Do we read books? [Archive]

Yagisan

March 5th, 2006, 03:52 PM

Personally, I love reading books. I seem to devour them, being unable to put down a good book when I pick one up. I have varied tastes, with quite a bit of non-fiction (mainly computing, science and history related, but whatever else catches my eye too.), and I tend to like a variety of fiction (excluding romance - I have real life for that ;) ).

I usually don't stick to a specific author, but if I had to pick a few favorite authors, then I'd have to say,
Matthew Reilly http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_Reilly_(writer)
Dean Koontz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Koontz
and Joe Dever http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Dever

The last few books I read were:
Seven Ancient Wonders by Matthew Reilly ( ISBN 1405036923 )
PCI System Architecture (4th Edition) by Tom Shanley and Don Aderson (ISBN 0201309742 )
カ−ドでおぼえるかんじ小学１年 ( ISBN 4578130258 ) (Basically an introduction to Kanji book aimed at 6/7 year olds)

void_false

March 5th, 2006, 04:01 PM

Unfortunately, I'm reading only technical books. ;)

Bragador

March 5th, 2006, 04:06 PM

I tend to aswell...

orlox, have you read the entire foundation series including the ones he wrote near his death?

haha Foundation, that was good. I never finished the 3rd book though... I'll have to it's just that I have so much to do with school and everything.

Prelude to foundation was nice too. The trilogy sounds more like a giant computer game the way I read it LOL

darkmatter

March 5th, 2006, 04:12 PM

Ahhh.... the sound of crisp pages/the crach of bindings... the smell of old paper... pure heaven..

I have a massive collection of books... from tech manuals to fiction... history, science, religion, mythology, antropology, philosophy, art..... you get the picture.

Though my favorites ar the hand bound editions in my collection... other than the actual printing of the pages... no 'mechanical' proccesses involved... hand made acid-free paper... hand printed bindings... real goldleaf... not that cheap look alike paint crap...

I *LOVE* books... nothing can ever compare with a good book... laid back in my rocking chair... listening to Stravinsky or the works of any other great composer, while reading The Greek Myths or The Rise and Fall of The Middle Ages, or some other marvelous text, ++... pure heaven... nothing else can ever come close. :mrgreen:

orlox

March 5th, 2006, 04:20 PM

orlox, have you read the entire foundation series including the ones he wrote near his death?

about Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"...

I don't recognize, will check out

If you mean "foundation limits", and "foundation and earth" (I think these are the original titles), I read those too. Also, Flaubert is a french writer who started realism...

Stormy Eyes

March 5th, 2006, 04:24 PM

My classicals are "Dracula", "Madame Bovary" and the "foundation" series. Everyone knows "Dracula" and "foundation", but I wonder how many people in this forum know about Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"...

I got about 200 pages in before I said, "Screw this. Where did I put my copy of The Count of Monte Cristo?"

nalmeth

March 5th, 2006, 04:31 PM

prelude to foundation, forward the foundation, original trilogy, foundation's edge, foundation and earth, is the series I've read, in order of events in the series. I think there might be a couple more aswell. A lot of parts from his Robot Series is tied in aswell. His short stories are quite good too. It is sort of like a big computer game, he tried to encompass all his works in an Asimov world.

I wonder what he would have thought about linux..
He seemed to think that technology should actually be controlled and distributed by a monopoly - U.S. Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc. Though he pointed out a lot of problems with the idea as well..

nalmeth

March 5th, 2006, 04:34 PM

I *LOVE* books... nothing can ever compare with a good book... laid back in my rocking chair... listening to Stravinsky or the works of any other great composer, while reading The Greek Myths or The Rise and Fall of The Middle Ages, or some other marvelous text, ++... pure heaven... nothing else can ever come close.

Couldn't agree more. Nothing like being swept away by an excellent paper text. A universe in its own

Bragador

March 5th, 2006, 05:00 PM

@nalmeth

the caves of steel was excellent ! It was my first asimov book I think.
I really liked the Naked Sun too. It shows how the future could be in my opinion.

Didn't read most of his books, I should before I die.

nalmeth

March 5th, 2006, 05:31 PM

the caves of steel was excellent !
So I've heard a lot! Have yet to read though

Didn't read most of his books, I should before I die.
A must

Master Shake

March 5th, 2006, 06:21 PM

Recennt reads...

Devil in the WHite City -- Erik Larson VERY good book.
Give Me A Break -- John Stossel
Uncle John's Bathroom Reader #17
The Tripods series -- John Christopher
Animal Crossing: Wild World player's Guide -- Nintendo :D

vertigo

March 5th, 2006, 08:57 PM

been rereading Rober Rankin, although that has been mixed with Umberto Eco and Pratchett anlong with Heinlien who has to be one of my favorite authors

somuchfortheafter

March 5th, 2006, 09:16 PM

currently reading the philosopher's handbook, just finished catcher in the rye. i read anything that seems interesting to me while im in my frequent visits to b&n.

benplaut

March 5th, 2006, 09:34 PM

i don't read many paper books any more, but i've got a huge collection of ebooks (mostly project guetenburg) on my zaurus.

Minyaliel

March 5th, 2006, 10:45 PM

I don't _read_ books, I write them... lolz. Nah, honestly, although I _do_ write, I always carry a book with me. And I usually also keep a pdf version of it, if I can find one for free so that I can read on when I take my laptop to a boring class *laughs*. At the moment, I'm reading... umm.... a lot of books, these include

- "It", Stephen King *shivers down spine* (this is a must read, really. Wonderful book)
- "The Satanic Bible", Anton La Vey
- "The Satanic Rituals", Anton La Vey
- the "Anders" books (German) by Wolfgang & Heike Hohlbein (fantasy books)
- "The Mistress of Murder Hill", Sylvia Shepherd (ultimately creepy real life story about a rather famous murderess)
- "Tess of d'Urbervilles" by something- Hardy lolz :P I'm not really big on books like this one, haven't read much in it
- "Dracula" - the ultimate book for someone as proudly gothic as myself ;)

MrDan

March 5th, 2006, 10:48 PM

Do Alarm install manuals count? I use them at work as I am a Service / install tech:-k .

bmbeeman

March 5th, 2006, 10:51 PM

I can't stand reading chapter books online, I dunno, it just feels weird, not to mention, I can take a book with me, and read it almost anywhere, I cannot, however, read a PDF anywhere.

nalmeth

March 5th, 2006, 10:53 PM

I can take a book with me, and read it almost anywhere, I cannot, however, read a PDF anywhere.
Good point..

Minyaliel

March 5th, 2006, 11:00 PM

... unless you have a laptop and take it with you anywhere you go anyway lolz.

Bragador

March 6th, 2006, 12:13 AM

But you really need a hight resolution text and a flat screen or else your eyes will easily strain...

fuscia

March 6th, 2006, 05:26 AM

i just look at the pictures.

ahlich

March 13th, 2006, 04:05 AM

Damn right i read books! Not as much as i would like to though.

PDF??!!

Are you all insane?! The sense of touch refers to parts of the brain that are deeply connected with primal instincts especially those of sexual nature (what other primal instincts are there, really...) and therefore to sensations beyond description.

Texture. Weight. Warmth. All of that adds to the hand of the author. (And other parts of him/ her too)

PDF's for chrisssake??!

(Did i mention smell...?)

polo_step

March 13th, 2006, 04:26 AM

Wait, didn't we just do this?

Before I got the notebook I read about a book a day, on average. When I was younger I read even more.

The notebook's taken a chunk out of that, though I've been reading a lot of Project Gutenberg stuff online with .PDF & the notebook. I re-read some of my favorite Conrad the other night. I have bad eyesight and I sure wish I could find a way of getting rid of that stark white background in .PDF, though.

Still, lots of real books. Currently finishing New Art City -- Manhattan at Mid-Century by art critic and historian Jed Perl. The latest Ian Rankin is waiting for me at the library tomorrow...though I'm getting sort of tired of Rankin.

stig

June 13th, 2006, 11:28 AM

Yes!

And if you want two really significant books to read, not fiction but books that will open your eyes to the world, try these.

"The March of Unreason: Science, Democracy, and the New Fundamentalism"
by **** Taverne:
http://www.oup.co.uk/isbn/0-19-280485-5?view=get

and

"The Revenge of Gaia: Why the earth is fighting back - and how we can still save humanity"
by James Lovelock
http://www.penguin.co.uk/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,9780713999143,00.html

Happy reading!

Naglfari

June 13th, 2006, 11:52 AM

For quite a long time, every other payday or so, I would go to Barnes and Nobel's and buy a hardback classic...I have quite the collection now, and still read quite a bit. Sometimes I'll go a few weeks between books, but when I start a book, I'll finish it within a day or 2.

Just a couple months ago, I found a 1951, first printing hardback of The Caine Mutiny, in nearly perfect shape, at a yard sale no less. It was a gift to someone, because it had the "from yada yada to yada yada" written inside the front, but other than that, it's beautiful.

halfvolle melk

June 13th, 2006, 12:32 PM

http://www.thecontentworks.demon.co.uk/Images/penguin.jpg exclusively :mrgreen:

xtacocorex

June 13th, 2006, 12:41 PM

I just finished The Evolution of Useful Things by Henry Petroski last Monday which I had been trying to read during my last year of college. This book is about the history of engineering the useful stuff we use everyday, the paperclip, the tines on a fork, post-it notes, etc. Henry Petroski is a Civil Engineer who writes about the history of engineering.

Over the weekend, I read The Code Book by Simon Singh in about 18 hours. This book talks about the history of cryptology from ancient times to the present and has a good section on how RSA and PGP encryption were developed.

I'm going to start on "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" by Dr. Richard Feynman soon here. This is one of the books by Dr. Feynman about himself and his life. Dr. Feynman is a famous physicist.

After the Feynman book, who knows, I have at least 5 books in line waiting to be read.

fuscia

June 13th, 2006, 01:09 PM

i'm a terrible reader. i hate fiction. i used to try to read it, but i would read a paragraph and then end up daydreaming for hours. whenever i would get a third of the way through a novel, i would end up asking myself "why tf am i reading this?" there are exceptions, though: last of the mohicans, tom sawyer, lolita and about five others. i usually read stuff about things i get obsessed with: music, photography, golf (you didn't want to talk to me during the 'golf phase'), but even then, i'm a 'hearts of toast' reader.

sapo

June 13th, 2006, 03:11 PM

Yea. Just finished 1984 by George Orwell.
I m gonna read it, people say its great.. but this month i already bought 3 books: Angels and Demons and The da Vinci Code, and a Chess book.

cstudent

June 13th, 2006, 05:16 PM

When I do sit down and actually read a book, just for the sake of reading, I like to read old classics. 1984 was a good one. I've read it several times. I also like books like Brave New World, Catch 22, Catcher in the Rye, Lord of the Flies and Journey to the Center of the Earth. I'll also read on occassion some Shakespear like Hamlet and MacBeth.

.

kassetra

June 13th, 2006, 06:01 PM

Books... I have so many books now, I've ended up purchase triplicates and quadruplicates of books I like, because I think, "Oh! I don't have this one!" Now I refer to a little book application that has all of my books listed before I buy something. LOL

Currently reading:
The Lensman Series by E.E. "Doc" Smith (again! for the tenth time! :) )
雪国 by 川端康成 (Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata)
Programming Ruby by Dave Thomas (et al.), reading it again.
Enterprise Integration with Ruby by Maik Schmidt
Agile Web Development with Ruby (1st & 2nd eds) by Dave Thomas and DHH, again.
The Human Revolution by Daisaku Ikeda
Clipjoint by Wilhelmina Baird
The Portable Jung by J Campbell & CG Jung (compilation)
idoru by William Gibson

.... those are all the ones in my current reading stack with active bookmarks, I think I've lost one around here somewhere though... because I have one of my favorite bookmarks without a book....

Danni

June 13th, 2006, 07:12 PM

I love books! My problem is I read them too quick, so now have nothing to read :(

I need to get to the library :)

zxee

June 13th, 2006, 07:31 PM

I now buy used books from my library-almost everything interests me. Recently read Goldmans "Memoirs of a Geisha". Thought it was well done. when younger I couldn't read enough sci fi Many, many writers but H.G Wells still has a "voice" that is quite stunning and an ability to "paint" entire worlds with his words. Bradbury was excellant too but I think maybe his short stories were his masterpieces. J.D Salinger is worth a read too. I could go on and on. Try the dune series by Frank Herbert. Peace

mike998

June 13th, 2006, 07:45 PM

Biltong (Dee)

June 13th, 2006, 08:37 PM

I can't stand reading chapter books online, I dunno, it just feels weird, not to mention, I can take a book with me, and read it almost anywhere, I cannot, however, read a PDF anywhere.

Now that's just darn... wrong.

My Palm goes where ever I go and all my ebooks are neatly stacked inside. I can either use Adobe Reader or iSilo or QExpLite. I have 11 books on the Palm at the moment just waiting to be read - 4 Anne McCaffreys, 5 x Loveswept Romances, a Jeffery Deaver (the Blue Nowhere - Brilliant!) and my personal favourite Kelley Armstrong's Broken.

sharkboy

June 13th, 2006, 11:09 PM

I have an addiction to reading that I hope my kids get. I have to buy myself a new book every week so I can keep reading. I moved to Canada and had to give up HUNDREDS of novels becuase I couldn't ship them over here. I'm slowly building the collection up again, but it's slow painful work.

I do read computer stuff as well, but I really do prefer to sit and relax with a good (or mediocre at worst) book. :D

I know what you mean -- me and my girlfriend have over 60 yards of books in our apartment. We could never move abroad :).

I read a lot of workstuff on the computer though. Beagle + Evince is a great combination for finding the quote you need but forgot where you read it. Searchable pdfs are your friends :).

sanderella

July 9th, 2006, 05:24 PM

"i don't read many paper books any more, but i've got a huge collection of ebooks (mostly project guetenburg) on my zaurus"
__________________

So do I. I was a contributor to PG, and published about 30 of Charlotte M Yonge's books on their website. I have a Rocket eBook and download stuff nearly every day, so I can read when I'm in bed.

I like the old (I mean old) classics, Dickens, Austen, Yonge, Bunyan, and classic American stuff - To Kill A Mocking Bird, the Magnificent Ambersons, and O Henry for Girls.

The best place to find online reading is the Online Books Page, http://*******ooks.library.upenn.edu/, over 25,000 free books online, most of them over 100 years old, but good books never die!:)

Ubunted

July 9th, 2006, 05:26 PM

The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy (complete series) and Beginning Ubuntu Linux are on my bedside table at this moment.

woedend

July 9th, 2006, 05:46 PM

I never read unless it's college related. Up until college it was minimally textbooks and spark notes. A big reason for me was when I was younger and tried to read, my mind would always wander and I wouldn't absorb what I was reading...some pages could take up to 10 minutes to get down.(I have this same problem during a lot of movies, too)

RavenOfOdin

July 9th, 2006, 08:51 PM

Yeah . . .

Lord of the Rings books, J.R.R. Tolkien.
Anything by David Irving.
Anne Rice novels, pre-Queen of the Damned, and a long time ago.
Half of the works of Stephen King.

NESFreak

July 9th, 2006, 09:16 PM

Just orderd 'do androids dream of electric sheep?'

(m8 add a poll to this. this can possibly become one of those threads that are so long you cant get a general idea what people do.)

RavenOfOdin

July 9th, 2006, 09:47 PM

Just orderd 'do androids dream of electric sheep?'

Blade Runner (which was based on that book) is one of my most favorite movies in the entire freaking UNIVERSE, man! :D

taurus

July 9th, 2006, 11:01 PM

Finished all four Dan Brown's novels and just finished the first one from Lee Child. Will get some more to see what happens to Jack Reacher next... :cool:

futz

July 10th, 2006, 05:44 AM

I learned to read when I was 5, and have read voraciously ever since. It's just what I do.

I've been a science fiction reader and collector since around 1974. Lately I don't buy paper books anymore (stupidly expensive), but I have a vast collection of e-books of all types, as well as SF.

(Just for your information, crap like star trek is NOT science fiction. It's mindless formula TV for the idiot masses.) (TV is the mind killer.)

I'm currently reading Accelerando, by Charles Stross (ISBN 0441012841). Great book!

confused57

July 10th, 2006, 05:56 AM

Mostly read computer or Linux books.
Favorite authors are Robin Cook, Michael Crichton, & Louis L'amour...

Titus A Duxass

July 10th, 2006, 06:06 AM

I'm an avid reader:
All Dan Brown's
All Lee Child's
Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, any good crime story.
Lots of history and reference books.

I do a lot of flying as part of my job and I find that a good book makes the flight pass quicker. Unfornately this means a book a flight for transatlantic trips and a book every two flights for European trips.

nalmeth

July 10th, 2006, 06:12 AM

'do androids dream of electric sheep?'
Philip **** right?

I've read a lot about him, mostly positive, enough to have me interested.
Haven't actually read any of his works yet though.

I'm very wary of spending anything on anyone until I'm pretty sure I'm going to be captivated, as mentioned, published works are very expensive.

Lazily, I tend to re-read a lot of my books, rather than go looking for new material. When I do, I go in bursts though, buying 4 or 5 at a time, when I'm sufficiently interested by the author.

fluffington

July 10th, 2006, 07:03 AM

I used to read a lot (usually a novel a day, sometimes more), but that stopped around the time I started college. Recently, I've been trying to get into the habit of reading one novel a week. Last week's was The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (which I didn't much care for, but now I get all those references/jokes that had been going over my head, so it was worth the read anyhow). I think this week will be either Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep or Neuromancer, depending on which is in stock at the local library.

ZagiFlyer

July 11th, 2006, 06:47 AM

I've been active in the computer industry since 1978 (no, really!), and I still read quite a bit. As some one else said, most of my "self-help" computer reading is done online, but I read a *LOT* of science fiction, fiction, and even non-fiction. On average, I'd estimate about a one book every two or three weeks.

Mr.Auer

July 11th, 2006, 10:05 AM

Ive always liked reading. Learned to read before school already, and spent many an afternoon reading all kinds of books possible in the library. I would walk between the aisles of book shelves and pick interesting looking ones..

My taste is quite wide and I like the random method too, read a little and see if it interests. I also like to read all kinds of magazines and journals in the library, from scientific publications to fringe freakness ;)

Some favourite writers..Philip K ****, one early scifi-love. Also Jack Vance, who started writing scifi in the 40's already..Pretty much most of his books are a good read, and some are classics.

I read a lot on the computer too, pdfs etc. ebooks. Luckily we have LCDs :) Lot easier on the eyes than the lovely crts of yore..

asimon

July 11th, 2006, 01:04 PM

I just finished Picknick am Wegesrand from Strugatzki (AFAIK there is no english translation, the original is russian) and The Swarm from Frank Schätzing. Currently I am reading the space opera Endymion from Dan Simmons. The next one which is already waiting on my nightstand is We from Jewgenij Samjatin. I love to read good books and wish I would have much more time for it.

As teenager I used to be a big fantasy book fan, but they seem very shallow to me today. They usually are full of cliché and their stories and characters are mostly very trivial. I don't enjoy them anymore. IMO there is much better and more intelligent sciene fiction and utopia literature then fantasy. Of course I also like to read classics like Hesse, Schiller, Salinger, and many many more. I also enjoy reading popular scientific books from time to time about the fabric of our world or how our universe is composed and such stuff.

I don't like ebooks and prefer real books whenever I can.

fridayxiii

July 11th, 2006, 01:35 PM

I read technical stuff online or in soft copy i.e. PDFs, but for leisure reading I pick up hard-copy. Last book completed was Game of Shadows, currently working on Barbarians at the Gate. I do most of my reading on my lunch break but try to squeeze in a chapter or so before bed too.

der_joachim

July 11th, 2006, 06:51 PM

I love reading. I mostly read SF/Fantasy and horror. Recently, I started reading somewhat older English and American literature (which is far more interesting than Dutch literature, trust me ...).

A few of the most intersting books I read in the last few years in random order:
Neil Gaiman - American Gods
Neal Stephenson - Cryptonomicon
China Mieville - Perdido Street Station (my current PC is called Remade...)
Joseph Conrad - Nostromo
Herman Melville - Moby ****
HP Lovecraft - The Colour Out Of Space
William Goldman - The Princess Bride (inconceivable! I'd almost forget this one)

asimon

July 11th, 2006, 07:53 PM

'do androids dream of electric sheep?'
Philip **** right?

I've read a lot about him, mostly positive, enough to have me interested.
Haven't actually read any of his works yet though.

I only have read his The Man in the High Castle and liked it quite much. Sadly the story is unfinished but I definitely plan to read more from Philip ****.

Kleist

July 28th, 2006, 05:16 AM

My classicals are "Dracula", "Madame Bovary" and the "foundation" series. Everyone knows "Dracula" and "foundation", but I wonder how many people in this forum know about Flaubert's "Madame Bovary"...
I read Madame Bovary long time ago. I recommend you A Sentimental Education by Flaubert too.

Cyraxzz

July 28th, 2006, 05:26 AM

Mostly Science Fiction and programming documentation. And don't worry, books will probably never be replaced, i still find it better to read of paper then the monitor.

Xzallion

July 28th, 2006, 05:44 AM

I hate reading .pdf files... give me a actual book any day.

I read alot of fantasy, horror, and science fiction. Like Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, Wild Cards, The Icewind Dale Trilogy, Legacy of the Drow, and Battlefield Earth.

Mainly, anything by Stephen King, Dean Koontz,or R.A. Salvatore.

Also... Do old school pen and paper roleplaying game books count? Cause I read the AD&D, D&D 3rd edition, Rifts, Exalted, and White-Wolf rulebooks all the time. Enough so that I can usually quote table data and page numbers for random things from any of the books.

graabein

July 28th, 2006, 01:14 PM

I've read alot, mainly classics. Well into the last three great books of D.H. Lawrence now. The plumed serpent, Aaron's Rod and Kangaroo if I'm not mistaken. D.H. is really good not boring old romantic at all, as I thought before I got into it.

Earlier this summer I read This side of paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He is also great great great.

BWF89

July 28th, 2006, 02:01 PM

I'm in the middle of reading The Encyclopedia of Survival Techniques (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1585740624/sr=8-1/qid=1154091612/ref=sr_1_1/104-9698855-6827915?ie=UTF8) and when I'm done with that I'm going to read Homage to Catalonia (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0156421178/sr=1-1/qid=1154091643/ref=pd_bbs_1/104-9698855-6827915?ie=UTF8&s=books). But EoST is so boring I think I might just start on HtC today or tomarrow.

Kimm

July 28th, 2006, 02:20 PM

Like most other people here, I prefer reading documentation online, but I could never read a book off of a computer screen, just doesnt give you the same feeling...

I prefer Fantasy and I've got a couple of shelfs with it... recently I have also developed a taste for books regarding politics, and I have read the Communist Manifesto (people seriouesly said "wtf" when I told them I read it in only one night) and I am now reading Operation Desertoil.

arsenic23

July 28th, 2006, 03:06 PM

I find it hard to beleive that, in this entire thread filled with Science Fiction fans, no one has yet to mention Frank Herbert OR Gene Wolfe. Those guys make up at least 40% of my science fiction/fantasy collection.

The rest of my collection is mostly philosophical rants, and history books. And it most certainly takes up more space then all my PCs. I have a tonage of books. And drastically perfer reading off of paper to reading off a screen.

That being said, I do read comics on my computer. Mostly so I can read them before I buy them ( if I buy them at all ). If they're any good I put them on my list and pick up the trade or graphic novel when I have an excess of money.

Kiddalee

July 29th, 2006, 09:12 PM

I read whatever is being discarded from the library, or being given away for free in peoples' front yards. This means acquiring books way too fast, so I judge whether or not I'll get rid of a book after reading it. For this reason, my bookshelf evolves continuously, and has some really obscure titles along with the ones you'd expect.

I do have some staples (Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, English classics), of course. I should also note that I read more children's literature than most people my age that I know of.

My booklist is in A WritersCo Wiki Project (http://www.writersco.com/_bbc%20of%20kidda).

As for ebooks taking over: no. It's not going to happen until screens get better for the eyes. Even the most excellent screen gets irritating after a while, and the unnatural sound of the computer's fan can get annoying. Only when these problems are solved, will I let go of curling up with the texture of paper, and the woody smell.

Mind you, someone ought to invent a "reader" that is the size of a book but uses a screen that's easy on the eyes, holds ebooks that are loaded in cartridges or memory cards, and either uses serif font by default or lets you choose. I don't mind giving that idea away, since I know I don't have the talent to invent it myself. I promise not to sue if you make millions off it. ;)

JA2

August 6th, 2006, 08:09 PM

I'm a science fiction fan myself, but unfortunately not to the level that I can swear by any particular author. I do rate Michael Crichton and Arthur C. Clarke quite highly though.

I also delve a lot into techno/espionage, such as Tom Clancy (Hunt For Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, etc) & Robert Ludlum (Bourne Identity/Supremacy, etc.).

And like others here, I also find it difficult read for lengthy periods from the computer screen - even for documentation & manuals. Give me the hardcopy, so I can go out onto my front porch & put my feet up on the rail, or go out into the yard & sit on a bench under a tree, away from all the man-made noise & interference. Can't do that electronically without first worrying about where the nearest wall socket might be or whether you've got enough battery life.

I suppose in time, technology will improve on itself enough to the point that we probably won't be able to tell by looking at the pages whether they are real or not, but until then, I'll do just fine with the real thing. ;)

Bezmotivnik

August 6th, 2006, 11:20 PM

I'm a science fiction fan myself, but unfortunately not to the level that I can swear by any particular author. I do rate Michael Crichton and Arthur C. Clarke quite highly though.
I used to like Clarke, the only SciFi writer I could ever tolerate, but the quality of his writing went very badly downhill in the last few decades.

I also delve a lot into techno/espionage, such as Tom Clancy (Hunt For Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, etc) & Robert Ludlum (Bourne Identity/Supremacy, etc.).

I can't handle those spy-fantasy potboilers. Having spent some years in the biz myself, I can assure you that it's mainly pointless drudgery with some interesting moments, strange ironies and opportunity for travel. No out-of-control agent saves the world singlehandedly and gets the girl. There is some really interesting technology, though. :wink:

By far the best spy writing in English came from Le Carre in his early work, before he degenerated to doing potboiler trash like The Honourable Schoolboy or The Little Drummer Girl, though those made him a potfull of money. Even at their best, his stories are not as good as his writing, which is often superb.

Some very good and realistic spy writing comes from Alan Furst, who deals with the period between the 1930s and the Cold War.

The part about Furst that I find appealing is that frequently in his stories not much happens and there are rarely spectacular dénouements and -- unlike in most fiction, but very true to life -- almost no actual spying is done by intelligence officers, but rather by "deniable assets," hirelings or the unwitting.

I suppose in time, technology will improve on itself enough to the point that we probably won't be able to tell by looking at the pages whether they are real or not, but until then, I'll do just fine with the real thing. ;)
I have a hard time with .PDFs, but I have less trouble if I actually use the Adobe reader and not some awful mess like Foxit, which looks utterly blinding onscreen. I had to delete it. I read a lot of old public-domain literature that's long out of print and only available online in .PDF files, but it's a little rough, especially when the text is screwed up and it's black on blinding white.

John.Michael.Kane

August 6th, 2006, 11:42 PM

For me it's been (War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and Sun Tzu The Art Of War) thinking of picking up 1984 by George Orwell.

jujoje

August 7th, 2006, 01:12 AM

I read a lot, the last book I read was 'Kafka on the Shore' by Haruki Murakami, I strongley recommend it.

I really liked 'Kafka on the Shore'. Haruki Murakami has to be one of my favorite writers; all his books are consistantly wonderful. His non-fiction stuff such as 'Underground' is pretty damn good too.

Anything by Dostoevsky, Samuel Becket or Joseph Conrad is good :-)

Currently reading 'Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature' by Richard Rorty and 'The Tale of Genji' by Murasaki Shikibu, depending on which one I feel like reading at the time.

carl13

August 7th, 2006, 03:04 AM

For me it's been (War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy and Sun Tzu The Art Of War) thinking of picking up 1984 by George Orwell.

Tolstoy is great. I like other 19th century Russian authors as well such as Ivan Turgenev and Fyodor Dostoevsky.

Bezmotivnik

August 7th, 2006, 08:14 AM

Anything by Dostoevsky, Samuel Becket or Joseph Conrad is good :-)

I really like Conrad (I was re-reading Under Western Eyes just last night), but I really haven't been able to get Dostoyevsky. Too many contrived appearances of samovars. :mrgreen:

I'm not kidding. Read The Insulted and the Injured. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Insulted_and_Humiliated) The freaking samovars make more appearances than some minor characters. :rolleyes:

gruvsyco

August 7th, 2006, 08:26 AM

Most of what I read is tech stuff or informational material that I can just sit down and pick up parts of as needed.

While I've never been tested for it, I feel pretty confident I have ADD or AADD. To read for enjoyment is difficult for me at best... I'll read the same page over and over and while being aware of doing so, my mind is typically elsewhere.

Now, having said that.. Last year I did actually manage to finish a book... Neil Gaimen's Coraline and quickly started on The Chronicles of Narnia but never got past the first book.

graabein

August 7th, 2006, 01:19 PM

I've read most of Murakami and both Dostoevsky and Tolstoy. Another russian I really like is Bulgakov (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikhail_Bulgakov) especially The master and Margarita (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Master_and_Margarita). It's wonderful. The Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the devil is supposedly based on this book.

I've read some of Beckett and Conrad but not much yet.

Other favorites include Jorge Luis Borges (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Luis_Borges) and Fernando Pessoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa).

atrus123

August 7th, 2006, 02:54 PM

As I have an English lit degree, I do read lots of books. :)

Lately, I've been reading The Sparrow (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0449912558/sr=8-1/qid=1154958823/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3893587-9976051?ie=UTF8). It's brilliant.

s6dalane

August 7th, 2006, 02:56 PM

At the moment I am reading "The Idiot" by F. Dostoyevsky - it is very interesting and I also really enjoyed "Crime and Punishment".

Breeman

August 7th, 2006, 03:26 PM

Well it looks like I'm the second fan for Frank Herbert. I've read most of the Dune series at least twice, and am curently reading the Art of War by Sun Tzu. Also I just finished reading the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. My name is taken from a misspelling of a charter from a serise off books. I've used this name for about the last 7 years, since I was in 6th or 7th grade.

Mostly I read Sci-Fi/Fantisy, Philophy, and History books.

My to read befor I die list consists of:
- War and Peace
- The Seven Military Classics of Ancient(one down six more to go)
- The whole works of Frank Herbert
- Romance of the Three Kingdoms (The books the game serise Dynasty Warriors is based off of.)
- Asorted History Books
- Asorted Philophy Books

also yes I know I can't spell.

Bezmotivnik

August 7th, 2006, 09:33 PM

I've read some...Conrad but not much yet.

Some is OK, some is much better.

Most is online, if you can stand reading that.

One of my favorites is the novella, Youth: A Narrative (http://conrad.thefreelibrary.com/Youth-A-Narrative/1-1), which is another of Marlow's somewhat cynical reminiscences. This time, it's of the hard-luck voyage of the Judea square into the perfect storm of Murphy's Law. In its subdued way it's quite funny.

I think Conrad was the first author I read who really shared my contempt of persons who believe they have much control over their lives -- at least once they leave the banalities of a very sheltered existence.

eriqk

August 9th, 2006, 10:44 AM

I've been reading a lot, lately.
I've been on a bit of a Tolkien tip, recently, read The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, and am about to start the Ring trilogy.
First I have to finish Demon Box by Ken Kesey, though.
Read a Philip K **** compilation, too- had Minority Report and Second Variety in it, which was nice.

Groet, Erik

Thulemanden

August 14th, 2006, 07:00 PM

One of my alltime favorties authors would have to be Isaac Asimov and his Foundation series.

I agree. Really an awesome, coherent trilogy.

Next in line is Ringworld. True originality be Niven.

Tommyknockers is OK. There was one more around elephants. Forgot it's name.

Thulemanden

August 14th, 2006, 08:09 PM

It's a huge surprise so many are reading the Russian masters.

I have tried, but don't get much more than the action.

You might also read Russka by Rutherford who also wrote Sarum.

Russka is following a place through the centuries like Sarum followed a stone mason family.

spiral777

August 14th, 2006, 08:46 PM

Stephen King is one of my favorites...

curuxz

August 14th, 2006, 10:45 PM

Stephen King is one of my favorites...

Mine too,

4 seassons (with Shawshank in it) was an incredible book, so well crafted in such a short book. I love to read im currently 2 thirds the way through 'The Loverly Bones' by Alice Sebold, really good book. :)

mauijunk

August 15th, 2006, 03:34 AM

While I can't escape the stereotype, it's worth the pain.

Tolkien

LoTR, Hobbit, Lost Tales, Unfinished Tales.

Although lately, I've had my retinas seared through by #*$&in' man files.

ions

August 16th, 2006, 11:39 PM

Yes. I read. Nice to see there are some readers of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and the rest. I'm hoping to finish Walden this week. Beautiful book but very dense.

So far this year:
August:
24. JPod by Douglas Coupland 2.75/5
23. The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Larry Pournelle 4.5/5

July:
22. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens 4/5
21. The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco 4/5
20. Marcovaldo by Italo Calvino 4.5/5

June:
19. The Third Cimpanzee by Jared Diamond 3.75/5
18. Hey Nostradamous! by Douglas Coupland 4/5
17. Train Your Brain by Ryuta Kawashima 2.75/5
16. Gentle Ben by Walt Morley 5/5
15. Clash of Kings by George R. R. Martin 4.25/5

May:
14. Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov 5/5
13. Microserfs by Douglas Coupland 4.75/5
12. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond 4.5/5

April:
11. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin 4/5
10. Oracle Night by Paul Auster 4.5/5
9. *A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson 4/5

March:
8. Great Expectations by Charles Dickens 5/5

February:
7. Notes From Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky 5/5
6. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro 3/5
5. Love of Life a short story by Jack London 4/5
4. Night Elie Wiesel 4/5

January:
3. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay 3.5/5
2. Dune by Frank Herbert 3.5/5
1. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco 3.75/5

jISh

August 17th, 2006, 12:01 AM

Yes. I read. Nice to see there are some readers of Dostoevsky, Tolstoy and the rest. I'm hoping to finish Walden this week. Beautiful book but very dense.

January:
3. Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay 3.5/5
2. Dune by Frank Herbert 3.5/5
1. Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco 3.75/5

Can I ask why you gave Dune only 3.5/5?
I just finished the first novel and am into the second, I thought it was simply the best science fiction novel I have ever read!

ions

August 17th, 2006, 02:51 AM

I gave Dune 3.5 because it is technically an unfinished novel. Apparently Frank Herbert died before finishing the work and it was finished by his son. The novel had an intense detailed pace which fell apart quickly in the end. Too much happened too fast leaving the ending with a very different feel making it out of place compared with the rest of the novel. Up until the last bit it was, like you said, very good fiction.

mrgnash

August 17th, 2006, 04:02 AM

I don't read a lot of fiction... well that's not exactly true, because I study philosophy and religion; the former contains a lot of fiction, and the latter is almost exclusively comprised of it, at least in my not so humble opinion ;)

In any case, I do a lot of my reading/studying through Gutenberg or Questia, simply because it is more convenient. Still, I read a great deal of print books that are simply unavailable online, but are nevertheless necessary for my research... at the moment, a 900 page 'Companion...' to feminist philosophy :P

All the articles I read are online though... I don't buy magazines anymore except for the pretty pictures :D

milehigh

August 17th, 2006, 04:13 AM

Give me a Thomas Hardy novel any day.

Ptero-4

August 17th, 2006, 06:11 AM

1984, and brave new world are the ones I have read.

mgcarley

August 26th, 2006, 04:40 PM

Mind you, someone ought to invent a "reader" that is the size of a book but uses a screen that's easy on the eyes, holds ebooks that are loaded in cartridges or memory cards, and either uses serif font by default or lets you choose. I don't mind giving that idea away, since I know I don't have the talent to invent it myself. I promise not to sue if you make millions off it. ;)

To answer the thread question: Not really. They are way too heavy for me to carry around (I travel about 8 months a year, mostly around Europe and Asia, and more often than not on trains, rather than planes - especially these days, given all the fud I would have to put up with!)

I do, however, occasionally spend 2 hours on a Newspaper. Thats about as close to paper as I come to.

Theres little more fun than sitting in the dining car of a Deutsche Bahn Intercity Express with some coffee, my laptop and portable hard drive, watching a movie/listening to an audiobook/reading a PDF or occasionally surfing the net/SSHing to a server/reading email (cached or not)...

To answer the part about the device: Working on something like this since last year, but for tourists, about cities... like Tourist Info Offices handing out devices with info/pictures/video about the city and surrounding area... similar concept though.

Bezmotivnik

August 26th, 2006, 05:33 PM

I'm reading the Kurland sieries of Professor Moriarty books this week and they're nowhere near as bad as you'd expect. I'm not sure anyone does these Victorian period novels now without them being excruciatingly campy (certainly not American writers), but Kurland has lots of interesting little wordplay subtexts and bits of historical obscurity to keep the more literate and attentive on their toes as well.

Very clever without being obvious.

It strikes me as I write this that the book's unusual number of typos for a major publishing house probably contain a code. :-k

Also read Peter Robinson's recent Piece of My Heart, which eerily (in view of the mystery's release date) contains a central character clearly based on the late Syd Barrett.

I went through some Mammoth Book of... titles and the nonfiction Best Crime Writing 2005.

BWF89

August 27th, 2006, 12:36 AM

I just finished reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia about the Spanish Civil War. I had mom order me Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead from her book club and it should be arriving sometime next week.

Bezmotivnik

August 27th, 2006, 02:57 AM

I just finished reading George Orwell's Homage to Catalonia about the Spanish Civil War.
Until very recently, it was the best thing about the Spanish civil war ever written, although Orwell had no access to the clarifying documentary information that emerged in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet Union's collapse. I'm sure he would have been fascinated.

Other must-reads on the subject:

Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, from the Yale "Annals of Communism" series...

The Breaking Point: Hemingway, Dos Passos, And the Murder of Jose Robles, by Stephen Koch

(and somewhat more peripherally)

Double Lives: Stalin, Willi Munzenberg and the Seduction of the Intellectuals, also by Stephen Koch

The Spanish Gambit, by Stephen Hunter, is a novelized version of Homage to Calalonia, and Ken Loach's Land and Freedom a fairly loose movie version.

PryGuy

August 27th, 2006, 07:55 AM

I read classics mostly. Pushkin and Chekhov are my favourites. The last book that I read was Mark Twain's "The Adventures Of Huckelberry Finn". In original of course. This is really a masterpiece!

daou

August 27th, 2006, 09:08 AM

I don't read as much in the classical sense. Electronic books, yes. My latest being works of Friedrich Nietzsche.

PryGuy

August 27th, 2006, 09:54 AM

Yeah, I really think that's the future of books. This way is more useful.

insane_alien

August 27th, 2006, 12:04 PM

electronic books would be good space wise. i could get rid of about 60 odd books that are scattered around my room.

but then again. an electronic book wouldn't be the same. i like the feel of books. it also makes you look smart if you have dozens of books everywhere. some chicks dig that ;)

PryGuy

August 27th, 2006, 01:29 PM

Only some of 'em... It does not work anymore or I would be the most wanted male around...:D

Seing all the things happening around us I remember Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" more frequently these days. This is really one of the deepest fiction books ever written. Do you remember the ending of the book where people hiding in the forest are introduced as books they carry in their heads?

S1NGH

August 27th, 2006, 01:45 PM

well as for me, i love to read science fiction books! they can inspire you, innovate you in some ways you never thought you could have imagined! they certainly let me imagination run loose... i think this is a good thing to happen with people who program a lot as it gives them new ideas and inspirations to get working.

i havn't read any books lately, my house was burnt down completely recently. Lost everything, thank God we survived _/\_

daou

August 27th, 2006, 05:19 PM

i havn't read any books lately, my house was burnt down completely recently. Lost everything, thank God we survived _/\_

I hope no one was hurt. On a lighter note, if you had electronic books on a fireproof hdd you'd be reading right now :wink: .

nalmeth

August 27th, 2006, 09:45 PM

well as for me, i love to read science fiction books! they can inspire you, innovate you in some ways you never thought you could have imagined! they certainly let me imagination run loose... I totally agree.. A good SF author can really stur up some riveting, inspiring work. A lot of people never have the pleasure of experiencing it

i havn't read any books lately, my house was burnt down completely recently. Lost everything, thank God we survived _/\_ I'm sorry to hear that! Glad no one was hurt, but that must be devastating!

S1NGH

August 28th, 2006, 08:25 AM

daou: Thanks to God, everyone was safe and got out of the house through an AC wall unit, if we were 5 mins later we would have not been here today, i thank God for that.

nalmeth: it's certainly true, good SF authors can do the trick and make your mind think the other way round! like you said, some people never have the pleasure of experiencing it, but its truely amazing once you see it, i like to visualize it, its so much fun, and makes you think in a more "mature" and wild way and helps you remember.

No one was hurt like i said, we probably got a few scratches which escaping through the AC wall unit. Nothing was saved, we came out with only our night clothes, everything else got turned into Debris, but amazingly out holy books survived - which i believe is truely amazing and that God is indeed watching over us! the interesting part was that, the holy books were in the prayer room on a shelf, and right next to them were my school books which got burnt into ashes but nothing happened to the holy books, maybe a few black marks on the cover due to the heat generated form the fire, but the pages are like brand new.

Thank you all for showing your caring,
God Bless,
Harsimran

nalmeth

August 28th, 2006, 09:07 AM

S1NGH

August 28th, 2006, 09:32 AM

Wow, I admire your strength, you seem to have come out of it with a extremly positive outlook.
I once had my house robbed while I was asleep, but still I can't relate to your experience. All of your personal belongings have been destroyed, yet you find relief in the survival of your holy books, and that is a most humble and honorable way to recover.

@bout SF :)

Good SF is an excercise in concise, concentrated imagination. It takes a lot, not only to create a living, breathing, vibrant evironment, but to thread together complex winding plotlines, and most importantly, manifest some groundbreaking ideas.
Good SF can challenge your outlook on a lot of everyday norms (not just for SF buffs, and not even strictly to typical 'scientific ideas'), and if you allow the challenge, you come out more aware of your environment, and more aware of your ignorance as well :).
Naturally, this isn't restricted at all to SF, but in my experience, I have been most moved by SF works, and as a result favor authors like Asimov and Wells, more than anything because of their willing, and swelling imaginative instinct.

There is an empowering feeling about letting imagination loose.. Your view on your surroundings, and all your ideas and beliefs become more lifelike and colorful.

I wish you the best of luck in recovering with you and yours, and hope you come out stronger than before.

Thanks for sharing your experience
Take care,
Shawn

To tell the truth, we have taken life on earth to obtain one common goal throughout man-kind that is - becoming one with God.
Becoming materialistic won't help anyhow, you may have seen people dead at the funeral, seen graveyard, have you noticed something, they didn't even take a cent with them, what they can take with them is their prayer to God and knwoledge they have obatined. Everything you have i.e computers, books, materialistic items maybe replaced, but your body cannot.
I do agree that some people find it strange that my house burnt down and nothing happened to me, my mom got calls and people we asking " Are you okay? are you sure you arn't mad or something" to tell the truth i started laughing. What i felt grief was about the fact that me and my dad lost the research we had done on technology and his important documents.

But the important thing is that we are safe, things can be replaced but with time. I watched the house burn down and perish into flames, yet i did not shed a tear, i found this strengh within me, through prayer i found it, through faith in God i lived it.

Things have seemed to fall in place, although my brother missed to play World of Warcraft, we can provide him account, we dont have enough financial funds, hes addicted to the game, no doubt, since i have been trying to get him an account to play on the blizzard servers :P

wow thats really offtopic isn't it :P sorry to blow someone's thread :(
as for Asimov and Wells they are both very good SF authors, although i havn't really read and books of them fully, as for Wells, not a single, lets just say i didn't him till now. Reading the biography of them is really mind blowing, they way Asimov sets the plot and takes you through it is really remarkable, i would love to read more books of both the authors.
Therefore, i kindly request you if you could tell me some books written by the authors.

again, i am sorry for going offtopic, i really am.
Harsimran

nalmeth

August 28th, 2006, 10:02 AM

wow thats really offtopic isn't it meh, :)

Wells came to mind particularly because I've got a book of his lying right on the desk here

A lot of his work is very famous, and unfortunatley, has been discraced with (shameful) hollywood remakes of his stories, you've probably heard a lot of his more known work already.
I have not read any of his non-fiction, it is aparently quite good..
He was around about a generation or two before Asimov, and I take delight in reading his explanations of the things going on in his stories. I like when SF authors take humor in their own work, and poke fun at some infallibilities in their own ideas, by going to great lengths to detail them. (is that a word? :-k)
'The Invisibile Man', 'The First Men in the Moon' come directly to mind :)
I am still discovering Wells as an author, but you can find a lot of his more noted work fairly easily. Island of Dr. Moreau, War of the Worlds, The Time Machine

As for Asimov, I compell you to read his Foundation Trilogy first (started when he was 19), then the rest of the Foundation series (finished soon before his death), and everything in between.

I know I honk the Asimov horn a lot, but he was one of the greats.

In my ignorance, when I'm struggling with another author, I can always just fall back on most anything Asimov.

He once said in one of his many essays (or may have been quoted?) that his crowning achievement wasn't Foundation, or his Robot stories, or his non-fiction work, or any single product at all.
Rather that no one has amassed a such a mass collection of material to compare, and that was was defined him. I disagree, but in this I would have to trust his judgement I suppose. :p

EDIT: I sound so fanatical! :oops:

S1NGH

August 28th, 2006, 10:35 AM

I like when SF authors take humor in their own work, and poke fun at some infallibilities in their own ideas, by going to great lengths to detail them. me too :D its really fasanating!
War of the Worlds was what i had come across, it is a great book, but i never really finished it, only a few pages, yes a few :P
i found this about The Time Machine:
http://www.fourmilab.ch/etexts/www/wells/timemach/html/

I know I honk the Asimov horn a lot, but he was one of the greats.agreed on that!

In my ignorance, when I'm struggling with another author, I can always just fall back on most anything Asimov.so true, and sometimes it may seem like you are starting a new book or something, it just never stops, that wonderful experience :)

and you don't sound fanatical, atleast not to me :P

nalmeth

August 28th, 2006, 10:51 AM

Ah, I misread, you've already been 'affected' by Asimov :)

That's an intersting link/site, I wonder, copyrights must not be applicable? If so, all the better! War of the Worlds is classic, and mostly became famous because a radio broadcast of it caused quite a stir, if my memory serves me.. People believed it was really happening. Thats effective imaginative writing ;)
I enjoyed some of his other work more though

It is getting quite late, I can't keep staying up till sunrise anymore, I must try to get some sleep :?

Thanks for sharing your experience, and giving some more life to this thread.. Really I'm suprised when it gets shot back up, I should start adding some more material, and getting more involved in the discussion. I've already been introduced to many new authors, and I think more involvement will pay off.

See you here again soon :cool:

S1NGH

August 28th, 2006, 11:19 AM

Thats effective imaginative writing exactly what i mean, this really puts the twists and turns in peoples minds :)

i too am looking forward to this thread ;) hopefully read more and share experiences :P

Good Night Sir Shawn

wordsmythe

August 28th, 2006, 07:11 PM

Something already had me thinking of Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land" before the last page or so of posts. Don't know why, but it's coming to fit a lot better in my mind.

Maybe I like that book so much because I read that about the same time I started being more intentional about my spirituality (probably helped that I was also reading the Dhammapada, Tao te Ching, Siddhartha (Herman Hesse), Qur'an, and Philip K. ****'s "Man in the High Tower"-->lead me to read the I Ching too). If I recall correctly (it's been a number of years), that was also around the time I finally got myself baptized, too.

S1ngh, isn't it liberating having faith to sustain you when the material word falls apart? Life on the material side's been pretty mean (pun intended) to me, too, so I can only offer prayers and emotional support. Stay strong, buddy, and know that the small frustration of people not understanding why you aren't upset is a small inconvenience at worst, but also a great opportunity to inspire them to open their minds!

Oh, and to pull this back on topic about what I'm reading now, I've looking at poems by Tony Hoagland and Li young Lee, the latest issue of the Chicago Review (University of Chicago quarterly lit. mag), the Bible (I discovered a version that breaks it up chronologically and separates it into 365 days of reading... I'm way behind), Alan Watts' Wisdom of Insecurity (re-reading, actually), and, since I'm "Mr. Chicago" to my friends, I'm finally going to read Devil in the White City.

Brunellus

August 28th, 2006, 07:42 PM

Recent books:

BRAUDEL, Fernand. Civilization and Capitalism: 15th-18th Century: Volume One: the Structures of Everyday Life: the Limits of the Possible (Hardcover) . New York: Collins, 1985

BEEVOR, Athony. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939(2006 paperback ed.). London: Penguin, 1982, reprinted 2006

RICKS, Thomas E. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq New York: Penguin, 2006

wordsmythe

August 28th, 2006, 07:55 PM

Brunellus, how is that Beevor book? I picked it up a couple years ago but never got around to reading it.

Brunellus

August 28th, 2006, 08:03 PM

Brunellus, how is that Beevor book? I picked it up a couple years ago but never got around to reading it.
It's trenchant, incisive, and relentless. It's very quick-paced, and sheds a lot of light into a conflict that not a lot of people want to think about. Beevor is at pains to point out that the lines of cleavage in Spain were simply Red and White, but rather much more comoplex--centralism versus local autonomy; ethnolinguistic rivalries; religion, and so forth. One gets a real sense of the chaos and the bitterness of the infighting, considering the players involved: The Falange, the ultra-Catholic Carlists, and the pro-Alfonsine monarchists on the one side, and the Basque and Catalan nationalists, plus the communists, socialists, left democrats, and anarcho-syndicalists on the other.

I marched through it in about a day or two, and will probably re-read it.

It's an interesting and fascinating companion to a recent work of fiction whose events take place during the war and its aftermath: The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon--a novel set in post-War Barcelona, with extended flashbacks to the crisis of the '30s. And also about books.

mips

August 28th, 2006, 08:03 PM

By way of deception – The making and unmaking of a Mossad Officer (ISBN 0-9717595-0-2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Booksources&isbn=0971759502)) written by Victor Ostrovsky (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Ostrovsky)

S1NGH

August 28th, 2006, 08:04 PM

S1ngh, isn't it liberating having faith to sustain you when the material word falls apart?
it truly is Sir.

Life on the material side's been pretty mean (pun intended) to me, too, so I can only offer prayers and emotional support. Stay strong, buddy, and know that the small frustration of people not understanding why you aren't upset is a small inconvenience at worst, but also a great opportunity to inspire them to open their minds!
Thank you for your support :) it certainly inspires people both spiritually and mentally who have not experienced such or are willingly to put themselves in a situation as such.

Oh, and to pull this back on topic about what I'm reading now, I've looking at poems by Tony Hoagland and Li young Lee, the latest issue of the Chicago Review (University of Chicago quarterly lit. mag), the Bible (I discovered a version that breaks it up chronologically and separates it into 365 days of reading... I'm way behind), Alan Watts' Wisdom of Insecurity (re-reading, actually), and, since I'm "Mr. Chicago" to my friends, I'm finally going to read Devil in the White City.
all i can say is good luck with the reading Sir! if i can i will try and get a copy of the Devil in the White City sounds catchy!
please do give me details on whats the book about ^^

take care till then,

Harsimran

wordsmythe

August 28th, 2006, 09:50 PM

Devil in the White City is an historical novel about a murderer in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair. I'm excited to be able to look back on the metaphors in it when I'm done, since the White City was a giant, entirely temporary series of buildings built to show off the pinnacle of human achievement. These days, that area is split between the renowned University of Chicago and ghetto.

Bezmotivnik

August 28th, 2006, 10:56 PM

Brunellus, how is that Beevor book? I picked it up a couple years ago but never got around to reading it.
I read it a while back, but it somehow didn't leave as deep an impression as the other titles I mentioned in my previous post.

The original book was written before the relevant Soviet archives were accessible, and these made the major mysteries of the conflict (the ones that plagued Orwell for the rest of his life) vividly plain at last.

S1NGH

August 29th, 2006, 07:08 AM

PryGuy

August 29th, 2006, 10:07 AM

glotz

August 29th, 2006, 10:32 AM

Anonii

August 29th, 2006, 10:34 AM

Why would I read books when I can just BURN them for the GOD of BLOOD and AMATHY?

PryGuy

August 29th, 2006, 10:53 AM

Nice thread! Asimov is very good. I really liked i-robot the book. Also, the movie with same name was nice, allthough pretty unrelated.

For light cyberpunk scifi, try anything from William Gibson

For heavy reality, read Aleksander Solzenizyn's Arcipelago Gulag. (not for small children!)Not to hurt your feelings, people, but do you read classics? Solzenizyn is known here mostly as a regime fighter not like a deep writer actually. ;) There are so many great Russian writers to read IMHO! I'm very sorry most of them are still not translated properly.

Brunellus

August 29th, 2006, 01:09 PM

Not to hurt your feelings, people, but do you read classics? Solzenizyn is known here mostly as a regime fighter not like a deep writer actually. ;) There are so many great Russian writers to read IMHO! I'm very sorry most of them are still not translated properly.
Solzhenitsyn's books are useful, and particularly shocking, to people not familiar with the USSR. The most fascinating thing to me about Gulag Archipelago was its organization: the way he takes his reader through the prison camp system as if the reader were a prisoner himself: Arrest, interrogation, holding cells, "trial," imprisonment, and so on. At those times where the reader/prisoner would be under stress--notably during arrest and interrogation--the narrative is short, sharp, direct: a catalog of abuses and testimony. Solzhenitsyn's discussions of history, or how the USSR ended up with the system it did, come when his reader/prisoner is in long, slow times: transport, imprisonment, and so forth.

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 03:57 PM

wordsmythe, my best regards to you!!!:D Do you read classics? Poets like Blake?

I sure as heck do! I did poetry in college. (University of Chicago AB Cum Laude in English and Creative Writing, suckas! Now I do low-level IT work, though... :-k )

Does your post about translation mean that you're willing make a better translation of Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamazov for me? ...please? :p

glotz

August 29th, 2006, 04:24 PM

Solzhenitsyn's books are useful [...] The most fascinating thing to me about Gulag Archipelago was its organization: the way he takes his reader through the prison camp system as if the reader were a prisoner himself

That's because he himself was. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aleksandr_Solzhenitsyn

PryGuy, have you read the book or other books by him? Sure I read classics, that's pretty much all I read. Tolstoi and Dostoevski among those. (Kafka's really good.)

Brunellus

August 29th, 2006, 04:41 PM

right, exactly: Solzhenitsyn's own experience illuminates the narrative.

For a while I was on a "one Russian novel each winter" rule, but I fell off the wagon last winter.

glotz

August 29th, 2006, 04:59 PM

You'll have to device another 5-year-plan!

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 05:06 PM

You'll have to device [sic-->"devise"] another 5-year-plan!

Zing!

S1NGH

August 29th, 2006, 05:15 PM

Zing!
lol, Max isn't the only one as well as others (including me), i think i should be careful of my keystrokes too :)

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 05:22 PM

I was mostly enjoying the joke about Russia and 5-year plans. I just couldn't let that quote slip through without comment (/.?) though. Old copyediting instincts die hard!

Brunellus

August 29th, 2006, 05:51 PM

I was mostly enjoying the joke about Russia and 5-year plans. I just couldn't let that quote slip through without comment (/.?) though. Old copyediting instincts die hard!
My Dad used to be a copyeditor. He still keeps blue pencils in the house out of force of habit.

Onyros

August 29th, 2006, 06:02 PM

Books... oh, books... My favourites include Kafka's "Metamorphosis" ("Der Verwandlung"), "The Clockwork Orange" by Anthony Burgess is on the everybody-must-read-it list, "The Doors of Perception" by Aldous Huxley, simply fabulous, great insight and perspective from one of the must lucid minds of our era.

I'm currently reading, taking notes and investigating "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, that's the original Dark vs Light theme right there.

I am also a sucker for JRR Tolkien's Middle-Earth Universe, "The Silmarillion" being another of my favourite books ever, especially the "Ainulindalë", which must be one of the most beautiful pieces of literature there is.

And I can't forget the beatnik generation: William Burroughs, Jack Kerouac and, obviously, Allen Ginsberg. Simply brilliant. I once tried to recreate "The Dharma Bums", even climbed a mountain and all, but the end of the experience was short of awful (cut my eye on a spiky plant).

Yup, I like my books ;)

Brunellus

August 29th, 2006, 06:11 PM

aaaah, GINSBERG!

Love Ginsberg. love him to bits. Best line: "It's tough to eat sh*t, without having visions"

glotz

August 29th, 2006, 06:31 PM

Aldous Hux is the man! The Brave New World is something everybody should read, alongside the already mentioned George Orwell's 1984.

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 06:43 PM

...I'm currently reading, taking notes and investigating "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, that's the original Dark vs Light theme right there....

I must have read that 6 times by now. Let me know if you want to discuss!

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 06:49 PM

aaaah, GINSBERG!

Love Ginsberg. love him to bits. Best line: "It's tough to eat sh*t, without having visions"

Let's not forget Ferlinghetti!
http://www.1000plus.com/Cataract/fw2.htm
(The owner of that site is a real cool dude, too!)

Bezmotivnik

August 29th, 2006, 07:03 PM

My Dad used to be a copyeditor. He still keeps blue pencils in the house out of force of habit.

:mrgreen:

That's pretty funny. "The strongest human compulsion is the urge to edit someone else's copy."

B-b-because it needs it! Honest!

wordsmythe

August 29th, 2006, 07:12 PM

That's pretty funny. "The strongest human compulsion is the urge to edit someone else's copy."

B-b-because it needs it! Honest!

I got more into editing after one of my old professors stopepd his freshman philosophy class and explained ot them that, while negative criticism makes you look smart and was probably how we all got as far as we had academically, it's not a good indicator of actual intelligence. A clever person can point out problems, but prestige is more deserved by the person who finds ways to make things better.

So I walked over to the school paper's office and volunteered!

I'll admit I'm a lot better editing English (or Spanish) than C# though! Maybe I'd be better with my code if more computer books were better edited! :p

glotz

August 29th, 2006, 07:29 PM

Haha, that's a nice twist wordsmythe! :lol:

Bezmotivnik

August 29th, 2006, 07:29 PM

It's almost impossible to meaningfully edit English beyond a certain point due to the numerous conflicting styleguides in use, and that's just with American English. :-k

S1NGH

August 29th, 2006, 07:38 PM

i too think the same Bezmotivnik, its crazy how people who can do it, actually do it. I am not too good in english my-self so i can't really say so again :P i think you need to have a vast knowledge of vocabulary and how to use it appropriately.

songo

August 29th, 2006, 07:40 PM

right now i'm on 'ensaio sobre a cegueira' (essay on blindness) from saramago.
before i was on 'the perfect spy' jonh lecarre but I didn't finished.
on the queue I have 'hora de fechar' (closing time) from joseph heller.

agrabah

August 29th, 2006, 07:44 PM

Just wrestling my way through The Tin Drum by Günther Grass. Quite a read. But I like fat books.
I used to read a lot of science fiction, but I somehow lost interest, because lots of it is crap. From time to time I still pick up authors that speak to me (Lem, Orwell, Huxley, Čapek,...).

I was never a really a printed technical manual reader (guess I'm too young for that); my kind of documentation mostly came in digital format; albeit I do own a few computer manuals. They are gathering dust, I'm afraid.

But I'd like to point out one thing - books will not go out of print so soon - nothing beats a book when it comes to portability and ease of use.

Tine

PryGuy

August 30th, 2006, 07:32 AM

I sure as heck do! I did poetry in college. (University of Chicago AB Cum Laude in English and Creative Writing, suckas! Now I do low-level IT work, though... :-k )

Does your post about translation mean that you're willing make a better translation of Crime and Punishment or Brothers Karamazov for me? ...please? :pI don't feel I'm the chosen one to do it... :D

Bezmotivnik

August 31st, 2006, 04:20 AM

Read Maugham's Ashenden yesterday, which is a series of short stories, based on his odder experiences as a secret agent during WWI, smooshed into a novel. Maugham is one of my favorite authors -- very readable, with a great insight into human foibles.

For a "fatter" book, I'm about a hundred pages into Conrad's Nostromo, which has been considerably overpraised as the "greatest" novel of the Twentieth Century. It isn't all that, but it's certainly good, especially if you've spent a lot of time in Latin America and can appreciate some of the more distinctive aspects of the settings.

chaosgeisterchen

August 31st, 2006, 06:12 AM

Books have become some luxury good to me. I barley have time besides my useless internet presence.

Bezmotivnik

September 2nd, 2006, 08:03 AM

Anyone else read Scandinavian mysteries?

BWF89

September 12th, 2006, 09:00 PM

I'm reading Watchers by Dean Koontz.

maniacmusician

September 12th, 2006, 09:14 PM

Books have become some luxury good to me. I barley have time besides my useless internet presence.
ditto

Bezmotivnik

September 12th, 2006, 10:39 PM

Finished Karen Fossum's When the Devil Holds the Candle yesterday. Boring and tedious while still managing to be slightly offensive. :rolleyes: I'm done with her stuff, I've decided.

Finished the great Nostromo, which was filled with Conrad's typically piquant and accurate observations.

Will probably finish Michael Kurland's The Empress of India today, from his series of Professor Moriarty books, which I discussed previously.

Brendt2

September 12th, 2006, 10:58 PM

One of my alltime favorties authors would have to be Isaac Asimov and his Foundation series.

I love the Foundation. It sucked me in years ago now!

But i suppose... i am a geek ... so i guess it is fitting!

Haha

-B

ekuliak

September 13th, 2006, 04:06 AM

I'm a Vonnegut fan. I believe I have 9 of his books so far.

I'm back in school now, so most of what I read has to do with school (mostly textbooks). I actually went to my local Barens & Noble today to get a copy of How To Survive A Robot Uprising (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&EAN=9781582345925&itm=1) by Daniel H. Wilson.

This book is half school related, half enjoyment. I got the book because it sounds like a good read, and interestingly enough I plan to be giving a short speech on robotics in my speech class. I'm seriously considering using the robot uprising idea to make my speech much more interesting. I think it will be a good idea. 8-)

S1NGH

September 13th, 2006, 05:13 PM

ekuliak

September 14th, 2006, 02:06 AM

I finished reading How To Survive A Robot Uprising already. It may very well be the best $13 bucks I've ever spent. \\:D/

Go for it, and remember that your audience might not like such things, so as the idea, before you do it, you might want to ask friends, unless you are sure you can catch everyones attention to you ;)

The people I've told already seem to like the idea. I still plan to ask a few more. I just have to make sure that when I do give the speech, I include plenty of humor (much like the author of the book) so the audience will really enjoy it and not think "this guy is crazy"

ClarkePeters

September 21st, 2006, 10:13 PM

I've read more history books and novels than I have room for in my office, had to give some of them to charity. I love modern mystery, detective, and legal thrillers and I've read many classics. That being said, I have downloaded over 1000 books from Project Gutenberg, yes 1,000, which I'll never get through all of them, but I keep them in my pda. It's a library in the pocket and it's all totally free! :) Treasure Island, Dracula, Oliver Twist, some outdated but still good myteries, some even better than Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) and Agatha Christi (sp?).

Cyraxzz

September 21st, 2006, 10:52 PM

I read Programming books on a daily basis, i order them from Amazon. and yea, I find it better then online docs. And of course fictional books every now and then.

skymt

September 21st, 2006, 11:04 PM

I'm currently reading Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson. I was expecting more of a Gibson feel, but it's more of a comedy than a thriller. Quite a few "lol moments" in the descriptions.

raublekick

September 21st, 2006, 11:44 PM

I finished reading the following in the past few weeks:

Drop City by TC Boyle
The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura
In Praise of Shadows by Jun'ichiro Tanizaki

Right now I'm reading Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse among my Physics and Compiler Construction text books.

Bezmotivnik

September 24th, 2006, 06:32 AM

Finished two more Alan Furst novels and the most recent one is at the library waiting for me.

I'll probably finish Without Vodka, Aleksander Topolski's memoir of the Gulag and WWII, tonight.

blackened

September 24th, 2006, 07:07 AM

I find books annoying due to their lack of a proper search function.

Seriously though, I have more than I know what to do with, so I try to donate them to Salvation Army or some such at least a couple times a year. Reading Anna Karenina right now. Have a few new ones waiting in the wings.

Demio

September 24th, 2006, 01:50 PM

Yea, book reading is still a part of my life.

Normally I read Isaac Asimov, but lately I've been reading economy books.Steven Levitt, Tim Harford, Thomas Friedman, etc.

sinpalabras

October 1st, 2006, 10:07 PM

i like Heminway, Kerouak, Hesse ,Milan Kundera, Huxley(please reed The Island). And a lot of scifi. Aldiss(barefoot in the head) and philiphe k **** are my favorites,

KrayzeKaliber

October 2nd, 2006, 02:14 AM

Although I do enjoy an occassional "substantial" book, like 1984 or Gilgamesh, I'd have to say that my fav would definately be useless knowledge. Right now I'm reading "The Know-It-All" about this one guy who read all 33,000 pages of the Encyclopedia Britannica. What a feat...

I've wondered if one day all texts will just be placed online for efficency. Of course ancient texts would still be reserved, but all modern books would just be placed online for purchasing. Then they'll be literacy piracy...what a world. Instead of page numbers, we would just have line numbers, and a bookmark would have a different meaning.

Yet, holding a book does have a certain feel too it. Personally, I don't enjoy holding a book because the only comfortable position for me is reading on a table, and after a while my back starts to hurt. Yet again, if I were to continuously read from the monitor, I'd probably fry my eyes out worse than I am now... :-k

gnomeuser

October 2nd, 2006, 03:55 AM

Currently I'm reading:

Harry Potter and the Halfblood Prince (my 6th reading of it - I dunno what it is about those books but I keep picking them up)
An Introduction to Evolutionary Psychology
Linux Kernel Development 2nd edition (heavy mofo - but good information

On the todo list is The Kite runner and Once upon a future king.

Latest book completed was The Catcher in the Rye (and who ever deemed that one a classic should be taken to the wall and offered a blindfold).

Buzzygirl

October 2nd, 2006, 04:03 AM

The Kite Runner is one of the best books I've read in a long time. This past summer, I also read "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time," "Three Day Road," and Machiavelli's The Prince. I have also read several books on ancient Roman history, and am currently reading Darwin's Origin of Species.

Bezmotivnik

October 2nd, 2006, 04:10 AM

Still reading tons...

In the past week I've read England's Dreaming (http://www.amazon.com/Englands-Dreaming-Anarchy-Pistols-Beyond/dp/0312087748/sr=1-2/qid=1159758392/ref=pd_bbs_2/102-6997715-0291305?ie=UTF8&s=books), Jon Savage's huge history of British Punk, and Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0743202279), a particularly strange analysis of '80s metal.

I've also knocked off the latest Alan Furst novel, The Foreign Correspondent (http://www.amazon.com/Foreign-Correspondent-Novel-Alan-Furst/dp/1400060192/sr=1-1/qid=1159758477/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-6997715-0291305?ie=UTF8&s=books).

Spano

October 2nd, 2006, 04:25 AM

"Tough Guys Don't Dance" Norman Mailer
"Good As Gold" Joseph Heller
My two favorite books.
The Heller one is about the absurdity of Washington politics.
Good one to read right now.

NewRubberSoul

October 2nd, 2006, 05:16 AM

Reading Ken Kesey's "One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest" and would recommend it to anyone. :p

regeya

October 2nd, 2006, 05:25 AM

Afraid I match the stereotype more or less. I've read the three major Tolkien works, read the Foundation trilogy, have a fair amount of Stephen King (mostly from the Dark Tower series) on the bookshelf, read every book from the Dune series including the crappy prequels, have a fair amount of OSC, William Gibson, Heinlein, nearly everything by Jack McDevitt, quite a few Clarke including the entire 2001-universe series, and a whole helluva lot of *gasp* Star Wars extended-universe novels. About my only all-time favorite that breaks the stereotype is Samuel Clemens. Not sure why, but I especially enjoyed A Tramp Abroad. Especially worth reading for his German "lessons." ;)

Oh, and quite a few technical manuals.

As for classics...of the ones I've read, I can say that a fair number of them are overrated. (If that's not flamebait, I don't know what is!)

More flamebait: Reading novels onscreen sucks.

Anonii

October 2nd, 2006, 05:31 AM

At the moment, I'm trying to read that damn "The Rise and the Fall of the Third Reich" but I have too much studying and the rest of my time (2-3 hours per day) goes to browsing sites and chilling... I'm on page 200~ and I havent read anything for like 1 month, because of limited time >:

omns

October 2nd, 2006, 06:42 AM

BWF89

October 3rd, 2006, 11:49 PM

I just got finished reading Watchers by Dean Koontz. It was really good.

glotz

October 5th, 2006, 09:35 AM

Kinda off topic but I envision that in the future all written works will be available online. And people can then go to their local bookshops, which will make them an actual physical book of the text. So there will be the the advances of both, the ebooks (global availability, customizable layout and text size and possible illustration or annotation options) and the normal books (touch, smell, looks). And all this should be very cheap or free.

All this is naturally an utopia. I'm much more inclined towards expecting a dystopia. A world where freedom is just a word and less than 1% of the people are free on any level. The rest are just mindless slaves and have no human rights. Statistically I don't like my chances and even if I (my children or their chidren is probably more like it) miraculously end up to the one percent, it doesn't sound like a world I could sleep my nights in. On the other hand, all the theorically possible pleasures would be there readily available for me, just as all the theoretically possibly human suffering will be there for the other people...

EdThaSlayer

October 5th, 2006, 05:28 PM

Well...i have to read books for school...
I dont really enjoy reading books at all...except for books that have to do something related to or about computers!(Iam reading the ByteOfPython and afterwards Dive Into Python!!!)

but books...normal books...not for me...I would much rather prefer watching anime and other shows than reading books...
i hope i wasnt too repetitive...

the.dark.lord

October 5th, 2006, 05:42 PM

I'm into Agatha Christie these days -as you can see from my signature-... and the fav is the Lord of the Rings... its awesome

macogw

October 5th, 2006, 10:08 PM

Well, I prefer to read documentation online, but I have several shelves worth of fiction.

Yep. Get non-fiction, information-y stuff online. dictionary.com, thesaurus.com, and wikipedia mean you don't have to buy a dictionary and thesaurus and go to the library for an encyclopedia. For novels, though, always printed.

I do spend less time reading overall than I used to though.

Kateikyoushi

October 6th, 2006, 09:50 AM

As a kid I was a bookworm during holidays I read all day long, sometimes finished more than one book a day. With more things to do and the internet also came to the picture it slowed quite down to 2 books a month.
Recently I read SF again from P.K. **** but currently into Yukio Mishima.

ReiKn

October 6th, 2006, 04:22 PM

My favourite authors are Kurt Vonnegut, Thomas Mann, Heinrich Böll and now-a-days especially J.M.Coetzee. I read novels mainly during holidays as I get to read enough science books for the university.. Like many here I prefer paper books over reading from the computer screen.

Omnios

October 6th, 2006, 04:25 PM

I used to read a book every day or so. I used to really like the Lamore westerns but now I usually read computer books. Think I might go to the library to read some new books lol.

moleculeman

October 9th, 2006, 05:36 PM

I'm honestly surprised that Neal Setephenson didn't get more of a mention. For anyone with a slightly skewed sense of history, his C17/18th trilogy Quicksilver, The Confusion and The System of the World are great fun, as well as prefiguring Cryptonomicon, all of which I thoroughly enjoyed. On top of that, I'm going through a season of reading Le Carre and Umberto Eco (Foucalt's Pendulum is still one of my all time favourite novels).

alecjw

October 9th, 2006, 05:43 PM

I like Dan Brown.

Bezmotivnik

October 9th, 2006, 08:28 PM

I'm going through a season of reading Le Carre...
Le Carre remains a mystery to me in some respects.

His early work is unquestionably great as literature -- or at least as good as genre literature can be -- but much of his later, more commercialized stuff is just unreadable trash, as if written to order for the debased American thriller market (and I'm sure these paid well).

I was somewhat gratified to read his recent essays on these first pieces in the most recent trade paperback reprints of the early titles. As a young man, I was in the very times, places and "business" of which he writes, and he gets it all perfectly right in tone. I found some of these apparently very grim stories to be bitterly funny. Of course, I'm the guy who always seems to laugh and cry at the wrong stuff (can't take me anywhere), but it was reassuring to read that these were indeed intentionally written with satiric content for insiders.

Of course, some is just hilarious on its face, such as the opening chapter of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, which also gives a poignant subtext of what sort of child might have grown up to be a career British spook in those days.

moleculeman

October 10th, 2006, 09:29 AM

I always had the feeling he (Le Carre) was having a fairly broad swipe at some colleagues when he wrote about the Circus; if not as specific characters, then at their types and the social classes they came from. Never the less, I'm still enjoying the books - I read primarily for fun, which these certainly are.

Oh yes, and Bill "Jumbo" Roach in TTSS does seem to be a reflection of Smiley (or the author himself) as a youth.

chaosgeisterchen

October 10th, 2006, 09:58 AM

Hmh.. I barely read this times apart from internet lecture and news.

But I am about diving into 'War and Peace' by Tolstoi. Tough one.

petersjm

October 10th, 2006, 10:10 AM

I'm currently reading Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Boy, that man can use his swear words! I recently finished Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird and absolutely loved it. Couldn't get enough. Shame she never wrote another novel.

The longest book I ever read would have to have been Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (complete and unabridged). Or Lord of the Rings - I can't remember which was longer.

That's my classics head. When I'm reading throw-away novels I like things like Dean Koontz. I went through a voracious phase where I couldn't get enough of Koontz. I've been reading all my life, basically, and I'll never stop.

Bezmotivnik

October 10th, 2006, 06:42 PM

Oh yes, and Bill "Jumbo" Roach in TTSS does seem to be a reflection of Smiley (or the author himself) as a youth.
Or somebody, anyway. Cornwell's own bizarre childhood as the working-class son of a notorious British con man is probably best revealed in A Perfect Spy.

His books do have the usual flaw of viewing intelligence from the standpoint of upper-management and not the despised and deniable "Joes" who have to face the drudgery and very occasional dangers of actual spying, with no protection except their own wits. Alan Furst does a great job in realistically portraying the lives of these real spies, albeit in less colorful prose but more colorful historical settings.

I have the sneaking impression that Furst's heroes are conscious anti-Smileys. Smiley was the great spymaster but the inept lover and cuckold. Furst's spies are often only dimly aware of the goals of their efforts and are frequently unsuccessful, but are heroic lovers. ;-)

moleculeman

October 10th, 2006, 07:07 PM

Alan Furst? I'll give him a go. Many thanks. I'll look in the strangely unsatisfying shop that is Borders next time I'm in town.

wordsmythe

October 20th, 2006, 07:52 PM

I'm starting Last of the Mohicans, mostly because I find myself thinking of scenes from the movie about 3 times a week. 8)

chaosgeisterchen

October 20th, 2006, 09:13 PM

Ruby on Rails - quick and compact
AJAX - quick and compact
XML-standards - quick and compact
Regular Expressions - quick and compact
Python - A desktop quick reference

I am just diving a bit into every ot these topics and decide lateron to intensify those of which I think the highest.

cobelloy

October 22nd, 2006, 09:16 AM

WOW what a topic - this thred is as long as a book!!

I only got to page five before I had to skip to page 20 and add my little entry -

never 'got' the foundation series, read most of it on and off but didnt really like it

favourite books:

wild swans by jung chang (heart wrenching story of the women of a chinese family starting with the great great grandmother during end of imperialist china and finishing with her great great granddaughter today)

Salman Rushdie - what a crazy read satanic verses was! and "the moors last cry" - I dont think I will forget that book as long as I live - such a wonderful story, midnights children - not as great as moor's but a great read

Julian May - currently waiting for the third part of her boreal moon series - the first two were fantastic sci-fi/fantasy

David Gemmel - (sadly recently deceased) has a huge back catalog of some unusual fantasy style, but the last series he wrote is the troy trilogy, the first part being "the lord of the silver bow" I just love fiction based on mythology.

also I suppose:

cristian jacq - writes fiction based around ancient egyptian history

michael crichton - that guy really knows how to turn any old thing in to a readable story!

also I listen to audio books in the car a lot since i do a lot of long drives with my little daughter, our most recent favourite is The Hobbit, but we also love to listen to Hitchhikers, or Harry Potter too (any of them)

omns

October 23rd, 2006, 12:04 PM

Bezmotivnik

November 8th, 2006, 01:24 AM

I've been re-reading some of the Flashman series (prime edutainment!) including Flashman and the Dragon. I'm also reading a biography of one of the historical characters in that book, American mercenary Frederick Townsend Ward, The Devil Soldier by Caleb Carr (author of The Alienist).

I'm finishing up The Poe Shadow, by Matthew Pearl, who wrote The Dante Club. Like that title, Poe becomes overwrought and tedious by the second chapter, a weak pastiche of 19th Century prose.

I was reading Le Carre's The Tailor of Panama, but gave it up as a waste of time. I have this terrible fear that Le Carre's good books are all behind him. :(

Dual Cortex

November 8th, 2006, 01:32 AM

Stories/Classics, etc. yeah

Information, documents, history, etc. - WIKIPEDIA!

viper

November 8th, 2006, 01:46 AM

Currently reading Ann Rice, Servant of the Bones

nalmeth

November 8th, 2006, 04:16 AM

Hmm, right now, reading some non-fiction.

Quasar Astronomy by Daniel W. Weedman

Bigbluecat

November 8th, 2006, 08:40 AM

I always have a one or two books on the go. All kinds of genres.

Favourite others:

John Irving
Iain Banks
Christopher Brookmyre

One of the best books I read recently was The Time Travellers Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. Really quite stunning.

Kateikyoushi

November 8th, 2006, 01:09 PM

I am reading Parallel worlds from Michio Kaku and I am really surprised I never came across any of his books before, I have been reding till 3am last night. ^^;; I am surely getting his other works soon.

glotz

November 8th, 2006, 01:25 PM

Public library invention must be the zenith of the western civilization!

zcal

November 8th, 2006, 01:33 PM

I just finished reading Bill Bryson´s A Walk in the Woods in paperback. I´ve now moved on to En el Nombre del Cerdo by Pablo Tusset. Both of these books are modern, so I went after them in print. But I´ve also just recently downloaded a 700+ page PDF of Don Quijote de la Mancha. The nice thing about really old classics is that they´re copyrights are virtually nada, so you can find them online with a quick Googling and read through them at your leisure when you´re feeling like getting old school. Personally, I tend to read the more modern novels straight through, and long classics at differing intervals, so I find it easier to simply download a PDF of a book that I know I won´t be reading consistently for a period of time.

Bezmotivnik

November 8th, 2006, 09:36 PM

On a whim, I got Sergei Lukyanenko's Nightwatch at the library. It's marked SciFi and normally I never touch SciFi, but it seems to be something different. I just started it.

If anyone's read it, let me know.

Bezmotivnik

November 8th, 2006, 09:44 PM

Public library invention must be the zenith of the western civilization!
Well, I do know that it's the only meaningful thing I get back from my extorted taxes, so I make a point of exploiting it as hard as I can. ;)

Bezmotivnik

November 15th, 2006, 04:13 AM

Sergei Lukyanenko's Nightwatch
Funny there were no responses to this.

Seems to me that this would be pretty popular here, being sort of stereotypically geeky (a bit more than I'd normally ever read) but it's so different from any book I've seen by a western writer that it manages to hold my interest.

The movie version (http://www2.foxsearchlight.com/nwnd/) pretty much croaked in the US, but was supposed to have been visually interesting. I have it requested at the library.

ekuliak

November 15th, 2006, 05:47 AM

I saw the movie when my friend rented it. I think he first saw it in Russian (he is Russian), but since I don't speak Russian, we watched it in English.

I thought the movie was ok. Kinda weird, but ok. I never read the book (was it translated to English, or are you reading it in Russian?), and only first heard of Nightwatch from him when he said "Hey, they are releasing a Russian movie here."

d3v1ant_0n3

November 15th, 2006, 05:53 AM

I've been slowly working my way through Neil Gaimen's writings recently.

I read the Sandman graphic novels a while ago, but never any of his 'proper' books.

Picked up American Gods for a long flight and it was a wonderful read.
Read everything of his I can get my hands on since.

I finally got to finish Stephen King's Dark Tower series recently. I LOVED those books with a passion. The last book was sad for far to many reasons.

Bezmotivnik

November 15th, 2006, 06:18 AM

I never read the book (was it translated to English, or are you reading it in Russian?)
Unfortunately, my command of idiomatic Russian isn't up to it. :-|

Yeah, it's been translated (quite well, it seems) into English. Miramax books released it as a trade paperback to coincide with the movie's US release.

From what I gather, the movie's a good deal different from the book, as is often the case.

Here's the Wikipedia on the book.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Watch_%28Russian_novel%29)

steven8

November 15th, 2006, 06:26 AM

Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, John McDonald, etc. etc. My favorites are murder mysteries anymore.

Bezmotivnik

November 15th, 2006, 06:32 AM

My favorites are murder mysteries anymore.
Try Le Carre's first two small books, which are mysteries. I believe they have been released in a single volume (check your library). They're beautifully written. Unfortunately, Le Carre has been going downhill ever since. :(

Wikis (note spoilers!):

Call for the Dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_for_the_Dead)

A Murder of Quality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Murder_of_Quality)

steven8

November 15th, 2006, 06:45 AM

I know my wife has read some LeCarre. I'll have to check them out.

Thanks!!

Ohh, they sound good on wikipedia!!

Marquis_de_Carabas

November 15th, 2006, 07:42 AM

Check out the text of Cory Doctorow's talk: Ebooks: Neither E, Nor Books (http://www.craphound.com/ebooksneitherenorbooks.txt). It's a great discussion on the nature of ebooks vs paper books, the pros and cons for writers and readers, the huge problems with current copyright laws etc.

I'm sure most people here have heard of him, but for any who haven't, he's a writer (I've read his first novel and a few of his short stories, and very much enjoyed them) who worked for the Electronic Freedom Foundation for four years. He's released all three of his novels (and most of his short stories) under a Creative Commons license and they can be downloaded freely from his website. There are a few derivative works - audiobooks etc. - floating around.

Interestingly in the same talk he speaks of owning over 10,000 books. This is what people often seem to miss when they start complaining that paper smells nicer or that 'real' books are prettier: it's not an either/or situation. There are some things that ebooks are better suited for and some things that paper books are better suited for. I own a few hundred paper books and am constantly buying more, but I also have a few hundred books on my laptop. Ideally I'd like to own both versions of every book: paper books are much better for reading in the bath, ebooks are much better to quote from in essays.

(Incidentally, some favourites include Neil Gaiman, Terry Pratchett, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, Tom Robbins, Noam Chomsky, Douglas Copeland, Robert Anton Wilson, Robert M Pirsig...)

Edit: Sorry, don't want to make this too long, but I just found this great quote which sums up a lot of Doctorow's ideology:

"You know as authors, as creators, there are a lot of terrible things that get done to us; people rip us off, they plagiarize us, they criticize us unfairly and so on. Those are all par for the course. But the one thing that I think that every author, no matter what medium she works in, has a real creeping horror of is being banned, is being censored, is having all of your books piled up and set fire to. And when you look at what the protracted term of copyright coupled with the impossibility of legally digitizing large courses of work is giving us, it is a slow-motion burning of the library."
From an interview with RedHat magazine (http://www.redhat.com/magazine/015jan06/features/doctorow/index.html)

Bezmotivnik

November 15th, 2006, 08:07 AM

There are some things that ebooks are better suited for and some things that paper books are better suited for...ebooks are much better to quote from in essays.

Well, I'll grant that cut & paste from actual printed text is difficult, but that's about the only thing for which I've ever heard of e-text being preferable -- assuming one has the choice.

I read electronic texts of many old stories that are out of print (including one a few minutes ago by Anatole Le Braz), but it is very difficult. I can only handle about eight pages in .PDF before my eyes start giving me trouble and pain. The visual ergonomics of black on white monitor text are dreadful, something that's been known for at least twenty years.

Somewhere, someone must have come up with a less visually-painful interface. :confused:

yabbadabbadont

November 15th, 2006, 08:10 AM

In my opinion, one of the worst things about e-books is that you can't (easily) take it with you to the restroom. That's some quality reading time you miss out on with e-books. :)

Marquis_de_Carabas

November 15th, 2006, 08:32 AM

I read electronic texts of many old stories that are out of print (including one a few minutes ago by Anatole Le Braz), but it is very difficult

It's a hell of a lot easier than spending months searching second-hand bookstores or paying a finder to track down a print version. Archival and distribution are both much easier with ebooks than paper ones.

I'm quite happy to read stuff on the PC, although I admit it may not be doing my eyesight much good. But ebook readers seem to be getting better too; the Sony Librie thing is supposed to have excellent text quality - "With high contrast black text on a reflective background, the screen has a readability rivaling actual paper." as one review stated.

Mitsuko

November 15th, 2006, 10:38 AM

My favourite book is Battle Royale :)

funkyade

November 15th, 2006, 10:47 AM

In my opinion, one of the worst things about e-books is that you can't (easily) take it with you to the restroom. That's some quality reading time you miss out on with e-books. :)

Absolutely. Took my iBook to the toilet this morning to catch up on the latest happenings in the Mysql Reference Manual v5...

steven8

November 15th, 2006, 10:49 AM

The hard part is finding an extension cord long enough to reach the john. :-)

public_void

November 15th, 2006, 01:30 PM

TBH I don't like reading at a computer, I find myself getting distracted to easily.

As for the best(s) books I've read its the Mars trilogy's by Kim Stanley Robinson plus the fourth additional book in the series. I've started reading it again (IMO the sign of a good book is reading it again), currently at the beginning of the second book.

wordsmythe

November 15th, 2006, 04:07 PM

Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Robert Heinlein, Ian Fleming, Agatha Christie, John McDonald, etc. etc. My favorites are murder mysteries anymore.

Hammett and Chandler are pretty great (I'd imagine most folks appreciate the rest of that list, so I won't bother commenting on them).

As for eBooks and the old Ctrl+C - Ctrl+V, I'd add that it's also a lot easier to find a particular passage in an eBook. I remember back in college having to hunt through page after page of Paradise Lost or some other old English (no, no Old English) books trying to just find the quote, let alone quote it. I'm glad so many of the classics are on Gutenberg now!

On another note, has anyone gotten into audio books online? Librivox.org puts out a public domain podcast of public domain books. They just finished the classic Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs (big ups for the old school of sci fi!). The volunteer readers did a good job. I have a little less confidence in their abilities for their Importance of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde) that they're working on now, though.

Marquis_de_Carabas

November 15th, 2006, 04:57 PM

On another note, has anyone gotten into audio books online?

I haven't yet listened to many - I don't really like audiobooks, much prefer reading with some background music - but I loved Basil Rathbone's readings of Edgar Allen Poe.

bodycoach2

November 15th, 2006, 05:23 PM

Being a writer, it's imperative that I read as much as I can. I really like the work of Cory Doctorow (http://www.craphound.com) (a fellow Ubuntu convert). At the moment, I'm reading Eric Flint's "1632", an excellent read.

This is where my shame comes into play. I still use Windows primarily because of Microsoft Reader. I have over 500 ebooks on my HP iPAQ PocketPC, and have collected 15,000 ebooks on my different storage devices. I also have 50 gig of audiobooks, and use the iPAQ to listen to them. I keep the current book I'm on up on the iPAQ, and pop it open to read anywhere -in line at the Supermarket, waiting for class to start, waiting for a client to show.

The PocketPC is the only real reason I keep Windows. That, and I need Windows for school (IT). I'm hoping that developers will create:
-A Linux driven PocketPC like device
-An ebook reader for Linux (Mobipocket, maybe?)
-An open source, open standard ebook library

So far, only .pdf support for eBooks is available for Linux. I'd like to get away from closed sourced, DRM'd eBooks, and I'm surprised non of the Linux developers have created an eBook reader.

PLEASE! Someone, makes this. Pretty please!

skymt

November 15th, 2006, 06:38 PM

The PocketPC is the only real reason I keep Windows. That, and I need Windows for school (IT). I'm hoping that developers will create:
-A Linux driven PocketPC like device
-An ebook reader for Linux (Mobipocket, maybe?)
-An open source, open standard ebook library

Here's my Linux/ebook setup:

* A Palm Zire 22. Cheap, decent screen, and more than enough storage for ebook use.

* The pilot-link command-line tools. There are graphical tools to manage Palm devices, but the CLI tools are simple, scriptable, and don't get in the way.

* Plucker (http://www.plkr.org/), an open-source suite of tools for reading HTML and text files on Palm devices. It uses an open, documented format.

* txt2pdbdoc, for converting the occasional PalmDOC format file to plain text suitable for Plucker. I took eReader off my Palm a while ago.

* convertlit, for converting .lit files to HTML, which Plucker handles nicely. It breaks the DRM, so it's technically illegal in the USA, thanks to the DMCA. However, it works very nicely for MS Reader books downloaded from online ebook stores. I don't really care about the DMCA anymore. I break it regularly anyway, watching DVDs on Linux.

* A set of shell scripts I've developed for batch-converting between formats.

pinkbetty

November 15th, 2006, 10:30 PM

My book still works when I forget to charge everything else for the commute to work, and it doesn't complain when I accidentally sit on it or it starts raining! :P

JAPrufrock

November 16th, 2006, 02:21 AM

Ulysses
War and Peace
On The Road
Henderson the Rain King
Heart of Darkness

mediax

November 16th, 2006, 02:14 PM

For me, Hell is no books.

I'm currently reading Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs - a fictional account of the Yalta talks.

For anyone who hasn't read Neal Stephenson's Baroque trilogy - you're missing one of the great treats of modern literature!

Bezmotivnik

November 16th, 2006, 07:08 PM

I'm currently reading Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs - a fictional account of the Yalta talks.

I recently read the memoirs of Sergo Beria (http://www.amazon.com/Beria-My-Father-Inside-Stalins-Kremlin/dp/0715630628) (Lavrenti's son) who ran the NKVD wiretaps and bugs at the Yalta conference, where he was also an interpreter.

I wonder if there's much overlap between the two books.

wordsmythe

November 16th, 2006, 10:00 PM

Nice name, Prufrock.

I am working my way through the 60th anniversary issue of the Chicago Review. Lots of Ken Rexroth.

joecomstock

November 18th, 2006, 09:57 PM

I read anything worthwhile I can get my hands on.

Right now on the fiction side it is mostly Philip K ****, he is an amazing author, have read most of his novels and a lot of short stories. Also Robert Anton Wilson, his two Illuminatus trilogies are reminiscent of both **** and Joyce. Henry Miller, Hemmingway, and Joyce for non-sci-fi.

Also the cyberpunk movement in general. The whole postmodern dystopian noir fiction thing I find very rewarding.

Right now mostly nonFiction Python and Java books......

UKPunk

November 25th, 2006, 07:47 PM

I'm not really into fiction, but I've got tons of non-fiction. I love history, and one book I always recommend to other history lovers is Antonia Frasers' 'Cromwell, Our Chief Of Men'. I wish I had time to read more, but between work, home and kids I always find myself limited to snatching the odd hour here and there.

Bezmotivnik

November 25th, 2006, 09:38 PM

At the moment, The Black Book of Communism, an exceptionally interesting (if long) read.

xyz

November 28th, 2006, 12:32 AM

well this is just for a change...instead of listing names!
Who is it?

Bezmotivnik

November 29th, 2006, 11:15 PM

Speaking of large books, The Complete Stories of Isaac Bable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Babel) is on its way to the library for me.

Re-read both Call for the Dead (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_for_the_Dead) and A Murder of Quality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Murder_of_Quality) yesterday.

iPower

November 30th, 2006, 12:32 AM

i read books

Henning Mankell
Sjöwall/Whalöö
Jan Guillou
+more

Bezmotivnik

November 30th, 2006, 01:52 AM

i read books

Henning Mankell

I just got the 2005 English translation of The Man Who Smiled at the library last night. Will probably read it tonight.

I believe I've read all of Mankell's other mysteries that have been translated into english. Some were quite good.

iPower

November 30th, 2006, 03:16 AM

i have a small collection of Mankell books and i've read them all

all of them are in swedish ^_^

JAPrufrock

November 30th, 2006, 04:21 AM

well this is just for a change...instead of listing names!
Who is it?

Samuel Beckett

Bezmotivnik

November 30th, 2006, 04:26 AM

i have a small collection of Mankell books and i've read them all.

If you like Scandinavian mysteries, have you read any Arnaldur Indridason? I think only Jar City has been translated into English (from Icelandic), but I found it quite different and interesting.

I've read Karen Fossum's stuff (in English), but I just didn't care for the most recent one.

iPower

November 30th, 2006, 01:04 PM

If you like Scandinavian mysteries, have you read any Arnaldur Indridason? I think only Jar City has been translated into English (from Icelandic), but I found it quite different and interesting.

Didn't know about icelantic books i'll have to check the library ^_^

hoagie

November 30th, 2006, 01:23 PM

I read fantasy books such as. Harry Potter and Lord of the rings. I also tend to read some Greek books.

xpod

November 30th, 2006, 01:49 PM

Read close to a thousand books up until a few years ago....if not more?
Never nothing too profound and mainly just novels,Bio`s,History etc.Loved a bit of Nigel Tranter.

Had never been into fantasy books until i picked up a book called the Magician by Raymond Fiest one day......Brilliant stuff.Lord of the Rings was a top book too.

Only books i`ve been able to read this last 10 years though have been bedtime stories......I usually just make them up though as it`s much more fun and the kids fall asleep all the quicker:twisted:

Now we got pc`s and internets i`ve at least got some form of proper reading back into my life......even if it is a bunch of stuff i cant make head nor tail of most of the time

With the world at ones fingertips....who needs books:mrgreen: