Author Topic: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?  (Read 189162 times)

Offline Rob

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1020 on: January 16, 2012, 01:25 PM »

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1021 on: January 27, 2012, 12:55 PM »
Now reading "Spook - Science tackles the Afterlife" by Mary Roach.



The best-selling author of Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers now trains her considerable wit and curiosity on the human soul. What happens when we die? Does the light just go out and that's that—the million-year nap? Or will some part of my personality, my me-ness persist? What will that feel like? What will I do all day? Is there a place to plug in my lap-top?" In an attempt to find out, Mary Roach brings her tireless curiosity to bear on an array of contemporary and historical soul-searchers: scientists, schemers, engineers, mediums, all trying to prove (or disprove) that life goes on after we die. She begins the journey in rural India with a reincarnation researcher and ends up in a University of Virginia operating room where cardiologists have installed equipment near the ceiling to study out-of-body near-death experiences. Along the way, she enrolls in an English medium school, gets electromagnetically haunted at a university in Ontario, and visits a Duke University professor with a plan to weigh the consciousness of a leech. Her historical wanderings unearth soul-seeking philosophers who rummaged through cadavers and calves' heads, a North Carolina lawsuit that established legal precedence for ghosts, and the last surviving sample of "ectoplasm" in a Cambridge University archive.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1022 on: February 13, 2012, 08:29 PM »
Now reading, "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman.



It takes a graveyard to raise a child.

Nobody Owens, known as Bod, is a normal boy. He would be completely normal if he didn't live in a graveyard, being raised by ghosts, with a guardian who belongs to neither the world of the living nor the dead. There are adventures in the graveyard for a boy—an ancient Indigo Man, a gateway to the abandoned city of ghouls, the strange and terrible Sleer. But if Bod leaves the graveyard, he will be in danger from the man Jack—who has already killed Bod's family.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1023 on: February 13, 2012, 08:34 PM »
Also reading on the Kindle, "To the Stars (The Harry Irons Trilogy)" by Thomas Stone.



TO THE STARS is the first book in a science-fiction trilogy concerning an intrepid group of space explorers in the year 2107. Harry Irons dreams of escaping poverty and an over-crowded Earth by gaining employment with the Braithwaite Corporation. After proving himself in a series of tests, Harry gets his wish and soon enough finds himself struggling to survive on an alien world. TO THE STARS was written for a general audience and is sure to satisfy both younger and older fans of alternative fiction.

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Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1024 on: February 14, 2012, 12:18 AM »
I just finished Tom Clancy (and guest writer)'s new one entitled Locked On.  Pretty good book, and it's always nice to visit the Ryanverse again.

I'm not reading Millenium Falcon.  I skipped over it after Legacy of the Force and didn't realize it was a bridge between Legacy of the Force and Fate of the Jedi.
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Offline Scott

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1025 on: February 24, 2012, 09:31 AM »
Tearing through the Hunger Games books (I'm halfway done with Mockingjay) right now, just finished Girl With the Drago Tattoo and Thunderstruck by Erik Larson
« Last Edit: February 24, 2012, 09:34 AM by Scott »

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1026 on: February 25, 2012, 02:45 PM »
Now reading "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton.



Jamaica in 1665 is a rough outpost of the English crown, a minor colony holding out against the vast supremacy of the Spanish empire. Port Royal, Jamaica′s capital, a cut-throat town of taverns, grog shops, and bawdy houses, is devoid of London′s luxuries; life here can end swiftly with dysentery or a dagger in your back. But for Captain Edward Hunter it is a life that can also lead to riches, if he abides by the island′s code. In the name of His Majesty King Charles II of England, gold in Spanish hands is gold for the taking. And law in the New World is made by those who take it into their hands.

Word in port is that the Spanish treasure galleon El Trinidad, fresh from New Spain, is stalled in nearby Matanceros harbor awaiting repairs. Heavily fortified, the impregnable Spanish outpost is guarded by the blood-swiller Cazalla, a favorite commander of King Philip IV himself. With the governor′s backing, Hunter assembles a roughneck crew to infiltrate the enemy island and commandeer the galleon, along with its fortune in Spanish gold. The raid is as perilous as the bloody legends of Matanceros suggest, and Hunter will lose more than one man before he finds himself on the island′s shores, where dense jungle and the firepower of Spanish infantry are all that stand between him and the treasure.
« Last Edit: February 25, 2012, 02:45 PM by Master_Phruby »
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Offline Morgbug

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1027 on: February 28, 2012, 06:53 PM »
I read that one a while ago.  Somewhere back in the thread is my opinion.  I think I was happy it was cheap.


Just finished up reading the Dark Tower series of books for the second time.  I must say it was a lot more enjoyable reading them in relatively rapid sequence rather than waiting the 17 or so years it took him to publish them.  I started the first in 1989 or so, maybe 1988 (released in 87 I believe) and the last in 2004 for the first time around. 

That inspired me to pick up The Talisman all over again.  This was probably the first King (+ Straub) novel I read.  It was given to me, or rather traded for another book, by a fellow I met in a hostel in Darwin, Australia in December of 1988.  Not the first novel I read by any stretch but I think it reasonable to attribute to this book that it was the book that fostered my love of reading fiction.  I still have the book I got in Darwin, so am reading that copy and it brings back some fond and not so fond (287 hours on the bus) memories.   
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Offline Captain Piet

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1028 on: February 28, 2012, 08:05 PM »
I read "Darth Plagueis" recently. Here's my review if you're interested: http://phgeek.blogspot.com/2012/02/weekend-free-write-review-star-wars.html
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1029 on: February 28, 2012, 09:43 PM »
I read that one a while ago.  Somewhere back in the thread is my opinion.  I think I was happy it was cheap.

I agree. It's pretty awful. I just checked it out from the library so its worth at least a borrow.

Just finished up reading the Dark Tower series of books for the second time.  I must say it was a lot more enjoyable reading them in relatively rapid sequence rather than waiting the 17 or so years it took him to publish them.  I started the first in 1989 or so, maybe 1988 (released in 87 I believe) and the last in 2004 for the first time around. 

I have the last two Dark Tower books on hold for me. I'll have to hit them up soon.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1030 on: March 7, 2012, 08:40 PM »
Now reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.



The monumental Hugo and Nebula award winning SF classic-- Featuring a new introduction by John Scalzi

The Earth's leaders have drawn a line in the interstellar sand--despite the fact that the fierce alien enemy they would oppose is inscrutable, unconquerable, and very far away.  A reluctant conscript drafted into an elite Military unit, Private William Mandella has been propelled through space and time to fight in the distant thousand-year conflict; to perform his duties and do whatever it takes to survive the ordeal and return home.  But "home" may be even more terrifying than battle, because, thanks to the time dilation caused by space travel, Mandella is aging months while the Earth he left behind is aging centuries...
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1031 on: March 19, 2012, 09:13 PM »
Now reading "Swing: A Mystery" by Rupert Holmes.



“Swing just might be the best historical thriller of the year. Certainly it is the most creative.”
–Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the swinging big band era, jazz saxophonist and arranger Ray Sherwood is haunted by personal tragedy. But when Gail Prentice, a beautiful and talented Berkeley student, seeks his help in orchestrating an original composition slated to debut at the newly created Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay, Ray is diverted from his worries and drawn to the beguiling coed. Within moments of their first meeting, however, Ray witnesses a horrifying sight: a woman plunging to her death from the island’s emblematic Tower of the Sun.
Ray soon finds himself trapped in a coil of spiraling secrets in which nothing is certain, including Gail’s intentions toward him and her connection to the dead woman. And as events speed toward the shocking climax, Ray must unlock an ominous puzzle with sinister implications that stretch far beyond anything he could imagine.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1032 on: March 29, 2012, 07:31 PM »
Now reading "A Red Herring Without Mustard" by Alan Bradley.



Alan Bradley, author of the most award-winning series debut of any year, returns with another irresistible Flavia de Luce novel
 
In the hamlet of Bishop’s Lacey, the insidiously clever and unflappable eleven-year-old sleuth Flavia de Luce had asked a Gypsy woman to tell her fortune—never expecting to later stumble across the poor soul, bludgeoned almost to death in the wee hours in her own caravan. Was this an act of retribution by those convinced that the soothsayer abducted a local child years ago? Certainly Flavia understands the bliss of settling scores; revenge is a delightful pastime when one has two odious older sisters. But how could this crime be connected to the missing baby? As the red herrings pile up, Flavia must sort through clues fishy and foul to untangle dark deeds and dangerous secrets.
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Offline Matt_Fury

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1033 on: March 29, 2012, 11:51 PM »
I just started reading the Mass Effect novels.  Pretty good so far.
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Offline Rob

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #1034 on: March 30, 2012, 07:19 PM »