I’ve only read Double Whammy, but I enjoyed it a lot. It was so bizzare at parts and made me laugh.
Man 
I don’t want to be disappointed! Is it OK to skip to Guards, Guards! after Color of Magic? Or should I really read them in order?
“Tai-Pan” by James Clavell, for the second time in about a month. I’m so aching for school to resume so I can check out “Gai-Jin” for the fourth time and put all the pieces together. Excellent book (historical fiction) about the founding of Hong Kong, and directly ties in with Gai-Jin, which is set a bit after the opening of Japan to the west.
Podkayne - Haruki Murakami is one of my absolute favorites. The one you are about to read is wonderful, but Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World is that much better.
What am I reading? Just finishing the The Lexus and the Olive Tree by Thomas Friedman, planning to explore some more modern political science - 2021 Vision by Bill Emmett and Joseph Nye, The Paradox of American Power.
Very weird - I much prefer fiction if my past is any indication, but am finding the fiction I have been reading somewhat lacking the non-fiction more engaging lately. I have no idea what this means…carry on.
Leifsmama: Yes, skip to either “Guards! Guards!” or “Wyrd Sisters” as your next Pterry book. After you get the feel and depth of the Discworld, THEN go back and read the first ones. In fact, I’d skip TCoM and the rest of the Rincewind saga until you have gotten comfortable with the place. They are much funnier that way. But they can be read in any order, though they make more sense if you do so. Try “WS” followed by “Witches Abroad,” “Lords and Ladies,” “Maskerade,” and “Carpe Jugulam.”
Or…“G!G!,” then “Men at Arms,” “Feet of Clay,” “Jingo,” “The Fifth Elephant,” and “Nightwatch.”
Gods I envy you…to be just starting out on your journey to the Disc.
Same thing I started last summer - Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. I’m enjoying it, and I’d hoped to finish it before I moved back from Boston, but I was too busy with grad school to plow through it. I’m at about page 600 (of roughly 1000) right now, and even though everything’s starting to connect and fall into place from what I can tell, I still look forward to seeing what’s in the last half of the book.
I’m currently reading Gene Wolfe’s Book of the Short Sun. It’s very slowly growing on me. I don’t find the main character all that compelling at the moment. Ah, well. I said the same thing about Silk from Book of the Long Sun at the beginning, too. Maybe Horn gets more likeable later on…
I just finished Tim Powers’ Declare. I can’t recommend this book enough. If you like spy novels with bits of Lovecraftian horror and middle eastern mythology, this will float your boat.
After I finish the Wolf…who knows. More Tim Powers, maybe. I have a rather huge stack of books on my nightstand (and more that I could borrow from friends) to wade through.
Sorry about the Pterry, hijack. I’ll try to be brief:
I’m with silenus. Pratchett is one of the best authors alive and it’s amazing that he gets better for every book (almost). Some books should be read in order, as there are series within the franchise, with stick together. OTOH, a lot of characters make cameos.
My advice would be:
- Small Gods, which is the book which is mostly stand-alone, and by many considered his best. I used it to introduce TP to a friend and she was crying at the end of reading not. Not bad for a writer known for humor.
- The death series: ** Mort, Reaper man, Soul Music, Hogfather** and Thief of time.
Or just go to: www.lspace.org which has many suggestions for reading order. If you get hooked, you’ll soon include this site among favorites.
I’m between books right now, but waiting on a copy of The Romance of the Three Kingdoms unabridged box set to arrive from Amazon. It’s a 2300+ page epic, part historical and part fiction, about the fall of the Han Dynasty of China. It’s the second of four classic Chinese novels that my wife recommended I read, the others being Journey to the West (which I finished last fall), Outlaws of the Marsh, and Dream of the Red Chamber (both of which I will get to, someday…).
Just got back from the beach, allowing me to get caught up a bit. In the last three weeks, I’ve finished The Lord of the Rings and The Right Stuff. For some reason I have also tried making Godel Escher Bach a summer read, but that’s some pretty heavy sledding. Thinking of throwing in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind as an intellectual counterweight.
Hard-Boiled Wonderland was the first Murakami I read, actually. I keep reading more, hoping the next book I read will be as cool as Wonderland, but they aren’t quite making the grade. I liked a lot of the storys from An Elephant Vanishes, though.
Last 2 books I read were Daughter of the Forest by Marillier, and Drawing of the Dark by Powers. The feel of the Marillier book reminded me of The Mists of Avalon, which dwyr is reading. So, dwyr, you may be interested in Marillier, and Cranky, if you liked the Marillier book you sent me, you might want to try Mists, by Marion Zimmer Bradley.
Next, I’m trying to decide whether to start Son of the Shadows, which is Marillier’s second book in the trilogy, or Expiration Date, by Powers. slortar, didn’t you say you liked Powers in another thread I read recently? Have you read Expiration Date, and if so, how was it? (Note to self: start looking for Declare.)
Rubicon, Hofstader has a lot of fun in that book, and you can read it on a pretty light level also, so don’t worry about Godel, Escher, Bach being too heavy of a read - it’s good.
I’m reading the same book I was reading when I last posted on a “What are you reading?” thread. For some reason this one is taking me awhile
Just finished 1964 by David Halberstam. Next, No Certain Rest by Tom Lehrer.
Baseball and the Civil War, it just don’t get no better than that.
Cripes, it’s Jim Lehrer.
Waddamaroon!!
Absolutely. Expiration Date was great. Takes place in modern Los Angeles and has Thomas Edison as a major character. It runs rough-shod through about a century’s worth of cinema history, has lots of ghosts, pseudoscience and whatnot. Very cool stuff, particularly the ending.
How was Drawing of the Dark, anyway?
Incidentally, if you want more Powers, I’d also recommend the Anubis Gates. Kind of an odd combination between Twilight Zone-ish time travel paradoxes, middle-eastern wizardry, Anne Rice (minus all the silly vampire sexuality and bland dialogue), with a bunch of Clive Barker thrown in for fun.
Thanks for the recommendation Judith Prietht. I’ll definitely look into more of Orlean’s work. I love how she writes; it’s so simple and straightforward, but not “dumbed down.”
NE Texan
I’d never heard of Marillier. I’ll have to keep that in mind.
Ellen
and anyone who’s interested of course… I’ve read the Arthurian sagas from several angles now and Bradley’s Avalon is proving to be one of my favorites. Another is Bernard Cornwell’s Warlord Chronicles consisting of Winter King, Enemy of God, and Excalibur. Bradley and Cornwell offer two very different versions of the same tales and both are quite enjoyable.
It’s been years since I read “Mists” but I recall loving it.
dwyr,, Juliet Marillier is an Australian fantasy writer. Hasn’t got a lot of attention. This series of hers is good, but the cover art sucks eggs (IMHO). I don’t read much fantasy anymore, but a book club member (who reviews fantasy books for Borders) asked us to read it because she thought it would be a good one and because she wanted more people to know about the author. It was well-liked by most of us.
NE Texan, I’ve got the next Marillier if you’d like me to send it to you. I don’t know when I’ll get around to reading it; it’s been sitting in my office for over a year gathering dust which is a shame. I’m still upset about Finbar and I hear there is a little more resolution about him in the following books.
It’s funny, I just ran up and got “Soldier of the Mist” from my bedside hoping it would help me supply the answer to a GQ thread. Alas, it didn’t.
dwyr, I finished Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Mists of Avalon a number of years ago… it’s definitely a good book. Even lent it out to a couple of my friends, who also enjoyed it.
What I want to read is Yann Martel’s Life of Pi… my friend Phil recommended it to me a couple of weeks ago. He won’t tell me what it’s about (which is fine, no spoilers please), but says I’ll like it. (I read a lot, and a bunch of our friends have the book already… so why not?)
F_X
One of my all time favorite books. You should definetly check out the sequel, Blameless in Abaddon. It’s the book that single handedly destroyed my faith in God, and I can’t think of a higher accolade to give to a work of fiction.