Readers! what are you reading?

[hermes]

I am currently reading Mario Puzo's The Corleone, by Ed Falco. Its a prequel a fan of the original made with the same characters and trying to cover some new ground. As far as I can tell, he has permission from the Puzo family to publish it. It is not so good as the original (which I consider one of the best novels I have read), the characters are portrayed a lot less ambiguously, and it has the same problem of any prequel: the tension is diluted when you know beforehand who is going to live or die...

I am also reading The Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. It starts as an innocent enough thriller about information theory in World War II and the dawn of computer science, but it soon turns into a conspiracy story about Axis' gold and espionage. Still too early to pass on any judgement...

I read a lot, and prefer novels and fiction (with emphasis on science fiction) over other genres, but I am not afraid of getting out of my comfort zone.

 

[Zac Jovanovic]

I'm currently reading "Red Country" by Joe Abercrombie.

I somewhat missed his brutality since the last few books I've read were much softer, couple hundred pages in I'm loving the tie-in with his previous books, there's also a twist you can see coming from the very beginning and it still turns out totally satisfying.

My comfort zone I guess is fantasy, sci fi, steam punk, mostly darker stuff. Though I've no problem reading brighter stuff too. In fact, my favorite series is "Mistborn" by Brandon Sanderson which isn't particularly dark for the most part.

I've read a few books in my native language last year because I couldn't get them shipped in for a reasonable price, that's breaking my comfort zone in a way. Fantasy and sci fi translate rather poorly to Serbian.

I've picked up "Woken Furies" by Richard Morgan for my next read, unless I get my hands on "Worlds of Radiance" by Sanderson in the meantime.

 

[Tiger King]

the most recent books I have downloaded are....
A book of horrors, a collection of short stories including one written by Stephen king.
It's not bad, some interesting tales, will reserve judgement until I have finished it though.

Blood skies is part 1 of a 9 part series available for free download.
The author has done a very good job in my opinion, of creating a post apocalyptic world where monsters and vampires hound the remnants of humanity.
the sun no longer shines, much knowledge has been lost, people cower in fortress cities and things are pretty grim.
I enjoyed the setting and the story, though I felt a few characters were killed off a bit too soon.
The one thing that bugged me however, was the authors use of the word 'arcane'.
Arcane appeared at least once every two pages and I just feel the word was being over used.

Scraping the bone is another collection of short horror stories.
I'm finding this book to be enjoyable and the stories imaginative and dark but sadly a bit too short.
The author will create a scenario that is often strange and leaving me wanting to read more. however, the story will often be wrapped up abruptly with a dark twist or an 'open' ending.
This isn't really a bad thing, though I am often left wishing I could read on and discover more.

Lastly and most recently I have finished Punk rock dad.
I enjoy many forms of music but there are a few punk bands I discovered in the 90's that I will always keep close to my heart.
Punk rock dad is a book written by the vocalist from one of those bands called Pennywise.
To be honest I was hoping for a lot of behind the scenes information on the band but found this was literally a biography of one mans step into fatherhood.
I liked the honesty about this book and the questioning and evolution the author went through as a person.
It was an interesting insight into parenthood as well, though I still find the idea personally terrifying!
Overall it was an insightful read but I doubt most people would be into this book.

That's it at the moment, I tend to get bogged down in a book or keep a couple on the go. not sure what I'll want to read next.

 

[arsenalabu]

I'm halfway through both Gaiman's American Gods and Jonathan Franzen's Freedom
Both are great, but I haven't managed to finish a book in almost a year and I started Freedom about a year and a half ago. Ever since I spent a month reading Infinite Jest (sometimes for up to six hours straight a day), I've struggled to find any impetus to read books. Reading Foster Wallace is like running nonstop around the world. It's incredibly rewarding, emotionally draining and, once accomplished, almost impossible not to lie in bed for a year after.

I've made an exception though for John Jeremiah Sullivan, who manages to write non-fiction as poignant and humorous as Foster Wallace without resorting to neologisms such as "experialist" or page long sentences of alien syntax:

Spoiler: One Sentence. Ridiculous.

--and then you're in serious trouble, very serious trouble, and you know it, finally, deadly serious trouble, because this Substance you thought was your one true friend, that you gave up all for, gladly, that for so long gave you relief from the pain of the Losses your love of that relief caused, your mother and lover and god and compadre, has finally removed its smily-face mask to reveal centerless eyes and a ravening maw, and canines down to here, it's the Face In The Floor, the grinning root-white face of your worst nightmares, and the face is your own face in the mirror, now, it's you, the Substance has devoured or replaced and become you, and the puke-, drool- and Substance-crusted T-shirt you've both worn for weeks now gets torn off and you stand there looking and in the root-white chest where your heart (given away to It) should be beating, in its exposed chest's center and centerless eyes is just a lightless hole, more teeth, and a beckoning taloned hand dangling something irresistible, and now you see you've been had, screwed royal, stripped and f**ked and tossed to the side like some stuffed toy to lie for all time in the posture you land in.

 

[Gitty101]

I saw that tiny disclaimer saying comics count!

I'm reading World War Hulk at the moment, it's really good so far. Never been a fan of Hulk, but this entire series has been good so far.

(Actual book-wise though I'm going through an Edgar Allan Poe phase)

 

[blue heartless]

The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind ~ Michio Kaku

 

[Diddy_Mao]

As I'm usually reading 2 or 3 things at once I'll just go down the list.

Treasure Island:
Just finished this one, picked it up largely because I somehow or another managed to make it through my youth without ever having read it. It's a short book so I just grabbed it and burned through it in an afternoon.

It isn't bad at all but it retroactively suffers from being the template from which all pirate treasure hunt stories that came after were crafted and therefore didn't really contain anything new for a first time reader.

The God Delusion:
Picked this one up after finishing "God is not great." It's not a fun read by any stretch but if you're interested at all in theological debate it's worth picking up.

Lies my teachers told me
Sort of a long editorial on how History is taught in American schools and the potential damage it does to our society by portraying our fore fathers/mothers as unobtainable heroes and the selective truths used to paint our history in a greater light than it deserves.

Once again, interesting if you're into that topic, but hardly an engrossing page turner.

This book is full of Spiders: Seriously Dude, don't touch it.
The follow up to John Dies at the End. It's a horror/comedy about a small town that finds itself ground zero for an outbreak of pandimensional spider parasites, government conspiracies, and Shadowmen.

 

[the December King]

I'm currently reading Joe Golem and the Drowning City by Mike Mignola and... umm... Christopher Golden, I believe. It's not bad so far.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

A variety of physics texts, both for fun and for my course, but in terms of pure entertainment, I'm currently reading the X-Wing series of books, The Bacta War by Michael Stackpole at this moment in time.
It's a great series, it follows the antics of Rogue Squadron (at least, thus far it does), an X-Wing squadron consisting of the Rebel Alliance/New Republic's greatest aces, headed up by Wedge "Look at the size of that thing!" Antilles. There was a change of authors after this book, and I haven't gotten around to picking them up yet, but I plan to. I'm currently diving headfirst into the Star Wars Extended Universe and it's definitely one of the best decisions I ever made, so if anyone can recommend where to go next in the EU...

I'm currently looking for some good sci-fi to read, so if anyone has any suggestions that'd be great. Any factual books about space, space programs, spacecraft, rocket scientists, astro/cosmo -nauts, astronomy or cosmology would also be appreciated.

 

[COMaestro]

Currently reading A Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin. I tend to read in waves, so I'll read a bunch in my free time, then I'll switch over to handheld gaming, then after a while go back to reading. Just before this, I read the Clerics Quintet by R.A. Salvatore, and I will likely move on to Codex Born by Jim C. Hines when I finish.

I strongly lean towards sci-fi and fantasy novels above all else, though I have read the occasional book from other genres, such as The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan, or some of the Jack Ryan Tom Clancy novels. I find I am more entertained by books covering situations that cannot happen in real life more than those that do.

I have an e-reader, but I find most books for it that I want to read are more expensive than their physical counterparts. I would love to move more towards digital as we have 9 or 10 bookshelves stuffed full of books at home and we're running out of room to keep any more, but the prices keep me buying hard copies. This is after going through and pulling out a box worth to sell to a used bookstore. My wife and I both like to reread a lot of our books, so we trimmed out the ones we had no interest in ever rereading, but that still leaves a ton.

 

[Stasisesque]

I'm reading Joyce's Dubliners, some Kerouac and Claude McKay's/Langston Hughes' poems for University. I love Joyce and Kerouac, but close reading analysis does suck the fun out of a lot of stories.

So, for fun I've decided to read through the Discworld books again.

 

[COMaestro]

A variety of physics texts, both for fun and for my course, but in terms of pure entertainment, I'm currently reading the X-Wing series of books, The Bacta War by Michael Stackpole at this moment in time.
It's a great series, it follows the antics of Rogue Squadron (at least, thus far it does), an X-Wing squadron consisting of the Rebel Alliance/New Republic's greatest aces, headed up by Wedge "Look at the size of that thing!" Antilles. There was a change of authors after this book, and I haven't gotten around to picking them up yet, but I plan to. I'm currently diving headfirst into the Star Wars Extended Universe and it's definitely one of the best decisions I ever made, so if anyone can recommend where to go next in the EU...

I'm currently looking for some good sci-fi to read, so if anyone has any suggestions that'd be great. Any factual books about space, space programs, spacecraft, rocket scientists, astro/cosmo -nauts, astronomy or cosmology would also be appreciated.

The X-Wing series was a blast, though I do think Stackpole was more entertaining that Allston.

For the SWEU, if you haven't yet, pick up the first trilogy by Timothy Zahn (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command). Zahn captures the lead characters better than any of the other SW authors, and even worked to pull them back towards how they should be in his followup duology (Specter of the Past, Vision of the Future) after some of the other authors tried their best to ruin them (mostly Luke). Of course, this is just my opinion.

 

[Artina89]

I love reading, I always take a book with me everywhere I go. At the moment I am reading The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hasek, and my preference leans more towards eastern European literature, especially by Aleksandr Soltzenhitsyn and Mikhail Bulgakov but I will pretty much read anything. I will always go back to reading Sherlock Holmes as well. It was through Sherlock Holmes that I garnered a love of reading when my dad brought home the complete collection (both the short stories and the novels) when I was five or six years old, so they mean a hell of a lot to me.

 

[Bestival]

Am about to finish Robert Brockway's RX. This one is fairly out of my comfort zone, as I usually don't go for scifi at all, in anything. Really love this book though. You might know Brockway from Cracked.com, and this book reads very much like one of his old Drunken Rampage type stories.

Next up is either Marilyn Manson's autobiography, or Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted. That second one was intentionally written to be out of everyone's comfort zone. I've listened to part of it on audiobook already, and the first chapter is fucking amazingly disgusting already heh.

Spoiler: Listen at your own risk.

 

[Toejam]

I'm currently re-reading The Hunger Games due to lack of options until I can make my visit to the 2nd hand book store

BUT I have to recommend Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Set after the world has drained it's fossil fuels in 2045, the world spends its time in an online VR called the Oasis. The creator died and left an egg hunt inside the oasis to find his successor, the story follows a teen called Wade as he tries to win the competition for the ultimate prize of the company.

It's a gamers dream for references to very old games and 1980's pop culture and just an all round very good story. I really couldn't put it down and read it in a sitting, I was actually a little sad once i'd finished, it's just one of those things where you wish you could wipe it from your memory just so you can have the enjoyment again...

I would post up a link but i'm still not entirely sure whats allowed, so i'll play it safe.

 

[RariShyZealot]

I prefer Sci-fi and fantasy. I recently read The Color of Magic and intend to get The Light Fantastic as soon as I have time to read it. I've also been neglecting to read Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium.

 

[SoranMBane]

I've got three books on my plate right now:

-The Rogue Crew by Brian Jacques: One of the only two Redwall books that I haven't read yet (the other is Doomwyte, which I'll have to pick up at some point in the future), this is the book that I'm currently focusing on.

-The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie: This is the one I'm going to be focusing on after I'm done with The Rogue Crew, and I mostly picked it up because I wanted something to fill the kickass low fantasy-shaped hole in my life while I wait for Richard Morgan's next book to come out.

-Jam by Yahtzee Croshaw: I was about halfway through this one when I took a trip to Barnes & Noble and picked up those other two books, and I'm probably going to actually commit to finishing it once I'm done with those.

 

[ninjaRiv]

I'm terrible at reading. I have a low attention span, so I end up getting about halfway through a book before another gets my attention. Or I lose attention in book altogether. Lately, I haven't even been able to get that far in a book, though.

Books I am more or less reading right now:
The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson
The Monsters of Gramercy Park by Danny Leigh
Poppet by Mo Hayder (I almost spelt it Poopet. POOPet!)
On Earth as it is in Hell (Hellboy prose novel) by Brian Hodge
Storm of Swords part 2 (Europe separates the third book into two parts) by George RR Martin
Valis, The Penultimate Truth, A Scanner Darkly and The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick
The Annihilation Saga (A Marvel Epic) by various writers and artists but mostly written by Keith Giffen
2000AD weekly
Essential X-Men Volume 3

So... A lot of stuff. I read various comics every so often but I don't really commit to many, any more. I find comics easier to read in general, since it only takes about 5 maybe 10 minutes to finish.

 

[ninjaRiv]

Next up is either Marilyn Manson's autobiography, or Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted. That second one was intentionally written to be out of everyone's comfort zone. I've listened to part of it on audiobook already, and the first chapter is fucking amazingly disgusting already heh.

Spoiler: Listen at your own risk.

I've read most of Haunted. That's pretty much the nastiest story in there. It's not a bad book, but it's no Fight Club. If I remember rightly, "Guts" caused around 15 people to faint during live readings. There's a story later on that actually put a woman into therapy, but that's more to do with issues it brought up for her.