What are you reading?

Steph

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Jane Eyre, Dubliners, and Pattern Recognition.
Taking three lit courses in one quarter is starting to look a bit daunting.
 

PrincessofPersia

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Went to the library to pick up a bunch of books, and found out someone used my card to check out three books last year and never returned them. Awesome.
 

kittyCAT

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^First of all, yikes, sorry to hear that! >:O



I'm reading the Assassain's Creed series by Oliver Bowden, so far I'm on the second book. :)
It's based on the video game, so it mixes my two passions in life: video games and books. *drools*
 

Tnonk

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Tnonk, I have a delightfully obscure one for you to procrastinate with: Darkness and Dawn. (I forget the author, but it's from the 1st half of the last century). Fun, a bit overwrought, and quite clever.

Of course you've read On the Beach and Earth Abides, right? Right? :D

I have a bookmarked link to post-apoc books and short stories at home. Let me know if you'd like it. Post-apoc is my favorite.

Sorry for the late response, I've been having a bit of trouble with my computer for a week or so.

Thanks for the tip, I'll have to check that one out.

And as strange as it sounds from a lover of Post apocalyptic fiction, I've never read either On the Beach or Earth Abides. I am watching a few on ebay right now so I'll be able to rectify that shortly I hope.
Another one that I've never read but have always wanted too is A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Thanks for the link also, I'll have to check it out when I get back online full speed.

Continuing on my Post Apoc. marathon - I just finished Farnham's Freehold by Robert Heinlein.
And, I started today - Time of the Great Freeze by Robert Silverberg. Not really Post Apoc. but in a similar vein. It's really kind of a YA book from the mid 60's, so it should be a fast read.

Adrian
 

tlbodine

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I'm currently reading Helpless by Barbara Gowdy. I read The White Bone last year in prep for my Nano-novel and thought it was one of the most haunting and beautiful books I've had the pleasure of reading. This isn't nearly as good, but still pretty excellent. She has a real knack for making extremely unlovable people very lovable.
 

Fruitbat

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I'm reading The Manicurist, by Phyllis Schieber. I looked under literary novels on Kindle shoppy thing, and it was near the top and with good ratings. So, we'll see. I just started it.
 
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Calla Lily

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And as strange as it sounds from a lover of Post apocalyptic fiction, I've never read either On the Beach or Earth Abides. I am watching a few on ebay right now so I'll be able to rectify that shortly I hope.
Another one that I've never read but have always wanted too is A Canticle for Leibowitz.

Tnonk, your library should have all 3 of these, in case funds are tight. I've read both versions of Canticle--the ss and the novel he expanded it into. IMO the ss is better (and I'm not really a ss person).

I forgot to mention one: The Purple Cloud by MP Shiel. It should be in the dictionary as the example of "overwrought."

Scientists are going to trek to the north pole for the first time. Hints of doom from fanatical types. Our (anti)hero has a manipulative GF named Clodagh. She kills his BF so our hero can get on the team. They set out, everyone is suspicious about the situation and the GF (he's in denial), bad stuff keeps happening to the team relating to the doom warnings. In the end he's the only one who actually makes it. The Pole is a giant eyeball floating in a sea of some liquid. The moment he reaches it, a ring of volcanoes springs up, emitting--a purple cloud of arsenic. This covers the earth, killing everyone (we are led to think). We spend the rest of the book with our (anti)hero, who goes quite mad yet thinks himself quite sane. And then of course there's one other miraculous survivor.

It requires quite a suspension of disbelief, and did I mention it's overwrought? It's like a bad SyFy movie, but with better SFX. I recommend it for a long, gray afternoon. Much fun.
 

Tonic

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I'm reading the first book in the A Series of Unfortunate Events series by Lemony Snicket. I normally shy away from reading YA books, but I wanted an easy read this week. I read half of it in one sessions last night and plan to finish it this morning. It's been very good!
 

milly

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"Edisto" by Padgett Powell
 

Vultural

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My Wicked, Wicked Ways - Errol Flynn

I bought, and read Flynn's autobiography in the 70s.
Reread it in the 90s.
Now again in the teens.
If I'm still around in twenty more years I will likely read it again.
When I was younger I honed in on the sex, the escapades, the travels which I could completely relate to.
As I got older, I identified with the failures, setbacks, lost opportunities.
The book itself would be considered a thumping good read. Rollicking adventures in youth, high times and high jinks in Hollywood, finally chasing the setting sun aboard his ship, the Zaca. A blend of true tales, exaggerations, fabrications. Enjoyable, compelling, sad.
Modern celebrities pretend to duplicate his lifestyle, but fail to match his output (theatre, movies, books, documentaries, radio shows, TV shows).
Flynn died before publication.
 

juniper

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"Mad Dash" by Patricia Gaffney.

I read the first couple of chapters, then skimmed a lot of the rest. Totally cardboard, one-dimensional characters, boring professor husband and flighty, fun, artistic wife. After 20 years of marriage they're having some difficulties.

And oh the horror! Their only child actually went away to college! And doesn't come home every weekend! The wife just can't stand it! How dare her daughter leave her like that!

Wife actually says she wishes her daughter had been born with fetal alcohol syndrome or some other defect, so daughter would have to stay close to home for her whole life. Wife envies another woman whose child is schizophrenic and so can't leave home -- WTF is that?

I skimmed to the predictable end just to see if anything would appear interesting and nope. Good thing I picked it up in the $1.50 bin.
 

Calla Lily

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The Frenzy Way by Gregory Lamberson.

Well, the first 3 chapters. I gave up. It's too bad, because it looked different and promising, but it was stuffed with unnecessary and boring detail (all the places he walked, each block the car drove, etc etc etc). Life's too short. :(
 

jazzman99

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I'm seven or eight stories into the spanking-new Best American Short Stories 2011. A great read, though even heavier on The New Yorker than usual--seven of the twenty stories.
 

Satori1977

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Finished The Reapers Are The Angels by Alden Bell. Very good. Beautiful writing. The no quotes didn't annoy me at all, in fact, it seemed fitting. The whole story is so surreal. You are following this 15 year old girl through a zombie-infested post-apocalyptic world. She fights the meatskins as they are called while battling her own personal demons, but she still notices all the little things that make life beautiful.
 
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Diana W.

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I just finished Empire of Gold, the latest novel by Andy McDermott. I love those stories!

Now I just started On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers. So far it's pretty good.
 

ResearchGuy

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Ron Suskind, Confidence Men.

(Also, though it is not "reading" per se, watching 24-lecture DVD set on The Old Testament, by Professor Amy-Jill Levine, a "Great Courses" offering. Nice treatment of the Old Testament as literature.)

--Ken
 

Dave Hardy

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Just finished The Difference Engine by William Gibson & Bruce Sterling. I am much more impressed with Steampunk.

I will re-read A Princess of Mars next. I need a little Sword & Planet refresher.
 

Vultural

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Quarry's Ex - Max Allan Collins

Hard boiled noir, featuring Collins' assassin, Quarry.
A hit is ordered for an exploitation film director. Quarry makes an counter-offer to the director: he will whack the hitmen, and trace the one who hired them.
Assortment of characters set around a B-film, quick paced, workmanlike job by Collins.

Quarry's Ex
was published by Hard Case Crime, one of those small imprints that damn near went under last year when their distributor (Dorchester) opted to cease printing.
I know we are not wealthy, but if you can support small presses by buying their books, Hard Case is a good one.
 

ResearchGuy

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. . . Hard Case Crime, one of those small imprints that damn near went under last year when their distributor (Dorchester) opted to cease printing.
. . . .
Pardon the detour. Dorchester was/is publisher, not distributor (although it had, and apparently still has, a mail order business). Last I knew, they stopped issuing printed books (but maybe not: see http://www.dorchesterpub.com/) and focused on e-books. I cancelled my subscription to the Hard Case Crime book club when they started sending odd choices and canned the line. There is no sign of it at their website now. I still have a stack of unread Hard Case books sent by subscription.

--Ken
 

Vultural

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I hung with the Hard Boiled Club (or whatever Dorchester called it) for several months after the departure of HCC. After the second futuristic noir by Glen Cook, I strolled away. A couple of months later, they offered 60 books for $25.00. I phoned my order and said goodbye to the "Ladies Of Leisure." Dorchester was cleaning out their warehouse and laying off staff.
Code:
[/URL][URL]http://www.absolutewrite.com/forums/showthread.php?p=5214214#post5214214[/URL]

[URL]http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/44085-dorchester-drops-mass-market-publishing-for-e-book-pod-model.html[/URL]
Apologies for writing distributor when I meant publisher.
Hard Case Crime is now published by Titan, though no mail order club.
[url]http://www.hardcasecrime.com/

http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/...s-market-publishing-for-e-book-pod-model.html