Reads as of late: The Razor’s Edge - W. Somerset Maugham
Slaughter-House Five - Kurt Vonnegut
Just A Couple Of Days - Tony Vigorito
Running With Scissors - Augusten Burroughs
Just started: The Picture Of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde.
And of course … Yellow River - I. P. Daley.
Currently reading: Critical Space by Greg Rucka, the last book in a series about bodyguard Atticus Kodiak. Outstanding books and well written. I’d recommend them to anyone who likes the action/suspense genre.
Next up:
Forever by Pete Hamill
Forty Words For Sorrow by Giles Blunt
Nine by Jan Burke
Salmon of Doubt by Adams.
And Naked Pictures of Famous People by John Stewart.
Just finished Seek My Face by Updike.
I’m currently reading Stalingrad: The Fateful Siege 1942-1943 by Antony Beevor. A definitive account of the ultimate “long, hard slog”.
Just finished reading Moneyball by Michael Lewis and Drop City by T.C. Boyle over Thanksgiving. I love baseball, though I’m not a huge stat freak so I skimmed the sabermetric stuff in Moneyball but greatly enjoyed the story as a whole. I’m glad Billy Beane still works for one of the local teams. Boyle is one of my favorite authors and Drop City was a welcome relief after his previous novel, the depressing A Friend of the Earth.
On the shelf waiting to be read are Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver, Simon Winchester’s Meaning of Everything, and Jim Derogatis’ collection of 1990’s rock reviews and interviews Milk It! and a few other things that have been there longer.
I just finished rereading Guards! Guards! too (today, actually) and plan on rereading Men at Arms, possibly as early as this weekend (once my exams are over!).
I unfortunately don’t read enough during the school semester, and actually haven’t read a book since September, when I devoured the Neanderthal Parallax trilogy by Robert. J. Sawyer. I can’t wait to go home for Christmas and go to my brother’s place and grab a bunch of books from him (he is my personal library). Since I am graduating this term, I should have plenty of time to read in the new year!
See, I have plenty of time to read, I usually get at least 45 minutes of solid reading time for each way I’m going on the train. If it’s a small book, I usually make it through in a day, with my between class reading times and such.
Currently reading Brust’s Paths of the Dead (sequel to The Phoenix Guards and 500 Years After… and before that is was Pratchett’s Night Watch.
As an aside, Brust has never appeared to me to be a very high profile author, but he’s certainly one of my favourites – and a fair bit of one book shelf carries most of his novels.
Then you might be interested in Charlaine Harris’ Dead Until Dark series. Similar theme in that Vamps are trying to become mainstream.
I just finished Daytime Drama, which has some of the hottest gay sex scenes I’ve read in quite some time.
Other recent recommendations are Douglas Coupland’s All Familes Are Psychotic and Hey Nostradamus. I’d also include Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage.
Some might think me hopelessly uncool and Not-With-It, but I just found Neil Gaiman. Read American Gods, which I found completely awesome. Sam’s manifesto in the middle of the book was one of the best things I have read in a very long time, not to mention the depiction of the underworld. Other recent fun:
The Sharpe novels, by Bernard Cornwell. Just a rollicking, swashbuckling (sort of, only with rifles) good time. Says so in the scriptures.
The Bounty, by Caroline Alexander. Fletcher Christian WAS a bastard. Who knew?
I’m sure there’s more, but I can’t think of any right now.
Tonight, I just finished Changer by Jane Lindskold, about as neat a little surprise of a book as I’ve seen in a while. It’s out of print, though, which is sad.
I also recently read The Wolves in the Walls by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean, and Endless Nights, the new Sandman graphic novel that isn’t really a Sandman graphic novel. Both were good, but not great.
Next up is The Return of the King, in preparation for the movie of course. Jack Whyte’s Fort at River’s Bend is on its way here as I type, and Reviving Ophelia is also waiting for me on the shelf, because my girls are growing up.
Thanks to a couple of dopers who recommended her:
I am reading **Lindsey Davis’ Falco Detective series ** I’m on book three. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young. Vastly entertaining in a neurotic Bridget Jones Diary kinda way.
Currently reading: Elizabeth, the Queen (Alison Weir)
Recently read books (past 3 months)
The Six Wives of Henry VIII (Alison Weir)
Children of England: Heirs of Henry VIII (Alison Weir)
Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett)
Vive La Revolution (Marc Steele)
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Simon Sebag Montefiore)
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self (Claire Tomalin)
Straight Face (autobiography of actor Nigel Hawthorne)
Napoleon (Vincent Cronin)
Wellington: The Iron Duke (Richard Holmes)
Churchill (Roy Jenkins)
Mussolini (R.J.B. Bosworth)
The Second World War (Winston Churchill)
Catherine the Great (Henri Troyat)
Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin (Simon Sebag Montefiore)
Someone listed Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. I recommend his sequel, The Fall of Berlin 1945, to accompany that excellent book.
I am, at the moment, reading Master and Commander by Patrick O’Brian, along with its illustrated companion volume Patrick O’Brian’s Navy, which is on loan from Gunslinger while he reads my copy of James Lileks’ Gallery of Regrettable Food.
I have also recently read The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas pere, and a vocabulary building book published as part of a set with a dictionary and thesaurus from Merriam-Webster. Yes, I’m basically reading a dictionary. Partly because it goes into a slight bit of detail about the origins of words from their Greek and Latin meanings (although I’ve yet to come across a word I did not already know), but mostly because my entire library of books is still in New York State in my parents’ house and they won’t pay to ship them down to me. I’ll retrieve them myself in March.
I’m reading Bogombo Snuff Box, which is a collection of Vonnegut short fiction, and rereading The Catcher in the Rye by Salinger. I’m also reading Knuth Volume 1 and I’ve downloaded the GNU MDK (MIX Development Kit) and I’ve gotten it working. Haven’t written any programs in it yet, though.
Oh, and I’m re-rereading Made in America by Bill Bryson, and I’m wondering in which of my many, many old SF anthology paperbacks is the wonderful short story “The Man Who Lost the Sea” by Sturgeon.
You HAVE to read Weir’s Henry VIII: The King and His Court. It’s amazingly rich in detail about the Tudor period. It’s not a biography, per se, but more about the times, the culture, the clothing, houses, and food of the era. It’s simply marvelous.
Russia at War by Alexander Werth is the last thing I knocked back. I’m about to start on Gibbon’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
You can’t imagine how hard it is to explain to people that “Yes, I am a 19 year old college student, but no, I’m not a history major. No, these large historical documentaries are not required for a class. Yes, I read them for fun. What of it?”
[quote]
You can’t imagine how hard it is to explain to people that…quote]
Actually looking at the recommendations of the last few posters, I think maybe some of you guys probably CAN.
I’d never heard of him until I met my girlfriend, that’s for sure. I have the first book in the series on Morrolan, I’m just holding off right now. And Night Watch was SUCH a great book, one of my favorite All Time books.
Mr. Babbington-You owe it to yourself to read Neverwhere, too. And I usually don’t read comics, but Sandman is just…wow!
While you’re reading about the British Navy and food, check out Lobscouse and Spotted Dog by Anne Chotzinoff Grossman and Lisa Grossman Thomas, “Which It’s a Gastronomic Companion to the AUBREY/MATURIN NOVELS”. Much of the food discussed here is, in fact, regrettable, but some sounds really good.
(I still wish Lileks had included the recipes.)
LISSA - Thanks for the recommendation.
I understand how CaptBushido feels. A lot of people I know can’t believe I read the books I read for FUN. Hey, I like reading about dead rulers and what they did during their lifetimes.