I read it years ago and it’s very good. Do yourself a favor and don’t watch the movie.
In the last week I’ve finished Lady of Mazes (Sci-Fi) kind of Ringworld meets the Matrix and Sudden Death courtroom/murder mystery, kind of light and not enough mystery, but funny nonetheless.
Up next Transcendent by Stephen Baxter a series I’ve been reading out of order, Fury by Robert Tanenbaum.
Thanks for the tip! I just finished Into Thin Air (my Krakauer jag is in preparation for a trip to Utah in a few weeks). I’ll look for the magazine.
I’m really enjoying Richard Dawkins’ The Ancestor’s Tale. I’ve read some of his essays and have seen him in interviews, but this is the first book of his I’ve read. Especially considering the subject matter, Dawkins has a very accessible writing style – he has frequent and very interesting comments on a great many topics in natural history. His asides – not particularly snarky, just pre-emptive – to creationists who are reading the book are pretty good as well.
I didn’t realize The Ruins was already out – gonna have to pick that little number up.
I feel as if I ought to warn you that a co-worker of mine was once put off reading for several months by 1984; not because it was poorly written, mind you, but simply because it was so depressing. Read at your own risk. :dubious:
Odd. It seems to me as if Mieville rather loves London and cities in general; look at how much New Crobuzon is a character in the novel, after all; that doesn’t seem to me to spring from hatred. But then, he doesn’t shirk from showing his beloved is she is, warts and all, as they say. I think I’m reading in a little from later New Crobuzon books, as well as one of his short stories. You do know that he’s a bit of a Marxist, yes? Not that he hides it or anything.
Aside from school reading, I’m nosing at James Burke’s Circles. I really dig this guy and his approach to science (and other) history, but it does seem that he has a few particular individuals/events that he returns to over and over again. Perhaps I ought to enjoy my Burke in moderation. Next on the list would either be one of Oliver Sacks’s anecdotal neurology works or a return to Jeff VanderMeer’s City of Saints and Madmen, which I’ve set aside for a while.
The Game: Inside the Life of a Pick-up Artist by Neil Strauss. Supposedly it’s a true story but I question its veracity. Before that was Give Me a Break by John Stossel. A shallow, quick read provided by an unimpressive intellect.
It’s not my first time reading 1984, and I don’t remember having as strong a reaction as your co-worker when I read it many years ago. But if I can recover from the depression I’ll forever associate with reading Crime and Punishment earlier this summer, I’m sure I can handle 1984.
I had picked up Guns, Germs & Steel based on the numerous times I’ve seen it cited in General Questions but I’m having a devil of a time getting into it. The premise fascinates me but Jared Diamond’s writing is about as exciting as the back of a shampoo bottle.
I picked up a copy of Inquisition by John Edwards yesterday (about the Spanish Inquisition, naturally) and think I’ll try that instead. And I have a biography of Abigail Adams sitting here yet that I need to dive into.
At the moment, Flash, by LE Modessit JR.
At the moment, Flash, by LE Modesitt JR.
Crap, thought I caught it in time to correct the spelling, but instead I just double-tapped.
Every year for XMas I get a “How to pick up women” book from friends. I suppose it is meant to be funny, since everyone laughs. Anyway, that was the one I got last year. It wasn’t really a “how-to” book (although he did talk about it.) It was kinda interesting, but I can’t really say I would recommend it to others.
You may have misunderstood my post. I am reading The Ruins, by Scott Smith, which was just published. There isn’t a movie version of this yet, although I’m sure there will be one eventually.
Just finished E.L. Doctorow’s City of God (recommended by Kalhoun – liked it very much), and am starting Darwin’s Voyage of the Beagle.
I’ve decided to try and make some progress in reducing my sf book backlog, so I’ve eschewed the library for a while. I’m doing Rudy Rucker. I finished Software and I’m about 3/4 done with Wetware. I guess GAs were startling back when they were written, I’m not very impressed, especially by his habit of not writing significant scenes.
Next I think I’m going to work on my set of original Tom Swifts. I’ve read the first two, and I’m waiting to find my first Tom Swiftie.
I’m halfway through Marriage of the Living Dark, eighth and final volume of David Wingrove’s Chung Kuo SF series. Published in 1997, but for some reason I’ve never been able to discover, almost impossible to get in the U.S. (when most of the other volumes were released as mass-market paperbacks) – the copy I’m reading is on inter-library loan from a public library in Island County, Washington. Wikipedia sheds no light on this mystery.
Tort law, contract law, property law, and civil procedure.
I’m rereading Wicked, trying to find what I missed five years ago that indicated the book could be turned into an inane Broadway musical (I’m still not seeing it.), and meanwhile thinking about how I’d make a movie out of it. I’ve also got a J.J.Marric Gideon book on my nightstand.
Someone’s a 1L! You think 11 years after graduation I’d be past snickering at first-years (Suckers! Better you than me!). You’d be wrong. 
Seriously, good luck, my friend.
FRANK, you thought Wicked was inane? Dang, I’m sorry to hear that. I loved it. :o
The musical, I mean. The book’s good too.
[sub]Three posts in two minutes . . . time to exit the thread.[/sub]