What are you reading?

Me | 12/21/05 | Darkwolf377

[Dante3]

Fiction: "Ninety-three" by Victor Hugo is great.
Romantic novel: "Pride and Prejudice" by Jane Austen

Fact crime: "Preacher's Son" & "Be Careful Who You Love"

Military: "Black Hawk Down" & "Roberts Ridge"

[ReignOfError]

I would have loved to have been Washington's adjutant general or aide-de-camp (Of course, chicks weren't allowed to do that kind of stuff then. LOL)

Not to mention that you would have had to elbow Alexander Hamilton out of the way, and he was known to play hardball.

[Darkwolf377]

Stephenson leaves me cold, the way Pynchon leaves some folks cold. But enough people have told me it's my kind of thing that I should give him another shot.

[the lone wolf]

Charles Stross is very good, at least in his two earlier books, Singularity Sky and Iron Sunrise. I have high hopes for Accelerando, but you never know with SF...

[the lone wolf]

1491 is VERY pro Indian (the author is very clear that Indian is the correct term, not Native American). He even claims that the American tradition of freedom and represenative government comes more from the Indians than from the English model.

[MarkL]

O, its a fantastic world Rawling has created. And, the further you go with the books less children's books the become. Last couple are very dark. But, never the less, extremely refreshing. I enjoyed the story so far very very much. I guess my main problem is that she might stop writing them - heck, Harry's got only one more year at Hogwarts, technically. Of course there's far more story left than just one more book. So I have to assume she'll be exploring the story far past Hogwarts. It's definitely taken a life of its own.

Well, considering that JKR has announced on numerous occassions that there will only be 7 books, I've got a feeling that there will be a lot of disappointed people, myself included. I don't want to wait another year to find out what happens next!

Mark

[MarkL]

Let's hope they don't screw up the movie, though I don't feel very confident with the Sky Captain director in charge.

Huh? Are you serious? Someone's making a movie of "A Princess of Mars?" What's the story about it? Who's going to be playing John Carter and Deja Thoris?

Mark

[ChildOfThe60s]

One of the greatest fantasy novels ever written. By one of the truly great fantasy writers. RIP L. Sprague de Camp

[Sofa King]

I'm reading "The Federalist Papers" right now. I'm also reading up on the Discworld series.

I've been doing a lot of reading this year, actually.

[Darkwolf377]

I've read some of his short stories and his book on writing, but never one of his novels. He's one of the fantasy writers who doesn't get all that much attention these days.

[Darkwolf377]

No cast yet announced. The director is the guy who did Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.

[Chena]

Darkwolf377 replies to GretchenM: "Congrats, you're about the seventh person who came up with that one. Somehow a couple hundred others managed to actually contribute something interesting, but there's always a couple a schmucks. Very funny, very original, thanks for sharing....zzzz...

GretchenM, I would recommend the book, "Assholes Forever - How to Spot 'Em, and How to Stop 'Em.", written by X. Crement, MD. LOL ;)

[ChildOfThe60s]

You can order this [used] on Amazon. It's is actually a compilation of several pieces on the character Harold Shea, but reads as if it were written as one novel. I just [reluctantly] gave my copy to an appreciative friend of my daughter (along with some other de Camp novels, the Krishna series, which I also recommend). We are moving and sacrifices had to be made. Sigh.

[Jackknife]

I just finished Bruce Catton's trilogy from the early 50's, 'The Army of the Potomoc'. It is a great descriptive of the actions of that army, utilizing an enormous amount of written acounts of soldiers and generals.

Next on my plate are a couple of bio's ..... Peggy Noonan's 'When Character was King : A story of Ronald Reagan'

and 'A Golfer's Life' : Arnold Palmer and James Dodson

[Chesterbelloc]

Ingenious Pursuits : Building the Scientific Revolution
The Mind of the Universe: Understanding Science and Religion
The Fall of the Roman Republic : Six Lives
The Mammoth Book of Roman Whodunnits

The last one is fun to read in conjunction with Plutarch's Fall.

[lawnguy]

Great thread. Tons of good stuff here.

[Darkwolf377]

Yes, and as I posted earlier, I hope those on this thread start new editions of it every week or so, so we can have an ongoing discussion of good books. I wish someone would do so once a week and we could all know it's there for us. I'd volunteer but I couldn't even post this one in the right section--and I thought I was doing so well...

In any case, I now have a lot of great books to dig up, and thanks to all who made suggestions.

[Darkwolf377]

Another great contribution by another idiot who's unable to make a thoughtful, interesting contribution to equal the others, so instead makes a fool of him/her/itself.

Thanks for suggesting that title, though I wish you wouldn't promote your biography.

[Darkwolf377]

I read a Koontz biography recently. The man is a writing machine. i wish I had his productivity. And bank account.

[Darkwolf377]

Lucifer's Hammer has the same problem most disaster books have--after the disaster the book becomes another kind of book. But it's got such memorable moments. If you've ever wondered what it would be like if you were surfing when a comet hit the Earth, check it out!

My favorite of their collaborations was their update/rewrite of Dante's Inferno, called, natch, Inferno.