So, what's everyone reading?

Good Morrow! Avid reader here, and I'm curious to what all of you are (at the moment) reading, what are you engrossed in? Share.

Right now, I'm plunging into a Dean Koontz "Hideaway". Spiffing literature. Slow take off.

Actually been reading The Wheel of Time Series.... Finished with the third book a few weeks ago and enjoyed them, but dont know if i will actually go to much deeper as i hear they start to drag bad by books 7-10. Id love to finish it tho as i hear the last few books are good. Only 8000 pages to go....

I'm reading The Graveyard Book, Youth in Revolt, and re-reading High Fidelity for probably the 10th time. True story.

Currently I am reading Proven Guilty. It's the 8th book of the Dresden Files, a series that can be summed by "A detective novel with Wizards and shit"

@dudy80: Wheel of Time series. Tip my hat to you! That is something I hold off from, until I can work up an apetite for something that gargantuan.

This thread.

Nailed it.

@dudy80 said:

Actually been reading The Wheel of Time Series.... Finished with the third book a few weeks ago and enjoyed them, but dont know if i will actually go to much deeper as i hear they start to drag bad by books 7-10. Id love to finish it tho as i hear the last few books are good. Only 8000 pages to go....

Read number 4 then get out while you still can! It gets real draggy after that, I've been trying to get through book 8 for nearly a year now.

I read Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said yesterday. Philip K Dick is my hero.

Starship Troopers.

The Beginnings of Western Scinece by David C. Lindberg, second edition. It's...uneven. Some sections are excessively well-written summaries of the history of science, while others are approaching impenetrable levels of digression from core information.

50 Shades Freed

Just got done reading Turn Coat, part of the Harry Dredsen series. And now I've started reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi again.

Started reading Catch 22. I'm a few chapters in and I don't have any idea whats going on

@Milkman: I don't follow...

I just started reading The Trial by Kafka. The dialogue is... interestingly written. I suspect that's what happens when you translate from 1910's German.

Just finished Kushiel's Dart. Very much a slog until about halfway through and then it was a fantastic read.

Taking a break from that world for awhile though. Am rereading Brisingr so I can finally read the final book in the series. After that, I have several books on the list including Dune, Anna Dressed in Blood, and the first Game of Thrones book. So much to read, so little time...

GoT: A feast for Crows. Still absolutely fascinated by this series. Although the change-around in which characters he uses to tell the arch of the story this time around is different it's still got it claws in me quite deeply.

I like to break reading big books with longs stories up by reading simpler, smaller and lighter ones in between, like the discworld series for example, so fifth elephant is next on my reading eyeline, then back to book five, GoT: A Dance with Dragons.

Might read my first Stephen King novel after that, which do you guys recommend from his line-up of books? none that are a series if preferable(I will read the dark tower series at some point later, just don't want to at this point for unknown reasons.)

Wuthering Heights....the trailer for the film got my interested.

The Yearling...

@TorMasturba said:

I like to break reading big books with longs stories up by reading simpler, smaller and lighter ones in between...

^^ This...I love to read, but you are right finishing up a 500 - 700 page book and then attempting to dive back in to another huge tome is tough...so I too try to break my reading up into heavy, light, heavy, light. Often times my light reading is comic books or a graphic novel.

@MasterHelion: A great series, can't wait for the next one. Hopefully you like Proven Guilty and keep going, they don't disappoint.

"Sunset Park" by Paul Lopes at the moment. I'm thinking of having a proper go at the Lord of the Rings books and maybe some Edgar Allen Poe short stories too. Got the whole collection, might as well give it a shot,

John Dies at the End by David Wong was pretty god-damned fun. Crazy drugs, unspeakable horrors, dumb violence and nifty humor made it a great, fast pallet cleanser to enjoy between tomes.

Also, Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter's collaboration The Long World is also good. More Baxter than Pratchett, but still something Pratchett fans should check out.

@Sursh said:

@Milkman: I don't follow...

He's reading this thread.

Every couple years I go back through my Sherlock Holmes collection. My dad got me a couple books when I was young (I was already enjoying those mystery novels that have you try to solve a case) and I've enjoyed them ever since.

Every once in a while I open up Deadhouse Gates again. The Malazan Book of the Fallen series is forever going to remain a favorite of mine.

The fact I'm still reading the same book as the last time one of these threads came around makes me really depressed.

Anyway The City & The City by China Miéville. I don't think its a great book, (certainly not living up to the high praise on the cover); but I'm too far gone not to finish it now.

@AlexanderSheen said:

@Sursh said:

@Milkman: I don't follow...

He's reading this thread.

What thread? How can you read a piece of thread?

@Guided_By_Tigers said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

@Sursh said:

@Milkman: I don't follow...

He's reading this thread.

What thread? How can you read a piece of thread?

If you put this thread under a microscope, you can see stuff. From there, you only have to use your imagination to figure out what it actually means. This is pretty deep stuff, man. Only those who can see the writings on the thread can understand.

@wemibelec90: Love that series. Used to work in a bookstore and most of the employees read it.

Just ordered a new book yesterday. Junot Diaz's "This is How You Lose Her"

Looking forward to it. He's a great writer. Until it arrives I'm reading Invisibles (comics) and the new copy of Love and Rockets that finally arrived at my comic shop.

I'm currently reading "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath. Ir's really short, and I imagine I'll be done this week. I really like it. I'm not sure what to read next. My choices are "A Farewell to Arms" By Hemingway, "Sons and Lovers" by D.H. Lawrence, or "Tender is the Night" by Fitzgerald. I'm leaning toward Lawrence. before my current novel, I read three Hemingway novels in a row, and I spend my morning train ride reading his short stories. I should probably diversify.

I'm nearing the end of A Feast of Crows. I sped through the first three books in the series, but I've taken my time with this one.

the hunger games

@Natedogg2 said:

Just got done reading Turn Coat, part of the Harry Dredsen series. And now I've started reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi again.

Have you read the entire Scalzi trilogy? I'm interested in plunging into some sci-fi before Cronin's "The Twelve" comes out next month and heard good things about Scalzi. How's the characterization in "Old Man's War." I'd be more interested in the character building stuff than the machinations of war. Not looking for Tom Clancy in space here. Thanks in advance..

I'm reading the Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi (say that name three times fast)

Doing my third pass (over 10+ years?) through the Wheel of Time books (to refresh myself in time for the last book, next year).

Currently on Book 10: Crossroad of Twilight, have been keeping the pace at about one book per month - though I'm being a bit too fast, finishing them at a rate of about 1.5 books/month. Which is annoying, as I've projected that I will be out of books long before the last book is out in January.

Woe is me! I'll have to read something else in the gap :(

@dudy80: @GunslingerPanda: IMO: they never get really "bad", but they do drag on a bit in book 8-10 (the prologue in Book 10 is almost 10% of the book!), before it picks up again. Books 12 and 13 get pretty insane - and have some great payoffs. If Brandon Sanderson can pull off Book 14 even near to what he did with 12 and 13, it'll be so worth it.

But I can see how it would put off some people! :)

Neal Stephenson's Anathem a second time. Hoping to pick up Murakami's 1Q84 soon.

Spent a part of summer working thru the first three Jack Reacher books by Lee Child. I'm reading his third book right now (Tripwire) and will take a break after this. Having a difficult time getting into Child's writing style. He's functional as a writer but goes into far too much exposition, to the point of explaining directions when Reacher is driving somewhere. He also has a tendency to repeat dialogue which drives me nuts, like every third line ends with someone saying "Right?" or "OK?" in question form. It seems like a small thing (and it is, I guess) but it smacks of lazy writing and makes me a tad batshit.

I wouldn't care about the small stuff if Child was a bit better story teller. All three books amble along slowly, with bursts of action. Reacher himself is pretty enigmatic, although not terribly compelling as a character. My favorite parts of the books are Reacher analyzing a situation and taking care of it in short order. There's not much too him besides the fact he likes coffee and every woman wants to sleep with him. I don't know, i like flawed characters and the dude is almost too perfect of a badass. Kind of dull, at least in the first 3 novels.

@Sursh: Everytime I see Dean Koontz,it reminds me of Californication Season 3....

Anyways on topic: Catching up on The Walking Dead. I'm on Volume 14 right now.

The original Dracula by Bram Stoker.

The A-10c Warthog flight manual, which at 600 pages probably counts as literature.

I have to read 10 books from a list of thirty for my studies, probably starting with Brave New World. Fortunately the lecturer has good taste.

Penpal by Dathan Auerbach. It started with a short story on Reddit's nosleep subreddit and became wildly popular on the site, allowing for a few sequel stories that culminated in a collection of the stories with added details that flesh out the whole thing altogether.

@Mnemoidian: Yea.. thats kinda why i want to see them through to the end as i hear Sanderson brought the books back up to snuff. I also want to read The Way of Kings eventually as i hear thats amazing, i just hate getting into new series when they start as waiting years between books can really get old.

I'm going through the "His Dark Materials" trilogy by Philip Pullman. It's the trilogy the Golden Compass came from, I don't know what kept me from the series it's been fun.

Interesting to see the mentions of Dresden, I remember watching the show I never knew they had books. I'll have to give them a look!

@scalpel said:

I just started reading The Trial by Kafka. The dialogue is... interestingly written. I suspect that's what happens when you translate from 1910's German.

I loved the book, one of my favorites. It's nice to see the classics going around. :) The movie by Orson Welles was pretty extraordinary as well, he's said he believes it's his best work.

Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I'm four hundred pages in and still can't tell if I like it or not.

A Storm of Swords.

Storm Front (Dresden Files #1) by Jim Butcher. It's fun. The charm factor makes up for a few shortcomings in narrative structure. The book is at its weakest when in serious business mode.

@MasterHelion said:

Currently I am reading Proven Guilty. It's the 8th book of the Dresden Files, a series that can be summed by "A detective novel with Wizards and shit"

Exactly. :p

The Necronomicon (a collection of H.P Lovecraft stories), and lots of programming books. I usually prefer short stories.

@HerbieBug said:

Storm Front (Dresden Files #1) by Jim Butcher. It's fun. The charm factor makes up for a few shortcomings in narrative structure. The book is at its weakest when in serious business mode.

The rule of thumb I keep hearing with the series is that you can (and probably should) skip the first two books. They are by far the weakest (especially the second), and Butcher even admits as much. After that, they are all fantastic. I'm probably going to read through the series again one of these days, it's such a good series.

Right now I've just started reading through the Black Company series for a second time (still on the first book). It's kind of a bummer that it takes a dip in quality after the first trilogy, but they're all great reads (except maybe for Water Sleeps, that book was unbearably slow, but Soldiers Live is a nice light at the end of that tunnel). I kinda wish I'd asked Glenn Cook if he totally hated Raven when I met him. That dude seems like a character that the author realized was a bad idea after the first book, but had woven him in too tightly to the plot to remove so instead made his life miserable!

@Everyones_A_Critic said:

Penpal by Dathan Auerbach. It started with a short story on Reddit's nosleep subreddit and became wildly popular on the site, allowing for a few sequel stories that culminated in a collection of the stories with added details that flesh out the whole thing altogether.

Oh man, I remember reading these on nosleep but I had no idea he had turned them into a book. Going to order it right now.