Nothing serious here. I’m halfway through Judas Unchained by Peter F. Hamilton. Enjoyable if you like the human condition; humans as natural warriors type faire. Next up is a colaboration between Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter series A Time Odyssey I have both; books one (Time’s Eye) and two (Sunstorm) of a two book series. This one is susposed to take place in Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey time line but seems to share a great deal with Baxter’s **Manifold **series.
Trading Up by Candace Bushnell
Just finished Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome Jerome
Before that, Ovid’s Metamorphoses. My copy’s in both English and Latin (even and odd pages). My intent was struggle through the Latin side in an effort to improve my Latin reading skills, but I mostly just read the translation while glancing over and muttering “oh yeah, I see that.”
Before that, “Part the First” of Don Quixote. Most enjoyable, but it took for-freakin’-ever to get through. Whoever translated it didn’t seem to realize paragraph breaks were his friend (I swear, one of those chapters was a single 30 page long paragraph), and that, while you can often drop the subject in a sentence where it’s clear what’s being spoken of, you don’t want to do that for every sentence.
Next up, either part the second of Quixote or a curious dark green book, late 19th century, with two silhouettes facing one another on its cover. I don’t know its title or author and that’s on purpose–I like selecting books randomly and surprising myself with new things.
In the meantime, I’ll read a few short stories from Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (Jerome Jerome again).
For the first time in a long, long while… nothing.
I finished Jared Diamond’s The Third Chimpanzee yesterday, and because I just started biking to work, I didn’t grab a new book to read on the train this morning. I suppose I should start on those baby books I bought last month, but I figure I still have another 5 months to go.
Re-re-re-re-re-re-re-reading a now VERY battered copy of William Gibson’s Neuromancer . Took me flipping forever to find too… Just moved recently, so many things are still in boxes, and for a while now I’d had a few passages stuck in my head. Tore open about half of my still-unsettled library open and found all my OTHER Gibson books, but eventually found it in a box of stuff that had accumulated on my side of the bed in the bedroom…
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
I’ve just started it. I can’t believe I didn’t read it sooner (Sci-fi isn’t really my favorite genre and when I was a kid, I thought it was an astronomy textbook with a creative name. :smack: ) I’m amazed at how many references I’m seeing now that I’ve actually started reading the book.
The 13 1/2 Lives of Captain Blue Bear by Walter Moers. It’s really very silly.
V for Vendetta is on it’s way from Amazon; I want to read it before the movie comes out (On Friday, I think, so I hope it gets here soon).
I like to think that this is because of my persistent recommendation of the book, but I’m probably wrong. 
Anyway, I’m currently reading Richard Dawkins The Ancestor’s Tale, which is hefty and difficult and interspersed with odd political ramblings, but worthwhile. I’ll have to read it again after I finish, mainly because I didn’t focus well on a couple of passages and am starting to get lost…
In my backpack is The Command of the Ocean by N.A.M. Rodger, a naval history of Great Britain from the Commonwealth to 1815. Excellent, exciting and informative read.
Unfinished fiction includesRalph Ellison The Invisible Man and William Golding’s To the End of the Earth. Not sure which of those will be done first, the non-fiction is really taking up my time.
Heh. Nope, sorry. I don’t think I’d heard of it before either here or anywhere else, but a month or so ago I was wandering around a book shop with a voucher to spend but no idea of what I wanted and it just jumped out at me. I’m about halfway through so far and I’m enjoying it immensely. Do you know if there’s any plans for a sequel about his remaining lives?
I have somehow found a really good writer of paranormal romance by the name of Marjorie Liu.
I’m reading her books ( three to day) in reverse order as that is how I have found them.
Shadow Touch Which the hero is one of the most interesting characters I’ve ever come across. He is a physic that has the ability to read the history of every person in what he touches.A telepath. The female lead has the ability to heal, but is no pollyanna. It gets dark ( for a romance novel) and has actual murder in it. What is also intriguing is the fact the Bad Guy is actually a woman . An old paralyzed woman. I like it.
Tiger’s Eye About a woman who ends up buying and opening a Genie’s Box and setting him free. It isn’t as retarded and predictable as it sounds. Actually has a nice plot.
Both are a bit more meatier than your average romance novel.
You folks need to down grade your standards once in awhile.
The Vesuvius Club the blurb said:
It did not live up to the hype and I was quite bored.
I am in the middle of Wicked on tape, which I listen to while working out. At first I hated it, and could not find one character that I liked. It has gotten somewhat better, but I would still not put this is a recommend category.
I just started Grave Sight last night after finishing Vesuvius Club. So far it is a solid read and I’m enjoying it.
It is better than I had anticipated and I am glad that I picked it up.
Currently re-reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, but before that I finished reading Myrren’s Gift by Fiona McIntosh. The best new fantasy I’ve read in some time - I was a bit disappointed with Sarah Douglass.
Stiff by Mary Roach. Now calm down, I quote from the blurb:
Stiff lifts the lidon exactly what happensto our bodies after we die. In addition to dissecting the ins and outs of decomposition, it unearths the many uses of a human corpse, frm ballistics practice to body farms, crash test dummiesto composting, and, in the process, digs up a wealth of ghoulishly compelling detail - from the experiment to weigh the human soul and the history of bady snatching to the true story of the human dumpling.
I just finished reading Paul Theroux’s Happy Isles of Oceania: Paddling the Pacific. I liked it OK, but had a few gripes. He was really harsh in his treatment of Australia and New Zealand, he was going through a divorce and seemed down through much of the book, which I didn’t find terribly entertaining. He seems to have that New England cold fish thing going on, as well.
Would y’all reccomend any of his other books? I’d like to know what you think about his stuff.
I also just re-read William Least Heat-Moon’s River Horse, which is one of my favorite books. He put out a short tome on Columbus’ logs, which was OK, but I’m anxiously waiting to see what he does next.
I’m not familiar with his more recent stuff, but liked a couple of his earlier books – Great Railway Bazaar and The Old Patagonian Express. (BTW, check out Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia also if you start moving (sic) in that direction.)
I read his Prairyerth a couple of months ago, and liked it quite a bit – have you read that? (I got it from RTFirefly in the Gettysdope Book Exchange last summer – if you’d like a copy and are coming again this summer, I can pass it on.)
Yeah, I’ve got PrairyErth. I liked it, though not as much as Blue Highways or River-Horse. I’m going to re-read it soon to make sure. The Columbus thing seemed like a phone-in to me. Since he’s starting to get up there in age, I doubt there’s going to be another epic travel book in him, but you never know. I’d like to see something new from him.
Should have known you’d’ve read it already.
Okay, here’s another recommendation, then:
Blue Latitudes. The author travels around retracing Captain Cook’s steps, so it’s both about Captain Cook (a truly amazing figure who I knew practically zero about going in) and his own adventures.
Neard the author on NPR one day, so I picked up the book. Losing Iraq by David Phillips. I’ve only read 2 pages, so we’ll see how it goes.
I just finished Entities: Selected Novels by Eric Frank Russell, unjustly forgotten SF writer, whose Sinister Barrier alone ought to get him remembered. I’d never read Wasop before, which is supposed to be his classic. I highly recommend the book:
I’ve just started Founding Myths by Ray Raphael. I’ve long known that a lot of stories of the founding of the US were enhanced, but this book goes much farther than others in researching and showing just how fictitious much of these stories are. Growing up in New Jersey, I’d heard of Molly Pitcher, and been to her well. But I had no idea that she was completely mythical:
Serpent on the Rock by Kurt Eichenwald. Non-fiction about a securities scandal involving Prudential-Bache in the 1980s. Not very good until about 250 pages in.