Author Topic: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?  (Read 189152 times)

Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #960 on: February 21, 2011, 10:43 PM »
Tom Clancy's "Dead or Alive."

I finished W's book and enjoyed his insight.  Now I'm going to try to cram in a little fiction before my next class starts.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #961 on: February 24, 2011, 09:22 PM »
Just finished Stephen King's "The Gingerbread Girl".



Em has become a runner. Maybe it's to get away from her unheroic and all-too-sensitive husband, the memory of her baby, who died, or maybe even her passive life. Inevitably, her training provides the endurance she needs to escape the sadistic and psychopathic tendencies of the man named Pickering. While not venturing into new territory, King's novella has all of his trademark tension, violence and catharsis with a spackling of misogyny.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #962 on: February 24, 2011, 09:47 PM »
Now starting "Dracula the Undead" by Dacre Stoker



In this sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula, his great-grandnephew offers one of the rowdiest revisionist treatments of the most influential vampire novel ever written. In 1912, as Stoker labors to adapt Dracula for the stage, its characters are dying gruesomely all over London. It turns out they are as real as Stoker himself, who learned their secret story on the sly and took creative liberties when turning it into his popular penny dreadful. Dracula's true story involves the passing of his blood line through Mina Harker to her son; a malignant Dr. Van Helsing, who Scotland Yard suspects had a hand in the murders attributed to Jack the Ripper; and the exploits of a 16th-century vampire countess, Dracula's former lover, who cuts a bloody swath through London seeking the survivors of Dracula's last stand in Transylvania. Energetically paced and packed with outrageously entertaining action, this supernatural thriller is a well-needed shot of fresh blood for the Dracula mythos.
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Offline EpicGon

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #963 on: March 6, 2011, 10:41 PM »
Begin the reading of Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, magnificent

Offline efranks

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #964 on: March 7, 2011, 01:18 PM »
I'm currently re-reading the entire Marvel run of GI Joe.  I'm only about 35 issues in so I have a ways to go, including the Year Books, Order of Battle and Special Missions.  But, once I'm done, I'll be able to then catch up on most of the IDW and Image/DDP stuff.

  E...
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #965 on: March 16, 2011, 04:46 PM »
Now reading Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes.



There would seem to be little reason for yet another translation of Don Quixote. Translated into English some 20 times since the novel appeared in two parts in 1605 and 1615, and at least five times in the last half-century, it is currently available in multiple editions (the most recent is the 1999 Norton Critical Edition translated by Burton Raffel). Yet Grossman bravely attempts a fresh rendition of the adventures of the intrepid knight Don Quixote and his humble squire Sancho Panza. As the respected translator of many of Latin America's finest writers (among them Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa), she is well suited to the task, and her translation is admirably readable and consistent while managing to retain the vigor, sly humor and colloquial playfulness of the Spanish. Erring on the side of the literal, she isn't afraid to turn out clunky sentences; what she loses in smoothness and elegance she gains in vitality. The text is free of archaisms the contemporary reader will rarely stumble over a word and the footnotes (though rather erratically supplied) are generally helpful. Her version easily bests Raffel's ambitious but eccentric and uneven effort, and though it may not immediately supplant standard translations by J.M. Cohen, Samuel Putnam and Walter Starkie, it should give them a run for their money. Against the odds, Grossman has given us an honest, robust and freshly revelatory Quixote for our times.
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Offline Angry Ewok

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #966 on: March 16, 2011, 08:42 PM »
Reading Titus Livy's massive History Of Rome collection. I'm finally at The War With Hannibal (Volumes 21-30). Not bad for a book written in 45 BC and translated to English over fifty years ago.

Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #967 on: March 16, 2011, 11:57 PM »
Tom Clancy's "Dead or Alive."

I finished W's book and enjoyed his insight.  Now I'm going to try to cram in a little fiction before my next class starts.

Dead or alive was a good read.

I'm currently reading Steig Larson's Millenium trilogy.  I've finished The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and am in the middle of The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Excellent books.
« Last Edit: March 16, 2011, 11:57 PM by Matt_Fury »
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Offline Mikey D

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #968 on: March 30, 2011, 04:25 PM »
Just finished:



Fantastic book, but very gut wrenching.  The **** POWs went through during WWII by their Japanese capturers was beyond what any human being should have to endure.

Highly recommended for the WWII history buffs out there (and anyone else for that matter).

On to book 4 of The Dark Tower series...
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #969 on: March 30, 2011, 07:11 PM »
Now reading "The Lord of the Rings: one volume edition" by J.R.R. Tolkien



A Christian can almost be forgiven for not reading the Bible, but there's no salvation for a fantasy fan who hasn't read the gospel of the genre, J.R.R. Tolkien's definitive three-book epic, the Lord of the Rings (encompassing The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King), and its charming precursor, The Hobbit. That many (if not most) fantasy works are in some way derivative of Tolkien is understood, but the influence of the Lord of the Rings is so universal that everybody from George Lucas to Led Zeppelin has appropriated it for one purpose or another.

Not just revolutionary because it was groundbreaking, the Lord of the Rings is timeless because it's the product of a truly top-shelf mind. Tolkien was a distinguished linguist and Oxford scholar of dead languages, with strong ideas about the importance of myth and story and a deep appreciation of nature. His epic, 10 years in the making, recounts the Great War of the Ring and the closing of Middle-Earth's Third Age, a time when magic begins to fade from the world and men rise to dominance. Tolkien carefully details this transition with tremendous skill and love, creating in the Lord of the Rings a universal and all-embracing tale, a justly celebrated classic.
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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #970 on: March 30, 2011, 08:01 PM »


The Army and Vietnam.  It's for my masters and I've already read it once for another course, but it's still a good read to understanding some of the Army's blunders at the direction of the "whiz kids" of the Johnson administration.  It goes into fantastic detail from the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu to the US withdrawal in 1973 and covers a lot of the strategic plans for Special Forces that were later replaced by regular army forces and ultimately destroying what the SF guys had done.
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."  Ben franklin


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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #971 on: April 27, 2011, 10:07 PM »
Now reading "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett.



Pratchett (of Discworld fame) and Gaiman (of Sandman fame) may seem an unlikely combination, but the topic (Armageddon) of this fast-paced novel is old hat to both. Pratchett's wackiness collaborates with Gaiman's morbid humor; the result is a humanist delight to be savored and reread again and again. You see, there was a bit of a mixup when the Antichrist was born, due in part to the machinations of Crowley, who did not so much fall as saunter downwards, and in part to the mysterious ways as manifested in the form of a part-time rare book dealer, an angel named Aziraphale. Like top agents everywhere, they've long had more in common with each other than the sides they represent, or the conflict they are nominally engaged in. The only person who knows how it will all end is Agnes Nutter, a witch whose prophecies all come true, if one can only manage to decipher them. The minor characters along the way (Famine makes an appearance as diet crazes, no-calorie food and anorexia epidemics) are as much fun as the story as a whole, which adds up to one of those rare books which is enormous fun to read the first time, and the second time, and the third time...
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #972 on: May 11, 2011, 08:08 PM »
Now reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick.




San Francisco lies under a cloud of radioactive dust. People live in half-deserted apartment buildings, and keep electric animals as pets because so many real animals have died. Most people emigrate to Mars - unless they have a job to do on Earth. Like Rick Deckard - android killer for the police and owner of an electric sheep. This week he has to find, identify, and kill six androids which have escaped from Mars. They're machines, but they look and sound and think like humans - clever, dangerous humans. They will be hard to kill. The film Blade Runner was based on this famous novel.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #973 on: May 19, 2011, 10:21 PM »
Now reading "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley



It's the beginning of a lazy summer in 1950 at the sleepy English village of Bishop's Lacey. Up at the great house of Buckshaw, aspiring chemist Flavia de Luce passes the time tinkering in the laboratory she's inherited from her deceased mother and an eccentric great uncle. When Flavia discovers a murdered stranger in the cucumber patch outside her bedroom window early one morning, she decides to leave aside her flasks and Bunsen burners to solve the crime herself, much to the chagrin of the local authorities. But who can blame her? What else does an eleven-year-old science prodigy have to do when left to her own devices? With her widowed father and two older sisters far too preoccupied with their own pursuits and passions—stamp collecting, adventure novels, and boys respectively—Flavia takes off on her trusty bicycle Gladys to catch a murderer. In Alan Bradley's critically acclaimed debut mystery, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, adult readers will be totally charmed by this fearless, funny, and unflappable kid sleuth. But don't be fooled: this carefully plotted detective novel (the first in a new series) features plenty of unexpected twists and turns and loads of tasty period detail. As the pages fly by, you'll be rooting for this curious combination of Harriet the Spy and Sherlock Holmes. Go ahead, take a bite.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #974 on: May 31, 2011, 07:53 PM »
Now reading "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez.



Suarez's riveting debut would be a perfect gift for a favorite computer geek or anyone who appreciates thrills, chills and cyber suspense. Gaming genius Matthew Sobol, the 34-year-old head of CyberStorm Entertainment, has just died of brain cancer, but death doesn't stop him from initiating an all-out Internet war against humanity. When the authorities investigate Sobol's mansion in Thousand Oaks, Calif., they find themselves under attack from his empty house, aided by an unmanned Hummer that tears into the cops with staggering ferocity. Sobol's weapon is a daemon, a kind of computer process that not only has taken over many of the world's computer systems but also enlists the help of superintelligent human henchmen willing to carry out his diabolical plan. Complicated jargon abounds, but most complexities are reasonably explained. A final twist that runs counter to expectations will leave readers anxiously awaiting the promised sequel.
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