Books: What are you currently reading?

[Elstree]

I'm currently reading Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications by Wasserman and Faust...and wishing I weren't. I can't wait for the holidays when I'll finally have time to read fiction again.

[Killer Lawnmower]

Reading the 9th book in the Rangers Apprentice Series, by John Flanagan.
My dad and I are obsessed with that series. Oh, the title is Halt's Peril.

[CapnRedChops]

Re-reading George RR Martin's Wild Cards for about the millionth time.

Just finished Acqua Alta by Donna Leon.

Story was a bit meh, characterisation is sharp, and you can almost hear Venice in the background while you're reading, it's that well described.

CRC

[CapnRedChops]

Originally Posted by Fedex worker

Starting "The Road". Has anyone read it?

Old post, but this is a highly emotional book, delivered in a deadpan descriptive style (which suits the whole theme). This book is simply a minor masterpiece.

http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/theroad.htm

Give it a try - especially if you like post apocolyptic fiction like:
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Earth Abides
The Stand
I am Legend (the book, NOT the c***tacular movie)

CRC

[Kahrma]

Originally Posted by CapnRedChops

I am Legend (the book, NOT the c***tacular movie)
CRC

Good short read! If you want a more faithful film adaptation, check out "The Last Man on Earth" from 1964 starring Vincent Price. If you're into zombie flicks, this film was said to have influenced Romero's landmark "Night of the Living Dead".

But definitely read the story first. It's short, so you have no excuse

[Fen_Hydra]

I'm now reading some of the Artemis Fowl series.

My favorite parts are just the complexity and genius of his plans. (Also there are some funny parts.)

[Darth Vader]

Originally Posted by Fen_Hydra

I'm now reading some of the Artemis Fowl series.

My favorite parts are just the complexity and genius of his plans. (Also there are some funny parts.)

I tried reading these when I was younger. They were a great concept, and I enjoyed what I read of them, but for some reason I didn't finish any of them. I still got the first four on my bookshelf, maybe someday when I don't have to worry about homework, I will get around to reading them.

[Agent Minivann]

I read a couple of Dan Abnett's Warhammer 40K books about a month ago. I just finished The Princess Bride for the first time. Now I am working on Wizard's First Rule. The Warhammer 40K universe just fascinates me, and Abnett can write a good story. The Princess Bride was a fun read, but I think at the end of the day, I like the movie better. They are both good in different ways. The stuff I liked about the book wouldn't have translated to the movie. I'm enjoying Wizard's First Rule. I'm not that far into it, but I like what I see so far.

Originally Posted by Killer Lawnmower

Reading the 9th book in the Rangers Apprentice Series, by John Flanagan.
My dad and I are obsessed with that series. Oh, the title is Halt's Peril.

I've been confiscating the Ranger's Apprentice books and flashlights from my son the last week or so.

[ParaGoomba Slayer]

Got a collection of 7 Jules Verne novels. I plan on reading From the Earth to the Moon first. The concept of launching a spaceship into orbit via super cannon is an interesting idea, however ridiculous and impractical it may be.

Originally Posted by CapnRedChops

Old post, but this is a highly emotional book, delivered in a deadpan descriptive style (which suits the whole theme). This book is simply a minor masterpiece.

http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/theroad.htm

Give it a try - especially if you like post apocolyptic fiction like:
A Canticle for Leibowitz
Earth Abides
The Stand
I am Legend (the book, NOT the c***tacular movie)

CRC

The Road is a great book. I very much recommend it.

[RabSheila]

Originally Posted by ParaGoomba Slayer

The Road is a great book. I very much recommend it.

Seconded.

[Dad_Scaper]

Originally Posted by Agent Minivann

I've been confiscating the Ranger's Apprentice books and flashlights from my son the last week or so.

*chuckle* I didn't know parents did that. We figure if he wants to read so badly that he'll do it under the covers by flashlight, we just let him.

Finished Kevin Baker's Dreamland, a meticulously researched historical fiction set in 1910(ish) Lower East Side & Coney Island. Absolutely loaded with faithfully drawn historical figures and it tells a great story.

I've now started And Only to Deceive by Tasha Alexander. I was in a bookstore and had money in my pocket so I actually paid for this one & a couple others, instead of going to the library, so I hope it's good. Supposedly it's a mystery and I think I'm beginning to get to it but after the first couple of chapters there is a *very* interesting parallel with Pride and Prejudice, which I'll discuss in a spoiler tag so as not to bore people more than I may already have.

Spoiler Alert!

It's off to a quality start so far, the first couple of chapters are set up as an interesting rewrite of Pride and Prejudice, where the smart, independent Elizabethan young woman encounters the distant but wealthy, smart, giving, eligible bachelor. But in *this* book, he proposes after they have only just recently begun courting, and she *accepts*. They marry, not understanding each other at all, and then he drops dead while abroad about a year later. This is not except in the most technical sense a "spoiler," he is already dead at the beginning of the book...

Anyway, only about a year after his death does she begin to find out he was someone she might actually have been a good match for, having spent their brief marriage and most of her mourning period fairly indifferent to him.

I thought to myself, this is an inversion of Pride and Prejudice.

Here endeth the spoiler, which can't have given too much away because I've only read 2 chapters.

[TGRF]

The Children of Hurin by J.R.R. Tolkein.