What are you reading? - Page 12

HighHopes · 01-01-2006, 04:41 AM

American Psycho sounds shit. Oooo shock value, I can get that by doing fine arts at uni and hating america while sleeping around smoking pot and doing crack and then make an arthouse movie about it.

...

(outburst!)

BorderCollie-san · 01-04-2006, 01:05 PM

All people hear about it is the violence. It's really not a book about violence or about a serial killer. That would be a very superficial view of it.

On the topic of whether or not he actually commits the murders or is imagining the whole thing, in Glamorama Bateman makes a short appearance and Victor (the narrator) notes, if I remember correctly, "weird stains" on the cuff of his shirt. That made me rethink because I'd always been in the it-was-a-fantasy camp.

wheelman_69 · 01-04-2006, 07:28 PM

im currently reading Braindroppings - George Carlin............................................ ................................

What?

BullpupDFWM · 01-12-2006, 10:51 PM

I finally finished The Stand by Stephen King. I think I've been reading it for like 6 months, it was a pretty long book, over 1400 pages, and a lot of it seemed completely pointless, a lot of farting about and talking, and reminiscing, a 108 year old describing her sexual experiences, and people crying etc. but it ended up pretty good, and since I always loved the mini-series of the same name I really wanted to read this.

Now I've begun reading Sin City by Harrold Robbins. Very easy to read, and I'm already more than halfway through.

Nova · 01-14-2006, 06:19 PM

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Surprisingly not bad...

Dempsey · 01-19-2006, 12:45 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Nova Cat
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix.

Surprisingly not bad...

That one was hard to put down, but the next book is disappointing.

simmo · 01-24-2006, 07:15 PM

I'm three quarters through 'Aggressor' by Andy McNab. I love his books, Remote Control, Crisis Four and Firewall were awesome, alot of them after that sucked then Dark Winter was good and aggressor is good so far.

nemarsde · 01-25-2006, 06:23 PM

Not long finished Grimwood's Replay. I enjoyed it. Considering how short it is it does pretty much fullfill the potential of its broad scope. Yeah, he could've really extended it, made it into a 1000-page opus concerning all the vageries of time travel, but I think you get the message from the story as it is.

Hey, simmo, I'm just about to start on Aggressor. (Can't say I'm a McNab fan myself, never liked his factitious modesty.) But I'm in the mood for some good old fashioned action adventure and this book should have a unique spin on it.

simmo · 01-30-2006, 01:42 AM

Yeah it's good, better than his last few anyway. If it's action you're after then I think you'll be pleased.

BullpupDFWM · 02-02-2006, 04:32 PM

I've just started reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. Really interesting so far, and it's aobut a topic I've been really curious about lately.

SM · 02-14-2006, 05:20 PM

Still in the middle of No Man Is An Island
Half way through What Lie Did I Tell by William Goldman
Half way through The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams
Just started re-reading Mostly Harmless after re-reading So Long And Thanks For All The Fish

While on holiday read a Peter Jackson bio by Ian Pryor. Nice to get a lot of info on his earlier films and a slightly different take on Lord Of The Rings.

Also read You'll Die In Singapore by Charles McCormac. Fantastic story of a POW escape in the early days of Japanese occupation and the struggle to get Australia via Sumatra and Java. Of 17 escapees only 3 survived.

nemarsde · 02-17-2006, 09:38 AM

I had to put the McNab book down, I just found it too banal.

Still trying to get my fix of action/adventure, I turned to the pulp fiction of the Black Library (Games Workshop's publishing arm). Reading through the Ultramarines trilogy by Graham McNeill.

The author is writing to a system, you can tell, but for the most part it's sufficient to convey the story and although there is some pretty aweful pastiche of other sci-fi works (undoubtedly veiled as homage), there are also some highly effective and splendidly written action sequences.

I've just finished the second book, starting the third, getting a little weary of the writing style but will persevere as I think I'll be rewarded for it.

MacCabbe · 02-26-2006, 07:17 AM

Tenebrus ?

The Dragon · 03-14-2006, 04:44 PM

I just started to read The Great Gatsby. I'll post again when I get a little deeper into it.

simmo · 03-16-2006, 07:28 PM

Had to read that in highschool, it sucks. lol.

BullpupDFWM · 03-24-2006, 02:27 AM

Finished a book called 24/7 by Jim Brown the other day. It was pretty much just brain candy, but it was pretty good.

Started Fight Club Tuesday night and finished it Wednesday night. Startlingly easy to read, in spite of his kind of unusual writing style. I was pleased to see that the movie followed it fairly faithfully. I highly recommend it.

I just last night started The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I'm only half way through the first chapter, but I'm liking it so far.

Vincent_Vodevil · 04-08-2006, 09:57 PM

Just got through the (brief) first part of John Milton's Paradise Lost back from a trip to Denver. I've always wanted to read it but have always been intimidated by the fact that I've found so many of the epic poems I've tried to get into either unfathomable or archaic.

So far Mitlon's poetry is surprisingly accessible. Far more so than Dostoevsky's prose, which I'm trying to trudge through simultaneously.

Gretel · 05-17-2006, 06:41 AM

Just finished Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Love it.

Now started All Mighty: A Study of the God Complex in Western Man by Horst E. Richter. Only read a couple of pages so far, but looks like it's going to be a very interesting read.

Miss Lucifer · 05-17-2006, 03:39 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by BullpupDFWM
I've just started reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. Really interesting so far, and it's aobut a topic I've been really curious about lately.

I got recommended that by my university tutor the other week - meant to be excellent.

Am just doing some light reading at the moment - Bill Bryson's Notes from a Small Island. It makes me feel incredibly patriotic.

Lithium65 · 05-17-2006, 04:23 PM

The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Mmhm, undead ghouls.

kirkyl · 05-20-2006, 07:06 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lithium65
The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Mmhm, undead ghouls.

I have that exact same book, i think Max brooks has also done a book about either surviving an Alien invasion or Terminator style uprising of killer machines.

I'm reading bits of Halo:First Strike, it's set after Halo and before Halo 2.

Very good book and a very good read if your a halo fan wanting to know more about Master Chief's history.

Also Eric Nylund (The novel's arthor) has also written script for the upcoming 360 game: Gears of War, should be interesting indeed.

Gretel · 05-21-2006, 02:56 PM

Just finished All Mighty. Very impressive book. Richter describes our western civilization as a psychoscial disfunction. The starting point of his analysis is the progressive decline of faith in an allmighty, caring, paternal god in the european society of the 15th century. According to him, man has tried to fill the senselessness caused by this decline by developing the 'god complex', the illusion of and yearning for his own god-like omnipotence.
The author claims that this complex has determined a repression of suffering, of all parts of the human psyche that contradict this self-image of omnipotence. In his eyes the god complex and the inability to suffer that it has caused are the main root of all problems we are facing today and overcoming it is the only possible solution.

Now i'm going to read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond and Don Quijote by Cervantes.

J A Eyers · 05-23-2006, 09:20 PM

I'm currently reading A Separate Peace, which seems to be about teenage guys taking off their clothes and wrestling once a chapter, though my girlfriend assures me it has no homosexual undertones at all.

SM · 05-23-2006, 09:25 PM

Robotech - The Sentinels Part 1: Devil's Hand by Jack McKinney (aka James Luceno and the late Brian Daley)

Not bad so far. We only ever really got the Macross series of Robotech on TV down here and some episodes of Southern Cross. Finally managed to track down the Invid and Sentinels book O/S so can now find out what happens without shelling out hundreds of dollars for the DVDs.

J A Eyers · 08-17-2006, 12:18 PM

I'm going to sticky this thread, I think.

I'm currently reading Steinbeck (halfway through The Grapes of Wrath at the moment) again. It's perfect for the summer. (I don't class the likes of Dan Brown and Tom Clancy as 'summer reading'). Very summery. Pity we're not having much of a summer, then.

Kensomniac · 08-17-2006, 01:03 PM

I'm re-reading Shogun by James Clavell... good book.

boab · 08-20-2006, 05:54 PM

Just finishing a 2 in 1 by Richard Laymon, Beats House and After Midnight. Quiet good, After Midnight is rather comical.

J A Eyers · 08-21-2006, 03:49 AM

Lemme guess... a loner fantasises about having sex with pretty girls, then takes advantage of a dire situation to go on a rape and murder spree?

PFC_Hudson · 08-21-2006, 06:13 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Kensomniac
I'm re-reading Shogun by James Clavell... good book.

That book seriously changed my life. A very good read.

Quote:

Originally posted by nemarsde
I had to put the McNab book down, I just found it too banal.

Still trying to get my fix of action/adventure...

You want some good action books? Read these 4 books by Steven Hunter in the following order.

"Dirty White Boys"
"Point of Impact"
"Black Light"
"Time to Hunt"

The best action series I've ever come across.

Current book that I'm reading: "Einstein's Cosmos" by Michio Kaku

The Drunkk Machine · 08-24-2006, 06:20 PM

Read a few books over summer. Started with The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. After that I swallowed up Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor in one afternoon. Then: Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a book I almost fell in love with. I enjoyed the previous two books (both moreso than Fight Club / Foucault's Pendulum) but Pi just topped itself page after page. It reminded me of my reaction Lord of the Flies nine years earlier. You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers came next, a book people could quite easily tear to pieces but I loved. Perhaps it helped that I started reading it the night I found myself stuck in miserable grey Britain, or that the plot (two men try to travel the globe in a week, handing out money to those they deem worthy of it) somehow touches on my own personal fantasy. In under twenty four hours, surprising for a book I've stopped and started with for years now, I read Bret Easton Elllis - American Psycho. I was familiar with most of the graphic murders from lazily leafing through it and perhaps that was a good thing as the book is genuinely hilarious. Once I head upstairs I'll either start The Business by Iain Banks or The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, I haven't decided.

01-04-2006, 01:05 PM	#332 (permalink)
BorderCollie-san Registered User Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Feb 2000 Posts: 3,973	All people hear about it is the violence. It's really not a book about violence or about a serial killer. That would be a very superficial view of it. On the topic of whether or not he actually commits the murders or is imagining the whole thing, in Glamorama Bateman makes a short appearance and Victor (the narrator) notes, if I remember correctly, "weird stains" on the cuff of his shirt. That made me rethink because I'd always been in the it-was-a-fantasy camp.
	Last edited by BorderCollie-san; 01-04-2006 at 01:17 PM..

03-14-2006, 04:44 PM	#344 (permalink)
The Dragon OHHH YEAH!!!1 Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Oct 2002 Location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA Posts: 5,849	I just started to read The Great Gatsby. I'll post again when I get a little deeper into it.
	~I am the Dragon. Before me you Rightly Tremble.~

04-08-2006, 09:57 PM	#347 (permalink)
Vincent_Vodevil Grand Guignol Grizzled Veteran Join Date: May 2003 Location: Hicksville USA Posts: 1,801	Just got through the (brief) first part of John Milton's Paradise Lost back from a trip to Denver. I've always wanted to read it but have always been intimidated by the fact that I've found so many of the epic poems I've tried to get into either unfathomable or archaic. So far Mitlon's poetry is surprisingly accessible. Far more so than Dostoevsky's prose, which I'm trying to trudge through simultaneously.
	Penguin Farmer

01-01-2006, 04:41 AM	#331 (permalink)
HighHopes Putting the Damage on. Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Apr 2003 Location: Victoria, Australia. Posts: 2,556	American Psycho sounds shit. Oooo shock value, I can get that by doing fine arts at uni and hating america while sleeping around smoking pot and doing crack and then make an arthouse movie about it. ... (outburst!)

01-04-2006, 07:28 PM	#333 (permalink)
wheelman_69 Registered User Forum Fiend Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: BRAINARD, NE UNITED STATES Posts: 612	im currently reading Braindroppings - George Carlin............................................ ................................ What?

01-12-2006, 10:51 PM	#334 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	I finally finished The Stand by Stephen King. I think I've been reading it for like 6 months, it was a pretty long book, over 1400 pages, and a lot of it seemed completely pointless, a lot of farting about and talking, and reminiscing, a 108 year old describing her sexual experiences, and people crying etc. but it ended up pretty good, and since I always loved the mini-series of the same name I really wanted to read this. Now I've begun reading Sin City by Harrold Robbins. Very easy to read, and I'm already more than halfway through.

01-14-2006, 06:19 PM	#335 (permalink)
Nova 0-2 and counting Elite Poster Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: California Posts: 14,228	Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Surprisingly not bad...

01-24-2006, 07:15 PM	#337 (permalink)
simmo Fun. Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 6,769	I'm three quarters through 'Aggressor' by Andy McNab. I love his books, Remote Control, Crisis Four and Firewall were awesome, alot of them after that sucked then Dark Winter was good and aggressor is good so far.

01-25-2006, 06:23 PM	#338 (permalink)
nemarsde Large and Moving Torb Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: UK Posts: 8,778	Not long finished Grimwood's Replay. I enjoyed it. Considering how short it is it does pretty much fullfill the potential of its broad scope. Yeah, he could've really extended it, made it into a 1000-page opus concerning all the vageries of time travel, but I think you get the message from the story as it is. Hey, simmo, I'm just about to start on Aggressor. (Can't say I'm a McNab fan myself, never liked his factitious modesty.) But I'm in the mood for some good old fashioned action adventure and this book should have a unique spin on it.

01-30-2006, 01:42 AM	#339 (permalink)
simmo Fun. Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 6,769	Yeah it's good, better than his last few anyway. If it's action you're after then I think you'll be pleased.

02-02-2006, 04:32 PM	#340 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	I've just started reading 'Guns, Germs and Steel' by Jared Diamond. Really interesting so far, and it's aobut a topic I've been really curious about lately.

02-14-2006, 05:20 PM	#341 (permalink)
SM Network Interface 2037 Epic Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Network Interface 2037, WY Melbourne Posts: 15,284	Still in the middle of No Man Is An Island Half way through What Lie Did I Tell by William Goldman Half way through The Salmon Of Doubt by Douglas Adams Just started re-reading Mostly Harmless after re-reading So Long And Thanks For All The Fish While on holiday read a Peter Jackson bio by Ian Pryor. Nice to get a lot of info on his earlier films and a slightly different take on Lord Of The Rings. Also read You'll Die In Singapore by Charles McCormac. Fantastic story of a POW escape in the early days of Japanese occupation and the struggle to get Australia via Sumatra and Java. Of 17 escapees only 3 survived.

02-17-2006, 09:38 AM	#342 (permalink)
nemarsde Large and Moving Torb Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: UK Posts: 8,778	I had to put the McNab book down, I just found it too banal. Still trying to get my fix of action/adventure, I turned to the pulp fiction of the Black Library (Games Workshop's publishing arm). Reading through the Ultramarines trilogy by Graham McNeill. The author is writing to a system, you can tell, but for the most part it's sufficient to convey the story and although there is some pretty aweful pastiche of other sci-fi works (undoubtedly veiled as homage), there are also some highly effective and splendidly written action sequences. I've just finished the second book, starting the third, getting a little weary of the writing style but will persevere as I think I'll be rewarded for it.

02-26-2006, 07:17 AM	#343 (permalink)
MacCabbe Occasionally Wont ! Hardcore Veteran Join Date: May 2004 Location: Paris Posts: 6,958	Tenebrus ?

03-16-2006, 07:28 PM	#345 (permalink)
simmo Fun. Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Feb 2000 Location: Gold Coast, Australia Posts: 6,769	Had to read that in highschool, it sucks. lol.

03-24-2006, 02:27 AM	#346 (permalink)
BullpupDFWM I've had my shit PUSHED IN Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Dec 2000 Location: Perth, Australia Posts: 9,794	Finished a book called 24/7 by Jim Brown the other day. It was pretty much just brain candy, but it was pretty good. Started Fight Club Tuesday night and finished it Wednesday night. Startlingly easy to read, in spite of his kind of unusual writing style. I was pleased to see that the movie followed it fairly faithfully. I highly recommend it. I just last night started The Godfather by Mario Puzo. I'm only half way through the first chapter, but I'm liking it so far.

05-17-2006, 06:41 AM	#348 (permalink)
Gretel icon. Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,958	Just finished Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse. Love it. Now started All Mighty: A Study of the God Complex in Western Man by Horst E. Richter. Only read a couple of pages so far, but looks like it's going to be a very interesting read.

05-17-2006, 04:23 PM	#350 (permalink)
Lithium65 Savor it Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Sep 2002 Location: MI, USA Posts: 2,039	The Zombie Survival Guide by Max Brooks. Mmhm, undead ghouls.

05-21-2006, 02:56 PM	#352 (permalink)
Gretel icon. Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Dec 2004 Posts: 1,958	Just finished All Mighty. Very impressive book. Richter describes our western civilization as a psychoscial disfunction. The starting point of his analysis is the progressive decline of faith in an allmighty, caring, paternal god in the european society of the 15th century. According to him, man has tried to fill the senselessness caused by this decline by developing the 'god complex', the illusion of and yearning for his own god-like omnipotence. The author claims that this complex has determined a repression of suffering, of all parts of the human psyche that contradict this self-image of omnipotence. In his eyes the god complex and the inability to suffer that it has caused are the main root of all problems we are facing today and overcoming it is the only possible solution. Now i'm going to read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond and Don Quijote by Cervantes.

05-23-2006, 09:20 PM	#353 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I'm currently reading A Separate Peace, which seems to be about teenage guys taking off their clothes and wrestling once a chapter, though my girlfriend assures me it has no homosexual undertones at all.

05-23-2006, 09:25 PM	#354 (permalink)
SM Network Interface 2037 Epic Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Network Interface 2037, WY Melbourne Posts: 15,284	Robotech - The Sentinels Part 1: Devil's Hand by Jack McKinney (aka James Luceno and the late Brian Daley) Not bad so far. We only ever really got the Macross series of Robotech on TV down here and some episodes of Southern Cross. Finally managed to track down the Invid and Sentinels book O/S so can now find out what happens without shelling out hundreds of dollars for the DVDs.

08-17-2006, 12:18 PM	#355 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	I'm going to sticky this thread, I think. I'm currently reading Steinbeck (halfway through The Grapes of Wrath at the moment) again. It's perfect for the summer. (I don't class the likes of Dan Brown and Tom Clancy as 'summer reading'). Very summery. Pity we're not having much of a summer, then.

08-17-2006, 01:03 PM	#356 (permalink)
Kensomniac where the buffalo roam Hardcore Veteran Join Date: Apr 2001 Location: Arkansas Posts: 7,051	I'm re-reading Shogun by James Clavell... good book.

08-20-2006, 05:54 PM	#357 (permalink)
boab By the beard of zeus Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Dec 2003 Location: scotland Posts: 1,492	Just finishing a 2 in 1 by Richard Laymon, Beats House and After Midnight. Quiet good, After Midnight is rather comical.

08-21-2006, 03:49 AM	#358 (permalink)
J A Eyers Better ban'd than bland Godlike Poster Join Date: Nov 2000 Location: Southend, England Posts: 24,315	Lemme guess... a loner fantasises about having sex with pretty girls, then takes advantage of a dire situation to go on a rape and murder spree?

08-24-2006, 06:20 PM	#360 (permalink)
The Drunkk Machine see you - GET ME A ♥♥♥♥ING CURLY WURLY Grizzled Veteran Join Date: Apr 2000 Posts: 3,349	Read a few books over summer. Started with The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. After that I swallowed up Chuck Palahniuk's Survivor in one afternoon. Then: Life of Pi by Yann Martel, a book I almost fell in love with. I enjoyed the previous two books (both moreso than Fight Club / Foucault's Pendulum) but Pi just topped itself page after page. It reminded me of my reaction Lord of the Flies nine years earlier. You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers came next, a book people could quite easily tear to pieces but I loved. Perhaps it helped that I started reading it the night I found myself stuck in miserable grey Britain, or that the plot (two men try to travel the globe in a week, handing out money to those they deem worthy of it) somehow touches on my own personal fantasy. In under twenty four hours, surprising for a book I've stopped and started with for years now, I read Bret Easton Elllis - American Psycho. I was familiar with most of the graphic murders from lazily leafing through it and perhaps that was a good thing as the book is genuinely hilarious. Once I head upstairs I'll either start The Business by Iain Banks or The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, I haven't decided.