What are you reading?

[furie]

Re: CF Book Club

Currently re-reading some more Stephen King. Found hardbacks of Misery and The Shining for £1 each and I've not read either for 10-20 years.

The Shining scared the crap out of me when I was 14 and it's amazing how the memory of being scared affected my re-reading of the book a few years later. Now though, it's not at all worrying or disturbing. It is however well written, but I think Kubrick was 100% right in his version - sorry Ben

Misery I'm about three chapters into and I don't remember it moving quite so fast. Again, it's actually quite well written for a change (compared to his latest stuff).

I've put "The medieval Solider in the Wars of the Roses" to one side again for the moment... fo rthe third or fourth time. I can't past the chapter on paying retainers and the costs involved in running an army. It's like reading a book on accountancy - I want the blood and guts and details of stuff. You can't have it though unless you understand exactly which Earl of whatsit, Lord doobery it was at the time... Stupid history.

 

[kimahri]

Re: CF Book Club

I just got Highschool of the dead... It's bizarrly paced to be honest.

But I got 278 other books on my shelf to review as well if you want that . My personal favorites are Elephantmen and Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei. They're **** awesome!

 

[FaceYourNemesis]

Re: CF Book Club

Currently re-reading some more Stephen King. Found hardbacks of Misery and The Shining for £1 each and I've not read either for 10-20 years.

Misery I'm about three chapters into and I don't remember it moving quite so fast. Again, it's actually quite well written for a change (compared to his latest stuff).

Same here! I used to be a big King fan.

Currently re-reading Misery, too. I don't remember much about the book, actually, except for a rather nasty scene involving a lawn mower :shock: Misery always was my favourite King novel.

Did you buy both the King books from The Works? I picked up The Shining for £2 several months back, but still haven't started on it yet.

 

[kimahri]

Imma reading Death Note

L <3

 

[tomahawk]

Just read for class Ordinary Men, it's about Police Battalion 101 in Nazi occupied Poland enforcing the extermination of Jews and how the mentality of the battalion shifted from their first orders to the end of the war. Really interesting stuff and a great read. I finished it in about 2 days, but if you have any interest in that time frame I think it is a great read.

 

[lakeccrunner]

Running Formula by Dr. Jack Daniels, PhD. It's a book about running!

 

[kimahri]

Manga and Comic books... Lots of them :|

 

[Lain]

I recently read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.

It's really informative, gripping, harrowing and entertaining. I could not recommend it enough.

Yeh.

 

[dropthefloor93]

Reading: The Other Wes Moore by Wes moore
Writing: A novel, which is pending publishing, can't release the name until its finalized to be published or one of you sneakies might steal it. I'm currently working on a damn good sequel.

The topic is: What Defines Life? and Is knowledge the ultimate weapon but humans are just too stupid to realize this.

 

[kimahri]

What defines life? MRS NERG or what ever it was.

 

[kimahri]

You know, I must be the least ready person here yet I go through the most books. At least if goon was here I might be able to get some sort of civil conversation about manga with him :|. Did I just say that?


Any way, 2 more books, Picked up volume 1 of Lucky Star cause I'm a horrible dirty fanboy and something called Tenjo Tenge. It looks cool, quite the sucker for some over stylized school yard violence sometimes.

 

[lakeccrunner]

I'm thinking I want to read the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series again. I thought they were all great books, and I've really lost my passion for reading in the last few years and they brought it back.

 

[Thekingin64]

I'm in the middle of Skulduggery Pleaseant: The Faceless Ones at the mo.

 

[Nic]

I've just bought another copy (pretty sure I've got 2 at my rents house already, but this was easier) of Matlida to come to Italy with us. I've not actually read it since I was a kid. Can't wait

 

[danielfitzgerald99]

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. Just finished Dombey and Son by Charles Dickens and before that Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. Really enjoy reading the old classics.

I actually really enjoyed Dombey and Son. I wrote a song about it which I will be uploading soon. Probably my favourite Dickens novel. It had a really nice ending.

War and Peace was a long one but well worth the slog. Pierre Besukhov was a fantastic character. I found Tolstoys rambling in the final part of the book a bit dull and repetitive but that's after the actual story is over.

 

[furie]

Wow, almost a year and nobody has read anything? Incredible

I started in February to make my way through the Terry Pratchett "Discworld" novels from start to finish (I got all but the latest for the Kindle).

I don't even really like his work very much. It's all a bit too "fantasy" and "wants to be Douglas Adams, but can't quite get the hang of it". However, it's really easy to read and a good way to switch your brain off while still having it active (if that makes sense)?

Thirty-odd books later and... I still feel pretty much the same way, but in the context of a "body of work", the books are much better. The continued characters, locations, politics, etc work much better as a whole rather than individual books. As he's worked on too, the books have become better written (i.e. they actually make sense, his early work is often confused or he doesn't express concepts well) so it's been quite an interesting journey all told.

It certainly helped keep my bowels clean*

Now I'm on to the collection of "Gothic Horror Classics" I downloaded. Dracula is first up as it's a book I really should have already read. Halfway through and I'm in two minds about it. It's not particularly well written really.

For those who don't know, the story is made up by a collection of journal/diary entries, letters, newspaper reports, etc. It's actually a really clever mechanism, and even today it's unusual. It also almost works really well; just two major issues:

1. Sometimes the text is very forced to fit in bits of the plot. Newspaper articles look like they were written from third person in a standard book and "converted" to a newspaper article later without Stoker modifying it. Similarly, you have diary entries that start with things like "The Doctor was of medium build, with a shuffling gait. His eyebrows were dark, furrowed and bushy, giving him the impression of a constipated hyena..." It's not how people (even in the late 19th century) write in diaries, it's a standard descriptive prose converted into diary format.

2. It's clear that each entry has been written by the same person. It's a bit like Bram Stoker was asked to do a one man play. So he does (and imagine a 40 year old bearded Irishman doing these) the "straight and businesslike Jonathan Harker. The "worried but straight laced Victorian" Mina. The "ditzy, loveable and adorably cute young lady" Lucy. The "Yes, crazed I may appear, and Yoda like you will write my exact long pieces in not an accent, no friend CFers, for an accent does not come across as properly in text as it may do. Say I to you, that instead I shall write in a confusing manner that instead makes me stand out as Dutch. Now I must away back to Holland for the evening, I must avail myself to others in my care, but please write this in your diary verbatim, lest find you unable to advance a story as it should be advanced" Van Helsing. Then the awful "yar, gribbins I be coll'queel rum o't'earth mun 'boot given ta tarkin' tar reperters".

It's pretty dire.

However, the mechanism does work. It's an interesting way of telling a story and it keeps you interested. The story itself is obviously well known, but the journey through the book is actually quite enjoyable. I can certainly understand why it became so popular, and why it remains popular with angsty teenage girls looking for romance (Dracula so far has not made much of an appearance, so it's not like modern vampiric romance bollocks (read: soft porn)).

So looking forward to seeing how it all plays out (and I'll still be laughing at the funny "accents" right through), then on to Frankenstein I think...

 

[davidm]

I keep reading the Pratchett ones out of habit - preferred the earlier ones, theres not many of the later ones I think are much good (the football one maybe). Vimes is the best character, but even the last one with him (which I read the other week) was a bit rubbish.

Given his health problems, I'm not knocking him for not being as good now; I'll keep reading them as long as he manages to put them out!

--

Just strarted 11.22.63 by Mr King - s'ok so far.

 

[furie]

I'm not keen on his very early stuff. I think Mort is where he really gets into the swing of it. Before then (Light Fantastic and Colour of Magic especially) don't work very well in parts, but they are much more imaginative then later stuff. There's definitely a solid "mid-section" of works, and you're right, it really starts with Vimes. If it wasn't for his character and The Watch, I don't think I'd have kept on with it.

11.22.63 is excellent. Just remember though that it's Stephen King, so stop reading two chapters from the end and make up your own ending - you know it's going to be disappointing. So yeah, other than the finale, the book was engrossing, clever and thoroughly enjoyable.

 

[bmac]

Reading Fast Food Nation as a Sociology experiment for my professor. I have no clue what the experiment will be but so far I'm already lol'ing at how true this book is even though it was published 11 years ago. It's your general eye opener research and regurgitate book but the man has an incredible way of displaying what he researched and what he experienced himself while researching everything. Right now I'm reading through employee treatment (LivefortheLaunch this is right up your alley) and the Fast Food industry treats it's workers like absolute ****, no wonder why there's rumors of spit in the burgers.

 

[TarinMaria]

I recently finished Stephen King's The Shining.
Was a beautifully written, imaginative and well thought out book. Took me very little time to read it as I just couldn't put it down. It was nothing like the film, but in my opinion, better than the film. Towards the end of the film, they throw a man in a dog costume. In the book he's much more involved and actually makes it creepier. There are hedge animals instead of the maze, which I thought was much more creative. The book was much more supernatural and personally I liked it much more for that.
Before that I had finished Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot.
Before that Stephen King's The Tommy Knockers.
Before that James Herbert's Haunted.
And before that Stephen King's Pet Sematary...

No shame for my love of horror.
By the way, I've read all of this since the start of July. And I've also nearly finished Game Of Thrones.