Sandsnake Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I just finished reading The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. I cried a couple of times.. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
daunpunk Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I'm currently reading Pinker's How the Mind Works and Park's A Princess of Roumania. Next up are Pinker's The Blank Slate and Priest's The Prestige. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The White Bull Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Oh, hey. That's pretty cool. I bought this when it came out (Mr. X is reading that copy now) and I was solidly impressed. There were issues with pacing and characterization, but on the whole I LOVED the poet/andat relationship, and I loved the "pose" system of communicating. I'm curious to see what the next books brings. Even if DORNE PWND HIGHGARDEN. I'm not sure what you meant in the last bit, I hope it's not what I think it is. Wait, yes I do. AFFC will continue to wait. Glad to hear you liked it Xray, I'll be sure to post more about it when I'm done. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Ian McEwan's Atonement. A great read. I specially liked the bit concerning the WW2, reminded me of Sebastian Faulk's Birdsong. The ending was a bit abrupt but I didn't really mind - the purpose of the story had been fullfilled by then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sandsnake Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 So I go to a bookstore and I see Sarah Dunant's "The Birth of Venus", and I buy it because it sounded familiar.- I think I read something about it here. I then realized that I was thinking of her other novel "In the Company of the Courtesan". Anyway, English is my second language and I can't say I'm enjoying this book very much because I keep stopping to look up words I will continue reading the book, only because I'm learning a lot of new words from it, not because I'm enjoying the read. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sir Thursday Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I have to make a decision between Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys and the first two books of Jack Vance's Lyonesse Trilogy...I really didn't read very much last month, must make up for that in the coming weeks before I'm off to uni... Sir Thursday Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yana Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I just finished Empress by Shan Sa and Queenmaker by India Edghill. Both are quite nice, but very light read. Not much thinking required, which suites me just fine at the moment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I'm not sure what you meant in the last bit, I hope it's not what I think it is. Wait, yes I do. AFFC will continue to wait. Glad to hear you liked it Xray, I'll be sure to post more about it when I'm done. At WorldCon, we had a human chess match. GRRM chose Dorne, and Daniel Abraham (author of a Shadow in Summer) got Highgarden. GRRM/Dorne won the match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Werthead Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Spin. Time to see what the fuss is about. So far, so Childhood's End. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartTesla Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 I just started rereading the original Wildcards novel. Mainly because it was the first book that fell out of my boxes of packed stuff from my move. While the concept is novel, the writing is uneven (since it's a collaborative event), and some authors bug more than most. The afterword by GRRM is interesting in how the book came about, from RPG games he would play with his friends at Cons and whatnot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Herbie of High Heart Posted September 2, 2006 Share Posted September 2, 2006 Dread Empire's Fall series by Walter Jon Williams. I needed a break from the fantasy stuff for a while. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Dracarys Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Currently reading: Collapse by Jared Diamond Just finished: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond and False Fods by Graham McNeill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Multaniette Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Finished F. Paul Wilson's The Keep. Minor Spoilers might follow. SPOILER: My ImpressionIt was a page turner that left me feeling oddly unsatisfied at the end. The concept of The Keep itself was brilliant. The execution felt... lacking. Wilson is neither a sucessful character-builder nor a particularly crafty wordsmith. Even so, the atmosphere matched the pace pretty perfectly for the first half of the story. However, once the author widened the focus of the story, the narrative quickly lost its tightness, flow and initial appeal as a haunted-mansion-with-a-certain-twist, turning into a generic good vs. bad with the obligatory romance and the single fullfilling sex scene. (heroine's first time - coming at the heels of two rape attempts at that) Overall, it could have been a much better novel if it were 50-75 pages shorter and more focused. 6/10 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eperitos Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Reading Demons by Dostoevsky. As is usual with him, it is fantastic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Usotsuki Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Rory Stewart's Occupational Hazards, the slightly self-serving but darkly amusing memoirs of a British diplomat sent to run an Iraqi province with nothing more than a few words of conversational Arabic and ten million dollars a month in cash. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kuwa Slayne Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I just started teaching high school English so I am getting a large dose of the Native American origin myths and the Puritan Influence. On the bright side I am also teaching British lit. and we just finished Beowulf. Starting the Medieval period next week. Can't wait. Also, my girlfriend got me a copy of Sandkings. Just finished "The Way of Cross and Dragon," and started "Bitterblooms." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lokisnow Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 currently reading (pecking away at): The Untold Story of Milk - Ron Schmid good stuff, cracks some myths early on about the origins of animal husbandry and then outlines pretty well all the fascinating changes the white stuff went through from 1850s-1950s. Love agricultural related histories like this, it often tells you as much about societies, culture and politics indirectly than you get from straight up traditional history. Plus you learn how all that stuff affects real people and their role was in making history, rather than just synopsis of who we currently believe were the movers and shakers of an era. Tending the Wild - M Kat Anderson A history of Indian agricultural management in California. the tribes here weren't hunter gatherers and are largely responsible for biodiversity of the area through 12,000 years of highly sophisticated land management and human intervention in the so called 'wilderness'. The Food that We Eat - Iqaluich Nigingnaqtuat Available online, third item down in the Northwest Artic subheading: http://alaska.fws.gov/asm/fisreportdetail.cfm?fisrep=21 Fantastic history of the animal sources of food of the Alaskan Inuit, amazing culture, incredibly resourceful. And current bed time re-reading (a chapter each usually) A Feast for Crows Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. On deck is the rise and fall of the third Reich and the first Scott Bakkar book. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry. Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 I'm not reading much spec fic this time of the year. Still mostly finishing off leftovers from previous years until I have some money stockpiled for new purchases in a month or two. But here goes: Vergil, Aeneid (Latin) - I never did finish reading all 12 books in Latin back when I was studying that language in college, so I'm slowly working my way through it. Really enjoying the rhythm and flow of words as I recite it in my head. Rumi, The Essential Rumi - Currently making my way through the English translation of this 13th century Persian Sufi poet. Some truly amazing passages in here. I wonder how they'd sound in the original Persian. Boccaccio, The Decameron - It's been almost 10 years since I've read this collection of tales, so I'm reading them a few at a time so that I can remember why Boccaccio is one of the most influential storytellers from the pre-Renaissance era. John Lukacs, The Hitler of History - After going almost 9 years without reading any books in my former area of study (I burned out so bad that I dropped out of grad school after earning my MA), I decided to start reading at my leisure this historiographical account of the development of research into Hitler and the National Socialist movement. Good so far, maybe I'll review it in full later. Robert Jordan, Crossroads of Twilight - I've had the book for almost 4 years and I thought why not do a MST 3000 treatment to it over at wotmania, so I've been slowly reading this. Maybe it's because I'm having fun with the weird pop cultural references thrown in as I read it, but this book isn't half as dreadful as I heard it to be. Not saying that it's a good book (too many descriptions, repetitive dialogue from earlier books, poor characterization, etc.), but that it isn't like the second coming of Pillars of Creation. I'll probably finish it in a couple of days. And time permitting, I'll read some more of the Serbian translation of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I have cool friends there in Vojvodina Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ser Barry Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 The Lies Of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch I can confirm that it is both the shizzle and the nizzle. Great, entertaining start to a series with the promise of even greater things to come. Do yourself a favour and read it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Working through a Weis and Hickman Dragonlance re-hash as I try to figure out who was Usha exactly, what the deal was with Raistlin in the end and how the hell the series got as confused and screwed up as it did, even though I enjoyed it... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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