[Golden Legacy]

Just like the "What are you listening to?" thread, I thought it would be worthwhile having one for books. Whatever you may be reading at the moment, post the title/author here and let us know how it is.

Currently I'm almost done reading All The Shah's Men by Stephen Kinzer. It's a book on the 1953 CIA coup in Iran, written in the form of a thriller novel with the actual events and characters. Brilliant writing, very well-researched, fantastic insight into a side of a nation that is not widely known.

[TheEnglishman]

I'm reading From Russia With Love. Very similar to the film.

[Eugine]

Twilight. I do not recommend this book at all, as a male. =[
It's obviously catered to a female audience.

I am only reading Twilight because I want to see the movie. You see, I have a policy of always reading the book before watching a movie that is based on a book.

[Caael]

On and off Motorcycle Diaries and Reminisces of the Cuban Revolutionary war. They're hard to get into.

[Split Infinity]

Eugine, on Jul 19 2009, 04:17 AM, said:

I am only reading Twilight because I want to see the movie. You see, I have a policy of always reading the book before watching a movie that is based on a book.

I recommend 1968's eight-hour adaptation of War and Peace. :D

[Someone Else]

Just finished City of Thieves. Best book I've read in a very long time. Now reading the Good Thief. The fact they both have thief in the title is a pure coincidence.

[Toasty]

Screw books. I have magazines!

Reading CPU and WIRED. Two of the best tech magazines ever.

Except WIRED has non tech stuff too. It's more of a geek sheik kinda thing I guess.

[Laharl]

manga of Detroit Metal City

so profane. so awesome XD

FUCKING MOTHERFUCK

[Golden Legacy]

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

All I need to say here is, I was crying at the end. This book is so sad, just genuinely emotional and sad. Hosseini has brilliant storytelling as always, and I feel even more attached to the characters than in 'The Kite Runner'. I don't think I've ever read a novel that has affected me like this.

[TheEnglishman]

I want to read both of his books, they sound pretty good.
Not reading anything right now, but I have recently finished the Shining. Never seen the film but the book is creepy as all hell.

[Neo]

After having finished Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss, I have started on the Shadowplay right now, written by Tad Williams and second part of the trilogy.

I can honestly say that the Name of the Wind is by far the best book I have read in a long, long time. It's Patrick Rothfuss' first book, and he has done a wonderful job.

Shadowplay is good, better then the first. Haven't finished it yet, so we'll have to see the outcome.

[Someone Else]

Finished The Good Thief by Hannah Tinti a while ago. It was interesting... first half of the book was kind of slow. The first half basically just gave you a bunch of information but didn't really DO anything with it, but a bit after the halfway mark all of the sudden a bunch of stuff happened and all the "information" was used and wrapped things up nicely. All in all not bad, but like I said, slow at first.

Now I'm reading The Dragons of Babel by Tom Doherty. It's in a steampunk setting which I think is nice, but I'm not sure if I can say that I'm honestly enjoying it. It's not slow because it actually grasped my interest pretty early on, but I don't really understand where the story is trying to go. At this point I'm just trying to finish it to get it out of the way so I can read 25th hour by David Benioff, the same guy that wrote City of Theives. <3

[Mallick]

Just finished The Time Traveler's wife the other day. Yay Rachel McAdams.

[TheEnglishman]

I've read two James Patterson books in the last few days. Partially because of my need to spend time not thinking about results, but also because they're throughly entertaining thrillers. I've now started The Gunslinger, another Stephen King book.

[Nosferatu]

Laharl, on Jul 19 2009, 08:20 AM, said:

manga of Detroit Metal City

Man, my brain reads anything with the initials of DMC as Devil May Cry.

Starting to read Empire by Orson Scott Card.

[My Best Wishes]

Finished Pt 3 of Dean Koontz's Frankenstein series. Not nearly worth the wait and the repeated delays, I think he kind of lost interest with the story in the end.

Plot summary from Wikipedia

The series is supposedly a modern updating of the mythology of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, although the similarities are mainly superficial. Set in present day New Orleans, the series follows the activities of Victor Frankenstein, now known as Helios, as he continues to create new life forms for his own purposes. Opposed to his activities are a pair of homicide detectives and Frankenstein's original monster, now known as Deucalion.

While the original Monster was made with parts from dead humans, Victor Frankenstein is now using modern technology to create more creatures, particularly synthetic biology. The new race he is making is constructed and designed from the bottom-up, and can be seen as bio androids, artificial humans made of flesh. Their knowledge and behavior is even based on programs downloaded directly into their brain, which appears to be an advanced wetware computer.

[TheEnglishman]

Sounds interesting, though more as a one off novel than a series.
I've started reading The Gunslinger, the first part of Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. It's a strange book, with a mix of fantasy and real life. Since it's a revised edition, he puts on an introduction to the book where he says it really isn't that great. How encouraging.

[Golden Legacy]

Reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Finished 'The Golden Compass' and 'The Subtle Knife', now on the final book titled 'The Amber Spyglass'.

This could end up my favorite fantasy series ever.

[TheEnglishman]

I used to enjoy those books, they were pretty entertaining.

[Ironsight]

I finished the Eisenhorn trilogy by Dan Abentt last week. I've moved onto the Ravenor trilogy now. They're good books; a must read if you want to get to get a new look at the 40K universe.

[Golden Legacy]

Finished 'The Amber Spyglass' and the entire 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Fantasy masterpiece, profound like nothing else I've read, and the most heart-wrenching ending of any book ever. Potter who?

[Someone Else]

Oh yeah, books. I should read those again.

I used to be a huge reader, at one point I had read more than five books in one summer and had that going for a while. Last book I read cover to back was... maybe two years ago now? In any case, the last book that I can remember by title and author that was from around then was City of Thieves by David Benioff.

I think I should start reading again, I swear my vocabulary has been shrinking and maybe this is why. Right now, I have The 25th Hour (same author) and a book called Sacred Scars within reach of me. I started reading them two years ago but didn't get close to finishing. I think I'll start reading Sacred Scars first because it's part of a series.

Anybody know of any good books with themes of coming of age, generation gap, and peace and war? They don't need to have all of those, but historically I've had the most fun reading those. Preferably not fantasy books either, I'm tired of those.

But seriously, somebody on this forum needs to read City of Thieves. It's a fantastic book, I can't praise it enough. I read it in two sitting across two days, which, coming from me, me is saying a lot.

[Sea of Time]

Someone Else, on May 30 2010, 12:47 AM, said:

Anybody know of any good books with themes of coming of age, generation gap, and peace and war? They don't need to have all of those, but historically I've had the most fun reading those. Preferably not fantasy books either, I'm tired of those.

I just finished Under The Dome by Stephen King (his new one published last year), and it might not have all those things above, but it is a great straight-up story about how people react in a contained environment. King always has a great way of creating characters and the book is great for all of its 1100 pages.

You'll have to put some time into it, but don't let the length scare you away. It's one of his best books EVER. And that's big considering he hasn't put out anything semi-good in ten years or so. Check it out.

[Someone Else]

I kind of have an irrational hatred for Stephen King. I used to be a teacher's aid for my high school library, and I'd have to shelf his books practically every week. For whatever reason, the books my school bought of his had a stupid design. They were short, which meant that they'd need to be thicker to accommodate. So therefore it was a pain in the ASS to organize them and re-shelf them in these bookshelves, considering he's written a million books and they all need to be next to each other. I groaned every time I picked them up from the return bin.

But at any rate, that's an interesting premise to a story, so I'll keep it in mind.

[Moonear]

I've just started reading Slaughterhouse V for school, and it seems fairly interesting so far.

[Legolastom]

Golden Legacy, on May 30 2010, 02:28 AM, said:

Finished 'The Amber Spyglass' and the entire 'His Dark Materials' trilogy.

Fantasy masterpiece, profound like nothing else I've read, and the most heart-wrenching ending of any book ever. Potter who?

Ah yes, finished the first two books over the weekend and I am waiting for my sister to finish the third one so I can start reading it, bloody amazing books can't wait to start on the final one.

[Moonear]

I need to find an author whose works I enjoy reading, read 3 books of his/hers over the summer, and write a thesis paper about the author and the works that I read. The books also can't be in the same series.

[Saturos S.]

There was this 3 for 2 offer on English books on a popular Dutch online site so I ordered:

1. Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams (5 book set)
2. The Black Swan - Nassim Nicolas Taleb
3. Lustrum - Robert Harris

Already finished the hitchhikers guide and Lustrum and both are really good. Hitchhiker's guide is just fun for the absurdity of it all, yet quite satirical on occasion. Quite a well-known book/bbc series/movie there.

Lustrum is the sequel of "Imperium" by Robert Harris. It's a fictive book on how Cicero's career went and how Cicero felt during his career. It's really quite interesting and I would highly recommend to read both of them if you're interested in the Roman Empire and more precisely in the last days of the Roman Republic really being a republic.

As for the Black Swan, I'll try and make a start reading sometime next week, after I'm done with my exams.

[TheEnglishman]

ihatekraden, on May 31 2010, 05:21 AM, said:

I've just started reading Slaughterhouse V for school, and it seems fairly interesting so far.

I was supposed to read that for one of my lectures but I kinda missed it.

[Legolastom]

Finished the Amber Spyglass this morning, QQQQ

[Blue]

Tersias the Oracle. Its part of a series of books that started with Shadowmancer. I finally figured out the order of the books since they aren't part of a "series" Like LotR or Harry Potter