I just reread A Wizard of Earthsea. The last time I read it I was in the first grade so it’s been a few decades. It made quite an impact on me back then and I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a good book. I’m continuing on to the rest of the original trilogy. I’m also waiting for Greg Benford’s Timescape to show up in my mailbox and it’s going to the top of my reading list as soon as it does.
Currently reading The Bloody White Baron by James Palmer.
The almost indescribably wierd history of a German/Russian aristocrat and Theosophist who conquors Mongolia and attempts to create an empire of Mongolians to turf the Reds out of Russia and install a new autocratic Tsar in the early '20s. Creates a “heart of darkness” style reign of terror, skinning people alive in the name of Buddhism, shamanism and Russian Autocracy.
You do know that Jordan is dead. And he didn’t finish the series.
All I read since my list at the end of the May list is Kitty and the Silver Bullet by Carrie Vaughn. I will be starting Empire of Ivory by Naomi Novik when I finish here.
Have you tried George R. R. Martin’s *A Song of Ice and Fire * series? It’s not finished yet, but there are four thick books, with a fifth due out this fall.
I’m reading Charlie Huston’s Caught Stealing. It’s much darker and more violent than what I usually like, but I’m fascinated by his writing, particularly his dialog.
I am delighted. I just picked up a copy of Wolf Moon by Charles de Lint, which I first read a couple decades ago and haven’t seen since then. It’s a light fantasy novel about an itinerant werewolf, and how his affection for a kindly maiden is threatened by an evil bard. It also has hobbits in it.
I understand that Charles de Lint is a fairly successful novelist these days, so he’d probably pay decent money to recover any remaining copies of this book. But so far I’m pleased to discover that it’s lost none of its “suitable for players of levels 1 to 3”-quality charm.
Speaking of books I read a couple decades ago, I also picked up Inside Straight, the just-published continuation of the “Wild Cards” shared-universe superhero series from the mid-1980s, edited by George R. R. Martin (“The American Tolkien,” the cover advises-- I presume this is based on his middle initials?).
I hope Cafe Society will not be too scornful if I am subsequently inspired to open a thread soliciting discussion of the “Wild Cards” books. Or maybe books about werewolves.
Well its certainly not based on his writing.
A Song of Ice and Fire is one of the very few fantasy series I find readable and I’m looking forward to the next volume hitting in a couple of months but his storytelling and Tolkien’s are worlds apart. Presumably they slapped that on the cover just because his fantasy series has become very popular.
I just Started The Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy by Daniel Yergin and Joseph Stanislaw. It’s about the conflict between state and market oriented philosophies and how it played out in the world from WW2 to the present day. It’s pretty good so far. Yewrgin’s sympathies are with the free amrket approach but he’s not blind to its flaws nor does he demonize state advocates.
I finally finished The Space Opera Renaissance Highly recommended for SF fans. It had stories by well known writers like Stross and Banks, but also short fiction by people I didn’t know, like Tony Daniel and John Wright, both of whom impressed me. It also had a good representation of older writers, like Ed Hamilton and Jack Williamson. I’d never read anything by Leigh Brackett before, and didn’t realize how much Moorcock drew from her. Also, I’d forgotten how good a space opera writer Samuel Delany is. Didn’t particularly care for David Weber, though I know he has a big following. At any rate this book will serve as a guide for future novel hunts.
Right now I am reading Craig Childs’ Animal Dialogues:Uncommon Encounters in the Wild, and Sharp Teeth, by Toby Barlow, and I’m trying to decide what to get myself for my birthday, besides Kushiel’s Mercy, by Jacqueline Carey. Hopefully the library will be able to lend me Jim Butcher’s Small Favor and Lois Mcmaster Bujold’s Passage: The Sharing Knife, Book 3 before the end of the month.
The Nine. Jeffery Toobins book on the supreme court.
I’m sold. I love short stories and I love Borges.
I’m reading two books right now:
Tolstoy’s Ana Karenina and Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma.
So far Ana is a total soap opera, whose plot in summary would not interest me in the slightest but in reality is actually pretty engrossing.
Omnivore’s Dilemma is talking about corn sex. But you know, it has great potential.
The new Kushiel book is out? Good, maybe they’ll finally wrap up the interminable Melisande loose end.
Last trip to the library netted Moonheart by Charles de Lint and A History of the Wife by Marilyn Yalom. I had started Moonheart about a year ago and never finished it before the due date, partially because someone tried to rip out the first 100 pages and taped the pages back in. I hate it when people abuse library books.
Still working on Paradise Lost…I’m up to page 3.
Gonna be awhile.
Can a noob post her current read? 
I find the oddest books on sale in dusty corners of used book stores and I’m a bit embarrassed to say it, but right now I’m reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Hard to believe this book was first published over 175 years ago…I’m finding it a bit of a tough read because it’s written in a rather old-fashioned English. I’m familiar with the story having seen the movie (which, when I was a child, scared the bejeesus outta me), but the the couple of chapters I’ve read so far don’t have any resemblance to the movie at all.
Next book (found in same dusty corner): The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
AlwaysFresh, I loved Frankenstein. I thought it was romantic and melodramatic, which I don’t usually care for – maybe I was just in the right mood for it. I read the edition with Berni Wrightson’s illustrations, and that helped too.
Today I looked through the last three issues of Bookmarks and went shopping at Amazon, but I didn’t buy a damn thing. I should know better than to read the reviews. I always look at the negatives first.
So it’s back to The Confusion by Neal Stephenson. I can barely hold the book up.
I read *Frankenstein * in my earlier years and thoroughly enjoyed it. The monster not being some grunting Boris Karloff-type creature surprised me.
Though I haven’t gotten too far into Frankenstein yet, I wonder if I’ll be able to picture the monster using my own imagination or will the popular Boris Karloff version persist in my head? I shall soon see!
I love Butler so much. Very sad when she died last year (or was it the year before now?)
I have been in the middle of Infamous Scribblers: The Founding Fathers and the Rowdy Beginnings of American Journalism for about a week, but it’s a bit slow going, as it has become far more “history of the nation” than “history of journalism” recently, and while I do love me some history, there are many authors who do Revolutionary War history better than Eric Burns. I’m trying to decide whether I feel like finishing it.
In the meantime, I went camping and brought along one of those required quick Brain Candy books: Cinnamon Skin, by John D. MacDonald. I finished it in an evening, and I’ve forgotten what a delight his books can be, so I’m rereading the 15 or so Travis McGee books I have.
Finished Bonk. I liked it a lot but Stiff remains my favorite Mary Roach book. I can’t wait to see what she’ll do next.
Then I flipped through The Perfectly Contented Meat-eater’s Guide to Vegetarianism : a book for those who really don’t want to be hassled about their diet, by Mark Warren Reinhardt. I’ve read it before and I like it a lot. When I get ready to go veg again, I’ll start by reading this book. It has a very laid-back and realistic approach, IMO. I was just checking to see if it had recipes, but no. That’s okay.
Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator had to go back to the library (and truthfully, it wasn’t really holding my son’s attention), so last night we read Don’t Bump the Glump, by Shel Silverstein. It’s very short poems, some of which are already included in Where the Sidewalk Ends or Light in the Attic. The quality was uneven, but we like Shel.
Currently reading Into the devil’s den : how an FBI agent got inside the Aryan Nations and a special agent got him out alive, by Dave Hall.
If you can find a copy of Wolf’s The Annotated Frankenstein, or his later version **The Essemntial Frankenstein ** (whivch was republished in paperback a few years ago) , read it. The annotations help enormously in understanding the plot and the characters.
Now reading The Beautiful Cigar Girl: Mary Rogers, Edgar Allan Poe, and the Invention of Murder by Daniel Stashower. It was physically the smallest non-paperback book in my Teetering Stack ™ and I needed something small to carry. It’s been out for a while, but I’ve had so much else I had to read first.