What are you reading?

blacbird said:

Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens.

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Bleak House is next on my Dicken's list.

But to take a break from my classics list, I (finally) picked up the first Mistborn book last night. So many rave reviews about Sanderson, this will be my first Sanderson novel. We'll see what he's all about. I tried to give Goodkind a chance but I just couldn't anymore.

Brightdreamer said:

Last Ape Standing (Chip Walker), on Nook - The history of hominids, and theories as to why we're the last survivors of the upright-walking apes. Interesting and accessible to the general uneducated public (a.k.a me.)

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Reminds me of Jared Diamond's The Third Chimpanzee. The idea is that if aliens landed on earth and classified all the species, there would be three species of chimps: common chimp, pygmy chimp, and humans. (Cigar smoking gorillas in bowler hats are a different animal entirely.) Quite good if you're interested in that topic.

I'm currently about 10% into Joe College by Tom Perrotta

I'm currently reading a writing how-to book by Holly Lisle, called, "Mugging the Muse". It's absolutely brilliant and so uplifting. I can't wait to read her novels after! I hear she's quite a unique fantasy writer!

Tomorrow I should be starting, Cross and Burn, the new Tony Hill and Carol Jordon novel by Val McDermid.




*I'm so excited :-D

Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson. Two-word review: brilliant asshole (that's about the subject, not the author).

Last book read: "Dealers of Lightning: Xerox PARC and the Dawn of the Computer Age." A must-read if you want to know where computer windows and mice came from (no, NOT apple and NOT Microsoft). There's a scene where Jobs and the Macintosh development scene get a tour - it's described here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFKCZLwbwwg
Yeah, Xerox invented the basics of what we use today, and it could have been the largest company in the world. But no, that's some other company.

In the last year or so I've read every book I know of on computer history.

benbradley said:

In the last year or so I've read every book I know of on computer history.

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Have you read the one on the rise and fall of Commodore (On the Edge)? Got it for my dad several years back, and he enjoyed it; he stood in line for his first Commodore, and we still have one running around. Many people have sadly forgotten about them - they're even cut out of computer history specials on PBS - but they were fun computers. (At least for me and my sister: at one point, they were the system with the most games, or so I hear.)

Clockwork Angel after a week long book-hangover after finishing the last book in the Mortal Instruments series.
I'm still not over it. :/

ishtar'sgate said:

Just started reading All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr. Reviews were quite mixed so am intrigued. Barely into it but the writing is quite beautiful.

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Oh, how is that? I keep seeing it everywhere.

I just started F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up.

Picked up The Wall by H.G. Adler at the library this morning.

Reading a few books, but my main fiction right now is The Line of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst. It's the sort of book that meanders, rather plotlessly, and I'm okay with that. In fact, I love that sort of book as long as the characters draw me in, and Hollinghurst does a good job at that. I'm about 40% of the way through so far, and it's great.

Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson

RookieWriter said:

Undisputed Truth by Mike Tyson

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The one-man show version on HBO was remarkable. Does the book work as well?

--Ken

Currently reading Finding Zero by Amir Aczel. Nonfiction about the origin of numbers and zero.

Finished The Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss, the second of three books. The kindle version, a library loan, ran 1,000 pages. Despite the length, I stayed interested the whole way through these first two parts.

I'm about a fourth of the way into Fire in Beulah by Rilla Askew. Written in close third, the POV moves into different characters while in the same scene together. Askew is so skilled at telling the story, I'm not sure I would have noticed this if not for having my writer's eyes on. I suppose this is what is meant by, "Know the rules before you break them".

Just finished reading Casino Royale. The first James Bond novel, it's sooo amateurish. Good thing Fleming stuck with it. Now reading Wicked Prey

Plague World by Dana Fredsti. It's the last in the trilogy and I loved the first two books. The perfect mixture of humor, nerd references, action, and romance.

Sunflowerrei said:

Oh, how is that? I keep seeing it everywhere.

I just started F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Crack-Up.

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All the Light We Cannot See is a different sort of novel. I think you'd either love it or hate it. Without giving away anything it kind of dashed some hopes that were built up over the course of the book and I was left with a feeling of sadness at the horrible futility of war - such a waste of humanity on both sides.

Don't read much YA but have almost finished reading Rick Yancey's The 5th Wave and am enjoying it quite a bit. Unless the ending is really disappointing I'll probably pick up the second book too.

**Finished the book. Meh. Just kind of ended with nothing really to pull me on to the second book in the series, and as the second book, according to reviews, doesn't follow the main characters of the first, I won't likely pick it up. Too bad.

A little ways upthread I mentioned that I am currently reading Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens. I am reading it a bit at a time, in bed before sleepybye, and quite enjoying it. It is one of the major novels of Dickens mature later output, and he was a master at word choice and nuance, and often scathingly satirical. Chapter 10 of this novel, a discussion of the Victorian Office of Circumlocution, is the best dissection of bureaucracy I've ever read, as pertinent today as it was 150 years ago. The Office of Circumlocution is run by an entrenched family surnamed Barnacle, among many other black humor delights. It could have been the seed of many a Monty Python sketch, and I'm pretty confident that the well-educated Pythoners Cleese and Palin and Idle and Chapman and Jones probably knew their Dickens pretty well.

caw

I'm finally getting into a read of Station Eleven by Emily St.John Mandel, strongly recommended by another AWer. I'm enjoying it but, so far, it isn't zinging my bones like Dog Stars (Peter Heller) did (which was what the library recommended for those "looking for Station Eleven"). Still, it's a fine book and may yet soar.

Snow Crash

Re-reading Snow Crash for the second time (anyone?). An incredible piece of science fiction. This book was written in the 90's and predicted a slew of technological innovations, including high-speed data and internet, internet avatars and metaverses (e.g. Second Life).

I first read it just a few years ago, but I was only 22, wa new to the cyber punk genre, and understood it to be an example of such. But later I learned it is sort of a satire of cyber punk, so I'm interested to get a better understanding of that. (It should have been obvious initially - the main character is named Hiro Protagonist).

I finished Fire in Beulah by Rilla Askew. I did a first-take post upthread but I had to come back with more.

The fifth part of the book ties together the plot threads of the previous four parts, culminating in a vivid depiction of the race war that erupted in Tulsa over a two-day period in 1921.

My earlier impression that this was written in close third is wrong, it's much more than that. Most of the book is written in what is probably omni, but I'm no authority on these things, I just know good writing when I see it and this is great stuff.

A pivotal character, a black midwife who shows up in various sections of the story, tells her part in first person. Another character gives a first-person account later, as well.

All of it adds up to a powerful story of Oklahoma during the oil boom days at the turn of the last century. There are enough period references to keep the reader grounded in the times, but the undercurrent of racial prejudice and class distinction in the story could just as easily be said of these "modern" times, as well.

Reading Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates. I'm only about 20% of the way in, but it may be the best writing I've ever come across. I feel like I should just pack up and go home at this point. I hope it continues this way. It's funny, though. I read the first chapter about four-five years ago, and thought it seemed a bit boring, so I put it back down. Now, I'm raving to everyone about it, and I'm not even 100 pages in!

I'm also reading The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. Only a chapter in, but the first chapter was fascinating, about the mass amphibian extinction going on at the moment. She has an accessible writing style, and keeps things interesting & conversational. I feel like I'm really going to enjoy this one.

War Brides by Helen Bryan

I'm finding that she's throwing too many characters into the story. Good read, though.