I never could get into Joyce

Commuting/gym read - Anno Dracula by Kim Newman
Bedtime read - Grunts by Mary Gentle
Further reading - Motel Of The Mysteries by David Macaulay

and currently collecting Dial H For Hero (China Mieville's comic-writing debut), Saucer Country, and Saga. Plus a shitton of graphic novels. But all of these things take half an hour to read, so are a little less constant than actual books.

I enjoyed Dial H and Saucer Country! Saucer Country particularly, makes me nostalgic for the X-Files.

War is a force that gives us meaning by Chris Hedges.

Do not recommend. Basically articulated things that I already knew.

I *was* reading "The Wolf Gift" but thanks to my public library's effed up system, I've had it for 2 weeks, it is due today, and I am unable to renew it because they consider it a "new release". Being a student with other responsibilities keeping me from being able to read 24/7, I got about three quarters of the way through it. Lovely.

Saya, that really sucks about the Slut Walks meaning getting lost. Communion looks like an interesting book from that excerpt.

I'm currently reading A Feast For Crows by George R.R. Martin. It's the fourth book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. If you're looking for happy endings and fairy tales, choose a different series.

Kissed by Darkness by Shea MacLeod.

Before that was Sins of the Father by RJ Palmer.

Both fellow indie authors.

All Quiet On The Western Front.

Handmaiden's Tale

Handmaid's Tale? Love that book to pieces, I really need to get it back.

Finished All Quiet On The Western Front, and since its a given that I won't be sleeping tonight as a result, finally reading Sister Outsider by Audre Lorde.

At long last.

I just started Ishmael.

I haven't finished yet, but the reviews said it didn't really have an ending, which is a bummer.

Sort of, in that you're not really sure what happens but its not on a down note. There's a floptastic low budget movie that had a more solid ending so I just take that for headcanon.

The Lathe Of Heaven by Ursula Le Guin.

I'm finishing "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. I love these two authors dearly. I have also started reading book 4 of the Rogue Agent series by K. E. Mills (the title of the book evades me at the moment), which seems to continue the series' tried and tested formula of ridiculously funny fantasy, but somewhat brainless entertainment. A perfect book for the first few weeks after a set of utterly exhausting exams, in other words. :)

Siddhartha.

Just read The Parable Of The Sower by Octavia Butler. Its like, what, the third book I read all in one day since my YA years? And one of those was Metamorphosis so it doesn't really count. I feel like it was a bit of a brain overload to read in one day and really depressing, but I'll definitely read her other books.

Got The Left Hand Of Darkness by Ursula Le Guin to start tomorrow.

Just finished reading Horace Walpole's Gothic novel, The Castle of Otranto (1764). Generally regarded as the first gothic novel. A mixture of comedy and tragedy. If you have previously been put off reading 'classic' literature composed of antiquated language, then fear not, despite being written such a long time ago the novel is very readable. Further the novel is barely one hundred pages in length.

A Game of Thrones.

And presently, skimming the Avadhut Gita.

I just started The Damnation Game by Clive Barker. So far I really like the way he's set up the story, and I'm curious about how it all pans out.

Good Omens! I love that book! My copy is currently kidnapped by one o' my girlies....She best give it back. My summer isn't complete unless I re-read it.


As for what I am reading: Sandman. (I'm reading spooky comic books...Can I be one of the cool kids now? :p) I find Death adorable and I want to be just like her when I grow up.

I like J K Rowling's book. It really great. A type of fantasy book.

I just got finished reading Lonely Werewolf Girl by Martin Millar for the second time. Too funny!
I'm waiting on a bunch of books to get delivered to me, so I read the interwebs until then! Or maybe give Divergent by Veronica Roth yet another read... :)

Racism Without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in the United States by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva.

A handmaid's tale.
Hating every line of this book. Great idea but VERY poor production and writing.

Bwah? Atwood is a fantastic writer!

EDIT: You have every right not to enjoy it, of course! Its also not something I'd recommend to any non-North American people, as its a very political reflection of American conservativism in the eighties. If its your first Atwood I'd probably recommend another dystopian like Year Of The Flood.

The reason I didn't like it is mainly the way it's written, the story is great. The main character [Offred] is not, however. She is very stupid and it was very hard for me to like her.
The structure of the paragraphs and jumps from narrating and memories were very 'ungraceful' .. I'm not a literature geek but I've read my share of books.. and this one isn't my cup of tea in terms of way of writing.

Anyway... I just finished The Handmaid's Tale and I started American Psycho.

Ooooh okay, sorry, usually when someone says something was badly written I start thinking in terms of things like grammar or redundancy or things like that and not necessarily chronological format, you know?

In that case I don't think I can recommend much Atwood, most of her books do that. The only one I can think of that didn't was Moral Disorder, which was an anthology of short stories that were all about different stages in a character's life. It was okay over all, the only story I really loved though was the one where the character is reading to her dying father.

Anyway, just finished Racism Without Racists, should be required reading. Was really shocked to learn how many people aren't okay with interracial marriage, integration or affirmative action.

Reading St. Francis by Nikos Kazantzakis, not sure if I'll finish it, its well written and I like some stuff about it, but Francis's character development is weird. Like he goes straight from worldly rich boy to self-flagellating saint with no in between.

Wuthering heights by Emily Bronte for the umpteenth time... <.< >.>

About to start on The Invisibles. I've been looking forward to this one for a loooong time :D

Just finished Sandman 6: Fables And Reflections.

Hi,
I don't like reading because I like in doing things. To me this thread is like a review of my life. Basically i am practical man, but now I am reading, not books but my past life.

FM 3-20.15 (Tank Platoon)

Finished Beloved by Toni Morrison, took me a while because its just that sad. But it was really really good.

Now reading This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color.

The Count of Monte Cristo
 

i think this thread is very helpful to know about good books to read. i have bought 'The Count of Monte Cristo' by Alexander Dumas last month. yet not completed, i keep reading a chapter per a day. it is very interesting.

^^ Agreed. Lo, he returns for his occasional visit. Right now I am in the middle of Res Gestae Divi Augusti, but I am a nerd. Also working on Rhineman's Histories of the Crusades. I will be a perpetual student, I do believe.

Just finished The Hunger Games. There were many discrepancies between the book and the movie.

Just finished reading a fantastic anthology called Enter at Your Own Risk: Fires and Phantoms. My review...

Although gay-themed writing has come out of the closet in the last decade, there seems to be a self-imposed closet in the genre. For some reason, much of it strays into the bodice-ripper territory of the Harlequin Romance penny novel. We are traveling down a nice plot and STOP INSERT EROTIC comes along. Enter At Your Own Risk: Fires and Phantoms breaks that mold with a fantastic collection of Gothic ghost tales of the gay flavor.

There is the touch of erotic here and there. There is love lost and love avenged. Some come out of the closet and some wish they had. There are two stellar Gothic classics included among the modern writers. Edith Wharton’s “The Eyes” and “In Kropfsberg Keep” by Ralph Adams Cram remind us that we’ve been in literature long before we were allowed to be literature. Among the current crop, there are a few standout tales here. Robbie Anderson’s “When You are Right” and B.E. Scully’s “Time For One More Show” are both intensely frightening stories of revenge from beyond the grave. “The Neglected Ones” By Joshua Skye is a haunting tale of loneliness and the depths to which a young man will go to end those feelings. Richard Hall’s masterpiece “Country People” is included here. “Promises in the Dark, Whispers at Dawn” by Vincent Waters paints a vicious and violent picture of guilt, perceived sin, and hate. T. Fox Dunham’s “Last Dance in the Rain” explores fear, isolation, and panic in a wonderfully accurate Civil war setting.

Seventeen stories and a fantastic introduction by Robert Dunbar round out this marvelous anthology. Each one captures the Gothic tradition established by Poe, Byron, Shelley and others a century ago. Haunting, painful, mournful, vengeful… make sure this one’s in your trick or treat bag this year!

I finished Ken Follett's new novel, Winter of the World.. It was superb, I like his style of writing, I think if more people wrote historical stuff the way he does I'd be a bit more interested.

I started re-reading Kafka on the Shore by my all time favorite Haruki Murakami.

I'm reading 'Warriors of the Storm' by Jack L Chalker. Book 3 of 4 in the 'Rings of the Master' series.

About halfway through Moby Dick but I gotta admit, I've skipped a few chapters here and there simply because, well, the author rambled on about the hemp rope from the Philippines at one point and at another placed a short story in the middle of the novel about another whaling ship that almost mutinied.

But overall, I must say I love the story itself and even though I know how it ends (my dad watched the film religiously when I was a kid) I'm the foreshadowing .

HE DOES THAT THOUGH. I really want to reread Moby Dick but I'm trying to find a abridged version that cuts out all of Melville's rambling.

Seriously, you're not missing much.


Also, which film? Just watched the one with Gregory Peck recently.

The one with Gregory Peck as Capt. Ahab. It's definitely one of my all time favorite films and it was very historically accurate from how the ships would hunt the whales to the diversity of the crew (not just personalities but also their ethnicities).

I've tried to watch the reinterpretations of the original film but the remakes just don't feel right for some reason.

I felt like Gregory Peck was too young for the role at the time, but I also have a really really hard time seperating him from Atticus Finch so it could have just felt weird because of that.

I also had a crush on Queequeg in the book and was disappointed there has never been an adaptation where he was as attractive as I pictured him.

I can see why as well. It wasn't until high school that I finally saw him in "To Kill A Mockingbird" for American History class (which is an awesome film regarding segregation, lack of faith in science, and how someone can completely disregard facts even when a fact is demonstrated right before them) that I had to do a report on. While watching TKAM I kept expecting him to yell "With my last breadth, I spit at thee!" even though it was in two separate films. Guess that's what happens when someone takes over a role in a film so well you can't see them doing anything else without recalling another film they were in

OH MY GOD MELVILE SHUT THE FUCK UP I KNOW IT'S FUCKING WHITE MOVE THE FUCK ON.

Sorry. Residual anger from reading that book. I'm going to change my signature now.

XD And for a sec I thought you'd yell at me for reading "Moby Dick"

No. That book is so fucking infuriating. It's like "wtf does this have to do with anything?" Except you realize that only halfway through the parts that get like that.