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seremtan
Etile
Etile
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PostPosted: 07-12-2007 10:16 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Eric Hobsbawm - Globalisation, Democracy & Terrurism. it's a relief to read something about our times with depth and scope and insight instead of the usual shallow rubbish. guy's a marxist, but he doesn't let that get in the way
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sliver
orphan of war
orphan of war
Joined: 05 May 2005
Posts: 853
PostPosted: 07-12-2007 08:26 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Grudge wrote:
Agreed, I've always hated that thing where "ordinary" people from today get sucked into a fantasy/sci-fi setting (ever since I tried reading C.S. fucking Lewis and hating him when I was a kid) except for the books about Thomas Covenant which were tolerable and Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere which was very good.
That's funny, I assumed it went without saying that the Narnia chronicles were an exception to my comment: I think the kids aren't "modern" enough for it to bother me -- if they had iPods and Nike running shoes it would piss me off, but good old middle-of-the-century Brits are already half way between my conception of [north american] modernity and the average innocuous fantasy world, so taking them the other half doesn't push me back out of the story.

I consider the Narnia books brilliant for kids, since they generally lack the discernment necessary to point out that Lewis is "a little heavy on the Jesus." Haven't read a narnia book since I was about 14 and while I bought myself the entire 6-in-1 volume (or however many there are) because it was $7.99 at a University of Toronto book sale, I don't really plan on reading any of them again until I have children to listen.
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Grudge
Approaching the singularity
Approaching the singularity
Joined: 28 Jan 2002
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PostPosted: 07-13-2007 03:52 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I think the problem was that I had read The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings first, and after that the Narnia books felt very old, stuffy and childish compared to Tolkien. Maybe they're aimed for younger children, I was around 10-11 at the time.

Also, I've always hated having children as main characters. For as long as I can remember, I've always preferred grown up protagonists.
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R00k
straight at you
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Joined: 18 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 07-13-2007 04:58 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I started on the Narnia series when I was around 13, and I thought they were overly simple books even then.

They're pretty worthless, except to deliver Christianity in a child-digestible package. They don't hold a candle to the richness and complexity and interesting storylines and characters of the better books in the fantasy genre, even for a young kid.

I picked up The Wheel of Time series in middle school instead, and never looked back.
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Dean McLean
Gibblet
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Joined: 04 May 2007
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PostPosted: 07-13-2007 07:15 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I just finished neuromancer, that was pretty good.
Also, this collection of HP Lovecraft stories (brushing up on my quake mythology)
and c++ for dummies



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lars63
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PostPosted: 07-13-2007 09:28 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


The Complete Annotated Grateful Dead Lyrics

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Book link

I'm a sucker for Grateful Dead stuff I saw this new book at Best Buy of all places *I thought they were electronics store guess there everything store or want to be* of course I bought it because Rudy knows I've wondered about the words to lots of their songs. If your interested in the GD this might be a book for you

Below is David Dodd's webpage project notes and book check it out:

http://arts.ucsc.edu/Gdead/AGDL/



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i think i am
Mercenary
Mercenary
Joined: 20 Feb 2007
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PostPosted: 07-13-2007 09:32 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


One Hundred Years of Solitude
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Scourge
Pestilence
Pestilence
Joined: 25 Mar 2002
Posts: 15822
PostPosted: 07-13-2007 09:35 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


J. Robert King - Planescape: Blood Hostages. My son bought it for me. Figured I better check it out. Only a few pages in but seems interesting so far.
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Suave
Bigger than you
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PostPosted: 07-14-2007 06:24 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Has anyone here read 'The Children of Hurin' yet? It's a new Tolkien release. J.R.R never got to finish the book, but his son finished it off and released it in April.

I've heard that it's a very depressing book to read, set in the first age of Middle Earth. Sauron is in it, as a mere lieutenant to Morgoth (dark lord).

I've been reading a lot of reviews on it because I'm in two minds whether to pick it up. I'm just not sure I can be arsed yet to be quite honest. It sounds like a real heavy read.
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Mat Linnett
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PostPosted: 10-31-2007 06:41 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Going through Palahniuk at the moment.
Currently reading Haunted, and have read Survivor and Choke.
Got Invisible Monsters, Diary & Lullaby lined up in the wings.

That and as mentioned in the movie thread, I'm going through the Punisher MAX series. I've read:
In the Beginning
Kitchen Irish
Mother Russia
Up is Down and Black is White
The Slavers
Barracuda

Favourites so far are "In the Beginning", "Up is Down and Black is White" and "The Slavers".
Some particularly good artwork in the first one. Really moody stuff that makes Castle look like a crazed psycopath. Scarred and old too, but he is supposed to be in his fifties in this series.
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JulesWinnfield
The Afflicted
The Afflicted
Joined: 08 Feb 2005
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PostPosted: 10-31-2007 09:54 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


The Great and Secret Show and Everville, both by Clive Barker
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l0g1c
Don't be koi
Don't be koi
Joined: 06 May 2002
Posts: 2693
PostPosted: 10-31-2007 10:01 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Freedom Evolves (by recommendation of someone here).

It picks up after about 80 pages of him pissing all over anyone who opposes his theories. It was really tedious, but now it's getting better.
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R00k
straight at you
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PostPosted: 10-31-2007 10:37 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Robert Heinlein - The Cat Who Walks Through Walls
Richard Dawkins - The Blind Watchmaker

Naomi Kline - The Shock Doctrine


I'm nearly finished with the first two, but put them down to read the 3rd and to do some studying.
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werldhed
EYE gee EM!
EYE gee EM!
Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 4196
PostPosted: 10-31-2007 11:02 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Finished Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows back around when it came out. Very well done, I think. She did a nice job of creating an intriguing back story and still managing to wrap things up without getting too obnoxiously out of hand with stupid twists.

Then I breezed through The Hobbit for old time's sake.

Picked up The Silmarillion and got a little way through before I decided I should dedicate my attention to memorizing info for my prelim exam instead of memorizing Elf lineages. I still contend that the opening to that book is magnificent.
Anyway, I gave up and went back to studying for the prelim, and that's what I'm doing now. I've got a couple of papers and texts spread out before me. Just a few:

-Janeway C. Immunobiology 6th ed.
-Opferman J. and Korsmeyer S. Apoptosis in the development and maintenance of the immune system.
-Dempsey P., et al. The signaling adaptors and pathways activated by the TNF superfamily. <--- Woot! :)
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Nightshade
Tap, Nap, or Snap
Tap, Nap, or Snap
Joined: 01 Dec 2000
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PostPosted: 10-31-2007 12:47 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


The Chariot Makers: Assembling The Perfect Formula 1 Car by Steve Matchett. It's his third book, I just finished his second, The Mechanic's Tale: Life In The Pit Lanes of Formula One. Great books, both.
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Ryoki
Karot!
Karot!
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PostPosted: 11-04-2007 11:04 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I went a little crazy at the bookstore today:

The Shock Doctrine - Naomi Klein

Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill

Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thomspon - Jann S. Wenner & Corey Seymour

Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror - Robert Young Pelton

The Zombie Survival Guide - Max Brooks (thanks Grudge! :) )



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tnf
guru
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PostPosted: 11-04-2007 11:16 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Reading "A Tour of the Calculus" again...now that I know Berlinski writes for the Intelligent Design movement I'm curious to see if I can pick up on any of that in his writing here.
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Ryoki
Karot!
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PostPosted: 12-31-2007 01:59 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Went to the bookstore again :)

World War Z - Max Brooks
Finished it in one evening. What a great book... i keep thinking it would be awesome if someone had the balls to base a TV series on it. Read this.

The Great Shark Hunt - Hunter Thompson

The Proud Highway - Hunter Thompson

Songs of the Doomed - Hunter Thompson

Pity the Nation - Robert Fisk

Resource Wars - Michael T. Klare


...and i still haven't read the Shock Doctrine... something is keeping me from starting in it and i don't know what it is. On the bright side, my HST collection is nearing completion...



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Grudge
Approaching the singularity
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PostPosted: 12-31-2007 03:13 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Agreed on World War Z. :up:

i'm currently going through Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. Right now I'm reading this:

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werldhed
EYE gee EM!
EYE gee EM!
Joined: 07 May 2004
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 08:10 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Finished: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce. Terribly awful book. Why it is consistently on lists of the greatest books of all time is beyond me. He had talent as a writer, but this book is just shit.

Reading: The Return of the Shadow - Christopher Tolkien. Very interesting look at the evolution of LOTR while it was being written. Not entirely engrossing as a story, and pretty heavy and academic reading, but it's interesting to see how Tolkien went about developing the story. And I'm glad to know he decided NOT to name the main character "Bingo Bolger-Baggins".
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Mat Linnett
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 08:45 AM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


World War Z is indeed fantastic, and is probably solely responsible for re-awakening my interest in the zombie genre.
If you didn't know already, Brad Pitt's company, Plan B, have picked up the movie rights for this.

One thing that Brooks gets incredibly right with World War Z in the same way that Romero gets it right too is that he doesn't try to explain why the zombie apocalypse happens.
I've read a lot of other stuff in the genre and with the exception of The Walking Dead, they almost all try to scientifically explain why zombies happen, when they should be concentrating on interesting survivor stories.

As for what I'm reading at the moment, it's Stephen Donaldson's latest, Fatal Revenant.
And fuck me, is it tedious.
I think I've lost my taste for Donaldson over the years.
So over Christmas, I put it down and read "I Am Legend" which I only found out about recently, and loved it.
It's pretty much the template for all things zombie (yes, I know they're vampires, but hey, it was written in the fifties and I'm pretty sure zombies weren't popular back then), and I'm a bit of a sucker for reading books that go on to influence whole pulp genres.
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plained
plained
plained
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 09:00 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


surviver posted that millions of e book link threr the other day

i seen some of the "standerds" ive wanted to understand for a long time

i may very quickly scan a bunch of them so's i can cop the feel :paranoid:



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R00k
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 09:50 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


werldhed wrote:
Finished: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce. Terribly awful book. Why it is consistently on lists of the greatest books of all time is beyond me. He had talent as a writer, but this book is just shit.


Yea I bought this because it was highly recommended, and I only read about 15 or 20 pages before just putting it down and deciding some people have different ideas of 'a great book' than I do.

I finished The Shock Doctrine (wonderful book, btw, everyone should read it) and was having a hard time deciding what to grab out of my "to-read" pile.

I finally settled on Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky -- about 30 pages into it or so, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. His characters are engrossing.
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HM-PuFFNSTuFF
Canadian Shaft
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 10:04 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Currently reading: How Soccer Explains The World


Rook and Werldhed, you have to read Ulysses to understand why people love Joyce.

Crime and Punishment is a classic.
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seremtan
Etile
Etile
Joined: 19 Nov 2003
Posts: 34905
PostPosted: 01-02-2008 11:15 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Solutions for the World's Biggest Problems, ed. Bjorn Lomberg - covers all those annoyances like poverty, disease, war and environmental degradation but oddly no chapter on australia
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R00k
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 01:29 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:
Rook and Werldhed, you have to read Ulysses to understand why people love Joyce.

Crime and Punishment is a classic.


I've considered it. Is the writing style totally different from the other?


Also, forgot, I also recently finished

A Short History of Nearly Everything (excellent)
The Blind Watchmaker (also excellent)
The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (not very good at all unfortunately - and I'm a fan of Heinlein)
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menkent
menkent
menkent
Joined: 22 Jul 2000
Posts: 4758
PostPosted: 01-02-2008 01:51 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


just finished Golden Compass. It was all right, but I hate books that end with a to-be-continued. Yawn.

i think I'll read Gravity's Arc next.
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Canidae
Immortal
Immortal
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 01:57 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Hari Kunzru - Transmission 9/10


http://www.amazon.com/Transmission-Hari-Kunzru/dp/0525947604


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xer0s
Digital Nausea
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 02:51 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Yeager: An Autobiography

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Dark Metal
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 04:29 PM           Profile   Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Six Days of War - Michael B. Oren



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SoM
Your Other Daddy
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PostPosted: 01-02-2008 04:49 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


this thread, then i quit after this post



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R00k
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PostPosted: 01-22-2008 11:58 AM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


I'm about 60 pages away from finishing Crime and Punishment.

What a wonderfully written book. :up:
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werldhed
EYE gee EM!
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Joined: 07 May 2004
Posts: 4196
PostPosted: 01-22-2008 12:08 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


HM-PuFFNSTuFF wrote:
Currently reading: How Soccer Explains The World


Rook and Werldhed, you have to read Ulysses to understand why people love Joyce.

Crime and Punishment is a classic.


I don't doubt that his stuff is good; his writing is really impressive. It just so happens that particular book of his blows. Similar to how Crime and Punishment is great, and The Idiot sucks. Some writers just have moments of shit.

Will check out Ulysses at some point. Is Finnegans Wake any good?
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Hannibal
Rationalis
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Joined: 26 Nov 2000
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PostPosted: 01-22-2008 12:29 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Read Dubliners before tackling the bigger stuff.



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seremtan
Etile
Etile
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PostPosted: 01-22-2008 01:09 PM           Profile Send private message  E-mail  Edit post Reply with quote


Seymour Hersh - Chain of Command
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