Read any good books lately?

[SSH]

High Society by Ben Elton. Not enjoyable, as its a depressing portrait of the drugs situation it portrays, but nevertheless a clever satire on the stupidity of prohibition, and on the fickle public and politicians.

[Tuomas]

Hi guys. I got this "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseini for my girlfriend for birthday. Though I haven't given it yet. I was wonder, has anyone read it yet, and, what can you tell me about it, is it any good? I was going to read it myself before giving to her, got some days left, but I should really be studying German instead of going fictional. So, anyone read this book?

[Meowster]

Rediscovering Georgette Heyer. She's fantastic!

[[Cameron]]

I'm reading a few things at the moment, as I tend to do. At the moment I'm reading Steinbecks the Grapes of Wrath, it's really a magnetizing read just because of his prose. The writing just has this really good feeling about it, you want to keep reading just to enjoy the words, let alone the story, which is also quite good. I'd suggest you all read it.
Also reading Stephen King's Needful Things, to add to my bookcase alongside the other 10 King books I have. I really love King's writing, even though some stories are kinda overstretched (such as with Bag of Bones) but Needful Things has some really interesting characters and never feels like the story is being taken too far to justify more pages. I'm actually reading....5 other books right now, Clive Barkers The Damnation Game, two awful horror books Crooked House and Spectre, as well as Catch 22 and Burroughs Junky. But I'm reading those a lot slower than King and Steinbeck so I'll write about them in another post.

[paolo]

I've been getting into Agatha Christie's novels lately. She's rated as a literary genius, but I find she can be a bit hit and miss, with some of her books being much better than others.

I didn't think "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd" to be the masterpiece that it is often claimed to be (I much preferred "After the Funeral") but "A Murder Is Announced" was a great read, especially as I worked out who the murderer was about halfway through! Currently I'm reading "Ordeal by Innocence", which has a more serious style than the Poirot and Marple novels, which tend to be more light-hearted and unrealistic - everyone in those seems to find having a murder on their doorstep simply super.

I often think her books can be a bit dull for the first 100 pages or so, with lots of dialogue and description of people's thoughts and not much happening, but they are usually worth persisting with as the eye-opening twists tend to come later.

[Tuomas]

I just came back from the library. The goal was to get some cds and rip them on my computer, but I didn't find any. Instead I found two books that I'm going to read; Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Döblin and Demian by Hermann Hesse, both in their nativa language, just to support my studies, and they were interesting ): I'll report back when I've finished them, or either one!

[Emerald]

Whoa, that's almost four years between SSH's and Tuomas' posts...

Anyway, I've been reading Oscar Wilde lately. The Picture of Dorian Grey and The Importance of Being Earnest are classics for a reason...

[Tuomas]

Oh, I live The Picture of Dorian Grey... Found it on www.gutenberg.org too. Apparently all of Wilde's books are there as well. i just haven't gotten over the boundary of reading an ebook at my computer. There are too many distractions, and a real book at your hands feels a lot better

[twin-moon]

Now that this post has been bumped again, I remember I wanted to post here.

Normally I only read hardcore literature to show off, but some weeks ago I read the sf-novel The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuinn. Highly recommended!

Two planets, one capitalist, one anarchic/communist, are seen through the eyes of the scientist Shevek, a real anarchist, who travels to the capitalist planet Annares. It's an obvious analogy of the US and the Soviet Union in the Cold War, but pretty well executed.

Her novel The Left Hand of Darkness (about gender and feminism) is also recommended for people who like sf that explores social issues rather than technological.

[vict0r]

Nope, I haven't.