Author Topic: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?  (Read 189668 times)

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #975 on: June 16, 2011, 09:31 PM »
Now reading "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman.



Coraline lives with her preoccupied parents in part of a huge old house--a house so huge that other people live in it, too... round, old former actresses Miss Spink and Miss Forcible and their aging Highland terriers ("We trod the boards, luvvy") and the mustachioed old man under the roof ("'The reason you cannot see the mouse circus,' said the man upstairs, 'is that the mice are not yet ready and rehearsed.'") Coraline contents herself for weeks with exploring the vast garden and grounds. But with a little rain she becomes bored--so bored that she begins to count everything blue (153), the windows (21), and the doors (14). And it is the 14th door that--sometimes blocked with a wall of bricks--opens up for Coraline into an entirely alternate universe. Now, if you're thinking fondly of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, you're on the wrong track. Neil Gaiman's Coraline is far darker, far stranger, playing on our deepest fears. And, like Roald Dahl's work, it is delicious.

What's on the other side of the door? A distorted-mirror world, containing presumably everything Coraline has ever dreamed of... people who pronounce her name correctly (not "Caroline"), delicious meals (not like her father's overblown "recipes"), an unusually pink and green bedroom (not like her dull one), and plenty of horrible (very un-boring) marvels, like a man made out of live rats. The creepiest part, however, is her mirrored parents, her "other mother" and her "other father"--people who look just like her own parents, but with big, shiny, black button eyes, paper-white skin... and a keen desire to keep her on their side of the door. To make creepy creepier, Coraline has been illustrated masterfully in scritchy, terrifying ink drawings by British mixed-media artist and Sandman cover illustrator Dave McKean. This delightful, funny, haunting, scary as heck, fairy-tale novel is about as fine as they come.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #976 on: June 16, 2011, 09:33 PM »
Also reading, "Dead Beat" by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files #7)



Harry Dresden's first hardcover adventure finds Chicago's preeminent wizard coping with his new roommate--vampire half-brother Thomas. Harry soon has problems bigger than Thomas' clutter to deal with. Marva, one of Harry's vampire foes, summons him with a threat to his police-lieutenant friend, Karrin Murphy. Marva demands Harry get the Word of Kemmler for her, or she'll frame Murphy for murder. Harry doesn't even know what the Word is, but while he's trying to find out, and also what damage Marva will be able to do with it, several necromancers descend on Chicago. When Harry learns that the newcomers are students of Kemmler, an evil wizard who mastered ancient spirits in a way no one has since, he discovers that they are seeking the Word, too, in hopes of seizing the powerful knowledge within it and calling forth a powerful creature known as the Erlking. Butcher's latest maintains the momentum of previous Dresden outings and builds the suspense right up to a rousing conclusion.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #977 on: June 27, 2011, 01:06 AM »
Off on a short Star Wars kick. "Darksaber" by Kevin J. Anderson.



You know what they say: build a better a Death Star and the Hutts will beat a path to your door. Poor Bevel Lemelisk, the inventor of the Empire's signature moon-size battle station, has done just that, and now he's in the service of Durga the Hutt (only a marginal improvement over working for Emperor Palpatine, who was in the habit of gruesomely executing Lemelisk, only to recombobulate him into a newly cloned body).

It's eight years after the battle of Endor, and the Hutts are hoping to make a galactic power play using Lemelisk's latest project, a sort of cylindrical Death Star superlaser-on-steroids, dubbed Darksaber. But the newly empowered Rebels and the recovering Empire aren't sitting idle. As the book opens, Han and Luke are sneaking their way across Tatooine's Dune Sea, dressed in Tusken drag. Luke's looking to commune with Obi-Wan to learn how to save his Jedi squeeze, Callista, recently rescued from the innards of the ship computer on Palpatine's super-duper Star Destroyer. Meanwhile, the ranks of the Imperial Fleet swell under the charismatic Admiral Daala. Will Luke help Callista touch the Force again? Where will Daala's fleet strike a blow against the New Republic? Will Lemelisk's new invention hold together long enough to save his own hide? The skilled Kevin J. Anderson sure makes it fun to find out.
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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #978 on: June 28, 2011, 11:53 AM »
I'm finished with my current masters class and don't start another for about 5 weeks so I'm going to get some leisure reading done.  I'm almost finished with what's below but don't know what I'm going to start next.

"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


Embrace the suck.

Online GrandMoffNick

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #979 on: June 28, 2011, 11:56 AM »
Just started "The Man in the High Castle" by Phillip K. Dick.
This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within

Offline Brian

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #980 on: June 30, 2011, 02:18 PM »
Nothing too original here, but I decided to re-read the Potter series prior to the final movie being released in a couple weeks.  I've got a few chapters left of the Deathly Hallows.

Offline BrentS

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #981 on: June 30, 2011, 03:28 PM »
Nothing too original here, but I decided to re-read the Potter series prior to the final movie being released in a couple weeks.  I've got a few chapters left of the Deathly Hallows.

I intended to do that too but just never got around too it.  Bummer.  Really looking forward to the movie though.  ;)

Offline darth broem 2

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #982 on: July 2, 2011, 08:47 AM »
The Dark Tower - VII by Stephen King

Supposedly they are going to try and make a movie and tv series out of this entire series.  One movie, then a TV series, another movie, another tv series, and then finish with a third movie.  We'll see.  I love the series but don't know how they would really do it justice. 

Offline Morgbug

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #983 on: July 2, 2011, 02:05 PM »
Heh.  With everyone reading this series I dug my books out of the basement and am just about to finish the second one again.  I was amazed to see the first of these came out back around 1988 or so.  Long time.
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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #984 on: July 2, 2011, 04:02 PM »
I'm loving a break in classes.  This is the next one I'm working on.

"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


Embrace the suck.

Online GrandMoffNick

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #985 on: July 13, 2011, 11:52 AM »
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.

Just getting ready to start this now as well.
This is the water, and this is the well. Drink full, and descend. The horse is the white of the eyes, and dark within

Offline BillCable

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #986 on: July 13, 2011, 11:59 AM »
I need to pick up the A Dance with Dragons... tonight if I have the chance.
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Offline Mikey D

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #987 on: July 13, 2011, 01:51 PM »
Finished up to and including volume 4 of The Dark Tower series, but needed to take a break from them for awhile.

Since then, I've read:
and and started before deciding to read instead.

Somewhere in there, I also read Carrie and 'Salems Lot.

I'll finish up Mockingjay on vacation next week.  So far, they've been alright, but certainly not living up to the hype the books seem to have.

There's some backlog on my nook that I plan to start reading next week also.  Nothing special, just some cheap (in terms of cost) thrillers that seemed interesting that I was willing to take a shot at. 

This one is probably the most well known of the "cheap" books and for $0.69, it was worth a shot.


These are all on my radar:








The last I understand is tough to read because Jaycee is very explicit in what she had to deal with while being held against her will by the two scumbag low life pieces of **** who kidnapped her.  For what she had to endure, she seems to have grown into a beautiful and courageous young woman.
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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #988 on: July 14, 2011, 10:11 AM »
Good read on explaining the personalities and thought process between the two main contributors to the Constitutional Convention, why it happened, and the end result.

"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


Embrace the suck.

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #989 on: July 15, 2011, 08:15 PM »
Now reading "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag" by Alan Bradley.



Flavia, the precocious, imaginative, and adorable 11-year-old sleuth, returns for her second adventure. It’s a mystery in itself how a mature male author can pen the adventures of such a young female child and keep readers believing in the fantasy. Flavia’s world is 1950s England—specifically, a very old country house that just happens to have a long-abandoned chemistry laboratory. And Flavia just happens to be fascinated by chemistry—particularly poisons. This helps her solve mysteries because, as Flavia says, “There’s something about pottering with poisons that clarifies the mind.” This time she becomes involved with the members of a traveling puppet show that features the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk. When the puppetmaster is mysteriously electrocuted during the show, Flavia knows it can’t be an accident and eventually finds the murderer. The rest of Flavia’s family are also eccentric, to say the least, and add greatly to the overall fun. Thank goodness Bradley is not allowing Flavia to grow up too quickly; we need more sleuths whose primary mode of transportation is a bicycle.
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