What are you reading?

[J A Eyers]

Still, was this Rowling employing a sly double entendre, or did she, her agent or her editor really not think streetwise kids around England (let alone America, where I wouldn't be surprised if they changed it) wouldn't be thinking "PENIS!" at that point?

[nemarsde]

I bet she knew. Iirc, she has a penchant for using Britishisms though. Part of the charm in the international market I suppose.

[BorderCollie-san]

Some of it gets removed in the American editions, apparently.

[J A Eyers]

Yes, all the letter U's.

[nemarsde]

Wha... That's criminal!

[Greyhaven]

Currently reading Plato's Republic.

Just finished the Deathly Hallows- it was very good, as were all the books.

[hoobastankychic]

I finished HP7 a while ago, but now have nothing to read. I will miss the series.
Anything anyone could recommend?

[HighHopes]

I love the Harry Potter series. I don't apologise for that. I finished Deathly Hallows a while ago now. It was great. I'm a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. I feel a bit lost.

I'm back to reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman now. I'm also re-reading, again, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, quickly, because I want to lend it to someone.

[itsallgoodbabyGb]

can i ask what anansi boys is like, in your opinion, highhopes?

[Vega]

Just finished reading Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein


Currently working on:
Deliver Us From Evil by Sean Hannity


and

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien


After I finish these I'm going to start on:

If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans by Ann Coulter


and

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas


After those I want to start on either the Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter series. I've never read either of them and I'd like to try.

[Herne the hunter]

I've always felt like reading Starship Troopers. I liked the film when it came out but now it all seems too bright and hollywoodish, not enough grit. Plus I hear the film's ending is only about halfway through the actual book.

Is it any good?

[itsallgoodbabyGb]

Originally Posted by Herne the hunter

I've always felt like reading Starship Troopers. I liked the film when it came out but now it all seems too bright and hollywoodish, not enough grit. Plus I hear the film's ending is only about halfway through the actual book.

Is it any good?

i too am a big fan of the first film, although the sequel is a horrible display of wasting a budget and a decent premise.

Originally Posted by HighHopes

I love the Harry Potter series. I don't apologise for that. I finished Deathly Hallows a while ago now. It was great. I'm a bit of a Harry Potter nerd. I feel a bit lost.

I'm back to reading Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman now. I'm also re-reading, again, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, quickly, because I want to lend it to someone.

any comments about the quality of anansi boys mate?

recently i read ghostwritten, which is quite intelligent and shows mitchells ability to write in different styles, and involve the reader in a character even with the limited space he has left himself to do so in each chapter, in trying to fit 9 different stories into one novel. he also discusses fate vs chance and tries to juxtapose the vast plethora of cultures with the integration that has resulted from advances in travel and communication quite successfully, in my opinion.

i also read fear and loathing in las vegas, and decided hunter s thompson isnt a very complicated writer, but he does what he tries to do strikingly and quite well. its funny, and interesting, and gonzo is an attractive style, to me anyway.

im starting to read time travellers wife now

[Lithium65]

I'm currently reading:



and it's wonderful.

[Merkaal]

Originally Posted by Herne the hunter

I've always felt like reading Starship Troopers. I liked the film when it came out but now it all seems too bright and hollywoodish, not enough grit. Plus I hear the film's ending is only about halfway through the actual book.

Is it any good?

It's... interesting. There's not much plot or even combat to speak of, despite the title, and the almost the entirety of the fictional set ups and character dialog is more or less a vehicle to voice the writer's - Robert Heinlein's - political views against all others. Most prominently he glorifies military service and civil service in general, but with a focus on military service especially (Heinlein himself served in the US Navy.) He's somewhat of an individualist who, in addition, believes that voluntary service for the benefit of one's own society is to be encouraged culturally and especially by the state. While it is very militaristic, it's not what I would call masturbatory war hero worship - you know, that John Wayne singularly killing 200 men on the battlefield bullshit - it's just civil service itself that is highly romanticised, not war. In effect it's very much an opinion piece, aggressively putting forth a specific point of few. You never get the impression that Heinlein is giving alternative ideologies the least bit of serious consideration, but that never comes across as important anyway.

Some have called it pseudo-fascistic, but the similarities are very superficial at best and it's clear Heinlein himself was far from a Nazi. The movie, if you remember it, is basically satirising the "latent" fascism of the novel with more action, violence and sex thrown in. In actuality, Heinlein refused to be politically pigeonholed his entire life, despite leaning to the right on most issues. For example, in the novel, women and men serve in the same squads, share the same housing, even share the same showers with nothing else said about it. Heinlein was also a staunch anti-racist and an "equalist"... at least within the human species. And apparently he was one of the nicest guy you'd ever meet, too. Teh moar j00 kno! But more on the book...

Like I said, it's an interesting read. Along with the weird politics you get some interesting military-tech ideas. For example, if you're familiar with Warhammer40k, you'd notice they practically ripped off Heinlein's powered armor to the bolts and they're not the only ones. The Mobile Infantry's structure itself; mobile, small-sized, highly professional, highly skilled soldiers ended up mirroring, perhaps influencing the development of the West's defense forces in the last half century, especially the United States. So in all, it's not a vapid novel. In any case, check it out if you're interested in something that carries its ideology on its sleeve instead of explosions and your typical action sci fi shite.

[J A Eyers]

I thought it about time I read something that wasn't written in this century or the last, so I've been reading Wuthering Heights. I can't remember the last time I struggled so much. I've considered giving up every ten pages or so, but I'm nearly two thirds of the way through so might as well finish it now.

It's an utterly preposterous novel in which a series of mad women have fainting fits and either elope or die whilst angry men storm into rooms and shout at each other. And that's it. For 300 pages.

And it's written in such an inaccessible way. The narrator is a man who moves to a property on Heathcliff's estate, but he spends most of the novel listening to a woman tell a story. Except at times the novel diverts so that it's him listening to her reporting listening to someone else tell a story about what happened to them instead. What the fuck is wrong with the third person omniscient?

Honestly, I don't see what the appeal is for HighHopes.

[Herne the hunter]

Originally Posted by J A Eyers

I thought it about time I read something that wasn't written in this century or the last.

I tried Paradise Lost once and ended up giving up after 100 or so pages. The prose itself was not difficult to understand, but every sentence is riddled with metaphors and nods towards references which have now been all but forgotten.

The oldest book I've attempted to read in it's entirety is The Book of Enoch, an apocryphal text written by Enoch the Prophet (though allegedly plagiarised from the archangel Raziel if you actually believe your Christian mythology) around 160 BC. Once again I gave up halfway through, coming to the conclusion that in biblical times LSD must have been cheap and plentiful.

[Vega]

Originally Posted by Herne the hunter

I've always felt like reading Starship Troopers. I liked the film when it came out but now it all seems too bright and hollywoodish, not enough grit. Plus I hear the film's ending is only about halfway through the actual book.

Is it any good?

I loved the Starship Troopers movie. The book is only about 20 times as good as the movie. Read it. Seriously.

[Mishra]

American Sphynx, a thomas jefferson biography. its quite good, it approaches him less as a demigod and more as a real person, not speculating on anything and drawing upon tons of sources. there are a lot of direct quotes from a bunch of people, quoting jeffersons writings in large amounts. its good stuff.

im next reading fatherland, an alternate history novel about nazi germany, where an SS officer investigating the murders of several top nazi leaders finds something deeper

[J A Eyers]

Originally Posted by Vega

Currently working on:
Deliver Us From Evil by Sean Hannity

A serious question (and it depends on how far you've got into it so far): according to the author, how DO you defeat liberalism without becoming a despot yourself in the process?

[Vega]

I know it's a troll but I'll bite. I've only finished the first three chapters (about 80 or 90 pages into it), I'm not going to type out the whole book for you, but so far it's explained how Winston Churchill and Ronald Reagan had to deal with defeatist liberals.

I'll pull a quote from page 39 that I think is pretty relevant.
"Only through the courageous leadership of Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt was the Third Reich finally held accountable for its actions. In taking on the German military-a war machine every bit as fierce as the Nazi death machine-the Allies were compelled by three basic principles: that totalitarian government is the enemy of freedom; that the systematic oppression and cruelty it fosters is not merely senseless, but utterly evil; and that appeasement can never defeat that evil-it can only embloden it.
As the War on Terror progresses these three lessons are equally important today."

Page 47,
"Those who fail to recognize evil, finally, are doomed to fall into the trap of appeasement. And no story in the last century has thrown the danger of appeasement into greater relief than the sorry tale of Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister who tried to beg peace with Adolf Hitler-and returned having lost everything at the bargaining table. The contrast between Chamerlain and his successor, Winston Churchill, is an object lesson for anyone who still believes a murderer like Saddam Hussein or Osama bin Laden can be tamed by half-measures."

If you're interested in more I suggest you consider reading it yourself. So far it's been enjoyable. I haven't had much time to work through it because between reading the hobbit (which I'm only 1 chapter into) and the work I've been doing, and my trip to DC this weekend, and church functions I've had yesterday and today, I simply haven't been able to move through it as fast as I'd hoped. I've got about 250 pages left to go.

[J A Eyers]

It wasn't a troll, actually, but it just seemed like a fake book, like those T-shirts that say "Liberals stole my chickens". If you got rid of all the liberals (small L), you just make it all the easier for the despots. For example, does the book broach the idea that FDR was by 1940s standards a liberal, and that it was in fact mainly conservatives in the Republican Party who opposed American involvement in WW2 (hoping Hitler would defeat Stalin if left alone)? Because that's the kind of implication your description of the book gives out. Not of a struggle against despotism, merely just picking which side you like less.

[Injektilo]

Hey since when was Osama rolling armoured columns across Europe? Eek!

I'm about to start Dope Stories by Howard Marks, the madly sane Welsh burnout.

[J A Eyers]

I finally finished the uphill slog to the last page of Wuthering Heights. Pretty much everyone dies or digs up old corpses and throws themselves into the corpses, or elopes, faints and then dies. Heathcliff was an utter bastard. Some romantic novel that was...

I'm now reading The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway, and here's another guy who can't write women. They're all mad rodents. Personally, I think old Ernie preferred the men anyway.

[spike_gta]

I just finished the Russian sci-fi classic Roadside Picnic, by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.



I really see why it's held so high in sci-fi fame, it truly is science fiction at it's finest. It's not about space robots and zooming around space. While an alien visitation HAS taken place, it takes more of a backseat to the charcaters adn the speculative science.

Such a damn good book, hard to put down, very chracter driven, incredibly smart stuff about the aliens, their motives, and when we realise where the title comes from it just brought a huge smile to my face. If you liek sci-fi don't miss it!

RIght now I'm about halfway through Michael Crichtons (of Jurassic Park fame) Eaters of the dead



It's really interesting, has definately brought a lot of my intrest back for that time and age. And yes, it's the book that The 13th Warrior is based on (I LOVE the movie btw!)

The book is supposed to be (is presented as anyway) a pure adaptation of the writings of Ahmed Ibn Fadlan and his journey with the northmen. It goes a lot deeper than the movie on several things, and has an almost documentary feel to it.

An interesting and entertaining read so far.

[Renegade 2501]

Eaters of the Dead is good, yes. I'm reading Moby-Dick...still.

[itsallgoodbabyGb]

Originally Posted by Injektilo

Hey since when was Osama rolling armoured columns across Europe? Eek!

I'm about to start Dope Stories by Howard Marks, the madly sane Welsh burnout.

he did a talk in the VIP tent at escape into the park this year; we tried to sneak in for it but failed miserably because we were all really wired, so we went on this insane ride instead, would have been nice to see the man speak and hear what he had to say though

shit, edit - im reading the magic toyshop by angela carter. it's started very eloquently and is slightly bizarre, but sharply written and interesting. i've read it before and can't wait till she goes to live with her uncle (i think it's her uncle, anyway it goes a little insane after that)

[Herne the hunter]

I've just finished reading:



...and was very impressed. My only gripe is it's the first in a series of four books centering around the eponymous protagonist, but the ending seems pretty final and I fear the second book may struggle to capture the same feel after developments in the first's climax.

I have now returned to:



...which I abandoned 122 pages in around six months ago in favour of a Cthulhu Mythos binge because it was rather slow. I wasn't impressed enough with the ground I covered to read it over again from scratch so I just picked up exactly where I left off and to hell if I've forgotten anything important.

The book is basically a re-hash of the first story (Rats) set in Epping Forest but not nearly as good. It's halfway through before the first killing takes place and there's really nothing new here other than the setting. I'm really only carrying on because I can't wait to read the third and (semi-) final book in the series; Domain.

[Morlun]

im re-reading johnny got his gun by dalton trumbo mehears they are making it into a film again.


...with the dude out of the oc >

[J A Eyers]

Dear friend,

Last weekend I went on an Amazon shopping spree, using people's Facebook pages for recommendations (though The Great Gatsby was already in the shopping basket before I got to Mishra's, honest), so now I am reading The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Steve Chbosky. In fact, I'm halfway through it. Which means I'm due to finish it tomorrow. This makes me sad.

It's a great book. I thought maybe I'd left it too late to read it, because I do believe there's a right time to read certain books (such as reading Bret Easton Ellis's early stuff during your first year at university), but it almost made me miss my train station this evening. I did start to wonder whether Charlie was indulging in a little fantasy, a little wish-fulfilment diary-writing, because I found it slightly unconvincing that a true wallflower would get such warm welcomes at parties where the popular people go. But maybe I'm reading too much into it.

With a few books I've read this year, I've found that my appreciation of them exceeds their probable actual quality as a novel. Such as with The Kite Runner, which has what I consider a giant glaring flaw sticking out of its second half like a shard of glass. But in fact this is part of what makes it so good, because an editor could have sorted that out easily, but because they didn't, it shows the author is coming through, that you're seeing an honest, raw, uncensored, untempered, heart-split-open-on-the-page version. Which makes it 100 times better than a structurally clean, very well edited novel, tailored toward a readership by a jobbing editor. And Perks is like that too.

I'd recommend it to anyone. It probably even works best read retrospectively, as, simple and straightforward enough as it is, I don't think people Charlie's age would be attuned to the book in the same way they all dig Catcher in the Rye, it's emo-angst big brother. But I may be wrong.

Tomorrow I will be finished with the thing at this rate, and who knows, it might lose it completely and be shit and I'll just delete this post in a forum only a handful of people visit anyway. But I doubt it, in both cases.

Love always,
JA

[spike_gta]

Also: is it just me or is The Alchemist really overrated?