What are you reading?

[freemonkey]

I just started Dissolution, by C.J. Sansom, an historical mystery set in 16th century England. The protagonist is a hunchbacked lawyer. It's the first in a series and this one centers around murders in monasteries during the Reformation.

[Watser?]

Synners by Pat Cadigan. This is the best one by her I've read so far. It's all about rock videos and brain implants and viruses and corporate takeovers and art and stuff. In a cyberpunk future.

[Ymir's blood]

Currently reading a hardcover omnibus of the first three Harry Dresden novels, by um :googlesit: Jim Butcher.

[Waluigi]

I just finished Fool Moon, book 2 of the Dresden files. I like them; the books are a little over the top, but they're entertaining, and Dresden is a nice cross between Sherlock Holmes and Dr. House.

I just started The Ice Diaries by William Anderson.

[PavlovianModel146]

I'm going to read Stephen King's (Writing as Richard Bachman) The Long Walk for the fourth time.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by PavlovianModel146

I'm going to read Stephen King's (Writing as Richard Bachman) The Long Walk for the fourth time.

I haven't read that in a couple of decades. You have inspired me, I shall read it this weekend. Thanks!

[PavlovianModel146]

Originally Posted by JEROME DA GNOME

I haven't read that in a couple of decades. You have inspired me, I shall read it this weekend. Thanks!

Jerome Da Gnome,

You're welcome, I hope that you enjoy it even more than you did a couple of decades ago. I've never really heard anyone mention this as a potential aspect of the plotline, but does it seem to you (from a hopes and dreams standpoint) that they are playing their lives in fast forward on The Walk?

[Jerome]

Ugh, I could not find it in my library. I found Skeleton Crew which is a compilation of Bachman stories. If I remember correctly The Walk was in a compilation with The Running Man.

As to your thoughts, playing their lives on fast forward, I haven't thought of that. I will examine this idea when I find my book.

[PavlovianModel146]

I'm not sure about The Running Man. The version I have is a stand-alone book.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by PavlovianModel146

I'm not sure about The Running Man. The version I have is a stand-alone book.

I found the info, it was called The Bachamn books. The compilation is now out of print and three of the four stories are currently printed separately.

Rage was taken out of print because the scene is a high school student that kills his teacher and holds his class hostage. I am sure that is the aspect that caused it to no longer be printed. I recall the interesting part was the happenings between the 'captive' students. They give their deepest darkest secrets, and I also recall the entire class turning on and killing one of their classmates in a frenzy. Kinda' a Lord of the Flies sort of reaction.

Running Man was the inspiration for that horrid Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It was a game show that people volunteered for. In the story the running man could literally go anywhere in the world. There were hunters looking all the time whilst updates and sighting would be reported on the T.V. with cash prizes for any citizen that helped catch the contestant.

There was also Roadwork which I do not recall at all.

[PavlovianModel146]

Roadwork is a terrific book that I believe I own. Let me put it to you this way, if you cannot find Roadwork, I will mail you my copy at no charge, that's how great I think this book is. Especially if you have ever had a mid-life crisis, which I have not, but it helped me identify with those who have.

[Jerome]

Thank you for your generous offer. I am sure that I have the entire compilation here somewhere. If not, I will endeavor to find it used. I now have a desire to also reread Rage in the context of the last 30 years.

[wildernesse]

I am reading 2666 by Bolano.

I'm enjoying it, but it is brutal.

[Lauri D]

Originally Posted by Waluigi

Columbine by Dave Cullen. I'm 71% (or about 300 pages) through it. It is amazing.

Everything I thought I knew about Columbine was wrong. The initial (false) media portrayal of two social outcasts targeting jocks and ethnic minorities is still alive and well today, because most of us (myself included) never bothered to read about it again.

Cullen deconstructs the entire event, everything leading up to it, and everything that happened after it. There were a couple times I had to stop reading, because what is being described is so powerful.

I read that a coupla months ago after my bf convinced me to put on my library "hold" list after reading about it in the NY Times BooK Review and knowing I was interested in the topic. I too found it amazing - although none of the revelations (i.e. things contrary to the media reportage at the time) were really truly news to me, since I had read about it extensively in between.

I did find it to be a bizarrely prescient and somewhat disturbing exposition on media and how "what we know" becomes part of the common consciousness (until something more reality-based becomes known, then everything is turned on its head).

Slightly related, if you haven't seen Gus Van Sant's film "Elephant" which alludes to the topic, you should. It's quite well directed.

[Caligulette]

Originally Posted by wildernesse

I am reading 2666 by Bolano.

I'm enjoying it, but it is brutal.

I like him very much, but he is brutal, yes.

[Wonderbread Leotard]

Teleological Theories of Mental Content by Karen Neander

[Garnet]

Originally Posted by Garnet

I'm about half way through The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins.

I couldn't finish it. The book bored me to tears. I guess my EAC membership is going to be canceled now.

[Wonderbread Leotard]

Originally Posted by Garnet

I couldn't finish it. The book bored me to tears. I guess my EAC membership is going to be canceled now.

"The God Delusion is smart, compassionate, and true . . . If this book doesn't change the world, we're all screwed." --Penn & Teller

Consider the world screwed.

At least until Dawkins' next book.

[Nullifidian]

Originally Posted by Caligulette

I am reading an Esperanto dictionary. I am sort of sad it never really took off.

If you want to test your Esperanto knowledge, here's an Esperanto translation of The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland.

Right now I'm reading Mike Davis' Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño and the Making of the Third World and the first three Aubrey-Maturin books (Master and Commander Post-Captain, and HMS Surprise in that order).

[Adam]

Meh. I thought the cover was cool, how it indicates that Atlantis is just the eastern seaboard of the US moved over into the middle of the Atlantic, but the story itself is pretty lame.

[Wonderbread Leotard]

The cover of Turtledove's Guns of the South has Gen. Robert E. Lee with an AK-47. That's sorta neat. The story has racist Afrikaners traveling back from 2012 to give trainloads of AK-47s to the Confederacy. Along with Folgers® Instant Coffee, which Gen. Lee says is good, but not the best he's had.

[Jerome]

Originally Posted by Wonderbread Leotard

The cover of Turtledove's Guns of the South has Gen. Robert E. Lee with an AK-47. That's sorta neat. The story has racist Afrikaners traveling back from 2012 to give trainloads of AK-47s to the Confederacy. Along with Folgers® Instant Coffee, which Gen. Lee says is good, but not the best he's had.

Interesting, I like alternative history mixing.

[Wonderbread Leotard]

Originally Posted by JEROME DA GNOME

Interesting, I like alternative history mixing.

It's not a bad read. The premises are WTF but Turtledove is a decent writer and good at working entertaining details into the story.

BTW, here's a preview/partial text available on Google Books:

The guns of the South: a novel of ... - Google Books

Northern Virginia is ragged and ill-equipped. The battle of Gettysburg has broken the back of the Confederacy and decimated its manpower.
Then Andries Rhoodie, a strange man with an unplaceable accent, approaches Lee with an extraordinary offer. Rhoodie demonstrates an amazing rifle; its rate of fire is incredible, its lethal efficiency breathtaking--and Rhoodie guarantees unlimited quantities to the Confederates.
The name of the weapon is the AK-47.
"As a Civil War historian, I literally could not put The Guns of the South down. It is absolutely unique--without question the most fascinating Civil War novel I have ever read. Harry Turtledove knows his Civil War. And best of all, The Guns of the South is not simply great entertainment; it is also a serious and successful effort to come to grips with the central issues of the war. It is must reading for every Civil War student."
--Professor James M. McPherson, Edwards Professor of American History, Princeton University; Author of Pulitzer Prize-winning Battle Cry of Freedom

[Demimonde]

I have discovered that my neighborhood has its own private resident run library in a tiny little building in walking distance. Hours are spotty, and they need a LOT of help, but a really worthwhile project. So I dusted off some of the old donated dogeared tomes that I never read but always meant too.

Finished Bram Stoker's Dracula, Mina Harker is the shit isn't she? Read it over the weekend while Mr. Monde was having a boy's night. Drank a couple bottles of wine and at one point I was smoking his pipe as I had run out of smokes.

Then I ate up Edgar Rice Burrough's Caspak Trilogy: The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot, and Out of Time's Abyss. Good stuff that! Can't believe I missed reading that as a kid. I hate to say it but Wieroos have replaced Morlocks in my book as nightmare fodder of the old school variety.

Now I am on to Faulkner's The Sound and The Fury, sad book so far and a challenging read. The stream of conciousness style is very effective. You get sucked into the character's heads. I am taking a break now from the odious Jason. It's like crawling in the head of my asshole Uncle Jim.

So I've been a busy bookworm. What can I say, without the internet I can read all day anymore.

[Adam]

Guns of the South is all right. How Few Remain is better. It doesn't have the goofy time machine angle, and it explores the aftermath of a successful War of Secession.