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What are you reading?

I've been mostly reading:

The Wee Free Men - Terry Pratchet (Thought I'd read it eventually)
The Vellum - Hal Duncan
Eragon Series
Maximum Ride Series
The Midwitch Cuckoos
Darren Shan (Depressing!)
Darwin's Watch - Terry Pratchet

I can't think of any more, but I'm sure there is...


(So what if I read far too many childrens books... not that it reflects on my character or anything)
 
I'm reading (and have been for a month) Wicked in preparation for the seeing of it in a month.


Shame I'm 50 pages in, and not budging :p.


C&R said:
Nineteen Eighty-Four

That book is SO good.
 
I found rule of four disappointing, there was a lot of explanatory prose for what I thought was a terribly small pay off at the end.

The book that I'm currently reading is Boris Johnson's "Seventy-Two Virgins" a political thriller set one morning in London as terrorists plan to assassinate the President of the United States whilst a soon to be disgraced MP unknowingly gets drawn in the escalating comedy of errors. To be honest, I'd hoped for more from this book, it's really patchy and just accentutes Boris Johnson's continued slide...

I've just finished Number 10 by Sue Townsend, which was a far superior political comedy. In an obvious parody of New Labour, it follows a fictional prime minister's attempt to find out about real Britain by going "undercover" in public dressed as a woman. It's a bit strange in places, but otherwise well worth reading.

Also, shouldn't this topic be stickificatified?
 
Running With Scissors

That's the name of the place I get my hair done, actually.

And I'm kind of reading Trainspotting, but I've also read A Walk To Remember in the midst of reading Trainspotting. I've just recently finished reading the Alice I Think books as well, which were pretty great. Trainspotting is just a bit difficult to read because of the hardcore Scottish writing and whatnot, so if I can't finish reading it, I have the movie so it won't really matter.

Nothing beats the Georgia Nicholson series though. Those were hilarious.
 
Ploddish, Wee Free Men may be a kids book (and I've got Wintersmith on my shelf at the moment) but Darwin's Watch ain't! What was Vellum like?

I recently finished Harbingers by F Paul Wilson, which is book 10 in the excellent Repairman Jack saga, and I've now moved onto Cell by Stephen King. I'm a book addict, but I have so many unread books it's not funny.....
 
I'm currently reading "The Templar Meridians" by William F. Mann. It is a pretty interesting non-fiction book about the Knights Templar, Freemasonry, the search for the Holy Grail, and how it intertwines with the history of the new world. From the back of the cover;

"The most enduring mystery surronding the Knights Templar concerns the nature and final resting place of their great treasure. Whereas many believe this lost treasure contains knowledge of the holy bloodline - including the wherabouts of its decendants - William F. Mann shows that it may in part consist an ancient science developed before the great flood, one discovered by the Templars in the Holy Land during the crusades. Still extant in Masonic/Templar ritual today, this knowledge enabled the Templar Order to establish accurate latitudinal and longitudinal positions long before the seventeenth century, when the foundations for geographic sciece were laid. It also allowed the Templars to cross the Atlantic and reach the new world, where, led by Prince Henry Sinclair, they established both secret setlements to protect the descendants of the Merovingian dynasty and mining operations that gave them a limitless supply of precious metals and a military edge over their opponents.

Persued ever farther into interior of the North American continent by their adversarys from the Old World, the Templars left artifacts, relics. and information at key sites in the hope that future initiates could use their understanding of the science of meridians and ley lines to locate these caches. As Mann demonstrates, the history of the search for these Templar treasures has been intimately intertwined with the history of the United States and Canada, from the time of the first European explorers, the American Revolution, and the design of Washington DC to the Lewis and Clark expedition."

Not really my cup of tea, by still a very interesting read.
 
Stealth.thorpe said:
I'm not reading anything (of my own will) but in school we are reading Stone Cold. I haven't actually finished a novel all the way through before.

We're doing that as well, its not actually that bad really.
Its nothing compared to what we did last year, We had to read the worst book i've ever set eyes on.

Anyway, at my own will at the moment, i'm reading Are you Dave Gorman, Pretty good book actually, almost finished it now though.
 
Mark said:
I'm reading a book called Map of Bones by James Rollins

Sounds really good, I'll give that a go. I really like the kind of stuff Dan Brown does (if you don't get caught up in the hype).

I really wasn't a fan of Rule of Four though. It seemed like the writers were way too preoccupied with sounding intelligent than delivering a good story.

Richie said:
In school we are currently doing Of Mice And Men in English, which is really crap.

I think it's difficult to really appreciate a book that someone else makes you read and analyze. I really liked Of Mice and Men, but maybe would feel differently if my crusty, old English teacher had forced me to read it.

Stone Cold said:
Also, shouldn't this topic be stickificatified?

Yep. I was just waiting to see how popular it would be first. Seems to be plenty of interest so far.

I've just finished Running With Scissors. I loved it! Very easy to read, but very intelligently written. Just about to start a biography on Vivien Leigh.
 
Stone Cold said:
I found rule of four disappointing, there was a lot of explanatory prose for what I thought was a terribly small pay off at the end.

Gavin said:
I really wasn't a fan of Rule of Four though. It seemed like the writers were way too preoccupied with sounding intelligent than delivering a good story

Agreed on both counts actually.

To think the book was billed by some critics as The Da Vinci Code for people with brains.

It took a long time to get into the story itself and I could never really tell what was relevent memory telling and what wasn't There were so many themes mixed in together the coherense seemed very patchy and hard to follow. The ending itself, although clear was a bit sketchy in the sense that it rather bluntly finished the story. After tonnes and tonnes of explanatory prose it jsut ended witha very simplistic chapter. Naturally this was not what I was expecting. The book itself was enjoyable to read but like I say, was a bit tempremental in style and flow.
 
At the moment I'm reading "I Know You Got Soul" by Jeremy Clarkson. All about structures and machines with a few human qualities about them. Things that were built by people who loved them and that you can't help but love back in return, chapters on Hoover Dam, Space Shuttles, Concorde, etc. Really good read especially with Clarksons usual witty style of putting things.
 
Haha, Andy, that book is ****ing fantastic. I read it whist sitting by the random lake where the 'Riva' speedboats (that are mentioned as one of his machiens) are made.

I'm currently reading Plato's 'Republic'. It's a strange book, about a quater of the version I have it the introduction, and the rest the dialouge.

It's a very interesting book that basicaly tells of a very, very early version of commuinism. I recomend it, even if you are not a philosophy student.
 
^I need to get around to reading that.

Halfway through Viaduct Child by Patrick Wood. Its really good actually.

Ill have it finished by tommorow.
 
Finished Stephen King's Cell, very good, it's a similar scenario to 28 Days Later but is a better story. I was worried it may be too close to the similarly apocalyptic The Stand, but he's focused on a small group of people this time. A few plot points do stretch the suspension of disbelief a bit too far though! :?

Started Robert Harris' Imperium. I was worried it would be boring, being a fictionalised account of Roman politics, but I knew Harris is an excellent writer so thought I'd try it. Turns out to be immensely easy to read, the pages are flying by - I kept looking down and seeing the page numbers jump by at least 10! Very impressed so far.
 
I just finished The Terminal Man, by Michael Crichton. I quite like his books, but because they're usually based on the newest technolgy, they really don't age well at all. This was one of his first, and his descriptions of "new" computer technology just don't work now.

I've just started reading "Perfume" (Das Parfum) by Patrick Suskind. It's about 20 years old, but I'd never heard of it until one of my students started telling me about it. I'm only about 50 pages in but it is **** ing brilliant! He creates a really amazing atmosphere, and it really is genuinely creepy. I've heard they've recenty made a movie, too.
 
I've just finished reading "Green eggs and ham" by Dr. Seuess :lol:
 
gavin said:
I just finished The Terminal Man, by Michael Crichton. I quite like his books, but because they're usually based on the newest technolgy, they really don't age well at all. This was one of his first, and his descriptions of "new" computer technology just don't work now.

I've just started reading "Perfume" (Das Parfum) by Patrick Suskind. It's about 20 years old, but I'd never heard of it until one of my students started telling me about it. I'm only about 50 pages in but it is <img src="http://www.coasterforce.info/images/smiles/5censored.gif" width="34" height="15"> ing brilliant! He creates a really amazing atmosphere, and it really is genuinely creepy. I've heard they've recenty made a movie, too.

Perfume is great, i read that earlier this year and it's a really engrossing tale, the descriptions of 18th century Paris are sublime. IMDB page here!

Have you tried Crichton's Prey, it's about nanobiotics so it's definitely recent technology! It's also seems as if it was written with the sole intention of being turned into a film, but it's still a decent read. It would make a great film as well.
 
I'm about a quarter of the way through "We Need To Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver. Not quite sure what I make of it yet, although I'm not too fond of the letter based writing style.
 
Stone Cold said:
Have you tried Crichton's Prey, it's about nanobiotics so it's definitely recent technology! It's also seems as if it was written with the sole intention of being turned into a film, but it's still a decent read. It would make a great film as well

Yeah, I read that a while back. It was pretty good, and as usual he explains the technology well without dumbing it down too much. To be honest I'm not too keen on a lot of his newer stuff. It seems that ever since the success of Jurassic Park he writes with the intention of the books being made into movies. The Lost World, Prey, and Timeline, for example, read more like movie scripts than novels.
 
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