What Are You Reading?

[null1024]

I started reading The Dictator's Handbook: A Practical Manual For The Aspiring Tyrant, by Randall Wood & Carmine DeLuca. Just came in the mail.

It looks at the actions and situations of various dictators throughout the years, and arranges them into a semi-tongue-in-cheek instructions manual for becoming a tyrant. The presentation makes this very interesting -- a great deal of the material inside would be very dry to read if it weren't presented this way. It's really fascinating.

[KAI]

Zaregoto: The Kubikiri Cycle. Incidents on an island full of geniuses. Love it. Hope to finish it tomorrow and start reading the second book.

[Frenetic]

I've been looking for other great epic fantasy after reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, and I've come to:

The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Great book...beginning reminds me of the grittiness in Heinlein's _Citizen of the Galaxy_ but then goes into different territory, as unique of a fantasy realm as Name of the Wind. I think it's the way that Lynch tells a story. Highly recommended.

--F

[CStarFlare]

I just finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Liked it a lot, I'm sad that Larsson died before he could finish the other novels he had planned. At least I still have the next two to get through, which probably won't happen for a while.

I started reading Edgar Wallace's The Double. Found an old timey copy in an antique shop for a dollar and thought it looked good enough to try out. Looking forward to it.

I'm also in the middle of Fast Food Nation. It's slow reading, maybe because I've gotten the feeling that it's kind of a downer.

[system11]

I'm reading Metro 2033 after being inspired by playing the excellent games. Being a translation some parts are worded interestingly, I'm finding the game helps me to visualise the book.

[drauch]

Garfield Blots Out The Sun -- maybe the worst thing I've ever read.

Love your edits.

[Ed Oscuro]

"The Roof Tile of Tempyo"

Talk about not respecting Chekov's Gun - a good book and I feel a bit ambivalent about the translation and the translator's note. There certainly was a lot of work put into it, but it's still a clunky translation at times. But this complements the somewhat clunky style of it. Regardless, the author does what he sets out to do brilliantly. It is very strange how the years pass by with little of the customary reflections; nevertheless, the characters are very interesting and well fleshed-out. A very interesting read in that it proved to me that you can basically disregard all of the popular conventions of the novel but still write a good story. The story of Gyogo, the monk driven to copy all the sutras for shipment back to Japan, is haunting.

I'm also in the middle of Fast Food Nation. It's slow reading, maybe because I've gotten the feeling that it's kind of a downer.

Yesss. Eric Schlosser has since released a book about nuclear weapons. Hoping to pick that one up sometime.

[Damocles]

Live and Let Die

[SuperGrafx]

Drizzled to Death

[CMoon]

Reading 'Brew Like a Monk' right now, coz my home brew hobby is going pretty ape shit right now and I love Belgian beers. Wish I was reading some compelling fiction right now, but no.

[lilmanjs]

Tom Clancy's Net Force. Its a good starting point for the other authors of the series to go from. Even if a good bit of the tech isn't around at the time frame the series takes place in.

[Octopod]

Who Fears the Devil? - Manly Wade Wellman

[Ko.oS]

The Devil You Know (2011, german translation)

mildly amusing

[Obiwanshinobi]

The Golden Bough - reminds me of the infamous Herodotus' Germanic elk hunt description. In other words, some of them natives might have pulled Sir Frazer's leg.
Not the first time I read it, but here's hoping I'll finish this time around. As usual, waiting for the revelation of how some Africans are supposed to keep boys' foreskins after circumcision for the sake of making rain fall when needed - unnerving.

Re-read most Conan stories by Howard recently.

[Acid King]

Picked up the EC Archives: Shock Suspenstories vol. 1, two new Parker novels (The Outfit and the Mourner), and an e-book version of Alan Nourse's The Bladerunner.

Shock Suspenstories is the bee's knees. It's so pulpy and over the top, with some truly crazy twists (A bear skins a hunter for fuck's sake!). The artwork is gorgeous, even if the coloring is pretty intense. I've never seen the original coloring but damned if it was bright as this is. I don't know if I prefer the Fantagraphics artist compendiums just because of the nice clean black and white versions of the art, but both have their charms.

I just started the Outfit last night and I'm already sucked in to it. Westlake was a god among men. Such tight prose and snappy dialogue, I've already burned through a big chunk of it. I'll probably finish it and the Mourner by the end of the week.

I also saw that the Bladerunner was available for kindle so I snapped it up. I've never felt like paying $20+ for an old copy of it, but $3 is more than decent to be able to read it. I've yet to dig too deep in it, just the first few chapters, but the plot synopsis and the William S Burroughs version of the story have me pretty excited for it anyway.

[President_Obama]

I dislike Christopher Hitchens intensely, but I'm enjoying his book about Bill and Hilary Clinton
No One Left To Lie To : The Values of The Worst Family.
No mention of Bill Clinton's role in the Mena Arkansas end of the Iran/Contra scandal, but interesting enough so far.

[lilmanjs]

Leviathans of Jupiter by Ben Bova.
Picked up a book of his last summer for something to read for the adult summer reading program at the local public library and fell in love with him. So I've read about 4 books of his since then, and just started this one. Sounds interesting.

[Blinge]

House of Leaves - Mark Z. Danielewski

yah dahling it's so postmodern yahh. pretty po mo.

I'm really enjoying this book, it's funny and playful and tense and mysteeeeeerious.
So it's basically about a guy that finds a book about a film about a house. It also reads for the most part like a bogus academic text.
Look, i'm pretty much incapable of writing an intelligent or verbose recommendation without wanting to vomit so this is all I got, really. I wouldn't be surprised if it already appears in this thread actually, I know JWS stayed up all night to read it in one sitting, which is quite an accomplishment.

[Obiwanshinobi]

The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales by Bruno Bettelheim. All controversies aside, as the English title itself hints - it's not very well written. Must read nonetheless.

[soprano1]

Finishing book 4 of The Dresden Files. Also reading The Blade Itself, first book in The First Law trilogy, by Joe Abercrombie. I love Glokta's monologues so far.

[CStarFlare]

I'm going to grad school in the UK, so I thought I'd read a little bit about it. A guy from my state wrote a book called An American Looks at Britain (and I could get it for under a buck on Amazon) so I picked it up and have been working through it. Interesting read, though now that it's 25 years old I'm not sure if it's relevant. I'm learning a bit about Thatcher, though.

[Xyga]

I'm learning a bit about Thatcher

Know true evil.

-----

Been re-reading most of Asimov's works (Robots+Foundation+peripheral) I had not touched since the mid-90's.

Deceptively simplistic and primitive at times, and when you're not expecting it a character drops a fucking sharp and brilliant idea like a kick in the balls.
Half dated, half more newsworthy than ever.

[Stevens]

I just finished Shibumi. 300+ pages of great character development before the roller coaster goes over the top.

[CStarFlare]

I'm learning a bit about Thatcher

Know true evil.

Reading it I'm having a hard time getting an idea of why she gets the amount of hate she gets, but the author's not at all a critic of hers so that's not surprising. I'll have to read a book about her time in power specifically if I want to know about that specifically.

But right now, my main goal is to work through my paper books before I leave so I can just get rid of them without regrets. I think this is doable, aside from Gravity's Rainbow which is probably never going to happen in any format.

[Skykid]

Finally broke my block of never being able to read the same book twice.

After 17 years I re-read The Running Man. 17 years ago I read it in day, yesterday I read it in day. As it happens, Stephen King (as Richard Bachman) wrote it in a day.

If you haven't read this, do so right goddamn now. It is absolutely fucking amazing from start to finish. The ultimate dystopian sci-fi game show action adventure. Just glorious.

Again, it is completely different to the Schwarzenegger movie in every respect, and a thousand times superior. I've read plenty of Stephen King, but for my money this is still the jewel in the crown.

[Never_Scurred]

Recently Read: Cloud Atlas
Excellent book. Heard alot of things about before I manned up and gave it a read. People seem to make this book out to me more than it is, calling it a "puzzle" book with a "complex structure", but it wasn't the structure that challenged me. This book is thick on detail and it can be difficult to follow at first, but it all comes together and gets easier once you make it past the first story.

Now Reading: The Bone Clocks
So far, so good.

Next Up: The Dice Man and Cronenberg's Consumed once it comes out in trade paperback.

[jonny5]

After at least a decade of barely reading anything, getting a Kindle has me back at it.

Recently read through Richard Morgan's 'Takeshi Kovacs' Trilogy. Had read Altered Carbon when it came out but hadn't known there were 2 more that came out after it. Great stuff!! Highly recommended writer.

After that decided to go back to an ol' favorite, William Gibson. Started by reading the Bridge trilogy, which was just as great as I remembered, and now I'm onto the Sprawl Trilogy again.

Before all of those I read most of Philip K Dick's novels and short stories again.

The convenience of the e-reader is phenomenal. Wish I had gotten one when they came out.

[dink]

Re-reading the march 2014 issue of Circuit Cellar

[Cata]

This book is dense (in a good way!)

[Ghegs]

Today I finished a journey I started somewhere in late 2012. I decided to read through every single Classic BattleTech novel, in story-chronological order, which amounts to 60+ novels. And today, just a little while ago, I finished Endgame, the last one.

It's been a ride. I tend to like the kind of sci-fi that's less about aliens and weird worlds and more about what humanity might be like in the future. Probably still fighting each other, only with spaceships and bigger guns. Honor Harrington books, Legend of Galactic Heroes on the anime front, that sort of thing. BattleTech fits the profile perfectly. And though I came for the cool mech fights, I stayed for the politics and characters.

It was great seeing the world and characters change as novels progressed and the in-universe time passed on. Wars were fought, people died, their children aged and came into power themselves, new groups popped up only to be struck down many years down the line, huge events shaped the whole known space. Such long-term world-building gave the universe a good foundation and a feeling of realism, that the setting wasn't simply made up for a handful of stories. Despite the number of novels, some factions still didn't many or any novels focusing on them, and some plotlines were left dangling. This is at least partially due to the fact FASA simply closed up in 2001, but luckily some of the writers managed to get permission and resources to finish the big storyline at the time in a respectful fashion.

Though the series had lots of different writers, I'd say the quality was overall on the good side. There were a small handful of novels that were a bit bland, but only one that I absolutely disliked, because it took some liberties with the philosophy of the source material and made the whole thing feel like any generic sci-fi story. Luckily, the vast majority of writers did a good job, with Michael Stackpole doing most of the imporant novels, the ones that moved the overall story forward.

The universe does continue in the BattleTech: Dark Age novels, though there's an 80-year gap between Endgame and Ghost War, the first novel of that brand, again by Stackpole. I'll probably read at least a few of first novels from that series as well.