While all my friends are on holiday, I’m reading Crime and Punishment. Surprisingly exciting (well in comparison with War and Peace, at least, or the first 100 pages of War and Peace, at least). After that, I think it’s The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery.
But has no one mentioned any Straight Dope books, only pennies at your nearest fleamarket? Or I expect you’ve read them all.
Nacho4Sara, what did you think of Atonement? I picked it up after it got such a glowing review on Fresh Air but haven’t read it yet.
I just finished A Canticle for Leobowitz and Bill the Galactic Hero, and am currently working on finishing the third book in the Harry Potter series. I’d like to pick up The Keeper of the Isis Light but I haven’t been able to find it.
Also, I think I’m going to get into the Thomas Covenant series by Donaldson.
I am open for suggestions if anyone knows of a good post apocolypse novel.
On the Beach by Nevile Shute. Just read it for the first time last month as a part of my reading project …which is to work on all the suggestions I’ve gotten from previous SDMB/Unaboard threads!
Currently working on Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Interesting reading, just haven’t had/taken much time for it so far. Easier going than And the Band Played On by Randy Shilts - which was part of last summer’s reading project.
Also started working on Neil Gaiman’s books - Stardust and Neverwhere - waiting for American Gods to come back to the library. I’d read Good Omens last summer as a Pratchett fan… finally decided to give Neil a whirl.
It would be very interesting to find out who wrote what in GO. With the exception of Mr. Teatime - Neil does evil better, I think. Pratchett does more dry humour [& footnotes!], and they both do fantasy/whimsey pretty well.
Trying to read as many suspense/mystery novels as I can possibly fit in. And I’m in luck- I found a really nice bookstore that specializes in murder mysteries. Now that’s my kind of summer. Specifically, I’d like to start reading some of the Rex Stout books, with Nero Wolfe, and read more of Dorothy Sayers, as well as whoever else I can find. And re-read some of my old ones.
The Story of B by Daniel Quinn. It’s a follow up to Ishmael. Just started it, and it’s fairly provoking. A friend told me that he fills out the philosophy outlined in Ishmael. Also on the list are Fast Food Nation, the Botany of Desire, and Sometimes a Great Notion by Kesey. And maybe one or two Tom Robbins books I haven’t yet got to.
I’ve been an avid SF/Fantasy reader since I was a young adolescent, but I’ve never really read much short fiction. I’d always preferred it when writers took their time to developing character and setting or weaving complex plots.
I’ve since come to appreciate the art of the short story and I plan to rectify the situation by reading some short story collections by P.K. Dick, Harlan Ellison, and Shirley Jackson. I’m especially looking forward to the Jackson collection as I’ve only ever read The Haunting of Hill House and it scared the crap out of me. I hear good things about We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
The Botany of Desire is very interesting, Great Dave. I think you’ll enjoy it.
Right now I’m working on A History of Private Life: Revelations of the Medieval World. It’s a four book series, edited by Phillippe Aries and Georges Duby, and it’s fascinating. It’s not only about how people lived in daily life, but also about how concepts of privacy and the individual changed throughout Western history. The series starts in the ancient world, but I like medieval history more, so I picked up that one first.
Another really great read that I would recommend to anyone is The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson. It’s an alternate history which posits that 99 percent of Europe’s population was wiped out by the Black Plague, so China and the Islamic world become the powers that dominate world history. It’s very engaging and thought-provoking, although I have heard some people complain “that it’s not like Harry Turtledove.”:rolleyes: For which we can only be thankful, if you ask me.
burundi, I think I’d like that series! Michael Crichton’s “Timeline” really left me hungering for more about what medieval life really like. (I’m especially intrigued lately about how people’s size might or might not have changed over time, for some reason). Anyway, thanks for the recommendation!
No problem! Hope you enjoy it!
Several I’m in the process of getting through:
The Book of Nothing**, by a fellow I can’t recall–sort of a lay overview of the role of the void in developing mathematics and moving on through modern (circa a couple years ago) physics of the vacuum (the space kind, not the Hoover variety).
A translation of the Kalachakra Tantra, an initiation system/ritual in Tibetan flavors of Buddhism, with commentary by the Dalai Lama, and an “introduction” by a scholar that’s every bit as long as the actual text, and from what I’ve read so far, more dense as well.
A translation of Nagarjuna’s Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way, which is actually a very brief text, but still difficult. Another one of those with an introduction and extensive endnoting that’s about five times the length of the actual translated material.
And finally, the topmost volume on my “to-read” stack that I haven’t even cracked yet is Steven Pinker’s Words and Rules, about brains and language.
I don’t consider all the other stuff I read for actual fun to be projects, so miscellaneous novels I’ll go through aren’t included here.