Which book(s) are you currently reading?

I finished Catch-22 and thoroughly enjoyed it...I thought the ending (as in the very last few pages) were hilarious...rapped up a strange book very strangely and sillily (not a word but just try saying it) indeed.

I also Just read 'Tis by Frank McCourt - I thought it was an interesting insight into the Irish background. I found it quite funny how he kept talking about peoples desire to tell others they were an Irish desendand and found his comment about how all people do when they hear his accent is think what a lovely accent it is and then not listen to what he said quite familiar.

Anyone with a Scottish accent who talks frequently to those outside Scotland (such as myself) find themselves in the same boat all to often.

I also found it was an interesting insight into the mind of a teacher...

Anyway I have just started 'The World According to Garp' by John Irving. After having read 'A Prayer for Owen Meany' I'm quite looking forward to it.

Finished Lords and Ladies (I really must get Wyrd sisters and Witches abroad, I have read them, but only once, so I'm missing bits...)

I'm on to Thief of time, despite the pink coulouring of about half the book where my dear sister poured red gooey liquid over a couple of my TP books (by accident, which is the only reason she's still alive). I spent a good half hour in the bus this morning wracking my brain to work out what Marco Soto was a joke about (I almost gave up reading it after the Jeremy Clockson joke) and decided to check L space once at work.

Well, at least I'm feeling better about not getting the pun, eh... :roll:

I just finished God-Emporer of Dune. It was pretty good, and I think the author did a good job at making a semi-sympathetic villian. I just bought Heritics of Dune, but have yet to start it.

I'm rereading my Paul S. Kemp books. Currently at Twilight Falling, of the Erevis Cale Trilogy.

Just started The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein. I only started it yesterday, but already I can see why it is considered a SciFi Classic.

I started Eats, shoots and leaves a couple of days ago... it's quite interesting, funny at moments and terribly reassuring. I am not the worst pedant out there.

You have probably finished it by now, but i just started Theif of time aswell, i was recomended Soul Music, but i can't get into it. This one is cool though, top people to laugh at and of course Susan Death being one of my faves how could i not like it!

Finished 'the world according to Garp' another strange and facsinating book, not as good as 'a prayer for owen meaney' but still well worth it! I'd reccomend it to anyone.

I am now reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman...taking a while to get into but seems promising. I like his other work.

I just did a research project on him. I don't know if I passed - my teacher still hasn't decided if he counts as an American author. But my paper was good.

Is Gaiman an author worth reading so? I've been meaning to get one of his books for ages but never seem to get round to it.

I am currently reading The Golden Compass by Phillip Pullman. English gave it to me, he said I would quite like it, and that it was an easy read. From the first chapter, I think he's right.

I've got Thuuuuud !! I've got Thuuuud !!
Now I'll have to find time to read it at home, with those white gloves, in the air-tight case, because there's no way that book is going to get lumped around in the bus like my normal books. Hmmm, maybe I need to think about the air-tight bit...

Just thought I'd mention that The Golden Compass is called 'Northern Lights' in the Uk & Ireland.

Gaiman is exceptionaly good and I highly recomend his works. He co-authored Good Omens with pTerry and his novel American Gods won a ton of awards and is one of my favorite books.

I have read Good Omens of course, so will seek out some of his other books

Agreed. American Gods is out of this world.

If you want to try his stuff, Jackal....make sure you read this book.

I finished The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. It was very good. Unfortunatly, it will probably the last book I read for pleasure in a while. I am taking AP american literature next year and have a big summer reading list.

Last week I started Jim Butcher's series: [i:4dfa058883]The Dresden Files[/i:4dfa058883]

Today I finished book 7.

It's that damn good. Basic premise: Harry Dresden is a wizard. He's a professional. He's also the only wizard to have an add in the yellow pages. Need something found? Need answers? Does the fact that your neighbor seems to have fangs, an aversion to sunlight, and an unhealthy interest in your bloodtype bother you? Then call Dresden. He's in the book.

I love this series. Mix modern fantasy with some great one liners, horror, and a lot of good old fashioned detective noir-type stuff and there you go. Everytime I go through one of these books I literally have to force myself to put it down and sleep and sometimes that doesn't work.

Since reading this I've sold at least 12 copies of it to customers in the store just by talking to them about it and most every one have come back to thank me for it. I love working in a bookstore


edit- Yep, still can't spell.

If I recall corectly, they were pretty good.

Also, I just finished Founding Brothers which was an excelent look at the first 50 years of the US.

I just read the first book in a trilogy about Troy. It's called Lord of the Silver Bow by David Gemmell. It was thoroughly enjoyable.

I also just read THe Alchemist by Paulo Coelho which I thought was lovely and very uplifting.

afterfinally traveling on trains enough to finish auschwitz I have moved onto 'million tiny pieces' by James frey. I think I'll read this one when I'm at home aswell as on trains...

no matter how I read that, it seems terribly ironic to me... :?

lol. it's a truely fasinating book, I knew a little about the war (with a few odd facts thrown in), this was a real eye-opener. I had no idea that the germans wanted to rule Europe with the British, or that the railway to Birkenau (the death camp built less than a mile away from Auschwitz but was later incorperated into the auschwitz complex), possibly most shocking of the things in the book are the details of operation Reinhard (spelling?)

It was an operation designed to eradicated all Jews from the ghettos in and around Poland. There were three death camps made, each roughly 200 meters by 200 meters. In total those three camps killed more in the one year they were in operation than were killed at Auschwitz throughout it's running!

It was an amazing book and certainly lived upto the comments it received. my favourite acclamation (not sure of what the proper term would be :S) is probably "this magnificent book... exciting and disturbing at the same time" which is exactly what it is. I'd recommend this book to everyone.

Read the first book of the Bartimaeus Trilogy, The Amulet of Samarkand, and the new book by eoin Coffler, Half Moon Investigations. Both were very good, the first one being good ole fantasy with a demon you can't help liking (even when he wants to bite Nathaniel's head off ) and the newest character by eoin Coffler is like a nice and average Artemis Fowl.

I've read the Amulet of Samarkand, I really liked it. It was a great book, very well written. The other two are just as good, or at least the second one and the start of the third, (which is as far as I've gotten) are.

Just read/reread:

Anne of Ingleside-good, slightly too sweet, but nice fluff.
Anne's House of Dreams-ditto.
Anne of the Island-ditto.

Dead Famous by Ben Elton- absolutely amazingly good book. Really really good, at one and the same time an intriguing murder mystery, and a satire on modern culture.

A Gift of Dragons by Anne McCaffrey- short story collection, det in Pern. Up to her usual high standard.

I am reading Lolita by Vladamir Nabokov for English. It is...disturbing...

I also just read M.A.S.H. which was excellent. Human sacrafices, mermaids and all that

Science of Discworld 3: Darwin's Watch. Excellent.

I was reading Strata, but I got bored.

woah... there's a science of discworld 3?

why did nobody tell me?

anyway-- last night i finished two books by bill bryson: a walk in the woods and neither here nor there.

both quite good. i really want to go see lichtenstein now. and go hiking.

Yeah, it's awesome. All about evolution and all that.

I'm reading two books at the minute. Darwin's Watch, and Good Omens. Both are excellent.

I have finished Lolita by Vladamr Nabakov which took a lot of effort to read and I am extremely glad I have read it but now I hope to never have to read it again.

I have just started 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' by Italo Calvino also for English and am finding it quite bemusing and also very entertaining.

I also found Lolita work to read. I'm busy with Seventh Scroll from Wilbur Smith, yet again. I love that trilogy, and everytime I don't have anything new to read, its either them or one of my Pratchet books.

I'm glad I finally have some time to read this summer. None of those things like school or TV to distract me for two whole weeks. Feels good.

I finished reading Watchmen by Alan Moore this morning. I really couldn't put it down. I think I enjoyed it even more than I did V for Vendetta. Moore is truly a master.

I'm going to start reading A Scanner Darkly this afternoon. I feel like I need to read it and see if it's then worth it to go pay six bucks to see a Keanu Reeves movie.

In my experience nothing that I was made to read in an English class was ever something I would pick out on my own.

Trying to read the Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler in order but there is no complete list in the front of the books that seems right and the list the library had isn't right so I need to find another list. Finishing up Pacific Vortex which I now know is the first one even though it wasn't published first and that is the 8th or so one that I have read.

I have now finished a million little pieces by James Frey, It was an amazing book! I'd recomend it to everyone. Its about a man recovering from seriouse drug/alchohol abuse in a rehab center. Its really inspirational and has a heart breaking ending. a damn good read.

I currently don't have anything to read although i have orderd the sequel to million little pieces off play. It's called my friend Leonard. by james frey.

I also read the Dirk Pitt books, my favourites are Raising the Titanic and Sahara, I also watched that movie and it's so different it's almost a completely different story. Still good though.

I just finished 'Brave New World' By Adlous Huxley as well as 'The Handmaids Tale' by Margaret Attwood, both for english.

Still need to read 'If on a Winter's Night a Traveller' by Italo Calvino which I started ages ago :?

Just got a few new books. currently reading female chauvinist PIGS woman and the rise of Raunch culture. by Ariel Levy.

its quite interesting, not a particularly long book but pretty cool and horrifying.

just read "Never Let Me Go" by Kazuo Ishiguro. It was interesting- about a group of people who are clones, created and raised to donate their vital organs on reaching adulthood. Really weird, but not sci-fi ish at all.

also read "Five QUarters of the Orange" by Joanne Harris, the author of Chocolat. It was very good, I don't know how to describe it without giving major spoilers.

Currently re-reading the entire Harry Potter series (halfway through Book 5 now). Can't wait till the last installment next summer...

didn't she say she couldn't be arsed to finish the series? there was a massive uproar about it, I havn't heard anything that could hint otherwise although I don't exactly keep track of Potter news...

Hex: Just finished the graphic novel of "A Scanner Darkly". Liked it enough to order the original Philip K. Dick book. All the pictures in the graphic novel are taken directly from the film. (It was shot in live action and then the director animated over it.)

Roisin: "Never Let Me Go" sounds like it inspired the movie "The Island". Same premise, but SF. With Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. (meh..)

I'm reading 3 books at the same time. :roll:

I'm reading "Freakonomics" which is the first non-fiction book I've bought in ages. Interesting stuff. Gives an interesting insight into Economics and statistics.
For example: It is 100 times more likely for a child to be killed by a swimming pool than it is to be killed by a gun.
(The given example was: Would you feel better about sending your child to a house where the owner has a swimming pool than to a house where you know the owner the has a gun?)

Also reading Science of the Discworld 1 (which I guess kind of qualifies as non-fiction...) Fun as usual, I need to take my time with the science parts though. Makes me want to get my hands on "Darwins Watch".

The third book I'm reading, mostly on the beach, is the Da Vinci code (Actually "O codigo de da Vinci".). I have already read it, and though it shallow but enjoyable, but now I'm rereading it in Portugese, because I want to improve my portugese.

This summer I discovered a new local author, Lorna Landvik. She has already been discovered by Oprah for her book "Angry Housewives Eating Bon-Bons" but I haven't read that one yet. I started with "Patty Jane's House of Curl" then skipped to "The Tall Pine Polka" and then I finished the second published book " Your Oasis on Flame Lake" this morning. These books are funny and profound at the same time, plus they are set in my favorite state and have characters I seem to have met in real life.

I have Thud on order and a couple of others; one by David Weber, We Few, and a new 1634 book by Eric Flint. Grantville is one of my favorite fictional towns.

Fairyliquid and Ekke, if you think Lolita was bad you should try Nabokov's later work. I once picked up a book by him that looked like it had been ghostwritten by monkey's. Actually monkey's could have come up with a more readable book with one paw tied behind their back.

#Has a massive heart atack, and promptly checks lots of Potter sites#

No. She is finishing them. THANK GOD!!!

roisindubh211 wrote:

I quite liked that book, a bit pretentious kindof, I thought, but good.

I have given up reading books for english at the moment, my head was going in ciricles so I started listening to 'Going Postal' on audio book (unabridged) which is a completely different experience to reading Pratchett's books on paper. I'm quite enjoying it. You pick up more jokes and the characters become more tangible as they have distinct voices that when you imagine them.

I think I prefer a book in my hands but sometimes it's nice to sit back and be told a story.

One day, I shall try an audiobook... I guess I was brought up thinking that listening to a book was cheating and that comics weren't real books, I've got over the comic-phobia, on to audiobooks now... If read by Tony Robinson, well, that's a bonus...

Id like to try an audiobook or two myself.
I read quickly, so I wouldn't go for an audiobook of something I hadn't read before, because the suspense would just drive me insane, but I think I'd enjoy an audiobook of a book that I'd read a few times and liked.

Eragon for me, but I am listening to THUD! On audio book. Read by a really
Funny guy who thinks that colon is posh, its great stuff.
:lol:

I always though audio books were cheating too. I've never actually listened to one so I can't truly veto it but I've never been able to listen to somebody read to me because I can read faster than they can talk.

I ordered 4 Dirk Pitt novels to take camping with me and it turns out I'd already read three of them but it didn't matter because I didn't even finish the one I hadn't read by the time camping was over.
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2 days later:
I just noticed the 6th Harry Potter book is out in paper back and I bought it. To bad I just got the last 4 Dirk Pitt novels from the library and I want to read those first.

I have just begun 'The Grapes of Wrath' which I watched the play of while in Pitlochry (in Scotland) over the summer. So far it's great.

I am also semi-half reading a bit of Stardust by Neil Gaiman when I am in the mood for soemthing lighter. It works well as a fun, on-the-side book.

I just finished "Survivor" by Chuck Palaniuck (sp?) author of Fight Club. Very weird and disturbing book. A friend of mine gave me "Lulaby" also by Chuck P. I don't know if I'm ready to read that yet.

On my bedside table I have Thud, which I am leisurely reading.

I also have "Is Data Human - The Metaphysics of Star Trek" which I am re-reading for the zillionth time. Great book, its all about sensience, the mind, AI, and all that good controversial stuff.

Edit to declare: Clare cannot spell.

I just finished Enduring Love by Ian McEwan - another for English.

I thoroughly enjoyed it. I thought the writting was excellent and it combined being a good thriller and an interresting and evocative piece of work brilliantly. It certainly wasn't my favourite read but it was a well worth investing time in.

Yeah, I really enjoyed Eragon and Eldest.
I'm looking forwards to the movie too.

Edit: Because I didn't read Eladest.

I'm in the process of reading the first book of the bible for my English class. I'm enjoying the underlying themes of destruction and sexism.

I'm also reading The Epic of Gilgamesh for my classics class. I'll let you know how that is when I get further into it.

A friend of mine down the hall let me borrow their copy of Through Painted Deserts by Donald Miller, telling me it was 'my kinda book'. It's about a guy who travels around in a van across america, so yeah, I guess it is my kinda book!

you know I'm going to have to ask why now, right?

why?

I have finally finished reading Thud! ... Maybe it was the fact I had to wait 6 months for it, or that I read it differently from my usual books so as to preserve it from any damage, but I felt rather let down by it... also, I am reading the 5th Elephant in parralel, and it does feel rather... familiar... Oh well, can't win them all...

its Haunted, the book Rinso means, and it's fucking fucked up. One of the short stories in it was read at a number of public readings. Over 70 people in total fainted while listening to it. And thats not even the most horrible story in it, in my opinion.

It's a bit over the top sometimes though. I read it all in one go, on the bus back from Scotland. You can only be so shocked. Then it starts to get a bit repetitive.

Is it also by Chuck P.?

I'm on Sourcery...just got into Terry Pratchetts books, and am reading the Rincewind series. I love them so far! I'm going to read the German ones also to see if they are written well, but it seems that the Germans really enjoy the books also. They have a role play forum n' stuff, *g*