What are you reading?

[Virgil]

The Difference Engine, but a little slow since I just came off Anathem.

[Wonkyth]

Post Captain, and another book (can't remember the name) by Jonathan Stroud, but only because I quite liked the Bartemaus trilogy.
Just finished reading Guards! Guards! and Pyramids, since the local library only just got them in.

[Monsieur OUXX]

(yes, I always read several books at the same time)

Decided to rediscover classics from the 19th century, and I had several excellent surprises :

French litterature:
- "The Masterpiece", by Emile Zola --> Should be read by any artist! That guy understands you better than you do.
- "In search of the lost time", by Marcel Proust --> That guy mixes fantasy and reality in the most incredible way, considering it was in the 1900's. I also recommend the movie "Time Regained" by Raoul Ruiz ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Qguem4NDA&feature=related )

English-speaking litterature:
- "Two old men", by Leo Tolstoi --> Kind of obsolete nowadays. A historical value, though.
- "The selfish gene", by Richard Dawkins --> If you haven't read that, you know nothing about the human being. You can just get rid of your beliefs (both religious and philisophic).

[InCreator]

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a 800-page full collection of all SH novels.
Love it!

[tzachs]

I've recently started hearing audio books in my car, since I have long drives, and it's been really cool, the books are being read by volunteers, so some recordings are better than others.

I'm currently hearing The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins which is really nice.
And when I get home (and feeling brave enough) I read The Shining.

[Igor Hardy]

- "The selfish gene", by Richard Dawkins --> If you haven't read that, you know nothing about the human being. You can just get rid of your beliefs (both religious and philisophic).

Meh, the guy is overrated as a writer and scientist. I've read "The Blind Watchmaker" which is supposed  to be his best intellectual take on evolution, but it's all just repeating "believing in evolution makes a lot of sense" for several hundred pages. The only topics appearing in the book that are remotely interesting are briefly touched upon and never get a deeper analysis.

[Leon]

Skin - Mo Hayder (eBook)
Holes - Louis Sachar (audioBook)
The plains of passage - Jean M Auel (old-fashioned paper version)

[Stupot]

Skin - Mo Hayder (eBook)

How are you finding that?  I read her Tokyo and really liked it, and I started Ritual a little while ago, but never did get round to finishing it.

[Leon]

I think it's great. Haven't read any other work from her (although I probably might after this one) but must say I really like it. I like how you're dragged into the story from the start. After some time it gets a bit more shallow but still good enough to want to get to the end. She knows how to create suspense.
Also taking into account that the book plays in the area where I live, the detailed writing makes it good reading. Now only the time to read it :-)

[Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens]

What Has Government Done to Our Money? by Murray Rothbard is the most recent book I've read.  I've been wanting to get The Creature from Jekyll Island for awhile now but it's a bit too expensive.

[Atelier]

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a 800-page full collection of all SH novels.
Love it!

Nice, I've also read this. Only you realise then how poor the films are in comparison.

[Monsieur OUXX]

- "The selfish gene", by Richard Dawkins --> If you haven't read that, you know nothing about the human being. You can just get rid of your beliefs (both religious and philisophic).

Meh, the guy is overrated as a writer and scientist. I've read "The Blind Watchmaker" which is supposed  to be his best intellectual take on evolution, but it's all just repeating "believing in evolution makes a lot of sense" for several hundred pages.

Well, maybe he's a mediocre writer - which would mean no more than "he fails to captivate his readers", and maybe he's a mediocre scientist - which would mean no more than "he failed to produce any major achievement in his field"...

...But it doesn't change anything to the fact that the ideas expressed in "the selfish gene" should be the basis of any modern reflection on mankind. And one has no idea about all that unless one has read the book. That book deals with so much more than evolution!

Also, he is not expressing a "philosophy". He's just writing down simple facts - but those facts change our perspective as strongly as did the theory of evolution 150 years ago. No need to be a good writer or to have discovered them to unleash the power of these ideas.


PS: On another note, it seems it's not unnecessary to repeat again and again to some people that every single fact on Earth proves evolution - you know who I'm talking about.

[Mati256]

Just to let you know, in this page you can make your own "Virtual Shelve" to keep track of books you have read.
www.anobii.com

[Igor Hardy]

PS: On another note, it seems it's not unnecessary to repeat again and again to some people that every single fact on Earth proves evolution - you know who I'm talking about.

Well, with that I can fully agree. Also, there's no doubt Dawkins is a really driven fellow.

[Tramponline]

Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, a 800-page full collection of all SH novels.
Love it!

Hey InCreator, do you have an edition with all the original illustrations from the 'Strand Magazine' by Sidney Paget? They're stunning!
Love Sherlock Holmes! Bought "The Original Illustrated 'Strand' Sherlock Holmes" hardcover from Wordsworth about 20 years ago. The cover art is perfect. Hope image is ok (?)- just had to show you guys. Unfortunately this version is not in print anymore. The most precious book I own. Must've read it around twelve times.


1126 pages of bliss...

[Ryan Timothy B]

I'm slowly getting around to reading Physics for Game Developers, which I had bought used a few weeks back.

I actually got it so I could improve my programming.  Learn techniques I never knew.  Etc. 
Such a nerd, I am.

[straydogstrut]

Aside from textbooks, I haven't had the energy to read much while i've been doing my degree. Now that i'm finished, I picked up the first book in The Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher: Storm Front. My partner got it for my birthday back in April and I picked it up just recently, finishing it in two days. I've now devoured the second book, Fool Moon, and i'm on the third book, Grave Peril, with the fourth, Summer Knight, sitting on my shelf. I like supernatural stuff and all the crime dramas on tv so it's right up my street=)

I tend to read sci-fi/fantasy stuff normally though I don't pick up new books as often as I should. I've got The Engines of Light trilogy by Ken McLeod and The Commonwealth Saga by Peter F Hamilton. Both of which i'd recommend. I'm also two books into Hamilton's Night's Dawn Trilogy. It's an interesting story but it's been over a year since I last read it so I need to start again. Oh of course George Orwell's 1984 and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley have to be in there too=)

On the fantasy side anything with magic and wizards etc. My favourite book of all time is Ursula Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea. I read it in school many years ago but I absolutely adore it even today. It's part of a series of five books, and they're all great, but I only discovered the rest a few years ago. The first one is the best though=)

I've also enjoyed the Black Magician Trilogy by Trudi Canavan, and the Inheritance Cycle by Christopher Paolini, though i've yet to read the last book, Brisingr (its over there on the shelf). I even enjoyed the Harry Potter series, but i'm a couple of books behind. I'd also recommend the His Dark Materials books by Philip Pullman, though I haven't watched the film adaptation as i'm sure it won't compare.

For a bit of light relief I like to read The Numa Files by Clive Cussler. They centre around Kurt Austin, rather than his more famous creation Dirk Pitt (haven't read any of those). It's all silly swashbuckling adventurous fun. Oh and there's always Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels for a laugh=)

Whoops! Sorry for going on and on..hopefully something in there can help keep the discussion going=S Aside from reading a novel to unwind and reading a games design/programming book for learning, I don't normally read more than one book at a time. I like to stick with one book and see it through to the end of the whole series. I've tried audiobooks in the past but I didn't find it as appealing as the real thing. I like to fold the pages in my books=)

Re. Mati256's suggestion of http://www.anobii.com/ for keeping a virtual library: Haven't used it myself, but my partner (who is a much more prolific reader than me) uses LibraryThing (seems you have to pay after 200 books though ), while I use Delicious Library on the Mac.

[Anian]

...don't mean for this too sound like I'm some Nazi or something similar, but damn it, there's too much books for my wallet and my reading speed.

I mean, there's A FREAKING LOT of books. Like, you cannot imagine how many books there are in the world.

Is this a good thing? Everybody gets to rad what they like etc. I don't know...but there's a lot books, lots of great stories...who reads these books, or writes them for that matter...I mean it's almost to a point of getting the sense of wonder from the amount of people in the world that write stories and how small and insignificant one being is...makes me feel sad and happy at the same time. Extra sadness comes from the fact that I won't be able to read them all nor to write anything as good as some are.

[straydogstrut]

I know what you mean. I could say the same about games: I have SO much catching up to do.

[Anian]

I know what you mean. I could say the same about games: I have SO much catching up to do.

Yeah, but books sounds more intelectual.