March 2010 Reading

[Spring Bass]

I finished Robert Redick's The Ruling Sea. It's the sequel to his first book in the series, The Red Wolf Conspiracy, and starts with the action that was part of a planned conspiracy in the first book.

To be perfectly honest, I remember why I was hesitant to buy this book in the first place. The first novel didn't really draw me in, and like the first one, I was skimming the second one after about halfway through.

I've got Douglas Preston's Impact on the list (hopefully Special Agent Pendergast-free), along with a re-read of The Judging Eye.

[Cuchulain]

Finished Ubik by Philip K. Dick. This novel has intertwined realities, dead people who aren't dead, time running backwards, talking doors, anti-psychics, and a lot of other crazy stuff. The writing is intelligent, funny, and imaginative, making this a real sf classic which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Next up is Italo Calvino's If On a Winter's Night a Traveler.

[Quarterman]

Finished Dance of the Dwarves by Geoffrey Household. Interesting if not discombobulating read. I don't think I entirely got it. 6/10

Started The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan.

[palin99999]

Finished:

Road Dogs by Elmore Leonard - 6.8/10

Started:

Yellow Medicine by Anthony Neil Smith

[Eyelesbarrow]

Currently reading I Married A Communist by Philip Roth. Also, Chekhov's The Princess short stories.

[BookWyrm]

Following the fantastic Dracula, I've moved on to G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. After reading the first few chapters I'm decidedly won over. This could be one of the greatest books I've ever read. The wit is incomparable and reads like a knife.

I now consider myself the luckiest person on this board to have read so many wonderful books in a row, not a crapshoot among them.

[Isis]

Following the fantastic Dracula, I've moved on to G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. After reading the first few chapters I'm decidedly won over. This could be one of the greatest books I've ever read. The wit is incomparable and reads like a knife.

I now consider myself the luckiest person on this board to have read so many wonderful books in a row, not a crapshoot among them.

Oooh, nice segue! It is great when you get a run of books that you really enjoy like that. :)

[Guinevere Seaworth]

I finished Heir of Sea and Fire by Patricia McKillip. It was nice to read the story from a female point of view. I like Raederle's stubborness, as it reminds me of my own. There still seems to be lot of "riddles" left and I'm hoping the author wraps it up nicely in the final volume, Harpist in the Wind.

[kcf]

I finished up Spellwright by Blake Charlton. It's pretty good, but has a few bumps along the road. The very creative magic system and more '90s style to it stand out the most. (full review)

Next up is The Midnight Mayor by Kate Griffin.

[mashiara]

It is great when you get a run of books that you really enjoy like that. :)

It doesn't happen very often, but when it does, it's pretty awesome, no?

I finished City of Thieves by David Benioff and I thought it was a great book. I've read a couple of books that talked about the seige of Lenningrad but I think this one did an amazing job describing what it was like. It is very well written and it manages to get its message across and make you realize the gravity and the tragedy of the situation without always assaulting and manipulating your emotions. Sometimes you see the wounds and the blood and the viscera, sometimes it's more subtle than that, and still as painful. I thought it was a great book, it's really worth reading.

I also finished Vellum by Matt Rubinstein and I wish I hadn't. It was a DaVinci Code wannabe and a lousy one at that.

Sometime tomorrow I'm going to start Greece in the Making, 1200-479 BC by Robin Osborne. It's been a few months since the last time I read a history book and I'm actually quite interested in reading a bit more about the history before the classical era.

[IheartTesla]

I am currently reading Phantoms in the Brain, which is about how the architechture of the mind relates to certain aspects of human nature. The book is intended for the layman, and is fairly accessible even for the non-scientist I would imagine. There is no overarching theme to the book, rather a series of chapters that deal with different aspects, also it mainly deals with case studies rather than statistical surveys. With those caveats in mind, I am enjoying learning more about a field of science that it far outside my own line of work.

If you could, you should also hunt up the author's (V. S Ramachandran) TED talk which is online, and might give you a flavor of what the book is about.

[BookWyrm]

Oooh, nice segue! It is great when you get a run of books that you really enjoy like that. :)

Definitely! :thumbsup:

Since most of my life I've read generic fantasies, i've left quite a bit of superior work untouched. No longer. I'm just hoping I'll be able to keep this run of excellence going for a bit longer.

[Isis]

Last spring I read:

Air - Geoff Ryman

The Limits of Enchantment - Graham Joyce

Sharp Teeth - Toby Barlow

Climbers - M J Harrison

on the spin - I felt a little bit like my head was on fire. In a good way. :)

Actually, this year I've read Memoirs of a Master Forger/The Gone-Away World/The Little Friend almost back-to-back - makes you glad to be alive. I'll come back and say something about the latter two in the near future...

There's reading that's fun and reading that passes the time and then there is reading that sends you to another level.

[Eponine]

I've been reading more since I got my Kindle (and I got an ipod shuffle at my company meeting, so I'm just loaded down with new gadgets right now!)

I read Why I Believed: Reflections of a Former Missionary by Ken Daniels. I talked about it more in the religion thread in Gen Chat, but basically the author seems like a very thoughtful person whose book grew out of expressions of his desire to be heard and understood by people he cared about. Thus, the tone is more of a request to have people try to see where he's coming from rather than being snarky or critical toward Christians. That makes it perfect for anyone who has had to deal with leaving a religion and having family and friends be upset and confused.

I read Black Boy by Richard Wright and am rereading Blood Meridian. The first time I read Blood Meridian, I guessed over some of the unfamiliar words and locations, and now I'm reading more carefully.

I'm in the middle of reading some Nabakov short stories, and I'm still at the end of Ulysses. I only have about 30 pages to go, but set it aside about a month ago. I've actually thought it was great, and I'd like to reread it more carefully, although not right away. I find that if I'm generally enjoying a book but am in danger of getting bogged down by difficult parts, reading it lightly one time to get a general sense of what's going on makes it easier to come back to.

[Dunhallym]

I've finished Pride and Prejudice.

I then went with Le gentilhomme au pourpoint jaune, 5th or 6th in the Alatriste series by Arturo Perez-Reverte. It didn't disappoint.

After that I read Kundera's L'insoutenable légèreté de l'être (The unbearable lightness of being). A wonderful read.

And I'm now enjoying Abraham's A betrayal in winter.

[BookWyrm]

I just finished G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday. It treat me like a strobe-light. It's always changing, in a deliberate, meaningful way. Just when I thought I was beginning to grasp the import of one thing, an event would happen so to invert the meaning of all events up to date. This plot-folding technique is a tool that only the strongest literary smiths can wield. Chesterton throws them around with *every sentence*. There is always a dualistic nature behind the events in The Man Who Was Thursday and the novel is never what it seems, until the very last page, and even then the pattern of change is so engraved in the mind that one can't help but questioning the cosmic notions concerning the story.

Moreover, the whole book is delivered in a fast-paced romp that plays on detective novels and thrillers. At turns hilarious and frightening, Chesterton doesn't deliver an emotion less than ardent. I highly recommend it.

This is one of the few books I've read that actually made me feel wiser after reading it.

[Quarterman]

Finished The Strain. Though the airport sequence was freakin intense I was overall very underwhelmed. It had too much cinematic appeal rather than literary enjoyment. 6/10

Started The House of the Brandersons by Raymond Rudorff.

[Larry.]

Finished one, reading three others right now:

Gail Carriger, Changeless - very entertaining second volume. Might write a full review this weekend.

Karin Lowachee, The Gaslight Dogs - 3/4 done. Solid, so far, but not spectacular. Not that I was expecting that, though.

Italo Calvino, Il sentiero dei nidi di ragno - Read it in English last year, now reading it in Italian.

J.K. Huysman, The Damned - just began.

[Wormwood]

Finished "The sad tale of the brother Grossbart" by Jesse Bullington a few days ago. Overall I enjoyed it tremendously.

Now onto either "The Magicians" by Lev Grossman or "Already dead" by Charlie Huston.

[ambyr]

Just started Scholes's Lamentation, and the best word I can think of for it is. . .clunky. Does it get better, or should I abandon it? I've already read two crappy books in the past month (Havemercy, Pashazade); I'm not sure I have the strength of will to wade through a third.