What are you readioactive now(and other book related stuff)?

[Lani]

Transmetropolitan = Hunter S. Thompson in the crazy future = Love

I subscribe to Warren Ellis' blog on LJ - that man is....wow.

Anyway, I've been meaning to read Transmetropolitan (and Preacher) for a while though. I never seem to have any free time, though.

[Mother Superior]

I finished reading Harry S. Keeler's Riddle of the travelling skull a while ago, and I'd strongly recommend it to anyone who wants to read something truly unique. Also, I will adore any person who manages to figure out who is guilty before the final chapters.

[Jesse]

Is it, by any chance, the butler?

[Mother Superior]

Is it, by any chance, the butler?

It's... hard to say.

[Jesse]

Now you've gone and intrigued me, I guess a trip to the library is necessary.

[Mother Superior]

Now you've gone and intrigued me, I guess a trip to the library is necessary.

You'll have better luck at amazon.com me thinks. It's not easy to come by, but I can all but guarantee you it's a unique experience.

[spacermase]

Spacermase's Spring Break reading list (resulted from me going through the scifi section of my local library and randomly pulling out the books that looked interesting):

The Amphora Project by William Kotzwinkle

Thud! and Strata by Terry Pratchett

The Players of the Game by Ian M. Banks

Eater and Heart of the Comet by Gregory Benford

[armyofmuffins]

I Think, Therefore I Laugh - John Allen Paulos.

No clue if anyone here has read it, but I just picked it up a week ago.

edited because I am blind.

[parkaboy]

Right now I am reading Xenocide, by Orson Scott Card. It's the third book in the "Ender's Game" series. Just wow, it bleeds awesomeness. I'm almost finished and definitely looking forward to the conclusion, Children of the Mind. While it's not as challenging as something like Dune, the issues it discusses are very similar and just as thought provoking.

By the way, I recommend that anyone with an interest in anything reads Dune. It's the greatest science fiction novel ever written.

OOOOOO OOOOO!!! i love the ender series... however, the shadow series is shaping up to be hotdamnbadass. i read ender's shadow and ender's game at the same time to keep the story line straight. they split from there.

[parkaboy]

reading: GTO manga (haha doesnt count)

A Moveable Feast by Hemmingway. I think i eyeballed a newish Patrick McCabe book the other day. i ADORED The Butcher Boy in all its fucked up glory, so i might swing by a bookstore and pick it up.

i need to stop picking up books on whims. i havent even read all the ones i have =(

[Jesse]

Since Fjaf has locked the books topic I hvae dredged this up from about six pages back.

Enjoy.

[AngryRobot]

Well i just read kurosagi corpse delivery service vol.3 about half hour ago and tomorrow i'll read some comics and saturday i'll read vol 1-3 of bleach but apart from that im reading Cell by stephen king and halo: the flood. Yay flood!

[Belial]

Well i just read kurosagi corpse delivery service vol.3

Volume 3 is out? Fuck me!

::runs away from work to get to the comic shop::

[TheTankengine]

Since Fjaf has locked the books topic I hvae dredged this up from about six pages back.

Enjoy.

Ummm, apparently you can't read?

[Jesse]

You mean you're not the same person?

[Patashu]

Lady Friday.

[electoralfraud]

I'm currently reading:

'The Book of DAVE' by Will Self - Pretty average, it started promisingly, but at about 1/2 way through it's getting tired. It should be about half the length; stick to the short stories such as Dr Mukti[...]/Tough Tough[...]/The Quantum Theory[...] or PsychoGeography.

'H.P. Lovecraft Omnibus 3' by... H.P. Lovecraft - 's alright. Nothings managed to come close to 'At the Mountains of Madness' though. If I could have done I'd just have read that and left it there so I got the undiluted best.

Recently read:

'Overclocked' by Doctorow - Damn good short stories, I really enjoyed these. I'd only previously read 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' which was good, if not a sensation as I'd been told. These stories really hooked me though, I read the lot in one afternoon over a pint or two of ale and immediately downloaded 'Eastern Standard Tribe'. Again, a great read, maybe slightly short, but better left wanting more than feeling like you've eaten all the pies.

To read:

'The System of the World' by N. Stephenson - The earlier books were great, now to finish off the series.

'Quantum State reduction as a real phenomenon' - lecture by Roger Penrose - A mate of mine has been telling me to listen to this lecture (and read the notes) for a while now, but I've been putting it off as I've got too much reading for uni to get int othis heavy stuff right now, but its bookmarked for after exams as some 'light reading' lmao. Probably a bit too in depth for me, but what the hell, I'll give it a blast.

[OmenPigeon]

'Overclocked' by Doctorow - Damn good short stories, I really enjoyed these. I'd only previously read 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom' which was good, if not a sensation as I'd been told. These stories really hooked me though, I read the lot in one afternoon over a pint or two of ale and immediately downloaded 'Eastern Standard Tribe'. Again, a great read, maybe slightly short, but better left wanting more than feeling like you've eaten all the pies.

His third novel is much better than the first two. Its got a great magic realism thing going on which ends up being more interesting than the tech stuff the puts in. Still not as good as his short stories, though.

[TheTankengine]

believe it or not.

or not.

[damienthebloody]

'The System of the World' by N. Stephenson - The earlier books were great, now to finish off the series.

it's even better than the first two. get excited.

[Crane]

Just finished Sabriel by Garth Nix.
Still halfway through Musashi, by Eiji Yoshikawa. That book was a bitch to find in England. I gave up looking for it, then years later I find a new hardback omnibus edition in a Waterstones.
Also halfway through rereading -FAKE-, but that's manga, so I don't really count it as a book as such...

Oh, for an obscure, but utterly brilliant book? Shadows Over Baker Street. It's a Sherlock Holmes/H. P. Lovecraft crossover. I only found out about it because I had the exact same idea independently, and looked it up to see if anyone else had already done it. It's a collection of short stories by various authors, some better than others. The first one in the book is by Neil Gaiman, and is especially brilliant.

[Belial]

"A study in emerald"

Great, great story.

[aisling]

I FINALLY finished Sophie's World the other day.

I just wanted to announce that. It was fantastic. It was my like, 4th time trying to read it all the way through. I finally did it. I wasn't VERY pleased with the ending though. It was just kinda like... I dunno. It just wasn't very well ended. But the rest of it was great. They way they escaped and everything.

[Swordfish]

I bought the Tao of Jeet Kune Do last week, but, stupid me, I forgot to bring it back to school with me. Basically, the way I'm making up for not having money to get some JKD lessons is by reading anything that Bruce Lee wrote.

[Alisto]

I bought the Tao of Jeet Kune Do last week, but, stupid me, I forgot to bring it back to school with me. Basically, the way I'm making up for not having money to get some JKD lessons is by reading anything that Bruce Lee wrote.

I'm a third generation Bruce Lee student. My instructor has his instructorship through Dan Inosanto, whom I've also trained with.

The Tao of JKD isn't really much of an instruction manual, but it's a phenomenal read. It's also something that you don't truly appreciate until you've actually trained in some of the concepts.

If you have any questions, I'd be glad to offer what information I have.

[stuck]

A New Human - a book about the discovery of Homo floresiensis - a missing link in the human evolutionary chain.

Underworld - Don DeLillo

Holy Bible - Jesus, God and Co.

Crash - JG Ballard

[Swordfish]

I'm a third generation Bruce Lee student. My instructor has his instructorship through Dan Inosanto, whom I've also trained with.

The Tao of JKD isn't really much of an instruction manual, but it's a phenomenal read. It's also something that you don't truly appreciate until you've actually trained in some of the concepts.

If you have any questions, I'd be glad to offer what information I have.

I guess to say that there really is any sort of instruction manual for Jeet Kune Do would be kind of contrary to what Bruce Lee was trying to get across.

The biggest thing holding me back now from training in it is money. I've actively searched for places where I can train in it, but I just can't afford the lessons.

By the way, one of the places I came across while I was searching was in Jersey, can't remember the town name, but not too far from the river if I recall correctly, is that where you trained?

[Alisto]

True. Though you CAN pick up some of his early stuff that was done under the Jun Fan Gung Fu name. That was the precursor to JKD, when he was still working with an actual system and not a philosophy.

To my knowledge, there are only two places in Jersey that do/did JKD. There's my instructor, who now trains from his home and focuses more on grappling/mma now, and there's the Princeton Academy of Martial Arts, which up north.

If you're in Philly, you're probably referring to my instructor. It's a shame, too. When he actually had his school open, it was only something like $65/month and you could come to as many classes as you wanted. He taught BJJ, Wing Chun, JKD, Savate/Thai kickboxing, Combat Submission Wrestling, and Kali.

I imagine you've already checked out http://tsmaa-pa.com/cms/

[AngryRobot]

well Belial i dunno if that was sarcasm or not lol but yeah i got it a couple days ago i want mail 3 to come out (same artist). Also yesterday i read volumes 1-3 of bleach, i decided to give it a try and its pretty good! i ordered a whole bunch of other manga the other day too.. ah manga not quite real books but heck why does it matter

[Phy]

Just finished The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat. Still need to work on The Elegant Universe, am just starting Pascal's Pensees, just picked up the first book of His Dark Materials, and as a legacy read from a couple months ago, am still in the middle of Tad Williams' War of the Flowers.

[Mother Superior]

Just finished reading How I conquered your planet again, cause my brother didn't return The time machine did it yet.

[Belial]

well Belial i dunno if that was sarcasm or not

It was not. Kurosagi is a great set of books, so far...

[Narsil]

Hey, someone recommended I read some Stephe King books, namely "It". Any opinions on that? All I've read of him is "Dreamcatcher", and that was crap.

[Belial]

Stephen King books tend to be kindof....meh.

If you're going to read any of his horror, read "The Stand"

But if you're going to read anything of his at all, read the Dark Tower series. I hold that series up as proof that the guy should've been writing fantasy all along.

[The Sleeping Tyrant]

I just finished reading Brave New World and 1984 back to back. The future... past... whatever is looking quite bleak right now.

I'm reading Frankenstein but that's for school, and I plan to start Dune by the end of the week.

I really need to get my hands on the rest of the Dune series.

[lanicita]

Stephen King books tend to be kindof....meh.

If you're going to read any of his horror, read "The Stand"

That is one of my favorite books EVER. The only other one of his that I've read was Carrie, which was decent but not amazing. I took out The Stand from the library, never returned it or read it, eventually just "bought" it from them because I accumulated so many fines, and then last summer I finally read it and fell in love. SO GOOD. I love how many twists there are, and how it keeps going on when you think there can't be more to the story. It's way worth the 600+ pages.

I've been reading The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama's second book, for about a month now. It might have been my last contribution to this thread but I don't remember.

[Belial]

That is one of my favorite books EVER.

The stand actually ties in pretty heavily with the dark tower books, if you liked it, you might like them.

[lanicita]

Interesting, I'll look into them.

[Narsil]

I can't really bring myself to get past page 300 of The Count of Monte Cristo. It started going downhill when the narrative switched from Edmund Dantes to these Franz and Albert tools in Rome. Kay. We get it. You see this guy everywhere. He calls himself The Count of Monte Cristo and Sinbad the Sailor. He gave you hashish and you probably ended up porking a statue. Let's move this along.

However. that was awesome when Dantes disguised himself as the abbé and gave the diamond to what's-his-face.

Does it get any better or switch to more interesting people anytime soon?

[parkaboy]

2/3 of the way through Fragile Things. I've been slacking.