plugged in right. As the repair jobs got more and more complicated, I got better and better, and more elaborate. I bought myself a milliammeter in New York and converted it into a voltmeter that had different scales on it by using the right lengths (which I calculated) of very fine copper wire. It wasn't very accurate, but it was good enough to tell whether things were in the right ballpark at different connections in those radio sets. The main reason people hired me was the Depression. They didn't have any money to fix their radios, and they'd hear about this kid who would do it for less. So I'd climb on roofs to fix antennas, and all kinds of stuff. I got a series of lessons of ever- increasing difficulty. Ultimately I got some job like converting a DC set into an AC set, and it was very hard to keep the hum from going through the system, and I didn't build it quite right. I shouldn't have bitten that one off, but I didn't know. One job was really sensational. I was working at the time for a printer, and a man who knew that printer knew I was trying to get jobs fixing radios, so he sent a fellow around to the print shop to pick me up. The guy is obviously poor -- his car is a complete wreck -- and we go to his house which is in a cheap part of town. On the way, I say, "What's the trouble with the radio?" He says, "When I turn it on it makes a noise, and after a while the noise stops and everything's all right, but I don't like thenoise at the beginning."I think to myself: "What the hell! If he hasn't got any money,you'd think he could stand a little noise for a while." And all the time, on the way to his house, he's saying things like, "Do you know anything about radios? How do you know about radios -- you're just a little boy!" He's putting me down the whole way, and I'm thinking, "So what's the matter with him? So it makes a little noise." But when we got there I went over to the radio and turned it on. Little noise? My God! No wonder the poor guy couldn't stand it. The thing began to roar and wobble -- WUH BUH BUH BUH BUH -- a tremendous amount of noise. Then it quieted down and played correctly. So I started to think: "How can that happen?" I start walking back and forth, thinking, and I realize that one way it can happen is that the tubes are heating up in the wrong order -- that is, the amplifier's all hot, the tubes are ready to go, and there's nothing feeding in, or there's some back circuit feed- ing in, or something wrong in the beginning part -- the RF part -- and therefore it's making a lot of noise, picking up something. And when the RF circuit's finally going, and the grid voltages are adjusted, everything's all right. So the guy says, "What are you doing? You come to fix the radio, but you're only walking back and forth!" I say, "I'm thinking!" Then I said to myself, "All right, take the tubes out, and reverse the order completely in the set." (Many radio sets in those days used the same tubes in different places -- 212's, I think they were, or 212-A's.) So I changed the tubes around, stepped to the front of the radio, turned the thing on, and it's as quiet as a lamb: it waits until it heats up, and then plays perfectly -- no noise. When a person has been negative to you, and then you do something like that, they're usually a hundred percent the other way, kind of to compensate. He got me other jobs, and kept telling everybody what a tremendous genius I was, saying, "He fixes radios by thinking!" The whole idea of thinking, to fix a radio -- a little boy stops and thinks, and figures out how to do it -- he never thought that was possible.**************************************************EDIT: 2 Members: timwakefield, LongLiveYorke Holy shit! It's awesome that you're in here right now. I almost posted this in the Ask LLY thread, and was dismayed to see that you hadn't posted in here recently.

Link to post
Share on other sites

i've read that, it was fun & interesting. you should include a link to the pdf so those who are intrigued by your word bite can get there easier for the full meal. i initially assumed the underlined title was a link. then i hovered over it. it wasn't. bahstid.

Link to post
Share on other sites
i've read that, it was fun & interesting. you should include a link to the pdf so those who are intrigued by your word bite can get there easier for the full meal. i initially assumed the underlined title was a link. then i hovered over it. it wasn't. bahstid.
You make good points.The link I found had just that one chapter, but I'll do it one better. I'll upload the audiobook, which was actually how I "read" the book. The package I got it in also included a PDF (!), which I will also include. Enjoy!http://www.megaupload.com/?d=1JTP3GTZ
Link to post
Share on other sites
So yesterday I finished Pillars of the Earth.Obviously this will ruffle some feathers since it seems everyone totes it as a masterpiece but I don't think it really was.Did I like it? Oh yeah, loved it. Great "story". Loved his characters. They were not one dimensional like Phillip who he could have made the perfect little monk but he definitely had flaws. At times I loved him and at times I was angry with him. William was a great bad guy as well. All in all I really liked the book and the story and would read again in the future.What I didn't like was how it seemed he got really bored/tired of writing towards the end and changed the pace of the novel. I won't pinpoint where because I don't feel like doing spoiler tags but with 12% to go (I read this on a kindle so that is pretty accurate) he switched gears and tried to get everything cleaned up as fast as he could. Might have been the editor who made him do that because I think if he kept his same pace for that last 12% it might have added another 250-350 pages. Wouldn't have bothered me but I know some people shy away from large books and at over 1000 pages already that might have been an issue. King does it all the time as well and it annoys the eff out of me. Ken said that the Thomas Beckett part of the book was one of the reasons he wrote the story and this was the part that seemed incredibly rushed. Also I have to say that the book was in large part about the building of the Cathedral and there was absolutely nothing more than, "well it is done". Really, the crux of the book was about the building of this grand Cathedral and it gets finished and it gets essentially a sentence in a 1000 page book? Wow, that is pretty weak. But as I said, King does the same thing so I am used to it but I don't always enjoy it. Luckily the story was amazing anyway so I can essentially look past it. Now in front of me is World Without End.
Finished World Without End. I enjoyed it. Not as good as Pillars but all in all entertaining. I will refrain from being nitpicky though.Reading The Shining right now and then I have Game of Thrones and Freedom ready to go afterwards.
I really enjoyed both those books Steve. I also watched Pillars on Netflix on-demand, the recent mini series with Donald Sutherland and thought it was really well done all things considered. It was worth watching especially if you read the book. Some great acting.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

Announcements


×
×
  • Create New...