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What are you reading? *February Edition*


nobodymN

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Hm, I'm currently reading The Black Company: The First Chronicle (the first book in the series). Don't quite know what to make of it yet. I find Glen Cook's style of writing to be rather peculiar, but I suppose that I will grow accustomed to it after a while.

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Just finished Emma Bull's War for the Oaks, which was a nice, light break. Now I'm taking a break from SF for a stretch and reading Simon Schama's Landscape and Memory.

Ah! I have that in my to-read pile, since it was recommended to be by a friend. It sounds like you second this rec?

I'm reading Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff.

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Recently finished a reread of Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. Man I love that book.

Just started The checkered Career of Alexi Zorba (aka Zorba the Greek) by Nikos Kazantzakis in the original Greek. So I'm reading it very, very slowly.

Also almost finished with Memories of Ice by Steven Erikson. And am liking it a bunch.

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Just finished Graham Greene's Our Man In Havana.

Currently about two hundred pages into Neal Stephenson's The System of the World. Slightly confusing at the moment, as it's been a while since I read the first two parts of the Baroque trilogy and I think I've forgotten a fair bit of what happened in them. Not bad though.

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I am presently reading Starship Troopers. I have vague memories of the movie, but it does seem that the first half of the book is quite different (there is almost no mention of the Bugs in the book, and it seems more a commentary on the military "lifestyle", for want of a better word. Also about a soldier's function in society)

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I went through a brief reading slump where I didn't touch a book for a week or two, abandoning even those I was in the middle of at that moment. (Storm Front by Jim Butcher and Was by Geoff Ryman)

Dostoevsky's Notes From Underground got me back into the mode and right now I am breezing/chain-reading through Alice McDermott's Child For My Heart. So far it's only half finished but I have a feeling this is going to end up smack on top of the best-books-read since 1st January 2006 pile. Might even force me to pull a semi all-nighter.

Written in first person, the protagonist (an irish-catholic second generation single child residing in long island during the fifties) tells the story of the events that took place during the summer of her sixteenth year when her eight year old cousin comes to stay for the holidays. The slightly cliched plot however pales into insignificance in front of the brilliant and evocative prose, vivid descriptions of the era's lifestyle and the keen insights the author offers into Daisy's mind.

Emma Bull is great for a light-hearted, fun read.

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I'm still fighting my way through these Jude Fisher things.

Mrs Stubby thoughtfully subscribed me to monthly LOTR Battle game and I haven't opened any yet. With 52 issues now received I might start reading the rules to while away the hours before the many books Jay and Stego have recommended get released down here.

I have also ordered The War in 2020 as suggested by KSI. Hopefully it gets here soon.

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Well hopefully I'll get through my re-read of LoR by the end of February :rolleyes:

After that I am accepting suggestions on which of the following books from the pile to read next:

Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Once and Future King TH White

The Alvin Maker Series by Orson Scott Card

The Mabinogeon Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton

The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

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Just finished The Tooth Fairy by Graham Joyce. While I enjoyed it during the reading I think its one of those books that will grow in my esteem as I have time to digest it more thoroughly and which I will likely come back to again at some point. I found it to be a very honest look at growing up and all the dark wonders and dangers of that time in ones life. Its a quick read that takes the main characters from childhood through to early adulthood. He does a very good job of keeping us in touch with the changes going on in the lives of those around the children and how those changes effect them as well as how those relationships change as the children mature. The role of the tooth fairy is the part I'm still mulling over and I think that effect was Joyce's intent. Its involvement, rather real or a figment of Sam's imagination, is complex and very open to interpretation. A very well written little work that will be staying with me a long while.

Just started Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clark. Only a couple of pages into a rather large work which I've heard a variety of opinions on. Looking forward to it.

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Well hopefully I'll get through my re-read of LoR by the end of February :rolleyes:

After that I am accepting suggestions on which of the following books from the pile to read next:

Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Once and Future King TH White

The Alvin Maker Series by Orson Scott Card

The Mabinogeon Tetralogy by Evangeline Walton

The Lions of Al Rassan by Guy Gavriel Kay

I've only read three of them but I say, Lions!

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Well, February has begun by me reading three non-spec fic books:

David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty Some Day - this was a Christmas gift from my closest friend and boy did she know what to send me! This was one of the very few 'humor' books that had me stifling laughs (I was reading this late at night, when others were asleep) and the writing is just so superb as he talks about his life. Highly, highly recommended.

Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find - I remember reading a story or two of hers way back in 1992-1993 when I was a Freshman at the University of Tennessee and being a bit intrigued. I finally got around to reading this collection of hers and....damn....this was just such a powerful, powerful collection of stories. The last one in particular has left me dazed, less than 12 hours after finishing it. I'm going to review this one at length in my Blog, as I happened to notice a few surface similarities with another favorite author of mine, Kelly Link, who began telling her stories a few decades after O'Connor died. Simply a must-read for a great many people.

Rubén Darío, Azul.../Cantos de la vida y esperanza - So I have a weakness for Latin American poetry. Darío is often held up as the only poet on the Western Hemisphere that can challenge the scope and grandeur of Whitman and this omnibus collection illustrates this quite well. If this continent is ever blessed again with one with his power and abilities, the world will be richer for it.

Those are the reads so far. Still planning on finishing Isabel Allende's writing to her dying daughter, Paula, Manuel Puig's El beso de la mujer araña (The Kiss of the Spider Woman), Shashi Tharoor's The Great Indian Novel, Arturo Pérez-Reverte's Capitán Alatriste, and possibly a few others. Continuing to take a break from epic fantasies for the most part, at least until the new Erikson is released.

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Eisenhorn by Dan Abnett. I think I'm turning into a Warhammer 40 k fan.

Der Nobelpreis by Andreas Eschbach. German thriller.

Well stick with the Abnett 40k stuff, I speak from painful experience here. :-) Abnett can write, he's one of my favorite "game book" authors; most of the other 40k titles are painful.

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