What are you reading Thread

Reading Them: Adventures With Extremists by Jon Ronson. Just learned about the Ruby Ridge standoff. Mental that something like that has happened and I've never heard anything about it.

Just finished reading The Lost World by Conan Doyle (the guy who done wrote the sherlock holmses). Great book and I'd strongly recommen it to anyone who likes adventure stories. Brilliant read.
Now reading The Hobbit, which is also a really good book if you like adventure stories. It comes with a map too, maps are fun.

Still this thread.

Having left my 3DS charger at home but brought my Kindle, I've read loads of things.

1) Finished The Cuckoo's Calling, the J.K. Rowling detective novel. Not bad, pretty clever (should have picked up more of the hints, mind).

2) The House Of Silk, Anthony Horowitz's Sherlock Holmes novel. Great stuff, although a little bit horrible for my delicate sensibilities. 

3) Bad Pharma, Ben Goldacre's truly terrifying book on the huge number of holes in our methods of creating and marketing medicines. Chilling stuff!

4) Started The War Of The Worlds.

DIGRESSION ALERT: There's a little plaque on a house on my street that says H.G. Wells lived there for a bit. 

Literally only ten or so screens in.

So I read something, yes me.

I read Seconds from Bryan Lee O'Malley, his first book since Scott Pilgrim. It was quite long for what it is 350 pages of glorious art and all nicely written.

I never thought I'd be bumping this up but I read last night Lost at Sea also from Bryan Lee O'Malley, it was first actually his book. It's decent enough but leaves me with a few questions but how it finishes makes sense.

Now I've read all his books and going to start reading all the firefly/serenity graphic novels I feel I want something more meaty after those, but not sure what as I've read things like LotR and stuff that seems popular like hunger games I've seen the films. So want something fresh, the only thing I can think of is the game of thrones books (I know it's called something else) anyone recommend those or something else. I have read a few different books not all fantasy but that's more my comfort zone.

Just finished Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception last night. I've been rereading the series in order the last few weeks and it's been really good fun. The series was clearly supposed to end with The Eternity Code (book three for those who have missed out on this awesome series) but book four had its moments. Opal post-coma is hilarious with her psychotic rants and delusions of self-importance.

On a side note every time I bring these books off the shelves it continues to astound me how time flies, it feels like I only read them for the first time a short while ago but in reality it's been almost ten years for book four and longer for the rest. I still remember picking up book five on release like it was yesterday and was surprised it was published back in 06 eight years ago.

Mas: Defeinitely read A Song of Ice and Fire. Unputdownable.

Jay: War of the Worlds is my favourite book. HG Wells lived, and set the start of the book, in Woking where I was born. There's loads of places named after him and there are statues of the tripods!

As for me, I'm reading the Pelican Brief.

Drunkalilly wrote:

Mas: Defeinitely read A Song of Ice and Fire. Unputdownable.

Is that the first one

masofdas wrote:

Drunkalilly wrote:

Mas: Defeinitely read A Song of Ice and Fire. Unputdownable.

Is that the first one

Nope, it's the name of the whole series, and Drunka's wrong, it's pretty easily putdownable (I have thus far failed to make it halfway through the first book (A Game of Thrones) after trying since Christmas).

Sorry Drunka!

Just finished reading The Perks of Being A Wallflower which was good if you like stories of weird Aspergers-esque teens (reminded me of A Curious Incident) - which I apparently do. Also recently finished The Wasp Factory, which took a while to get going but got pretty compelling. Worth a read.

Thanks rum letting me know which is first also you seen the movie of perks, it's not bad at all.

The Wasp Factory is bloody disturbing. I can't say that I enjoyed it, but it made me think a lot.

I'm mostly reading revision notes at the moment. I do have a philosophy ebook called Why Does The World Exist? which I'm halfway through - it's philosophy in a language that doesn't make me think that the author's up himself or send me to sleep, which is a rarity.

Rum Rapture wrote:

masofdas wrote:

Drunkalilly wrote:

Mas: Defeinitely read A Song of Ice and Fire. Unputdownable.

Is that the first one

Nope, it's the name of the whole series, and Drunka's wrong, it's pretty easily putdownable (I have thus far failed to make it halfway through the first book (A Game of Thrones) after trying since Christmas).

To offer another opinion, I'm in the same boat as Drunka. The prose isn't the best, but GRRM's masterfully built an interesting fantasy world and populated it with compelling characters. He has a habit of going on about food in ASOIAF, but you'll find yourself struggling past that to get to the next bit because it's bloody brilliant.

Each to their own. ASoIaF grabbed me and wouldn't let go.
Here's my current lineup of books to read, after Pelican. And I spent all day today reading Spider-Man comicbooks.

Funny you should mention the Wasp Factory, I was just talking about that book today and I'm about to start
reading Ian Banks for the first time.

The Mass Effect books were surprisingly good. A credit to the universe Bioware built, I guess.

The first three at least were written by the head writer from the games, so they weren't just phoned in rubbish. I've read two, two to go.

Also, I really like it when George goes on about food... and just generally get along well with the writing.

Finished my artemis fowl marathon the other day with Artemis Fowl and the Atlantis Complex.  For those who didn't read as far as book seven (or read the series at all in which case do give the first book a read, it's a damn fun yarn) Artemis develops some mental issues, by developing the fairy condition the book was named after: Atlantis Complex, all because he meddled with magic a couple of books back and is a little too guilt ridden over it.  Effects of the condition include paranoid delusions, obsessing over bad and good numbers (four is the devil and five and multiples of five are good luck charms), and in worst case scenarios developing completely new personalities.

Book seven of the series was a bit hit and miss in all honesty.  When it was at its strongest it was definitely up there with the best of Artemis Fowl, but it also had parts that were just missing that brilliant zing that the early parts of the series had.  Even so it was still a really fun read, seeing Artemis stripped of everything that makes him remarkable was a good laugh, as was seeing the obvious tension between him and Holly becoming the butt of many jokes involving his split personality Orion.  

At this point it's clear the series should be over and this was more a filler affair, but as far as filler goes this was a fun romp.  Now to twiddle my thumbs while I await the final book, which I haven't read yet.  It's going to be a strange feeling finishing this in a few months, I've been following the series since I was twelve or so and rereading it for fun every once in a while when a new book came out, thinking about it the series is the last link to my childhood, and about the only thing from that period besides Nintendo I feel even remotely nostalgic for.



As for what I'm currently reading, speaking of links to the childhood I'm reading Star Wars: Heir to the Empire, book one of the Thrawn trilogy by Timothy Zahn.  I read this originally way back when I was about fourteen, it'll be interesting to see how my opinions of it have changed and if I still think it's the true continuation of the movies.

I've yet to read the last Artemisia Fowl. Is it the last in the sense that no more have come out since, or is it actually a finale?

I just yesterday finished the Hobbit. It was a fun read but it had a nasty habit of introducing things out of nowhere without foreshadowing so I'm glad for a lot of the things Jackson has worked into the films.

It's supposed to be the last storywise from what I've been told.

Just finished reading Consider Phlebas, the first of Iain M. Banks' Culture novels. It was an exceptional slice of real hard sciece fiction. A lot of space operas boil down to a punch-up or a sword fight or a space battle that could as easily be a naval one. Here, transhumanism, politics, artificial intelligence, space travel and alien life are all explored in a much more interesting way than the usual stuff. I can't wait to read the rest now, and considering my mum owns them all and has been to two of the man's talks I can't believe it took me this long to start.

Also, I finished Halo: Combat Evolved for the first time today and playing that at the same time as I read this book. I couldn't help but notice a lot of similarities, so seeing the game's developers mention the book's influence made me feel really smug for cottoning on.

Finished Star Wars: Heir to the Empire a week or so back and I'm halfway through the second part of the trilogy Dark Force Rising. Heir was a might fine romp, and the second is even better with a race going on involving multiple factions to locate an old but powerful fleet of warships that could turn the entire war on its head. The first book ended as you'd expect a first part of a story to end, some major plotlines were resolved, but as one would expect their resolution only lead to the beginning of longer ones.

So far these are definitely living up to my nostalgia, possibly even surpassing it. They retain the feel of adventure while adding in just the right mix of maturity you would expect from something made with adult audiences in mind (less cartoony toy selling monsters, a larger emphasis on political maneuvering, stuff like that), and having a scale back from the force user antics of the prequel trilogy is a bit of a breath of fresh air.

The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier. Not too far into it but his other book Fade is amazing so I have high hopes.

I just finished reading Complicity by Iain Banks.

Too happy? Risk of bouncing off the walls and irritating the neighbours? Want something suitably grim to bring you down a bit? Then this is the book for you!

Stephen Fry's 3 Autobiographies. I know this is probably an offensive generalisation but... Public (as in not public) Schools are weird...