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Community => Watto's Junk Yard => Topic started by: Scott on June 6, 2003, 10:35 AM

Title: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 6, 2003, 10:35 AM
I just finsihed on the plane ride home yesterday The Silmarillion[/i] which is history of Elves in Middle Earth.  The thing is epic in proportion and may be my all time favorite book.  It is a very difficult read though.  There are like 200 names you need to keep track of so I was only able to read 3-4 pages a night.  The whole world that Tolkien created to supplement the history of LOTR is so rich and detailed and stunning.  You really have no idea until you read it all.  The gods, the elves, men, what went wrong etc etc  You can see some really cool almost Biblical connotations throughout the book...why do we die and is better to die than it would be to live forever?  It will definitely require a second reading just to make sure I have it all down and it will go a lot quicker then next time

Next up is Breakfast of Champions[/i] by Kurt Vonnegut.  I read this back in college but probably did not appreciate it very much so I am rereading it. :-*  

After that I am not sure what I will go for, I may dive back into the Hobbit or I may go onto something else entirely.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: dustrho on June 6, 2003, 10:51 AM
Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters

More than half way through this book and it's definitely a good one.  I would recommend anyone who hasn't read it yet to read it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 6, 2003, 10:52 AM
Oh yeah those Tales of (Cantina, Jabba's Palace and BH) are some of the best SW EU stories out there.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reconsgt on June 6, 2003, 12:09 PM
Currently I  am reading Darksaber. I am working my way up in order.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on June 6, 2003, 12:10 PM
A Bridge Too Far, and The X-Cutioner's Song TPB.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on June 6, 2003, 12:47 PM
I'm still reading Debt of Honor by Tom Clancy.  I'm almost finished with it, only about another 80 pages or so.  After that, it will be the quick read (2 days max) of SW: Force Heretic II: Refugee.  After that and in perfect time, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which is finally almost here after 3+ years.  Can't wait.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sith Lord Cosmo on June 6, 2003, 01:02 PM
I have about 50 pages left in A Pirate Looks at Fifty, by Jimmy Buffett.  I'm really enjoying it.  Its his tale of going island hopping with his family for his 50th birthday.  In between the running commentary of his trip, he talks about growing up, his music career, previous trips.  Its great summer reading.

Next up I'll probably be reading the Harry Potter books again, so I can refresh my memory before #5 comes out
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: proudfather2 on June 6, 2003, 01:06 PM
Just finished Aliens vs. Predator Prey. Picking up the second ands third books this weekend.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth Kenobi on June 6, 2003, 01:21 PM
I finsihed In The COmapnay Of Heros by Michael Derante about the events depecited in the film Black Hawk Down.  Next I'll try to get Black Hawk Down.  I want to get back into the NJO since I been behind a couple of books not sure where I left off. :-[
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on June 6, 2003, 01:26 PM
Silent Prey by John Sandford.  You must have read this stuff at one point Scott?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on June 6, 2003, 03:26 PM
Right now I'm reading Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delaney.  I've been wanting to for years.  It's huge, and difficult, but a great read.  I'm also slowly making my way through the McSweeney Thrilling Tales short story collection.

And here's some comics I'm reading (because comics are people, too):

Lucifer
Fables
Y: The Last Man
Batman
Ultimate Spider-Man
Strangers in Paradise
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reconsgt on June 6, 2003, 03:57 PM
You curious about Black Hawk Down. I would be happy to answer any questions about it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediMAC on June 6, 2003, 04:48 PM
Lots of record company recording agreements and royalty statements (at work) unfortunately...   :(  Not much else other than that for me right now!  I'm sure the Mrs. will want me to check out her new Harry Potter book next month, when she's done with it...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BobaShek on June 6, 2003, 09:31 PM
I just finsihed on the plane ride home yesterday The Silmarillion[/i] which is history of Elves in Middle Earth.  The thing is epic in proportion and may be my all time favorite book.  It is a very difficult read though.  There are like 200 names you need to keep track of so I was only able to read 3-4 pages a night.  The whole world that Tolkien created to supplement the history of LOTR is so rich and detailed and stunning.  You really have no idea until you read it all.  The gods, the elves, men, what went wrong etc etc  You can see some really cool almost Biblical connotations throughout the book...why do we die and is better to die than it would be to live forever?  It will definitely require a second reading just to make sure I have it all down and it will go a lot quicker then next time

Is it a very hard read for someone who just finished reading The Lord of the Rings? I've asked around on LOTR message boards, and the general consensus was that I should try reading The Silmarillion, and that it was a bit confusing. :)

Another suggestion was to try Unfinished Tales or Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Diddly on June 6, 2003, 09:53 PM
Summer reading for school is forcing me to read The House on Mango Street. Haven't started it yet. After that, I'll probably finish up the Thrawn Trilogy, and start the new Harry Potter book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 7, 2003, 09:47 PM
It is one of the most confusing books I have ever read but so worth it.  I mean, the scale and scope that Tolkien put into Middle Earth is really amazing.  Like I said it took me forever because I was constantly referring to the index in the back reminding myself which elf was part of which clan and so on so forth.  The same thing happened with LOTR on my first go through though.  With the movies and a another read it made the books all much more epic.  
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Franny Glass on June 10, 2003, 09:22 PM
I just finished Kissing in Manhattan by David Schickler.  It is an interesting, somewhat gothic look at 12 different people who all live in the same apartment buiding (called the Preemption-the name alone is amazingly haunting) and how their lives intersect. Each character is quirky, funny, and heartbreaking in their own way.  Jeez, I should write book reviews...  ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: amarsella on June 10, 2003, 11:04 PM
Electro Boy by Andrew Behrman
It's a excellent account of someone who seemingly totally successful whose life is actually totally out of control. And it's a true story.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Force Guy on June 11, 2003, 01:44 AM
I'm currently reading Stupid White Men by Michael Moore.  Chapter 2 (Dear George) is great.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Hung Solow on June 11, 2003, 08:43 PM
"Dune Mesiah" and "The Butlerian Jihad" Frank and Brian Herbert
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sith Lord Cosmo on June 11, 2003, 09:30 PM
I finished A Pirate Looks at Fifty.  Great book ;D

I'm not sure what to read next.  I have 10 days until the next Harry Potter.  I'm either going to read the first 4 again, or read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mandalorian Madman on June 12, 2003, 05:47 AM
neuromancer (again) by gibson
quiet american by greene
warrior politics by kaplan
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sith Lord Cosmo on June 17, 2003, 01:16 PM
I went to Barnes & Noble on Sunday when I was bored, which is always a good way for me to spend too much money

I'm reading No One Here Gets Out Alive, which is a biography of Jim Morrison.  I've always been a fan of The Doors, and I remember wanting to read this book when I was in 5th grade, and my mom wouldn't let me.  Probably a good idea on her part
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on June 17, 2003, 02:34 PM
I just finished What if 2,basicly a sequel of the first book that consisted of historic what ifs(ie,What if Churchill wasn't the Prime Minsister during WW2)its a really good read and it can be found at walden books for about 5 bucks. :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 23, 2003, 11:24 AM
I am currently reading Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser who also wrote one of my favorite books Fast Food Nation

It is 3 different essays about the black markets of America...Pot, Illegal Aliens and Porn and what he thinks should be done about it

I have been for the legalization of Marijuana for a long time, not that I smoke or that I ever really have, but there are better thing our gov't can be using our tax money on instead of jailing hundreds of thousands of people for smoking a weed.  They also could be making money off said product by taxing it and using that money for rehab and education.  Why tobacco, caffiene and alcohol are legal and other drugs are not is baffling

That is how far I am right now but it is great.

Fast Food Nation (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0060938455/qid=1056381771/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_1/102-6867481-3126500?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) should be required reading in all schools IMO...if you want some food for thought, pick it up

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on June 23, 2003, 03:01 PM
Just started HP and the Order of the Phoenix today at lunch and finished the first two chapters.  This book won't take too long for me to finish.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Lemon-Viper on June 23, 2003, 03:47 PM
I'm in the middle of 2 books right now.

Alien Encounters- Chuck Missler.
Why Grace changes everything- Chuck Smith.

Next up for me will be The Eugenics Wars by Greg Cox.  It's a Star Trek  book about the Rise and Fall of Kahn Noonien Singh(Kahn for short, as in Wrath of Kahn).

Anyone ever read the Dark Elf books by R.A. Salvatore?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on June 23, 2003, 04:12 PM
Still waiting to pick up Harry Potter, but I can wait because I have a stack of books I've yet to get through.  Right now I'm currently reading The Pastel City by M John Harrison, a great read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: dustrho on June 23, 2003, 04:44 PM
I just finished reading "Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter" and it was an AWESOME book!  It's one of the first books in a LONG time that I couldn't put down.  Now I don't know what I'm going to read.  I have a TON of Star Wars books that I need to read, but I don't know which one I want to read first.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sith Lord Cosmo on June 23, 2003, 05:40 PM
I've really been reading a lot lately.  Yesterday I finished the new Harry Potter book, which I loved.  I think its the best one of the series so far.  I won't say anymore for people who are still reading it

I also finished reading Secrets of the Tomb by Alexandra Robbins.  Its about the Skull and Bones, which is a secret society at Yale.  Lots of influential people have been members, such as the Bush family and its a big topic for conspriacy theorists, claiming that its part of a secret world government.  According to the book, where the author interview a lot of Bonesmen as they're called, its really nothing more than a good ole' boys club.  Of course...maybe they're just giving her disinformation.....Either way, it wasn't as interesting as I was hoping it would be.  

Next on my list is Without a Badge by Jerry Speziale.  Its about an undercover DEA agent inside the Cali drug cartel
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 1, 2003, 12:06 PM
I finsihed the Hobbit, great little book and an absolute joy of a story.  Bilbo is a great little Hobbit.  It is a lot of fun to go back to books you haven't read for ages, it is like reading something entirely new!

Right now I am reading On the Road[/i] by Jack Kerouac...never read it before and I like it a lot so far.  Something I have forever dreamed about was just going out on the road and hitchhiking or driving the country, seeing the sites, meeting the people etc etc.  A kindred spirit no doubt...

I usually broden my horizons a lot in the summer, reading classic books I have never read.  I bought Grapes of Wrath and Tale of Two Cities as well last time I was at Barnes and Noble.  I've discovered Hemingway, Vonnegut and other great, great authors this way and while having been forced to read Steinbeck and Dickens in school there is always something to older and wiser so I hope I can find out again with all the fuss is about :-*  
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on August 1, 2003, 12:09 PM
I find this thread personally offensive.  

I CAN'T READ!!!!

 :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scouttrooper on August 1, 2003, 05:52 PM
I am sure many will find this childish but im reading Harry Potter 5. Say what you will.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on August 1, 2003, 08:05 PM
Nah, it's not childish.  I'm reading it too.  About halfway through right now.  It's a little slow and contrary to most reviews I've read, JK Rowling's writing hasn't made any dramatic leaps.  Still, it's good.  And I love the creepy Big Brother aspect of the Ministry and Umbridge.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediMAC on August 1, 2003, 08:13 PM
I am sure many will find this childish but im reading Harry Potter 5. Say what you will.  ;)

Not childish at all Scouttrooper!  Hell, I'm 33 years old, and most of my friends are reading the entire series!  My wife read book 5 last month, but since I left off at #2, I've got some catching up to do...  But everyone's reading the HP books - kids, adults, and everybody in between!

I remember being a little surprised about it when I first heard my best friend read the first one.  I asked why the heck he was reading a kid's book?!  But then, one by one (including my wife), everyone I knew was reading each and every one of them as soon as they were released.  Fun reading (and movies) with this boy wizard!  Very Star Wars-esque, as far as the overall story arc...   8)

So enjoy your book!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scouttrooper on August 2, 2003, 06:06 PM
So thats what they say. Quoting X-men 2 for some reason.  ;D

Well I guess I you have shown me the light - I hope you enjoy the rest of the book Spuffy!  :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on August 3, 2003, 09:02 PM
Im working on obtaining a copy of The Savage Nation...thats my next read...Im a fan of Dr. Savages radio show, and I listen to it most every night if I can.

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 15, 2003, 10:08 AM
Finished On The Road last night, great book.  Definitely not for the kiddies but a very good story of Road Tripping, the 40's, Jazz, Friendship, Relationships.  Great Book...

Moving on to the Chronicles of Narnia  This one might take a few weeks ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on October 22, 2003, 12:14 PM
Tell me about it me, I am still reading Narnia, I am in the 5th Book (of the new Sequencing) The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.  Just about done with that and then Silver Chair and Final Battle to Go

So, my impressions so far is that I think Tolkein's critique of Lewis is fair.  He seems to have made the stories up as he went unlike the almost obsessive compulsive nature that Tolkein poured into Middle Earth.  The Biblical overtones are also very evident and I enjoy that part of the story very much.  

Great Books for children, Great Books for Adults...I recommend everyone read these especially if you are a fan of LOTR or Harry Potter

I am also very excited the LWATW is coming to the Silver Screen
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on October 22, 2003, 01:03 PM
I'm reading Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll From 1947 to 1977.
It's good stuff so far. I'm guessing by the title it ends with the rise and fall of punk and Elvis' death.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on December 2, 2003, 11:41 AM
Finished off Narnia a few weeks back and Grapes of Wrath last night.  I had never read Wrath and it is a true classic.  The dichotomies played throughout the book are amazing...you are repulsed and inspired by the whole ordeal.  Damn Okies


Anyway up next is Harry Potter 5 I believe if my wife can find where she put it, otherwise I have a Tale of Two Cities which I want to read (I have read little if any Dickens and want to see what the fuss was about)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on December 2, 2003, 02:03 PM
Waiting on a couple of paperback versions to get fired up (or Christmas):

Dark Tower V: Wolves of Calla (?) Stephen King is out in hardcover.  Might just re-read I-IV first.  

Blow Fly: Patriciap Cornwall is out in HC as well.  Probably wait out the paperback here as well.  Gotta love forensic entomology. ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on December 2, 2003, 03:56 PM
I don't have time to really get into anything too deep as far as following plot, so right now I'm reading 'Anger' by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on December 2, 2003, 07:30 PM
i'm still trudging through the new jedi order... almost done (about another 50 pages) with book 17  :o - force heretic 3:reunion, and then i have the last 2 books waiting for me. after that? i think i'm going to stop reading for awhile... i'm damn tired. i started reading vector prime (njo book 1) in late september and haven't stopped reading this damn njo series since.  ::)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jadesfire on December 2, 2003, 08:55 PM
I'm still working on "The Unifying Force".  I was hoping to go back and read Return of the King before the premier but I dont' think I'll get time. :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on December 2, 2003, 11:37 PM
I'm still working on "The Unifying Force".  I was hoping to go back and read Return of the King before the premier but I dont' think I'll get time. :-\

I was given the LOTR trilogy as a child.  completely ignored it and still haven't read them.  Missing all the spoilers for ROTK as best I can.  

I go into those movies completely blind for the most part (hey, how do you watch the movie? ba-da-bump ::))
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on December 6, 2003, 04:10 AM
Right now I'm reading:

The Starry Rift by James R. Tripptree

Lucky Starr & The Rings of Saturn by Asimov, which is so bad it's good

Mailman by J. Robert Lennon

Weapons & Warfare LOTR.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on December 6, 2003, 10:58 AM
Right now I'm reading:

Weapons & Warfare LOTR.


Same here.  Excellent book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 22, 2004, 04:35 PM
I finished Potter 5 a few weeks ago, its was good, not my favorite of the series so far but still good.  Harry was way too whiny and moody for my liking, it was a bit over the top.  

Currently I'm reading Tale of Two Cities which has been slow going and Contact based on a thread over at RS.  One of my favorite Books and Movies, its a great story...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on January 22, 2004, 04:45 PM
Um...dont know if we tackled this issue, but how about Magazine or comic book series?


Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 22, 2004, 04:46 PM
That's reading in my book
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on January 22, 2004, 04:48 PM
That's reading in my book

Haha, I get it...because you said reading...and book.  :P


Im reading Republic and I am entierly impressed.

Also reading March 2004 Toyfare Magazine!

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on January 22, 2004, 09:58 PM
the davinci code by dan brown - good book, i highly recommend it!! ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 22, 2004, 10:00 PM
I'm waiting for the paperback on that one, heard good things about it though
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on January 23, 2004, 07:26 AM
Book wise, The Unifying Force, the final book in the NJO series.

This week's comics were Daredevil, Outsiders, Hawkman, GIJoe and Transformers/GIJoe.

After TUF, I plan on reading The Hobbit.  I never read it, but after the movies and reading LOTR, I had to, so I picked it up.

Monthly magazines include Playboy, Maxim, FHM, Stuff, Golf and Wizard.

And I read the Boston Globe daily.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reconsgt on January 23, 2004, 09:06 AM
Well the current book on the end table is The Art of Raising a Puppy by the Monks of New Skete. I picked it up for Sue becasue she is  not used to having a pup running amuck in the house but I picked it up and am reading it. Not a bad book to look at if your into German Shepherds.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on January 23, 2004, 08:56 PM
Book wise, The Unifying Force, the final book in the NJO series.

i just finished reading that - along with the first 17 books - about a week ago. i waited till i got all of them and then just read them in succession... figured this was the best idea, since i would have forgotten what had happened in the past books if i read other stuff in between.

but, while i was busy reading all 18 of the njo books, i had other books piling up waiting to be read. so after i finish the davinci code, i have:

the wolves of the calla (dark tower part 5) by stephen king - i might just read the first 4 of those again as well first before starting this

lullaby by chuck palahniuk
diary by chuck palahniuk
welcome to the monkey house by kurt vonnegut
slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut
slippage by harlan ellison
angry candy by harlan ellison
troublemakers by harlan ellison

and a few others that i can't think of (and can't see from here, and don't feel like getting up  ;) )
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 23, 2004, 11:34 PM
Oooh some great ones there dave, I got hooked on Chuck last year, some great stuff, and there's always room for Vonnegut in my library, I have Cat's Cradle on my reread list, it'll happen soon
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on January 24, 2004, 12:30 AM
yeah, i've read all of chuck's other books, but i picked these two up during my "njo" period... so they go on the "to be read" list.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on January 25, 2004, 04:29 AM
I'm re-reading Lord of the Rings post-films, and that's a very fun/interesting experience.

I'm also reading How the Irish Saved Civilization by Thomas Cahill.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 26, 2004, 09:56 AM
Yeah I loved rereading LOTR after TTT and I might do it again soon...it was so great seeing the book come to life again, read the snippets of text they used in the movies, Minas Tirith was dead on for me description wise, it was almost uncanny
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on January 26, 2004, 02:00 PM
There's no writing in it, but I've been laughing my ass off at 'The Book of Bunny Suicides'. I was standing in line for a mocha at Barnes and Noble, saw this book, and have been laughing at it ever since.

Highly recommended for those afflicted with sick senses of humor. :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on January 26, 2004, 02:11 PM
The 12th Planet,Stairway to Heaven,and The Wars of Gods and man,are all superb!Infact,most of Sitchins are.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on February 25, 2004, 01:40 PM
Ever have books that are just impossible to read?  The first time I read Crime and Punishment I found it really hard to keep track of the characters and names (and nicknames) the second time went a ton better and it is one of my all time favorite books

Then I read Brothers Karamazov and just about died, it was a ton worse, I kept falling asleep 3 pages into it and though I slogged through, it was the hardest book to finish

So now I'm reading Tale of Two Cities having made a vow to at least check out Dickens, good story really so far but I suffer from the same falling asleep syndrome, it is impossible to read more than 10 pages at a time and at 400 pages total its going to be a long time before I can get on to more exciting fare :-\

I did read The DaVinci Code last Monday on my way down to Houston, great book, sort of reminded me of The Last Crusade though a little too much ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: smileyfaceguy on February 25, 2004, 02:47 PM
OCB, if I may be so bold as to make a recommendation, your avatar leads me to believe that you might enjoy Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman.  Best book I've read in a long time.  

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0743406567.01._PE20_PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743406567/qid=1077737787//ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-5755509-2670462?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)

 :)

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on February 25, 2004, 02:51 PM
Man, that book just lept to the top of my rather lengthy reading pile.  Recommendation taken smileyfaceguy :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on February 25, 2004, 03:01 PM
after finally finishing up the entire njo series (can you say 18 sw books in 6 months?) i just finished the dark tower book 1: the gunslinger, and am starting on dark tower book 2: drawing of the three... i picked up the newest book a while back while i was reading the njo series, but i wanted to go back and re-read the first 4 before i jumped into book 5. also just got the newest tim zahn/star wars book in the mail, so that's waiting till after book 5 is done.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on March 30, 2004, 12:29 PM
I finally finished Tale of Two Cities last week, took forever.  In the end I liked it!  Its so detailed and Dickens prose is pretty winded that it takes a really long time to get straight who is who and what is what.  Its a pretty good story, chock full of his take on the French Revolution (which seems a ton worse than I ever thought it was...)  This is all through Dickens English eyes though so the account is slanted to what he wants it to be.  I am really glad though that I ended up liking it, because I've read a couple of books that were the same long, hard reads and in the end I absolutely hated them...whew

So, I jumped right into Catch 22.  I like it so far, lots of characters (one of the most difficult things for me while reading is trying to keep track of who's who again, which is probably why back in the day I stopped reading LOTR the first time).  Lots of sarcasm almost in a Vonnegut type vein.  I'm really interested to see where this goes.

I have a bunch of books on my shelf waiting to be read:

Dune
Ulysses
One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest
LOTR
Fargo Rock City
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: smileyfaceguy on March 30, 2004, 02:47 PM
OCB,  

You have some long books ahead of you before you get to Fargo Rock City, so in case I'm not still alive around by the time you get to it, I'll just tell you now:  I'm glad you liked it.

 ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Lemon-Viper on March 30, 2004, 06:58 PM
Just finished reading Heir to the Empire for the second time.  I'm starting Dark Force Rising  now.  I've read the series when it first came out and need a refresher, plus I havn't been able to find much else I want to read recently...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on March 30, 2004, 07:03 PM
Sun Tzu's Art of War, again.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Lemon-Viper on March 30, 2004, 07:21 PM
My brother-in-law just got done with that one.  He said it was really good but his copy had some dude's interpretations of Sun Tzu's writings (that he didn't agree with) in between paragraphs.  
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on March 30, 2004, 07:34 PM
Yeah, I belive I have the same copy as him, the interpritations can be pretty good at times, while others just seem kinda off.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Thomas Grey on April 3, 2004, 01:15 PM
I don't really have much time to read lately...

I read a ton of comic books and occupational related texts (art teacher), but haven't sat down a read a good novel for a while... The latest 'Dark Tower' by Stephen King is next on my list though.

Here are some recommendations:

- 'Ender's Game' by Orson Scott Card
- 'Don't Worry He Won't Get Far On Foot' by John Callahan!!!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on April 3, 2004, 08:15 PM
Right now:

Around the World in 80 Days
Foundation (Asimov)

I've been on a bug Sci-fi classics binge lately.  Hmm.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on April 3, 2004, 11:33 PM
Currently digging on Flowers in the Dustbin: The Rise of Rock and Roll 1947-1977.

I started it one night, fell asleep, dropped the book, and lost my place. Now I'm going back at it.

After this, I'm reading The Picture of Dorian Gray.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jediknight760071 on April 4, 2004, 04:01 AM
I am reading Romeo And Juliet (Yuck), House on Mango Street (so so), and X-Wing: Isard's Revenge(Awesome).

I;m glad I';m reading though...a year ao I wouldn't be caught dead with a book. :)
Title: The Sibling Society
Post by: Deanpaul on April 5, 2004, 10:49 PM
I'm reading The Sibling Society by Robert Bly. Some of the stuff he writes about our society and the effect of social movements like feminism really resonate with me. Especially the bits from Iron John about the 50's male archetype, a mummified non-feeling do-no-wrong father-knows-best ideal and how the world and our children suffer because of it.

I especially like the way he includes old stories and mythology as support for his thesis. He uses a really old version of Jack and the Beanstalk in The Sibling Society. It's fascinating, and I'd never given the story much deep thought.

Anyone know who is missing in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on May 20, 2004, 02:36 PM
Just about finished with Catch-22, its a great book, really is a classic and I recommend people read it.  I looked to see if there was a movie of said book and there was a Star-Studded one filmed in the Early 70's.  I might have to check that out too.

Of particular interest to me is that my Grandfather fought in Italy in WWII (the time and setting of the book) so the scenes that are described make me even more interested in what good ole Gramps saw and did when he was over there.

I do like Catch better than Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, both are similar in the time period and biting war commentary.  I like both just fine I just prefer the realism of Catch to the Fantasy of Five.  

I'm thinking I'll try Dune next
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 20, 2004, 02:40 PM
Books I'm reading right now ->

The Bible
The Iliad

Two books that will take me about half of my life to finish, and unfortunately, it'll take the other half for me to understand it all.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on May 20, 2004, 03:03 PM
I started reading "Angels and Demons" by that "DaVinci Code" guy, so I'll probably read that one after "A&D".

My wife read both and finally talked me into taking a break from the NJO and old books I read (Camus, Vonnegut, Steinbeck, etc), so I decided to read them.

We'll see how it goes...

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on May 20, 2004, 06:51 PM
Ishmael by Daniel Quinn.

It really makes me question this obsessive collecting thing, plus the cost society pays for civilization. Is it worth it?

You want Quinn to tell you how to save the world.
Title: Re: The Sibling Society
Post by: Deanpaul on May 20, 2004, 07:00 PM
I'm reading The Sibling Society by Robert Bly. Some of the stuff he writes about our society and the effect of social movements like feminism really resonate with me. Especially the bits from Iron John about the 50's male archetype, a mummified non-feeling do-no-wrong father-knows-best ideal and how the world and our children suffer because of it.

I especially like the way he includes old stories and mythology as support for his thesis. He uses a really old version of Jack and the Beanstalk in The Sibling Society. It's fascinating, and I'd never given the story much deep thought.

Anyone know who is missing in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk?

I dunno Deanpaul, Jack's father?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on May 22, 2004, 10:50 AM
i'm currently reading  ring by koji suzuki (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932234004/qid=1085237161/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/102-3251594-4935307) - and i only have like 40 pages to go, so i'll be starting the sequel spiral (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1932234063/qid=1085237161/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_2/102-3251594-4935307) later today or tomorrow. and yes, ring is the book that the movie(s) are based on, but it is very different. and much better. like, did you know that in the book sadako is a hermaphrodite  :o

i also have battle royale (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/156931778X/ref=pd_bxgy_text_1/102-3251594-4935307?v=glance&s=books&st=*) waiting for me to read as well. another kick ass japanese film, but this book promises to be better as well... the books usually are.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on May 23, 2004, 10:16 PM
wow, i can't remember the last time i was so engrossed in a book (or books as the case is here) that i just couldn't stop reading them. i read thru all 282 pages of ring and 281 pages of spiral in just over 2 days. i would definitely recommend them to anyone who enjoyed the movie. while the movie isn't taken from these books word for word (what movie is) the book really does flesh out the story, although it kind of contradicts the movie (but the book's explanation and theories about the whole thing are better) and the sequel was an equally good read. recommended  ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Pistol Pete on May 24, 2004, 10:24 AM
DiVinci Code  great book, lovin every minute of it so far
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on May 24, 2004, 11:07 AM
Finished Catch-22 the other night and started in on Dune.  I've seen snippets of the movie over the years and finally decided I needed to read what many say LOTR is to Fantasy as Dune is to SciFi

Seems about as detailed as LOTR is so far which was the hardest thing about LOTR, might be one I need to reread in a few months
Title: Re: The Sibling Society
Post by: Thomas Grey on May 24, 2004, 02:06 PM
I'm reading The Sibling Society by Robert Bly. Some of the stuff he writes about our society and the effect of social movements like feminism really resonate with me. Especially the bits from Iron John about the 50's male archetype, a mummified non-feeling do-no-wrong father-knows-best ideal and how the world and our children suffer because of it.

I especially like the way he includes old stories and mythology as support for his thesis. He uses a really old version of Jack and the Beanstalk in The Sibling Society. It's fascinating, and I'd never given the story much deep thought.

Anyone know who is missing in the story of Jack and the Beanstalk?

To which you answered, "I dunno DEANPAUL Jack's father?"

I appreciate your interest in archetypes and Robert Bly's methodical and anylitical (and sometimes to a fault) breakdown of specific tales as they apply to a specific genre/era. I too have read/digested 'Iron John' and thought it to be quite enlightening and interesting. I think when one reads books such as these, one brings their own experiences to the table. It is inevitable that one also relates these experiences to writings like this. As far as it's scholarly or educational value is concerned, 'Iron John' is apt to stir up some good debate and conversation. I related a lot of it to my life when I read it and it helped me see things differently. It was a very personal experience for me when I read it and it's cool to know there are other's that appreciate Bly's work.

Sorry I did not chime in on the Jack question. I missed it, but I knew it. I used to take a course in Fairy Tale analysis form a Jungian perspective and Jack and the Beanstalk was the first tale the group looked at. I was the only male voice and wwhenever I spoke of my insights or observations, the women in the group (all of which were mothers, and I was early 20's) were very attentive and probed me for answers to their own mother/son complexes.

I assume you also have read books by Joseph Campbell ("The Power of Myth"). His insights and knowledge on historical archetypes was scary. Very good stuff, but not quite as personal as Bly. Bly reads a little less like a textbook in some cases. The books where he is interviewed are more personal and amazing.

I also recommend 2 books I believe are called 'He' and 'She' (can't place the author right now). They are short and sweet, but very enlightening and informative about male/female roles as archetypes and how it applies to reality. C. S. Lewis wrote a book called 'Til We Have Faces' which is fiction, but traces the hero's journey in a text book manner. It is great.

I'm not sure why the 'father' complex and absence in Jack would be important for you. We all have our favorites and those that apply profoundly to our lives. My personal favorite is a Grimm's Fairy Tale called 'The Golden Bird' in it's original form. It just speaks to me in so many ways.

Finally, parents in Fairy Tales usually are missing, dead or overbearing to make up for the absence of another. But you can't have a hero with parents. Look at any classic hero and somebody that is a parent or parental figure usually dies or is already dead. Why do you think that is?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 4, 2004, 12:40 PM
Man oh man, if you have never read Dune, you need to.  Been just itching to get back to the book every night its that good...one of the best books I've read in a long long time and its a shame I've neglected it for so long

I can definitely see parts of SW in this book...Lucas is a supposed sponge and the little things he picked up from what I have read so far is pretty obvious...Desert Planet, prophecies, miliatary, sand crawlers, Messiahs, Emperors, water farmers etc  I think he "borrowed" a lot more than people realize...

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 4, 2004, 12:42 PM
Do me a favor too...if you haven't read Dune yet and are a big fan of the EU schlock fests, check out Dune, I think you'll be more than happy you did...can't say it enough how great it is
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on June 4, 2004, 08:24 PM
I just finished the fifth Harry Potter last night.  I plan on starting The Rebel by Camus tomorrow.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediKnight87 on June 4, 2004, 11:37 PM
Right now I'm reading the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 4, 2004, 11:38 PM
Right now I'm reading the Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Awesome book, one of my all time favorites
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Dark_Kanos on June 15, 2004, 01:41 PM
Black Fleet Chrisis Book 1 Before The Storm! I have read all but 105 pages and it is barf! I like the author but this one stinks! Thumbs down so far! I kept count of all the new characters I had never heard of and it is up to fifteen right now >:(
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Durge on June 15, 2004, 01:46 PM
I'm currently reading the DaVinci Code. This book is so damn good! :o
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 15, 2004, 01:47 PM
I'm about halfway through Dune...AMAZING!  I'll start a thread on it whence I am done because I think it deserves one.  If someone else wants to feel free.  I also want to check out both Movies (the original and the SciFi Mini Series that was done) after I am done reading.  VEry much an imagination type book...

I think LOTR is the perfect adaptation of novel to screen and there are parts of the movies that are literally ripped from my brain, even though the Dune movies get panned I still want to see them
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 6, 2004, 01:48 PM
Finished Dune a couple of nights ago...great book, great, great book.  Loved every minute of it. And I went and picked up the sequels as well

I started reading One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest a couple of nights ago.  I've seen the movie a couple of times but have never read the book.  
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on July 6, 2004, 10:36 PM
currently reading "i, lucifer" by glen duncan. it's a very interesting book, very funny. basically, god offers the devil a deal: come to earth and take over the body of a poor soul who has just committed suicide, stay out of trouble for one month in this body, and gain re-entry into heaven. but the story is told as a confession by lucifer himself, almost like an autobiography. great read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 6, 2004, 10:40 PM
currently reading "i, lucifer" by glen duncan. it's a very interesting book, very funny. basically, god offers the devil a deal: come to earth and take over the body of a poor soul who has just committed suicide, stay out of trouble for one month in this body, and gain re-entry into heaven. but the story is told as a confession by lucifer himself, almost like an autobiography. great read.
Pleased to meet ya, hope you guess my name.  But what's troublin' you is the nature, of my game
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Fett_Solo on July 6, 2004, 10:52 PM
Finished Children of Dune on Sunday. Finished Artemis Fowl:The Eternity Code yesterday morning. Currently reading God Emperor of Dune and The Odyssey.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on July 20, 2004, 11:27 AM
Just finished re-reading all the Harry Potter books, now I thought I'd go back and re-read Shadows of the Empire...

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 20, 2004, 11:34 AM
I'm Reading One FLew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, great book, great movie, great all around

I really haven't read a bad book lately...

I picked up a bunch of used books at Half Priced Books, the rest of the Dune books, It (having never read King) and A Game of Thrones (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553573403/ref=sib_rdr_dp/104-5253445-5186355?%5Fencoding=UTF8&no=283155&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&st=books) Which I have heard many people say is just as good, if not better than LOTR.  Might be a while before I get there though
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on July 28, 2004, 07:44 PM
last night i started reading "akira" by katsuhiro otomo. technically, a graphic novel - or novels, i should say - this was released by dark horse comics as six "phone book" size paperbacks, totalling over 2000 pages - 2184 to be exact.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 16, 2004, 12:21 AM
Finished Cuckoo's Nest a few days ago, great book, good use of narration (all of the psychoctic episodes to boot), wonderful villian in Nurse Ratched, I couldn't help but read the part of McMurphy as Jack, its hard not to do.

Right now I'm reading Brave New World, lving every page of it, fits in of my love of future sci-fi gone bad.  Its like 1984 but different...I've read 1984 and Clockwork Orange (sort of along the same lines) and I think this may be my favorite of the three

Just glancing over at my bookshelf...here's what's up next

Dune Messiah
Ulysses
It
A Game of Thrones (read a bunch of rave reviews on Amazon about this, one of their recommendations for me so I bought it)
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune

I figure that should get me to next summer :-X  Brave New World is fairly short so I should be back to Arrakis fairly soon here :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on August 16, 2004, 12:04 PM
Just finished re-reading all the Harry Potter books, now I thought I'd go back and re-read Shadows of the Empire...

Jeff

Finished SotE, then read the Clone Wars MedStar book that just came out on paperback.  Kind of like ER with Star Wars, Jedi, and Clones thrown in.  Very good little book.  Not the best, but it occupied my time on the plane to and from Boston.

Next up, I'm working on "Mystic River".  Haven't quite started it yet because my wife has about 40 pages left to go, but she should finish it up tonight, then I can start to read it.  (I never saw the movie, so it should be all new to me).

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: SPIDERLEGS on August 20, 2004, 09:03 AM
A friend of mine, James Grant, just had his first novel published: Pedestrian Wolves (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1894815149/qid=1092163709/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-3843595-5538359?v=glance&s=books&n=507846#product-details). He's got a dry, sardonic style some of you guys might dig...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Revenge on August 20, 2004, 01:02 PM
He's got a dry, sardonic style some of you guys might dig...

Just like the greasy faced teenagers working at my local McDonalds. And I don't have to give them 18 dollars to be that way.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: SPIDERLEGS on August 20, 2004, 04:16 PM
Yeah, but he speaks English and can conjugate a sentence correctly. Let's see your fancy-pants McDonald's teen do that!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on September 8, 2004, 04:17 PM
Finished up Brave New World, classic, 'nuff said.  On to Dune Messiah, great read so far and I'm enjoying it very much.  Got lots of books ready for the winter coming up...I eventually want to revisit Middle Earth as well
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on September 8, 2004, 05:11 PM
I've been reading J.L. Bournes Day By Day Armageddon. Fantastic book, and I hear the sequale is setting up to be fantastic.

Kevin

Gonna start some UFO book over vacation while in North Carolina.

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Hemish on September 9, 2004, 12:26 AM
Magician
Again, for some reason thats hard to explain i just love it that and Edding's Belgarion series
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: HWR on September 10, 2004, 01:50 PM
Just finnished a really old novel from 1895, about the evil mastermind Dr. Nikola, who has inspired to newer villains such as Ernst Stravo Blofeld and Fu Manchu.

Next:
Isac Asimov : The Gods Themselves

I really have a lot of books waiting to be read, mustly sci-fi, crimes, adventures, World War II novels and tha kinda stuff, but also classics by eg. Ernest Hemmingway.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on October 5, 2004, 04:14 PM
Currently Reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.  Got a recommendation on this one somewhere, can't remember where exactly.  Written not too long ago its a Fantasy Novel that weighs in around 800 pages long.  Deeply complex with lots of different Kingdoms and Rulers and Factions.  Lots of stuff going on but very much enjoyable. 

I've read reviews saying that GoT is the Modern Day LOTR and instead of everyone copying the Quest Saga of LOTR (ala the Wheel of Time series), they will be doing Game of Thrones knock offs.  BTW, there are 4 total chapters so far of a planned 6.  I recommend checking it out
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 16, 2004, 12:11 PM
Currently Reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin.  Got a recommendation on this one somewhere, can't remember where exactly.  Written not too long ago its a Fantasy Novel that weighs in around 800 pages long.  Deeply complex with lots of different Kingdoms and Rulers and Factions.  Lots of stuff going on but very much enjoyable. 

I've read reviews saying that GoT is the Modern Day LOTR and instead of everyone copying the Quest Saga of LOTR (ala the Wheel of Time series), they will be doing Game of Thrones knock offs.  BTW, there are 4 total chapters so far of a planned 6.  I recommend checking it out
I'm on page 700 or so, so I'm almost done...and now I highly recommend checking this book series out.  I've never read something so interesting and greatly interwoven.

Short synopsis:  There is an old kingdom made up of 7 different lands.  A King rules them all and of course there will always be a power struggle of which one of the 7 rules the Kingdom.  To the far north a giant 40 foot Ice wall protects the kingdom from magical "others" who live beyond it.  Across the sea an exiled daughter of the former king is married to a tribal warlord who has an army of horse riders that can lay claim to the throne

So there is the plots within the kingdom, the threat to the north and the threat across the sea.  All of which have their own subplots and characters.

An absolutely awesome book...I can't recommend it enough

(http://members.aol.com/misuly/gameofthronesp.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on November 16, 2004, 01:23 PM
I'm reading Angels and Demons.

Very fun.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: C on November 16, 2004, 01:27 PM
rockin' through Paradise by Toni Morrison, Great Expectations by Dickens (for the umpteenth time) and Ulysses by Joyce.

all school-related and all enjoyable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Shannon (Princess) on November 16, 2004, 11:29 PM
I'm reading "Starship Troopers", it better get exciting fast before I put it back on the shelf.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on November 17, 2004, 10:27 PM
I'm reading Angels and Demons.

Very fun.

Is about those two things, or somthing else?

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on November 18, 2004, 09:51 AM
I just dove into Clive Barker's "Books of Blood" again. I read these a while back, and they are great.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on November 23, 2004, 01:49 PM
I'm on page 700 or so, so I'm almost done...and now I highly recommend checking this book series out.  I've never read something so interesting and greatly interwoven.

(http://members.aol.com/misuly/gameofthronesp.jpg)

I picked up this book at B-&-N last night.  I was preusing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section when I came across it.  I remembered Scott's (http://www.jedidefender.com/yabbse/Themes/classic/images/post/thumbup.gif), so I decided to give it a whirl.

Should have some good hours this weekend to dig into it... if it sucks, you owe me $7.99 plus tax.

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 23, 2004, 01:50 PM
It doesn't suck...I have about 50 pages left, great, great, great, great book
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on November 23, 2004, 04:00 PM
Just finished Angels and Demons - I'm going to start Choke later this week - to see what the big deal is.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 23, 2004, 04:03 PM
I liked Choke, probably my 2nd fav of Chuck's books, its a crazy story :)  Fight Club is still the best
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on November 23, 2004, 06:37 PM
Yeah, I think Choke was my 2nd fav behind Fight Club as well. But I like all of this books, they were all great reads.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on November 23, 2004, 10:07 PM
I'm going to third that Choke is my second favorite Chuck book. Invisible Monsters is my third favorite.

Oddly enough I'm reading Chuck's Stranger Than Fiction right now, which has some pretty fun (and insightful) stories in it.

I have a copy of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell sitting on my nightstand right now just begging me to open it up and start reading, but I've been to lazy to start it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on November 23, 2004, 10:37 PM
I consider myself a reasonably avid reader - and I'm starting to think I'm the only person left who hasn't read any of his books...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 23, 2004, 10:40 PM
I've read 4...Fight Club, Choke, Survivor and Invisible Monsters.  I think I read them one after another and have sort of taken a break...

I'm serious though about Game of Thrones...its fantastic

Check out the Amazon Reviews Although Don't Read too deep due to SPOILERS (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0553573403/qid=1101267599/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/104-6538291-1007963?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on November 23, 2004, 11:19 PM
I've read 4...Fight Club, Choke, Survivor and Invisible Monsters.  I think I read them one after another and have sort of taken a break...

Any reason why you skipped Lullabye? Funny that you did, because I think it's his weakest, and my personal least fav of his books. It was an okay story and concept, but it just doesn't live up to the rest of his novels.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on November 23, 2004, 11:35 PM
Lullaby was a decent book, but definitely one of his weaker efforts. I'd have to say my personal least fave would be Diary.


Looking back now, I've read pretty much everything he's written. I was looking at the new Crichton book today at work, State of Fear, and I'm thinking I'll probably pick it up. It streets on Dec. 1, but one of the cool perks of my job is seeing stuff early.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 24, 2004, 12:04 AM
I think because at the time I got a list of recommendations at GH (might have even been from Jamie) and those were the 4 I was told to read

New Crichton too!  Dang.  I've liked his last two (Prey and Timeline) a lot more than Airframe and The Lost World.  I still think people who though Jurrassic Park was cool are doing a diservice to the franchise but not reading the vastly superior Novel

In my reading I get on weird little kicks where I'll just go on long runs of reading the same author or genre.  I've read 3 Dune books this year or I read like 8 Carl Sagan books 3 years ago.  2 Years ago I read as much Hemingway as I could find.  When I was younger I read every Crichton and Clancy and Grisham there was for like 2 years.  I'm weird like that. 

But I just love to read, its one of the best things in the world to do because there is so much cool stuff to learn and experience and think about.  I hope my sons are in to it as much as I am, we read to Max every night and have for a long time. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on November 24, 2004, 12:17 AM
I still think people who though Jurrassic Park was cool are doing a diservice to the franchise but not reading the vastly superior Novel

I loved the first Jurrassic Park novel. I also (unfortunately) read the 2 sequels, and thought both were very forced. It just seemed like someone at the movie studio told him he had to write a sequel or two so that they could make a few more films out of them. I think they both pretty much sucked.

Quote
In my reading I get on weird little kicks where I'll just go on long runs of reading the same author or genre.  I've read 3 Dune books this year or I read like 8 Carl Sagan books 3 years ago.  2 Years ago I read as much Hemingway as I could find.  When I was younger I read every Crichton and Clancy and Grisham there was for like 2 years.  I'm weird like that. 

Yeah, I definitely get on kicks like that myself. Like right now - I'm going through a bunch of Clive Barkers stuff... Books of Blood, Damnation Game, Cabal, Hellbound Heart, and a few others I have lined up already. And sometimes when I get on these kicks, I go back and read lots of older stuff, while I have a bunch of new, unread books sitting here waiting to be read. I probably have at least the last 4 or 5 of the SW Clone Wars books just sitting here, waiting to be started. But I'm way more into the horror kick right now, and I know that if I switch gears to the SW stuff I'm just not going to enjoy it at this moment.

Quote
But I just love to read, its one of the best things in the world to do because there is so much cool stuff to learn and experience and think about.  I hope my sons are in to it as much as I am, we read to Max every night and have for a long time. 

That's great. My parents read to me when I was growing up, and it had a huge impact on me picking up books on my own. Of course, because of that, I have bookcases and bookcases filled with books, because I have a real hard time getting rid of any. I read them and save them. Sometimes I lend them out, but I never throw them away or give them away.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on December 2, 2004, 02:02 PM
(http://members.aol.com/misuly/gameofthronesp.jpg)

I picked up this book at B-&-N last night.  I was preusing the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section when I came across it.  I remembered Scott's (http://www.jedidefender.com/yabbse/Themes/classic/images/post/thumbup.gif), so I decided to give it a whirl.

Should have some good hours this weekend to dig into it... if it sucks, you owe me $7.99 plus tax.

I think you're off the hook...

250+ pages into it and it's a great read.  Absolutely fantastic so far, I couldn't believe how quickly was I was sucked into the Seven Kingdoms.  :o  Scandal, Betrayal, Murder, Wolves, woo-hoo!

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on December 2, 2004, 02:04 PM
Sweet!  I asked my wife for the next two books for Christmas and I'm actually mad I have to take this mini break...the fourth book is also coming out by the end of the year.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Bob Crane on December 2, 2004, 04:02 PM
Halfway into this one-

(http://www.choosebooks.com/users/user_2738/images/006099.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on December 2, 2004, 04:44 PM
Working on Yoda - Dark Rendezvous right now.

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0345463099.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Right after I finish that I'm onto

When Will Jesus Bring The Porkchops? by George Carlin

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1401301347.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 13, 2005, 10:41 AM
(http://www.arrakis.co.uk/jpg/child1l.jpg)

Just finished Children of Dune.  Yeah...Sci-Fi at its finest, a true masterwork.  Again, instead of reading the latest EU book, pick up a cheap copy of Dune at the used bookstore. 

Last night started A Clash of Kings

(http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/clash.jpg)

 :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on January 13, 2005, 10:49 AM
Last night started A Clash of Kings

(http://www.sfsite.com/~silverag/clash.jpg)

 :)

Oooh... you will like it! 

Now we can finally resume our discussions on the happenings of the Stark Family.

Me?  I'm about 200 pages into this one:

(http://georgerrmartin.com/gallery/art/swords01-t.jpg)

I've had less time to read thanks to the busy Christmas season, but I've started up again in the last week...

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 13, 2005, 10:54 AM
Cool beans, I'll let you know in about 4 weeks what I think.  I won't be getting to Storm of Swords for a while, lots of stuff on the book backlog pile
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth Paul on January 13, 2005, 03:07 PM
I posted this at the BHC as well, but I recommend:

"A Complicated Kindness" by Miriam Toews.   A super book about a Lou Reed-loving Mennonite girl growing up in a small religious town in Manitoba.
"The Corporation" by Joel Bakan.  A damning portrait of corporate shenanigans and control in our society.   This is no Michael Mooore-style pop propoganda,  instead it is serious, intellectual examination.  Highly recommended.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on January 13, 2005, 09:51 PM
'Stupid White Men' by Michael Moore. It's kind of dated now, not to mention outright propoganda. I do find myself getting angrier as I read it, but the US government's likely been run this way since the Founding Fathers (depending on who you ask), and the country's still here.  :-\

Next, I'm going to read 'Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs' by Chuck Klostermann.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darby on January 13, 2005, 10:37 PM
I just finished Grendel by John Gardner, which is truly fantastic.  I highly recommend it.  Also some poetry, the Joss Whedon X-Men trade paperback (great) and now both a book about Mary Magdalene and #9 Dream by David Mitchell.

I'm also reading with much pleasure the novel of a friend of mine, and other fiction by other friends.  As for my own writing, it's always waiting, waiting, waiting.  Sigh.  Things are looking up though.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediMAC on April 14, 2005, 03:13 PM
Nothing right now, due to total lack of any free time whatsoever.  Meanwhile, my wife charges through about 3 books a week (some work, some play).

So, what's everyone else reading these days?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on April 14, 2005, 04:32 PM
Star Wars The Cetus Deception

I just started reading it on the can, last night.

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on April 14, 2005, 05:22 PM
I picked up the Episode 3 novel last week and it's been sitting here just daring me to read it. I just might have to. Soon.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: CHEWIE on April 14, 2005, 06:01 PM
Just started ROTS novel... so far, very good.

 :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Logray2776 on April 14, 2005, 08:38 PM
Currently reading Firestarter by Stephen King, also received my copy of ROTS novel today.



And of course i couldnt take it any longer so I started reading ROTS as well.


                                                            Claude
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Shannon (Princess) on April 14, 2005, 10:32 PM
I just finished "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and I'm now reading "I, Jedi"- but I'm not very far into it, and it's not grabbing me yet...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on April 14, 2005, 10:35 PM
I just finished "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and I'm now reading "I, Jedi"- but I'm not very far into it, and it's not grabbing me yet...


Stick with it, it was like that for me in the begining, but it gets really good. :)

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 15, 2005, 11:22 PM
Over the last two weeks I have finished A Clash of Kings (as stated in the Fire and Ice thread) as well as the ROTS Novelization

I should probably talk about the ROTS Novel in the movie or book thread because there were some points I was actually a little surprised to see that there was little to no mention of compared to what the trailers are showing.  Its weird actually

So, I just started Asimov's Foundation which is another source from which it is said SW was taken from.  I can see some of that, especially the city/planet capital and The Empire/Empire  I'm only a little way in to say more, but so far, its really good.  In fact I'm on quite a lucky streak for books lately, I have loved almost everything I have picked out (especially the Dune books at the Fire and Ice stuff)

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0553293354.01._AA400_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on April 16, 2005, 03:04 AM
I just started reading it on the can, last night.

Kevin

I like your style.  :)

As for me, I'm reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediKnight87 on April 16, 2005, 05:00 AM
I'm reading the Robotech Books right now. Good storyline!

Also reading Kaffir Boy by Mark Mathabane. Very powerful book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 16, 2005, 10:43 AM
I just started reading it on the can, last night.

Kevin

I like your style.  :)

As for me, I'm reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
I read that last year, I enjoyed it ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jesse James on April 16, 2005, 11:00 AM
I tore through The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings this past semester.  I finished ROTK just about a couple weeks ago over spring break, finishing my paper on the trilogy now...

Figure since this was bumped and I actually was reading something that wasn't a text, I'd chime in.

The Silmarillion was a rough book to start with I felt, and really kicked the semester off on a bad note.  I'm not fond of the style that Tolkien wrote it in, and I feel it's a little too close to reading the bible for my liking...  Other students were gung-ho on it, but not me.  I barely lagged through it, and really only found the final portion of it truly interesting.

The Hobbit's the easiest of the group of course, and one I already had read.  Still a great story, even if it's not the most complex, and a fun lead-in to a story riddled with themes and undertones... 

The Lord of the Rings is what it is...  Most in this thread have probably read it, and it's regarded by many as one of the modern-day classics.  I've gotten to see a lot of praise and criticism for this story though, and some interesting points of view.  I find often times critics are more offended at the thought of this story being compared to Shakespeare or Dickens rather than having objectively looked at the story for what it is.

It's a great read, difficult to pick everything up on the first go-through unless you have an inkling of the story, but not too difficult that the majority can't pick it up and get immersed in it.  Picking the story apart every week in analytical round-table discussion was a highlight while reading through all these books though.  Always great to sit aorund with fans and brain-storm.  The material's are involved so it's a lot of work, but it's been one of the more eye-opening experiences I've had in school (that didn't pertain to my dull major anyway).

Even Star Wars parallel's being drawn...  What a class. :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 16, 2005, 11:24 AM
I agree with all of your takes on all of the Middle Earth Books, Jesse.  I found the Silmarillion to be almost impossible to read.  Its good to read because it gives you a lot of insight in to the whole world but its a very difficult book.  Lots and lots of characters who are hard to keep straight.  Its an Epic and the ideas are familiar and yet its also foreign in a lot of ways

The Hobbit is a great book top to bottom and of the three is one that I will force my boys to read some day.  Its just so great, the Dwarves and Bilbo and all of their adventures.  I hope this one finally does become a movie because it would be great.

LOTR is amazing and probably my all time favorite book.  The thing with Rings is that you need to read it a few times to get everything.  Having these wonderful movies has helped a lot in visual connections as well.  I don't think its on par with Shakespeare or Dickens but it is one of the greatest works of our time.  The allegories put forth in all of the books is something often neglected.  Its sort of the same thing as Star Wars I guess in that both JRR and Lucas weren't intending anything to be a straight metaphor for our world to theirs.  More of similarities that you can draw inferences and make judgements on what is right and wrong. 

The thing that is so awesome with Middle Earth is the amazing amount of history and language that Tolkien created for the books.  The appendices are almost masterworks in and of themselves.  That is where LOTR exceeds Star Wars IMO, the details that he laid out make the story so much richer and real, rather than making it up as you go along and somehow making it all sort of fit in the end.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jesse James on April 16, 2005, 12:55 PM
I agree that LOTR does surpass Star Wars based on the incredibly intricate background to the Middle-Earth realm...  Tolkien put a lot more effort into creating a world than Lucas did, and for that Lucas will always play second fiddle.  He's let everyone else have a hand in formulating Star Wars as a "real" place, and that's fine too, but Lucas's effort just wasn't as determined as Tolkien's was...  I dont' think Lucas loved his work any less though, but it's just impossible to me to say that Tolkien didn't create something just incredibly more "deep" than Lucas.

I'd disagree that Tolkien isn't on par with the likes of Dickens though...  Shakespeare I maybe give more credit, but still I look at Tolkien's work and I think it's easily as thought-out, and it instills better feelings in me personally than any work I read that Dickens wrote.  To me those were torture to read for the most part, actually.  I can honestly say only a Christmas Carol ever really meant anything to me...  We actually were comparing the two and our prof (the school's English Dept. Head) really loathes Dickens so I maybe have some lingering bias after the class discussion.

I think it's great that your kids will read The Hobbit, Scott.  I read it in 6th grade actually, then watched the toon...  My reading teacher at the time had the class read it, and I was hooked.  It was the first book I read that I didn't feel it was a chore to me, as a child.

You'd have been burned at the stake for praising the LOTR movies though...  The class I was in bitched about them at every turn.  Honestly I thought they helped me visualize Orcs, etc., but from the prof on down, there was a lot of criticism of the films.

Personally, I think the films did the book justice though as well.  I think you can't expect the films to really draw things out like the books, and that changes to characters were necessary to keep the story moving.  As it stands, ROTK was tough for even avid movie-goers to sit through, what with its multiple endings...  I can't fathom the scouring being in there too.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on April 18, 2005, 10:50 AM
Ever read any of the "History of Middle Earth" books? From what I understand, they are the notebooks that J.R.R. wrote down all of his backstory and ideas in, and then after his death his children found them and published them. Remember how hard "Silmarillion" was to read? Picture that times ten. I picked up one or two of these, and started to read the first one, but it was like reading a history book. Very difficult to read. On one hand, very interesting, but on the other hand, very boring. If you know what I mean.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on April 19, 2005, 04:01 PM
Getting off the Middle Earth series, all of which I read the for the first time between the release of Fellowship and The Two Towers...

I just finshed reading 2061 for the second time and stated on 3001 for a second pass. I think I'm going to read the odessey series every couple of years. After 3001, I'll be reading Stephen King's: On Writing and then Dan Brown's Angels and Demons.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on April 20, 2005, 01:58 AM
I just started reading it on the can, last night.

Kevin

I like your style.  :)

As for me, I'm reading On The Road by Jack Kerouac.
I read that last year, I enjoyed it ;)

I'm liking the whole stream-of-conciousness flow. Reminds of James Joyce.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on April 20, 2005, 02:30 AM
I just finished Choke a few weeks ago... I'm reading whatever the latest NJO book I picked up is right now... then up next are The Dante Club and Lullaby.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Imperial Outpost on April 20, 2005, 02:07 PM
I'm halfway through the sixth book in Stephen King's Dark Tower series. I'm enjoying it, but I'm not sure whether I would recommend it to others - it's very odd!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 26, 2005, 11:58 PM
So, I just started Asimov's Foundation which is another source from which it is said SW was taken from.  I can see some of that, especially the city/planet capital and The Empire/Empire  I'm only a little way in to say more, but so far, its really good.  In fact I'm on quite a lucky streak for books lately, I have loved almost everything I have picked out (especially the Dune books at the Fire and Ice stuff)

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0553293354.01._AA400_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

I highly recommend Foundation to anyone.  Its really three-four short stories spread out over a lot of time but it all sort of deals with the same issue.  Neat ideas and a quick read.  You should be able to pick it up at a Used Book Store somewhere

I really think not reading DUNE and this is sort of a diservice to the Sci-Fi that Star Wars loosely took some parts of.  Especially DUNE, that one is a must read.

Right now, I am reading A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0375725784/qid=1114574020/sr=8-2/ref=pd_csp_2/104-6538291-1007963?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Dave Eggers, its OK, not sure why I bought it other than it looked good, we'll see where it goes from where I'm at right now, its a tad bit pretentious for me I guess.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Lady Jaye on April 27, 2005, 11:02 AM
I'm behind on the times, just started reading the DaVinci Code, picked it up this week.

I want to get back into reading books, and what a way to start, great book so far!!! Real captivating!!!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on April 27, 2005, 11:39 AM
I recently finished:

Patriot Reign about the 2001 to 2003 New England Patriots.  I suggest Colman read it.  It gives insite on how a winner is made  :P Volume II should be coming shortly.

Missing Links - pretty quick and humorous read about a group of golfers from a run down public course who make a bet to see who can play an elitist private course first.

Just finished Revenge of the Sith.  Won't spoil anything for those not wanting to be.

Next up - who the hell knows.  I got some Tom Clancy to read (Executive Orders on) and a bunch of books I got cheap from the discount racks at Border, B&N or Buck a Book.  Thinking about re-reading the entire Harry Potter series to gear up for June's release of HP and the Half Blood Prince
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on April 27, 2005, 12:57 PM
I re-read 3001 over a few days and got though the first 117 pages of Steven Kings On Writing yesterday.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Lady Jaye on April 29, 2005, 06:02 PM
Well started reading Tuesay and I am finished with Da Vince Code, I would have finished it yesterday, but was here with the, how was it that Mad Magazine put it, the usual gang of idiots!!!! ;D

Anyhow fantastic read, I probably could not have found a better book to begin my summer reading!!!! If you have not read it, believe the hype, it is that good!!! Highly, highly recommended!!! Now I plan to head to he bookstore to get Plot Against America, another book that seems to have intrigue and mystery all rolled into one. I might order it online instead.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on June 1, 2005, 11:49 PM
Finished Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and Foundation (which is AWESOME!) btw

I'm on to Storm of Swords from the Fire and Ice books...whee!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on August 22, 2005, 03:17 PM
Last week I picked up the Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe and started reading it.  I read it a LOOONG time ago when I was quite young, and don't really remember much of it, but I wanted to read it again before the movie in December.  Although I will admit I haven't read a lot of "book" books (not comics, TPBs) for a little while now, but this book is a quick read and very easy to follow along with, which I like.  I'm really enjoying it, and should finish it up this week easily (time permitting).  Nice to be reading some books again, and I'm glad I picked it up.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 22, 2005, 03:21 PM
I read my review of Narnia from a few years ago (page 3 or 4 I believe) and I think its still valid.  Lewis made up the stories as he went along (like G Lucas I guess) and so he had to make parts fit and go back in time and flesh things out.  Its a great work and in the end it is very well done, it was done a little haphazardly.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 22, 2005, 03:25 PM
As for me, I'm reading this:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0060528370.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Its sort of a look at American History from the groups that were most negatively effected by the events (the Common people and American Indians of the Revolution, the Women post Revolution, the Slaves in the Civil War etc)

Interesting look at History.  Definitely a different spin off the standard textbook High School history class
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on August 22, 2005, 03:50 PM
For leisure, I'm reading Children of the Jedi by Barbara Hambly.

Right now, I'm supposed to be reading the first two chapters out of my chemistry textbook. I think I've forgotten most of the stuff from my high school chemistry class, so this might be bad.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bobafett14 on August 22, 2005, 09:46 PM
Just bought the 2005 Official Price Guide to Star Wars Memorabillia by Jeremy Beckett.
   
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 22, 2005, 09:46 PM
Just bought the 2005 Official Price Guide to Star Wars Memorabillia by Jeremy Beckett.
   
How much are bootleg SW DVD's going for?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: john todd on August 23, 2005, 06:15 PM
i finished the davinci code a couple weeks ago and am working on angels and demons.   both are really good if you are not easily offended by very statistical and critical religious statements.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on August 23, 2005, 06:48 PM
Winston Churchill: A History of the English Speaking Peoples Volume.I
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bobafett14 on August 26, 2005, 12:02 AM
Just bought the 2005 Official Price Guide to Star Wars Memorabillia by Jeremy Beckett.
   
How much are bootleg SW DVD's going for?

Well, not sure about the book, but at the Pgh. toyshow a few weeks back, they were going for $10 apiece.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jesse James on August 26, 2005, 01:09 AM
Just bought the 2005 Official Price Guide to Star Wars Memorabillia by Jeremy Beckett.
   
How much are bootleg SW DVD's going for?

 :-X

I thought they were selling for more than that at the show Bob?  I was reluctant to get one of the fan-films cuz of the price.  Felt like a butt-reeming for a guy just copying ****.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bobafett14 on August 26, 2005, 10:51 PM
The fan-film DVD's were around $15, btu there was one dealer that had the bootlegs for $10ea. he also had war of the worlds, and something else.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jesse James on August 26, 2005, 11:08 PM
I'd like a copy of the fan-films...  Those are worth owning a set of I think.  I'm only a fan of bootleg stuff if it's the only way to get something (IE: ROTS early...  I'll still buy my copy come time though like everyone else. :) ).

I didn't see a guy with $10 DVD's, dunno how I missed that. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 27, 2005, 09:26 AM
Winston Churchill: A History of the English Speaking Peoples Volume.I

You're a brave soul reading Churchill.  Being a history major and teacher, I've wanted to read some of his stuff.  I sat down and tried to but it go so freakin' wordy I couldn't stand it. 

I'm about to pick up a new book, but I don't know what yet.  I just finished reading Splash One by Ivan Randall.  It's about the history of air to air jet combat.  Pretty good read if you're into that.  I've seen a book recently about Pararescue that I want to pick up.  I'm also reading through select chapters of a home buying guide.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bobafett14 on August 27, 2005, 02:31 PM
I like the fan-films too, I have about 4 or 5 fan film DVD's, and that ever-popular Turkish Star Wars, etc. etc.

Always cool to have in the SW "library"
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 27, 2005, 02:54 PM
Uh, that thing about the bootlegs was a joke.  Beckett was selling Bootleg DVDs on Rebelscum 2  years ago.  He got all pissed off at me when I pointed out it was against the site rules, Pappy Wise actually sided with me on that one and he stopped selling them
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: TheBlackDog65 on August 28, 2005, 12:51 AM
Reading Slave Counterpoint, about slavery prior to the civil war; A Glorious Cause by Middelkauph on the American Revolution, Lieut. Hornblower, Hatchett (my students are reading it so I have to stay ahead; its one I re-read every year); and then studying for my Praxius tests to move my teaching license to a level II license.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bobafett14 on August 28, 2005, 06:14 PM
Uh, that thing about the bootlegs was a joke.  Beckett was selling Bootleg DVDs on Rebelscum 2  years ago.  He got all pissed off at me when I pointed out it was against the site rules, Pappy Wise actually sided with me on that one and he stopped selling them

Gotcha, heh, I didn't pick up on that.  :^)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Ennis on August 30, 2005, 09:59 PM
I'm currently reading "I, Jedi" by Micheal Stackpole. So far I'm lovin it. I love the way he has woven Corran Horn's story into the events of the Jedi Academy Trilogy. So far its been brilliant. Coran Horn is quickly becoming one of my favorite characters.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on December 27, 2005, 02:23 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0553801503.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

I also read Eragon a few weeks ago.  Pretty good read for something written by a 15 year old.  Pretty formulaic in a LOTR and SW sense and I grew quickly tired of the overuse of his thesaraus.  But there is definitely some good imagination here and in the end I liked what he told.  So, I'd give it a chance if you dig fantasy

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0375826688.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on December 27, 2005, 02:24 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0553801503.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Oh... Santa left this one for me too!  Haven't cracked into it yet, but I think by the weekend I'll be able to revisit Westeros.   :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on March 16, 2006, 12:02 AM
Finished Feast for Crows a while ago, I then read the crap EU Darth Vader book

And now, I'm rereading LOTR for like the 4th time.  Although its my first time after seeing all the EE's and since I read the Silmarillion, so its a ton better again than the other 3 times I thought it was the greastest book of all time

It really is

Next up:  It will be a while, just about done with Fellowship :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on March 16, 2006, 10:23 AM
I've actually just started reading the Hobbit.  I've never read it, and was always interested, so I picked up a copy at Target and I'm digging in.  After that, I'd like to move onto the LOTR books, and see the "book versions" of the movies I enjoy.  I'm also considering going through the Harry Potter series next (haven't read those before either), but its tempting to just start with the next in the series (after the movies) first, but I should probably start from the beginning.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on March 16, 2006, 10:31 AM
  but its tempting to just start with the next in the series (after the movies) first, but I should probably start from the beginning.

I would advise against that.  There's a lot of back story that's not shown in the movies that's in the books, especially Goblet of Fire.  Starting with Order of the Phoenix could confuse you (plus it's not the best of the series).  Start at the beginning, you'll enjoy them more.  Besides, all the books are fairly quick reads anyways.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on March 16, 2006, 10:38 AM
That's kind of what I was thinking too Mikey.  I've heard the books have a lot more info than the movies, as is usually the case, and I didn't know if it would "match up" real well if I started in the middle of the book series.  I might have to start from the beginning.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on March 17, 2006, 10:01 AM
Just to be fair, and so you don't think you've been misled. . .books 1 and 2 are pretty darned close to the movies.   There are some things that are richer, and a little more history, but it may not be earthshaking.  Books 3 and 4 though. .. holy crap.  LOTS more information. 

Either way, they are really fun reads!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Madcow on March 18, 2006, 09:08 AM
Last book finished: "The Dead Zone" by Stephen King

Just started reading: "American Psycho" by Bret Easton Ellis
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on March 20, 2006, 01:54 AM
I'm most of the way through my second reading of Dune. First time I read it, I definitely thought it was a bit dense, but with the second pass, I'm absorbing so much more detail.  I'm going to start Dan Brown's Deception Point next. Funny story behind it. I bought it for my wife over a year ago and she lost it before reading it. Two days ago, it mysteriously reappeared and she read it in a day in a half. She said I'll love it.

On a side, yet related note, just today, I pulled HP and the Sorcerer's Stone off the shelf to give to my Daughter (who just turned 6) to read. She nearly made it through the first paragraph without any help (aside from names) so I think I'm going to help her read it all.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on May 13, 2006, 11:29 PM
Finished Feast for Crows a while ago, I then read the crap EU Darth Vader book

And now, I'm rereading LOTR for like the 4th time.  Although its my first time after seeing all the EE's and since I read the Silmarillion, so its a ton better again than the other 3 times I thought it was the greastest book of all time

It really is

Next up:  It will be a while, just about done with Fellowship :P

I am STILL reading LOTR.  In fact I just got to the 2nd half of TTT where the book goes back to Frodo and Sam and Gollum. 

Still pissed how they handled Saruman in the movie.  I know they probably couldn't do the Scouring of the Shire and stuff but they should have killed him off in the theatrical release at least.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jokabofe on May 13, 2006, 11:59 PM
I'm in a "holding pattern" of sorts, waiting for the next Star Wars series to start, so I started re-reading my William Gibson stuff. Currently I'm reading "All Tomorrow's Parties" which, while not one of his best, it's still pretty good.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on May 15, 2006, 05:07 PM
I'm just about halfway through "The Godfather Returns" by Winegardner.  Mostly takes place between the first 2 movies, and is a good read so far.  Lots of Fredo characterization.  I'll probably read DaVinci Code next.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 15, 2006, 06:45 PM
"Masters of Chaos"  It's a book about the Special Forces from the past 20 years.  A lot of their contributions have gone unnoticed...as they should be, but not unappreciated.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on May 15, 2006, 08:33 PM
The Stand by Stephen King.  My favorite novel of his.  I dust it off every couple of years and read it again.  I love revisiting some of the characters.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 15, 2006, 10:11 PM
I just finished Dan Brown's Deception Point. It was right up my ally and I read it in less than a week.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JesseVader08 on May 16, 2006, 12:36 AM
Sorry, I don't have the attention span to read anything longer than a magazine or newspaper.  :-\

Hell, I barely have the attention span to finish this post.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on May 16, 2006, 08:00 AM
Just finished this:

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1592287042.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Then I'm going to finish this:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/B000C4SQ46.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

And then I'm going to start this:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0451218396.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: mousedroid on May 16, 2006, 08:47 AM
I just finished Watership Down.  What a great novel.  It's right up there with LOTR if you ask me.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 16, 2006, 09:26 AM
I've always wanted to read Watership Down. Loved the animated film. I think you just put that on my must list.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nirvana on May 16, 2006, 11:22 AM
Just finished "Black Hawk Down", starting "Cyclops" by Clive Cussler.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: mousedroid on May 16, 2006, 11:35 AM
I've always wanted to read Watership Down. Loved the animated film. I think you just put that on my must list.

Cool!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on May 17, 2006, 01:42 PM
Mikey, State of Fear is an awesome book.

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 20, 2006, 12:17 PM
Watership Down is getting bumped for Death of a Salesman at the moment. :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on May 20, 2006, 02:26 PM
Faerie Tale by Raymond E. Feist.

Quite cliched, but it's still pretty enjoyable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on May 20, 2006, 02:50 PM
Last month: Samuel P. Huntington's 1996 The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

Currently: Some lame summer reading book for school
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt on May 25, 2006, 08:51 PM
I've been getting into the really-obscure, non-mainstream stuff lately.

For example, I'm currently reading Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and before that it was Harry Potter 6

Up next is Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil

Non-mainstream stuff.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on May 25, 2006, 10:38 PM
i'm ashamed of myself for not knowing about Biggest Brother. Thanks for mentioning it Mikey, I know what I'll be picking up at work tomorrow.

I just started this:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1594862443.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Upcoming:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1596911042.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Books I got at a conference this week and most likely will go straight to the bookshelf:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0262195372.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/1591841070.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: S_A_Longhorn on May 26, 2006, 10:02 AM
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0345442997.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: blaster_e11 on May 30, 2006, 07:40 AM
i'm currently two books :

one in French :

Dominique Strauss-Khan : 365 jours, journal contre le renoncement (365 days, a diary against renouncement)

the other in English
Carl Stiner and Tom Clancy : Shadow Warriors (i'm actually re-reading this one)


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on May 30, 2006, 05:04 PM
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1416505199.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Required reading for Kong fans.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on May 30, 2006, 06:09 PM
I read Invisible Monsters on the flight to NZ and started Survivor (Palahniuk, not the tv show) on the flight back.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on May 30, 2006, 06:10 PM
Long overdue Rob  >:(
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on June 11, 2006, 09:35 AM
(http://www.dccomics.com/media/covers/4096_450x600.jpg)

Not exactly a book, but oh bother...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jediknight760071 on June 11, 2006, 01:08 PM
Just finished reading Death of a Salesman and Our Town. Both were extraordinarily put together plays.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on July 9, 2006, 10:10 PM
I just read Death of a Salesman in the past month. Currently. I'm trying to get though William Gibson's Neuromancer. I gottat tell ya, I'm not to impressed.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Deanpaul on July 9, 2006, 10:47 PM
When you both read Death of a Salesman, did you picture Dustin Hoffman as Willie? I never saw Hoffman in the movie (or in the play), but when I read the play I imagine him playing the part.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on July 9, 2006, 10:52 PM
My copy had a picture of the original Willie, Biff and Happy from the play, so I pictured them. :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Deanpaul on July 10, 2006, 09:35 AM
I just went to Wikipedia and looke dup Death of a Salesman. I thought Hoffman played Willy in one of the restaged Broadway versions in the 80's, but it was just the TV version in 1985.

Did your copy have Fredric March on the cover?

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0f/Death_of_a_Salesman_-_Penguin_Plays_cover.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on July 10, 2006, 10:30 AM
I took everyone's advice here and started off from the beginning with the Harry Potter series last weekend.  I picked up a copy of the Sorceror's Stone and should finish it today (just the last chapter left).  I'm glad that I didn't just skip to the "book of the next movie" and started at the beginning like many of you recommended.  I really enjoyed this book, and there is a lot of different parts from the movie.  This is just my first one obviously, but I can see why these books are so popular.  It was definitely one I just wanted to keep reading.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on September 11, 2006, 11:03 AM
I'm reading Wicked, right now... it's so-so.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on September 11, 2006, 11:17 AM
Quote
I took everyone's advice here and started off from the beginning with the Harry Potter series last weekend.  I picked up a copy of the Sorceror's Stone and should finish it today (just the last chapter left).  I'm glad that I didn't just skip to the "book of the next movie" and started at the beginning like many of you recommended.  I really enjoyed this book, and there is a lot of different parts from the movie.  This is just my first one obviously, but I can see why these books are so popular.  It was definitely one I just wanted to keep reading.

I'm continuing the advice I was given here, and reading the HP series in order.  I just started the Goblet of Fire, and still really enjoying the books overall.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on September 11, 2006, 11:51 AM
I am just finishing The Count of Monte Cristo.  I have never read iteven though I wrote a book report about it in 9th grade.  I've always felt guilty about that, so to make amends, I tore through it.  Not bad, not my favorite classic though. 

I've been toying with rereading the Potter books, but may wait a little bit
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on September 11, 2006, 11:53 AM

Did your copy have Fredric March on the cover?


No, the actors name was Lee J. Cobb.

I just finished reading the Graphic Novel "Grease Monkey." I can't recommend it enough. I'm just starting on a collection of Robert Frost Poems.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on October 18, 2006, 10:22 PM
(http://www.thefestforbeatlesfans.com/pictures/6032.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 19, 2006, 12:40 AM
Not counting books for school....

(http://www.starwars.com/eu/lit/novel/img/20060331_bg.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on October 19, 2006, 09:40 AM
I'm actually jumping back and forth between three books:

Poems by Robert Frost
Magnificent Mars
A brief history of the Universe - Steven Hawkins
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: CanadianCollector on December 12, 2006, 01:10 PM
I read Next by Michael Crichton last night and what a read! 

This is one of the few books that I have not been able to put down, resulting in 4 hours of sleep last night.

Crichton's latest work deals with the ethics of genetic manipulation, as well as the legal implications of genetic research.

Unlike most novels that approach their plot in a direct manner, "Next" has several storylines that approach the topic obliquely before being unified (somewhat weakly) at the end. A note to the sceptics, if you didn't find any part of Jurassic Park believable, Next will stretch your sense of belief far beyond the breaking point.

Next dovetails nicely with Crichton's body of work pertaining to bio-engineering and remains topical. From "The Andromeda Strain" to "Prey", "State of Fear" and "Jurassic Park", Crichton's work continues to be speculative morality tales for the twenty first century.

-Michael
www.womprat.com
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on December 12, 2006, 01:12 PM
I recently started the Legacy of the Force series and I'm almost finished with the first book "Betrayal".

It's pretty good so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on December 12, 2006, 01:16 PM
I'm currently working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and really enjoying the series so far.  I'm glad everyone here advised me to start from the beginning of the series (and not to where the movies are so far), its been much more enjoyable this way.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on December 12, 2006, 02:32 PM
I opted for reading the Potter books again, I've read Stone, Chamber, Prisoner and I am just about done with Goblet of Fire.  Some interesting stuff I've picked up the second time through. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jediknight760071 on December 12, 2006, 04:25 PM
I've finished Kidnapped by Stevenson quite some time ago, and am now reading The Mayor of Casterbridge by Hardy, The Richest Man in Babylon by Clason, and Travels With Charley by Steinbeck. All three are great so far, but if I had to choose the most enjoyable and informative read, it would have to be Travels With Charley.

If you guys are curious about some of the classics, or just want to read a bit/all of something, I'd see if it's online, here (http://www.worldwideschool.org/library/catalogs/bysubject-top.html).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on December 14, 2006, 09:47 AM
I just started a Doctor Who novel called the Invincible Man. (Second Doctor)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bamaker on December 14, 2006, 09:57 AM
(http://us.penguingroup.com/static/covers/all/4/9/9780143036494H.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: S_A_Longhorn on December 14, 2006, 10:02 AM
Just finished Star Wars Republic Commando: Hard Contact, and have begun the sequel:

(http://www.forbiddenplanet.co.uk/images/D/D1394.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on December 14, 2006, 10:40 AM
I'm currently working on Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and really enjoying the series so far.

I opted for reading the Potter books again

Because I like to copy everything Brian and Scott do (or because I wanted to go through them one more time before the movie comes out next summer), I also started re-reading the HP books.  It's funny to go back and find little hints at future plot threads, intentional or not.  ;)

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on February 10, 2007, 01:30 PM
(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1563893428.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Famine on February 10, 2007, 01:40 PM
Make sure you read The Dark Knight Strikes Back after that one.

Kevin
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 10, 2007, 06:05 PM
(http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0520209354.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0664256392.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/P/0060783710.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Yay school. (http://cheesebuerger.de/images/smilie/haushalt/k026.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on February 10, 2007, 06:26 PM
I just finished Hannibal Rising.  Excellent book.

Although there's a point during the book you get a little creeped out because you realize you're rooting for the cannibalistic serial killer!  :o
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on February 10, 2007, 06:28 PM
I am reading A Connecticut yankee in King Arthur's Court and  The Crucible.  both these books being for school.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Artoo on February 10, 2007, 06:46 PM
Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Deanna Rash on February 10, 2007, 10:39 PM
Legacy of the Force:Betrayal :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 11, 2007, 08:30 AM
Finishe reading "John Adams" about a week ago and have no started to read "The Battalion" about the Army Rangers through WWII.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 15, 2007, 02:10 AM
(http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0834003503.01._SS500_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on March 15, 2007, 02:24 AM
I finished The Children of Men by PD James last week.

The book and movie very different. About the only things shared between the book and movie are characters and of course, the premise of a woman suddenly getting pregnant.

I don't think that subtracts from either one, though. They're both excellent, and quite honestly, if they made a faithful movie from this book, it would have been boring. The immigration issue was present in the book, but expanded and brought more up-to-date in the movie. (The book was published in 1992.)

I'm still chewing it over, but it was more of a study of one man's thought process in a future that really had no future, and then suddenly waking up from his malaise.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on March 15, 2007, 10:20 AM
now reading do androids dream of electric sheep.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on March 15, 2007, 10:54 AM
Finished the Potter books a few weeks ago, then I read an absolutely phenomenal book about Theodore Roosevelt...

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10360000/10362986.jpg)

It details the journey of Roosevelt down an uncharted Amazonian river after he was president.  It was a wonderfully interesting read

Right now...back to Dickens...

(http://www.achievement.org/library/bookcovers/DavidCoppe_0.jpg)

Never read it, so far, I like it a lot better than Tale of Two Cities
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks on March 15, 2007, 03:52 PM
I just got done reading "Hyperion" and "Fall of Hyperion" by Dan Simmons and now I'm on to the seqeul, "Enymion."  After I read "The Rise of Endymion" I'm thinking about reading the Harry Potter books.  I haven't read those before.

This is actually the third time I've read the "Hyperion" books and the second for "Endymion." 

   E...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on March 15, 2007, 04:15 PM
I've read these books the last few days...

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/7870000/7879136.jpg)

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/10400000/10408455.jpg)

These and a few other similar books have been the extent of my readings for the past few months...   :-[
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on March 15, 2007, 04:31 PM
I finished up the HP series a little while back as well (which I've really enjoyed, can't wait for the final book), and haven't really dug into another "book" yet.  I've been reading a couple TPBs (Secret Wars, Essential Spidey, Kraven's Last Hunt), so that's been taking up some time.  It really seems amazing how much dialogue those older comics have in them compared to most of what is out today.  I picked up the first book of the Han Solo Trilogy as well, but haven't started in on that yet.  I don't know if its any good, but I hope to start it this weekend if I have time and find out.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on March 15, 2007, 05:07 PM
(http://www.geocities.com/chaotic_superstring/stuff/books/9stories.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 15, 2007, 07:18 PM
I picked up the first book of the Han Solo Trilogy as well, but haven't started in on that yet.  I don't know if its any good, but I hope to start it this weekend if I have time and find out.

Which trilogy, the Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley or the Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin? They are both quite good though.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on March 16, 2007, 06:50 AM
Along the lines of what Jeff said, I've been having 2 to 3 helpings of this a day:

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/greeneggs.jpg)

with some of this on the side:

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/1fish.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on March 16, 2007, 09:50 AM
Quote
Which trilogy, the Han Solo Adventures by Brian Daley or the Han Solo Trilogy by A.C. Crispin? They are both quite good though.

The Crispin one, although I considered picking up the Daley one as well, as I've heard that is pretty good.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on April 26, 2007, 07:18 PM
(http://images.wikia.com/starwars/images/6/60/SplinteroftheMindsEye_PB.jpg)

Picked this up at Barnes & Noble today...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on May 2, 2007, 07:23 PM
I'm a good bit into The Two Towers (never read it before, yeah I know) and I recently read Da Vinci Code and the Marvel Essential book, Marvel Team-Up vol. 1.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 3, 2007, 10:45 AM
I hate doing this, but I'm working through two books right now.  The first one I started is Rommel and his war in the Desert.  Interesting because it was written by a German historian and does some bashing of Rommel and his reckless tactics in the desert.  Which after part of the way into it, I find myself agreeing with his ideas.

I'm also reading Dragon by Clive Cussler.  I first read one of his books about six months ago and it was a real page turner and I saw this sitting on the "borrow" shelf at church so thought I'd liberate it and take it for a spin.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on May 3, 2007, 10:12 PM
the catcher and the rye for an enlgish assignment (highschool) pool of fire (dont know the author) also for a school assignment. and two other star wars book, slave ship and one of the RC books. total of 4 at once...really really annoying...might also take in a 5 also for a school assignment. who would have ever thought grade 11 could be so nerve racking with books. :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 3, 2007, 11:49 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/517EHX9BZ1L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Trying to come up with a few pages on the Book of Daniel.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on May 4, 2007, 12:54 PM
reading to my son

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E34SQN0DL._AA240_.jpg)

browsing for myself

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/518AN69NV3L._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 9, 2007, 09:57 AM
I do my work at the Library (I don't work for he Library,) and occasionally pick up some of the free books they get rid of. I recently picked up and started reading a novel called "Alpha Centauri or Die!" by Leigh Brackett.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on July 5, 2007, 04:21 PM
The boys got this one for their birthday and I haven't been able to put it down.   :D

(http://www.jedidefender.com/jsmentek/junk/dangerous_book.jpg)

250+ pages of all the stuff we used to do as kids before the world got "safe-crazy".  This book has got it all -
- how to build a go-cart
- how to build a trip-wire
- how to skin a rabbit
- how to play chess, poker, coin sports, etc

and much, much more.  I can't wait until the guys get a little older and we start trying some of these things out.   :D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on July 5, 2007, 04:27 PM
Sounds like a fun book Jeff.  For me, I've been re-reading Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in preparation for the final book's release later this month.  I'm not sure if I'll have time to finish by then or not, with the new addition coming in the next week or so most likely.  Otherwise, its just been some comics here and there, if that counts as a "book" here :P.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jediknight760071 on July 5, 2007, 04:37 PM
(http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/38/549/554/0385495544.jpg)


It's a slow start, but basically the book covers 7 different aspects of Greek culture: The Warrior, Wanderer, Poet, Politician and Playwright, Philosopher, Artist, and the Greco-Roman Judeo-Christian connection. It also explains why those statues always look so ... small.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on July 5, 2007, 04:37 PM
The boys got this one for their birthday and I haven't been able to put it down.   :D

(http://www.jedidefender.com/jsmentek/junk/dangerous_book.jpg)

250+ pages of all the stuff we used to do as kids before the world got "safe-crazy".  This book has got it all -
- how to build a go-cart
- how to build a trip-wire
- how to skin a rabbit
- how to play chess, poker, coin sports, etc

and much, much more.  I can't wait until the guys get a little older and we start trying some of these things out.   :D

1.  Sounds like an awesome book -- I think I'll have to pick it up for my son's (or perhap's my husband's) birthday.

2.  Did you say the boys got it for their birthday?  I can't believe they are a year old already!?!  Please post 1st b-day pics in the appropriate thread :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Deanpaul on July 5, 2007, 04:53 PM
The boys got this one for their birthday and I haven't been able to put it down.   :D

(http://www.jedidefender.com/jsmentek/junk/dangerous_book.jpg)

250+ pages of all the stuff we used to do as kids before the world got "safe-crazy".  This book has got it all -
- how to build a go-cart
- how to build a trip-wire
- how to skin a rabbit
- how to play chess, poker, coin sports, etc

and much, much more.  I can't wait until the guys get a little older and we start trying some of these things out.   :D

I heard about this on NPR when it launched in the UK and loved the excerpts.  It wasn't launched in the US yet when they did the story, and the release date was months later.  I forgot about it until I saw your post - I definitely want to pick up a copy!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on July 5, 2007, 05:27 PM
2.  Did you say the boys got it for their birthday?  I can't believe they are a year old already!?!  Please post 1st b-day pics in the appropriate thread :)

Done. (http://www.jedidefender.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=11154.msg310729#msg310729)


I heard about this on NPR when it launched in the UK and loved the excerpts.  It wasn't launched in the US yet when they did the story, and the release date was months later.  I forgot about it until I saw your post - I definitely want to pick up a copy!

I had heard about it as well, but had forgotten about it too until my brother gave it to us.  It's a great read and filled full of many many cool things - war, animals, sports, and of course - danger.  :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on July 5, 2007, 06:46 PM
Picked up a free ST:TNG novel at the Library called A Rock and a Hard place. Reading it to pass the time until July 21st.

My neigbor is reading the Golden Compass series. After seeing the trailer, I may pick those up after I'm done with HP.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 5, 2007, 11:17 PM
I saw that there book at Target...looked f'n great!

I finally finished David f'n Copperfield.  What a long ass book, I just couldn't give up though.  In general I liked it, like most "classic" literature it was full of memorable characters and scenes.  I also really like the casual nature of Dickens writing and while long, it didn't ever bore me enough to quit. 

Right now I'm about 1/3 of the way through Hyperion (which I think I looked in to thanks to efranks a few pages back) I'm so enthralled with this book its not even funny.  Sort of like how much I f'n loved Ice and Fire the first few pages in to it that I was a maniac there for a while...I've already got the 4 Hyperion books and look forward to that over the next few weeks as a great time filler while I wait for HP7
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on July 12, 2007, 04:27 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YM6FHS69L._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on July 12, 2007, 06:53 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41nhIjkQjdL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on July 12, 2007, 09:33 PM
I've been alternating of late. Finished Niall Furgeson's brilliant "The War of the World: Twientieth Century Conflict and the descent of the West" a few weeks ago, am now reading Huxley's "Brave New World" (I've thus far been disappointed), Remnick's "Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire", and re-reading (for simple enjoyment) Peter Hopkirk's "The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia".

All rather good.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on July 13, 2007, 08:12 AM
About 100 pages into this

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41B854R8VSL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

and then I'll read this, sitting near a lake in Maine...

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41qTZcMasSL._AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on July 13, 2007, 08:44 AM
(http://www.triumphbooks.com/filebin/fixed_images/Fullsize/SearchingBobbyOrr300px_wi.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on July 13, 2007, 07:47 PM
I preordered the new Harry Potter just becuase i read the last one and am curious as to how its going to end. Never read any of the earlier ones just saw the movies.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 16, 2007, 08:04 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/1250000/1251235.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on July 16, 2007, 08:40 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/1250000/1251235.gif)

Great book! :) if you havent watched the movie and the mini series you should do so right after.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 16, 2007, 11:12 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/1250000/1251235.gif)
Agreed...one of my favorite books, it is wonderful science fiction
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on August 5, 2007, 01:33 PM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/78/Foundation_cover.jpg/349px-Foundation_cover.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Madcow on August 7, 2007, 10:33 AM
I'm currently reading: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. It's really interesting to learn the history of what happens to the human body after death and what really happens when a body is donated to science...

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on August 7, 2007, 11:54 AM
I'm currently reading: Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. It's really interesting to learn the history of what happens to the human body after death and what really happens when a body is donated to science...



Fantastic book.   One of my fave nonfics.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Oboewan on August 8, 2007, 04:55 PM
Just picked up Caverns of Socrates by Dennis L. McKiernan.   It's pretty awesome so far- basically, a bunch of folks developed an AI computer that they are testing by taking a known, award winning MMORPG team and sticking them in a Virtual Reality of the universe they played- the people become the characters they used to role play.   It's pretty deep in terms of discussions about the brain, neural functions, sentience, consciense, and morality and it is EXTREMELY well written!

Jeff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on August 16, 2007, 08:34 PM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/32/Rye_catcher.jpg)

Third time rereading it. Great book.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on August 16, 2007, 10:07 PM
I am in desperate need of a new read. Any suggestions?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on August 16, 2007, 10:38 PM
I am in desperate need of a new read. Any suggestions?

I would recommend Isaac Asimov's Foundation, which I just finished a couple days ago. But you've probably already read that.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Greg on August 17, 2007, 12:55 AM
I'm reading Black Hawk Down for the second time. Such a well written book with such vivid details and so much stuff to take in.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 17, 2007, 09:32 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/1250000/1251235.gif)
Agreed...one of my favorite books, it is wonderful science fiction


I've read it twice. It's one of my favorites as well. I've read the entire series, they're all amazing.

I'm currently reading another ST:TNG novel, Masks.

My 7 year old Daughter just finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone and immediately went into Chamber of Secrets.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 17, 2007, 11:23 AM
I just finished reading Jawbreaker about the CIA leading the attack  into A-stan after 9/11.  Really good book.

I'm reading Stephen Coonts "Liars and Thieves," but put it down to read the above and may put it back down to read "A Bloody Business" about PMC's in Iraq and the role they are playing.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on August 25, 2007, 08:16 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13410000/13417048.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks on August 25, 2007, 09:01 PM
Just picked up Caverns of Socrates by Dennis L. McKiernan.

Jeff

That's a really good book.  I read that a few years ago.  Have you read his Mithgar books?  Similar to the Hobbit and LOTR, at least in the Iron Tower trilogy, but really good books.

I am in desperate need of a new read. Any suggestions?

Have you ever read the "Hyperion" books by Dan Simmons?  If not, those are really good. 

I just finally started reading the "Harry Potter" books.  Already wrapped up the first two and I'm about half way into "Prisoner of Azkaban."

   E...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 30, 2007, 09:28 AM
I lieu of having to go out a buy a book, I just started reading a freebie I picked up at the library, the novelization of Outland. I like that I always have to have something the read now. Didn't always used to be that way.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 18, 2007, 06:01 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/41VtwyFjFNL._SS500_.jpg)

Of course it's for school (a little heavy for beach reading :P) but it's more interesting than it looks.

Also plugging away at:

(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Z7C4F4J3L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg) (http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/411U55Ot5YL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg) (http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/71S1FZ4SK0L._AA240_.gif)

That last one actually sucks a fair amount.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on September 18, 2007, 09:19 PM
(http://www.frescopictures.com/movies/ender/ender.jpg)

Fantastic book and series, its been a while since I read it...I just love the aspects of leadership and describing what Ender thinks what it is like to be a Commander....more than the Sci Fi aspect, which is still cool.  One thing that really struck me is how close Card nailed the whole internet thing 5-7 years before it really took off. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on September 19, 2007, 09:27 AM
Just picked up a copy of Michael Criton's Terminal Man, one of the few of his I haven't read yet.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: I Am Sith on September 19, 2007, 11:03 AM
(http://i43.photobucket.com/albums/e391/iamsith22/FoodandDrugLaw.jpg)

I'm going back to school for a Masters and this is my first class.  Not my normal idea of light reading, but I have no choice...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 28, 2007, 09:25 PM
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/518ZGT854JL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on September 28, 2007, 10:00 PM
Went book shopping on Sunday... New:
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13650000/13655906.JPG)
Used:
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BG0KASDKL._AA240_.jpg)
et
(http://ec1.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/77/11/fb8e7220eca076ab7d457010._AA240_.L.jpg)
And a ridiculous little book from 1947 on contemporary Near Eastern affairs, entitled: PAN ARABIA.

I'm reading the Tofflers' book and Cole's first. Thus far, interesting. I've adopted the Tofflerian First/Second/Third Wave dichotomy.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 28, 2007, 10:22 PM
Christ, that's your recreational reading? You sir are hard core.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on September 28, 2007, 10:43 PM
This 7th letter of the English alphabet don't play, son.  :-*
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: King_Maul on September 28, 2007, 11:00 PM
One of my collegues gave me The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho to read.  Not sure if she's trying to tell me something.   :)  I haven't gotten too far, but I just want to find out if Santiago ends up with the shop merchant's daughter!   ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 29, 2007, 08:41 PM
Just finished this:

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0451527402.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: MetalJedi on October 1, 2007, 01:35 PM
On Sunday I picked up:

(http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9iby4dYLwFHL1cA0DejzbkF/SIG=12d27p4ie/EXP=1191346392/**http%3A//www.evilavatar.com/images/thumbs/monsterisland.gif)

(http://rds.yahoo.com/_ylt=A9iby4CvLwFHAXEBz0ajzbkF/SIG=122v4ml2r/EXP=1191346479/**http%3A//www.bookpage.com/0601bp/images/cell.gif)

Almost halfway through Monster Island.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 17, 2007, 05:48 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41X190P5ERL._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on October 18, 2007, 07:18 AM
I'm reading "In the Company of Soldiers" at the moment.  I'm a bit perturbed with it though.  It's a book talking about the commanders of the 101st during the start of OIF.  HOwever, the author is obviously anti-Bush, that's fine if he is, but it's tainted his writing severely and is making it frustrating to read.  He will often go off on a tangent complaining about the war.  I thought I was getting a history book, not an editorial.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on October 27, 2007, 12:00 AM
Who here has read the "His Dark Materials" series (Golden Compass being book 1 of 3)  I picked up last night and absolutely love it so far.  Then I watched the trailer and love it even more...cool stuff
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 27, 2007, 02:15 AM
I read them a few years ago, yeah. I loved the first two, but I agree with the overall consensus that the third one just goes completely to hell. :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on October 27, 2007, 10:27 AM
Who here has read the "His Dark Materials" series (Golden Compass being book 1 of 3) 

The Mrs. just finished Golden Compass (which she really liked) and has handed it off to me... I'm only a few chapters in, but I'm liking it so far.  :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 30, 2007, 12:19 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Y38FN6S5L._SS500_.jpg)

I'm gonna be up late.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on November 20, 2007, 09:33 AM
Started reading Frankenstein, it's a bear. The interesting thing about it though is that, and I learned this from reading the forwards, Mary Shelly's husband rewrote the novel to make the language more reflective of literature at the time. He didn't change the substance of the story at all, just the way it was told. Apparently Mary's style was too "common." In other words, he changed "I love you" to "The depths of heart yearn with affection." She also wrote it on a bet.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 20, 2007, 11:55 AM
I just finished reading The Big Over Easy: A Nursery Crime by Jasper Fforde. It's a very funny mystery about who really pushed Humpty Dumpty. I'm going to pick up Jasper Fforde's The Fourth Bear later this week.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JJX9N1QML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 20, 2007, 04:08 PM
Started reading a book called "Death Traps" by Belton Cooper who was with the 3d Amored Division during WWII as member of the Maintenance Battalion.  Really good read for WWII buffs or someone who is interested in exactly how inferior the American armor was compared to the German armor.  It really gets down to the nuts and bolts of keeping an armored division battle ready.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Desfiy on November 28, 2007, 06:51 PM
Just finished reading Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, great read recommend to anyone who likes Pratchett style humor, it wasnt written by Pratchett but it is as funny.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 30, 2007, 10:49 AM
I finished GOlden Compass last week and went right in to The Subtle Knife which has also been fantastic.  I can't wait to see the movie now :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on November 30, 2007, 11:38 AM
^ I meant to reread TGC before I saw the film but it doesn't look like there'll be time.

Currently:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71V47HJ437L._BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on November 30, 2007, 03:45 PM
Interesting counter to what Nathan's currently reading, Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.

(http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/34/537/659/0345376595_l.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 30, 2007, 04:12 PM
Interesting counter to what Nathan's currently reading, Pale Blue Dot by Carl Sagan.

(http://www.booksamillion.com/bam/covers/0/34/537/659/0345376595_l.gif)
That's a good one, Brent.  My favorite Sagan is The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark.  I know you would love that one (if you haven't read it already)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on November 30, 2007, 05:22 PM
Thanks for the recommendation, I haven't read it so I'll pick it up (got a long flight to and from San Diego in a week or so).  I've read Pale Blue Dot before, but it's been about 10 years and I came across it again in a nightstand drawer so I figured I'd read it again. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on December 1, 2007, 09:27 AM
Thanks for the recommendation, I haven't read it so I'll pick it up (got a long flight to and from San Diego in a week or so). 

I'd be nice if you can make it up to LA. I'm sure Matt and I could make some time to get together with you. In fact, we're having a So-Cal meeting on the 16th.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on December 5, 2007, 04:50 PM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/76/Talesofthebountyhunters.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 5, 2007, 06:27 PM
^ Nerd!! :P

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Forums/ogre01.jpg)

Although I guess I really shouldn't talk.... :-\

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HQ30DTSXL._AA240_.jpg) and (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AJYQQCWVL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on December 5, 2007, 09:19 PM
^ Nerd!! :P

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Forums/ogre01.jpg)


Fac ut vivas.

JK, nice to see a fellow Latin scholar on the boards.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 10, 2007, 01:52 AM
Me transmitte sursum, Caledoni!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 12, 2008, 03:42 PM
I finally wrapped up His Dark Materials books a couple of days ago.  I was a tad bit dissapointed in the end of Amber Spyglass, maybe more by the way it ended vs how I thought it should have ended.  Still, it was a great mix of action, fantasy and science and really made me think.  I can see why the Catholic Church wouldn't like it too much :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on January 12, 2008, 05:26 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41A754HV9EL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on January 12, 2008, 05:28 PM
40 pages away from finishing up SW exile, after that i will be moving up to sacrifice. boy i got a lot to catch up on in that series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 16, 2008, 04:13 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WBVZCH2GL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 17, 2008, 09:09 AM
I'm reading For Liberty and Glory.  It's about George Washington and Lafayette and the relationship between the two.  Pretty good read so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on January 17, 2008, 09:12 AM
Took me a while, but I finished Frankenstein. Well worth the read, great story. Also read Harlin Elison's original take on City on the Edge of Forever and the first volume of Buffy season 8. I just started Dracula, much easier to read than Frankenstein and charming right from the start.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on January 19, 2008, 06:10 PM
(http://www.latinoreview.com/images/user/AtTheMountainsOfMadness_11.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on January 24, 2008, 12:22 PM
Not exactly "what I'm reading", but a quick book-related question.  Although I have heard of the books before, I'll admit the movie trailer got me noticing the Spiderwick Chronicles.  I was just wondering, are these "kids" books, or are they "kids" books the way that Harry Potter books are for kids - but for everyone?  Not that I'm planning on reading them right now, but I was just wondering for down the road if they were worthwhile, or for a much younger audience.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 31, 2008, 03:47 PM
Just finished these. The first was for class (though a surprisingly good read) and the other two for fun.

(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/14600000/14606024.JPG)

(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/14840000/14840992.JPG)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41NZ3HQS4YL._AA240_.jpg)

Almost half done with this one:

(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13790000/13792876.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 31, 2008, 11:10 PM
I just reading the The Subtle Knife. (the sequal to the Golden Compass)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NjpdVAMbL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on February 2, 2008, 01:55 PM
Received this from Amazon yesterday...

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0571221246.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 15, 2008, 12:50 AM
School:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51D7C5P4KGL._AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on February 15, 2008, 11:37 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JIlx9r0rL.jpg)

It's an abosolutely terrific book. One of the best I've read in a really long time.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: bamaker on February 15, 2008, 01:26 PM
Reading three books currently...

The first is World War Z.  Kind of an uneven book because it's presented in a very factual, serious style, but, I mean, c'mon, it's zombies!
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/76/World_War_Z_book_cover.jpg/180px-World_War_Z_book_cover.jpg)

The second is The White Cascade.  Very good book, one of those hard-to-put-down types of books, especially if you enjoy this period in history (early 1900s, trustbusting, robber barons, steam locomotives) which I do.
(http://www.whitecascade.com/images/book_img.jpg)

The third is The Mascot.  Still getting myself geared up for it; just poking around the edges of what I'm sure will be a tough, draining read.
(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/24660000/24669384.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on February 16, 2008, 12:18 AM
(http://www.latinoreview.com/images/user/AtTheMountainsOfMadness_11.jpg)

If you like Lovecraft and like be scared outta your wits, you should pick up some early stuff by Michael Slade, a Canadian author.  The first 2-3 novels share some similarities.  They are based on the exploits of some RCMP special teams, but are pretty scary in their own right. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Diddly on February 18, 2008, 08:27 PM
Just finished reading this for a US History class:

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/3b/Jungle_cover.jpg)

Insanely crazy stuff and it really shows you how bad it was in the country back then.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 18, 2008, 09:46 PM
^ In a similar vein (guys who wrote books later made into Daniel Day-Lewis movies ;D):

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/1560252758.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)

I'm a fan of the Scorsese film so in my copious downtime I've started the nonfic on which it was based.

Actually the copy in the college library is older than dirt and looks to be the original 1928 edition.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on February 25, 2008, 01:05 AM
I've been reading through the list of books given in the Dangerous Book for Boys book...the list that every boy should read.  I was actually pretty surprised at how many I have read


Anyway, here's the list:


I am currently reading the Belgariad books.  They are decent Fantasy lore...definitely borrowing heavily from Rings (what fantasy book doesn't?)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on February 25, 2008, 08:48 AM
Just plowed through these in the last two weeks.  They were so ******* good that I can't wait until June to get Sinestro Corps volume 2 so I'm in the process of tracking down parts 7 - 11 of that storyline in regular comic book form.  Almost there, just need one issue each of GL and GLC and the Superman Prime Special.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51q3LuZaMDL._AA240_.jpg) (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SSK80PYAL._AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4135G2ABSQL._AA240_.jpg) (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51-cMtLXCwL._AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51579ADGXNL._AA240_.jpg) (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VkEb%2BHq-L._AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dKOFcR8HL._AA240_.jpg) (http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NdJErLrgL._AA240_.jpg)

Of the non-illustrated variety, I'm now reading
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510X81YPQRL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 27, 2008, 11:39 AM
I just started reading Battle Ready by Tom Clancy.  It's so far a good read, typical of Clancy's writing.  He goes into detail about CENTCOM and it's decisions and the POTUS decisions of the 90's leading up to the war in Iraq.  It's 2004 copyright means that a lot of the stuff will be good.  I'm looking forward to what conclusions he and Gen. Zinni come to.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 28, 2008, 11:36 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/arrian.jpg) (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/diodorus.jpg) (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/plutarch_alexander.jpg)

Hooray primary sources! (No, seriously ... (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Forums/nerdglasses.gif))

This one is, quite self-evidently, for a different class:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513QXGMJ37L._OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

And giving my brain a thorough kicking, Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/medieval_latin.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on March 1, 2008, 04:55 PM
Some more Lovecraft...

(http://jimriverreport.com/tdaxp_upload/call_of_cthulhu_book_cover.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 3, 2008, 10:50 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/curtius.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 7, 2008, 12:06 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4194RF1AX0L._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Vator on March 22, 2008, 06:09 PM
Amongst other things, I've been enjoying on Nicholson Baker's Human Smoke for the past two weekends.

It is fascinating to say the least, and certainly is something which might prove worthwhile for the WW2 fans around here to look into.

A review from the New York Times, if anyone is interested. (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/books/review/Toibin-t.html?_r=1&ref=review&oref=slogin)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on March 22, 2008, 07:17 PM
I've been reading Plan B 3.0 by Lester Brown, and I can't recommend it enough.

(http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/PB3%20web.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/Plan-3-0-Mobilizing-Civilization-Third/dp/0393330877/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1206227745&sr=1-1)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 27, 2008, 07:34 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51P4C38KQJL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

It's actually as much a textbook as an atlas; only about 50% of it is maps and the rest is text.

Finished this one a couple of days ago:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5153pbmuaKL._AA240_.jpg)

And trying to get this one read before my spring break is over at the end of the weekend:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51YXWKYW5ML._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 27, 2008, 07:58 PM
My newest read. I wanted to read a little fiction because I haven't in a while.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K1W2FXT6L._AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 28, 2008, 10:08 AM
I'm on my third Thrusday Next novel, The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. If your an english major or really into books, this is the series for you. Very funny british-type humor. Its got some great star wars references in it too.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JZ5P3QYXL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on March 28, 2008, 10:17 AM
I'm currently reading the Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian, and really just got started.  It seems like a pretty quick read, but I'll admit my reading time has been a bit limited lately.  I just wanted to get it read before the movie came out, although who knows if we'll actually get out to see it or not.  Man, how a baby changes things :).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 28, 2008, 11:28 AM
Thats why audio books are the best. You can listen to them to and from work. Much better than mindless talk radio or music.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on March 28, 2008, 12:53 PM
Just finishing up Book I of the Dark Nest Trilogy.  can't decide if I like it yet or not.   :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 28, 2008, 10:18 PM
(http://cargobay.starwars.com/books/fiction/clonewar/034545683101_1.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on April 4, 2008, 10:35 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F4cllXM8L._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on April 4, 2008, 10:50 PM
Anne Rice's - The Road to Cana
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on April 7, 2008, 09:22 AM
Just a note for book fans, in case you didn't know, the library gives away free books almost every day. I've a massed a small library of books I doubt I'll never get to.  :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on April 7, 2008, 09:55 AM
Aside from my reading for class, I picked up Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs the other day at the bookstore.

It is brilliant.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on April 13, 2008, 01:30 PM
I recently got through as much of a 9th annual The Year's Best Science Fiction from the library, and just started a book called April in Paris.  It is a story taking place during the Nazi occupation of France, and has a German interpreter falling in love with a French girl.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on April 13, 2008, 04:34 PM
I finished Road to Cana and have moved on to Anne Rice's The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BillCable on April 13, 2008, 11:19 PM
Anybody got any fantasy recommendations?  With Robert Jordan dead, Sword of Truth finished, and the next Song of Fire and Ice months if not years off, I don't have squat.  I'm looking for something complex and adult.  If you've read either of the latter two series, you know what I'm talking about.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 13, 2008, 11:32 PM
Check out reviews for The Belgariad series.  I'm almost through with Book 3 and it has really grown on me.  I realize almost ALL fantasy is based on the whole quest/magic object/hero story and this one is no exception as there are almost direct analogies to LOTR, but its different enough to be at least entertaining.  Its not as adult as Ice and Fire but I like it...

http://www.amazon.com/Belgariad-Vol-Books-1-3-Magicians/dp/0345456327
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on April 14, 2008, 12:54 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51S74FcwFuL._SS500_.jpg)

I've read Bedford Boys and The Longest Winter, so when I heard Alex Kershaw had a new book coming out I had to grab this, it's about the sinking of the submarine Tang and the trials the survivors had to go through afer they were captured. Comes out April 28th for those of you lacking publisher connections  ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 14, 2008, 01:49 AM
Book two of the swarm war trilogy.  Mixed feelings about Dark Nest I - let's hope this one picks up a little after a slow start.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 14, 2008, 10:06 AM
I'm on my fourth Thursday Next novel, "Something Rotten" by Jasper Fforde. Great stuff.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510YGB1YRXL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Welsh writer Fforde's fourth entry in the zany, hypercreative Thursday Next detective series revisits the "Literary Detective" as she retreats to her hometown of Swindon, England, retiring from the tedious job (as Head of Jurisfiction) she held in Fforde's previous novel, The Well of Lost Plots. Joined by her two-year-old son, Friday, pet dodos Pickwick and Alan, and Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, Thursday realizes that there's someone missing: her husband, Landen, previously "eradicated" by the Goliath Corporation, a ruthless bio-tech conglomerate corporation. She wants Landen back. Aided by her father, she is reinstated into her old employ, the Special Operations Network, and begins investigating the machinations of power-hungry Fictioneer Yorrick Kaine and the mysterious disappearance of England's president. The fate of the world rests on the outcome of a major croquet tournament, with Thursday pinch-hitting on a lethal playing field as Landen is finally returned to reality (only to fade out again). More than a little wacky, the novel is packed with screwball details as characters get "written" in and out of the story, hybridized creatures stalk malls and Shakespeare clones start popping up everywhere. With humorous illustrations and curious footnotes sprinkled throughout, Fforde's latest will have hardcore fans roaring—but those new to the series might want to tackle the convoluted mayhem from the very beginning.



Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on April 14, 2008, 11:26 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514V9E9KZQL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

This is the story of the American Revolution from the perspective of several enlisted and low grade officers.  Very interesting and a nice break from seeing the war from the eyes of the generals and leaders at the strategic level.  Gives you a nice insight into the true fighting spirit that made up the soldiers of the Continental army.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on April 20, 2008, 06:06 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/24/4a/f9cd9330dca076367cdf4010.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 20, 2008, 08:02 PM
I'm on the latest Thursday Next book called "First Among Sequals" by Jasper Fforde.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5106FKc%2BuGL._SS500_.jpg)

Full of bizarre subplots, many of which don't go anywhere, bestseller Fforde's fifth novel to feature intrepid literary detective Thursday Next (after 2004's Something Rotten) blends elements of mystery, campy science fiction and screwball fantasy à la Terry Pratchett's Discworld. With the Stupidity Surplus reaching dangerously high levels all over England, Acme Carpets employee and undercover SpecOps investigator Next has her hands full trying to persuade her 16-year-old slacker son, Friday, to join the ChronoGuard, which deals with temporal stability; if Friday continues to sleep away his future, the end is near—for everyone. To complicate matters, a malicious apprentice begins making classic works of literature into reality book shows (Pride and Prejudice becomes The Bennets), a ruthless corporation tries to turn the Bookworld into a tourist trap, and the Cheese Enforcement Agency tries to bust Next for smuggling killer curd. The fate of the world may lie in a Longfellow poem. Fans of satiric literary humor are in for a treat.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on April 21, 2008, 03:19 AM
History 251: Modern China, MWF 2-2:50

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13700000/13708502.JPG)

The cover looks like the sort of "chick book" I'd normally run screaming from, and to be honest I was originally going to skip it entirely and save eleven bucks. But it's actually a decent read. It's a sort of biography/memoir of the author, her mother, and grandmother. Between the three of them, they spanned most of the 20th century, from the warlord era, thru Japanese attacks, two world wars, communist revolutions, and so on, up to the '80s or '90s.

And it's not just a load of touchy-feely nonsense either--it actually has a fair amount of legit historical exposition.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: 12501 on April 22, 2008, 10:45 PM
(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/25600000/25604351.jpg)

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on April 23, 2008, 07:21 AM
(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/Wicked.jpg)

An interesting read, dealing with morality, politics, civil rights and religion.  It also struggles with the question - are we born evil or is it something that is thrust upon us?  Do we all have it within us?  It's interesting to see this "evil" character as a schoolgirl without any evil intent -- just being treated that way by others.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 23, 2008, 12:36 PM
I hear the book is very different from the musical.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on April 23, 2008, 02:37 PM
So far it's different in that it's going into much more depth/history on the different cultures, religions, politics.  I'm only about 1/3 of the way through it.

I was blown away by the musical.  I walked away thinking that was more the way Anakin's downfall should have happened. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on April 23, 2008, 02:46 PM
(http://www.wormbook.addr.com/046366.jpg)



Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JayDouble on April 23, 2008, 03:45 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HUxzjQaPL._SS260_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Smartypants1635 on April 23, 2008, 09:36 PM
For school

(http://www.stumplane.us/wordpress/wp-content/slaughterhouse5800.jpg)

for enjoyment

(http://www.cs.princeton.edu/~aahobor/Lucy-Day/Images/Covers-50/The-Light-Fantastic.jpg)

I really recommend Terry Pratchet, hes a great author and has a great sense of humor.

Adam
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: speedermike on April 24, 2008, 08:30 PM

 It also struggles with the question - are we born evil or is it something that is thrust upon us?  Do we all have it within us?  It's interesting to see this "evil" character as a schoolgirl without any evil intent -- just being treated that way by others.

Hmmm...sounds like what Lucas was trying to do with Young Anikin.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 24, 2008, 09:53 PM
Anybody got any fantasy recommendations?  With Robert Jordan dead, Sword of Truth finished, and the next Song of Fire and Ice months if not years off, I don't have squat.  I'm looking for something complex and adult.  If you've read either of the latter two series, you know what I'm talking about.
Bill...I just remembered another really great fantasy series...

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/73/Hyperion_cover.jpg/344px-Hyperion_cover.jpg)

Complex and adult, I really enjoyed them
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on April 24, 2008, 10:24 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/416BD6PYNGL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on April 28, 2008, 02:48 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/adomnan_sharpe.jpg)

7th-century biography of a 6th-century Irish monk who went to Scotland to convert the Picts.

Also consulting the parallel Latin/English Oxford edition as I deconstruct a brief section of the original text to present to the class, as well as Huyshe's turn-of-the-(last)-century translation.

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/adomnan_andersons.jpg) (http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/adomnan_huyshe.jpg)

And yes, I realize how much of a pompous ass that makes me sound. I promise the next thing I post will be far less pretentiously intellectual. *adjusts monocle*

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Forums/pretentious_2.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 30, 2008, 11:57 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gRtdMeHGL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on May 1, 2008, 07:42 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61AWEC9JNGL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 2, 2008, 07:59 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HWS2RE2ZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 5, 2008, 09:17 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gRtdMeHGL._SS500_.jpg)

Loved that book. You have to read Mysterious Island right afterwards.

I'm making my way though Gulliver's Travels
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 5, 2008, 10:30 AM
Tis the plan. It's neat reading the scientific explaination for things based on a 19th century perspective. I also like seeing the differences between this and the Disney movie. The Peter Lorre character (Conseil) is completely different. He reminds me of C-3PO.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 8, 2008, 09:31 AM
I've read five of Jules Verne's novels, there's a common theme of idealism in them all that permeates in one form or another in all the characters. It makes his work an interesting read. Another interesting factor is that, along side all the scientific analysis which admittedly sometimes bogs down the stories at times, there are also incredibly striking visual descriptions that just blow me away. He's one of my all time favorite writers.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 8, 2008, 10:49 AM
I'm almost finished with the book now. I've really enjoyed it. I agree, the visual descriptions are some of the best I've ever read. The book has really kept my interest. Why couldn't I be allowed to read something like this in high school instead of painfully boring books like Wuthering Heights.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 8, 2008, 11:46 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51A02P0WK8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Decent read for information, but seems to be "clinical" for lack of a better term.  It's proving and disproving a lot of things about the events of the Alamo and the leaders of the Texas Revolution.  It reads very much like a college textbook.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on May 8, 2008, 01:58 PM
I'm almost finished with the book now. I've really enjoyed it. I agree, the visual descriptions are some of the best I've ever read. The book has really kept my interest. Why couldn't I be allowed to read something like this in high school instead of painfully boring books like Weathering Heights.

You had to read a book about enduring and surviving heights?  We had to read about Heathcliff and Catherine.............. ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 8, 2008, 03:24 PM
Maybe that is why I couldn't get over the fact there wasn't any mountains to climb in the book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on May 8, 2008, 07:53 PM
Finsihed the first of Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty, moving on to book 2: Beauty's Punishment.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 10, 2008, 01:45 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/baudolino.jpg)

We're spending the final three class periods of Medieval Latin reading this, since it references a lot of the stuff we've been translating. It doesn't actually feel like work and it's a nice way to end the semester.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 11, 2008, 09:41 AM
I Why couldn't I be allowed to read something like this in high school instead of painfully boring books like Wuthering Heights.

Seriously. Though, I did have to read Treasure Island in 8th grade. Ever since it's been my all time favorite book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: John C on May 12, 2008, 10:13 PM
Just finished up the last two Narnia books.  I had put them off for a while and decided finally to do it.  Pretty glad I'm done.  I just picked up Runemarks by Joanne Harris and started reading that.  Pretty good stuff so far.  It's about the Norse gods and the world after Ragnarok.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 13, 2008, 10:04 AM
Well the library didn't have Mysterious Island on CD so I picked up Douglas Adam's "So long and thanks for all the fish". Extreemly silly book. Why havn't the Muppets made these books into a movie? Kermit as Arthur Dent. Miss Piggy as Fenchurch. Gonzo as Ford Perfect. It would be great!

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AG6BBGKHL._SS500_.jpg)

Now I'm on "The White Dragon" by Anne McCaffrey. I guess I'm in the last book of the original triliogy of Dragonriders of Pern books but that is all they had locally. I'll have to check online for the other two books.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512PMYMGA3L._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 14, 2008, 09:29 AM
If only people knew how close Dragonriders of Pern came to being a TV series done by Ron Moore.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 14, 2008, 10:02 AM
Yah, in 2002 Moore wanted to do a TV show on Pern but Warner Bros. changed his script so much it looked more like Buffy the Vampire Slayer so Moore refused to do it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 15, 2008, 09:31 AM
Exactly. They were on location, literally one day away from away from the start of filming when Warners pulled the plug.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on May 15, 2008, 11:13 AM
Just started Champion's of the Force.  Not wild about the series, but I hadn't read it yet, so I'll finish it up.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 17, 2008, 08:47 PM
I just burned through this one in three hours today. I read it several times as a kid but I wanted to reread it before I see the film.

(http://a1055.g.akamai.net/f/1055/1401/5h/images.barnesandnoble.com/images/26380000/26381628.jpg)

Also reading this one for school. It's basically a series of ruminations on the author's (a history professor's) many trips to China over the last two decades and putting his observations in a historical/political/sociological/current events context. It was published in 2007 so it's nice to read something up-to-date for once. :P

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a5/5e/3cbd81b0c8a004de4daf9110.L.jpg) (http://today.uci.edu/news/release_detail.asp?key=1640)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 18, 2008, 11:56 AM
I just burned through this one in three hours today. I read it several times as a kid but I wanted to reread it before I see the film.

Three hours!?  How many pages is this?  I read this series like 20 years ago, but they sure seemed like longer stories back then...Or maybe you're just a speed reader!  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 18, 2008, 06:07 PM
It's a fairly short book. My wife did it in about three hours.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 18, 2008, 06:21 PM
Just starting The Lady in Blue by Javier Sierra.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51w-ilHxnmL._SS500_.jpg)

Destiny propels an agnostic journalist to rediscover his faith in this intriguing paranormal puzzler about a mysterious bilocating lady in blue from bestseller Sierra (The Secret Supper). In 1629, Sister María Jesús de Ágreda appeared more than 500 times to the Jumano Indians of New Mexico and converted them to Christianity—without ever leaving her monastery in Spain. (The Inquisition suspected her of witchcraft.) In 1991, Spanish journalist Carlos Albert interviews Giuseppe Baldi, a Benedictine priest and musicologist about his 1972 Chronovision machine reported to recapture sounds as well as images from the past. (The Vatican censured Baldi.) Albert later stumbles on Ágreda's monastery in Spain, while in Los Angeles, Jennifer Narody, a former U.S. intelligence agent working on a secret project for the Vatican, deals with unusual dreams and receives a startling stolen religious text. Sierra's heady tale about a true flying nun should entertain Christian paranormal buffs, though some readers might have welcomed more about that Chronovision time machine
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 18, 2008, 11:20 PM
Three hours!?  How many pages is this?  I read this series like 20 years ago, but they sure seemed like longer stories back then...Or maybe you're just a speed reader!  ;)

My edition was 223 pages, but in about a 12-point font and there are illustrations. There's not much to it, especially compared to the dense tomes I'm used to slogging through.

though some readers might have welcomed more about that Chronovision time machine

That's actually based on a "real" Father Pellegrino Maria Ernetti and his Chronovisor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronovisor
http://bn.lithium.com/bn/board/message?board.id=jslb&thread.id=9
http://www.theladyinblue.net/chronovisiorproject.php
http://www.newpara.com/Vatican_Time.htm
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 19, 2008, 10:21 AM
Cool. I really eat this stuff up. It sounds a lot more fun than "The Last Templar" that I read a few months back about the journal or gospel that Jesus kept.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 29, 2008, 02:57 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/fitzpatrick.jpg)

Mix the post-apocalyptic and steampunk (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steampunk) genres, Alexander the Great, World War One, neo-Victorian British colonialism, and Kevin Costner's The Postman, and you have this.

(Anybody remember The Postman? Take all the electronics out of the equation, change the ending so that Will Patton's general character wins instead, project a few more centuries into the future and you basically have the society in this novel.)

Structurally, it is a little weird to get one's brain around since it is cast as an annotated memoir looking back from even further in the future. I shamelessly steal Wikipedia's description:

Quote
The novel takes the form of an autobiography by a twenty-fifth century soldier, Brigadier General Sir Robert Mayfair Bruce, of the Yukon Confederacy, as edited by a prudish, bigoted academian of the twenty-sixth century, Professor Roland Modesty Van Buren. Bruce's story chronicles (and criticizes) the career of Lord Isaac Prophet Fitzpatrick, a consul of the fictional Yukon Confederacy whose life closely parallels that of Alexander the Great. This unique style allows the reader to simultaneously learn the "official history" of Fitzpatrick as well as the revisionist version of Bruce's purported work.

Borders dubbed it "a future-fiction alternative history" and posted an essay (http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=judson) by the author explaining the story and concept.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 29, 2008, 10:06 AM
Now I'm onto Prey by Michael Crichton. So far so good except for the parts about programmers working 18 hour days in silicon valley. That doesn't happen anymore because under California law, if your not a manager your paid hourly expectally in the IT departments. Our bank got slapped with a lawsuit from the IT department against these kind of work schedules. Now I've got to keep a time sheet.  :(

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51g%2BYLMIOqL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

In Prey, bestselling author Michael Crichton introduces bad guys that are too small to be seen with the naked eye but no less deadly or intriguing than the runaway dinosaurs that made 1990's Jurassic Park such a blockbuster success.
High-tech whistle-blower Jack Forman used to specialize in programming computers to solve problems by mimicking the behavior of efficient wild animals--swarming bees or hunting hyena packs, for example. Now he's unemployed and is finally starting to enjoy his new role as stay-at-home dad. All would be domestic bliss if it were not for Jack's suspicions that his wife, who's been behaving strangely and working long hours at the top-secret research labs of Xymos Technology, is having an affair. When he's called in to help with her hush-hush project, it seems like the perfect opportunity to see what his wife's been doing, but Jack quickly finds there's a lot more going on in the lab than an illicit affair. Within hours of his arrival at the remote testing center, Jack discovers his wife's firm has created self-replicating nanotechnology--a literal swarm of microscopic machines. Originally meant to serve as a military eye in the sky, the swarm has now escaped into the environment and is seemingly intent on killing the scientists trapped in the facility. The reader realizes early, however, that Jack, his wife, and fellow scientists have more to fear from the hidden dangers within the lab than from the predators without.

The monsters may be smaller in this book, but Crichton's skill for suspense has grown, making Prey a scary read that's hard to set aside, though not without its minor flaws. The science in this novel requires more explanation than did the cloning of dinosaurs, leading to lengthy and sometimes dry academic lessons. And while the coincidence of Xymos's new technology running on the same program Jack created at his previous job keeps the plot moving, it may be more than some readers can swallow. But, thanks in part to a sobering foreword in which Crichton warns of the real dangers of technology that continues to evolve more quickly than common sense, Prey succeeds in gripping readers with a tense and frightening tale of scientific suspense. --Benjamin Reese --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.







Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: jjks on May 29, 2008, 12:15 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41DqigbsG0L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Not getting the best of reviews, but it's Chuck so I have to check it out.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 29, 2008, 09:47 PM
Just finished up A Journey Long And Strange... great book.

Now reading The Eaters of the Dead.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 29, 2008, 11:52 PM
Now reading The Eaters of the Dead.

Yikes.  100 word or less synopsis?  Is it about Zombies?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 30, 2008, 09:47 AM
Eaters of the Dead is a Michael Crichton book about Vikings.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51K6JHCWB2L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)


The year is A.D. 922. A refined Arab courtier, representative of the powerful Caliph of Bagdad, encounters a party of Viking warriors who are journeying to the barbaric North. He is appalled by their Viking customs -- the wanton sexuality of their pale, angular women, their disregard for cleanliness . . .

their cold-blooded human sacrifices. But it is not until they reach the depths of the Northland that the courtier learns the horrifying and inescapable truth: He has been enlisted by these savage, inscrutable warriors to help combat a terror that plagues them -- a monstrosity that emerges under cover of night to slaughter the Vikings and devour their flesh . . .
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 30, 2008, 09:34 PM
Yet another reason to cheer for the Packers over the Vikings. Blech.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on May 30, 2008, 09:46 PM
Yet another reason to cheer for the Packers over the Vikings. Blech.
::)

(http://lexicon.ci.anchorage.ak.us/guides/teens/reviews/jungle.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 30, 2008, 10:50 PM
Justin, it is also the book that was the basis of the Antonio Banderas movie The Thirteenth Warrior.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9b/13thwarriorposter.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 30, 2008, 11:18 PM
Yet another reason to cheer for the Packers over the Vikings. Blech.
::)

(http://lexicon.ci.anchorage.ak.us/guides/teens/reviews/jungle.jpg)

Nice try Scotty, but we all know you can't read.    ;D

Justin, it is also the book that was the basis of the Antonio Banderas movie The Thirteenth Warrior.

Ooo...okay, I actually liked that movie.  Okay, I take it back.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 31, 2008, 09:59 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/414QMmq3pZL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Story about the lone survivor of SEAL Team 10 in Afghanistan and the subsequent relief/rescue attempts in 2005.  Pretty good read so far, I bought it last night and got through the first 30 pages.  Probably would have read more but I was exhausted when I started reading.  This guy knows what being a bad ass is all about and he fills the part perfect.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on May 31, 2008, 06:37 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5135CHN8WVL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 13, 2008, 03:01 PM
I'm currently on "The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that changed America" by Erik Larson. Nonfiction about the building of the 1893 Chicago World's Fair and the serial killer preying on women that attended the fair. He killed somewhere between 27 and 200 people during the fair. It's pretty amazing stuff considering it's true.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FMEXVD2JL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Author Erik Larson imbues the incredible events surrounding the 1893 Chicago World's Fair with such drama that readers may find themselves checking the book's categorization to be sure that The Devil in the White City is not, in fact, a highly imaginative novel. Larson tells the stories of two men: Daniel H. Burnham, the architect responsible for the fair's construction, and H.H. Holmes, a serial killer masquerading as a charming doctor. Burnham's challenge was immense. In a short period of time, he was forced to overcome the death of his partner and numerous other obstacles to construct the famous "White City" around which the fair was built. His efforts to complete the project, and the fair's incredible success, are skillfully related along with entertaining appearances by such notables as Buffalo Bill Cody, Susan B. Anthony, and Thomas Edison. The activities of the sinister Dr. Holmes, who is believed to be responsible for scores of murders around the time of the fair, are equally remarkable. He devised and erected the World's Fair Hotel, complete with crematorium and gas chamber, near the fairgrounds and used the event as well as his own charismatic personality to lure victims. Combining the stories of an architect and a killer in one book, mostly in alternating chapters, seems like an odd choice but it works. The magical appeal and horrifying dark side of 19th-century Chicago are both revealed through Larson's skillful writing.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on June 13, 2008, 03:11 PM
I finished "Lone Survivor" the othe night..wow is all I can say, just wow.

Right now, new book is "Lone Star Rising."  It's pretty much all about the colonization of Texas by the Americans from the filibusters before the Mexican Revolution and goes through the end of the Texas Revolution and the creation of the Republic of Texas.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on June 16, 2008, 02:39 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41J9TADSJGL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU02_AA240_SH20_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on June 16, 2008, 02:45 PM
Before the Storm, book one of the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy.  I haven't read this one before and its pretty good.  There is a pre-prequel story line about Luke and Leia's mom (and she apparently isn't from Naboo), which I'm not really paying attention to, but the handling of the new alien culture, the Yevetha, is pretty neat, along the lines of some of Timothy Zahn's writing.  That part atleast reminds me a lot of Outbound Flight.  I think I'm about three quarters of the way through, and I'm looking forward to Shield of Lies.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on June 16, 2008, 11:34 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NG43JB7ZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

About half way through and still one of the few to actually enjoy this series.  Maybe its just been that long since I read NJO.   ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 17, 2008, 12:37 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/outofeden.jpg)

"Now as never before, exotic animals and plants are crossing the globe, borne on the swelling tide of human traffic to places where nature never intended them to be. Bird-eating snakes hitchhike to Hawaii in the landing gear of airliners; pernicious European zebra mussels, riding in ships' ballast water, disrupt aquatic ecosystems across the United States; feral camels and poisonous foreign toads plague Australia; giant Indonesian pythons lurk beneath homes in suburban Miami. As alien species jump from place to place and increasingly crowd native and endangered species out of existence, biologists speak fearfully of “the homogenization of the world.” Never mind bulldozers and pesticides: the fastestgrowing threat to biological diversity may be nature itself.

Out of Eden is a dazzling personal journey through this strange and shifting landscape. Alan Burdick tours the front lines of ecological invasion in the company of world-class scientists: in Hawaii, Tasmania, Guam, San Francisco; in lush rain forests, aboard an Alaska-bound oil tanker, inside a spacecraft-assembly facility at NASA. Wry and reflective, animated and provocative, Out of Eden is a search both for scientific answers and for ecological authenticity, from a writer of remarkable range and talent."
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on June 18, 2008, 08:43 AM
I've picked that book up several times at B&N over the past year, and for one reason or another haven't bought it. 

Maybe I'll go get it today.....

probably not.

 :-[
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 18, 2008, 09:39 AM
Now reading Deception Point by Dan Brown.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VAdSUJJvL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIlitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

The time is now and President Zachary Herney is facing a very tough reelection. His opponent, Senator Sedgwick Sexton, is a powerful man with powerful friends and a mission: to reduce NASA's spending and move space exploration into the private sector. He has numerous supporters, including many beyond the businesses who will profit from this because of the embarrassment of 1996, when the Clinton administration was informed by NASA that proof existed of life on other planets. That information turned out to be premature, if not incorrect. (This story is true; I repeat, Dan Brown's research is very, very good.) The embattled president is assured that a rare object buried deep in the Arctic ice will prove to have far-reaching implications on America's space program. The find, however, needs to be verified.

Enter Rachel Sexton, a gister for the National Reconnaissance Office. Gisters reduce complex reports into single-page briefs, and in this case the president needs that confirmation before he broadcasts to the nation, probably ensuring his reelection. It's tricky because Rachel is the daughter of his opponent. Rachel is thrilled to be on the team traveling to the Arctic circle. She is a realist about her father's politics and has little respect for his stand on NASA, but Senator Sexton cannot help but have a problem with her involvement.

Adventure, romance, murder, skullduggery, and nail-biting tension ensue. By the end of Deception Point, the reader will be much better informed about how our space program works and how our politicians react to new information. Bring on the next Dan Brown thriller!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 20, 2008, 07:03 PM
I've picked that book up several times at B&N over the past year, and for one reason or another haven't bought it. 

Maybe I'll go get it today.....

probably not.

 :-[

I would recommend it, if you're at all interested in the topic. It's also a pretty fast read, since there are no footnotes or anything. (It doesn't even have a bibliography, which I'm actually finding rather annoying.)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on June 22, 2008, 11:11 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5135CHN8WVL._SS500_.jpg)

Does anyone else think this scene looks like its about to turn into gay porn?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 24, 2008, 03:13 PM
It does look like a romance novel cover. Were is Fabio?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 24, 2008, 04:42 PM
Philistines. :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 25, 2008, 01:36 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/dc/82/0606228348a0f4589ec02110.L.jpg)

I bet I'm the only one on this site who hasn't read these yet.

Apparently I'm just now getting up to speed to 1997. :P *dons flannel and puts on Spice Girls cassette*
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on June 25, 2008, 02:54 AM
I've never read any of the Harry Potter books either, so that makes two of us.

As for me, I started reading this:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cRP93JxgL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on June 25, 2008, 07:56 AM
I've never read any of the Harry Potter books either, so that makes two of us.


*raises hand*  Make that three..........

I've always planned to start reading them when my son gets a little older and is ready to read them.  That way, I'll be his cool mom, 'cause I'll know what the hell he's talking about............. ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on June 25, 2008, 03:15 PM
I haven't read any of the HP books either.  But today I'm picking up Shield of Lies from the library, its the second book in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy.  They had to order it from another library because their copy is "Lost".  This library is one of the few in the area, that I can think of, that doesn't make you walk through the book detector, so someone probably walked out with it.  But really? An obscure Star Wars book?  Couldn't you have stolen something a little bit cooler?  Anyway, liked the first one in the series so I'm looking forward to this one.  I'm really hoping everything turns out of for Leia, Luke and friends, always seem to be getting in trouble...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on June 25, 2008, 04:16 PM
I just started reading The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Rings this week, and hope to go through that whole series here over the summer.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on June 25, 2008, 04:20 PM
I just started reading The Lord of the Rings - The Fellowship of the Rings this week, and hope to go through that whole series here over the summer.

I loved reading (and re-reading) the Lord of the Rings.  Its brutal getting through that first chapter but then its a fun read  ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on June 25, 2008, 04:22 PM
Has anyone else tried to read the Silmarillion (sp?).  I don't often have getting through a book, but man that was a tough one.  I couldn't even keep straight who was who, Tolkien kept changing the names it seemed.  LOTR was a better read for me.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 3, 2008, 02:33 PM
I am currently reading Eldest...I like it a whole heck of a lot better than I liked Eragon, sure there is a lot of ripping off of LOTR and Star Wars still happening, but its a good story

(http://images.amazon.com/images/P/037582670X.01._SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg)

Up next, not sure...I still haven't read Children of Hurin and its been sitting in my nightstand for over a year.  I also want to tackle LOTR again for some reason

As far as the Silmarillion, it is one of my favorite books and is well worth the struggle in my opinion.  It is a very, very difficult read and I agree, keeping track of the names is a bear but it does play out beautifully and you get a lot better idea of the whole mythology Tolkien created.  You understand The Hobbit and LOTR in a totally different way as well, especially since the Wizards and Gods and all of the other jazz are better fleshed out and explained
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 3, 2008, 03:22 PM
I'm on to Dying to Tell   by Robert Goddard. Just a random book out of the library's mystery section.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5144A97GFZL._SS500_.jpg)

Lance Bradley, idling his life away in the little Somerset town of Glastonbury, suddenly receives a call for help from the eccentric sister of his old friend Rupert Alder. Rupe appears to have vanished without trace. Reluctantly, Lance goes to London, to discover that Rupe?s employers want him tried for fraud. A Japanese businessman claims he has stolen a document of huge importance. And a private detective is demanding money for trying to trace, on Rupe?s behalf, an American called Townley, who was involved in a mysterious death at Wilderness Farm, near Glastonbury, back in 1963.

No sooner has Lance decided that whatever Rupe was up to is too risky to get involved in than he finds that he already is involved, and the only way out is to get in deeper still. Where is Rupe? What is the document he has stolen? Who is Townley? And what happened at Wilderness Farm nearly thirty years before that holds the key to a secret more amazing than Lance Bradley could ever have imagined?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on July 4, 2008, 03:34 PM
I'm just starting this series now and liking it so far!

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51wSAwlSSbL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 4, 2008, 05:00 PM
Really, really good book, especially if you are a baseball fan.  I'm even more so because I've always thought Tom Glavine is a great pitcher and person in an era of what's in it for me players.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51u98phS5SL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 6, 2008, 10:42 PM
Just finished 1777, reading World War Z now, will be reading John Adams next. I'm hoping to get my hands on some cheap used books - starting with Cormac McCarthy's The Border Trilogy.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 6, 2008, 11:57 PM
Brad, do you mean 1776 instead of 1777?  Both that, and John Adams by McCullough are awesome books.  I tore threw that book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on July 7, 2008, 01:06 AM
I'm about 150 pages in, and so far it's excellent.

(http://www.textbooksrus.com/book_pics_large/015603297X.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 17, 2008, 12:23 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/33/06/a186810ae7a037a7d3f2b110.L.jpg)

I'm going through the series as books for the first time. This is the first one where I haven't seen the corresponding film (for obvious reasons), so it's kind of weird to go into it completely naked, without the visuals and general memories of the plots.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/1c/0a/952a619009a0f246cf918110.L.jpg)

This one's been on my "want to read" list for years.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on July 18, 2008, 11:57 AM
About a third of the way through this and its starting to pick up a little in the action.  Definitely better than the swarm wars so far...

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GY1BYWV4L._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 19, 2008, 05:26 PM
In the middle of Blaze by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King).

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vUjiZzxDL._SS500_.jpg)

Written circa 1973, this trunk novel, as Bachman's double (aka Stephen King) refers to it in his self-deprecating foreword, lacks the drama and intensity of Carrie and the horror opuses that followed it. Still, this fifth Bachman book (after 1996's The Regulators) shows King fine-tuning his skill at making memorable characters out of simple salt-of-the-earth types. Clayton Blaze Blaisdell has fallen into a life of delinquency ever since his father's brutal abuse rendered him feebleminded. King alternates chapters recounting Blaze's past mistreatment at a series of Maine orphanages and foster homes with Blaze's current plans to follow through on a kidnapping scheme plotted by his recently murdered partner in crime, George Rackley. Blaze talks to George as though he's still there, and the conversations give the tale tension, with Blaze coming across as a pitiable and surprisingly sympathetic contrast to prickly George. Despite its predictability, this diverting soft-boiled crime novel reflects influences ranging from John Steinbeck to James M. Cain.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on July 19, 2008, 08:40 PM
(http://johncarloang.com/web3/Activity1/Images/hush1.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 20, 2008, 11:03 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/potter7.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on July 21, 2008, 09:32 AM
Started on Treasure Island again. It's the first book that I ever read that I loved.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on July 21, 2008, 11:15 AM
I just finished reading Bringing Down the House:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tddaAA4WL._SS500_.jpg)

I saw the movie version earlier in the year and finally got a chance to read the book.  I enjoyed both for different reasons.  Very interesting story for sure.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 24, 2008, 01:30 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/dune.jpg)

I've tried twice to start this series but never got far into the first one before getting sidetracked. Going to give it a better effort this time.

I'm not sure why I'm starting a new epic series when I still have 500 pages of Deathly Hallows left ... maybe I'm unconsciously trying to put off hitting the end. :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 25, 2008, 10:09 AM
I'm on to "The Pearl Harbor Murders" by Max Allan Collins. This is one of the fiction history books where fiction is set against real events. So far its ok. It's kind of neat reading about Tarzan's creator Edgar Rice Burroughs.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/511WYY8FSRL._SS500_.jpg)


Many believe a war with Japan is imminent, but author Edgar Rice Burroughs is too busy basking in the Hawaiian sun to pay the rumors much mind. That is, until he finds a young Japanese-American woman murdered on the beach.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on July 28, 2008, 12:42 AM
Just about done with book 3 after a long trip at the cabin last week...

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X6GX9GR6L._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 30, 2008, 08:22 PM
Just started on "Dark Lord" by Ed Greenwood. This is book one in the Falconfar series. This is kind of along the lines of the D&D/Forgotten Realms type books.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51yc06Dvm3L._SS500_.jpg)

DARK LORD is the first of three novels in The Falconfar Saga. Rod Everlar is a writer who has created a fantasy world called Falconfar, into which he is drawn. There, he discovers that three dark wizards dominate the land. Now he must learn to seize control of Falconfar and find a way of defeating the corruption within. DARK LORD displays all the hallmarks of Ed's reputation for creating a richly realised fantasy setting, and characters that shine. Not to mention the lead chick runs around naked a lot.  ;)


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 31, 2008, 03:48 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/25150000/25153133.jpg)

With the dark ascension of the Empire, and the Jedi Knights virtually wiped out, one Jedi who escaped the massacre is slated for a date with destiny–and a confrontation with Darth Vader.

Jax Pavan is one of the few Jedi Knights who miraculously survived the slaughter that followed Palpatine’s ruthless Order 66. Now, deep in Coruscant’s Blackpit Slums, Jax ekes out a living as a private investigator, trying to help people in need while concealing his Jedi identity and staying one step ahead of the killers out for Jedi blood. And they’re not the only ones in search of the elusive Jax. Hard-boiled reporter Den Dhur and his buddy, the highly unorthodox droid I-5YQ, have shocking news to bring Jax–about the father he never knew.

But when Jax learns that his old Jedi Master has been killed, leaving behind the request that Jax finish a mission critical to the resistance, Jax has no choice but to emerge from hiding–and risk detection by Darth Vader–to fulfill his Master’s dying wish.

Don’t miss the continuing adventures in the Coruscant Nights series, coming this Fall!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 7, 2008, 03:08 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/dunemessiah.jpg)

One down, five to go. Plus God knows how many off the KJA/Brian Herbert spinoffs.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 7, 2008, 04:01 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/dunemessiah.jpg)

One down, five to go. Plus God knows how many off the KJA/Brian Herbert spinoffs.
What did you think?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 8, 2008, 02:23 AM
What did you think?

I wasn't as blown away as I was by LOTR, which it is sometimes compared to as a genre milestone, but it was pretty good. I'm a couple chapters into the second one and no complaints so far.

I know Herbert was writing the seventh one when he died, but do the first six constitute a preplotted arc like LOTR or the Potter books, or is each one more or less a standalone tacked on after the previous one?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on August 8, 2008, 09:45 PM
Finished John Adams, it was awesome. Now I'm reading Atlas Shrugged.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 8, 2008, 11:39 PM
If you liked John Adams, might I also suggest reading "1776."  Excellent read, also by McCulloch about the early part of the war and the struggles of the American army.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 9, 2008, 01:20 AM
What did you think?

I wasn't as blown away as I was by LOTR, which it is sometimes compared to as a genre milestone, but it was pretty good. I'm a couple chapters into the second one and no complaints so far.

I know Herbert was writing the seventh one when he died, but do the first six constitute a preplotted arc like LOTR or the Potter books, or is each one more or less a standalone tacked on after the previous one?
I think Herbert had an idea of where he wanted to go with it toward the end...really the first three are one complete arc and the last three are another with the 7th book sort of finishing the story

The first three are great, the others I didn't really care for too much.  I had a thread somewhere (here or at RS) about Dune and I was way in to it a few years back. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on August 10, 2008, 12:16 AM
If you liked John Adams, might I also suggest reading "1776."  Excellent read, also by McCulloch about the early part of the war and the struggles of the American army.

Yeah, I read 1776 before John Adams. Both are awesome.

I'm about 400 pages into Atlas Shrugged, not even halfway, but its great so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks on August 10, 2008, 02:18 AM
With all the hype behind the coming movie, and the fact that I fell in love with the new trailer, I'm now reading this:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41sOAdqLZ2L._SS500_.jpg)

So far, so good.  It's really deep, much more than any other comic I've ever read.  I didn't realize it till I was probably 2 chapters in that there is a ton of stuff going on in the background of the frames that really informs the story...that's not like most other comics I've read before.  Unlike a lot of the comics/graphic novels I've read, I actually went back through after each chapter and looked at the artwork to see what things I missed during the read.

Now very interested to see this film.

   E...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: DSJ™ on August 10, 2008, 03:00 AM
Is that the Absolute Watchmen HC w/slipcase or the paperback version?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks on August 10, 2008, 03:09 PM
I'm reading the $20 paperback version.  I just snagged the image off Amazon.com.

   E...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: DSJ™ on August 10, 2008, 03:18 PM
Ah, ok. I have the Absolute Watchmen & all the comics when they came out long ago, not the PB version but all the same. I'll have to dig them out & get back to reading them except Absolute as it's still sealed. Looking forward to the flick too.  ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 11, 2008, 09:48 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/childrenofdune.jpg)

So far I'm liking it better than the second one, which was good but seemed to be missing something compared to the original.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on August 19, 2008, 03:30 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41sOAdqLZ2L._SS500_.jpg)

First time reading through this. So far I'm enjoying it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 19, 2008, 09:05 PM
Now reading "Dragon's Fire" by Todd McCaffrey. So far I'm enjoying this one more than the White Dragon from a few months ago.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Jd0YsrxHL._SS500_.jpg)

The McCaffreys' second fire-breathing collaboration (after 2003's Dragon's Kin) again proves why these fabled dragons still cast a spell. Pellar, a mute Apprentice Harper; Halla, a homeless girl; and Cristov, a miner's son, learn invaluable life lessons as the planet Pern prepares for the return of the deadly Red Star and its annihilating "Thread," which can only be destroyed by firestone-fueled dragonfire. But mining firestone is dangerous work, often carried out by children of disenfranchised criminals called the Shunned. Accompanied by his new fire-lizard Chitter, Pellar joins Masterharper Zist in a search for Moran, a missing Journeyman Harper who's involved with the Shunned. Pellar finds his fate intertwined with Halla, but his tangle with Tenim, a ruthless thief, almost keeps them apart. Their friend Cristov learns about the Shunned firsthand after a terrible mine explosion. Fortunately, events lead to dragon-riding wish fulfillment and a remarkable discovery. While it allegorizes the risks of mining fossil fuels and the horrors of slave labor, this coming-of-age fantasy offers suitable dragon play for all ages.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 20, 2008, 09:52 AM
On multiple recommendations, I picked up "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.  It's a non-fiction account of a hike on the Appalachian trail.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks on August 20, 2008, 12:08 PM
I finished "Watchmen" last week.  I didn't think it was quite as good as the hype behind it and it's a lot different then what I thought it was going to be.  Still, good, and I'm still looking forward to watching the movie when (if?  **** FOX) it comes out.

I might actually move on to the Karen Travis novel of the Clone Wars next.  Not sure.  That or play catch-up on the Legacy comics probably.

   E...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 20, 2008, 01:26 PM
On multiple recommendations, I picked up "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.  It's a non-fiction account of a hike on the Appalachian trail.

I read that one. Good story. Lots of swaring though but an enjoyable read never the less. No way I'm doing that trail though after reading what he went threw.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 21, 2008, 09:54 AM
On multiple recommendations, I picked up "A Walk in the Woods" by Bill Bryson.  It's a non-fiction account of a hike on the Appalachian trail.

I read that one. Good story. Lots of swaring though but an enjoyable read never the less. No way I'm doing that trail though after reading what he went threw.

Funny thing is, my best buddy and I, who grew up next to the trail and camped out all the time together, have been talking about doing a portion one day.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 21, 2008, 03:46 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/26680000/26683115.jpg)

I don't have the time or the system to play the game, I had to pass on the toys, and I doubt I'll get around to the comic, so this is likely to be the extent of my Force Unleashed experience.

I'm hoping to kill this, Traviss' Clone Wars novelization, Republic Commando: True Colors, and Tuesday's Coruscant Nights II: Street of Shadows before classes start after Labor Day.

Wish me luck. :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 27, 2008, 08:06 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513HTltt%2BoL._SS500_.jpg)

So far, it's loads better than the movie.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 27, 2008, 08:37 PM
So far, it's loads better than the movie.

I bet the characters lips are even in sync.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 28, 2008, 10:55 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/26080000/26083794.jpg)

With the Jedi all but wiped out in the grim aftermath of Order 66, the Empire’s power seems unchecked. But one lone Knight continues to fight the good fight–against all odds and when all else fails.

Deep in the bowels of Coruscant, Jedi Jax Pavan ekes out a living as a private investigator, a go-to, can-do guy for the downtrodden. Now a mysterious Zeltron knockout named Deejah approaches Jax with a case that needs to be cracked: to find out who killed her artist lover Volette, brutally murdered hours after his triumphant unveiling of a dazzling new light sculpture with obvious links to lightsaber pyrotechnics.

Finding Volette’s killer won’t be easy–too many secrets, too many suspects, and all kinds of motives. But with the droid I-5YQ’s help, and ex-reporter Den Dhur’s excellent snooping skills, the investigation is soon operating like a well-oiled machine.

Unfortunately, there’s a far more efficient machine hunting Jax. It’s a deadly game of cat-and-mouse as the clock starts ticking toward the final explosive showdown . . . to see who strikes first and who will die first.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 29, 2008, 10:02 AM
I've started reading the Charlie Bone series. They are kind of a Harry Potter ripoff but better written.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EEWX05R6L._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)


When he is 10 years old, Charlie discovers that he is able to look at photographs and hear conversations and even thoughts that were taking place at the time the photo was taken, a legacy of his ancestor the Red King, whose descendants all have different magical abilities. Charlie hears one conversation that sets him on a search for a girl who has been missing for years, and when he begins attending Bloor's Academy, an elite boarding school for the rich and the endowed (as the Red King's descendants are called), his life becomes full of intrigue and danger. Charlie, his friend Benjamin, and other allies try to unlock the secrets of a mysterious case that could get the girl back, while the sinister Bloors and Charlie's ghastly relatives who are endowed try to thwart them. While the parallels with Harry Potter are obvious, this fantasy has its own charms, chief among them being the endoweds' often-odd magical abilities. The writing is deft, most of the characters are intriguing, and Charlie Bone is an appealing boy. The story is marred by some predictability, and the role of the endowed in this otherwise contemporary, unmagical society is not clear. Many aspects of the book are not fully thought out, making it less compelling than it might be. However, this is the first of a projected series, so it will be interesting to see if some of these vague points are resolved. A flawed but worthwhile offering for avid fantasy fans.


 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 29, 2008, 12:55 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51M3CFWD7CL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

Currently reading "Brave Men, Dark Waters" by Orr Kelly.  It traces the history of the SEAL teams from their days as UDT's and the training for that and how they got their inspiration from the USMC's Scout's and Raiders from WWII.  It goes into their actual participation in combat during the Korean War and leads up to their actual creation by JFK in 1961.  It doesn't cover today's conflicts around the world, but does include the Panama invasion and their limited participation in Desert Shield/Desert Storm.  IMO, Kelly is one of the foremost authors of special operations.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 30, 2008, 10:07 AM
I burned through A Walk in the woods pretty fast. Loved it. Now I'm working on a collection of short stories about Terraforming.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 3, 2008, 10:17 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13950000/13950531.JPG)

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/12550000/12554922.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 4, 2008, 08:53 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/15300000/15303625.JPG)

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/lucretius.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on September 9, 2008, 11:33 AM
I just read the Last of the Jedi #4 by Jude Watson, and am now reading The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier (which has a lot of narrative to go with the comic book portions).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 9, 2008, 04:10 PM
On two book two of the Charlie Bone series.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51F11S74GQL._SS500_.jpg)

In this sequel to Midnight for Charlie Bone (Scholastic, 2003), Nimmo continues the saga of the endowed descendants of the Red King, who attend a very Hogwarts-like boarding school called Bloor's Academy. "The Time Twister," a marblelike ball with the power to transport people through time, brings Henry Yewbeam from 1916 to present day Bloor's. His evil, scheming cousin Ezekiel, who was responsible for sending him to the future, is still alive, and Charlie Bone must protect Henry and find a way to send him back into the past. This is a breezy read, even at its 400-page length. Sadly, there are plot elements that seem to come totally out of the blue or that just don't make sense. The power with which each individual child is endowed, such as the ability to create storms or to transform into a bird, seems arbitrarily created to provide dramatic rescues. A painting of a wizard named Skarpo is left for Charlie by one of his aunts. As readers of the first book know, Charlie can hear voices in pictures, and they now discover that he can actually enter them as well. Oddly, Henry seems unfazed by his trip through time and by the modern world. The unexpected plot twist at the end is strangely unclimactic, and seems to pass by so quickly that any sense of triumph at the outcome is lost. Charlie Bone is a likable character to whom kids will turn to for a fix after they've finished the latest Harry Potter for the fifth time. For libraries where fantasy is popular.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on September 11, 2008, 03:20 AM
I finished Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer last week. Only took a few days to read- I couldn't put it down. I started reading The Fellowship of the Ring tonight, starting my fifth trek through Middle-Earth.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on September 11, 2008, 09:09 AM
^^^That's brave going through the LOTR trilogy more than once. :) I love to read, but it was all I could stand to get through those books once.  It may be a really, really long time before I can trek through them again.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 14, 2008, 12:31 PM
I'm on to the third Charlie Bone book, "Charlie Bone and the Invisible Boy".

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51CJ25QYTDL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

In this third installment in the series, another semester at Bloor Academy is about to begin, and, as usual, chaos ensues. At home, Charlie's Uncle Paton disappears, then returns ill and powerless. Charlie's friend Benjamin heads off to Hong Kong, and his grandmother Maisie leaves to take care of her sick sister. At the same time, a new and sinister student named Belle arrives and quickly establishes herself as a force to be reckoned with. A new art teacher has joined the staff to find his younger brother, Ollie Sparks, turned invisible by a blue boa (snake, though there are feathers involved) controlled by the evil Ezekiel Bloor. Charlie and his friends try to come up with ways to help Ollie and Billy Raven, the poor orphan being manipulated and tormented by the Bloor clan. One of the strengths of this story (and the whole series) is the way both regular people and those who are magically endowed work toward common goals. A weakness is the lack of progress toward identifying and rescuing Charlie's father, who is barely mentioned in this outing. Still, it's a wild roller-coaster ride of a story, and will more than satisfy not only fans of this series, but those who are exhibiting symptoms of Harry Potter withdrawal.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 14, 2008, 05:00 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/95/18/44e081b0c8a060c08a26c110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on September 15, 2008, 10:44 AM
Free Lunch by David Cay Johnston.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 15, 2008, 08:58 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/00/e8/a029793509a0e7ce4e244110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris Wyman on September 15, 2008, 10:43 PM
I'm almost done with "I, Jedi" by Michael A. Stackpole. Really enjoying this book.

(http://www.theforce.net/jedicouncil/interview/pics/ijedi_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 19, 2008, 01:39 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a3/40/382ac060ada00b7fb197c110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on September 19, 2008, 08:34 AM
I finished "Brave Men, Dark Waters," and now I've got two books I'm kind of working through.  "The War" by Ken Burns.   I never got to watch the PBS special and really wish I had.  Being a huge WWII buff and possibly getting my masters in it, this book has been fascinating dealing with the day to day lives of people.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51dDQHw5TZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

The other book, "The Right Stuff," by Tom Wolfe.  I just started this, so not much to comment on yet.  However, I've read Chuck Yeager's autobiography and absolutely love the guy.  I've heard the book is a lot of sensationalized history with a bit of bending of the facts thrown in with no actual interviews with the astronauts.  That kind of kills me.  But I loved this movie when I saw it as a kid and want to see it again when I finish the book.  I've always been fascinated with the early space program, so we'll see how this turns out.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/5b/fd/adad228348a0360003140110._AA240_.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 22, 2008, 01:25 PM
Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Cz8xTazUL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg)

In most thrillers, "hardware" consists of big guns, airplanes, military vehicles, and weapons that make things explode. Dan Brown has written a thriller for those of us who like our hardware with disc drives and who rate our heroes by big brainpower rather than big firepower. It's an Internet user's spy novel where the good guys and bad guys struggle over secrets somewhat more intellectual than just where the secret formula is hidden--they have to gain understanding of what the secret formula actually is.
In this case, the secret formula is a new means of encryption, capable of changing the balance of international power. Part of the fun is that the book takes the reader along into an understanding of encryption technologies. You'll find yourself better understanding the political battles over such real-life technologies as the Clipper Chip and PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) software even though the book looks at the issues through the eyes of fiction.

Although there's enough globehopping in this book for James Bond, the real battleground is cyberspace, because that's where the "bomb" (or rather, the new encryption algorithm) will explode. Yes, there are a few flaws in the plot if you look too closely, but the cleverness and the sheer fun of it all more than make up for them. There are enough twists and turns to keep you guessing and a lot of high, gee-whiz-level information about encryption, code breaking, and the role they play in international politics. Set aside the whole afternoon and evening for it and have finger food on hand for supper--you may want to read this one straight through.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 22, 2008, 03:18 PM
I got sidetracked from Children of Dune for almost a month but I finished it last night and just started on the fourth one:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/godemperorofdune.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on September 24, 2008, 12:49 AM
Still reading Atlas Shrugged. Appropriate for these times.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 1, 2008, 04:55 PM
(http://basicbooks.com/images/detail/0465037070.jpg)

Just And Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument With Historical Illustrations

It's better than most of its ilk because Walzer draws on historical cases (My Lai, General Sherman, the Peloponnesian War, the inevitable WWII examples) rather than dwelling on navelgalzing abstraction.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 1, 2008, 05:49 PM
Finished Digitial Fortress. Pretty poor book from a programmer point of view. My biggest problem with the book is you would think that the NSA would have somekind of Disaster Recovery backup system in place incase the main archive gets corrupted by a virus. I guess Dan Brown never heard of tape backup when he wrote the book.

Why do I read this stuff?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 8, 2008, 09:46 AM
In the middle of Charlie Bone and the Castle of Mirrors. This is book 4 of the series.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/9b/af/f1af53a09da0439a01587110.L.jpg)

Charlie Bone is starting a new school year and once again there are unpleasant surprises in store for him and his friends at Bloor's Academy. Little Billy Raven has finally been adopted, but the sinister de Greys have other plans for Billy, and it is up to Charlie and his friends to find a way to save him. Nimmo once again delivers an exciting, plot-driven tale that is sure to please fantasy and adventure fans. This new chapter in Charlie's saga is full of plot twists and thrills that will leave readers eagerly awaiting the next installment in the series. While the character development is a bit lacking, fantasy fans will enjoy the story.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 14, 2008, 04:09 PM
Now on Charlie Bone and the Hidden King. This is book 5 of the series. I believe there are two more after this.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DGA7HBHBL._SS500_.jpg)

In the fifth installment (Orchard, 2006) of the series by Jenny Nimmo, Charlie Bone has a whole new set of mysteries to figure out—and his father is still missing. The boy discovers that the shadow from the portrait of the Red King that hangs in his school has disappeared, and everyone's pets are vanishing as well. Charlie meets Naren, a strange girl who claims to know the whereabouts of the pets. As if this wasn't enough, Charlie's mother seems to have forgotten about his father and fallen in love with an enchanter. Charlie needs his friends now more than ever if he's finally going to get to the bottom of things. To fully understand the characters and situations, the books should be read in sequence.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on October 14, 2008, 04:10 PM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c2/Zombiesurvivalguide.jpg)

Just in time for Samhain  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on October 16, 2008, 12:37 AM
Just starting Book 5 after a loooong hiatus.

(http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/prod_lrg_images/058/205771058.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 19, 2008, 09:57 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/hereticsofdune.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on October 19, 2008, 11:55 PM
Felt like an easy read during midterm exam prep, so I'm almost through a library copy of Jedi Quest #6, the Shadow Trap.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on October 20, 2008, 01:02 AM
(http://bostonist.com/attachments/austinist_kerry/armret.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 21, 2008, 11:58 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/28750000/28759414.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jayson on October 22, 2008, 12:02 AM
I've heard good things about this book Nate. What do you think so far?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 22, 2008, 12:46 AM
Well I'm only 77 pages in so far. I don't know how familiar you are with the Traviss Republic Commando series and any of the fandom controversy attendant thereunto, but it's basically par for the course for the series: Mary-Sue Mandalorian-wanking, Jedi-bashing, and interminable navelgazing by the clone commandos. We get it, clones are people too, but you don't need to keep beating the same dead horse. On. Every. Page.

Traviss is a good writer from the nuts-and-bolts standpoint, but she really has no idea what makes the SW universe tick. I could go on and on but this isn't the venue. Suffice it to say that the less familiar you are with EU, the less you will be bothered by her interpretative leaps (read: errors that knowingly and willfully ignore fairly major parts of the film and spinoff continuity).

All that aside, it is the fourth part in an ongoing series and most of it won't make sense if you haven't read the previous ones. But if you enjoyed the other, this is in the same vein so by all means go for it....
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 24, 2008, 04:14 PM
Currently reading "The Picture of Dorian Gray" by Oscar Wilde.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41QV1CH6Q4L._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

A lush, cautionary tale of a life of vileness and deception or a loving portrait of the aesthetic impulse run rampant? Why not both? After Basil Hallward paints a beautiful, young man's portrait, his subject's frivolous wish that the picture change and he remain the same comes true. Dorian Gray's picture grows aged and corrupt while he continues to appear fresh and innocent. After he kills a young woman, "as surely as if I had cut her little throat with a knife," Dorian Gray is surprised to find no difference in his vision or surroundings. "The roses are not less lovely for all that. The birds sing just as happily in my garden."
As Hallward tries to make sense of his creation, his epigram-happy friend Lord Henry Wotton encourages Dorian in his sensual quest with any number of Wildean paradoxes, including the delightful "When we are happy we are always good, but when we are good we are not always happy." But despite its many languorous pleasures, The Picture of Dorian Gray is an imperfect work. Compared to the two (voyeuristic) older men, Dorian is a bore, and his search for ever new sensations far less fun than the novel's drawing-room discussions. Even more oddly, the moral message of the novel contradicts many of Wilde's supposed aims, not least "no artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style." Nonetheless, the glamour boy gets his just deserts. And Wilde, defending Dorian Gray, had it both ways: "All excess, as well as all renunciation, brings its own punishment."


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: DSJ™ on October 27, 2008, 09:15 AM
Been reading this online, clicky picture.  ;D

(http://preview.shareapic.net/preview3/011207149.jpg) (http://watchmen-comics.blogspot.com/)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 31, 2008, 03:07 PM
Finished reading the sixth Charlie Bone and the Beast yesterday. Almost done with Dorian Grey.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bpo8UWnaL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Life should be perfect for Charlie now that his parents have been reunited. But mystery and adventure always find him. This time Asa, a fellow classmate who changes into a beast at dusk, and Charlie's sometime-enemy, is missing. His parents seek out Charlie for help. Manfred is holding Asa captive in a forest cave and now Charlie needs the help of the Flames to rescue his classmate.

Manfred has also taken the new endowed student, Dagobert Endless, under his wing and Charlie is highly suspicious of the pair. Can the Flames and Charlie rescue Asa without being caught by Manfred and Dagobert?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 31, 2008, 04:54 PM
Been reading this online, clicky picture.  ;D

(http://preview.shareapic.net/preview3/011207149.jpg) (http://watchmen-comics.blogspot.com/)

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Forums/gunraylegal.jpg)

:P

J/K. Nice find actually; I'm taking a gander at it now.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 1, 2008, 05:50 PM
Finished Dorian Grey. Since we have an election on tuesday, I thought I would read "All the King's Men" by Robert Penn Warren.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41DZBGXV7PL._SL500_BO2,204,203,200_AA219_PIsitb-sticker-dp-arrow,TopRight,-24,-23_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This landmark book is a loosely fictionalized account of Governor Huey Long of Louisiana, one of the nation's most astounding politicians. All the King's Men tells the story of Willie Stark, a southern-fried politician who builds support by appealing to the common man and playing dirty politics with the best of the back-room deal-makers. Though Stark quickly sheds his idealism, his right-hand man, Jack Burden -- who narrates the story -- retains it and proves to be a thorn in the new governor's side. Stark becomes a successful leader, but at a very high price, one that eventually costs him his life. The award-winning book is a play of politics, society and personal affairs, all wrapped in the cloak of history.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on November 2, 2008, 12:10 AM
Phruby, I can't believe how many books you plow through.  Sheesh, you are a reading machine!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on November 2, 2008, 08:47 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51oBfZ9bJkL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 3, 2008, 11:03 AM
Phruby, I can't believe how many books you plow through.  Sheesh, you are a reading machine!

I have about two hours each night to read. My wife is even faster. She brings home a stack each week from the library that she mows thru. I just typically have the one for the week. I think "all the kings men" will take about 2-3 weeks. It's a long book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on November 3, 2008, 02:09 PM
Phruby, I can't believe how many books you plow through.  Sheesh, you are a reading machine!

I have about two hours each night to read. My wife is even faster. She brings home a stack each week from the library that she mows thru. I just typically have the one for the week. I think "all the kings men" will take about 2-3 weeks. It's a long book.

Its great you give yourself so much time to read.  I fall into the other trap of finding myself watching TV instead :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on November 3, 2008, 09:05 PM
Phruby, I can't believe how many books you plow through.  Sheesh, you are a reading machine!

I have about two hours each night to read. My wife is even faster. She brings home a stack each week from the library that she mows thru. I just typically have the one for the week. I think "all the kings men" will take about 2-3 weeks. It's a long book.

No kids I take it?   :-X

I'm just starting Legacy: Inferno...Sacrifice was the best of the series so far IMO
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 4, 2008, 11:14 AM
Phruby, I can't believe how many books you plow through.  Sheesh, you are a reading machine!

I have about two hours each night to read. My wife is even faster. She brings home a stack each week from the library that she mows thru. I just typically have the one for the week. I think "all the kings men" will take about 2-3 weeks. It's a long book.

No kids I take it?   :-X

I'm just starting Legacy: Inferno...Sacrifice was the best of the series so far IMO

We've got three kids.  1 year old, 4 year old and 8 year old.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on November 4, 2008, 11:50 AM
What do they do when you are reading, or is it after they go to bed?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 4, 2008, 05:30 PM
We have them in bed by 8.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 9, 2008, 07:00 PM
Taking a small break from "All the Kings Men" to quickly read "Charlie Bone and the Shadow" by Jenny Nimo. This is book seven of the series.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51h8-3XojqL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

The enchanter Count Harken is back to take his revenge on the Red King's heirs, starting with Charlie Bone's family! Charlie's ancestor has been kidnapped and imprisoned in the dark, forbidding land of Badlock, and it's up to Charlie to save him. Traveling through a painting to the terrifying countryside, Charlie and his best friend's dog, Runner Bean, take up the quest. But when Runner Bean gets trapped, Charlie needs the help of his friends. Can they get past an army of trolls, rescue Runner Bean and Charlie's ancestor, and get out before it's too late?

Can Charlie outwit Court Harken and his sinister troops, or will the prisoners be doomed to being held captive in Badlock forever?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on November 9, 2008, 09:54 PM
I just started on the last of the "real" Dune series:

(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/chapterhousedune.jpg)

After this I'm going to hit the Brian Herbert/KJA spinoffs but in publication order. So I'll start with House Atreides/Harkonnen/Corrino, then go back to the Butlerian Jihad trilogy and jump forward to Hunters and Sandworms (7 and 8 ).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on November 9, 2008, 11:59 PM
I recently started reading Rescuing Sprite by Mark Levin. A touching story full of laughter and tears.

A must for any dog lover.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on November 10, 2008, 03:59 PM
I had some credit at our local half price books, so I got a copy of Michael Crichton's The Terminal Man for a song.  Too bad he passed away a week later.  I'm about a quarter of the way through it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 10, 2008, 08:18 PM
I needed to take a break from the dry reading of The Right Stuff and I've been wanting to read this for a while, being a GnR fan and with the upcoming album and all. I've got to say this book is really a page turner.  I know that Slash had some help in the writing, but he seems to be a very intelligent person and the stories are absolutely astonishing...what's even more amazing is that he's still alive after everything he's done.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41yMq6HPQ8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on November 12, 2008, 10:58 AM
Just finished Inferno and I'm moving on to Fury:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51mXECWNPnL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Inferno was my favorite of the series so far...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on November 13, 2008, 08:14 AM
I'm still on my Hemingway collection... For Whom The Bell Tolls is awesome, so far. I've got a ways to go, if I just had more time (working 10+ hour days) I know I could breeze through it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 13, 2008, 04:35 PM
That's may next book after I finish "All the King's Men". I've hit the halfway point on that book. I've completed that last charlie bone book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on November 18, 2008, 11:45 AM
I was curious, I've been seeing a lot of buzz (and commercials) for this movie Twilight that opens this week - has anyone here read the books that the movies are based on?  From what I understand it is more of a "young adult" type of fare, but I guess the same could be said of Harry Potter.  I was just wondering if anyone here has read them, and if so, if you enjoyed them.  It will be interesting to see how the movie does as well, and if there is another franchise in the making - similar to Harry Potter (although likely not on that level, of course).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 18, 2008, 11:57 AM
My wife has the entire series stacked up on her night table and has really enjoyed them. It's basically a young adult version of Romeo and Juliet but with Vampires. Think Buffy the vampire slayer without the slaying. She will probably make me read them soon.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on November 18, 2008, 02:10 PM
I am reading the Lone Ranger and Tonto fist fight in heaven. its a story about indians and the injustice they recieve from us white people. Its actually a pretty good book, Im reading it for one of my university courses, but wether or not it matters is up to when ever this strike ends...if it lasts any longer this book my be pulled from my schedule and that will be $15 lost :( either way i am still in full support of the union the is striking, they deserve more then what they get.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 18, 2008, 04:17 PM
Personally I believe that unions should be outlawed but that's a discussion for a different section. ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on November 21, 2008, 09:16 AM
I picked up an Isaac Asimov collection of short stories. I've been digging short stories lately.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on November 21, 2008, 04:10 PM
I picked up an Isaac Asimov collection of short stories.

Good choice. You can't go wrong with Asimov.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on November 22, 2008, 12:59 AM
I picked up an Isaac Asimov collection of short stories. I've been digging short stories lately.

Maybe you have ADD?

Wait, what were we talking about?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on November 22, 2008, 10:19 AM
I picked up an Isaac Asimov collection of short stories.

Good choice. You can't go wrong with Asimov.

Being such a Sci-fi fan, I'm embarrassed to admit that this is the first Asimov material I've ever read.  :P
Gotta say that I'm hooked now.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 22, 2008, 08:05 PM
Finished "All the Kings Men" and now starting For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.  It's funny how the classics are alot more fun to read when you don't have to read them for school.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519T4SHJ6QL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

For Whom the Bell Tolls begins and ends in a pine-scented forest, somewhere in Spain. The year is 1937 and the Spanish Civil War is in full swing. Robert Jordan, a demolitions expert attached to the International Brigades, lies "flat on the brown, pine-needled floor of the forest, his chin on his folded arms, and high overhead the wind blew in the tops of the pine trees." The sylvan setting, however, is at sharp odds with the reason Jordan is there: he has come to blow up a bridge on behalf of the antifascist guerrilla forces. He hopes he'll be able to rely on their local leader, Pablo, to help carry out the mission, but upon meeting him, Jordan has his doubts: "I don't like that sadness, he thought. That sadness is bad. That's the sadness they get before they quit or before they betray. That is the sadness that comes before the sell-out." For Pablo, it seems, has had enough of the war. He has amassed for himself a small herd of horses and wants only to stay quietly in the hills and attract as little attention as possible. Jordan's arrival--and his mission--have seriously alarmed him.

"I am tired of being hunted. Here we are all right. Now if you blow a bridge here, we will be hunted. If they know we are here and hunt for us with planes, they will find us. If they send Moors to hunt us out, they will find us and we must go. I am tired of all this. You hear?" He turned to Robert Jordan. "What right have you, a foreigner, to come to me and tell me what I must do?"

In one short chapter Hemingway lays out the blueprint for what is to come: Jordan's sense of duty versus Pablo's dangerous self-interest and weariness with the war. Complicating matters even more are two members of the guerrilla leader's small band: his "woman" Pilar, and Maria, a young woman whom Pablo rescued from a Republican prison train. Unlike her man, Pilar is still fiercely devoted to the cause and as Pablo's loyalty wanes, she becomes the moral center of the group. Soon Jordan finds himself caught between the two, even as his own resolve is tested by his growing feelings for Maria.

For Whom the Bell Tolls combines two of the author's recurring obsessions: war and personal honor. The pivotal battle scene involving El Sordo's last stand is a showcase for Hemingway's narrative powers, but the quieter, ongoing conflict within Robert Jordan as he struggles to fulfill his mission perhaps at the cost of his own life is a testament to his creator's psychological acuity. By turns brutal and compassionate, it is arguably Hemingway's most mature work and one of the best war novels of the 20th century.


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 23, 2008, 09:40 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rjMCGQCQL._SS500_.jpg)

Just finished reading "Slash" so now I've picked up the above.  For you guys that have served, you will find the humor in it.  It gives an interesting look into how the Army works and the kinds of personalities you deal with, in whatever branch you may come across or serve in.  Very humorous.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 23, 2008, 12:46 PM
Finished "All the Kings Men" and now starting For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway.  It's funny how the classics are alot more fun to read when you don't have to read them for school.

That is probably my favorite book of all time, I went through a serious Hemingway kick about 6-7 years ago...I gobbled up everything I could and absolutely adore each and every book he wrote.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 1, 2008, 02:00 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/8a/cb/0b9b8149e7a0e0b5061fd110.L.jpg) (http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/b6/66/3288e03ae7a078d6e51fd110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on December 1, 2008, 09:37 AM
My buddy loaned my I Am Legend. I'll be getting to that soon.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 1, 2008, 02:23 PM
A friend of mine just finished "I am legend" and thought it was the most depressing book he's ever read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on December 3, 2008, 09:12 AM
My wife finished it in a day. She liked it, but liked the movie better.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 4, 2008, 05:11 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/1f/10/8695228348a0498e0ff81110.L.jpg) (http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/62/29/273c810ae7a0041fd61fd110.L.jpg)

A little light bedtime reading. Oy.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 4, 2008, 09:36 AM
My wife finished it in a day. She liked it, but liked the movie better.

You need to catch the Vincent Price version next time its on TCM.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on December 4, 2008, 02:35 PM
I'm currently reading "Walk this Way" about the band Aerosmith.  It cover's from the band's introduction to music as kids, through their forming the band all the way up to the 90's. And it goes into great detail about their drug abuse and how often times their emotions at those times helped them create their music.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 8, 2008, 12:40 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/26640000/26648713.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 10, 2008, 10:12 AM
Currently reading "Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. It will be interesting to see how it differs from Apocalypse Now.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51SESGS7A9L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Loosely based on Conrad’s firsthand experience of rescuing a company agent from a remote station in the heart of the Congo, the novel is considered a literary bridge between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. With its modern literary approach to questions such as the ambiguous nature of good and evil, the novel foreshadows many of the themes and techniques that define modern literature.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JangoTat on December 11, 2008, 09:56 PM
Has anyone read the new Legacy spin off Millennium Falcon book? I hear they are making a sequel series to Legacy, which is good because there were a lot of unanswered questions and story lines that just ended.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 16, 2008, 11:40 AM
Just started reading "Tarzan of the Apes" by Edgar Rice Burroughs.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ItoWVwe8L._SS500_.jpg)

oh wait... wrong picture.... sorry.... :-[

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BXzezoE-L._SS500_.jpg)

In 1888 Lord and Lady Clayton sail from England to fill a military post in British West Africa and perish at the edge of a primeval forest. When their infant son is adopted by fanged “great anthropoid apes,” he becomes one of the most legendary figures in all of literature—Tarzan of the Apes. Within the society of speechless primates, Tarzan wields his natural influence and becomes king. Self-educated by virtue of his parents’ library, Tarzan discovers true civilization when he rescues aristocratic Jane Porter from the perils of his jungle. Their famous romance, which pits Tarzan’s lifetime of savagery against Jane’s genteel nature, has captivated audiences for nearly a century.
 
First published in 1914, Tarzan of the Apes is the first of several works by Edgar Rice Burroughs that delineate Tarzan’s manifold and amazing feats. Despite his reputation as a pulp writer, Burroughs spins an exhilarating yarn detailing the laws of the jungle and the intricate dilemmas of the British gentry as he examines the struggle between heredity and environment.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on December 21, 2008, 08:48 PM
I just finished Michael Crichton's 1972 novel "The Terminal Man", and started a Last of the Jedi young reader novel by Jude Watson called Death on Naboo.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 23, 2008, 03:18 PM
I get done with finals and I spend my break reading for fun. Go figure. ::)

I killed this one in one evening:

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/5b/08/430a71a88da061075756e110.L.jpg)

Now reading these:

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/9c/55/ad29419328a0146e1756e110.L.jpg)

From the opening line of his breakthrough cyberpunk novel Snow Crash, Neal Stephenson plunges the reader into a not-too-distant future. It is a world where the Mafia controls pizza delivery, the United States exists as a patchwork of corporate-franchise city-states, and the Internet--incarnate as the Metaverse--looks something like last year's hype would lead you to believe it should. Enter Hiro Protagonist--hacker, samurai swordsman, and pizza-delivery driver. When his best friend fries his brain on a new designer drug called Snow Crash and his beautiful, brainy ex-girlfriend asks for his help, what's a guy with a name like that to do? He rushes to the rescue. A breakneck-paced 21st-century novel, Snow Crash interweaves everything from Sumerian myth to visions of a postmodern civilization on the brink of collapse. Faster than the speed of television and a whole lot more fun, Snow Crash is the portrayal of a future that is bizarre enough to be plausible.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/eb/fc/9ee971a88da01a4c9756e110.L.jpg)

Paper or plastic? Neither, say William McDonough and Michael Braungart. Why settle for the least harmful alternative when we could have something that is better--say, edible grocery bags! In Cradle to Cradle, the authors present a manifesto calling for a new industrial revolution, one that would render both traditional manufacturing and traditional environmentalism obsolete. Recycling, for instance, is actually "downcycling," creating hybrids of biological and technical "nutrients" which are then unrecoverable and unusable. The authors, an architect and a chemist, want to eliminate the concept of waste altogether, while preserving commerce and allowing for human nature. They offer several compelling examples of corporations that are not just doing less harm--they're actually doing some good for the environment and their neighborhoods, and making more money in the process. Cradle to Cradle is a refreshing change from the intractable environmental conflicts that dominate headlines. It's a handbook for 21st-century innovation and should be required reading for business hotshots and environmental activists.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/f5/41/794be03ae7a061b7d756e110.L.jpg)

The Separatists have launched a sneak attack on Coruscant. Obi-Wan Kenobi, wounded in battle, insists that Anakin Skywalker and his rookie Padawan Ahsoka leave on a risky mission against General Grievous. But when Senator Bail Organa reveals explosive intelligence that could turn the tide of war in the Republic’s favor, the Jedi Master agrees to accompany him to an obscure planet on the Outer Rim to verify the facts. What Obi-Wan and Bail don’t realize is that they’re walking into a deadly trap concocted by Palpatine . . . and that escape may not be an option.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 26, 2008, 11:42 PM
Finished Tarzan. It's very different from the Disney version. Much better.

Now starting Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy.

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/20/33/064c024128a0cc699d9d7010.L.jpg)

The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed." If what we call "horror" can be seen as including any literature that has dark, horrific subject matter, then Blood Meridian is, in this reviewer's estimation, the best horror novel ever written. It's a perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge." Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power. From the opening scenes about a 14-year-old Tennessee boy who joins the band of hunters to the extraordinary, mythic ending, this is an American classic about extreme violence.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Reid on December 27, 2008, 12:18 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/fb/1f/b492793509a0ae6e94796110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 7, 2009, 10:39 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/33630000/33638822.jpg)

"None of the stories people tell about me can change who I really am." -- Luke Skywalker
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 8, 2009, 01:04 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51xQ6k5xOTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Kill bin Laden.  It's written by the guy who was in command of Delta Force and the overall ground commander in the Tora Bora region during the search.  I've read two other books by guys who were with the CIA and actually on the ground so I'm putting a lot of belief in what they are saying was happening. 

One thing I've gotten tired of reading press reports by guys who were in country at the time, but weren't actually anywhere near the action.  I'm thrilled to be reading from the perspective of a guy in the thick of things.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 8, 2009, 07:20 PM
Now reading "The Call of the Wild" by Jack London. There are some additional short stores in the book also.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V52E4QS6L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Inspired by the rugged landscape of the wild Northwest frontier, London's immortal "The Call of the Wild" has captivated readers of all ages with its unique perspective--a narrative from the viewpoint of the sled dog named Buck. Other selected stories include "Diable--A Dog", "An Odyssey of the North", "To the Man on Trail", "To Build a Fire" and "Love of Life".
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on January 8, 2009, 11:15 PM
I just finished the Legacy of the Force series and was really dissapointed that they didn't tie up more loose ends. 

*SPOILERS*








 - Why did Jaina even train with the Mandalorians?  She didn't use her berserker fighting style to fight Caedus!
 - Could Allana's storyline be anymore predictible?
 - I thought earlier books referenced Lumiya talking with a future Caedus, but we never see Caedus flow walk back to talk with her.  Did they just forget about this or was it someone other than Caedus?
 - Could Jag's character be any more of a tool?  The guy just get's pushed into whatever role needs filling.  Hey fighter pilot, why don't you become a bounty hunter and make a suit or armor like Iron Man.  Then you can lead a task force to hunt down Alema. We don't have anything lined up after that, but you can take the Falcon out for a spin for no apparent reason and be a punching bag for Jaina.  Crap, the Empire needs a new leader - hey how about Jag?  Ridiculous. 
 - Tahiri wasn't much better.  I'm glad there was some storyline around her because I like the character, but it took Ben half a paragraph to talk her out of being a Sith.

In all, I felt like every sub plot was too rushed.  They need an extra page or two of conversation or detail to bring readers in.  As it is, it felt like reading a wikipedia summary of a real story.  ::)  I did like the middle books a lot - some focus on the mandalorians and background on the clones was great.  And I loved the run-in with the hidden Sith...that was a nice little plot connector for those of us reading the novels and the Legacy comic line.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on January 13, 2009, 09:49 AM
I've got about 200 pages left in War And Peace.

 8)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 13, 2009, 09:42 PM
I've got about 200 pages left in War And Peace.

 8)

That's impressive. Did you enjoy it?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on January 14, 2009, 07:50 AM
The last three books I read:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41cX%2ByENCUL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

It's described as The Matrix meets Jaws.  A pretty good book - a bit eccentric, but still a good read.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518Q3w-K5lL._SS500_.jpg)

Took a whooping 45 minutes to read, including all of Dumbledore's comments.  A nice little addition to the Harry Potter universe.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Af4Tg1vuL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Just wrapped this up last night.  An absolutely fantastic novel start to finish.  I won't give too much away, but Serena is one nasty vindictive bitch.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 14, 2009, 10:11 AM
Just started on "The Run" by Stuart Woods. This seems to be your basic political thriller.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YEFxz8YvL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The prolific Woods returns to his roots with an unexceptional new episode in his Lee family saga, a series dormant since 1989. Will and Kate Lee, now a Washington power couple, decide to go for broke in their service to the country. Will, a popular senator from Georgia, jumps into the race for the presidency, while Kate, a deputy director at the CIA, cheers him on. Will is for the most part about as likable as a politician can be, and boasts impeccable Democratic stripes. The Republicans try to stir up trouble by rehashing Will's sexual dalliance with a movie star nearly a decade earlier and raise questions about his competency as a lawyer on a rape and murder case many years ago. Will deflects those charges, but other problems are brewing. The candidate's liberal leanings are anathema to a right-wing militia group from Idaho, whose leader, Zeke Tennant, tracks Will from one campaign stop to another with a duffel bag full of weapons. In a final showdown, Tennant makes one last assassination attempt, this time while Will debates his Democratic primary challenger at Ford's Theater in the nation's capital. This fourth entry in the Lee family story, launched in 1981 with the Edgar-winning Chiefs, sparks from time to time but never catches fire. Lee would probably make a great president, but as a character he's all smooth surface, no edge and not very compelling. Worse, his run for the presidency lacks any real suspense. The assassin is too much of a bumbler to take seriously, and the Republicans' dirty tricks fizzle out quickly. For edge-of-the-seat drama, Woods (Worst Fears Realized) tries to inject energy into the uncertainty of the delegate-counting process at the party convention. Even political junkies won't get a rise out of that.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: ruiner on January 14, 2009, 12:21 PM
The perfect companion for the runs.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 16, 2009, 09:43 AM
The perfect companion for the runs.

The cheese factor in this book would probably keep that from happening.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 20, 2009, 09:09 PM
Now reading "Into Thin Air : A personal account of the Mount Everest Disaster" by Jon Krakauer.

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A bank of clouds was assembling on the not-so-distant horizon, but journalist-mountaineer Jon Krakauer, standing on the summit of Mt. Everest, saw nothing that "suggested that a murderous storm was bearing down." He was wrong. The storm, which claimed five lives and left countless more--including Krakauer's--in guilt-ridden disarray, would also provide the impetus for Into Thin Air, Krakauer's epic account of the May 1996 disaster. With more than 250 black-and-white photographs taken by various expedition members and an enlightening new postscript by the author, the Illustrated Edition shows readers what this tragic climb looked like and potentially provides closure for Krakauer and his detractors.
"I have no doubt that Boukreev's intentions were good on summit day," writes Krakauer in a postscript dated August 1998. "What disturbs me, though, was Boukreev's refusal to acknowledge the possibility that he made even a single poor decision. Never did he indicate that perhaps it wasn't the best choice to climb without gas or go down ahead of his clients." As usual, Krakauer supports his points with dogged research and a good dose of humility. But rather than continue the heated discourse that has raged since Into Thin Air's denouncement of guide Boukreev, Krakauer's tone is conciliatory; he points most of his criticism at G. Weston De Walt, who coauthored The Climb, Boukreev's version of events. And in a touching conclusion, Krakauer recounts his last conversation with the late Boukreev, in which the two weathered climbers agreed to disagree about certain points. Krakauer had great hopes to patch things up with Boukreev, but the Russian later died in a avalanche on another Himalayan peak, Annapurna I. Krakauer further buries the ice axe by donating his share of royalties from sales of The Illustrated Edition to the Everest '96 Memorial Fund, which aids various environmental and humanitarian charities. --Rob McDonald
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on January 27, 2009, 03:52 AM
If you haven't already, you should read Into The Wild, also by Krakauer. I finally read it last year after seeing the movie, and found it interesting.

I started reading Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo this weekend. Wow.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 27, 2009, 09:46 PM
I'll check for that tonight when I go to the library.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on January 27, 2009, 11:46 PM
I'm quickly reading through Fight Club and slowly reading through Return of the King at the same time.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 28, 2009, 01:17 AM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/dune_atreides.jpg)

I'm not sure if I will make it through all of these spinoffs, but I'm starting here and we'll see how it goes.

I'm also rereading the original 03-05 series of Clone Wars novels, and I figured I'd start with this one from January 02 since it sets up a lot of the plot threads for the Separatist crisis and Episode II.

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/8500000/8506321.jpg)

Then for school I've got:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TJ056JG0L._SS500_.jpg) (http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/36/a0/9bca9833e7a010807ceb1110.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on January 28, 2009, 06:07 AM
(http://assets.cambridge.org/97805216/16645/cover/9780521616645.gif)

(http://press.princeton.edu/images/k8406.gif)

Werd.

And for fun I'm also reading Blood Meridian:

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/12580000/12586016.jpg)

And I picked up The Watchmen with the intent to read it before the movie comes out, but with 18 ******* credits this semester I doubt that will happen. :-X :'(
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 28, 2009, 09:31 AM
I think you will like Blood Meridian. It's really well told but really violent. Don't read it if your a horse fan.

I'm on to The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41FNVTRGE8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "something new--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple + intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream.

It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 4, 2009, 09:37 AM
Now really enjoying The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EARGZRFTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Sam Spade, Dashiell Hammett's archetypally tough San Francisco detective, is more noir than L.A. Confidential and more vulnerable than Raymond Chandler's Marlowe. In The Maltese Falcon, the best known of Hammett's Sam Spade novels (including The Dain Curse and The Glass Key), Spade is tough enough to bluff the toughest thugs and hold off the police, risking his reputation when a beautiful woman begs for his help, while knowing that betrayal may deal him a new hand in the next moment.
Spade's partner is murdered on a stakeout; the cops blame him for the killing; a beautiful redhead with a heartbreaking story appears and disappears; grotesque villains demand a payoff he can't provide; and everyone wants a fabulously valuable gold statuette of a falcon, created as tribute for the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV. Who has it? And what will it take to get it back? Spade's solution is as complicated as the motives of the seekers assembled in his hotel room, but the truth can be a cold comfort indeed.

Spade is bigger (and blonder) in the book than in the movie, and his Mephistophelean countenance is by turns seductive and volcanic. Sam knows how to fight, whom to call, how to rifle drawers and secrets without leaving a trace, and just the right way to call a woman "Angel" and convince her that she is. He is the quintessence of intelligent cool, with a wise guy's perfect pitch. If you only know the movie, read the book. If you're riveted by Chinatown or wonder where Robert B. Parker's Spenser gets his comebacks, read the master.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 8, 2009, 05:51 PM
"Lies my Teacher told Me."  I'm only a chapter into it, but it's a book I've been wanting to read for a while.  As a historian by trade and training, I find a ton of the stuff that we read in many books, websites, on the news, or just get out of school textbooks is drastically wrong.  It's interesting to see how in many cases people try to cover up the "bad" things and leave in the "good things".  History is not all nice and tidy as we wish to believe and Americans are not always the great people we make ourselves out to be.  Anyway, I really look forward to getting into this book.

When I'm finished, I think I'm going to be getting into three different books on Motley Crue, "Tommyland", "Dirt", and "Confessions of a Heroin Addict."

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51m3%2B8UMBgL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 9, 2009, 09:59 AM
History is always written from the perspective of the conquorers.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 9, 2009, 10:34 AM
History is always written from the perspective of the conquorers.

So true.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 10, 2009, 11:52 PM
Finished the Maltese Falcon and on to "Hatchet" by Gary Paulsen.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515oHOe0SvL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

When the pilot of a small, two-person plane has a heart attack and dies, Brian has to crash land in the forest of a Canadian wilderness. He has little time to realize how alone he is, because he is so busy just trying to survive. And learning to survive, to plan on food not just for a day but untiland ifhe is rescued, only begins when he stops pitying himself and understands that no one can help him. He is on his own, without his divorced father, whom he was to visit, or his mother, whom Brian saw kissing another man before the divorce. This is a heart-stopping story: it seems that at every moment Brian is forced to face a life-and-death decision, and every page makes readers wonder at the density of descriptive detail Paulsen has expertly woven together. Poetic texture and realistic events are combined to create something beyond adventure, a book that plunges readers into the cleft of the protagonist's experience.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 11, 2009, 01:13 AM
(http://www.trainparty.com/pictures/THOMASGETSTRICKEDBOOK.JPG)

The plot is so predictable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on February 11, 2009, 09:22 AM
(http://www.trainparty.com/pictures/THOMASGETSTRICKEDBOOK.JPG)

The plot is so predictable.

Very linear...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 11, 2009, 09:44 AM
It looks like JediJman is really stretching his literary bounderies. I hope he can work his way into the classics like Green Eggs and Ham.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 11, 2009, 12:39 PM
It looks like JediJman is really stretching his literary bounderies. I hope he can work his way into the classics like Green Eggs and Ham.

We're already past Green Eggs & Ham, though that is an old favorite.  Unfortunately my reading is pretty much just limited to what we read the kids these days.   :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on February 11, 2009, 01:25 PM
Hi, I'm John and I'm also a children's book-a-holic.  Lately its been all Elmo and Curious George books.  We're working on shapes, colors, numbers, etc.  I have about a half dozen books that I'd like to be reading instead, but I too have been limited to the books with pictures lately...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 13, 2009, 07:55 PM
I'm now reading "1984" by George Orwell and really enjoying it because Big Brother is always watching....Always watching....

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31FNWHA224L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

"Outside, even through the shut window pane, the world looked cold. Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sky a harsh blue, there seemed to be no color in anything except the posters that were plastered everywhere."
The year is 1984; the scene is London, largest population center of Airstrip One.

Airstrip One is part of the vast political entity Oceania, which is eternally at war with one of two other vast entities, Eurasia and Eastasia. At any moment, depending upon current alignments, all existing records show either that Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia and allied with Eastasia, or that it has always been at war with Eastasia and allied with Eurasia. Winston Smith knows this, because his work at the Ministry of Truth involves the constant "correction" of such records. "'Who controls the past,' ran the Party slogan, 'controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.'"

In a grim city and a terrifying country, where Big Brother is always Watching You and the Thought Police can practically read your mind, Winston is a man in grave danger for the simple reason that his memory still functions. He knows the Party's official image of the world is a fluid fiction. He knows the Party controls the people by feeding them lies and narrowing their imaginations through a process of bewilderment and brutalization that alienates each individual from his fellows and deprives him of every liberating human pursuit from reasoned inquiry to sexual passion. Drawn into a forbidden love affair, Winston finds the courage to join a secret revolutionary organization called The Brotherhood, dedicated to the destruction of the Party. Together with his beloved Julia, he hazards his life in a deadly match against the powers that be.

Newspeak, doublethink, thoughtcrime--in 1984, George Orwell created a whole vocabulary of words concerning totalitarian control that have since passed into our common vocabulary. More importantly, he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 14, 2009, 09:44 AM
That's a really good book.  I had to start it twice though as I felt the first bit of it was overly dry.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 16, 2009, 02:55 PM
British stuff is usually kind of dry. You got to have the right frame of mind for something like this.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 23, 2009, 01:53 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/28550000/28552425.jpg)

Bandwagon reading ftw. ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on February 24, 2009, 06:58 PM
I just finished Cesar Milan's book Cesar's Way.  It's helped me understand my dogs and why they do half the crap they do!

as soon as my wife's done with it, I'm going to read Cesar's new book A Member of the Family.  We're getting a new puppy next month and we want to give her a balanced life from day one!   :D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt on February 25, 2009, 01:27 PM
I've been reading this while serving jury duty this week:

(http://img264.imageshack.us/img264/6853/kingshining.jpg)

First time I've ever read it.  And I'm a little surprised about how much different it apparently is from the movie (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0).  Kubrick definitely took some liberties with this one.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 26, 2009, 08:30 PM
Well I gave up on the Brian Herbert/KJA continuations of Dune without even finishing the first one. It wasn't bad, but it just didn't live up to the (admittedly lofty) expectations of the "real" Dune.

Basically I figured there was too much "original" work out there that I hadn't already read, to waste time on knockoffs.

Which is why I started this yesterday:

(http://media.us.macmillan.com/jackets/500H/9780812511819.jpg)

Considering it took me half a year to do Dune, this series should easily keep me busy until #12 comes out in the fall.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on February 27, 2009, 07:29 AM
Finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/76/791/530/0767915305.jpg)

Started:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/97/941/988/0979419883.jpg)

Most likely up next:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/051/850/0060518502.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: knashdx on February 27, 2009, 09:52 AM
(http://stmedia.startribune.com/images/M3421419.JPG)

Everything I have at the house by Bill Holm (pictured above). He was a Professor of mine in college that passed away on Wednesday. 
(http://i22.ebayimg.com/03/c/00/c0/a3/6b_7.JPG)
The Heart Can Be Filled Anywhere on Earth: Minneota, Minnesota
(http://i9.ebayimg.com/03/c/00/c0/81/85_7.JPG)
Coming Home Crazy: An Alphabet of China Essays
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 27, 2009, 12:57 PM
I'm now onto a piece of slock called "School Days" by Robert B. Parker. It's a weird transition going from masterpiece literature to this. Oh well. I think the TV show was better anyway. I've got some good stuff coming up after this one.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XsMM%2B7EtL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Any new installment in Parker's long-running series starring tough, wisecracking Boston PI Spenser is a pleasure, and this time out high-maintenance girlfriend Susan Silverman is out of town, giving readers unfettered Spenser face time. The wealthy Lily Ellsworth hires Spenser to prove the innocence of her grandson, Jared Clark, accused of a Columbine High School–style shooting that has left five students and two teachers dead. Jared has confessed to the crime, and Spenser faces major opposition from local law enforcement officials, school authorities, dysfunctional parents, opposing lawyers and deadly gang-bangers. As always, Spenser solves the case in a surprising manner, shoots some bad guys and has several attractive women offer him sex, all of which he handles in his proficient, wisenheimer way. Susan's German shorthaired pointer Pearl gets a lot of attentive babysitting, but longtime sidekick Hawk is nowhere in evidence. Those who have stuck with Spenser as Parker invented (and set loose) other case-crackers will be rewarded once again with another solid installment in this fine, enduring series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on February 27, 2009, 02:16 PM
Phruby- 1984 is my favorite novel of all time.  I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do!  I just finished Fight Club (found the narrative really choppy, but about as enjoyable as the film).  Perhaps the most shocking thing was written in the afterword: the author was approached by a banquet waiter who claimed to have dropped his semen into Margaret Thatcher's food on at least five separate occasions.  Makes you careful how often you eat out!  I'm still slowly reading Return of the King, and quickly reading a Last of the Jedi young reader novel #7.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 27, 2009, 04:51 PM
I really enjoyed 1984. I loved all the talk about how the new language was designed and how the government was setup. It's funny how he missed the whole global economy aspect.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on February 28, 2009, 04:31 PM
I've got about 200 pages left in War And Peace.

That's impressive. Did you enjoy it?

It's a great book. Time consuming, but very much worth it.

After War And Peace, I read The Four Feathers. I'm still not sure what to think about that one... it has all the potential in the world to be a great book, but it's so damned short that you don't connect with any of the characters. The main dude is supposed to suffer trials over a course of five or six years, but that length of time isn't illustrated at all - it's just noted that many years have passed, and then the story moves on just like the characters haven't changed one bit in the mean time. Decent book, doesn't live up to its potential.

Now I'm almost done reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Some of it's funny, some of it's smart, and some of it doesn't make a lick of sense.

In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the Civil War battle of Shiloh, I plan on reading Shelby Foote's Shiloh: A Novel as soon as it shows up in the mail. Managed to pick it up for $0.74 + shipping on Amazon's Used Books page.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 3, 2009, 09:09 PM
I'm reading "Alice in Sunderland" by Bryan Talbot. This book is great! It's beautifully illustrated in a comic book-type fashion. There is some pretty bazaar stuff in this one.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51H26hHDlBL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Talbot's freewheeling, metafictional magnum opus is a map of the curious and delightful territory of its cartoonist's mind, starring himself in multiple roles. The starting point is the history of his hometown, the northeast English city of Sunderland, along with his lifelong fascination with the myths and realities behind Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland—potentially dry material, but Talbot pulls out all the stops to keep it entertaining. He veers off on one fascinating tangent after another. The book encompasses dead-on parodies of EC horror comics, British boys' comics and Hergé's Tintin, walk-ons by local heroes like Sidney James, extensive analysis of a couple of William Hogarth prints, a cameo appearance by the Venerable Scott McComics-Expert and even a song-and-dance number, drawing a three-dimensional web of coincidences and connections between all. It's also a showcase for the explosive verve of Talbot's protean illustrative style, with digital collages of multiple media on almost every page: pen-and-ink drawings in a striking variety of styles, photographs, painting, computer modeling, and all manner of found images. The book's only real weakness is its scattered focus, but Talbot is a remarkable raconteur, even if what he's presenting is more a variety show than a story.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 5, 2009, 12:07 PM
Now on to "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee.

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"When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.... When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out."
Set in the small Southern town of Maycomb, Alabama, during the Depression, To Kill a Mockingbird follows three years in the life of 8-year-old Scout Finch, her brother, Jem, and their father, Atticus--three years punctuated by the arrest and eventual trial of a young black man accused of raping a white woman. Though her story explores big themes, Harper Lee chooses to tell it through the eyes of a child. The result is a tough and tender novel of race, class, justice, and the pain of growing up.

Like the slow-moving occupants of her fictional town, Lee takes her time getting to the heart of her tale; we first meet the Finches the summer before Scout's first year at school. She, her brother, and Dill Harris, a boy who spends the summers with his aunt in Maycomb, while away the hours reenacting scenes from Dracula and plotting ways to get a peek at the town bogeyman, Boo Radley. At first the circumstances surrounding the alleged rape of Mayella Ewell, the daughter of a drunk and violent white farmer, barely penetrate the children's consciousness. Then Atticus is called on to defend the accused, Tom Robinson, and soon Scout and Jem find themselves caught up in events beyond their understanding. During the trial, the town exhibits its ugly side, but Lee offers plenty of counterbalance as well--in the struggle of an elderly woman to overcome her morphine habit before she dies; in the heroism of Atticus Finch, standing up for what he knows is right; and finally in Scout's hard-won understanding that most people are essentially kind "when you really see them." By turns funny, wise, and heartbreaking, To Kill a Mockingbird is one classic that continues to speak to new generations, and deserves to be reread often.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on March 6, 2009, 09:32 AM
One of my all-time favorite novels.  It was also a movie that I loved to watch with my dad when I was growing up.  I entertained the idea of naming our daughter Scout, but my husband thought I was out of my mind.  My dad calls her Scout sometimes.  We have friends who have a one year old daughter named Scout.  Everytime I see her I think of that plucky little freckle-faced girl. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 7, 2009, 01:04 AM
I met Harper Lee last year. She doesn't get out much.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 7, 2009, 11:27 AM
This is a great book. You can't go wrong with Gregory Peck as Atticus. Great names in this book. That little girl that played Scout in the movie played Sport in that Twilight Zone where the kids find a passageway to a southern gramma house at the bottom of their pool. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 18, 2009, 10:30 AM
I'm on to the Swiss Family Robinson by Johann D. Wyss.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ZQE83KMXL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Swept off course by a raging storm, a Swiss pastor, his wife, and four young sons are shipwrecked on an uncharted tropical island. Thus begins the classic story of survival and adventure that has fired the imaginations of readers since it first appeared in 1812.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 20, 2009, 09:33 AM
Finished Shiloh: A Novel by Shelby Foote, and Anthem by Ayn Rand, now it's Night by Elie Wiesel.

I've got Three Months in the Southern States by Sir Arthur Freemantle and Civil War: A Narrative by Shelby Foote in the mail.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 24, 2009, 11:58 AM
Finished Night by Elie Wiesel and Animal Farm by George Orwell.

Now reading Three Months in the Southern States by Sir Arthur Freemantle.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 24, 2009, 02:14 PM
Animal farm is on my upcoming reading list. What is Night about?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 24, 2009, 02:38 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51J5YWJRGML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

I've always been a big Motley Crue fan and am finding myself more and more rabid about their music.  I may go to their concert here in Dallas in August.  This is one of those hard to put down books and is very well written from a number of perspectives in the band and from people involved with the band.  Reading this has also given me some insight into their "Saints of Los Angeles" album that came out last year.  Good album BTW if anyone is interested.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 24, 2009, 02:39 PM
I hadn't read Animal Farm before... It's freaking awesome.

Night is a short story, about the size of Animal Farm; from wiki:

Night is a work by Elie Wiesel based on his experience as a young Orthodox Jew of being sent with his family to the German concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald during the Second World War.

Wiesel was 16 years old when Buchenwald was liberated in April 1945. Having lost his faith in God and humanity, he vowed not to speak of his experiences for ten years, at the end of which he wrote his story in Yiddish, which was published in Buenos Aires in 1955. In May that year, the French novelist François Mauriac persuaded him to write the story for a wider audience. Fifty years later, the 109-page volume, described as devastating in its simplicity, ranks alongside Primo Levi's If This Is a Man and Anne Frank's The Diary of a Young Girl as one of the bedrocks of Holocaust literature.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 25, 2009, 02:19 PM
Finished the Swiss Family Robinson. It's funny how this book doesn't have most of the major sequences that the Disney movie has. It is mostly about the kids hunting and how the dad can build a nuclear reactor out of two coconuts and some vines! (slight exaggeration) It's like being marooned with McGyver. The Professor on Gilligan's Island has nothing on this guy!


I'm just starting "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" by John Berendt.

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John Berendt's Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil has been heralded as a "lyrical work of nonfiction," and the book's extremely graceful prose depictions of some of Savannah, Georgia's most colorful eccentrics--remarkable characters who could have once prospered in a William Faulkner novel or Eudora Welty short story--were certainly a critical factor in its tremendous success. (One resident into whose orbit Berendt fell, the Lady Chablis, went on to become a minor celebrity in her own right.) But equally important was Berendt's depiction of Savannah socialite Jim Williams as he stands trial for the murder of Danny Hansford, a moody, violence-prone hustler--and sometime companion to Williams--characterized by locals as a "walking streak of sex." So feel free to call it a "true crime classic" without a trace of shame.

After discovering in the early 1980s that a super-saver fare to Savannah, Ga., cost the same as an entree in a nouvelle Manhattan restaurant, Esquire columnist Berendt spent the next eight years flitting between Savannah and New York City. The result is this collection of smart, sympathetic observations about his colorful Southern neighbors, including a jazz-playing real estate shark; a sexually adventurous art student; the Lady Chablis (' "What was your name before that?" I asked. "Frank," she said.' "); the gossipy Married Woman's Card Club; and an assortment of aging Southern belles. The book is also about the wealthy international antiques dealer Jim Williams, who played an active role in the historic city's restoration--and would also be tried four times for the 1981 shooting death of 21-year-old Danny Handsford, his high-energy, self-destructive house helper. The Williams trials--he died in 1990 of a heart attack at age 59--are lively matches between dueling attorneys fought with shifting evidence, and they serve as both theme and anchor to Berendt's illuminating and captivating travelogue.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 27, 2009, 01:14 PM
Finished up Three Months in the Southern States by Sir Arthur Freemantle. Amazing book.

Now reading The Civil War: A Narrative - Volume 1 - Fort Sumter to Perryville by Shelby Foote...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 27, 2009, 01:37 PM
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About a chapter into it today.  Good read so far.  Good supplement to other books on Easy Company, 101st AB Division in WWII.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 30, 2009, 11:41 AM
While I'm reading "Midnight in the Garden of good and evil", I've started to read the first "Artemis Fowl" book by Eoin Colfer. You should be seeing a bunch of his books in my furture posts.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HTQ9YASCL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg) 

Eoin Colfer describes his new book, Artemis Fowl, as "Die Hard with fairies." He's not far wrong.
Twelve-year-old Artemis Fowl is the most ingenious criminal mastermind in history. With two trusty sidekicks in tow, he hatches a cunning plot to divest the fairyfolk of their pot of gold. Of course, he isn't foolish enough to believe in all that "gold at the end of the rainbow" nonsense. Rather, he knows that the only way to separate the little people from their stash is to kidnap one of them and wait for the ransom to arrive. But when the time comes to put his plan into action, he doesn't count on the appearance of the extrasmall, pointy-eared Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaisance) Unit--and her senior officer, Commander Root, a man (sorry, elf) who will stop at nothing to get her back.

Fantastic stuff from beginning to end, Artemis Fowl is a rip-roaring, 21st-century romp of the highest order. The author has let his imagination run riot by combining folklore, fantasy, and a fistful of high-tech funk in an outrageously devilish book that could well do for fairies what Harry Potter has done for wizardry. But be warned: this is no gentle frolic, so don't be fooled by the fairy subject matter. Instead, what we have here is well-written, sophisticated, rough 'n' tumble storytelling with enough high-octane attitude to make it a seriously cool read for anyone over the age of 10.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 30, 2009, 04:11 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/silmarillion.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Daigo-Bah on March 31, 2009, 02:07 PM
I just started the first "Lost Dragonlance Chronicles" by Weis and Hickman.  I was a huge fan of the original Dragonlance Chronicles, and even moreso of the Dragonlance Legends trilogy.  Once they moved on into their kids' stories, I lost interest, but with a return to the original characters, I'm there!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 7, 2009, 12:36 AM
Finished Artimis Fowl. Fun read. Now starting the next in the series Artimis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eion Colfer.

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Rocketing readers back into a world of modern fairies (they pack heat and wear motorized wings), Colfer here reunites 13-year-old antihero Artemis with his former kidnap victim, Captain Holly Short, an elf officer with the LEPrecon (Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance) squad. As the erstwhile arch enemies join forces to squelch a power-hungry pixie's coup attempt in one world and to rescue Artemis's long-missing father in another (he's being held for ransom by the Russian Mafiya), the boy proves he has a heart after all, even as he builds his reputation as a world-class criminal mastermind. Once again, the roller coaster of a plot introduces a host of high jinks and high-tech weaponry as Colfer blends derring-do with snappy prose ("The broad grin disappeared like a fox down a hole") and repartee ("Hey, Mulch, if you listen really hard you can just about make out the sound of nobody giving a hoot"). The resulting fantasy hosts memorable characters, many of whom (such as the flatulent dwarf Mulch Diggums) reprise roles that helped attract fans to the first adventure. The author ratchets up the body count in this return engagement (perhaps too steeply for some tastes), and the high-concept premise may be a tad slick for others, but Colfer's finger is firmly on the pulse of his target market, and along with extra helpings of sly humor ("The sprite's breathing calmed, and a healthy green tinge started to return to his cheeks") he delivers a cracking good read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 7, 2009, 11:30 AM
Catching up on some of the older SW books I missed over the years...

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/0/07/TruceatBakura.jpg/210px-TruceatBakura.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 7, 2009, 02:31 PM
I remember that book. That's the one with the Star Wars version of the Borg.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 7, 2009, 02:39 PM
I remember that book. That's the one with the Star Wars version of the Borg.

Correctemundo.  I just started it this week though, so don't tell me what happens.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on April 7, 2009, 04:31 PM
It took me a long time to get through Truce at Bakura. Painfully long.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 7, 2009, 04:32 PM
It took me a long time to get through Truce at Bakura. Painfully long.

Based on the initial 20-30 pages, I'm definitely feeling that.   :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on April 7, 2009, 04:52 PM
Just finished the autobiography of Don Malarkey, one of the platoon sergeants in Easy Company, 101st AB in WWII.  His part was acted by Scott Grimes in the Band of Brothers series.  You might also know Grimes as playing Dr. Morris on ER.  Pretty good book and a quick read.

Now I'm going the novel route for a few weeks and then I'll delve back into history.  Not sure what will come after this, but for now the following is what I'm working on.

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/3/34/Atlantis_Found_novel_cover.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on April 7, 2009, 05:24 PM
I really liked TAB but could be just the nostalgia talking.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 7, 2009, 06:20 PM
I really liked TAB but could be just the nostalgia talking.

Is this a book or are you referring to the carbonated beverage?  Maybe you should hang out with my Aunt...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on April 11, 2009, 06:19 PM
I realized after getting about 15 pages in, that the story seemed really familiar.  Then it dawned on me I had already read "Atlantis Found" but had done so in hardback.  So I'm shipping it to a few of my buddies in Iraq looking for books to read and I've picked up "Bloody Bremen" to read.  It's about the last major engagement in Europe during WWII, fought mainly by Montgomery and it was thought at the time he was being relegated to a rear/flank guard position.  He ended up putting the final nail in Nazi coffin from the West.


(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51s8dOOkuRL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 11, 2009, 07:26 PM
Now starting The Prestige by Christopher Priest.

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Priest, one of Granta's Best Young British Novelists (1983 list), has not been overproductive since he made a small reputation with The Affirmation and The Glamour, published here more than a dozen years ago. His new novel (the title of which refers to the residue left after a magician's successful trick) is enthrallingly odd. In a carefully calculated period style that is remarkably akin to that of the late Robertson Davies, Priest writes of a pair of rival magicians in turn-of-the-century London. Each has a winning trick the other craves, but so arcane is the nature of these tricks, so incredibly difficult are they to perform, that they take on a peculiar life of their own?in one case involving a mysterious apparent double identity, in the other a reliance on the ferocious powers unleashed in the early experimental years of electricity. The rivalry of the two men is such that in the end, though both are ashamed of the strength of their feelings of spite and envy, it consumes them both, and affects their respective families for generations. This is a complex tale that must have been extremely difficult to tell in exactly the right sequence, while still maintaining a series of shocks to the very end. Priest has brought it off with great imagination and skill. It's only fair to say, though, that the book's very considerable narrative grip is its principal virtue. The characters and incidents have a decidedly Gothic cast, and only the restraint that marks the story's telling keeps it on the rails.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 13, 2009, 05:39 PM
Also starting "Airman" by Eoin Colfer.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514GY8xMb4L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Conor Broekhart was born to fly. 

            It is the 1890s, and Conor and his family live on the sovereign Saltee Islands, off the Irish coast. Conor spends his days studying the science of flight with his tutor and exploring the castle with the king's daughter, Princess Isabella.  But the boy's idyllic life changes forever the day he discovers a deadly conspiracy against the king. When Conor intervenes, he is branded a traitor and thrown into jail on the prison island of Little Saltee. There, he has to fight for his life, as he and the other prisoners are forced to mine for diamonds in inhumane conditions. 
            There is only one way to escape Little Saltee, and that is to fly. So Conor passes the solitary months by scratching drawings of flying machines into the prison walls. The months turn into years, but eventually the day comes when Conor must find the courage to trust his revolutionary designs and take to the skies.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on April 16, 2009, 03:49 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uussEZLwL._SS500_.jpg)

The Despair has plagued the earth for five years. Most of the world’s population has inexplicably died by its own hand, and the few survivors struggle to remain alive. A mysterious, shadowy group called the Collectors has emerged, inevitably appearing to remove the bodies of the dead. But in the crumbling state of Florida, a man named Norman takes an unprecedented stand against the Collectors, propelling him on a journey across North America. It’s rumored a scientist in Seattle is working on a cure for the Despair, but in a world ruled by death, it won’t be easy to get there.

It's very much in the vein of Children of Men (though with the depopulation a few stages further along), as well as, apparently, M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening. As io9 (http://io9.com/5119118/what-if-the-happening-was-a-novel-and-quite-good) pointed out, it "may be the first novel ever to have a blurb from Marvel Comics' Stan Lee and reviews comparing it to Cormac McCarthy's The Road."

Incidentally, the author is an '02 grad of my college, so I showed up at tonight's signing/reading on campus and got an autographed copy.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 22, 2009, 12:19 AM
I've finished the Prestige and now starting book one of "the Dresden Files: Storm Front" by Jim Butcher.

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Harry Dresden is the best at what he does. Well, technically, he's the only at what he does. So when the Chicago P.D. has a case that transcends mortal creativity or capability, they come to him for answers. For the "everyday" world is actually full of strange and magical things -- and most of them don't play well with humans. That's where Harry comes in. Takes a wizard to catch a -- well, whatever.

There's just one problem. Business, to put it mildly, stinks. So when the police bring him in to consult on a grisly double murder committed with black magic, Harry's seeing dollar signs. But where there's black magic, there's a black mage behind it. And now that mage knows Harry's name. And that's when things start to get... interesting.

Magic. It can get a guy killed.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 22, 2009, 12:34 AM
I've been reading the Vince Flynn (http://www.amazon.com/Vince-Flynn/e/B000APHM1K) novels...I'm only on the second one and they are decent.  Definitely a step below Clancy but still fun stories
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on April 22, 2009, 09:31 AM
After a long hiatus, I've finally started (re-started) reading the Lord of the Rings trilogy.  As others have mentioned before, it seemed to take awhile getting through the initial parts of Fellowship, but things have been cruising along now.  Just about finished with FOTR, and hope to move on to TTT after that.  I hadn't really had much time to sit down and read for awhile, but the wife recently got into the Twilight books after we picked up the DVD (read all four in a week and a half), so its given me some time to read some of the books I've been meaning to get to as well.  Also, although maybe not technically a "book", I did just read through Batman: The Long Halloween as well.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on April 23, 2009, 03:58 PM
Nathan, let me know how Suicide Collectors is.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth Broem on April 24, 2009, 02:27 PM
I just finished The Talisman by Stephen King/Peter Straub a few weeks ago.  Pretty cool book!  It got me back into King again.  I am simultaneously reading Insomnia and The Gunslinger. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on April 24, 2009, 02:30 PM
Just finished the first book in the Dark Tower series. Not sure how i feel about it, the last 10 or so pages seemed to be the best. I ordered the second book anyway.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 26, 2009, 05:22 PM
Finished the Airman. Now reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas père.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YHTM4TDFL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This enduringly popular tale of love and revenge in the post-Napoleonic era follows Edmond Dantes as he prepares to captain his own ship and marry his beloved Mercedes. But on his wedding day, he is betrayed by spiteful enemies and arrested on trumped-up charges. Condemned to lifelong imprisonment, he befriends Faria, a priest and fellow inmate with an escape plan. When Faria dies, Edmond escapes alone. Free at last, and incredibly wealthy, Edmond enters society posing as the Count of Monte Cristo to reclaim his lost love and enact a terrible vengeance on his accusers.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 1, 2009, 12:47 PM
Finish The Count. Now on to Seizure by Robin Cook.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RKHDSE44L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Cook constructs a promising yet ultimately wearying plot around the issue of therapeutic cloning, picking up where his last novel, Shock, left off. Readers are once again privy to the morally questionable goings on at the Wingate Infertility Clinic in the Bahamas, but its doctors are side players here. Leading the action is former Harvard biotech ace Daniel Lowell, who has formed his own company to investigate a cloning technique in which a patient with an incurable disease is returned to health through the injection of stem cells. In this case the disease is Parkinson's, and the patient is Ashley Butler, a conservative U.S. senator from the South. For political reasons, Butler opposes the legalization of Lowell's technique. Yet Butler-given about a year to live-is willing to switch sides if Lowell agrees to try out the treatment on him first. The kicker is that the fundamentalist Butler wants the stem cells injected into his brain to come from a very specific source: the Shroud of Turin, the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Cook provides plenty of action as well as polemical asides about the ethics of cloning (he believes politics intrudes far too often into medical and biotech issues), yet readers waiting for a jolt or a revelation will be disappointed. Cook occasionally lets loose the propulsive narrative force that characterizes his best work, but much of the plot is stale and contrived. Readers will have to endure characters who fail to stir emotions (such as a band of corny mobsters), as well as descriptions of Bahamanian resorts that read like paid promotional material.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 1, 2009, 01:29 PM
Dan Browns "Angels and Demons" for me right now.  My wife loved the book and said I would, but I've waited a few years to read it.  She wants to go see the movie when it comes out, so I decided I need to get through the book first.

I wish I had as much time to read as some of you guys.  Having a little girl has limited how much I've been able to read lately.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on May 1, 2009, 01:59 PM
Finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/051/850/0060518502.jpg)

Started:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/534/091/0385340915.jpg)

Up Next:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/40/008/067/1400080673.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 4, 2009, 11:03 AM
Back to Artemis Fowl with the third book in the series The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21ADE1VYHFL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA198_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Antihero Artemis Fowl, now 13 years old, is back. He has used stolen fairy technology to create a supercomputer known as the "C Cube," which will render all existing technology obsolete. He meets with Jon Spiro, head of "Fission Chips," with a proposition. For a price, he will suppress his cube, and allow Spiro time to sell his potentially worthless stocks and buy into Fowl Industries. Spiro double-crosses Artemis, and in the ensuing melee he steals the C Cube and Artemis's bodyguard, Butler, is murdered. The scene is totally out of James Bond; one fully expects to hear the familiar theme music and to see the credits as it concludes. The action does not let up as Artemis teams with the fairy policewoman Captain Holly Short and other companions to bring Butler back to life, and then to retrieve the Cube from Spiro's Chicago fortress. The plot is filled with crosses and double crosses, unmarked vans, and impenetrable security systems. It's exciting stuff, but the writing is often clich‚d at worst, and merely workmanlike at best. Butler's death scene is particularly hackneyed, echoing every overly dramatic death scene one can think of. Still, this latest adventure is sure to be popular with fans of the series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: knashdx on May 4, 2009, 11:51 AM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d4/Stupid_whitemen.jpg)    (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/cc/Dude_wheres_country.jpg)

I just picked them up over the weekend for a $1 each at a used book store sale. I like the work he has done in the past in movies/documentaries. So I am going to see how he is an author.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on May 4, 2009, 06:36 PM
Just finished Clone Wars: Wild Space.  Was a bit underwhelmed.  I have had kind of a hectic schedule lately, so it took me like a month to get through it (I probably averaged about 10 pages at a time...) so I think that interrupted its flow, but the book just didn't seem to do it for me.  Firstly there wasn't much mention of the clones, who I thought would be more of a focal point, and I expected the Jedi to learn a least a few hints about the Sith, but they didn't.  Essentially all that happened was Bail and Obi-Wan bonded, which adds a "tongue in cheek" aspect to Leia's line about "You served my father in the Clone Wars".

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series.  I think after this one I'll make an effort to get the MedStar duology.  I think Order 66 is out in paperback sometime this summer, so that's also on my list.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: ruiner on May 5, 2009, 10:36 AM

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series. 

Sounds like a romantic novel.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on May 5, 2009, 12:09 PM

Oh well, I'm on to the third in the Coruscant Nights series. 

Sounds like a romantic novel.

 ;D
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 6, 2009, 07:02 PM
Finished The Eternity Code and now started Fool Moon by Jim Butcher. The is the second book in the Dresden Files series.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DTq0hQL%2BL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

There are many kinds of wolves in the world, and not all of them are human. Not even those that walk on two legs.
Someone, someTHING, is shredding people in Chicago, leaving behind huge doggy footprints painted in the blood of the victims. Oh, and of course, it's round about full moon time. Reluctantly Karrin Murphy, Director of Special Investigations for the Chicago P.D., has had to call in Harry Dresden, professional wizard. Not that she trusts him much anymore after the way he left her hanging the last time they worked together. But he's the only with the knowledge and special skills she'll need if she has to deal with a werewolf on the loose.

In this second volume of his exciting new "Dresden Files" series, Jim Butcher has packaged up another action-filled detective story with a mystical twist. Like any good gumshoe thriller, "Fool Moon" has a plot full of peril, false leads, near misses, and all the usual (and unusual) suspects. Like any good fantasy tale, it has a believable, well-developed mythology. The reader comes away with an arcane education--werewolf lore, potion-cooking, demon-summoning. As narrator, Harry Dresden lets his audience in on all the little trade secrets of the practicing mage. Now, if only he could learn to be so candid with his colleagues and friends....

In the final analysis, "Fool Moon" is more about learning to trust than about foiling werewolves, more about self discovery than arcane knowledge, more about the demons in Harry's heart than those in his summoning circle. In other words, it is about Harry Dresden himself, a hero of pure intention, tremendous power, and courage in the face of unspeakable danger, who just happens to be afraid to meet his own eyes in the mirror. He infers the blackness of his own soul from the reactions of others brash or foolish enough to meet his gaze. And he fears that the kind of knowledge that has so blackened him will be at least as destructive to others. Harry's struggle to come to terms with himself and those he cares about, his faltering advances and all-too-frequent backslides, are what really keep the reader turning the pages. They are also what keep Harry half a step behind the villains until it is almost too late.

If you like action, mystery, magic, or just watching the growth of a compelling character, you'll want to read "Fool Moon."
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 6, 2009, 11:15 PM
Nathan, let me know how Suicide Collectors is.

It was OK but not great. You can definitely tell it was a first novel. Like, it had a good plot and some great individual elements, but it didn't gel all the way and the prose itself varies between good and extremely uninspired.

I give it 3.5 out of 5. Then again, my expectations were high because almost all reviews were positive, so YMMV. It's pretty short and is definitely worth a read, but I'd check it out of the library or wait for the paperback.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on May 7, 2009, 04:13 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13700000/13701647.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 7, 2009, 06:04 PM
Nathan, let me know how Suicide Collectors is.

It was OK but not great. You can definitely tell it was a first novel. Like, it had a good plot and some great individual elements, but it didn't gel all the way and the prose itself varies between good and extremely uninspired.

I give it 3.5 out of 5. Then again, my expectations were high because almost all reviews were positive, so YMMV. It's pretty short and is definitely worth a read, but I'd check it out of the library or wait for the paperback.

Thanks for the update.

As for me, I'm 700+ pages into Shelby Footes 3,000 page Civil War narrative. Meanwhile, I've got a whole stack of books I want to read next - feels like I'll never get enough time to finish this.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 7, 2009, 09:43 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13700000/13701647.JPG)

I read Outbond Flight. Good read but predictable. I'm half way thru Seizure. It also is very perdictable for this type of book. The Shroud of Torrin part seems tacked on to compete against the DeVinci Code. Why does alot of best sellers suck compared to the classics?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 13, 2009, 03:20 AM
@ Brad: http://nathanokeefe.blogspot.com/2009/05/book-review-suicide-collectors-by-david.html
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on May 13, 2009, 03:27 AM
The Jews of Medieval Western Cristendom

A Companion to Medieval English Language and Culure

Shylock

Representations of jews in Late Medieval and Early Modern German Literature

Chaucer and the Jews

Shakespeare and the Jews

Love and Conflict in Medieval Drama

The Merchant of Venice

Fashioning Jewish Identity in Medieval Western Christendom

The Formation of a Persecuting Society

Gender and Jewish Difference from Paul to Shakespeare


And let me tell you, it has been an AWESOME couple of days...



 :-X
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 13, 2009, 03:29 AM
Yeek ... a little light reading?

You were reading similar stuff back in January (I remember because I was taking a medieval course myself at the time). Are you doing an ongoing project?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on May 13, 2009, 03:39 AM
Yeek ... a little light reading?

You were reading similar stuff back in January (I remember because I was taking a medieval course myself at the time). Are you doing an ongoing project?

Yeah it's for my History capstone class. (Basically like a dumbed down undergrad thesis class.) I've got to write a 15 page paper by about noon tomorrow, The class is Jewish and Christian Relations in the Middle Ages. Which was my last choice. I really wanted to take something where I could focus on World War II, Anciet Greece, Ancient Rome, US History, or something I was at least somewhat interested in... Oh well, when this **** is done so am I. I've got one easy four-week summer class and then I'm graduated.

I'm about halfway done with the paper and I've been working most of the day. So I won't be sleeping tonight, I've had about 3 hours of sleep since I woke up on Monday and tomorrow night I have to finish up a group project. Finals week is awesome. >:(

You are a history major as well right Nate? Are you graduating this semester as well?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 13, 2009, 03:53 AM
Yep yep. I'm actually History, Ancient Studies, and Latin (a triple major being a side benefit of taking five years to graduate, I guess)--so I'm right on my way to being a starving liberal arts graduate in about two weeks.

I've got two in-class finals and a 20-page research paper (Roman Egypt in the late Republic) then I'm out. Today was my last day of class so I have a bit of a breather before the stuff starts coming due (Friday) but I definitely know the feeling.

Try to get at least a couple hours of sleep tomorrow so you don't drool on your group members. ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on May 13, 2009, 03:57 AM
Yep yep. I'm actually History, Ancient Studies, and Latin (a triple major being a side benefit of taking five years to graduate, I guess)--so I'm right on my way to being a starving liberal arts graduate in about two weeks.

A triple major in 5 is better than my double in 5 (my other major is in Communications Studies.)

Good luck with all of your **** as well. I can't wait for Thursday. I plan on cermoniously burning all of the crap I don't need anymore.  :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 13, 2009, 04:09 AM
Don't worry, my dirty secret is that mine is really only as much work as a double major--Ancient Studies is one of those interdepartmental programs where you can double count from the other two and from some courses that also fulfill distribution requirements (e.g. for my two religion courses I took Hebrew Prophets and The Biblical God).

I may go to grad school eventually so I'm saving most of my books and notes but there will definitely be much pyro-free rejoicing come Tuesday. Roast a couple marshmallows for me, will ya?

Good luck until then!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 13, 2009, 05:21 PM
Holy crap!!!!!  I'm not the only history major around here.  I didn't think anybody ever majored in that.  I don't feel alone anymore. :)  FWIW, I don't have a double major, but am about 6 hrs shy of having a second in Political Science.   I'm going to start  my Masters next year and it will focus on WWII.

Good luck Ryan on that paper.  I remember those days.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 13, 2009, 06:24 PM
Okay nerds.

Just finished volume one of Shelby Foote's Civil War narrative. Reading No Country For Old Men, perhaps a Faulkner book, then getting back to Foote.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 14, 2009, 10:01 AM
^^^Who you calling nerds? 

You're not the only one talking about books on a Star Wars boared.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 14, 2009, 10:25 AM
More than that, I'm a freakin' moderator on a Star Wars board talking about books.

 :-X

Should be wrapping up No Country For Old Men in the next day or two - so far Cormac McCarthy is 2 for 2 with me. Can't wait to pick up more of his work.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 15, 2009, 09:33 AM
Finished No Country. All in all, a very good book. The movie is actually just as good as the book, I think.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on May 15, 2009, 10:31 AM
I'm currently reading Cradle by Arthur C Clark. Not as good as the Odyssey series. On tap: Band of Brothers and the latest two collections of the comic series Powers.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 15, 2009, 12:44 PM
Band of Brothers is a great book.  I read it several times before I even knew about the HBO series.  Anything by the late Stephen Ambrose is a phenomenal read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 17, 2009, 06:56 PM
Now starting "Odd Thomas" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PRXZ0X2HL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)


Once in a very great while, an author does everything right-as Koontz has in this marvelous novel. Odd Thomas, who narrates, is odd indeed: only 20, he works contentedly as a fry cook in a small fictional California town, despite a talent for writing. The reason for his lack of ambition? A much rarer talent: Odd sees and converses with ghosts, the lingering dead who have yet to pass on, a secret he has kept from nearly everyone but his girlfriend, an eccentric author friend and the local police chief, whom he occasionally helps solve terrible crimes. Odd also has the ability to see bodachs, malevolent spirits that feast on pain and whose presence signifies a likelihood of imminent violence. The proximity of bodachs to a weird-looking stranger in town, whom Odd dubs "Fungus Man," alerts Odd that trouble is brewing; breaking into Fungus Man's house, Odd discovers not only hundreds of bodachs but a shrine to serial killers that helps him deduce that somehow Fungus Man will wreak widespread havoc very soon-so Odd is caught in a classic race against time to deter catastrophe. As with Koontz's best novels, this one features electrifying tension and suspense, plus a few walloping surprises. But Koontz fans know that the author has recently added humor to his arsenal of effects, and this thriller also stands out for its brilliant tightrope walk between the amusing and the macabre; one of the dead with whom Odd interacts frequently, for instance, is Elvis, still pining for his long-dead mother, Gladys. Above all, the story, like most great stories, runs on character-and here Koontz has created a hero whose honest, humble voice will resonate with many. In some recent books, Koontz has tended to overwrite, but not here: the narrative is as simple and clear as a newborn's gaze. This is Koontz working at his pinnacle, providing terrific entertainment that deals seriously with some of the deepest themes of human existence: the nature of evil, the grip of fate and the power of love.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 18, 2009, 12:04 PM
Reading Absalom! Absalom! by Faulkner. Pretty much hate it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 23, 2009, 12:01 AM
Now reading "Ghost" by Alan Lightman.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41t2Mee4YoL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click-to-search,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

In this smartly paced novel from the author of Einstein's Dreams, a divorced, former banker witnesses a supernatural event, inspiring him to continue the search for something that has hovered in the back of his mind throughout his life. A promising, handsome student in his younger years, middle-aged David struggles to restore order to his life and relationships after being sacked from his middling bank job. The search leads him to the local funeral home, where he takes a job as an apprentice among a cast less hip than the Six Feet Under crew, but compelling in a quieter way—the director, Martin, is a fatherly figure whose allegiance to his inherited profession rules an existence otherwise restricted by severe agoraphobia. After David has a vision he can't describe in words in the home's slumber room, he gets agitated to the point where he is compelled to confess to a loose-lipped friend. Soon, David's vision becomes a local media event, with unwanted consequences. Familiar questions about the existence of God, life after death and the fluidity of time arise, and the cast doesn't get the detail it deserves. But the momentum that builds alongside David's ensuing psychological turmoil is enough to carry the story.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 23, 2009, 03:10 AM
The Sound And The Fury, for me.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on May 23, 2009, 06:28 PM
Ms. Austen's "Pride and Prejudice".  What I hated in high school lit.. I'm thoroughly enjoying now.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 24, 2009, 12:22 AM
It's funny. When forced to read a book for a grade, you hate it but when reading it on your own you love it.

Sounds like you are going to have to go thru all the Jane Austen books. After you do, you should read The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. It's about a bad guy that jumps into Austen's Jane Eyre in order to mess up the ending. Thursday Next, a literary detective,  must track him down and set the book right again. Very funny book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on May 24, 2009, 11:41 AM
I think it was in this thread in which I admitted to never read The Count of Monte Cristo (Crib Notes baby) in 9th grade.  I read it a few years ago and it is phenomenal.   :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 25, 2009, 12:47 AM
I think it was in this thread in which I admitted to never read The Count of Monte Cristo (Crib Notes baby) in 9th grade.  I read it a few years ago and it is phenomenal.   :)

Agreed. I really enjoyed the Count.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 25, 2009, 01:05 AM
Agreed. I really enjoyed the Count.

Unnecessary censorship FTW. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 26, 2009, 09:41 AM
I actually quit reading The Sound And The Fury, yesterday. It's rare I do that, I usually tough books out... but I just got disgusted with having to re-read lines over and over again to try and figure out who the **** is talking to who. It's official, I hate William Faulkner.

Now I'm giving A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man a shot. A difficult read, thus far, but at least it's written to make sense.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 26, 2009, 09:59 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51uVPdj8znL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click-to-search,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Two chapters in right now and he's very graphic in some of his descriptions...wow!!!!  I'll look forward to seeing his perspective on Motley Crue and what happened to them for 20 years.  This book is a few years old and was written when he had separated from the band.  Obviously they are back together, so some of his more recent thoughts/opinions may have changed.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 26, 2009, 05:16 PM
Now I'm giving A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man a shot. A difficult read, thus far, but at least it's written to make sense.


Brad, have you read The Dubliners? It's the only Joyce I've read but it's quite good.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 27, 2009, 01:14 AM
Finished Odd Thomas, now reading "Children of the Storm" by Elizabeth Peters.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51BZ26DM0TL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

A fast-moving, intrigue-filled plot propels MWA Grand Master Peters's 15th novel (after 2002's The Golden One) to feature beloved archeologist and amateur sleuth Amelia Peabody Emerson. The end of WWI offers Amelia, now a grandmother, and her family little respite when mysterious events start to plague friends, allies and coworkers. One person dies after suddenly turning to religion, while others fall victim to sabotage. Valuable artifacts go missing, and Amelia's son Ramses is lured into a bizarre encounter with a woman who appears to be the living embodiment of the goddess Hathor. Given the growing unrest against British rule in Egypt, Amelia has to wonder if politics are behind the strange occurrences. In addition, the clan has made many enemies over the course of their adventures. While the preface does a good job of outlining the characters and their complicated connections, the previous 14 novels covered a lot of ground that new readers will find challenging to master. Nonetheless, this is an enjoyable read in its own right, powered by evocative depictions of 1919 Egypt and the engaging voice of Amelia herself-a bright, independent woman, who relishes her role as family matriarch. Her affectionate, give-and-take relationship with her Egyptologist husband, Emerson, continues to enchant.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on May 27, 2009, 12:14 PM
Now I'm giving A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man a shot. A difficult read, thus far, but at least it's written to make sense.


Brad, have you read The Dubliners? It's the only Joyce I've read but it's quite good.

No I haven't, but it's included in the book, so I'll get to it.  8)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on May 27, 2009, 03:26 PM
The Witching Hour
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 31, 2009, 05:46 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/unfinishedtales.jpg)

Finally finished The Silmarillion. After this, I'll read Children of Húrin, then reread The Hobbit and LOTR, then see how far I can make it into the History of Middle-earth series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 31, 2009, 09:38 PM
Just starting the Witches of Eastwick by John Updike.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41PkEXJtkWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

John Updike astutely recognizes the modern American suburb, with its hypocritical social mores and superstitions, as a rich literary setting. Into this milieu he introduces the fantastical and invents a tale of what life would be like for three divorced and bored housewives, who happen to be witches, living in such a place -- the fictitious Eastwick, Rhode Island -- in the late 1960's. It's like Updike is channeling Nathaniel Hawthorne through "Rabbit Redux."
The women are Alexandra Spofford, a sculptress, Jane Smart, a cellist, and Sukie Rougemont, the local gossip columnist. They drink a lot, neglect their kids, have sex with married men, and cast spells to torment their enemies, who are usually their lovers' wives; they have the traditional witchlike manners of being vindictive, temperamental, and spiteful. They've never desired a man in common until they meet a vaguely devilish fellow named Darryl Van Horne who has bought an old mansion on the outskirts of town. Van Horne is quite mysterious: He's a Manhattanite, a pianist, a collector of tacky nouveau art, and a renegade scientist, trying to discover impossibly efficient methods of generating electricity. He takes an interest in Alexandra's crude little sculptures, accompanies Jane in some sonatas, and encourages Sukie to write novels. He invites them to play tennis (where their magic lends itself to some creative cheating) and partake of the orgiastic pleasures of his hot tub.

The witches' auras induce strange and tragic effects on the lives of their lovers. Ed Parsley, the Unitarian minister, runs off to join the anti-war movement, leaving his churlish wife Brenda to take over the pulpit. Clyde Gabriel, the editor of Sukie's newspaper, is stuck with a gabby wife who gets her satisfaction from finding fault with everything. But it's the Gabriels' adult daughter Jenny that serves to drive a wedge between the witches and Van Horne. When Jenny shows up in town from Chicago, Sukie takes pity on the seemingly pathetic girl and invites her to join the "coven" at Van Horne's mansion. Jenny attracts Van Horne's amorous attentions, but his intentions, it turns out, confound even the witches' intuition.

Popular culture has interpreted the witch mystique as a form of feminine self-empowerment -- women willing themselves to be able to act in retribution or defense against men's hurtful actions -- so it makes sense that the witches in the novel imply that witchcraft is an untapped power all women have, particularly those who have been hurt by or are unhappy with the men in their lives. And it makes sense for Updike to have set the novel in the era of the Women's Movement of the 1960's, where witchcraft would have shed a new, different light on liberation. Are the witches of Eastwick liberated? Probably so, but it's too bad they're so miserable nonetheless.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 8, 2009, 11:46 PM
(http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y151/ValinKenobi/Bookshelf/childrenofhurin.jpg)

Taking a tangent to read this. Most of it is already in Unfinished Tales, so I'm reading this fuller version then skipping over that part of UT.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on June 9, 2009, 10:33 AM
Totally unoriginal, but I just re-read Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince in preparation for the movie next month.  I don't think I had read this one since its initial release, and I really enjoyed it once again.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 13, 2009, 07:45 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/df/25/fcace03ae7a0f5eca3bd1210.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on June 15, 2009, 07:31 PM
Currently reading this.

(http://www.kurtcobainnews.com/Bumping_into_Geniuses_book_by_Danny_Goldberg.jpg)


Danny Goldberg worked with some of the most significant rock artists of the past 30+ years, and gives some insight into the business behind the music.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on June 15, 2009, 09:55 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51UdNjXG7JL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click-to-search,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Good analysis on the founding fathers.  The author is not PC, which is a nice break from a lot of stuff these days.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 17, 2009, 03:45 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/519zqy6xkrL._SS500_.jpg)

It's actually a good deal better than the mega-low-rent cover makes it look, I promise.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 17, 2009, 11:12 AM
Finished Witches of Eastwick which ended up being nothing like the movie but the hot tub sections were fun. >:D

On to "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lNC6RNe8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-big-look,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Huckleberry Finn had a tough life with his drunk father until an adventure with Tom Sawyer changed everything. But when Huck's dad returns and kidnaps him, he must escape down the Mississippi river with runaway slave, Jim. They encounter trouble at every turn, from floods and gunfights to armed bandits and the long arm of the law. Through it all the friends stick together - but can Huck and Tom free Jim from slavery once and for all?

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on June 17, 2009, 11:32 AM
I finished up HP and the Half Blood Prince a couple of weeks ago (in prep for the movie), and felt like just moving on and re-reading Deathly Hallows again, so I'm mid-way through that now.  I don't think I've had a chance to read it since it was initially released, so it has been nice to get back to it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 21, 2009, 05:07 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5104MQEu9cL._SL500_AA246_PIkin2,BottomRight,-13,34_AA280_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The pic above is the Kindle version, but it's also available as a free PDF on the author's site here (http://www.jakonrath.com/freebies.htm#origin), which is what I'm reading.

ORIGIN by JA Konrath

1906 - Something is discovered by workers digging the Panama Canal. Something dormant. Sinister. Very much alive.

2006 - Project Samhain. A secret underground government installation begun 100 years ago in New Mexico. The best minds in the world have been recruited to study the most amazing discovery in the history of mankind. But the century of peaceful research is about to end.

BECAUSE IT JUST WOKE UP.

In reality, Satan is not a handsome gentleman as portrayed by a Hollywood leading man. Viewing him through the Plexiglas, he's a frightening beast, massively muscled, with hoofs the size of washtubs and the serrated teeth of a carnivore. The demon can be pleasant, even chatty, and delights in showing off his power of resurrecting the dead sheep he dines upon. To some of the staff studying him at the secret government compound, he's even likable.

That is, until he breaks out...

ORIGIN is a mainstream thriller combining the techno-science of Jurassic Park with the theological horror of The Exorcist.

Billions around the world fear the concept of the devil.

Now they'll have a chance to fear him in person.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 22, 2009, 12:08 AM
Finished "Children of the Storm", now reading "Forever Odd" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41%2BvYgASA3L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Besides having an unusual moniker, 21-year-old Odd Thomas (whom readers first met in Koontz's 2003 novel of the same name) has some very unusual powers, chief among them his ability to see the dead. He can see, feel and talk to them, too (though they don't talk back: "Perhaps they know things about death that the living are not permitted to learn from them"). These days Odd is still hosting the ghost of a morose Elvis Presley, still grieving for his dead girlfriend, Stormy, and still worrying about his very fat friend P. Oswald Boone, whose cat, Terrible Chester, likes to pee on his shoes. Late one night, Odd is summoned by the ghost of Dr. Wilbur Jessup to the Jessup home, the site of a gruesome murder. Dr. Jessup is the father of Odd's best friend, Danny, who is afflicted with osteogenesis imperfecta, also known as brittle bones. Odd finds Dr. Jessup's body, but Danny is missing. Since Odd has what he describes as "psychic magnetism," he can follow an invisible mental trail, which in this case leads him to his endangered friend. After he finds Danny in a spooky, burned-out Indian casino, it is Odd who becomes the quarry. The beautiful and stunningly evil Datura, aided by two frightening minions, wants to use Odd for his supernatural abilities—and then kill him. Odd's strange gifts, coupled with his intelligence and self-effacing humor, make him one of the most quietly authoritative characters in recent popular fiction.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 26, 2009, 07:11 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/96/5c/ab7e51c88da0892599e12210.L.jpg)

"The jungle planet of Haruun Kal, the homeworld Mace barely remembers, has become a battleground in the increasing hostilities between the Republic and the renegade Separatist movement. The Jedi Council has sent Depa Billaba—Mace’s former Padawan and fellow Council member—to Haruun Kal to train the local tribesmen as a guerilla resistance force, to fight against the Separatists who control the planet and its strategic star system with their droid armies.

But now the Separatists have pulled back, and Depa has not returned. The only clue to her disappearance is a cryptic recording left at the scene of a brutal massacre: a recording that hints of madness and murder, and the darkness in the jungle . . . a recording in Depa’s own voice.

Mace Windu trained her. Only he can find her. Only he can learn what has changed her. Only he can stop her."


It's basically (and consciously) Heart of Darkness/Apocalypse Now set in a Star Wars milieu, with Depa Billaba (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Depa_Billaba) playing the Colonel Kurtz role.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 27, 2009, 07:45 PM
Reading "Brother Odd" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51oJ5MhSqrL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The third adventure of Odd Thomas, the boy (well, he's 21, but still . . .) who sees ghosts, has a lighter feel to it than the gruelingly suspenseful Forever Odd(2005) and the funny and moving Odd Thomas (2003). It's reminiscent of a sunny monster-movie sequel--say, Son of Frankenstein--in which stock characters do their shtick with a wink and a nod: "Dontcha just love us?" In this case, yes, we do. Odd has retreated to a monastery in the Sierra Nevadas that permanently hosts a billionaire physicist in an underground lab. The mogul has given his entire fortune to support the monastery and attached convent in their work of housing and educating severely damaged children, the most interesting of which is now a 25-year-old artistic savant. As the story opens, bodachs--animated shadows that gather in anticipation of lethal violence, which only Odd among the living sees--are invading the children's quarters. Can Odd mitigate the coming cataclysm? Of course he can, despite the arrival of murderous bone creatures and grim Death itself, for the monks include quite a contingent of reformed martial sinners, most memorably Brother Knuckles, formerly of the New Jersey Mob, and another guest, a mysterious Russian librarian from Indianapolis, who is more and different than Odd thinks he is. Koontz salts Odd's narration with some wonderful zingers at the expense of cultural degeneracy and political folly. A darned good time should be had by all readers.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on June 29, 2009, 10:02 AM
I finished up re-reading the last two HP books, so I got back to finishing up the LOTR trilogy now.  I'm working on Return of the King.  For some reason, the LOTR series is a lot slower reading for me than something like Harry Potter - so I'm guessing this will take a bit longer :).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on June 29, 2009, 11:22 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C3MBDN2WL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Just about finished reading my book on several of the founding fathers.  Pretty good read.  I'm a huge Clive Cussler fan so I had to pick up a few books.  We are headed to Disney World in a couple of weeks, so I needed some fiction to read for the week.  So Sahara is the first of the three books I picked up and I started reading the first few chapter Saturday night.  I love Cussler's writing.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on June 30, 2009, 12:30 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/24/77/fb79e03ae7a0fe237138c110.L.jpg)

A collection of reprinted interviews, essays and articles from throughout his career on a variety of topics (Dune, UFOs, the environment, the craft of writing, etc.) selected by Frank himself just before his death.

Too bad it isn't in print any longer, but many of the articles (current topics in the 1950s and 1960s) are terribly dated now.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 30, 2009, 12:52 AM
Also reading "Code to Zero" by Ken Follett.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41NP6ZWM2SL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

48 hours that could change the world's political landscape...A man wakes up to find himself lying on the ground in a railway station, his mind stripped bare of all recollection. He has no idea how he got there. He does not even know his own name. Convinced he is a drunken down and out. it isn't until a newspaper report about a satellite launch catches his eye that he begins to suspect all is not what it seems...The year is 1958, and America is about to launch its first satellite, in a desperate attempt to match the Soviet Sputnik and regain the lead in the space race. As Luke Lucas gradually unravels the mystery of his amnesia, he realizes that his fate is bound up with that of the rocket that stands ready on launch pad 26B at Cape Canaveral.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on June 30, 2009, 11:35 AM
I finally started Band of Brothers, I can't put it down. Truly awesome book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on June 30, 2009, 12:04 PM
^^Excellent read.  I've been through that book several times.  If you like it, you should also try more of Stephen Ambrose's writing.  All of his books have a very "folksy" way of reading and are always interesting.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on June 30, 2009, 02:24 PM
Started:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/31/600/807/0316008079.jpg)

Hope to read while on vacation next week:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/76/792/199/0767921992.jpg)

and

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/614/0446616141.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 8, 2009, 06:32 PM
Just started "Grave Peril" by Jim Butcher. Book 3 of the Dresden Files. This is suppost to be the one that gets the series in high gear.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51U6qNrQXAL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Wizard Harry Dresden stars in the third installment of the Dresden Files (following Fool Moon), a haunting, fantastical novel that begins almost as innocently as those of another famous literary wizard named Harry. In the opening scene, Dresden and his knight friend, Michael, battle the ghost of a woman who is terrorizing a local hospital's maternity ward. From there, the novel quickly evolves into an unorthodox tale spiced with sexual innuendo and subtle humor (Dresden carries his ghost-hunting gear in an old Scooby-Doo lunch box). Due to the weakened barrier between the spirit world which Butcher refers to as "the nevernever" and the actual world, obsessive and violent ghosts are on the loose in modern-day Chicago, and they seem to be targeting Dresden and Michael. Horny vampires and possessive demons join the mix as Dresden journeys into the spirit world to hunt down the villains who are terrorizing him and his friends. Butcher narrates Dresden's story in the first person, which limits the amount of detail he can inject into the lives of his secondary characters. Despite this narrow point of view, Butcher successfully lends human dimensions to vampires and spirits through his vivid descriptions and colloquial dialogue. (Sept.)Forecast: A vivid cover showing glowing barbed wire wrapped around a pair of cemetery gates is misleading as is a cover quote appealing to fans of Laurell K. Hamilton and Tanya Huff but it will catch the browser's eye.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 12, 2009, 12:00 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/35620000/35626823.JPG)

Quote
My name is Kvothe.

I have stolen princesses back from sleeping barrow kings. I burned down the town of Trebon. I have spent the night with Felurian and left with both my sanity and my life. I was expelled from the University at a younger age than most people are allowed in. I tread paths by moonlight that others fear to speak of during day. I have talked to Gods, loved women, and written songs that make the minstrels weep.

You may have heard of me.

I kept seeing this in various stores and passed because it looks like the most generic fantasy work ever committed to paper. But the barrage of glowing reviews wore me down, and I saw the author on a panel at a local con and he seemed interesting, so I picked it up from the library.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 12, 2009, 10:26 PM
I'm taking a couple of books with me on vacation.

Inferno by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517WnWcKRKL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

After being thrown out the window of his luxury apartment, science fiction writer Allen Carpentier wakes to find himself at the gates of hell. Feeling he's landed in a great opportunity for a book, he attempts to follow Dante's road map. Determined to meet Satan himself, Carpentier treks through the Nine Layers of Hell led by Benito Mussolini, and encounters countless mental and physical tortures. As he struggles to escape, he's taken through new, puzzling, and outlandish versions of sin--recast for the present day. 


and

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51WR4ZWCDPL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

William Golding's classic novel of primitive savagery and survival is one of the most vividly realized and riveting works in modern fiction. The tale begins after a plane wreck deposits a group of English school boys, aged six to twelve on an isolated tropical island. Their struggle to survive and impose order quickly evolves from a battle against nature into a battle against their own primitive instincts. Golding's portrayal of the collapse of social order into chaos draws the fine line between innocence and savagery.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 12, 2009, 10:32 PM
Just finished A Portrait Of An Artist As A Young Man. Reading The Dubliners.

I wanna read a post apocalyptic book next. Maybe The Stand, or Earth Abides, or something.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Carpeteria3000 on July 12, 2009, 11:04 PM
If you're game, Brad, try out Ulysses (though I'd suggest getting a Cliff's Notes to go along with it, just to keep up with it). I teach a lot of Joyce, especially from Dubliners. It's a great collection.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 13, 2009, 12:27 AM
I wanna read a post apocalyptic book next. Maybe The Stand, or Earth Abides, or something.

The Road (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road)? The Postman (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Postman)? The Suicide Collectors (http://nathanokeefe.blogspot.com/2009/05/book-review-suicide-collectors-by-david.html)? The Book of the New Sun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Book_of_the_New_Sun)?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 13, 2009, 10:02 AM
The only thing that scares me about Ulysses is the stream of conscious style - if its anything like Faulkner, I won't enjoy it.

Quote
The Postman?

Might have to check this one out - I've heard of it before.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on July 14, 2009, 10:38 AM
The Stand is my favorite "go to" book - I love rereading that.  Which reminds me, I haven't read it in about 5 years................. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 18, 2009, 10:21 PM
Finished James Joyce's Dubliners. Really, really enjoyed it! Took me a while to get through A Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, but breezed through the short stories with ease. Great, diverse characters in a very interesting time period (days of Irish Nationalism)...

Now I'm on Palahnuik's Diary. Chuck is really starting to bore me, all of his novels remind me of this little smiley,

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v298/CorvusTortus/musik25.gif)

I'm intrigued with the story, but all of the characters, all of them, are always woe-is-me, whiney and bitchy, and they all seemingly have the exact same thought process and dialogue. What was wonderful and original in Fight Club was sort of familiar in Choke, but now its just worn out...

I've got a few books headed my way.

Thomas Paine's Common Sense
Washington's Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge
Boone: A Biography
The Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings Boxed Set


Also on the shelf is Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, Cornelius Ryan's A Bridge Too Far, and the remaining two volumes of Shelby Foote's Civil War Narrative.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 19, 2009, 08:58 PM
Finished Lord of the Flies and Grave Peril. Just starting Inferno.

I'm also going to read "The Black Hole War" by Leonard Susskind.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51rI175B1ZL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by James Trefil What is it about black holes, anyway? To most scientists, a black hole is something like a duck-billed platypus in the sky: weird, unusual, esoteric and not all that connected to real life. On the other hand, people just can't seem to get enough of them. Any teacher will tell you that it's a whole lot easier to get a class interested in black holes than in DNA, even though the latter will most assuredly have a real impact on their future and the former will not. Oh well, if you must learn about black holes, you could do a lot worse than to pick up this engagingly written book. Stanford physicist Leonard Susskind provides a marvelous introduction to the subject that is both readable and easy to understand. Or at least as easy as something involving the two great 20th-century advances in science -- relativity and quantum mechanics -- can possibly be. You see, until the end of the 19th century, scientists who thought about the fundamental structure of the universe had concentrated on normal-sized objects moving at normal speeds (think billiard balls). We associate this kind of science with Isaac Newton. Then, in rapid succession, the 20th century brought two revolutions. The first, which dealt with objects moving near the speed of light or having very large mass, was relativity, the brainchild of Albert Einstein. The second revolution came when people starting thinking about very small objects, such as the stuff inside the atom. The resulting theory is called quantum mechanics and was developed by a small group of young scientists in the 1920s, the most familiar probably being Werner Heisenberg of uncertainty-principle fame. One note in passing: These revolutions didn't so much replace Newton as extend his reach. Like a tree, mature sciences grow by adding new material while leaving their heartwood intact. With increasing urgency over the past 50 years, theoretical physicists have tried to tie these two great 20th-century advances together, to produce what Nobel Laureate Steven Weinberg calls "The Final Theory." So far, we have not been successful. But if you can't bring the two fields together, you would at least like to know that they don't contradict each other, that they are mutually consistent. And this is where Susskind's "war to make the world safe for quantum mechanics" comes in, because for a period of almost 20 years, it looked as if there could well be a fundamental contradiction between the basic postulates underlying the two theories. At least that's what Stephen Hawking argued, and when Hawking talks, physicists listen. Remember that a black hole is an object so compact and so massive that nothing, not even light, can escape from it. It is, in fact, a kind of one-way gate in the universe: Stuff can fall in, but nothing can come out. Because it involves both a large mass and extremely high energy, the black hole forms a kind of nexus where both relativity and quantum mechanics come into play. Thus, if there are going to be problems joining these two fields, they are likely to turn up in the behavior of black holes. In 1983, Hawking proved that, against all expectations, black holes are not eternal. In fact, over unimaginably long spans of time, they evaporate, more or less like a puddle of water on a sunny day. And that's when the "war" started, because if a black hole evaporates (and everyone agrees that it will), what happens to all the information that was carried by the stuff that fell in? That information might include things like the mass of the particles that fell in, their spin, their identity and all kinds of other properties. Hawking argued that this information was lost forever, that the black hole was truly a one-way street to oblivion. The problem is that one of the basic laws of quantum mechanics is that information cannot be lost. (I should point out that in quantum mechanics the term "information" has a technical meaning, and that losing it is more of a problem than, say, losing the shopping list you need at the supermarket.) In the case of the evaporating puddle, for example, it is theoretically possible to reconstruct the puddle by looking at the air molecules above the spot where it used to be. Hawking argued, however, that with the material that evaporated from the black hole, no such thing is possible, that the information simply disappeared. Susskind's account of his reaction to this claim and of driving home from the conference where it was first presented, distractedly scribbling equations in the frost on his windshield, beautifully describes how disturbing the idea of disappearing information was to those of us steeped in the lore of the quantum. In the end, Susskind and his colleagues were able to resolve this dilemma and, in the words of the subtitle, "make the world safe for quantum mechanics." I won't spoil the book for you by telegraphing the ending. Suffice it to say that it involves a tour through the whole arcane menagerie of modern physics -- quarks, gluons, branes, strings. And this illustrates the main problem faced by authors of this sort of book. Black hole astrophysics is about as far from everyday experience as you can get, which means that the author has to spend a lot of time bringing the reader up to speed (indeed, it takes Susskind almost 200 pages). Even when, as in this book, there is virtually no mathematics, there is an overwhelming number of strange new concepts. Consequently, I recommend digesting this book in small segments, allowing each new concept to settle in before moving on. In the end, The Black Hole Wars is as good an introduction as you're going to find to the strange world of black hole astrophysics. Add that to the chance to ride along as real scientists resolve a fundamental issue and you have the makings of a great read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on July 20, 2009, 08:51 AM
Finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/078/918/0380789183.jpg)

Started:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/681/577/030681577X.jpg)

Next:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/552/740/0385527403.jpg)
(Yes, I'm a Red Sox fan, but I'm also a baseball fan and Torre was one of the few Yankees that I respect.  Besides, I'm looking forward to the chapter on the Greatest Comeback of All Time (and Biggest Choke).

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 20, 2009, 09:31 AM
Now reading Confederates in the Attic...

Question for you guys - should I read Hobbit before or after I read the LOTR trilogy?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on July 20, 2009, 10:45 AM
Now reading Confederates in the Attic...

Question for you guys - should I read Hobbit before or after I read the LOTR trilogy?

The Hobbit is a much easier read than LOTR.  They were written with completely different audiences in mind - The Hobbit was written as a children's book.  To be honest, I don't think it really matters which one you read first.  While there are some overlapping characters but their roles are much different in both stories.  I'd say that you'll be fine reading the trilogy first but you may find that the Hobbit is too "basic" if you read it right after the trilogy.   Having said that I'd recommend reading the Hobbit first but its certainly not necessary to read it first to set up the LOTR. 


One word of caution.  When you start reading the Fellowship of the Ring.  That first chapter is brutally hard to read.  I know many people that put the book down before finishing the first chapter because it just seemed so boring or hard to read.   It was much more palatable the second time I read through it but I do remember struggling to get through it.  The story picks up much more after that first chapter :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 20, 2009, 12:29 PM
Thanks for the response, Brent!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian on July 20, 2009, 12:40 PM
One word of caution.  When you start reading the Fellowship of the Ring.  That first chapter is brutally hard to read.  I know many people that put the book down before finishing the first chapter because it just seemed so boring or hard to read.   It was much more palatable the second time I read through it but I do remember struggling to get through it.  The story picks up much more after that first chapter :)

I have just been reading the LOTR books for the first time this year, and I'm currently in the middle of ROTK (after a Harry Potter sidetrack after finishing Two Towers).  I will echo Brent's thoughts, I thought the beginning of Fellowship was tougher to plow through as well at first - but it really picked up after that.  They obviously did an amazing job adapting them all to movies, but it is surprising to see all the differences and omissions when reading the books.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 20, 2009, 03:37 PM
Can't wait to get the LOTR set in the mail. I'll start with Hobbit!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt on July 20, 2009, 04:17 PM
Currently reading:

(http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/412/3791.jpg)

Speculative fiction, second American Civil War!   :o

(Full disclosure:  I'm only reading this because there's a video game coming out next month that's kinda-sorta based around it, that I'm really interested in.  How sad is that?)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: ruiner on July 20, 2009, 04:51 PM
Pretty sad.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 20, 2009, 05:32 PM
I'm seeing really, really bad reviews on the OSC novel, but the plot sounds cool. How is it?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt on July 20, 2009, 05:53 PM
I'm seeing really, really bad reviews on the OSC novel, but the plot sounds cool. How is it?

I'm not even halfway in, but it's not that bad, so far.  (But I'm not the book junkie that a lot of you guys are.)  Short book, quick read, some cool Special Ops stuff.  Somebody blowed up the Persident!  (sic) I suspect it will get better as the Civil War II gets underway.  I guess there's a sequel that's due out this fall.

Pretty sad.

Well, it was more of a rhetorical "how sad is that," but thanks all the same.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 20, 2009, 06:07 PM
I'm gonna have to check that out, Matt. I've been wanting to read Lucifer's Hammer, Earth Abides, The Postman, and whatever other apocalyptic/SHTF books I can find. The Road got me into it. World War Z wasn't bad, either.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Greg on July 20, 2009, 09:59 PM
I'm currently working on The Road by Cormac McCarthy as well as The Accidental Guerilla by David Kilcullen. Next up are Public Enemies, Band of Brothers, and Sun Tzu's The Art of War.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 21, 2009, 03:23 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FsmSrlLeL._SS500_.jpg)

Read this when it originally came out in 2004, now rereading it. It's the author behind the alternate-history novels Lion's Blood and Zulu Heart, if anyone's familiar with those.

Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi strides-and soars and plots and duels-again in this stirring new addition to the Star Wars saga. Hugo nominee Barnes (Zulu Heart) picks Kenobi up in middle age during the Clone Wars between the good-guy Republic and the dastardly Confederacy, sending Kenobi's impetuous Jedi Padawan (apprentice) Anakin Skywalker offstage and Kenobi as ambassador to the remote planet Ord Cestus, now producing new bio-droids able to challenge the Jedi in combat. Accompanied by another Jedi Knight, tentacle-haired Nautolan Kit Fisto, five superbly bred and trained military trooper-clones, and a wondrously conceived giant slug who proves an inspired barrister, Kenobi plunges into Cestan intrigues, trying to avoid Cestus's destruction and sensing a sinister concealed threat in the nick of time.

Loaded with exotic offworlders and vicious baddies, mystical insights from the Force and a poignant love affair between Nate, a clone trooper whose Code demands that he die fighting for the Republic, and Sheeka Tull, a brave and brainy female pilot, this splendid adventure yarn offers a gut-wrenching surprise on nearly every page and a knock-the-socks-off ending nearly as thrilling as Luke Skywalker's original swoop through the Death Star's trench.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 22, 2009, 11:17 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512DMBMPDWL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

My grandfather was a tank commander in the M10 and later the M36.  I'm thinking his unit patch, with the tiger crushing the tank, will be my next tattoo.  Good read if you're into WWII and some of the supporting cast in armored warfare.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 25, 2009, 08:06 PM
Finished Inferno. Now starting "Eric Brighteyes" by H. Rider Haggard.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X06HAGBZL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The author of numerous romance-adventures in the 19th century tradition, Haggard turned his hand, at least once, to the older saga tradition of the northern peoples. The result may well have been his best work. Skillfully crafted, this tale proceeds at breakneck pace to unfold the saga-like adventures of the stout Icelandic yeoman, Eric Thorgrimurs' son (surnamed 'Brighteyes' for his most notable trait), as he struggles to win the hand of his beloved, Gudruda the Fair, despite the vigorous opposition of her half-sister, Swanhild the Fatherless (who seeks Eric for her own). Caught between these two beautiful women and faced with the need to overcome the opposition of Gudruda's father, Asmund the Priest (not the Christian sort) and his son, the greedy Bjorn (who would prefer to marry his sister off to a wealthy chieftain in lieu of a liaison with the farmer's son Eric), our hero must prove himself worthy of his destined bride while dodging the snares of those who would unman him. Conspiring with her mysterious mother, Groa the witchwife, Swanhild arranges to have Ospakar Blacktooth, a northern chieftain from Swinefells, pay Asmund's household a visit in order to see and woo Gudruda for himself. This Ospakar and Eric become immediate foes for Ospakar is as ugly and vile as Eric is handsome and honorable. And the tale only accelerates from here. From death-defying feats of derring-do to duels between deadly foemen to treachery and mayhem in blinding blizzards and on the high seas, this is an adventure which, once having grabbed you, will not let you go. Written in an archaic prose, mirroring the old nineteenth century translations of the original Icelandic sagas, and intended to simulate the voice of the old sagas themselves, the power of this narrative is compelling and unrelenting. And yet it is less exhausting than exhilirating as it unfolds the tale of Eric and the two women who loved him -- no matter what the cost. If the tale has a flaw at all it is that the characters are not real in any sense of that word but only larger-than-life actors who strut about upon the stage which Haggard has drawn for us here. At the same time the sensibility offered is one of pure and unmitigated adventure. But it's great fun and marvelous escapist fare. A must for lovers of Norse and viking times.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 26, 2009, 05:35 PM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/28260000/28269935.jpg) (http://www.chadcorrie.com) (http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/25400000/25407059.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 28, 2009, 09:57 AM
Finished Palahnuik's Diary and it sucked.
Finished Horwitz's Confederates in the Attic and it was pretty good.

Now I'm back to Shelby Foote's Civil War Narrative. I'm into Volume 2 - 150 or so pages down, another 800 to go!

Waiting on my shelf...

Civil War Narrative Volume 3
Thomas Paine's Common Sense
Washington's Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge
Boone: A Biography
LOTR The Hobbit
LOTR Fellowship of the Ring
LOTR The Two Towers
LOTR Return of the King
Rainbow Six
A Bridge Too Far

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 28, 2009, 11:37 PM
Brad, you've got some good reading coming.

Washington's Secret War is an excellent read and is something I (as a trained historian) wished more people knew about.  Rainbox Six is awesome and very entertaining and the research from A Bridge Too Far formed the basis of my research topic and paper from when I got my degree.  Cornelius Ryan is a great, great writer.  Be sure to have a map out that can be written on when you read that book.  It will certainly help you keep track of things.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on July 29, 2009, 11:30 AM
I hadn't had high hopes for Washington's Secret War, since I picked it up in a bargain bin - now I'm excited to read it. Gotta agree with your take on Cornelius Ryan - he's sort of like the Shelby Foote of WW2. I bought Longest Yard and Bridge Too Far years ago, dunno why I read one and not the other. May have burned myself out after reading Rommel and Patton's books.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 31, 2009, 04:56 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/34000000/34001121.jpg)

The same dude that wrote Shatterpoint, NJO: Traitor, and the Revenge of the Sith novelization.

Despite being packaged as fantasy, this adventure has a plot more familiar from virtual-reality gaming novels usually packaged as SF. Caine, a legendary hero/entertainer, has to re-enter the fantasy world that made him famous in order to rescue his estranged wife, whose own adventure entertainment has gone awry. The real enemy (no surprise) is the studio that's willing to endanger Actors' lives for ratings. But here the "fantasy" world is actually another dimension where magic works, and the human Actors are considered demons that cause chaos and death purely for entertainment's sake.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on August 2, 2009, 11:02 AM
Wow, that's one of the corniest looking SciFi covers I've ever seen.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 2, 2009, 06:10 PM
Yeah it's rather unfortunate.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on August 2, 2009, 08:35 PM
I finally started Path of Destruction this week (First of the Darth Bane novels) and I cannot put it down.  I've read a lot of Star Wars EU and this is quickly becomming my favorite of the bunch.  Non-stop action, character building, just the right amount of background, and a really fun plot to see how a Sith academy is so different and yet strangely similar to the Jedi teachings.  IF anyone was on the fence about this book, I highly recommend picking it up (hope I don't change my mind by the end!).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 3, 2009, 10:49 AM
Now starting "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" by Robert M. Pirsiq.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31Ph2CzYlhL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

In his now classic Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig brings us a literary chautauqua, a novel that is meant to both entertain and edify. It scores high on both counts.

Phaedrus, our narrator, takes a present-tense cross-country motorcycle trip with his son during which the maintenance of the motorcycle becomes an illustration of how we can unify the cold, rational realm of technology with the warm, imaginative realm of artistry. As in Zen, the trick is to become one with the activity, to engage in it fully, to see and appreciate all details--be it hiking in the woods, penning an essay, or tightening the chain on a motorcycle.

In his autobiographical first novel, Pirsig wrestles both with the ghost of his past and with the most important philosophical questions of the 20th century--why has technology alienated us from our world? what are the limits of rational analysis? if we can't define the good, how can we live it? Unfortunately, while exploring the defects of our philosophical heritage from Socrates and the Sophists to Hume and Kant, Pirsig inexplicably stops at the middle of the 19th century. With the exception of Poincaré, he ignores the more recent philosophers who have tackled his most urgent questions, thinkers such as Peirce, Nietzsche (to whom Phaedrus bears a passing resemblance), Heidegger, Whitehead, Dewey, Sartre, Wittgenstein, and Kuhn. In the end, the narrator's claims to originality turn out to be overstated, his reasoning questionable, and his understanding of the history of Western thought sketchy. His solution to a synthesis of the rational and creative by elevating Quality to a metaphysical level simply repeats the mistakes of the premodern philosophers. But in contrast to most other philosophers, Pirsig writes a compelling story. And he is a true innovator in his attempt to popularize a reconciliation of Eastern mindfulness and nonrationalism with Western subject/object dualism. The magic of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance turns out to lie not in the answers it gives, but in the questions it raises and the way it raises them. Like a cross between The Razor's Edge and Sophie's World, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance takes us into "the high country of the mind" and opens our eyes to vistas of possibility.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 3, 2009, 01:28 PM
@ Justin: yeah, PoD is on my to-read list. I actually tried reading it when it came out but I was having a busy semester and couldn't really get into it. Seemed good though. FYI, the third one is coming out this December.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on August 3, 2009, 08:43 PM
@ Justin: yeah, PoD is on my to-read list. I actually tried reading it when it came out but I was having a busy semester and couldn't really get into it. Seemed good though. FYI, the third one is coming out this December.

Thanks for the tip on #3... is it supposed to be three books in total?  I have the second book to read as well, so with fantasy football coming up, hopefully I can stretch it out until December.   ;)  I'm about 2/3 of the way thru POD now and it just keeps getting better. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 3, 2009, 10:50 PM
Well there's just those so far. But it's not a preplanned trilogy: Path of Destruction was at the time a standalone, with Rule of Two tacked on afterward, and Dynasty of Evil following. If they keep selling, the series will probably continue.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Bane:_Dynasty_of_Evil
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 8, 2009, 05:13 PM
Loaded up my mp3 player with "Artemis Fowl: The Lost Colony" by Eoin Colfer.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513E404EDDL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Thousands of years ago, fairies and humans fought a great battle for the magical island of Ireland. When it became clear that they could not win, all of the fairies moved below ground–except for the 8th Family, the demons. Rather than surrender, they used a magical time spell to take their colony out of time and into Limbo. There they have lived for decades, preparing to exact their violent revenge on humans.

Now the time spell is unraveling, and demons are beginning to materialize without warning on Earth. If humans were to find out about them, all fairies would be exposed. To protect themselves, the fairies must predict when the next demon will materialize. But in order to do so, they will have to decipher temporal equations so complicated; even a great brain like Foaly can’t understand them. But he knows someone who can: Artemis Fowl.

So when a very confused demon imp appears in a Sicilian theater, Artemis is there to meet him. But he is not alone. There is someone else who has unlocked the secrets of the fairy world and managed to solve complex mathematical problems as only a genius could. And she is just twelve years old. . .
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on August 9, 2009, 03:00 AM
Finally got around to:

(http://markgorman.files.wordpress.com/2008/09/haunted-782939.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 9, 2009, 11:05 AM
(http://www.kasterborous.com/images/writerstale.jpg)

This is a pretty ingenious book about the writing process. It's basically all e-mails between the showrunner and an interviewer talking about how season 4 got made. If you write, I'd certainly check it out, regardless if you're a fan of the show.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on August 10, 2009, 04:22 PM
Last night I finished Volume 2 of Shelby Foote's Civil War: A Narrative. This morning I started with Volume 3. I've been talking about taking a break from the war long enough to read something a little more lighter - but after taking down 2,000 pages, I'm eager to put away the last 1,000. I just know I'll have a huge sense of accomplishment once I've finally done it. This is a great, great series... It's really required reading for anyone interested in American History.


Waiting on my shelf...

Thomas Paine's Common Sense
Washington's Secret War: The Hidden History of Valley Forge
Boone: A Biography
All the Pretty Horses
The Crossing
Cities Of The Plain
LOTR The Hobbit
LOTR Fellowship of the Ring
LOTR The Two Towers
LOTR Return of the King
Rainbow Six
A Bridge Too Far
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 14, 2009, 11:38 AM
Starting the fourth Odd Thomas book "Odd Hours" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510d-dUi1lL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The fourth adventure of Odd Thomas, the young man haunted by the deceased who can also foresee potential murderous disaster, may not be the best—his eponymous initial outing is—but darned if it isn’t the most purely entertaining. Observing Koontz’s SOP, it starts with a bang and goes like a house afire straight through to the penultimate chapter (the last chapter cleans up). Odd goes out for a walk on the boardwalk to find the Lady of the Bell, a pregnant girl roughly his own age (21), who has appeared to him in a troubling dream. He succeeds, but then a blond gorilla and two skinny redheaded guys packing heat show up. When Odd touches the gorilla, he gets a flash of the dream. So does the gorilla, who is immediately, murderously suspicious, so Odd, after sending the girl packing, takes a header off the boardwalk. For most of the rest of the book, Odd flees the three baddies, discovering that the local police chief and a liberal minister are in cahoots with them, until he reverses the procedure to prevent very serious destruction, indeed, aimed at regime change in America. Choosing so grandiose an objective for Odd, Koontz forges the kind of sweeping melodrama, complete with screwball laughs, nail-biting moments, and surprises, that is the bedrock of American narrative entertainment.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 15, 2009, 10:54 PM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/69/09/8dd6c0a398a073098e023210.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 16, 2009, 04:22 AM
Another one from the "Not half as trashy as it looks, I swear" file. Sequel to Those Who Walk In Darkness (http://www.amazon.com/Those-Walk-Darkness-John-Ridley/dp/0446612022/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1250406933&sr=8-3), which I read earlier this year.

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/39130000/39136494.JPG)

When a supervillain wasted San Francisco, the U.S. decided to expel all "metanormals" within its borders. Those who choose to remain are hunted down by MTacs, police units who only have one job: kill the freaks. It isn't a terribly original premise--Batman fans will recognize the influence of Frank Miller's seminal graphic novel, The Dark Knight Returns--but that's fine, because a premise is all it is, and Ridley knows it. Soledad O'Roark, a 26-year-old MTac and an engineering genius, has a virulent hatred of metanormals. Her tale is one of unremitting darkness, and from early on it's easy to tell it won't have a happy ending.

LAPD's top mutant-hunter, O'Roark has outfought telepaths, human flamethrowers, men with steel skin, and every other kind of freakish super-powered thing. But her high-tech firepower is no match for teammate--and rival--Eddi Aoki's attempts at friendship, which endlessly irritate the solitary Soledad.

When a vigilante starts killing metanormals without mercy, Soledad and Eddi end up working the same case--in a way that neither could imagine. And the hunt for answers pits Soledad and Eddi against a cabal inside the LAPD as well as a serial killer who's slaughtering mutants, cops, and anyone else who gets in his way.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 16, 2009, 06:24 PM
One more Artemis Fowl book. "Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception" by Eoin Colfer.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510VSSR63WL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The fourth book in the Artemis Fowl saga follows The Eternity Code (2003), in which Artemis' mind was wiped clean of any memories of the belowground world of elves, pixies, and dwarves. In this book, Artemis has reverted to his old life of crime. His archenemy, Opal Koboi, has been in a self-induced coma for a year, plotting revenge on all who thwarted her earlier evil doings. After cloning herself, she escapes and sets her plans in motion, going first to find LEPrecon Captain Holly Short and Commander Root, then taking on Artemis as she schemes to destroy the fairy world. As in all the books, this one has plenty of action as well as great humor and clever plot manipulations. Characters are once again fully realized, and fans will eagerly enter into the spirit of the action.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on August 20, 2009, 02:37 PM
Okay, so I'm in the midst of the 2nd Darth Bane book right now and am ticked off.  There is a bit character in the story who happens to be Chiss (Blue Skin, Red Eyes - Thrawn's species).  Anyone who paid attention to Outbound Flight ought to be mighty ticked at this.

Here's why:

- Over 1,000 years before the fall of the Republic, a Chiss woman just so happens to be part of a terrorist organization (against the Republic) that has been infiltrated by Bane's apprentice

- Fast Forward 1,000 years to Outbound Flight.  Thrawn meets citizens of the Republic for the first time and the writer makes a big point of showing how the Chiss people were totally unaware of the republic and how no one in the Republic knew anything about the Chiss race. 

I get the idea of throwing out various different species in the novels to mix things up, but this is a pretty large and pointless plot hole in my opinion.  It's particularly frustrating given that Rule of Two was only written a year or two after Outbound Flight - it's not like this is some really old novel from 15 years ago that the writer just missed or forgot about.   >:(
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 20, 2009, 03:15 PM
I recently read Devil in the White City by Erik Larson...I can't recommend a book more than this one.  It is truly great

(http://bostonjay.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/devil-white-city.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on August 20, 2009, 03:31 PM
I'm just wrapping up The Way of Shadows, book 1 of a 3-book series by Brent Weeks.

It's got a little bit of everything really - fantasy, magic, ninjas, politics, etc.  Once you get into it, it's easy to see that it takes some cues from the GRR Martin stuff, but it's got it's own things too so it's more then just a clone.

Overall, I give it a B+ (A- if you take into account it was his debut book I guess) and am planning to give book 2 a shot to see where it goes...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 20, 2009, 04:05 PM
Okay, so I'm in the midst of the 2nd Darth Bane book right now and am ticked off.  There is a bit character in the story who happens to be Chiss (Blue Skin, Red Eyes - Thrawn's species).  Anyone who paid attention to Outbound Flight ought to be mighty ticked at this.

Yeah, this one seems pretty obvious. I gather there are a bunch of rather pointless continuity wallbangers in those books, including overwriting some of the original Jedi vs. Sith comic that Path of Destruction was adapted from.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 20, 2009, 04:07 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5168297NYSL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 20, 2009, 04:12 PM
I forgot to mention that I am currently reading the Foundation books ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 20, 2009, 05:33 PM
First time or rereading? Those are definitely on my list, although after I get through more of Tolkien. I kind of stalled in the middle of Unfinished Tales--it's so slow going and such small print I can only read so much of it at a time--and relapsed back to the Star Wars tie-ins.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 20, 2009, 06:21 PM
I read Foundation a couple of years ago but have always wanted to read the others...they are fairly quick reads so I'm hoping to blow through them pretty quick.

I remember being awed at Asimov's thoughts of the future in the 40's...it is pretty amazing how many things he nailed. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 20, 2009, 06:29 PM
There are plans afoot for a film adaptation, apparently. Not far enough along for cast info or anything though.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 21, 2009, 12:50 PM
Now reading the short story Farewell Summer by Ray Bradbury.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51B5IKE1jpL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This poignant, wise but slight "extension" of the indefatigable Bradbury's semiautobiographical Dandelion Wine picks up the story of 12-year-old Douglas Spaulding in October of 1928, when the warmth of summer still clings to Green Town, Ill. As in his episodic 1957 novel, Bradbury evokes the rhythms of a long-gone smalltown America with short, swift chapters that build to a lyrical meditation on aging and death. Playing at war, the imaginative Douglas and his friends target the town's elderly men, and the outraged 81-year-old bachelor Calvin C. Quartermain attempts to organize a counterattack against the boys' mischief. Rebelling against their elders—and the specter of age and death—Douglas and his gang steal the old men's chess pieces before deciding that Time, as embodied by the courthouse clock, is their true nemesis. The story turns on a gift of birthday cake that triggers Douglas and Quartermain's mutual recognition: "He had seen himself peer forth from the boy's eyes." Soon thereafter, Douglas's first kiss and new, acute awareness of girls serves as the harbinger of his inevitable adulthood. Bradbury's mature but fresh return to his beloved early writing conveys a depth of feeling.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 21, 2009, 03:50 PM
Finished "Farewell Summer". Farewell Summer is the sequal to "Dandelion Wine" which I am now starting. I guess I'm reading them in reverse order. The library got the sequal in before the original story.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5182HEJFRML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

World-renowned fantasist Ray Bradbury has on several occasions stepped outside the arenas of horror, fantasy, and science fiction. An unabashed romantic, his first novel in 1957 was basically a love letter to his childhood. (For those who want to undertake an even more evocative look at the dark side of youth, five years later the author would write the chilling classic Something Wicked This Way Comes.)
 
Dandelion Wine takes us into the summer of 1928, and to all the wondrous and magical events in the life of a 12-year-old Midwestern boy named Douglas Spaulding. This tender, openly affectionate story of a young man's voyage of discovery is certainly more mainstream than exotic. No walking dead or spaceships to Mars here. Yet those who wish to experience the unique magic of early Bradbury as a prose stylist should find Dandelion Wine most refreshing.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 23, 2009, 09:26 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zeSpKEMZL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)


The Perils of Peace by Thomas Fleming.  It covers the time period from after the American victory at Yorktown in 1781 until the Treaty of Paris was signed in 1783 officially ending the American Revolution.  Pretty good read if you are into colonial American politics.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on August 24, 2009, 08:58 AM
Finished:

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/614/0446616141_l.gif)

Started:

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/654/693/0446546933_l.gif)

Up Next:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/43/324/865/1433248654_l.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 24, 2009, 10:38 AM
Just starting today "Master and Commander" by Patrick O'Brian.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JJblALagL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

The opening salvo of the Aubrey-Maturin epic, in which the surgeon introduces himself to the captain by driving an elbow into his ribs during a chamber-music recital. Fortunately for millions of readers, the two quickly make up. Then they commence one of the great literary voyages of our century, set against an immaculately-detailed backdrop of the Napoleonic wars. This is the place to start--and in all likelihood, you won't be able to stop.

and also starting today "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5131uLPE9CL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

George and Lennie are drifters, moving from rural property to rural property, they go wherever work takes them. They stay for as long as their luck lasts, doing whatever the current job demands, but come what may George and Lennie stick together. George is small, fast to loose his temper and smart. Lennie is big, always affable and dim-witted. Lennie needs George to look after him, and George sometimes wishes that he was able to live life free and easy, free to gamble and booze his money away. Lennie's slow wit often gets him into trouble in the rough and tumble, male world of the rural society. Now "a few miles south of Soledad" George and Lennie are about to start a new job. Before they enter the property the two camp out overnight so George can enjoy the scenery. This proves to be the calm before the storm as the two are about to experience life-changing events.

This is a short book, being just under 100 pages, but it contains much to be thought about. Steinbeck describes in detail the harsh way men choose to live. He notes how, in this environment, some men rise to become leaders, being hero-worshiped in such a way that their word becomes almost gospel in the minds of other men. But Stienbeck, through the friendship of George and Lennie, also notes that there is another, more caring way for men to live Of course even those who follow a philosophy of caring live in the real world of struggle in which circumstances are not easy to resolve, and Steinbeck is well aware of this. Steinbeck's beliefs are informed by his knowledge of Christianity, but one does not have to slavishly follow that religion to agree with what he is saying. This book was first published in 1937, but is contains ideas that have finally flourished in the New Age Men's movement of the late Twentieth Century.

This book is stylistically interesting. Steinbeck deliberately wrote his prose in a way which imitates plays (drama). Events take place in a set 'scene' and characters enter, interact and leave. Dialogue, rather than action, is emphasized. The author, indeed, later wrote a theater version of this story. He did the same thing with the book <The Moon is Down>. Through Steinbecks skillfully woven dialogue we gain a good understanding of his main characters and Lennie is one of his most poignant creations. The climaxes of this tale, and there are more than one, are also memorable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 26, 2009, 01:31 AM
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“Within twenty-four standard hours we will sit firmly astride the communications link that connects the worlds of the Republic. . . . Our control will be a dagger thrust directly at Coruscant. This is the move that will win the war for us.”

With these ominous words, Pors Tonith, ruthless minion of Count Dooku, declares the fate of the Republic sealed. Commanding a Separatist invasion force more than one million strong, the cunning financier-turned-warrior lays siege to the planet Praesitlyn, home of the strategic intergalactic communications center that is key to the Republic’s survival in the Clone Wars. Left unchallenged, this decisive strike could indeed pave the way for the toppling of more Republic worlds . . . and ultimate victory for the Separatists. Retaliation must be swift and certain.

Shoulder to shoulder with a rogue Republic army officer and his battle-hardened crew, a hulking Rodian mercenary with an insatiable taste for combat, and a duo of ready-for-anything soldiers, the Jedi generals take to the skies and the punishing desert terrain of occupied Praesitlyn–to bring the battle to the Separatist forces. Already outnumbered and outgunned, when confronted with an enemy ultimatum that could lead to the massacre of innocents, they may also be out of options. Unless Anakin Skywalker can strike a crucial balance between the wisdom born of the Force . . . and the instincts of a born warrior.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 27, 2009, 07:48 PM
Finished "Of Mice and Men" and now reading "Quantum of Solace: The Complete James Bond Short Stories" by Ian Fleming.

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"Quantum of Solace - the amount of comfort. Yes, I suppose you could say that all love and friendship is based in the end on that. Human beings are very insecure. When the other person not only makes you feel insecure but actually seems to want to destroy you, it's obviously the end. The Quantum of Solace stands at zero. You've got to get away to save yourself."

- James Bond (QUANTUM OF SOLACE)

This paperback, recently released before the debut on November 21, 2008 of the latest 007 movie of the same name, "Quantum of Solace," is actually a compilation of nine short stories written by Ian Fleming in two separate books (FOR YOUR EYES ONLY and OCTOPUSSY/THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS). According to Fleming's biographer John Pearson in his book THE LIFE OF IAN FLEMING, six or so of these short stories began as outlines for half-hour TV episodes written for CBS in the late '50s. The TV series never got off the ground but the short stories have survived. Several of them were made into full-length movies having absolutely nothing to do with the original stories (e.g. "Octopussy," "From a View to a Kill," and "For Your Eyes Only"). I can't imagine the next Bond movie, starring Daniel Craig as a much better 007 than any of the previous ones in my opinion, (Sean Connery excepted) has anything to do with the short story "Quantum of Solace," since it is only about a conversation between JB and the Governor of The Bahamas (the governor's name is never given) in Nassau after a dinner party. There's no action. No intrigue. No skullduggery. It's simply a story about a failed marriage. Suffice it to say, the short stories are well-worth reading on their own. Bond is his usual suave and deadly self and a staunch defender of Queen and Country against the West's old Cold War nemesis...the Soviet Union. Highly recommended.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Darth_Anton on August 30, 2009, 10:44 AM
Is Paris Burning?

Great book. It's about the German occupation of Paris, Hitler's orders to destroy it, the citizens struggle to liberate it and the Allies need to bypass it on their way to Berlin. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 30, 2009, 04:16 PM
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As the Clone Wars rage, Jedi Master Yoda must once again face one of his greatest adversaries: Count Dooku. . . .

The savage Clone Wars have forced the Republic to the edge of collapse. During the height of the battle, on Jedi Knight escapes the carnage to deliver a message to Yoda on Coruscant. It appears that Dooku wants peace and demands a rendezvous. Chances are slim that the treacherous Count is sincere but, with a million lives at stake, Yoda has no choice.

The meeting will take place on Vjun, a planet steeped in evil. The challenge could not be more difficult. Can Yoda win back his once promising pupil from the dark side or will Count Dooku unleash his sinister forces against his former mentor? Either way, Yoda is sure of one thing: This battle will be one of the fiercest he’ll ever face.


Just finished this last night. One of the best Star Wars novels.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 31, 2009, 04:29 PM
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Defining that precise moment when a trend becomes a trend, Malcolm Gladwell probes the surface of everyday occurrences to reveal some surprising dynamics behind explosive social changes. He examines the power of word-of-mouth and explores how very small changes can directly affect popularity. Perceptive and imaginative, The Tipping Point is a groundbreaking book destined to overturn conventional thinking in business, sociological, and policy-making arenas.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 31, 2009, 04:36 PM
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Sequel to Heroes Die.

Hari Michaelson, aka Caine, aka The Blade of Tyshalle, has gone soft. You can hardly say it's his fault, though. After all, his spine was severed seven years ago, in the climax of the Studio's all-time bestselling entertaiment: For Love of Pallas Ril. Hari has managed to leverage Caine's vast popularity into an upcaste to Adminstrator for himself. He's got a beautiful home, an adorable stepdaughter, even the woman he risked everything to save in Caine's final adventure: Pallas Ril, Overworld river goddess, known six months of the year as Shanna Michaelson, Studio Actor. Hari's in charge of the flagship San Francisco Studio, but it's floundering under his leadership. Some guys apparently were just never cut out for management.

Since the events of Stover's Heroes Die, in which Caine squared off against the god Ma'elKoth, a new religion has sprung up--Cainism. The Children of Ma'elKoth persecute the Cainists, but that particular war is small potatoes next to the bouts of unstoppable death about to be unleashed as earth's high-tech weaponry takes on the fiery thaumaturges of Overworld.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 31, 2009, 08:06 PM
Oh yeah, and this. I ordered it from the Science Fiction Book Club and since it was backordered, I requested it at the library for good measure. Then of course they show up the same day. Arrgh.

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 7, 2009, 01:20 PM
Now reading The Book of Three (The Chronicles of Prydain Book 1) by Lloyd Alexander. This is the series that Disney based the movie "The Black Cauldron" on. Personally, I believe if Disney released "The Black Cauldron" now instead of the mid '80s it would have done alot better. But, it's still one of my favorite Disney movies.

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The tale of Taran, assistant pig keeper, has been entertaining young readers for generations. Set in the mythical land of Prydain (which bears a more than passing resemblance to Wales), Lloyd Alexander's book draws together the elements of the hero's journey from unformed boy to courageous young man. Taran grumbles with frustration at home in the hamlet Caer Dallben; he yearns to go into battle like his hero, Prince Gwydion. Before the story is over, he has met his hero and fought the evil leader who threatens the peace of Prydain: the Horned King.

What brings the tale of Taran to life is Alexander's skillful use of humor, and the way he personalizes the mythology he has so clearly studied. Taran isn't a stick figure; in fact, the author makes a point of mocking him just at the moments when he's acting the most highhanded and heroic. When he and the young girl Eilonwy flee the castle of the wicked queen Achren, Taran emotes, "'Spiral Castle has brought me only grief; I have no wish to see it again.' 'What has it brought the rest of us?' Eilonway asked. 'You make it sound as though we were just sitting around having a splendid time while you moan and take on.'" By the end, Alexander has spun a rousing hero's tale and created a compelling coming-of-age story. Readers will sigh with relief when they realize The Book of Three is only the first of the chronicles of Prydain.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 7, 2009, 01:54 PM
Also reading "Sharpe's Tiger" by Bernard Cornwell.

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In a battery of events that will make a hero out of an illiterate private, a young Richard Sharpe poses as the enemy to bring down a ruthless Indian dictator backed by fearsome French troops.

The year is 1799, and Richard Sharpe is just beginning his military career. An inexperienced young private in His Majesty's service, Sharpe becomes part of an expedition to India to push the ruthless Tippoo of Mysore from his throne and drive out his French allies. To penetrate the Tippoo's city and make contact with a Scottish spy being held prisoner there, Sharpe has to pose as a deserter. Success will make him a sergeant, but failure will turn him over to the Tippoo's brutal executioners -- or, worse -- his man-eating tigers. Picking his way through an exotic and alien world. Sharpe realizes that one slip will mean disaster. And when the furious British assault on the city finally begins, Sharpe must take up arms against his true comrades to preserve his false identity, risking death at their hands in order to avoid detection and thus to foil the Tippoo's well-set trap.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 10, 2009, 12:31 PM
Reading "Summer Knight" by Jim Butcher. That's the fourth Dresden Files book.

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Harry Dresden's faced some pretty terrifying foes during his career. Giant scorpions. Oversexed vampires. Psychotic werewolves. All par for the course for Chicago's only professional wizard.

But in all Harry's years of supernatural sleuthing, he's never faced anything like this: the spirit world's gone completely postal. All over Chicago, ghosts are causing trouble-and not just of the door-slamming, boo-shouting variety. These ghosts are tormented, violent, and deadly.

Someone-or something-is stirring them up to wreak unearthly havoc. But why? And why do so many of the victims have ties to Harry? If Harry doesn't figure it out soon, he could wind up a ghost himself.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 14, 2009, 11:12 AM
Two new books that I'm starting. I've got to put Summer Knight on hold so I can get thru "Castle in the Forest" before its due back at the library.

"Castle in the Forest" by Norman Mailer.
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The prospect of this novel is enticing: Norman Mailer on Adolf Hitler. Mailer, who has fearlessly, full-throatedly tackled Marilyn Monroe, Jesus Christ, Lee Harvey Oswald, Picasso, Muhammad Ali and Gary Gilmore (among others), seemed to be taking on his biggest confrontation yet. This hefty book from an iconic American man of letters, now in his 84th year, seemed to promise that the familiar Mailerian audacity was in fine fettle. I wondered if, here, he might just match his masterwork, The Executioner's Song.

The Castle in the Forest is a baffling, meandering, self-indulgent curio of a book -- at moments brilliantly insightful and fascinating but more often prompting jaw-dropping incredulity.

Mailer has decided to investigate Hitler's immediate family: his father, Alois, his mother, Klara, their relatives and his siblings. The period covered is approximately 1837 to 1903, the lifespan of Hitler's father. When Alois died, Adolf was 14 years old, still a sub-average schoolboy. So far, so straightforward. But Mailer is not content with a third-person, historical account of the antecedents and early life of perhaps the most vicious man who has walked this Earth: He has decided instead to have his novel narrated by a devil. A middle-ranking devil, moreover -- not Satan himself ("The Evil One" or "The Maestro," as he's termed here), but a devil who has the Maestro's ear and whom we know as Dieter.

The Castle in the Forest has its own freakish cosmology -- one I found most uncongenial, not having any belief in supernatural beings of any category. You cannot read this novel without encountering passages such as: "Spirits like myself can attend events where they are not present. I was in another place, therefore, on the night Adolf was conceived. Yet I was able to ingest the exact experience by calling upon the devil (of lower rank) who had been in Alois' bed on the primal occasion. . . . A minor devil can, on the most crucial occasions, implore the Evil One to be present with him during the climax. (The Maestro encourages us to speak of him as the Evil One when he does choose to enter sexual acts, and on that occasion, he was certainly there.)" The book is replete with these asides. The tone is arch and pompous; the dialogue throughout reads as if badly translated from rudimentary German.

Mailer, in a long career full of bravura risk-taking (think Ancient Evenings and Harlot's Ghost), has taken perhaps his biggest risk ever. And yet his intention is not merely to suggest that Hitler is "the spawn of the devil" -- nothing so facile. When we strip away the toe-curling mumbo-jumbo of all this diabolism, a sober and thoroughly researched thesis is being proposed here: Hitler was the product of a fuming stew of routine peasant incest in rural Austria; his mother was at once Alois Hitler's niece and his daughter, the product of a random sex act between Alois and his half-sister Johanna.

The supposition is entirely possible and has been mooted by Hitler scholars. There is no firm evidence, but novelists need no firm evidence: They are free to go where academics, historians and journalists dare not tread. And much of what is buried in this maddening novel is highly engaging -- most notably the portrait of Hitler's father. Indeed, the book is far more about Alois than Adolf, and it's in the sustained depiction of this boorish, fornicating, self-important, minor provincial customs official that Mailer's great strengths as a novelist shine: his feeling for character and detail, his empathy for the unworthy and the sly, his wit. Like a sculptor facing the lumpy, daunting block of marble that is The Castle in the Forest, the reader wants desperately to hew out the real, serious novel that is hidden within.

Mailer knows Hitler's life intimately (as do I, having spent a year writing a six-hour film drama of his rise to power), and his insights and intuition into how that warped mind was influenced and grew are genuinely intriguing, if occasionally a bit too apt. Hitler was insane -- incontrovertibly, I would say -- and his mania may well be explained (as might his alleged solitary testicle) by the complex incestuous web of his parentage. But in this novel, the ludicrous superstructure of devils and angels obfuscates the argument most damagingly.


Also, "The Black Cauldron (The Chronicles of Prydain)" by Lloyd Alexander.

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The Black Cauldron (Holt, 1965) is the second book in the five book series by Lloyd Alexander, and is a Newbery Honor Book. It continues the story of Taran, the Assistant Pig-Keeper of Prydain. Taran, with a band of warriors and friends, is called upon to find and destroy the Black Cauldron, which is being used by the evil Arawn, Lord of the Land of Death, to produce deathless warriors from the bodies of his fallen enemies. Throughout this quest, Taran and his companions learn about sacrifice, honor, and courage. Alexander reads an author's note at the beginning, explaining that his stories have some basis in the literary tradition of Wales, but that he wants readers to relate the stories to what is going on in their lives right now. The audiobook is ably narrated by actor James Langton who deftly creates distinctive characters and engages the audience. Listeners will must have read or listened to the first book in the series, The Book of Three (Holt, 1964; Listening Library), in order to sort out the numerous characters and place names and develop a bond with the characters and their plight. Libraries already circulating the first book will want to have this available for fans.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on September 23, 2009, 09:13 AM
Finished:
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Started:
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Up Next:
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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on September 26, 2009, 10:00 AM
Moving kind of slow with All The Pretty Horse trilogy. Just haven't had much time to dedicate to reading - football season!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 27, 2009, 12:57 AM
Finished "Castle in the Forest".

Now starting, "Undaunted Courage : Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West" by Stephen Ambrose. What do you history majors think of this one?

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Ambrose has written prolifically about men who were larger than life: Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Colonel Custer. Here he takes on half of the two-headed hero of American exploration: Meriwether Lewis. Ambrose, his wife and five children have followed the footsteps of the Lewis and Clark expedition for 20 summers, in the course of which the explorer has become a friend of the Ambrose family; the author's affection shines through this narrative. Meriwether Lewis, as secretary to Thomas Jefferson and living in the White House for two years, got his education by being apprenticed to a great man. Their friendship is at the center of this account. Jefferson hand-picked Lewis for the great cross-country trek, and Lewis in turn picked William Clark to accompany him. The two men shook hands in Clarksville, Ohio, on October 14, 1803, then launched their expedition. The journals of the expedition, most written by Clark, are one of the treasures of American history. Here we learn that the vital boat is behind schedule; the boat builder is always drunk, but he's the only one available. Lewis acts as surveyor, builder and temperance officer in his effort to get his boat into the river. Alcohol continues to cause him problems both with the men of his expedition and later, after his triumphant return, in his own life, which ended in suicide at the age of 35. Without adding a great deal to existing accounts, Ambrose uses his skill with detail and atmosphere to dust off an icon and put him back on the trail west.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 6, 2009, 10:56 AM
Now reading "The Goliath Bone" by Mickey Spillane. This is a Mike Hammer mystery.

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Tough guy PI Mike Hammer fighting terrorists in post-9/11 Manhattan? That's the improbable scenario developed by Hammer's creator, who introduced him in 1947's I, the Jury, and completed after Spillane's death in 2006 by Collins. Despite his advanced age, Hammer still carries an old army .45 and follows his own path to justice regardless of the opposition. In this last case, Hammer providentially rescues two young grad students from an assassin, discovers that they found and possess a giant human femur unearthed during a dig in the plain of Elah, where David slew Goliath, and undertakes to protect them and the bone from those who will do anything to acquire the treasure. Much of the jargon is vintage, as is the indomitable Hammer as he strives to protect the kids and prevent the Goliath bone from setting off the next big war. While not on a par with early Spillane classics, this is a fitting capstone to Hammer's career.


I'm also reading "The Castle of Lyre" by Lloyd Alaxander. This is the third movie in The Chronicles of Prydain series.

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Lloyd Alexander's third book in the five-volume Prydain Chronicles (BBD, pap. 1969) is a tale of adventure, mystery, enchantment, and sacrifice. Taran, an assistant pig-keeper, who cares for Princess Eilonwy deeply and is just beginning to realize the impossibility of it, and Prince Rhun, Eilonwy's betrothed-to-be, set aside their differences and work together to find Princess Eilonwy who has been captured by an evil enchantress. Along with the bard Fflewddur, shaggy Gurgi, and Lord Gwydion, the Prince of Don, they make a loyal band that meets several obstacles on the way. The author reads a brief introduction to acquaint listeners with the characters and scope of the tale.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jeff on October 7, 2009, 11:35 AM
I'm just wrapping up The Way of Shadows, book 1 of a 3-book series by Brent Weeks.

It's got a little bit of everything really - fantasy, magic, ninjas, politics, etc.  Once you get into it, it's easy to see that it takes some cues from the GRR Martin stuff, but it's got it's own things too so it's more then just a clone.

Overall, I give it a B+ (A- if you take into account it was his debut book I guess) and am planning to give book 2 a shot to see where it goes...

Finally had a chance to finish up book two (Shadow's Edge) this week.  Hope to dive into book three (Beyond the Shadows) this weekend...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on October 7, 2009, 12:22 PM
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Decent read, but it's been kind of dry and a bit boring in parts just because I grew up playing the game and worked for a minor league team in college.  So I already knew most of what the author talks about.  He also interviewed players, but most of them played for the Twins in the 80's and he doesn't have much in the way of current players so I've been a bit bored with that.  I'll probably finish this tonight and move onto Masters and Commanders.  I haven't had much time to read lately due to my 10 month old having a real weird sleeping schedule.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 15, 2009, 12:41 AM
In honor of Halloween, I'm going to start reading some scary books over the next few weeks.
First up is "Your Heart Belongs to Me" by Dean Koontz.

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At thirty-four, Internet entrepreneur Ryan Perry seemed to have the world in his pocket—until the first troubling symptoms appeared out of nowhere. Within days, he’s diagnosed with incurable cardiomyopathy and finds himself on the waiting list for a heart transplant; it’s his only hope, and it’s dwindling fast. Ryan is about to lose it all…his health, his girlfriend Samantha, and his life.

One year later, Ryan has never felt better. Business is good and he hopes to renew his relationship with Samantha. Then the unmarked gifts begin to appear—a box of Valentine candy hearts, a heart pendant. Most disturbing of all, a graphic heart surgery video and the chilling message: Your heart belongs to me.

In a heartbeat, the medical miracle that gave Ryan a second chance at life is about to become a curse worse than death. For Ryan is being stalked by a mysterious woman who feels entitled to everything he has. She’s the spitting image of the twenty-six-year-old donor of the heart beating steadily in Ryan’s own chest.

And she’s come to take it back.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on October 20, 2009, 09:01 AM
Started:

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Hopefully up next are these two (I have them both on request from the local library):

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(Couldn't find a better picture of the cover - The book is "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip".  I'm a huge fan of C&H and can't wait to read it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on October 20, 2009, 10:02 AM
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Kind of slow getting started but I imagine it's going to be as good as Cussler's other novels.  I needed a break from some of the dry history I've been reading lately.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 20, 2009, 08:53 PM
Up next is "Black Lightning" by John Saul.

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Fast pacing and skillful narrative misdirection make this supernatural thriller one of Saul's (The Homing) best?and one of his few not to focus on children in peril. Richard Kraven, the novel's heavy, is as nasty as they come: he eviscerates his victims before they die, in the misguided hope of learning the mystery of life. He also seems to be extending his murder spree after his execution in the electric chair. At least that's what reporter Anne Jeffers tries to prove to the incredulous Seattle police as the killings strike ever closer to her home and family, apparently in retaliation for her help in putting Kraven behind bars. Saul ratchets up the suspense by intercutting chapters told from the points of view of Anne, detective Mark Blakemoor and a serial murderer who thinks of himself as "The Experimenter." He complicates matters by introducing another murderer and by raising suspicions about Anne's husband, Glen, who suffered a heart attack at the moment Kraven died and now experiences blackouts that coincide with the killings. Saul depends on remarkably unobservant cops and a contrived occult explanation to tie all the subplots together, but he sustains the mystery of the killer's identity and motives throughout.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 24, 2009, 04:31 AM
On Labor Day I started a job at a used book store so I've been loading up on tons of **** for super cheap. Kind of hard to control myself when I spend my day sorting and shelving genre fiction and get a 50% emp discount to boot.

Recent and current reads:

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on October 24, 2009, 11:57 AM
I'm waiting for the latest SW series to hit on paperback, so I decided to go back and read older SW books that I picked up ages ago, but never got around to reading.  First up is Heir to the Empire!

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/d/dc/HeirToTheEmpire.jpg/200px-HeirToTheEmpire.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Carpeteria3000 on October 24, 2009, 09:12 PM
Oh man, I read those so long ago. They're actually pretty fun, and well written as far as geeky sci-fi book standards go.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 28, 2009, 01:24 AM
Finished "Your heart belongs to me." Now starting "Taran Wanderer" (The Chronicles of Prydain) by Lloyd Alexander. This is book four of five in the series that Disney based the movie "The Black Cauldron" on.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X1534RNHL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Taran Wanderer, the fourth book of the Prydain chronicles, is, in my opinion, the best book in a wonderful series.
All four books focus on the character of Taran of Caer Dallben, an orphan who is raised by a wizard (Dallben). The plot of Taran Wanderer focuses on Taran's quest to find out who his parents were. Taran hopes that he will find that he has the "noble" blood that he believes would give him the right to ask the Princess Eilonwy to wed him.

Needless to say, he does not have an easy time, wandering the length and breadth of Prydain searching for parents he does not know, who can barely remember him.

The book's joy, however, does not lie only in its plot, but also in the development that Taran undergoes through the course of the book. In Taran Wanderer, more than any other book, Taran grows into manhood. The trials he passes through temper and shape him, as he journeys through both familiar and strange lands. His experiences teach him lessons, but he learns even more from the people he meets.

Make no mistake. This is not a pure novel of character. Taran travels from one end of Prydain to the other, meeting kings and wizards, and also farmers and tradesmen. Along the way, he has many adventures and faces many hardships. As said earlier though, the solid plot is not the highlight of this book. The characters are. The myriad of people Taran meets in his travels provides a welcome break from the pattern of the other Prydain chronicles, where almost everyone seems to be either a king, a bard, or a magician (or some combination of the three). After so many books walking the heights, Taran finally returns to earth.

For those who have read the earlier books, you will see many familiar faces, including faithful Gurgi, the (not quite) bard Fflewddur Fflam, King Smoit, and even three old friends from the Marshes of Morva. You'll also be intrigued by new characters, some of whom have had hidden influences on characters you already know. And through it all, the beautiful tapestry of plot that Lloyd Alexander has woven will captivate you.

Taran Wanderer is a great book. I recommend it to readers of all ages.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on November 2, 2009, 03:06 PM
Last book of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. Good series, so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on November 4, 2009, 10:37 AM
Finally got around to reading Children of Hurin this week and I am about half way through...it is pretty depressing

I also just finished the second Magician (master) book, I didn't care for it as much as Book 1 (apprentice) but it was still good High Fantasy
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on November 5, 2009, 03:35 PM
Just put in an order for:

(http://ebooks-imgs.connect.com/product/400/000/000/000/000/180/088/400000000000000180088_s4.jpg)

And you wouldn't believe how excited I am.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on November 6, 2009, 02:27 AM
Finally got around to reading Children of Hurin this week and I am about half way through...it is pretty depressing

Before you finish...hide all the sharp objects in your house!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 6, 2009, 04:40 PM
Talking about scary things, I'm now starting "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" by James Rollins.


(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51bOcLzIO6L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Everyone’s favorite globe-trotting, wisecracking archaeologist is hurtling headfirst into high adventure and relying on his wits, his fists, and his trusty bullwhip to get him out of deep trouble.

It’s 1957, and the Cold War is heating up. A ruthless squad of Russian soldiers crashes Indiana Jones’s latest expedition and forces the unwilling Indy along as they brazenly invade American soil, massacre U.S. soldiers, and plunder a top-secret government warehouse. Commanded by a sword-wielding colonel who’s as sinister as she is stunning, the menacing Reds have one objective: a relic even more precious–and powerful–than the mythic Ark of the Covenant, capable of unlocking secrets beyond human comprehension.

Quick thinking and some high-speed maneuvers help Indy narrowly escape certain death. But the Russians are unrelenting, and their next move leads Indy into the depths of the Amazon on a desperate rescue mission. With a hotheaded teenage biker as his unlikely wing man and his vengeful new Russian nemesis waiting for a rematch, Indy’s back in the game–playing for a prize all the wonders of the world could never rival.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 6, 2009, 05:31 PM
Also reading "Watermind" by M.M. Buckner.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kvdHDrU-L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Buckner (War Surf) theorizes a brand-new intelligence emerging from electronic trash in this cautionary near-future tale. When troubled MIT grad school dropout CJ Reilly encounters bizarre ice covering steamy Louisiana's polluted Devil's Pond, she has visions of saving the world after she analyzes a sample and discovers its power to purify water. Then the mysterious substance responds to music and begins to move, and Reilly becomes convinced of its sentience. When it kills a man, scientist Roman Sacony, whose company owns the pond, is determined to utterly destroy the emerging life form, while CJ insists on trying to save it. Despite the suspense and nonstop action, unlikable characters make it hard to root for anyone, and the scientifically sound ending is narratively unsatisfying. The story succeeds best when it traverses Louisiana's geography, and only indifferently when it traverses the human heart.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on November 10, 2009, 02:08 PM

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/41/659/744/1416597441.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21j53PlhheL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA196_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
(Couldn't find a better picture of the cover - The book is "Looking for Calvin and Hobbes: The Unconventional Story of Bill Watterson and His Revolutionary Comic Strip".  I'm a huge fan of C&H and can't wait to read it.

Got about another day left on the first one.  The Calvin and Hobbes book hasn't come in yet, so next I'll be reading:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/43/914/850/1439148503.jpg)

Looking forward to it.  It's been getting great reviews and is said to more along the lines of IT and The Stand (not necessarily plotwise, but overall "epicness"), probably my two most favorite King books.  And for $9.50 at Walmart due to a pre-order, I couldn't resist.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sprry75 on November 10, 2009, 05:59 PM
I'm reading this:

(http://knopfdoubleday.com/marketing/authorpages/krakauer_cover.jpg)

And it is blowing me away.  Really well done.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 16, 2009, 10:32 PM
Starting "The Navigator" by Eion McNamee.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2BRtRu1UWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This fantasy by Irish author McNamee introduces Owen, whose father has died mysteriously, and whose mother has sunk into a depression. Out in his wilderness hideaway, he catapults into a time vortex where he meets a girl named Cati and her fellow Wakeful. Their eternal task is to fight the Harsh, a powerful ice people who upend time, running it backward so that humans no longer exist. Owen, Cati, and other Wakeful set out to find the Puissance, the place where it is foretold that the Navigator, a legendary figure, can defeat the Harsh and restore proper time. Readers who head for D. J. MacHale's "Pendragon" (S & S) and Garth Nix's "The Keys to the Kingdom" (Scholastic) series may like this one as well, but it sometimes strains credibility. The idea that time is moving backward (from modern to medieval times by novel's end), but that all humanity immediately disappears (even though there were humans back then) is hard to accept. And while Owen and Cati are plucky adventurers, the descriptions sometimes fall flat, and the transitions are occasionally abrupt. Consider this title an additional purchase; acquire where Kenneth Oppel's Airborn (HarperCollins, 2004) and similar titles are popular.—
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 24, 2009, 07:59 PM
Don't Panic! Currently reading, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" by Douglas Adams.   :)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51W6CTA690L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Join Douglas Adams's hapless hero Arthur Dent as he travels the galaxy with his intrepid pal Ford Prefect, getting into horrible messes and generally wreaking hilarious havoc. Dent is grabbed from Earth moments before a cosmic construction team obliterates the planet to build a freeway. You'll never read funnier science fiction; Adams is a master of intelligent satire, barbed wit, and comedic dialogue. The Hitchhiker's Guide is rich in comedic detail and thought-provoking situations and stands up to multiple reads. Required reading for science fiction fans, this book (and its follow-ups) is also sure to please fans of Monty Python, Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and British sitcoms.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on November 25, 2009, 06:06 PM
^ I actually just started that yesterday. I've never read them before, but I picked up an omnibus edition with all five novels and the short story "Young Zaphod Plays It Safe."

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/24/Ultimate_Hitchhikers_Guide_front.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 27, 2009, 12:20 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51RvV9Dz-aL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

I just started reading after seeing it get great reviews from WWII magazine. 

From Amazon:

Roberts offers an outstanding example of a joint biography in this study of the actions and interactions of Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, George Marshall and Alan Brooke. The president, the prime minister and their respective army chiefs of staff were the vital nexus of the Anglo-American alliance in WWII. The path was anything but smooth. London-based historian Roberts (A History of the English-Speaking Peoples Since 1900) demonstrates his usual mastery of archival and printed sources to show how the tensions and differences among these four strong-willed men shaped policy within a general context of consensus. The politicians had to master strategy; the soldiers had to become political. The result was a complicated minuet. The increasing shift of power in America's direction coincided with the achievement of the central war aims agreed on for the Mediterranean and with the viability of a cross-channel attack. Last-minute compromises continued to shape grand strategy, a good example being the choice of Dwight Eisenhower over Brooke to command Operation Overlord. Flexibility and honesty, Roberts concludes, enabled focus on a common purpose and established the matrix of the postwar Atlantic world
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 3, 2009, 12:20 AM
Now starting "Ender in Exile" by Orson Scott Card.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51aDRfygLhL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Here is Card's answer to all those readers who asked, "What happened to Ender?" between Ender's Game (1985) and Speaker for the Dead (1986, both Tor), a gap that covers nearly 3000 years. Twelve-year-old Ender Wiggin should be coming home to a hero's welcome after wiping out the dreaded buggers—aliens who have twice defeated humanity in the past—in a fierce space battle. He is instead proclaimed a dangerous weapon and appointed titular governor of a colony world to keep him as far away from Earth as possible. His beloved sister Valentine joins him on the colony ship but is unable to penetrate the barriers he has erected around himself. Wracked with remorse at his genocide of the buggers, Ender searches for the reason the aliens allowed him to defeat them, knowing the answer will give him direction. As in most great speculative fiction, Card mines the depths of humanity's philosophical and political ideas through Ender's trials and discoveries. Exile brings together many drifting story lines from a number of other books in the series, so it's not for the uninitiated. For those who are familiar with Ender and his world, this is a wonderful treat to be devoured whole in a gulp and then returned to later to digest at leisure.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on December 3, 2009, 08:11 AM

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/43/914/850/1439148503.jpg)


Well, I had a problem with delivery of Under the Dome and haven't received it yet.  So while I try to sort that mess out, I've been reading some books the wife had lying around the house:

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/727/767/0307277674.jpg)

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/41/657/874/1416578749.jpg)

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/324/999/0743249992.jpg)

I also bought the following.  Always wanted to try it and I figured with the new movie and a recommendation from a co-worker, now was as good as ever.

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/747/630/0307476308.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on December 3, 2009, 02:02 PM
I really enjoyed Bringing Down the House.  It was a very quick read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 4, 2009, 09:51 PM
I've been reading Angels & Demons on my lunch breaks. The beginning sucked spectacularly, but it's picking up.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 7, 2009, 09:46 PM
Speaking of books about killing the Pope, I'm reading "The Devil's Labyrinth" by John Saul.

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Bestseller Saul (Suffer the Children) links an exorcism of the devil with a plot to kill the pope in this over-the-top religious thriller. When thugs at a Boston public high school savagely beat 16-year-old Ryan McIntyre, who's struggling with the death of his father in Iraq, Ryan's mother transfers him to a Catholic school. At St. Isaac's Preparatory Academy, where a student's disappearance and other bizarre events have caused worry, a popular priest, Father Sebastian, takes a special interest in the newcomer. When word reaches the Vatican that Sebastian may have revived a long-lost rite to invoke the primitive evil latent even in the most innocent, the supreme pontiff himself plans a visit to St. Isaac's. Those looking for a more subtle treatment of a similar theme might prefer Whitley Strieber's The Night Church, but Saul fans should be satisfied.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Packbar on December 10, 2009, 06:58 PM
I've just finished World War Z and am now reading the Zombie Survival guideby Max Brooks (who is Mel Brooks' son).  I love zombie stuff and if you do these are a must.  I heard that they are making World War Z into a movie although I think it would lend better to being like an HBO miniseries. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 13, 2009, 06:55 PM
Just finished "Shadow of the Giant" by Orson Scott Card. This is the final book based on Ender's second in command Bean.

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Card's latest installment in his Shadow subseries (Ender's Shadow, etc.), which parallels the overarching series that began with Ender's Game (1985), does a superlative job of dramatically portraying the maturing process of child into adult. The imminent death of Bean, a superhuman 20-something Battle School graduate who suffers from uncontrolled growth due to a genetic disorder, leaves little time for Peter the Hegemon, Ender's older brother, to set up a single world government and for Bean and his wife and former classmate, Petra, to reclaim all their stolen children. When Card's focus strays from his characters into pure politics, the story loses power, but it's recharged as soon as he returns to the well-drawn interactions among Bean's Battle School classmates whose decisions will determine Earth's fate. They were trained to fight a (literally) single-minded alien enemy, but that war is over. Now, as young adults in command of human armies pitted against each other in messy conflicts with no clear solutions, Bean's old cohorts must help create a peaceful future for Earth after they're gone. Card makes the important point that there's always more than one side to every issue. Fans will marvel at how subtly he has prepared for the clever resolution.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 20, 2009, 07:52 PM
"The High King (The Chronicles of Prydain)" by Lloyd Alexander. Fifth an final book in the series.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/618F6E9Q5YL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)


When we last saw our heroes, Taran and Gurgi were finally returning to Caer Dallben after more than a year of Taran "finding himself" in the classic sense of the term. At last they are coming home, and to their delight everyone has turned out for their arrival. Unfortunately the joy is not for long. Prince Gwydion has been grievously hurt on his way to the party and his sword of Dyrnwyn has been stolen. Needless to say, this is very bad news. Soon the armies of Arawn-Death-Lord are marching and the time for an end to his reign is at hand. With Taran now a wiser steadier fellow, our band of ragamuffin heroes sets off once more towards adventures, traps, and triumphs. Old friends are met, new friends are found, and many good stout-hearted people die. Still, through it all our heroes never give up and the book is a stirring testament to the will of the average joe. By the end of the book Taran must face his greatest decision yet. And, as author Lloyd Alexander points out, "whether the ending is happy, heartbreaking, or both, readers must decide for themselves".

Out of all the Prydain books, this is the one that bears the most similarity to the aforementioned "Lord of the Rings". This is based on a variety of different factors. The types of battles waged. The evil lord's landscaping. The idea that the bad guy has gotten an object of particular power and can now wield it for evil. Even the ending is similar (though Taran makes a surprise decision that is the direct opposite of Frodo's own surprise decision). Don't feel that this book is a weak knock off of Tolkien's (admittedly) better written baby though. Alexander's at the top of his game here, posing as many philosophical queries as he does political jabs. The presentation of a former good guy who believes peace can only come by joining up with bad guys... heck we're talking WWII political theory here. On top of that Taran is at his wisest in this book. He's poised and confident without being cocky. There's the odd inclusion of a terribly annoying fellow named Glew in this book who serves only to create important plot points and a form of weak comic relief, but fortunately he is the sole flaw of the book. I was greatly relieved too. After the meanderings of Alexander's far weaker, "Taran Wanderer", I was worried that, "The High King" might bog down into dreary who-am-I? type speechifying. Fortunately Eilonwy is present and accounted for in this novel. She fights and gets captured, but at least she's a gutsy ball of gung-ho goodness. As the sole female of the novel she's a welcome relief to everyone's serious even toned conversations. Once again, Eilonwy saves the novel.

"The High King" is far longer than its predecessors, but that's fitting since it's the last in the series. Alexander keeps the action constant and upbeat. I doubt you'll find any serious objections to it. It is sad to say goodbye to the characters we've all grown to know so well in the books. I've always had a serious crush on Fflewddur Fflam so I think I'll miss him most of all. Fortunately there's always "The Foundling" and "Coll and His White Pig" to read for fun. They're not officially part of the Prydain canon but they belong squarely in that world. Consider checking them out if you fall into Lloyd Alexander withdrawal. "The High King" is rightfully considered the strongest book in its series. I recommend it with nary a reservation in sight.



Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 29, 2009, 11:40 PM
Up to bat is "Slaughterhouse Five" by Kurt Vonnegut.

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Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on January 4, 2010, 07:59 AM
Finished:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/43/914/850/1439148503.jpg)

and

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/747/370/0307473708.jpg)

Currently Reading:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/82/642/984/082642984X.jpg)

Up Next:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/41/040/320/1410403203.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 4, 2010, 09:03 AM
I forgot to mention that I am currently reading the Foundation books ;)
So far I've read:

Prelude to Foundation
Foundation
Foundation and Empire
Second Foundation

The more I read the more I realize that Lucas ripped a whole **** ton of Star Wars from Asimov...I always thought Han was a pretty unique name for a dude, until I find out that Han is one of the main Foundation generals.  How about a city wide planet?  Done before in Foundation.  Mind control?  Foundation.  Empire?  Foundation.  Space Battles?  Foundation.

I really do hope they come out with these movies because they would be keen.  The problem would be that a lot of people will accuse Foundation of ripping off Star Wars :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BillCable on January 4, 2010, 11:20 AM
I finished "The Gathering Storm" over the weekend... started during my Christmas trip to Va. Beach...

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TWB0B5ZEL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

I enjoyed it quite a bit.  There were a lot of frustrating chapters... where it was all about resolve and determination.  But there were quite a few nice pay-offs, too.  I liked the end, and think it'll make the next two books more enjoyable reads.

The new author did a good job picking up after Jordan's death.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 4, 2010, 11:20 AM
All courtesy of working on my Masters.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Iwlqj0FfL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GZT0JHXSL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5141CX5cvEL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 5, 2010, 06:50 PM
Finished "High King". Now starting "Winter Moon" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MC3T565GL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

A brush with death prompts L.A. policeman Jack McGarvey to move wife Heather and son Toby up to Quartermass Ranch, a Montana estate bequeathed to them by Eduardo Fernandez, the father of Jack's former partner. The McGarveys settle in, dismissing strange noises and smells, as well as weird trances that seem to grip Toby from time to time, as the embodiment of common fears of urbanites confronted by open spaces. It seems Eduardo had had uninvited visitors: the Givers, creatures from another dimension who came for an incomprehensible, apparently evil purpose. Scared out of his wits, Ed succumbed to a heart attack, but not before scrawling his discovery on a legal pad and stashing it in the freezer. These Givers are actually takers, assuming control of bodies and corpses to use them as vehicles in which to create mayhem. And now they want control of Toby. Bestselling author Koontz ( Hideaway ) exploits and occasionally skewers many horror novel and film conventions--including telepathic mind control games and the obligatory "surprise" blizzard during the climatic battle--to great effect while building tension in this gripping parable about the real cost of "getting away from it all."
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 7, 2010, 05:08 PM
I've thought about reading the Wheel of Time books for a long while...anyone have thoughts good or bad?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 8, 2010, 03:02 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/7730000/7733304.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 8, 2010, 09:57 PM
Now on to "The Chosen" by Chaim Potok.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41KC66T0KBL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Few stories offer more warmth, wisdom, or generosity than this tale of two boys, their fathers, their friendship, and the chaotic times in which they live. Though on the surface it explores religious faith--the intellectually committed as well as the passionately observant--the struggles addressed in The Chosen are familiar to families of all faiths and in all nations.

In 1940s Brooklyn, New York, an accident throws Reuven Malther and Danny Saunders together. Despite their differences (Reuven is a Modern Orthodox Jew with an intellectual, Zionist father; Danny is the brilliant son and rightful heir to a Hasidic rebbe), the young men form a deep, if unlikely, friendship. Together they negotiate adolescence, family conflicts, the crisis of faith engendered when Holocaust stories begin to emerge in the U.S., loss, love, and the journey to adulthood. The intellectual and spiritual clashes between fathers, between each son and his own father, and between the two young men, provide a unique backdrop for this exploration of fathers, sons, faith, loyalty, and, ultimately, the power of love.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 13, 2010, 12:17 PM
Finished Slaughterhouse five. Now starting, "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NVQ2YG55L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The Metamorphosis, first published in 1915, is the most famous of Kafka's works, along with The Trial and The Castle. The story begins when a traveling salesman, Gregor Samsa, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect. Curiously, his condition does not arouse surprise in his family, who merely despise it as an impending burden. As with all of Kafka's works, The Metamorphosis is open to a wide range of interpretations. Most obvious are themes relating to society's treatment of those who are different, the loneliness of isolation, and the absurdity of the human condition.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on January 13, 2010, 01:44 PM
Just wrapping up Book 2 of Dark Force Rising.  I did not think it was as good as Book 1...seemed a little incoherent at times.  Lots of action right at the end, but almost feels like they've started Book 3 in the last chapter or two.  I am excited to see how the Thrawn trilogy wraps up - can't believe I hadn't gotten around to reading these earlier.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on January 20, 2010, 10:35 AM
Taking a break from Stephen King before I start Duma Key, so the following is what I've been reading or plan to read.

Finished:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/45/118/042/0451180429.jpg)

and

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/345/416/0743454162_l.gif)

Currently Reading:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/40/009/592/1400095921.jpg)

Up Next:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/551/833/0385518331.jpg)

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/551/836/0385518366.jpg)

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/329/250/0743292502.jpg)

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/329/251/0743292510.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 20, 2010, 11:43 AM
You guys are killing me.  I miss not having time to read for pleasure with all the texts I have for my Masters.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on January 21, 2010, 05:39 AM
(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/48820000/48825098.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 26, 2010, 11:28 PM
Reading "The January Dancer" by Michael Flynn.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OS6tqVA1L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Acclaimed SF writer Flynn (Eifelheim) delivers an epic tale of adventure, intrigue, suspense and mystery. Forced to land for repairs on an unnamed, remote planet, Captain Amos January and crew discover a cache of artifacts left by a cryptic alien race long before humans went to space. They soon retrieve the Dancer, a shape-changing stone that defies analysis. Possibly the scepter of a legendary prehuman king, certainly unique, the priceless trophy is desired by diverse governments, military powers, plutocrats and cabals throughout human-settled space. Flynn knits a richly detailed story of hunters, bandits and patriots that will keep even the most diligent readers on their toes. The plot evokes old-school space opera with its whirlwind pace, immense scope and twist ending, but cutting-edge extrapolation breathes vivid life into this universe of scoundrels, heroes and romantics. This multi-layered story demands much of the reader, but offers more than equivalent rewards.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 29, 2010, 01:26 AM
Also reading "1776" by David McCullough

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51eGhXmi23L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Esteemed historian David McCullough covers the military side of the momentous year of 1776 with characteristic insight and a gripping narrative, adding new scholarship and a fresh perspective to the beginning of the American Revolution. It was a turbulent and confusing time. As British and American politicians struggled to reach a compromise, events on the ground escalated until war was inevitable. McCullough writes vividly about the dismal conditions that troops on both sides had to endure, including an unusually harsh winter, and the role that luck and the whims of the weather played in helping the colonial forces hold off the world's greatest army. He also effectively explores the importance of motivation and troop morale--a tie was as good as a win to the Americans, while anything short of overwhelming victory was disheartening to the British, who expected a swift end to the war. The redcoat retreat from Boston, for example, was particularly humiliating for the British, while the minor American victory at Trenton was magnified despite its limited strategic importance.

Some of the strongest passages in 1776 are the revealing and well-rounded portraits of the Georges on both sides of the Atlantic. King George III, so often portrayed as a bumbling, arrogant fool, is given a more thoughtful treatment by McCullough, who shows that the king considered the colonists to be petulant subjects without legitimate grievances--an attitude that led him to underestimate the will and capabilities of the Americans. At times he seems shocked that war was even necessary. The great Washington lives up to his considerable reputation in these pages, and McCullough relies on private correspondence to balance the man and the myth, revealing how deeply concerned Washington was about the Americans' chances for victory, despite his public optimism. Perhaps more than any other man, he realized how fortunate they were to merely survive the year, and he willingly lays the responsibility for their good fortune in the hands of God rather than his own. Enthralling and superbly written, 1776 is the work of a master historian.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 4, 2010, 07:05 AM
^^That is one of my favorite books.  I can't say enough how good that was.  If you like it, you should also read "John Adams".
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 4, 2010, 09:49 AM
I'm really enjoying 1776. It's amazing how lucky Washington was. He had the crappiest army in the world and still worked miracles. There is so much they don't teach in history class.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on February 8, 2010, 09:42 PM
(http://eoincolfer.com/news/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/andanotherthingcover420.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 9, 2010, 08:18 PM
Finished "1776". Now reading "The Book of Names" by Jill Gregory.

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According to Jewish tradition, each generation produces 36 righteous souls who hold up the universe. In this page-turner, a Gnostic group that wants the world to end, thus defeating God and paving the way for their own spiritual ascension, has murdered 33 of the 36. Ever since he was involved in a childhood accident, David Shepherd has been compulsively writing down names. When he learns through a kabbalistic rabbi that he is the keeper of the names of righteous souls (and realizes that his stepdaughter is one of them), he finds himself in the middle of a nightmare filled with killings, natural disasters, and the knowledge that the fate of the world in his hands. Coauthors Gregory and Tintori use the now-common Da Vinci Code formula of short chapters and steadily building suspense, but their intriguing premise--also behind Sam Bourne's The Righteous Men (2006)--helps separate this tale from garden-variety religious thrillers. And where others have tried and usually failed, the authors give succinct explanations of the principles of kabbalah and Gnosticism, both complex and often misunderstood. Compulsively readable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 10, 2010, 09:18 AM
I just wrapped up the Thrawn Trilogy.  Pretty good, though the ending of Book #3 was a little too quick for me.  That's a lot of story in like 10 pages.  I'm taking a quick break to read a graphic novel I picked up at the airport a few weeks back.  I'm usually a Marvel guy, but have heard a lot of good things about this story, so decided to check it out.  So far, the art is ridiculously good.

Batman: HUSH

(http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff43/jman5544/Hush.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 10, 2010, 09:30 PM
Now reading "Dangerous Ground" by Larry Bond.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EGYG0W18L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Calling to mind such undersea techno-thrillers as Clancy's The Hunt for Red October and Hagberg's By Dawn's Early Light, this latest outing by Bond, a former naval officer turned bestselling military suspense author (Larry Bond's First Team, etc.), is an edge-of-the-seat yarn about an aging nuclear submarine on a secret mission to Russian waters. Using his senator uncle's political clout, Lt. (j.g.) Jerry Mitchell—a former pilot permanently grounded thanks to a wrist injury sustained in a freak carrier crash—has found his way into submarine training, where, among the other basic skills, he becomes an expert on the Manta, a robot device used for underwater exploration. Cmdr. Lowell Hardy, veteran skipper of the Memphis, a nuclear sub long overdue for decommissioning, is given orders to take Dr. Joanna Patterson from the President's Advisory Science Board and her comely young assistant, Dr. Emily Davis, into Russian waters to look for evidence of illegal disposal of nuclear waste. Mitchell's alleged political pull and the presence of women aboard create unrest among an already unhappy crew. Somewhat predictably, the mission uncovers a major threat to world security and the suspense cranks up when the Russians learn they've been found out. Despite an obligatory surfeit of naval alphabetese and a muster of trite maritime stereotypes with seabags full of childish personality conflicts, this is an engaging read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 22, 2010, 10:33 AM
Just finished up "the Book of Names" and "Alice in Wonderland". I guess I should finish Alice off with "Though the Looking Glass" by Lewis Carroll.

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First published in 1865, Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was an immediate success, as was its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. Carroll’s sense of the absurd and his amazing gift for games of logic and language have secured for the Alice books an enduring spot in the hearts of both adults and children.

Alice begins her adventures when she follows the frantically delayed White Rabbit down a hole into the magical world of Wonderland, where she meets a variety of wonderful creatures, including Tweedledee and Tweedledum, the Cheshire Cat, the hookah-smoking Caterpillar, the Mad Hatter, and the Queen of Hearts—who, with the help of her enchanted deck of playing cards, tricks Alice into playing a bizarre game of croquet.  Alice continues her adventures in Through the Looking-Glass, which is loosely based on a game of chess and includes Carroll’s famous poem “Jabberwocky.”

Throughout her fantastic journeys, Alice retains her reason, humor, and sense of justice. She has become one of the great characters of imaginative literature, as immortal as Don Quixote, Huckleberry Finn, Captain Ahab, Sherlock Holmes, and Dorothy Gale of Kansas.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 26, 2010, 09:23 AM
Ok the Alice books are done. On to "The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower book 1) by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/4160ARESJML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Thirty-three years, a horrific and life-altering accident, and thousands of desperately rabid fans in the making, Stephen King's quest to complete his magnum opus rivals the quest of Roland and his band of gunslingers who inhabit the Dark Tower series. Loyal DT fans and new readers alike will appreciate this revised edition of The Gunslinger, which breathes new life into Roland of Gilead, and offers readers a "clearer start and slightly easier entry into Roland's world."
King writes both a new introduction and foreword to this revised edition, and the ever-patient, ever-loyal "constant reader" is rewarded with secrets to the series's inception. That a "magic" ream of green paper and a Robert Browning poem, came together to reveal to King his "ka" is no real surprise (this is King after all), but who would have thought that the squinty-eyed trio of Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, and Eli Wallach would set the author on his true path to the Tower? While King credits Tolkien for inspiring the "quest and magic" that pervades the series, it was Sergio Leone's The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that helped create the epic proportions and "almost absurdly majestic western backdrop" of Roland's world.

To King, The Gunslinger demanded revision because once the series was complete it became obvious that "the beginning was out of sync with the ending." While the revision adds only 35 pages, Dark Tower purists will notice the changes to Allie's fate and Roland's interaction with Cort, Jake, and the Man in Black--all stellar scenes that will reignite the hunger for the rest of the series. Newcomers will appreciate the details and insight into Roland's life. The revised Roland of Gilead (nee Deschain) is embodied with more humanity--he loves, he pities, he regrets. What DT fans might miss is the same ambiguity and mystery of the original that gave the original its pulpy underground feel (back when King himself awaited word from Roland's world).
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on February 26, 2010, 11:27 PM
I started reading The Stand a couple of weeks ago. I'm a reasonably fast reader, and I'm not even halfway through the book yet. THAT'S a Big Damn Epic.

It's thoroughly enjoyable, though. I've never read any of Stephen King's work before and I'm really enjoying it. I'd like to check out the Dark Tower series at some point. Though I still have a pile of books I bought when some local bookstores were closing, so it might be awhile.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 26, 2010, 11:38 PM
Still knocking off some of the older novels.  Having finished the Thrawn trilogy, I'm onto the X-Wing series:

(http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1143/1346705637_09295d3af9.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on February 27, 2010, 01:30 AM
Still knocking off some of the older novels.  Having finished the Thrawn trilogy[/img]

Best ones they ever put out IMO.



I just started this....

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U1HjS-PHL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on February 27, 2010, 06:34 AM
Up Next:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/551/833/0385518331.jpg)

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/38/551/836/0385518366.jpg)

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/329/250/0743292502.jpg)

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/329/251/0743292510.jpg)

Finished all those.  Up next:

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/89/141/906/0891419063.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 27, 2010, 10:44 AM
I started reading The Stand a couple of weeks ago. I'm a reasonably fast reader, and I'm not even halfway through the book yet. THAT'S a Big Damn Epic.

It's thoroughly enjoyable, though. I've never read any of Stephen King's work before and I'm really enjoying it. I'd like to check out the Dark Tower series at some point. Though I still have a pile of books I bought when some local bookstores were closing, so it might be awhile.

The cool thing about the Dark Tower series is the bad guy in that series is Randall Flagg from "The Stand".
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 27, 2010, 12:08 PM
The cool thing about the Dark Tower series is the bad guy in that series is Randall Flagg from "The Stand".

Same character?  Does it take place before or after "The Stand?"
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 28, 2010, 12:46 AM
The cool thing about the Dark Tower series is the bad guy in that series is Randall Flagg from "The Stand".

Same character?  Does it take place before or after "The Stand?"

I'd say both in a parallel universe-type way. The Dark Tower is a little like Lost. It jumps around between lots of different worlds. Randall Flagg also shows up as the evil magician in "The Eyes of the Dragon". The Walking Man is everywhere!

(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/85/Randallflagg7.jpg/250px-Randallflagg7.jpg) 

From Wiki:

Randall Flagg is a fictional character created by Stephen King. Flagg has appeared in nine novels by King, sometimes as the main antagonist and others in a brief cameo. He often appears under different names; most are abbreviated by the initials R.F. There are exceptions to this rule; in The Dark Tower series, the name most often associated with Flagg is Walter o'Dim.[3] Flagg is described as "an accomplished sorcerer and a devoted servant of the Outer Dark"[3] with general supernatural abilities involving necromancy, prophecy, and unnatural influence over predatory animal and human behavior. His goals typically center on bringing down civilizations, usually through spreading destruction and sowing conflict.

The character first appeared in the novel The Stand as a demonic figure who wreaks havoc after a plague kills most of the population. He makes his second appearance in The Eyes of the Dragon as an evil wizard attempting to plunge the fictional medieval city of Delain into chaos. Flagg made several more appearances in King's epic series The Dark Tower as one of the main antagonists, in which he attempts to thwart protagonist Roland Deschain from reaching the Tower, the lynchpin of all existence, to claim it for himself and become a god. The Dark Tower expanded upon Flagg's backstory and motivations, as well as connecting his previous appearances together.

Aside from King's novels, Flagg was featured in a television miniseries adaptation of The Stand, in which he was portrayed by Jamey Sheridan, as well as making appearances in Marvel Comics' adaptations of The Dark Tower and The Stand. Stephen King initially attributed Donald DeFreeze, the lead kidnapper in the Patty Hearst case, as his inspiration for Randall Flagg. He later attributed Flagg's creation to an image of a man in cowboy boots, denim jeans and jacket always walking the roads that "came out of nowhere" when he was still in college. As King's self-described best villain, the nature of Flagg's character and evil has been the subject of much discussion by literary critics.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on February 28, 2010, 12:09 PM
I am intrigued by this novel already.  If I can get through the first couple of chapters, that is.

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/luvbones.gif)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JesseVader08 on March 1, 2010, 03:15 PM
Randall Flagg also shows up as the evil magician in "The Eyes of the Dragon". The Walking Man is everywhere!

I haven't read a ton of King's stuff, but I was absolutely riveted by that book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on March 1, 2010, 03:28 PM
I have like two pages left in the Med-Star duology.  Next is Deathtroopers.  I've managed to create quite the to-do list of books lately...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 2, 2010, 01:01 AM
Just finished these:

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/18540000/18548677.JPG) (http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/41630000/41639919.JPG)

Currently:

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/13780000/13784858.JPG) (http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/25440000/25446140.JPG) (http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/38130000/38137018.JPG)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 4, 2010, 12:39 AM
Ok. Two new books I am reading. The first is "The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41siRDoeqWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

If there really are only seven original plots in the world, it's odd that boy meets girl is always mentioned, and society goes bad and attacks the good guy never is. Yet we have Fahrenheit 451, The Giver, The House of the Scorpion—and now, following a long tradition of Brave New Worlds, The Hunger Games. Collins hasn't tied her future to a specific date, or weighted it down with too much finger wagging. Rather less 1984 and rather more Death Race 2000, hers is a gripping story set in a postapocalyptic world where a replacement for the United States demands a tribute from each of its territories: two children to be used as gladiators in a televised fight to the death.Katniss, from what was once Appalachia, offers to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, but after this ultimate sacrifice, she is entirely focused on survival at any cost. It is her teammate, Peeta, who recognizes the importance of holding on to one's humanity in such inhuman circumstances. It's a credit to Collins's skill at characterization that Katniss, like a new Theseus, is cold, calculating and still likable. She has the attributes to be a winner, where Peeta has the grace to be a good loser.It's no accident that these games are presented as pop culture. Every generation projects its fear: runaway science, communism, overpopulation, nuclear wars and, now, reality TV. The State of Panem—which needs to keep its tributaries subdued and its citizens complacent—may have created the Games, but mindless television is the real danger, the means by which society pacifies its citizens and punishes those who fail to conform. Will its connection to reality TV, ubiquitous today, date the book? It might, but for now, it makes this the right book at the right time. What happens if we choose entertainment over humanity? In Collins's world, we'll be obsessed with grooming, we'll talk funny, and all our sentences will end with the same rise as questions. When Katniss is sent to stylists to be made more telegenic before she competes, she stands naked in front of them, strangely unembarrassed. They're so unlike people that I'm no more self-conscious than if a trio of oddly colored birds were pecking around my feet, she thinks. In order not to hate these creatures who are sending her to her death, she imagines them as pets. It isn't just the contestants who risk the loss of their humanity. It is all who watch.Katniss struggles to win not only the Games but the inherent contest for audience approval. Because this is the first book in a series, not everything is resolved, and what is left unanswered is the central question. Has she sacrificed too much? We know what she has given up to survive, but not whether the price was too high. Readers will wait eagerly to learn more.



The second book is "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41SZ7P1VWBL._SL500_AA240_.jpg)

Idealistic young scientist Henry Jekyll struggles to unlock the secrets of the soul. Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate—and eliminate—human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatically brings to life a science-fiction case study of the nature of good and evil and the duality that can exist within one person. Resonant with psychological perception and ethical insight, the book has literary roots in Dostoevsky’s “The Double” and Crime and Punishment. Today Stevenson’s novella is recognized as an incisive study of Victorian morality and sexual repression, as well as a great thriller.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ben on March 5, 2010, 08:17 PM
I am intrigued by this novel already.  If I can get through the first couple of chapters, that is.

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/luvbones.gif)

I loved this book. I think I read it in two nights. I just couldn't put it down. I would still love to see the movie, but I think I'll have to wait for DVD/Blu-Ray now. Don't give up on it.  :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on March 8, 2010, 07:00 AM
I am intrigued by this novel already.  If I can get through the first couple of chapters, that is.

(http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b140/tamidala/luvbones.gif)

I loved this book. I think I read it in two nights. I just couldn't put it down. I would still love to see the movie, but I think I'll have to wait for DVD/Blu-Ray now. Don't give up on it.  :)

I ended up reading it in about 3 or 4 days - I had a hard time putting it down.  It was beautiful and haunting at the same time.  I, too, am looking forward to seeing the DVD.  I am curious to see how it will translate to film.  
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on March 8, 2010, 12:41 PM
I´m reading essays on Derrida, Lacan Freud, to update my literary theory, one of them is the essay of Frederic Jameson, "the Post modernism or the cultural logic of advanced capitalism".
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 9, 2010, 12:22 AM
Now reading "Metal Storm" by Kevin J. Anderson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41C8RunB-sL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Bestseller Anderson's super-size mosaic of intergalactic, Darwinian conflict has been compared to some of the genre's grandest epics with good reason, but the breakneck sixth book (after 2006's Of Fire and Night) of this shelf-bending space opera fails to satisfy on its own merits. The quickly deteriorating Terran Hanseatic League (Hansa), the formidable Ildiran Empire and the newly created Confederation of Hansa's ex-colonies and rivals are in a fight for their very existence, battling not only each other but rogue robots, sentient fire entities and an ancient insectoid race, thought long extinct, which plans to eradicate all life on the planets it claims to own. Although Anderson brings all of his considerable skill to bear, much of the action-packed conflict remains relatively predictable, perhaps due to the unwieldy cast of characters, tapestry of intertwining subplots and eon-spanning backstory. A sparse conclusion leaves readers hanging in anticipation of book seven.

For years, the alien Klikiss robots have pretended to be humanity's friends, but their seeming "help" allowed them to plant an insidious Trojan Horse throughout the Earth Defense Forces. Now, in the aftermath of a devastating war, swarms of ancient robots built by the Klikiss continue their depredations on helpless worlds with stolen and heavily armed Earth battleships.

Among the humans, the Hansa's brutal Chairman struggles to crush any resistance even as King Peter breaks away to form his own new Confederation among the colonies who have declared their independence.

And meanwhile, the original, voracious Klikiss race, long thought to be extinct, has returned, intent on conquering their former worlds and willing to annihilate anyone in the way.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on March 9, 2010, 12:38 AM
I took on the Wheel of Time books...slow slow going so far.  I guess I am sort of liking to see how each writer more or less takes the Ring story and makes it their own.  Most of the High Fantasy I have read over the last two years (Belgariad, Riftwar, the Kid with the dragon books) has been variations on said story.  I guess that is why they call it High Fantasy.   Obviously, with multiple rather thick books, WoT is way way more in depth and involved so it will be interesting to me to see where it goes...long journey ahead :-\
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 16, 2010, 12:43 AM
Finished "the Hunger Games". Excellent book. You guys would really enjoy it.

Now on to "The Mysterious Benedict Society" by Trenton Lee Stewart.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Rqms7d8FL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

"Are you a gifted child looking for Special Opportunities?" This curious newspaper ad catches the eye of orphan Reynie Muldoon. After taking exams that test both mind and spirit, Reynie is selected along with four other contestants--Sticky Washington, a nervous child with a photographic memory; irrepressible Kate Weatherhill; and a tiny child who lives up to her name, Constance Contraire. The children soon learn they've been chosen by mysterious Mr. Benedict for an important mission: they are to infiltrate the isolated Learning Institute for the Very Enlightened, from which messages of distrust and compliance are being broadcast into the minds of the world's citizens. Debut novelist Stewart takes some familiar conventions--among them, an orphan struggling against evil forces (Harry Potter, anyone?)--and makes them his own. But like the Potter books, his story goes beyond mere adventures, delving into serious issues, such as the way sloganeering can undermine society--or control it. Through its interesting characters, the book also tackles personal concerns: abandonment, family, loyalty, and facing one's fears. The novel could have been shortened, but Stewart writes with such attention to the intricacies of plot and personality, his story rarely feels slow; only a significant disclosure about Constance seems forced. Smart kids who like Blue Balliet's books are the natural audience for this; but, read aloud, the novel will attract many others as well.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on March 16, 2010, 02:17 AM
(http://www.more.com/images/photo/image/87/64/photo/8764/bright_sided.jpg)

Some of you will love this book, some won't.  I personally found it thoroughly enjoyable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on March 18, 2010, 04:24 AM
Just wrapped "The Girl With The Dragon Tatoo" and Ayn Rand's "Anthem." Starting on "The Hobbit" and "The Fountainhead." I've been reading too much nonfiction lately so I'm trying to get back into some fic.

Brent, I just added yours to my library request list per recommendation.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 21, 2010, 10:01 PM
Starting up "Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission" by Hampton Sides.

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The Bataan Death March was just the beginning of the woes American soldiers captured by the Japanese army in the Philippines had to endure. The survivors of the march faced not only their captors' regular brutality (having surrendered, they were considered to be less than honorable foes), but also a host of illnesses such as dysentery and malaria. For three years these "ghost soldiers" lived in misery, suffering terrible losses.
When Army Rangers among Douglas MacArthur's forces arrived in the Philippines, they hatched a daring plan to liberate their captured comrades, a mission that, if successful, would prove to be a tremendous morale booster at the front and at home. Led by a young officer named Henry Mucci (called "Little MacArthur" for his constant pipe as well as his brilliance as a strategist), a combined Ranger and Filipino guerrilla force penetrated far behind enemy lines, attacked Japanese forces guarding Allied prisoners at a jungle outpost called Cabanatuan, and shepherded hundreds of prisoners to safety, with an angry Japanese army in hot pursuit. Amazingly, they suffered only light casualties.

In Ghost Soldiers, journalist Hampton Sides recounts that daring rescue, once known to every American schoolchild but now long forgotten. A gifted storyteller, Sides packs his narrative with detailed descriptions of the principal actors on both sides of the struggle and with moments of danger and exhilaration. Thrilling from start to finish, his book celebrates the heroism of hundreds of warriors and brings renewed attention to one of the Rangers' finest hours.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 26, 2010, 12:39 AM
On to "100 Cupboards" by N.D. Wilson.

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Twelve-year-old Henry York wakes up one night to find bits of plaster in his hair. Two knobs have broken through the wall above his bed and one of them is slowly turning . . .Henry scrapes the plaster off the wall and discovers cupboards of all different sizes and shapes. Through one he can hear the sound of falling rain. Through another he sees a glowing room–with a man pacing back and forth! Henry soon understands that these are not just cupboards, but portals to other worlds.

100 Cupboards is the first book of a new fantasy adventure, written in the best world-hopping tradition and reinvented in N. D. Wilson’s inimitable style.


Also reading: "Without Warning" by John Birmingham

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Birmingham’s acclaimed Axis of Time trilogy, an alternate history of World War II, now seems a mere warm-up for this blockbuster set on the eve of the second Gulf War. On March 14, 2003, as coalition forces ready their assault on Iraq, a massive energy wave envelops the continental U.S. and portions of Canada and Mexico. Quickly dubbed the Disappearance by baffled onlookers, the wave mysteriously obliterates all life forms, human and animal, within its shimmering borders. As politicians and scientists try to make sense of the anomaly, some foreign observers, including Iraqis, start celebrating, while others descend into chaos. Birmingham follows the volatile developments through the eyes of an American general in Guantánamo Bay, near the wave’s perimeter; a city engineer in Seattle, the only major U.S. city left unscathed; and an American secret operative fending off assassins on the streets of Paris. While Birmingham’s shocking premise may unnerve some American readers, a story line replete with full-throttle action should appeal to Anglophones everywhere.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 1, 2010, 09:04 PM
Here is the sequal to "The Hunger Games":

"Catching Fire" by Suzanne Collins.

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Every year in Panem, the dystopic nation that exists where the U.S. used to be, the Capitol holds a televised tournament in which two teen "tributes" from each of the surrounding districts fight a gruesome battle to the death. In The Hunger Games, Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark, the tributes from impoverished District Twelve, thwarted the Gamemakers, forcing them to let both teens survive. In this rabidly anticipated sequel, Katniss, again the narrator, returns home to find herself more the center of attention than ever. The sinister President Snow surprises her with a visit, and Katniss’s fear when Snow meets with her alone is both palpable and justified. Catching Fire is divided into three parts: Katniss and Peeta’s mandatory Victory Tour through the districts, preparations for the 75th Annual Hunger Games, and a truncated version of the Games themselves. Slower paced than its predecessor, this sequel explores the nation of Panem: its power structure, rumors of a secret district, and a spreading rebellion, ignited by Katniss and Peeta’s subversive victory. Katniss also deepens as a character. Though initially bewildered by the attention paid to her, she comes almost to embrace her status as the rebels’ symbolic leader. Though more of the story takes place outside the arena than within, this sequel has enough action to please Hunger Games fans and leaves enough questions tantalizingly unanswered for readers to be desperate for the next installment.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on April 13, 2010, 03:32 PM
Finished:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/31/610/584/0316105848.jpg)

and

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/74/345/415/0743454154.jpg)

Almost Finished:

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/89/141/906/0891419063.jpg)

Up Next:

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/42/521/375/0425213757.jpg)

(http://covers4.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/45/117/980/0451179803.jpg)

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/55/358/908/0553589083.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 16, 2010, 03:24 AM
Now reading "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" by Seth Grahame-Smith.

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This may be the most wacky by-product of the busy Jane Austen fan-fiction industry—at least among the spin-offs and pastiches that have made it into print. In what’s described as an “expanded edition” of Pride and Prejudice, 85 percent of the original text has been preserved but fused with  “ultraviolent zombie mayhem.” For more than 50 years, we learn, England has been overrun by zombies, prompting people like the Bennets to send their daughters away to China for training in the art of deadly combat, and prompting others, like Lady Catherine de Bourgh, to employ armies of ninjas. Added to the familiar plot turns that bring Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy together is the fact that both are highly skilled killers, gleefully slaying zombies on the way to their happy ending. Is nothing sacred? Well, no, and mash-ups using literary classics that are freely available on the Web may become a whole new genre. What’s next? Wuthering Heights and Werewolves?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 23, 2010, 06:19 PM
Just starting: "War of the Worlds" by H.G. Wells

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Famous for the mistaken panic that ensued from Orson Welles’s 1938 radio dramatization, The War of the Worlds remains one of the most influential of all science fiction works. The night after a shooting star is seen streaking through the sky from Mars, a cylinder is discovered on Horsell Common in London. Naïve locals approach the cylinder armed just with a white flag—only to be quickly killed by an all-destroying heat ray, as terrifying tentacled invaders emerge. Soon the whole of human civilization is under threat as powerful Martians build gigantic killing machines, destroying all life in their path with black gas and burning ray. The forces of Earth, however, may prove harder to beat than they appear.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 24, 2010, 01:58 PM
Just finished X-Wing Rogue Squadron about a week ago and have moved on to Wedge's Gamble.  RS was okay, not a big fan of WG thus far.  The lack of any real antagonist in these books makes them a tad boring IMO (Loor is far away and fairly uninvolved thus far).

(http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff43/jman5544/XWRS.jpg)....................(http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff43/jman5544/XWWG.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on April 24, 2010, 07:14 PM
Well, it's the first two books of basically a four-book arc, and Isard comes into play a lot more directly as they go on. Can't give you much more than that since it's been like ten years since I've read them.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on April 25, 2010, 04:42 PM
Right now I'm reading Michael Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead.  It's the movie that the film The 13th Warrior was based upon.  Conceptually the way it's written is interesting, but I'm only a few chapters into it at this point.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on April 25, 2010, 06:03 PM
Well, it's the first two books of basically a four-book arc, and Isard comes into play a lot more directly as they go on. Can't give you much more than that since it's been like ten years since I've read them.

Well, that's good to know.  Wedge's Gamble is getting a little more interesting (about half way through).  Feels like they spent a lot of time working through getting the Rogues into Coruscant - time that could have been better spent character building.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on April 26, 2010, 12:27 PM
Right now I'm reading Michael Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead.  It's the movie that the film The 13th Warrior was based upon.  Conceptually the way it's written is interesting, but I'm only a few chapters into it at this point.

IIRC isn't Eaters of the Dead based on the Beowulf epic poem?  Obviously Crichton is a lot easier to read than middle english...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on April 26, 2010, 01:38 PM
Right now I'm reading Michael Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead.  It's the movie that the film The 13th Warrior was based upon.  Conceptually the way it's written is interesting, but I'm only a few chapters into it at this point.

IIRC isn't Eaters of the Dead based on the Beowulf epic poem?  Obviously Crichton is a lot easier to read than middle english...
Yes...loosely

I tore through everything Crichton in 1991 after I read and fell in love with Jurrasic Park...this was my least favorite of all of his books
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on April 27, 2010, 02:54 AM
Right now I'm reading Michael Crichton's Eaters Of The Dead.  It's the movie that the film The 13th Warrior was based upon.  Conceptually the way it's written is interesting, but I'm only a few chapters into it at this point.

IIRC isn't Eaters of the Dead based on the Beowulf epic poem?  Obviously Crichton is a lot easier to read than middle english...
Yes...loosely

I tore through everything Crichton in 1991 after I read and fell in love with Jurrasic Park...this was my least favorite of all of his books

Very loosely.  

I find it a little bit interesting that he tried to establish some backstory in terms of how this whole story was reported.  Notably with scholars having studied the scattered writings of Ahmed ibn Fahdlan, plus the footnotes along the way.  It makes the book read more like history, which seems to be Crichton's point with this book.

But the core idea is actually pretty interesting.  Crichton puts forth the notion that the Wendloe are the last remaining Neanderthal tribe in Europe, and they're in conflict with the Norsemen.  You have to figure that this kind of conflict did actually occur between Neanderthals and Cro Magnon.  But to have that happen as late as the 10th century?  The possibility is certainly there.  Especially since so little of Norse history was recorded in written form.  Rather, most of what we do know of the Vikings was relayed through the oral tradition of the sagas and epic poems.  Like Beowulf.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 27, 2010, 07:27 PM
Finished Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Definitely a spoon full of zombie helps the Jane Austen  go down. It made the book more tollarable to read. Too bad the zombies weren't better integrated into the plot.

Now to get away from some British-lit and onto something American for a while. Now starting "The Thin Man" by Dashiell Hammett.

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The Thin Man, Dashiell Hammett's classic tale of murder in Manhattan, became the popular movie series with William Powell and Myrna Loy, and both the movies and the novel continue to captivate new generations of fans.
Nick and Nora Charles, accompanied by their schnauzer, Asta, are lounging in their suite at the Normandie in New York City for the Christmas holiday, enjoying the prerogatives of wealth: meals delivered at any hour, theater openings, taxi rides at dawn, rubbing elbows with the gangster element in speakeasies. They should be annoyingly affected, but they charm. Mad about each other, sardonic, observant, kind to those in need, and cool in a fight, Nick and Nora are graceful together, and their home life provides a sanctuary from the rough world of gangsters, hoodlums, and police investigations into which Nick is immediately plunged.

A lawyer-friend asks Nick to help find a killer and reintroduces him to the family of Richard Wynant, a more-than-eccentric inventor who disappeared from society 10 years before. His former wife, the lush and manipulative Mimi, has remarried a European fortune hunter who turns out to be a vindictive former associate of her first husband and is bent on the ruin of Wynant's family fortune. Wynant's children, Dorothy and Gilbert, seem to have inherited the family aversion to straight talk. Dorothy, who has matured into a beautiful young woman, has a crush on Nick, and so, in a hero-worshipping way, does mama's boy Gilbert. Nick and Nora respond kindly to their neediness as Nick tries to make sense of misinformation, false identities, far-fetched alibis, and, at the center of the confusion, the mystery of The Thin Man, Richard Wynant. Is he mad? Is he a killer? Or is he really an eccentric inventor protecting his discovery from intellectual theft?

The dialogue is spare, the locales lively, and Nick, the narrator, shows us the players as they are, while giving away little of his own thoughts. No one is telling the whole truth, but Nick remains mostly patient as he doggedly tries to backtrack the lies. Hammett's New York is a cross between Damon Runyon and Scott Fitzgerald--more glamorous than real, but compelling when visited in the company of these two charmers. The lives of the rich and famous don't get any better than this!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 29, 2010, 12:21 AM
Also starting today is "City of Time" Book 2 of the Navigator Trilogy by Eoin McNamee.

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In this sequel to The Navigator (Random, 2007), earthquakes, tidal waves, and general environmental turmoil are on the rise, and Owen is called into action again. The moon's orbit has altered, and the very fabric of time is running out. Owen teams up with his friends from the first book and embarks on a quest to Hadima, the City of Time, to seek out a tempod and try to reestablish stability of time. Faced with deceptions, double-crossings, and the icy power of the Harsh, Owen and his friends are challenged physically and mentally at every step of their adventure. Pacing and story details are excellent with just the right amount of suspense and withheld information to keep readers wanting more. Characters are unique and suitably delineated with an appropriate balance of protagonist and antagonist attention. City of Time reads like a stand-alone novel; all pertinent details are explained. However, it would help more astute readers to be familiar with the first book. Naturally, situations are set up for the final book in the trilogy. City of Time will certainly enjoy as much reader attention as the first book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on May 4, 2010, 10:19 AM
(http://pplibraryreviews.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/worldwarz.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 4, 2010, 12:12 PM
Rob your reading a little red X. How is that one going?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: iFett on May 4, 2010, 12:22 PM
I can see it.  World War Z - An Oral History of the Zombie War
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 4, 2010, 07:08 PM
Now I can see it.

Finished the Thin Man. I really need to see the movie again. Maybe TCM will have it on soon.

Now reading "Along came a spider" by James Patterson.

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This second big winter thriller by a writer named Patterson (see Fiction Forecasts, Oct. 19) features a villain (a multiple-personality serial killer/kidnapper) whom the publisher hopes will remind readers of Thomas Harris's Hannibal Lecter, and a hero who is compared to those of Jonathan Kellerman. Unfortunately, the novel has few merits of its own to set against those authors' works. Hero Alex Cross is in fact a black senior detective in Washington, D.C., who is also a psychiatrist and has a facile but not entirely convincing line of sentimental-cynical patter. The villain is Gary Soneji/Murphy (read Hyde/Jekyll), who kills for recognition, and finally kidnaps the kids of prominent parents. Alex is soon on the case, more enraged by Gary's killing of poor ghetto blacks than by the Lindbergh-inspired kidnapping, and becomes involved with a gorgeous, motorcycle-riding Secret Service supervisor who is not what she seems. Soneji/Murphy is eventually captured--but can the bad part of him be proven guilty? There is even a hint at the end that he may survive for a sequel, though the reader has virtually forgotten him by then. Spider reads fluently enough, but its action and characters seem to have come out of some movie-inspired never-never land. If a contemporary would-be nail-biter is to thrill as it should, it urgently needs stronger connections to reality than this book has. Come back, Thomas Harris!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 9, 2010, 05:56 PM
Now reading "Relentless" by Dean Koontz.

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Bestselling author Cullen Cubby Greenwich is mortified when Shearman Waxx, the nation's premier literary critic, savages his work. Cubby manages to find the syphilitic swine at Roxie's Bistro in Newport Beach, Calif., where the author's six-year-old prodigy son nearly pees by accident on Waxx in the restaurant's men's room. In retaliation, Waxx threatens Cubby with doom and gets things started nicely by blowing up his house. With almost superhuman ease, the book critic keeps track of Cubby and his family as they flee for their lives. While some may take this as satire, the over-the-top villain's underdeveloped motivation and a jokey narrative tone that jars when juxtaposed with terrifying scenes of violence will leave others scratching their heads. By the time Koontz introduces a science fiction element, a lot of readers may have already checked out.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 12, 2010, 12:19 AM
Now reading "Treasure Island" by Robert Louis Stevenson.

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Climb aboard for the swashbuckling adventure of a lifetime. Treasure Islandhas enthralled (and caused slight seasickness) for decades. The names Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins are destined to remain pieces of folklore for as long as children want to read Robert Louis Stevenson's most famous book. With it's dastardly plot and motley crew of rogues and villains, it seems unlikely that children will ever say no to this timeless classic.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 12, 2010, 09:39 AM
I've got about three more weeks before I start my next Masters class so I'm cramming in this book and maybe one more if I can get the time.  Working on my masters sucks because I've lost a ton of my reading time.

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 12, 2010, 11:29 AM
I've got about three more weeks before I start my next Masters class so I'm cramming in this book and maybe one more if I can get the time.  Working on my masters sucks because I've lost a ton of my reading time.

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I thought that is what you do as you work on your masters. Read.

When my wife was working on her masters, it completely turned her off from reading for ten years. Now she is back and going thru twenty books on average a month!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on May 12, 2010, 11:42 AM
You know what I mean.  ;)

I probably should have said pleasure reading.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 18, 2010, 09:05 PM
Two new books I'm starting. The first is "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain.

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“Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life.”

So starts Mark Twain’s classic tale about a boy’s life in a small town on the Mississippi, which has become an all-time favorite both in America and around the world.

Tom Sawyer’s mischievous and by now famous exploits—venturing into a nighttime graveyard with his friend Huck Finn, getting lost in a bat cave, tricking his friends into whitewashing a fence—make thrilling reading for all ages. Behind the escapades, though, are darker themes, as young Tom learns some difficult lessons about the often hypocritical rules that govern adult society.


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 18, 2010, 09:08 PM
Also starting, "Cell" by Stephen King.

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What if a pulse sent out through cell phones turned every person using one of them into a zombie-like killing machine? That's what happens on page six of King's latest, a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization—or at what may turn into a new, extreme, telepathically enforced fascism. Those who are not on a call at the time of the pulse (and who don't reach for their phones to find out what is going on) remain "normies." One such is Clayton Riddell, an illustrator from Kent Pond, Maine, who has just sold some work in Boston when the pulse hits. Clay's single-minded attempt to get back to Maine, where his estranged wife, Sharon, and young son, Johnny-Gee, may or may not have been turned into "phoners" (as those who have had their brains wiped by the pulse come to be called) comprises the rest of the plot. King's imagining of what is more or less post-Armageddon Boston is rich, and the sociological asides made by his characters along the way—Clay travels at first with two other refugees—are jaunty and witty. The novel's three long set pieces are all pretty gory, but not gratuitously so, and the book holds together in signature King style.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 26, 2010, 08:23 PM
Now reading, "His Excellency - George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis.

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As commander of the Continental army, George Washington united the American colonies, defeated the British army, and became the world's most famous man. But how much do Americans really know about their first president? Today, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph J. Ellis says in this crackling biography, Americans see their first president on dollar bills, quarters, and Mount Rushmore, but only as "an icon--distant, cold, intimidating." In truth, Washington was a deeply emotional man, but one who prized and practiced self-control (an attribute reinforced during his years on the battlefield).

Washington first gained recognition as a 21-year-old emissary for the governor of Virginia, braving savage conditions to confront encroaching French forces. As the de facto leader of the American Revolution, he not only won the country's independence, but helped shape its political personality and "topple the monarchical and aristocratic dynasties of the Old World." When the Congress unanimously elected him president, Washington accepted reluctantly, driven by his belief that the union's very viability depended on a powerful central government. In fact, keeping the country together in the face of regional allegiances and the rise of political parties may be his greatest presidential achievement.


Based on Washington's personal letters and papers, His Excellency is smart and accessible--not to mention relatively brief, in comparison to other encyclopedic presidential tomes. Ellis's short, succinct sentences speak volumes, allowing readers to glimpse the man behind the myth.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 29, 2010, 03:10 PM
Now reading "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.

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In 1792, during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, an English aristocrat known to be an ineffectual fop is actually a master of disguises who, with a small band of dedicated friends, undertakes dangerous missions to save members of the French nobility from the guillotine.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 29, 2010, 08:36 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51X%2BmMK773L._SS500_.jpg)

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/a9/19/68fa71a88da0dee02a66e110.L.jpg) (http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/da/25/f408810ae7a06863015f9110.L.jpg)

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51c5IWh%2BKfL.jpg)

Hitting all the geek bases here, though not really intentionally.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on May 29, 2010, 11:13 PM
Also just finished this:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513Mp0oeCOL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on June 7, 2010, 11:22 AM
Finished:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/745/454/0307454541.jpg)

and

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/58/767/228/1587672286.jpg)

Up Next:

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/745/455/030745455X.jpg)

and

(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/726/999/030726999X.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 9, 2010, 10:59 AM
Finished the George Washington book. Now on to a book about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516SJwX53qL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation..
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 9, 2010, 07:48 PM
Also starting, "Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey" by Trenton Lee Stewart.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51STo2ncyxL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The daring foursome from the well-received The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) returns in a second perilous adventure. As the book opens, the children reunite at Mr. Benedict’s home, where he has arranged a treasure hunt. Alas, they discover that Benedict and his assistant are being held captive somewhere, and dire consequences will result if Benedict’s evil twin doesn’t receive the information he desires in four days. The children undertake a worldwide journey to save Benedict and find the duskwort that will cure his narcolepsy. Lots of backstory is needed to set up this sequel, which makes for a choppy beginning. In the previous book, the protagonist’s personal stories provided heft, but this is pure adventure—lots of racing, scheming, fighting. Punches are pulled on the violence front, but the threat is always there, creating page-turning tension. It’s this roller coaster, along with the essential goodness of the characters (except, perhaps, for Constance), that will draw kids to this breathless follow-up.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 2, 2010, 09:44 PM
Need to update my books since being on vacation.

First was "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ENauDRqwL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find." Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede--each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! With the addition of witty black and white pencil drawings by Lane Smith (of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs fame), upon which the animation for the Disney movie was based, this classic, now in paperback, is bursting with renewed vigor. We'll just come right out and say it: James and the Giant Peach is one of the finest children's books ever written.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 2, 2010, 09:46 PM
Now reading "Next" by Michael Crichton.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41no7lTvUbL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Bestseller Crichton (Jurassic Park) once again focuses on genetic engineering in his cerebral new thriller, though the science involved is a lot less far-fetched than creating dinosaurs from DNA. In an ambitious effort to show what's wrong with the U.S.'s current handling of gene patents and with the laws governing human tissues, the author interweaves many plot strands, one involving a California researcher, Henry Kendall, who has mixed human and chimp DNA while working at NIH. Kendall produces an intelligent hybrid whom he rescues from the government and tries to pass off as a fully human child. Some readers may be disappointed by the relative lack of action, the lame attempts to lighten the mood with humor (especially centering on an unusually bright parrot named Gerard), and the contrived convergence of the main characters toward the end. Still, few can match Crichton in crafting page-turners with intellectual substance, and his opinions this time are less likely to create a firestorm than his controversial take on global warming in 2004's State of Fear.


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 3, 2010, 09:00 AM
More masters work.  At least this class is really good and I get to chose a lot of the books myself.  I will be writing a book review of this one later and then the bottom book is the class "textbook" and is very interesting.
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kU5uSLCwL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)


(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51jGovoZp8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on July 3, 2010, 02:13 PM
(http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00262/pirate_9d36f110233__262170t.jpg)

Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 4, 2010, 05:40 PM
Just finished Kull and The Fountainhead.

Now on this; it's the complete Lovecraft fiction* in chronological (publication) order.

*Or like 98% percent of it, minus some of the collaborations etc, but "complete" enough for my purposes. After starting with the major stories in the other collection, I wanted to read the rest of the oeuvre in order without having to jump between a bunch of separate anthologies.

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/images/32940000/32941821.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 5, 2010, 11:27 AM
(http://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00262/pirate_9d36f110233__262170t.jpg)

Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 

I hear its terrible. You'll have to let us know.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 5, 2010, 09:04 PM
Now starting, "The Yiddish Policement's Union" by Michael Chabon.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513mrWlOzcL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Theyh are the "frozen Chosen," two million people living, dying and kvetching in Sitka, Alaska, the temporary homeland established for displaced World War II Jews in Chabon's ambitious and entertaining new novel. It is—deep breath now—a murder-mystery speculative-history Jewish-identity noir chess thriller, so perhaps it's no surprise that, in the back half of the book, the moving parts become unwieldy; Chabon is juggling narrative chainsaws here.The novel begins—the same way that Philip Roth launched The Plot Against America—with a fascinating historical footnote: what if, as Franklin Roosevelt proposed on the eve of World War II, a temporary Jewish settlement had been established on the Alaska panhandle? Roosevelt's plan went nowhere, but Chabon runs the idea into the present, back-loading his tale with a haunting history. Israel failed to get a foothold in the Middle East, and since the Sitka solution was only temporary, Alaskan Jews are about to lose their cold homeland. The book's timeless refrain: "It's a strange time to be a Jew."Into this world arrives Chabon's Chandler-ready hero, Meyer Landsman, a drunken rogue cop who wakes in a flophouse to find that one of his neighbors has been murdered. With his half-Tlingit, half-Jewish partner and his sexy-tough boss, who happens also to be his ex-wife, Landsman investigates a fascinating underworld of Orthodox black-hat gangs and crime-lord rabbis. Chabon's "Alyeska" is an act of fearless imagination, more evidence of the soaring talent of his previous genre-blender, the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.Eventually, however, Chabon's homage to noir feels heavy-handed, with too many scenes of snappy tough-guy banter and too much of the kind of elaborate thriller plotting that requires long explanations and offscreen conspiracies.Chabon can certainly write noir—or whatever else he wants; his recent Sherlock Holmes novel, The Final Solution, was lovely, even if the New York Times Book Review sniffed its surprise that the mystery novel would "appeal to the real writer." Should any other snobs mistake Chabon for anything less than a real writer, this book offers new evidence of his peerless storytelling and style. Characters have skin "as pale as a page of commentary" and rough voices "like an onion rolling in a bucket." It's a solid performance that would have been even better with a little more Yiddish and a little less police.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on July 5, 2010, 11:09 PM
Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 

I hear its terrible. You'll have to let us know.
[/quote]

Well I wouldn't rush out and buy it if were you, how's that for a review?  Yeah, it's not overly stellar and that's probably why it was still in the files.  Easier to read than "Eaters of the Dead" but his least favorite book of the lot.  If someone gives it to you, it's worth the read.  Otherwise don't. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on July 12, 2010, 01:08 PM
From now on most of my reading will be done on this:

(http://images.barnesandnoble.com/pimages/bravo/whiteout/overview/nook_wifi_overview_upper_CNET_r3.jpg)

The first two books I'll most likely get are:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers2/ebook/ImageType-100/0111-1/%7BBF29380A-088A-4764-B9A0-1D0F06778C44%7DImg100.jpg)

and

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers2/ebook/ImageType-100/0293-1/%7B253546CF-5A57-43BE-BF47-7CAC4893B4A2%7DImg100.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sugart on July 12, 2010, 05:42 PM
Mike, just curious why did you choose the Nook over the Kindle. I plan on purchasing a Kindle soon.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on July 13, 2010, 07:48 AM
Cheaper (I got the Wi-Fi one), more available books, fell in love with it after putzing around with it one day at B&N, didn't feel like waiting for the Kindle to arrive, etc.

My understanding is you can't go wrong with either one and it's just a matter of preference.  You can fool around with my nook when I see you in a couple of weeks if you want to wait before buying.

I'lll shoot you a pm later regarding birthdays.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: GrandMoffNick on July 14, 2010, 01:49 PM
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 14, 2010, 04:50 PM
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.

I agree. I liked it too. Much better than P&P&Z. It will be a fun movie.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: GrandMoffNick on July 15, 2010, 07:05 AM
Just finished "Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter". Thought it was excellent.

I agree. I liked it too. Much better than P&P&Z. It will be a fun movie.

Lincoln:Vampire Hunter is going to be a movie? Sweet
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 15, 2010, 09:47 AM
At the end of the audio book there is an interview with the author. He talks about writing the screenplay for it now and where he got the idea for the book. I don't know if he is involved in P&P&Z movie.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 17, 2010, 08:43 PM
Now starting "Under the Dome" by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Fe43%2BAe6L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

King's return to supernatural horror is uncomfortably bulky, formidably complex and irresistibly compelling. When the smalltown of Chester's Mill, Maine, is surrounded by an invisible force field, the people inside must exert themselves to survive. The situation deteriorates rapidly due to the dome's ecological effects and the machinations of Big Jim Rennie, an obscenely sanctimonious local politician and drug lord who likes the idea of having an isolated populace to dominate. Opposing him are footloose Iraq veteran Dale “Barbie” Barbara, newspaper editor Julia Shumway, a gaggle of teen skateboarders and others who want to solve the riddle of the dome. King handles the huge cast of characters masterfully but ruthlessly, forcing them to live (or not) with the consequences of hasty decisions. Readers will recognize themes and images from King's earlier fiction, and while this novel doesn't have the moral weight of, say, The Stand, nevertheless, it's a nonstop thrill ride as well as a disturbing, moving meditation on our capacity for good and evil.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on July 30, 2010, 03:50 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/0c/24/469be03ae7a080121c462210.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 2, 2010, 05:08 PM
Up next is the old classic, "The Phantom Tollbooth" by Norton Juster.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Wgh1dakxL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

"It seems to me that almost everything is a waste of time," Milo laments. "[T]here's nothing for me to do, nowhere I'd care to go, and hardly anything worth seeing." This bored, bored young protagonist who can't see the point to anything is knocked out of his glum humdrum by the sudden and curious appearance of a tollbooth in his bedroom. Since Milo has absolutely nothing better to do, he dusts off his toy car, pays the toll, and drives through. What ensues is a journey of mythic proportions, during which Milo encounters countless odd characters who are anything but dull.
Norton Juster received (and continues to receive) enormous praise for this original, witty, and oftentimes hilarious novel, first published in 1961. In an introductory "Appreciation" written by Maurice Sendak for the 35th anniversary edition, he states, "The Phantom Tollbooth leaps, soars, and abounds in right notes all over the place, as any proper masterpiece must." Indeed.

As Milo heads toward Dictionopolis he meets with the Whether Man ("for after all it's more important to know whether there will be weather than what the weather will be"), passes through The Doldrums (populated by Lethargarians), and picks up a watchdog named Tock (who has a giant alarm clock for a body). The brilliant satire and double entendre intensifies in the Word Market, where after a brief scuffle with Officer Short Shrift, Milo and Tock set off toward the Mountains of Ignorance to rescue the twin Princesses, Rhyme and Reason. Anyone with an appreciation for language, irony, or Alice in Wonderland-style adventure will adore this book for years on end.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 4, 2010, 09:40 AM
Another kids book, "Three Tales of my Father's Dragon" by Ruth Stiles Gannett.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510ZEcA5MLL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

My Father's Dragon--a favorite of young readers since the 1940s and a Newbery honor book--captures the nonsensical logic of childhood in an amusingly deadpan fashion. The story begins when Elmer Elevator (the narrator's father as a boy) runs away with an old alley cat to rescue a flying baby dragon being exploited on a faraway island. With the help of two dozen pink lollipops, rubber bands, chewing gum, and a fine-toothed comb, Elmer disarms the fiercest of beasts on Wild Island. The quirky, comical adventure ends with a heroic denouement: the freeing of the dragon. Abundant black-and-white lithographs by Ruth Chrisman Gannett (the author's stepmother) add an evocative, lighthearted mood to an already enchanting story. Author Ruth Stiles Gannett's stand-alone sequel, Elmer and the Dragon, and her third volume, The Dragons of Blueland both received starred reviews in School Library Journal and are as fresh and original as her first.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 7, 2010, 06:01 PM
Reading the "The Kingdom Keepers" by Ridley Pearson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EDCG8KB4L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Using cutting-edge technology, five Florida teens have been transformed into Holographic Hosts at Disney World. Their images appear throughout the Magic Kingdom, giving visitors information about the various attractions. It all seems to be going well, until the participants begin having disturbing dreams that start affecting their everyday lives. They sneak in after the park has closed, and Wayne, a retired Imagineer, directs them in their fight against the Dark Side, embodied by Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty. Audio-animatronic pirates from The Pirates of the Caribbean travel through the Magic Kingdom in the little cars from the Buzz Lightyear ride. The dolls from It's a Small World clamber into the boats and start biting the occupants. Cinderella's Castle is filled with an eye-popping array of staircases, à la Escher. There's a certain coolness factor for the notion that people could be both human and hologram at the same time, and the illicit thrill of seeing all the things you don't normally get to see (both real and imaginary) makes this a must-read for serious Disney fans. However, readers never really get to know any of the characters well, except for Finn, the narrator, and the mystery is so convoluted that it's hard to follow, and even harder to care about. Additional.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on August 7, 2010, 11:35 PM
Finished:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/745/454/0307454541.jpg)

Just grabbed this one and started it.  Finished up on these two prior:

(http://everyjoe.com/files/2009/06/206-bones-cover.jpg)

(http://i43.tower.com/images/mm112482731/fragment-novel-warren-fahy-hardcover-cover-art.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on August 8, 2010, 09:44 AM
I read fragment last summer. Not the greatest book but I liked the story even if it was a bit predictable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on August 9, 2010, 08:33 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41J7DSN-i0L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

I've had to read 5 books plus a textbook for my current masters class.  This is the last of the books I have to read.  I got lucky and my instructor told us if we used a book that was related to the topic at hand we were welcome to do so.  So, instead of having to work my way through 5 of his books, I used two of my own that I had recently read, two on his list, and one that I stumbled across by accident.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on August 14, 2010, 11:20 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zOk7fcpQL.jpg)

Picked up from a booth at C5, recommended by both of the guys there.

Twenty years after her death, Catherine Lucille Moore (1911–1987) remains one of the most influential female fantasy authors of all time. Born in Indianapolis, Indiana, Moore published her first story in Weird Tales  in 1933, where it met with immediate success and earned praise from contemporaries such as H.P. Lovecraft. In a time when female authors were still marginalized and practically unheard of in genre fiction, Catherine hid her gender by publishing under the name C.L. Moore. She proceeded to write high-profile stories for Weird Tales and Astounding  for the next decade, earning particular acclaim for her characters Jirel of Joiry, the first strong female protagonist in the sword and sorcery genre, and daring spaceman Northwest Smith. Moore met science fiction author Henry Kuttner in 1936 when he wrote her a fan letter, mistakenly believing her to be a man, and in 1940 the two were married. Together the couple collaborated on numerous stories and scripts for television shows under their own names and at least 17 pseudonyms, of which Lewis Padgett and Keith Hammond are the most recognized. In 1998 C. L. Moore was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on August 15, 2010, 12:01 AM
(http://covers2.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/745/455/030745455X.jpg)


Finished the first, on to the second.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 16, 2010, 06:27 PM
Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by Deborah Howe.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515MBTEMKYL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This immensely popular children's story is told from the point of view of a dog named Harold. It all starts when Harold's human family, the Monroes, goes to see the movie Dracula, and young Toby accidentally sits on a baby rabbit wrapped in a bundle on his seat. How could the family help but take the rabbit home and name it Bunnicula? Chester, the literate, sensitive, and keenly observant family cat, soon decides there is something weird about this rabbit. Pointy fangs, the appearance of a cape, black-and-white coloring, nocturnal habits … it sure seemed like he was a vampire bunny. When the family finds a white tomato in the kitchen, sucked dry and colorless, well … Chester becomes distraught and fears for the safety of the family. "Today, vegetables. Tomorrow … the world!" he warns Harold. But when Chester tries to make his fears known to the Monroes, he is completely misunderstood, and the results are truly hilarious. Is Bunnicula really a vampire bunny? We can't say. But any child who has ever let his or her imagination run a little wild will love Deborah and James Howe's funny, fast-paced "rabbit-tale of mystery."
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 25, 2010, 11:49 PM
Now reading "The Silver Spoon of Solomon Snow" by Kaye Umansky.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51KR0O6vp-L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)


A luckless foundling stars in this sometimes-amusing orphan tale. When 10-year-old Solly Snow learns that he was left on the doorstep as a baby, he immediately sets off to find his true parents. His only clue is the silver spoon that Pa Scubbins had recently pawned in town. Accompanied by a bookish neighbor girl and a pesky, but clever circus performer called the Infant Prodigy, the boy has several narrow escapes and surprises before his quest ends. These mildly involving adventures are related in a sardonic tone that fans of Lemony Snicket's books might enjoy. Highlights include several interludes that mockingly describe the still-grieving Perfect Parents who may (or may not) finally clear up the mystery of Solly's birth. The cloyingly sweet, but resourceful Prodigy is an especially fun character, as she blithely charms and annoys people along the way. Sly narration injects a sense of fun to many of the happenings. Solly himself isn't particularly funny, but his determination, lightened by nervousness and occasional moments of exasperation with his companions, makes him a likable protagonist. His Victorian-style world is filled with greedy adults on the lookout for orphans to exploit. The tale loses a bit of steam when the humor takes a backseat to plot advancement, but there are enough quirky characters and funny moments to sustain readers' interest through to the unexpected, but satisfying conclusion.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 25, 2010, 11:53 PM
Also reading "Science Fair" by Dave Barry & Ridley Pearson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cFYFnR2DL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

When Grdankl the Strong, president of the small, but extremely unhappy country of Krpshtskan, declares war on the United States, no one is safe. Its agents are en route to Hubble Middle School where an operative has been working for several years to create award-winning science-fair projects for underachieving children and their overinvolved parents. This is the year that the top projects will be designed to work in concert to bring down the United States in one enormous, electromagnetic pulse strike. All that is standing in the way of this diabolical plan are three students, a science store operator, a handful of bumbling FBI agents, and a giant Weinermobile. Barry and Ridley have created a wild story of danger, espionage, stinky cheese, exploding vats of Coca-Cola, and one floating frog. This nonstop, action-packed novel will appeal to every kid who has ever had to do a science-fair project.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 25, 2010, 11:58 PM
And something more adult and bloody like "Under the Dome" wasn't bloody enough.  ;)

"Blood Rites" by Jim Butcher.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sSlw%2Bxv9L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Per usual, wizard-detective extraordinaire Harry Dresden is in trouble. He barely escapes an assassination attempt, courtesy of the Black Council of vampires, when Thomas, a vampire who has helped Harry out on occasion, asks him to take a case. It seems someone doesn't want porno film director Arturo Genosa's latest effort to get off the ground. An entropy spell has killed two of Arturo's assistants, and Thomas wants Harry to find the culprit. With suspects abounding--Arturo has no fewer than three ex-wives--Harry decides to pose as a production assistant at the studio. Though he isn't able to stop another sabotage attempt, this one threatening an actress' life, he does save the young woman. With danger closing in, the last thing Harry needs is a sexy succubus and a surprising revelation about his heritage. Filled with sizzling magic and intrigue as well as important developments for Harry, the latest of his adventures will have fans rapidly turning the pages.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 3, 2010, 12:58 AM
Now reading "Peter and the Star Catchers" by Dave Berry.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51S6SRTN3CL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Humorist Dave Barry and suspense writer Ridley Pearson have clearly taken great delight in writing a 400-plus page prequel of sorts to Scottish dramatist J.M. Barrie's beloved Peter Pan stories. The result is a fast-paced and fluffy pirate adventure, complete with talking porpoises, stinky rogues, possible cannibals, a flying crocodile, biting mermaids, and a much-sought-after trunk full of magical glowing green "starstuff." Ever hear of Zeus? Michelangelo? Attila the Hun? According to 14-year-old Molly Aster they all derived their powers from starstuff that occasionally falls to Earth from the heavens. On Earth, it is the Starcatchers' job to rush to the scene and collect the starstuff before it falls into the hands of the Others who use its myriad powers for evil.
On board the ship Never Land, an orange-haired boy named Peter, the leader of a group of orphaned boys being sent off to work as servants in King Zarboff the Third's court, is puzzled by his shipmate Molly's fantastical story of starstuff, but it inextricably binds him to her. Peter vows to help his new, very pretty friend Molly (a Starcatcher's apprentice) keep a mysterious trunk full of the stuff out of the clutches of the pirate Black Stache, a host of other interested parties, and ultimately King Zarboff the Third.

The downright goofy, modern 8-year-old boy humor sometimes clashes with an old-time pirate sensibility, and the rapid-fire dialogue, while well paced, is far from inventive. Still, the high-seas hijinks and desert-island shenanigans will keep readers turning the pages. Greg Call's wonderful black-and-white illustrations are deliciously old-fashioned and add plenty of atmosphere to a silly, swashbuckling story that shows us how Peter Pan came to fly and why he, and his story, will never get old.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on September 3, 2010, 09:56 AM

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Fe43%2BAe6L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

I enjoyed this book immensely, finishing it last night.  Stunning to see how a fictional town in Maine can so resemble small towns anywhere else. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Keonobi on September 3, 2010, 10:06 AM
Just finished The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams, who also wrote the novel The Force Unleashed.  Overall I like Fatal Alliance a lot better, granted he had to frame a novel much more around the existing story line for FU (I'm not familiar enough with the MMORP to say the same about FA), which I think really limited what he could do, particularly with fight sequences.  Fatal Alliance was much better about this and was quite enjoyable.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on September 3, 2010, 01:18 PM

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I enjoyed this book immensely, finishing it last night.  Stunning to see how a fictional town in Maine can so resemble small towns anywhere else. 

What am I, your personal book recommender?  You've been reading a lot of **** I've read recently - first, the Millennium Trilogy (TGWTDT, TGWPWF, TGWKTHN) and now Under the Dome.

But I agree, Under the Dome was a fantastic book.  It's up as one of my favorite King books, after It and The Stand.  I'll probably re-read the latter two soon as it's been awhile since I've read them (high school).

As long as your taking recommendations, next I suggest The Passage.  The first third was absolutely gripping and I couldn't put it down.  It slowed down a bit after a major plot twist (you'll know it when you get to it) and took a bit to get going again, but it ended well.

Since my last posting, I've read:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers2/ebook/ImageType-100/1509-1/%7B35796879-B3CE-4229-A80B-6BDA6EB73BC7%7DImg100.jpg)

and

volumes 5 - 8 of Ex Machina (volume 9 shortly), volume 1 of The Walking Dead (volumes 2 - 12 shortly) and volume 1 of Invincible (ditto).

Novel wise, right now I'm reading:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/43/919/650/1439196508.jpg)

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on September 3, 2010, 02:47 PM
Sure, I'll take the recommendation.  I haven't read the third book in the Millenium trilogy yet though as I was waiting for it to come out in paperback or at least find it that way if it's not already out.  I think there's a new Scarpetta novel out in paperback so I'll grab that as well, but I'll put The Passage on the list.  As for the Dome, the local bookstore was selling it for $10 so why not.  I'd forgotten how much I liked King's novels. 

I've been a King fan for a long, long time.  The Talisman would be in my top three King books along with The Dome and the Stand.  The Talisman started me reading for recreation after learning to hate books thanks to high school (really, try reading some Solzhenitsyn at some point when you're being forced to.  It could be good stuff for all I know but when it's not by choice it's painful).  A whole slew of other authors followed along from that, mostly in the horror vein but lot's in suspense as well.

When there's little out there that interests me in relatively current novels I always slip back to the Ballantine's Illustrated History of WWII.  Smallish books, only about 160 pages each but very small print and quite good, compact summations of various aspects of that war.  There's about 150 odd books in the series and I've been through about 60 of them in the last two years.  Trying to complete my collection of those is a bit of a chore.  Some of them are extremely rivetting and well written; others are horrendously tedious. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 4, 2010, 12:59 PM
I don't know. I didn't particularly like Under the Dome. It felt like King was trying to duplicate The Stand too much and it felt forced. The boss hog character didn't have that extra bit of evil I was hoping for like Flagg had. I didn't like how they kept the hero in jail for two thirds of the book and then he didn't do much. The ending was just a let down for me. I guess I was hoping it would go into a different direction. It would have been nice to have some Lost-type twists in there but it seemed pretty straight forward. It's pretty typical King with a lot of anger in that book. King must have hated high school since all the bad guys are the stereo-type bullies. I gave it two stars over at GoodReads.com.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 5, 2010, 07:55 PM
I just finished Science Fair by Dave Barry. I highly recommend you all read this book. It's got a huge subplot about Star Wars Collecting. The subplot is about a guy dressed up like Darth Vader and his pal that looks like a certain Wookiee try to steal the hero's parent's Star Wars collection. Very funny book and a nice short read.

(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_MWr4cGcNtqY/SSYn-jUMIpI/AAAAAAAAAaE/SnoxM6zi4QI/s320/sciencefair.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 8, 2010, 07:26 PM
Finished Blood Rites. Now reading "Powers (Annals of the Western Shore)" by Ursala K. Le Guin.

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Gavir, a 14-year-old slave in a noble household in Etra, one of the city-states in Le Guin's vividly imagined country, the Western Shore, is troubled by visions that may or may not foretell future events. Kidnapped in early childhood from the northern Marshes, set apart by his darker skin and hooked nose, endowed with a prodigious memory, Gavir is educated to become the scholar who will teach the family's children and their slaves. Protected by his elder sister, Gavir accepts his lot, unable to imagine any other life. Trusting his masters implicitly, he is blind to the danger that enslavement poses to his beautiful sister. When she is raped and killed by the second son of the household, Gavir walks away from the city, crazed with grief. He continues to walk for three years, passing through a wild forest into the Marshlands where he was born. He meets a variety of people along the way, some protective, some threatening, each one contributing to his quest to discover who he is and where he belongs. Hunted by an old enemy from Etra, Gavir returns to the forest to rescue a small girl he met there. In a thrilling escape sequence, he carries her to freedom. He finds a home with Orrec, Gry, and Memer, heroes of Gifts (2004) and Voices (2006, both Harcourt). Le Guin uses her own prodigious power as a writer to craft lyrical, precise sentences, evoking a palpable sense of place and believable characters.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on September 11, 2010, 03:06 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VyidG63nL._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 18, 2010, 10:12 AM
Now starting, "The House of Thunder" by Dean Koontz.

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Koontz ( Watchers , The Servants of Twilight ) has come up with an intriguing premise: Susan Thornton wakes up in a hospital after a serious car accident with an odd, selective amnesia. She can remember nothing of her job, yet she is stricken with fear when the company she works for is named. And that's not all. Thirteen years earlier, Susan had witnessed the murder of her boyfriend during a brutal fraternity hazing; her testimony sent one of the four men responsible to prison. Now she sees the same men, looking not a day older, walking the corridors of the hospital. Even worse, she has recurrent macabre hallucinations involving them and the decomposing corpse of her boyfriend. Susan doubts her sanity until she stumbles upon a bit of hard evidence right out of one of the "hallucinations." Koontz's resolution, involving a complex Soviet plot, transforms the story from a cozy chiller to political thriller and may not please readers tired of cold war paranoia and propaganda. Others, however, should find this tale satisfying from start to finish.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 22, 2010, 12:06 AM
Also starting "Hocus Pocus" by Kurt Vonnegut.

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Among the most original stylists in America today, Vonnegut vents his disgust and moral outrage with government and humanity and the entire universe in yet another scathing social/political/philosophical satire. Set in the year 2001, but jumping over the last half of the 20th century, Hocus Pocus takes on an absurdist's perspective of human history. Protagonist Eugene Debs Hartke, West Point graduate, Vietnam vet, college professor, educator of the disabled and the illiterate, is awaiting trial for a crime initially unspecified. Until this time, Hartke has diligently and good-naturedly participated in whatever was expected of him, including involvement in the evacuation of American personnel from Saigon. At one point, however, he calculates the remarkable fact that he has killed exactly as many people as he has had sex with, a coincidence that causes him to doubt his atheism. The narrative is composed of short takes in which Hartke's thoughts skip between the inconsequential and the profound, giving Vonnegut occasion to interject interesting tidbits of information, scientific and historical and otherwise. The cumulative power of the novel is considerable, revealing Vonnegut at his fanciful and playful best. First serial to Penthouse; BOMC selection; QPB featured alternate.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on September 25, 2010, 10:24 AM
I've got a month in between masters classes, so I picked up Ozzy's book that I've been wanting to read for a long time.  Only about 30 pages in and already getting some great laughs.

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on September 25, 2010, 02:42 PM
Currently I´am reading Phases of English Poetry by Sir Herbert Read

A clear and academic essay which deals with the topics, periods and motivations of the finest poets in their development of their best work.

A must to read if you want to get insight into English literature.

Here is a biography of the author:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Read
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 28, 2010, 02:37 PM
Now starting: "Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" by Jane Austin

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This latest effort to combine Jane Austen mania and pop culture horror takes the same format as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies minus the innovation of being the first to do so. Using the familiar plot structure of Austen's first novel, and a few of the most famous lines, the mannered life of early nineteenth century gentry is stripped of witty dialogue and replaced with monsters, vulgarity, and violence. When Mr. Dashwood is eaten by a hammerhead shark his daughters Marianne and Elinor, along with their sister and mother, are sent to Pestilent Island where they meet Sir John Middleton, owner of the islands, and squid-faced Colonel Brandon. Marianne is rescued from a giant octopus by Mr. Willoughby, causing her to fall in love with him. Meanwhile, Elinor falls in love with Edward Ferrars who is engaged to the evil Lucy Steele. Readers who found humor in the contrast between Austen's familiar novel and the addition of zombies will probably welcome this unevenly written effort.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on October 5, 2010, 12:11 AM
(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/5e/7c/257ec060ada08b7068272210.L.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on October 8, 2010, 09:05 PM
I´m reading "The techniques of modern fiction. Essays in practical criticism." by Jonathan Raban. It deals with the novels of the 60´s, mainly English or American writers, comparing topics with other writers of other countries.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 8, 2010, 10:27 PM
Now reading "The Clan of the Cave Bear" by Jean M. Auel.

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When her parents are killed by an earthquake, 5-year-old Ayla wanders through the forest completely alone. Cold, hungry, and badly injured by a cave lion, the little girl is as good as gone until she is discovered by a group who call themselves the Clan of the Cave Bear. This clan, left homeless by the same disaster, have little interest in the helpless girl who comes from the tribe they refer to as the "Others." Only their medicine woman sees in Ayla a fellow human, worthy of care. She painstakingly nurses her back to health--a decision that will forever alter the physical and emotional structure of the clan. Although this story takes place roughly 35,000 years ago, its cast of characters could easily slide into any modern tale. The members of the Neanderthal clan, ruled by traditions and taboos, find themselves challenged by this outsider, who represents the physically modern Cro-Magnons. And as Ayla begins to grow and mature, her natural tendencies emerge, putting her in the middle of a brutal and dangerous power struggle.

Although Jean Auel obviously takes certain liberties with the actions and motivations of all our ancestors, her extensive research into the Ice Age does shine through--especially in the detailed knowledge of plants and natural remedies used by the medicine woman and passed down to Ayla. Mostly, though, this first in the series of four is a wonderful story of survival. Ayla's personal evolution is a compelling and relevant tale.


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on October 12, 2010, 07:59 AM
Finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/658/083/044658083X.jpg)

and

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51XXvScfbVL._SS500_.jpg)

and

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/617/792/044617792X.jpg)

Reading now:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/777/0446617776.jpg)

Up Next:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/45/228/469/0452284694.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on October 12, 2010, 09:41 AM
Finished Ozzy a few days ago and now I'm about halfway through this:

I had a friend give this to me several years ago when we were deployed but didn't read it then.  It's really eery reading now.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61bgk%2BpnBLL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)


Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 14, 2010, 12:45 AM
Also reading, "Dreamland - Retribution" by Dale Brown.

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The Dreamland team used stealth, raw nerve, and technology to defuse a nightmare on the other side of the world. But now the darkness is racing toward America at blinding speed. With more than two dozen nuclear devices unaccounted for, the global masters of terror have set a catastrophe in motion a surprise attack more deadly than Pearl Harbor and 9/11 combined. If the nation is to survive, Lt. Colonel Tecumseh "Dog" Bastian and his crew will have to reach deep into their cutting-edge arsenal. And they'll have to do it short-handed because two of Dreamland's best and bravest have been lost at sea . . .

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on October 14, 2010, 10:37 AM

Up Next:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/45/228/469/0452284694.jpg)

You're re-reading this right?  Can't be the first time through. 

I'm currently reading this:
(http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n61/n305378.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on October 14, 2010, 12:50 PM

You're re-reading this right?  Can't be the first time through. 


Nope, first time through.  The Dark Tower series are one of the few King books I haven't read yet.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on October 14, 2010, 04:05 PM
Wow.  That was a series I read along the way and there were some serious time gaps between books that were quite frustrating.  Suffice to say I enjoyed the series but I won't comment any more than that. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on October 26, 2010, 10:22 AM
Very nearly finished this:
(http://www.bracingbooks.com/Borlaug_1_v2_Amazon_Photo_op_640x969.jpg)

Sorry about the huge image. 
While many might find it boring I almost wish it was mandatory reading for the masses.  It gives a very solid dose of reality that seems sorely lacking today in most people's perceptions.  It's well written and entertaining in a surprising way. 

Scott, if you haven't read this, you really should. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 29, 2010, 12:17 AM
Back to "Artemis Fowl: The Time Paradox by Eion Colfer

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/517uQLhe1FL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Fourteen-year-old genius and mastermind Artemis Fowl realizes that he has a problem. His mother is nearing death and the only thing that can save her is the brain fluid from a species of lemur that he forced into extinction eight years earlier. He decides that he must travel back in time to right this terrible wrong but his younger self is present in the past and proceeds to challenge the older Artemis's every move. At the older Artemis's side is elf Captain Holly Short of the Lower Elements Police Reconnaissance (LEPrecon) and Mulch Diggums, a dwarf known for his potent flatulence and ground-munching abilities. The trio struggle to circumvent destiny but find the past fraught with deception. The story flows with quick-witted humor and action-packed scenes, and Colfer's love of science shines through in the story's inventions and clever use of engineering. The dueling technology and a game match between clashing masterminds make for an exciting, modern-day fairy tale. There is no integration of previous story lines; while this does not take away from the resolution, it does leave readers questioning some backstory. The author once again offers an exhilarating ride through the fantastical world of Artemis Fowl.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 29, 2010, 05:58 PM
Since everyone else is reading the Dark Tower series, I'll reread book two, "The Drawing of the Three" by Stephen King.

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Elaborating at great length on Robert Browning's cryptic narrative poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came," the second volume of King's post-Armageddon epic fantasy presents the equally enigmatic quest of Roland, the world's last gunslinger, who moves through an apocalyptic wasteland toward the Dark Tower, "the linchpin that holds all of existence together." Although these minor but revealing books (which King began while still in college) are full of such adolescent portentousness, this is livelier than the first. Roland enters three lives in the alternate world of New York City: junkie and drug runner Eddie Dean, schizophrenic heiress Odetta Holmes and serial murder Jack Mort. If King tells us too little about Roland, he gives us too much about these misfits who are variously healed or punished exactly as expected. Typically, King is much better at the minutiae and sensations of a specific physical world, and several such bravura sequences (from an attack by mutant lobsters to a gun store robbery) are standouts amid the characteristic headlong storytelling.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 5, 2010, 10:41 AM
Started on my next masters class.  This one is Military Philosphers.  So my current book, Sun-tzu's "The Art of War."

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 15, 2010, 09:42 PM
Now reading the third and final book in the Hunger Games series, "Mockingjay" by Suzanne Collins.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41k66TFC43L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Against all odds, Katniss Everdeen has survived the Hunger Games twice. But now that she's made it out of the bloody arena alive, she's still not safe. The Capitol is angry. The Capitol wants revenge. Who do they think should pay for the unrest? Katniss. And what's worse, President Snow has made it clear that no one else is safe either. Not Katniss's family, not her friends, not the people of District 12. Powerful and haunting, this thrilling final installment of Suzanne Collins's groundbreaking The Hunger Games trilogy promises to be one of the most talked about books of the year.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on November 15, 2010, 10:33 PM
I hate this f'n book.  Sun Tzu and Clausewitz are thought of as great military philosophers but in reality all they have done is taken pen to paper and written a bunch of common sense "no ****" statements.  What those guys wrote really isn't rocket science or very profound reading.  But because my professor is a jackass, I have to do research on a subject he is interested in, not my own.  Yes, I'm a bit bitter about it.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QkGtKlVnL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on November 28, 2010, 02:38 AM
^^ I read the first Hunger Games book. I burned through it in a couple of days and enjoyed it, but didn't love it enough to go back for the other two. *shrug*

Just started this:

(http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/c5/c25375.jpg)

The world grows colder with each passing year, the longer winters and ever-deepening snows awaking ancient fears within the Degnan Packstead, fears of invasion by armed and desperate nomads, attack by the witchlike and mysterious Silth, able to kill with their minds alone, and of the Grauken, that desperate time when intellect gives way to buried cannibalistic instinct, when meth feeds upon meth.

For Marika, a young pup of the Packstead, loyal to pack and family, times are dark indeed, for against these foes, the Packstead cannot prevail. But awakening within Marika is a power unmatched in all the world, a legendary power that may not just save her world, but allow her to grasp the stars themselves.

From Glen Cook, author of the Black Company and Dread Empire novels, comes Darkwar, collecting for the first time, the stunning science fantasy epic that originally appeared as Doomstalker, Warlock, and Ceremony.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 1, 2010, 06:03 PM
Yah, the third one wasn't as good but it ended ok.

On to reading "Creepers" by David Morrell.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nGOBuxVhL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Frank Balenger is a New York Times reporter doing a Sunday magazine profile on urban explorers, better known as creepers. It's an illegal activity but a very popular one, in which adventure seekers invade crumbling old structures in search of thrills and perhaps a glimpse of the past. Frank joins a team of four as they prepare to enter the long-shuttered and mysterious Paragon Hotel. They surreptitiously enter as darkness envelops the city, planning to emerge before dawn none the worse for wear. At least that's the plan. Initially they encounter the expected assortment of crumbling furniture, magazines, and rats, but soon they realize they are not alone, and their counterparts are not friendly people. It turns out that Frank's group has a hidden agenda involving treasure, and their rivals are after the same loot. Throw in an even more unfriendly kidnapper and his captor, and you have a nightmare in the making. Veteran thriller writer Morrell gleefully and shamelessly cherry picks from several genres (crime, horror, adventure, western) and blends them into a violent, claustrophobic nightmare. There's the survive-the-night-in-a-haunted-house plot starring a Norman Bates villain; there's a Treasure of the Sierra Madre cast that would rather die than give up the loot; and there's a version of the classic western in which the outlaws and the homesteaders join forces to battle the Indians. An unabashedly entertaining thriller that has blockbuster movie written all over it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 15, 2010, 11:35 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41JXPZJ358L._SS500_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on December 16, 2010, 12:08 AM
I'm reading Dead or Alive by Tom Clancy.  Great read and nice to get something new in the Jack Ryan series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on December 16, 2010, 06:57 AM
I should be getting that for Christmas, but I probably won't have time to start reading it until February when my current class winds down.  I've got a stack of books that are calling my name but have no time to get to them.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 16, 2010, 09:46 AM
Now reading "The Waste Lands: Dark Tower III" by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51TvSZPwQKL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

King's third volume on Roland the gunfighter's search for the Dark Tower offers charming bits of whimsy, some splendidly tense moments and one rip-roaring horror scene. At times, however, it is pretentious and the direction of the sprawling plot uncertain. Roland has two companions on his quest for the tower at the portal of all the worldsp. 53 : Susannah Dean and Eddie Dean, who entered his world from New York City of 1963 and 1987, respectively. When the three track down the den of a 70-foot-tall cyborg bear, they are pointed down a path leading to the Tower. But Roland is slowly going mad, a fact that seems linked to his past experiences with Jake Chambers, a boy who died twicestet ital in the first book of the series. Jake reappears here, displaying great resilience in crossing over from 1977 New York City to join Roland & Co. (As Susannah notes, "This time-travel business is some confusing ****.") They press on, plumbing the depths of a children's book that tells a profound and ancient tale. Unfortunately, the questers don't reach the Tower; in fact, they're caught in a cliff-hanger ending--King says, he'll write volume four if we want it.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nathan on December 25, 2010, 08:12 PM
Just finished The Man in the High Castle by Philip K. Dick. Recently started Fatherland by Robert Harris and the third volume of the Histories of Middle-earth, The Lays of Beleriand.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 3, 2011, 10:36 PM
Well I'm ahead and pretty close to finishing my research for a master's paper I'm working on.  So I'm taking a little time when it's available to read George W Bush's "Decision Points."  I'm only a chapter in, but a really good and interesting read so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on January 3, 2011, 11:41 PM
At this time reading "A world for Julius" by Alfredo Bryce Echenique (Peruvian writer)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on January 4, 2011, 03:26 PM
I finally broke down and decided to buy the first 24 issues of The Walking Dead.  I remember flipping through the first few issues at the comic shop years ago - wish I had bought them then!

(http://i243.photobucket.com/albums/ff43/jman5544/Misc/TWD.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 4, 2011, 03:41 PM
(http://media.nj.com/entertainment_impact_arts/photo/colonel-roosevelt-reivew-edmund-morrisjpg-da1eff07027aba15.jpg)

Final book of Morris' Theodore Roosevelt Biography Trilogy, I have enjoyed it as much as the other two.  I think Roosevelt is by far the most fascinating man who ever was President and can't recommend enough the three Morris books
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 8, 2011, 02:14 PM
Now reading "Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass" by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41W15Sz-C2L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

We find Roland, the knight errant/gunslinger, continuing his quest to attain the Dark Tower, the source of destructive forces in his Mid-World. A major portion of this work is a recounting by Roland of his ill-fated love affair with Susan Delgado. The writing is expectedly imaginative, the story line engrossing, and the characters vivid. The listener is carried along through alternating Western, urban, and futuristic settings. The work stands on its own, incorporating a summary of Books 1-3, but will be better appreciated if listened to as part of the whole. Recommended for sf/fantasy collections and Stephen King fans.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Sprry75 on January 8, 2011, 05:42 PM
nevermind.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on January 10, 2011, 01:04 PM
incesticide.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Symposium on January 11, 2011, 11:18 AM
incesticide.

You've spelt In Utero wrong  :P


OT

Currently reading John Dies at the End. It's good but isn't living up to the hype.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on January 26, 2011, 04:51 PM
I read an essay of Theodor W. Adorno, a german philosopher
Estetic Theory (1969), where he mentions various thinkers and autor who set the debate for this matter.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on January 30, 2011, 12:38 PM
And now, reading another essay on esthaetics: Ars Poetica by  Quintus Horatius Flaccus, a must to follow the path of the litterary motivations of the western canon throught the centuries.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on February 1, 2011, 12:27 AM
A neighbor was kind enough to lend me their copy of The Hunger Games from Suzanne Collins.  Anyone else read this and/or the rest of the books?  I'm having a tough time putting it down.  I'm about 1/3 of the way through (it's a quick read) and can't wait to see what happens next.  Highly recommended thus far.

(http://cannonballread3.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/hunger-games.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 1, 2011, 10:06 AM
Yup. Read all three books. Great series.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 3, 2011, 10:33 PM
Up next for me is "Wild Ride" by Jennifer Cruise.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gZZC7QZhL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The New York Times bestselling duo of Crusie and Mayer team up again with a hilarious paranormal novel that shows why the wildest ride at the Dreamland Amusement Park isn’t the roller coaster

Mary Alice Brannigan doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Nor does she expect to find that Dreamland, the decaying amusement park she’s been hired to restore, is a prison for the five Untouchables, the most powerful demons in the history of the world. Plus, there’s a guy she’s falling hard for, and there’s something about him that’s not quite right.

But rocky romances and demented demons aren’t the only problems in Dreamland: Mab’s also coping with a crooked politician, a supernatural raven, a secret government agency, an inexperienced sorceress, an unsettling inheritance, and some mind-boggling revelations from her past. As her personal demons wreck her newfound relationship and real demons wreck the park, Mab faces down immortal evil and discovers what everybody who’s ever been to an amusement park knows: The end of the ride is always the wildest.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on February 20, 2011, 09:01 PM
I finished re reading and highlighting: How to write Short-Short Stories. A practical guide on how to write-and sell-the one-page story.     By   Stella Whitelaw (Ipswich Book Company, 1996)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 24, 2011, 09:22 PM
Just finished Stephen King's "The Gingerbread Girl".

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AOg%2B7SUEL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 24, 2011, 09:47 PM
Now starting "Dracula the Undead" by Dacre Stoker

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51QBH9S6iNL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on March 6, 2011, 10:41 PM
Begin the reading of Steppenwolf by Herman Hesse, magnificent
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: efranks 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...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 16, 2011, 04:46 PM
Now reading Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/413HGXT0H8L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on March 30, 2011, 04:25 PM
Just finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/40/006/416/1400064163.jpg)

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

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512pvJ9zV6L._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 30, 2011, 08:01 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41J7DSN-i0L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU02_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 27, 2011, 10:07 PM
Now reading "Good Omens" by Terry Pratchett.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51PppM2H9hL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 11, 2011, 08:08 PM
Now reading "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" by Philip K. Dick.


(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41wc9AX8MPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 19, 2011, 10:21 PM
Now reading "Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie" by Alan Bradley

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41C8PXp9OhL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 31, 2011, 07:53 PM
Now reading "Daemon" by Daniel Suarez.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51HavlVETQL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 16, 2011, 09:31 PM
Now reading "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41p2bl0f3VL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51ibIRrjIIL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51C54211MWL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M 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.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51lj1VKg%2BAL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: GrandMoffNick on June 28, 2011, 11:56 AM
Just started "The Man in the High Castle" by Phillip K. Dick.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Brian 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS 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.  ;)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: darth broem 2 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. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 2, 2011, 04:02 PM
I'm loving a break in classes.  This is the next one I'm working on.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IsW96fbnL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: GrandMoffNick 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BillCable on July 13, 2011, 11:59 AM
I need to pick up the A Dance with Dragons... tonight if I have the chance.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D 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:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/43/902/352/0439023521.jpg) and (http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/43/902/349/0439023491.jpg) and started (http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/43/902/351/0439023513.jpg) before deciding to read (http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/31/604/300/0316043001.jpg) 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.
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/40/007/949/1400079497.jpg)

These are all on my radar:
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/198/834/0061988340.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/31/613/294/0316132942.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/740/884/0307408841.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/45/162/918/1451629184.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M 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.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51pKEywDI%2BL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 15, 2011, 08:15 PM
Now reading "The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag" by Alan Bradley.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HscYJZWQL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 20, 2011, 08:30 PM
Now reading "The Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51NhoaOfnOL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Let's start with the question every Dan Brown fan wants answered: Is The Lost Symbol as good as The Da Vinci Code? Simply put, yes. Brown has mastered the art of blending nail-biting suspense with random arcana (from pop science to religion), and The Lost Symbol is an enthralling mix. And what a dazzling accomplishment that is, considering that rabid fans and skeptics alike are scrutinizing every word.

The Lost Symbol begins with an ancient ritual, a shadowy enclave, and of course, a secret. Readers know they are in Dan Brown territory when, by the end of the first chapter, a secret within a secret is revealed. To tell too much would ruin the fun of reading this delicious thriller, so you will find no spoilers here. Suffice it to say that as with many series featuring a recurring character, there is a bit of a formula at work (one that fans will love). Again, brilliant Harvard professor Robert Langdon finds himself in a predicament that requires his vast knowledge of symbology and superior problem-solving skills to save the day. The setting, unlike other Robert Langdon novels, is stateside, and in Brown's hands Washington D.C. is as fascinating as Paris or Vatican City (note to the D.C. tourism board: get your "Lost Symbol" tour in order). And, as with other Dan Brown books, the pace is relentless, the revelations many, and there is an endless parade of intriguing factoids that will make you feel like you are spending the afternoon with Robert Langdon and the guys from Mythbusters.

Nothing is as it seems in a Robert Langdon novel, and The Lost Symbol itself is no exception--a page-turner to be sure, but Brown also challenges his fans to open their minds to new information. Skeptical? Imagine how many other thrillers would spawn millions of Google searches for noetic science, superstring theory, and Apotheosis of Washington. The Lost Symbol is brain candy of the best sort--just make sure to set aside time to enjoy your meal.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on August 21, 2011, 12:05 AM
I still think Deception Point and Angels & Demons were he best works.

And both movies sucked out loud.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on August 27, 2011, 12:23 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.

Same here - just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire - I liked it even better than the first one.  I am getting ready to start  The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  I am looking forward to seeing the first film this Christmas - curious to see how the portray everything - I assume they will focus more heavily on the second half of the book. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on August 27, 2011, 01:23 PM
I won't ruin it for you, Tracy, except to say it's really good.  A real shame that Larsson passed away.  If you have netflix and are able to stream movies, I reccommend the Swedish versions of the movies as well.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on August 27, 2011, 05:37 PM
I do have Netflix - but I think I will wait on the Swedish version until I see the new release in December.  The trailer leaves nothing and everything out all in one turn.  Brilliant.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Ryan on August 27, 2011, 08:11 PM
I started reading this book almost two and a half years ago, before I stopped to read The Watchmen and didn't ever get back to it. I never made it more than 40 pages or so into the book so I just started over. McCarthy has such an amazing literary voice, and he is quickly becoming my favorite author. The Road is probably my favorite book. I wouldn't mind see some quotation marks in his books though. Does anyone here know why he doesn't use them?

(http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/ciu/20/33/064c024128a0cc699d9d7010.L.jpg)

The men as they rode turned black in the sun from the blood on their clothes and their faces and then paled slowly in the rising dust until they assumed once more the color of the land through which they passed." If what we call "horror" can be seen as including any literature that has dark, horrific subject matter, then Blood Meridian is, in this reviewer's estimation, the best horror novel ever written. It's a perverse, picaresque Western about bounty hunters for Indian scalps near the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s--a ragged caravan of indiscriminate killers led by an unforgettable human monster called "The Judge." Imagine the imagery of Sam Peckinpah and Heironymus Bosch as written by William Faulkner, and you'll have just an inkling of this novel's power. From the opening scenes about a 14-year-old Tennessee boy who joins the band of hunters to the extraordinary, mythic ending, this is an American classic about extreme violence.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 1, 2011, 01:33 AM
Now reading, "I, Robot" by Isaac Asimov

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51%2Buc9PwVOL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The three laws of Robotics:
1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
2) A robot must obey orders givein to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when he formulated the laws governing their behavior. In I, Robot, Asimov chronicles the development of the robot through a series of interlinked stories: from its primitive origins in the present to its ultimate perfection in the not-so-distant future--a future in which humanity itself may be rendered obsolete.

Here are stories of robots gone mad, of mind-read robots, and robots with a sense of humor. Of robot politicians, and robots who secretly run the world--all told with the dramatic blend of science fact and science fiction that has become Asmiov's trademark.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 12, 2011, 09:05 PM
I, Robot was lots of fun. Way better then the crappy movie was.

Now reading, "The Way of Kings (The Stormlight Archive)" by Brandon Sanderson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51nEpZ6o%2B2L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This massive tome is the first of a 10-part epic fantasy series from relative newcomer Sanderson (Mistborn), best known for his efforts to complete the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. In a storm-swept world where history has dwindled into myth, self-serving aristocrats squabble over mystical weapons that render their bearers immune to mundane attacks. The ambitious scholar Shallan learns unexpected truths about the present, the virtuous aristocrat Dalinar reclaims the lost past, and the bitter and broken slave Kaladin gains unwanted power. Race-related plot themes may raise some eyebrows, and there's no hope for anything resembling a conclusion in this introductory volume, but Sanderson's fondness for misleading the reader and his talent for feeding out revelations and action scenes at just the right pace will keep epic fantasy fans intrigued and hoping for redemptive future installments.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Jesse James on September 12, 2011, 11:51 PM
I'm wrapping up Trench: A History of Trench Warfare On The Western Front

Kind of self-explanatory what it's about, but it's surprises are in the accounts from the soldiers themselves, and the sometimes surprising reactions people had to the horrors of this particular theater.

It's something I've had laying about, and have wanted to read for a while, and I just decided to get into it this Summer and I'm just about to wrap it up here.  I keep getting sidetracked though.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on September 28, 2011, 10:36 AM
McCarthy has such an amazing literary voice, and he is quickly becoming my favorite author. The Road is probably my favorite book. I wouldn't mind see some quotation marks in his books though. Does anyone here know why he doesn't use them?

I suppose he would have the reader wonder how much is actually spoken aloud, versus thought to oneself. In Blood Meridian, The Road, and Suttree, this is particularly effective, I think, because the characters are withdrawn/mysterious/aloof/etc.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on September 28, 2011, 12:31 PM
My next class starts next week, so in the mean time I'm getting caught up on a Christmas present from my brother last year...just in time for another run this year.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51OdtwbtCGL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on October 21, 2011, 03:31 PM
I just finished reading L´envers et l´endroit  by Albert Camus.

A book which expresses his feelings about nature, Europe, loneliness, misery in the humain being and hope trhought contemplation of religious art and nature.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on October 21, 2011, 04:30 PM
Finished Waverley last night. One of my new Top 5 ever.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on October 21, 2011, 04:34 PM
Oh, and now I'm reading Ovid's Metamorphosis.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 22, 2011, 11:26 AM
Metamorphosis is a strange little book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on October 22, 2011, 02:49 PM
I'm into mythology, so I'm enjoying it. It is weird, though. Pretty common theme I have noticed is that the antagonist is usually a rapist, and about half the time the dispute is incestuous.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 8, 2011, 05:26 PM
I finished the Way of Kings. I loved it! It was extremely well written and will be a great series. It's highly recommended. While I was reading that, I had to stop reading "the Lost Symbol" by Dan Brown. Now I'm back to that book again. I should be done pretty quickly. However the difference in prose between "The Way of Kings" and "The Lost Symbol" is like going from Shakespear to a term paper written by a community college student.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on November 15, 2011, 08:38 AM
Finished:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/123/378/0061233781.jpg)

and

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41D6S6oTEPL.jpg)

Almost finished (on the last novella in the book, should be finished tonight):

(http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172261138l/155987.jpg)

Up next:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51vTQSkTUlL.jpg)

Reading snippets here and there:

(http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1308099851l/10445900.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 30, 2011, 07:52 PM
Now reading "Ready, Player One" by Ernest Cline.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41YXPMGSGrL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

At once wildly original and stuffed with irresistible nostalgia, READY PLAYER ONE is a spectacularly genre-busting, ambitious, and charming debut—part quest novel, part love story, and part virtual space opera set in a universe where spell-slinging mages battle giant Japanese robots, entire planets are inspired by Blade Runner, and flying DeLoreans achieve light speed.

It’s the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets.

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune—and remarkable power—to whoever can unlock them.   

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday’s riddles are based in the pop culture he loved—that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday’s icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes’s oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig.

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle.

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt—among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life—and love—in the real world he’s always been so desperate to escape.
 
A world at stake.
A quest for the ultimate prize.
Are you ready?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on December 2, 2011, 10:48 PM
a few minutes ago I have finished reading Le mythe de Sisyphe by Albert Camus
an essay about human condition reduced at absurd, the litterary creation as a problematic task,
where the author wants to renounce expressily to hope and avoid to search a sens for life.

He also reviewed authors like Malraux, Dostoievsky, the classic greeks, etc.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: McMetal on December 7, 2011, 09:40 AM
"Cela ne veut rien dire."

L'Etranger is one of my all-time favorite books. The Myth of Sisyphus I found a little less compelling, but interesting nonetheless.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on December 17, 2011, 05:24 PM
"Lettres à un ami allemand" by Albert Camus

The 4 letters addressed to the nazi, in the first complete Italian edition with a prologue by the author.

How Camus planned the reconstruction of the identity of Europe after the 3rd Reich, also pinpointed that however he didn´t search any sense in life the unique sense must be men (human dignity, a north for heroism,
the reserve of the justice as a principle anove discussion, even nationalities)

As all are readers and adults, I wish to state that I am not pretending to say my reading is the unique, valid, or the ultimate academic one.

Cela ne veut rien dire?  Non, Ça nous dit beaucoup! Bienvenues les décodifications des livres qui s´y donnent pour partager l´heritage de la littérature, surtout quand elle parle de l´histoire de la civilisation et ses héros.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 28, 2011, 11:34 PM
Now reading the short book "MirrorMask" by Neil Gaiman.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51DPC2HMNXL._SL500_AA300_.jpg)

Helena is about to embark on a most amazing journey.

Raised in a family of circus performers, she's always dreamed of leading a more ordinary life. But when haunting music draws her into a strange and magical realm, one where anything can happen, her real life is stolen by a runaway from the other side. Helena must rescue the realm from chaos in order to win back her own not-so-ordinary life.

MirrorMask is a breathtaking film written by bestselling author Neil Gaiman and brought to life through the vision of acclaimed artist and director Dave McKean. This original novella is Helena's tale in her own voice, written by master storyteller Neil Gaiman and accompanied by original art by Dave McKean and images from the film; it is a stunning and magical journey.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 4, 2012, 02:56 PM
Now reading "Howls Moving Castle" by Diana Jones.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/513M0l8RgPL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Sophie has the great misfortune of being the eldest of three daughters, destined to fail miserably should she ever leave home to seek her fate. But when she unwittingly attracts the ire of the Witch of the Waste, Sophie finds herself under a horrid spell that transforms her into an old lady. Her only chance at breaking it lies in the ever-moving castle in the hills: the Wizard Howl's castle. To untangle the enchantment, Sophie must handle the heartless Howl, strike a bargain with a fire demon, and meet the Witch of the Waste head-on. Along the way, she discovers that there's far more to Howl—and herself—than first meets the eye.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on January 6, 2012, 12:07 PM
Got a Nook Color at Christmas and blasted through all three Hunger Games last week.  With the movie approaching, I wonder if deserves its own thread?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 6, 2012, 02:19 PM
I guess as much as Twilight shound have it's own thread here.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on January 7, 2012, 12:34 AM
I'm reading Killing Lincoln by Bill O'Reilly and Martin Dugard.  I'm only about 10 chapters in, and they are covering the end of the Civil War.  I've read some about some of the major battles but the way they are able to put you into the last retreat of Genral Lee's Northern Virginia army as they try to escape to North Carolina is amazing!

Definitely worth a read.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 12, 2012, 11:07 AM
Now reading "The Naked Sun" by Isaac Asimov.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5135CHN8WVL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

A millennium into the future, two advancements have altered the course of human history:  the colonization of the Galaxy and the creation of the positronic brain.  On the beautiful Outer World planet of Solaria, a handful of human colonists lead a hermit-like existence, their every need attended to by their faithful robot servants.  To this strange and provocative planet comes Detective Elijah Baley, sent from the streets of New York with his positronic partner, the robot R. Daneel Olivaw, to solve an incredible murder that has rocked Solaria to its foundations.  The victim had been so reclusive that he appeared to his associates only through holographic projection.  Yet someone had gotten close enough to bludgeon him to death while robots looked on.  Now Baley and Olivaw are faced with two clear impossibilities:  Either the Solarian was killed by one of his robots--unthinkable under the laws of Robotics--or he was killed by the woman who loved him so much that she never came into his presence!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 13, 2012, 12:22 PM
Finishing this today:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tvnDxHxIL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

And will have two weeks to read this before my next class starts:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/514SQptc6PL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 15, 2012, 09:44 PM
I am also reading "Dinosaur Wars: Earthfall" by Thomas Hopp.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51zo4oJDReL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

A U.S. space probe discovers a 65 million-year-old derelict outpost at the moon's south pole. Now the owners of the moonbase are returning to reclaim their home world-our world. In Montana, wildlife biologist Chase Armstrong and rancher's daughter Kit Daniels survive attacks by T-Rex and deadly Megaraptors to find that they are at ground-zero, where the invaders' lost city lies buried under a mountain of sandstone. Deep in the underground catacombs, trapped by human-sized, intelligent carnivorous dinosaurs, they may be mankind's last hope for survival. "Solid science and pacing that never quits."
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on January 16, 2012, 01:25 PM
(http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e1/Rama_copy.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on January 27, 2012, 12:55 PM
Now reading "Spook - Science tackles the Afterlife" by Mary Roach.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41HaXxxaO7L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 13, 2012, 08:29 PM
Now reading, "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51elgl5CdbL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51LG2F2Nf7L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-39,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott 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
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 25, 2012, 02:45 PM
Now reading "Pirate Latitudes" by Michael Crichton.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/512B5ppwySL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug 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.   
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Captain Piet 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 (http://phgeek.blogspot.com/2012/02/weekend-free-write-review-star-wars.html)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh 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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 7, 2012, 08:40 PM
Now reading "The Forever War" by Joe Haldeman.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51JF1gGjMgL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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...
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 19, 2012, 09:13 PM
Now reading "Swing: A Mystery" by Rupert Holmes.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5139Lc5dMzL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

“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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 29, 2012, 07:31 PM
Now reading "A Red Herring Without Mustard" by Alan Bradley.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41flohDNPwL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

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.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on March 29, 2012, 11:51 PM
I just started reading the Mass Effect novels.  Pretty good so far.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on March 30, 2012, 07:19 PM
(http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/media/images/buy/Space-Chronicles-400.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 16, 2012, 07:59 PM
Now reading:  "Scavenger" by David Morrell.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518V0ZCVDZL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Frank Balenger, the resolute but damaged hero of David Morrell's acclaimed Creepers, now finds himself trapped in a nightmarish game of fear and death. To save himself and the woman he loves, he must play by the rules of a god-like Game Master with an obsession for unearthing the past. But sometimes the past is buried for a reason. Scavenger is a brilliant, frightening hunter-hunted tale that layers modern technology over the dusty artifacts of earlier times. The result is a surreal palimpsest, one that contains the secret of survival for Balenger and a handful of unwilling players who race against the game’s clock to solve the puzzle of the time capsule, only to discover that time is the true scavenger.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 8, 2012, 11:47 AM
Now reading "Lost on Planet China" by J. Maarten Troost.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51AOIPsXraL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The bestselling author of The Sex Lives of Cannibals returns with a sharply observed, hilarious account of his adventures in China—a complex, fascinating country with enough dangers and delicacies to keep him, and readers, endlessly entertained.

Maarten Troost has charmed legions of readers with his laugh-out-loud tales of wandering the remote islands of the South Pacific. When the travel bug hit again, he decided to go big-time, taking on the world’s most populous and intriguing nation. In Lost on Planet China, Troost escorts readers on a rollicking journey through the new beating heart of the modern world, from the megalopolises of Beijing and Shanghai to the Gobi Desert and the hinterlands of Tibet.

Lost on Planet China finds Troost dodging deadly drivers in Shanghai; eating Yak in Tibet; deciphering restaurant menus (offering local favorites such as Cattle Penis with Garlic); visiting with Chairman Mao (still dead, very orange); and hiking (with 80,000 other people) up Tai Shan, China’s most revered mountain. But in addition to his trademark gonzo adventures, the book also delivers a telling look at a vast and complex country on the brink of transformation that will soon shape the way we all work, live, and think. As Troost shows, while we may be familiar with Yao Ming or dim sum or the cheap, plastic products that line the shelves of every store, the real China remains a world—indeed, a planet--unto itself.

Maarten Troost brings China to life as you’ve never seen it before, and his insightful, rip-roaringly funny narrative proves that once again he is one of the most entertaining and insightful armchair travel companions around.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on May 21, 2012, 06:39 PM
A couple of weeks ago I finished Ibsen´s "House of Dolls" and now I am retaking Alligieri´s Divine Comedy
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on May 21, 2012, 11:14 PM
Now reading:  "Scavenger" by David Morrell.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/518V0ZCVDZL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Frank Balenger, the resolute but damaged hero of David Morrell's acclaimed Creepers, now finds himself trapped in a nightmarish game of fear and death. To save himself and the woman he loves, he must play by the rules of a god-like Game Master with an obsession for unearthing the past. But sometimes the past is buried for a reason. Scavenger is a brilliant, frightening hunter-hunted tale that layers modern technology over the dusty artifacts of earlier times. The result is a surreal palimpsest, one that contains the secret of survival for Balenger and a handful of unwilling players who race against the game’s clock to solve the puzzle of the time capsule, only to discover that time is the true scavenger.

I haven't picked up a book by Morrel in years.  Read a bunch back in the 80s. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on May 31, 2012, 11:14 PM
Now reading "Frankenstein: Prodigal Son (book 1)" by Dean Koontz.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51qVTDA3IRL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

From the celebrated imagination of Dean Koontz comes a powerful reworking of one of the classic stories of all time. If you think you know the legend, you know only half the truth. Here is the mystery, the myth, the terror, and the magic of . . .

Every city has its secrets. But none as terrible as this. He is Deucalion, a tattooed man of mysterious origin, a sleight-of-reality artist who has traveled the centuries with a secret worse than death. He arrives in New Orleans as a serial killer stalks the streets, a killer who carefully selects his victims for the humanity that is missing in himself. Deucalion’s path will lead him to cool, tough police detective Carson O’Connor and her devoted partner, Michael Maddison, who are tracking the slayer but will soon discover signs of something far more terrifying: an entire race of killers who are much more–and less–than human and, deadliest of all, their deranged, near-immortal maker: Victor Helios–once known as Frankenstein.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on June 11, 2012, 11:02 AM
I am reading Daniel Cassany´s papers on normative, TIC, grammar and development of the compentences for the C1 level in Spanish.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 15, 2012, 11:46 PM
Now reading "Turing Evolved" by David Kitson.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41Q6qsbE6PL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-70,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

When Ex-DEMON pilot Jon Carlson meets beautiful humanitarian Rachel, it's a match made in HEAVEN. Literally, because Rachel's an ANGEL. She's also an AI controlled android of immense power and capability. As Jon finds himself drawn into the world of these enigmatic creations of mankind, he unknowingly becomes involved in a program to create autonomous superweapons intended to fight the next war.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on June 16, 2012, 01:24 AM
Re-reading...

(http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-LBhTtxhS2tI/T2e8VUFH8YI/AAAAAAAABIo/k_E2u87vgRA/s1600/the%2Bsirens%2Bof%2Btitan.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on June 20, 2012, 09:50 PM
Now reading "The Athena Project" by Brad Thor.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/516sncrCSVL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The world’s most elite counterterrorism unit has just taken its game to an entirely new level. And not a moment too soon . . .
From behind the rows of razor wire, a new breed of counterterrorism operator has emerged.

Just as skilled, just as fearsome, and just as deadly as their colleagues, Delta Force’s newest members have only one thing setting them apart—their gender. Part of a top-secret, all-female program codenamed The Athena Project, four of Delta’s best and brightest women are about to undertake one of the nation’s deadliest assignments.

When a terrorist attack in Rome kills more than twenty Americans, Athena Team members Gretchen Casey, Julie Ericsson, Megan Rhodes, and Alex Cooper are tasked with hunting down the Venetian arms dealer responsible for providing the explosives. But there is more to the story than anyone knows.

In the jungles of South America, a young U.S. intelligence officer has made a grisly discovery. Surrounded by monoliths covered with Runic symbols, one of America’s greatest fears appears to have come true. Simultaneously in Colorado, a foreign spy is close to penetrating the mysterious secret the U.S. government has hidden beneath Denver International Airport.

As Casey, Ericsson, Rhodes, and Cooper close in on their target, they will soon learn that another attack—one of unimaginable proportions—has already been set in motion, and the greatest threat they face may be the secrets kept by their own government.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on June 22, 2012, 07:45 AM
I am currently reading...

(http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1168607730l/35543.jpg)

Here, There and Everywhere - My life recording the music of The Beatles by Geoff Emerick & Howard Massey

It's an interesting look at The Beatles in the studio from their recording engineer as the band, producer George Martin and the engineers reinvented the way rock records were made in the studios of EMI.  A studio that eventually came to be known simply as Abbey Road.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 10, 2012, 09:46 PM
Now reading "Blue Sword" by Robin McKinley.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51oEftT2EsL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

This is the story of Harry Crewe, the Homelander orphan girl who became Harimad- sol, King's Rider, and heir to the Blue Sword, Gonturan, that no woman had wielded since the Lady Aerin herself bore it into battle.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on July 16, 2012, 01:24 PM
FINISHED "The walker" by Herman Hesse
then some readings about teaching online writing By Linda J. Stine.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on July 16, 2012, 01:28 PM
Hello guys, wish you are fine.

As this is the forum for reading and Literature I want to share my video/ podcast in English

Crisis and Secrets of the Arts, of my youtube program The Fire of Prometheus

Please, forgive me for my accent. My native language is Spanish

I thanks all of you for reading this post and accompany me online.


the 2 parts have these links on youtube:
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSDaY0zoT94&feature=plcp
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NEWpqebYS8&feature=youtu.be
 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on July 17, 2012, 10:27 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VIiJP1MsL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

6 weeks until my next class, so this is one of two or three books I plan to finish.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on July 24, 2012, 10:19 PM
Hi again,

this is a note for the ones who love Literature and study Spanish as a second language.

I want to share my original Literature videos, recorded with my voice on Youtube:



Dejo los enlaces de estos videos subidos hasta la fecha a Youtube:

Crisis y Secretos del Arte


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onMxwJcge3Y


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oy4oaXzUyYU


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YPq9pgVQTE


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bebYjDvvOo0



Tragedia y arquetipos psicológicos


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE69geptPPQ


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udxlEsEwJ0I


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qnuIHb6lHE


Thanks for all who watch and listen.

Best wishes
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on July 24, 2012, 11:41 PM
I finally finished the Millenium trilogy.  I liked them all ok,  the first to me is definitely the best.  I have also watched the Swedish movies and the Fincher version...both are good and neither were as good as the book.

I am currently reading Brsingr and The Making of the Atomic Bomb
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on July 26, 2012, 10:44 PM
Now reading 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5134sEGm2aL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Before vampires became sympathetic characters with their own alternate worlds, complete with vampire coffee shops and vampire politics, they used to be bad guys, scary not sexy, and they preferred wreaking havoc in horror novels rather than exuding tortured sensitivity in YA coming-of-age fiction. Fortunately, we don’t need to go all the way back to Dracula and Boris Karloff to remember those halcyon days: we have Stephen King’s ’Salem’s Lot, from 1975. Oddly, it’s not the vampires that make ’Salem’s Lot great popular fiction. Mr. Barlow, our lead vampire, is no Dracula. He doesn’t even appear until the story is nearly half over, and he is perhaps the most one-dimensional figure in the book (but that single dimension is enough: unadulterated evil). The real main character isn’t a person at all, human or vampire: it’s the seemingly idyllic New England town of Jerusalem’s Lot. King once said that in ’Salem’s Lot, he set out to create “a fictional town with enough prosaic reality about it to offset the comic-book menace of a bunch of vampires.” He did just that by drawing on our universal fear of outsiders, and nowhere is that fear more recognizable than in our traditional image of the New England small town, where insularity itself becomes a defense against incursion by strangers. The stereotypical Yankee, befuddling outsiders with a series of cryptic yups and nopes, may be a comic character from folklore, but he is also a soldier defending his Maginot Line against potential blitzkrieg. And behind the crotchety Yankee’s seeming impregnability, there is the constant fear that one day a stranger will come to town who won’t take nope for an answer. That juxtaposition of prosaic reality against outlandish terror has always been central to King’s technique for scaring his readers. In ’Salem’s Lot, he does it by looking beneath the surface of idyllic New England. We see the pastoral beauty, the close-knit community, and the unpretentious lifestyle, yet from the beginning, we also see the harbinger of something else, something other. The novel begins with a stranger, not Barlow but a writer, Ben Mears, returning to the Lot, where he’d lived briefly as a boy. Mears has come home again not to reclaim his innocence but to expunge his demons—the memory of the body of a man dead for decades, still hanging in the closet of the Marsten House. Mears believes he hallucinated this horrible scene, but he wants to explore why it happened, why this house prompted him to imagine evil. What Mears finds when he returns to the Lot is that the Marsten House is now occupied by another stranger, our Mr. Barlow. As the known gives way to the unknown, King shows how the small-town insistence on maintaining the illusion of tranquility makes easy pickings for a vampire intent on fomenting a little evil. If ’Salem’s Lot were just another old-fashioned vampire novel, it would portray a straightforward struggle between good (people) and bad (vampires). It would not portray the arrival of vampires in the Lot as a kind of supernatural manifestation of the town’s distorted sense of itself. King feels both affection for and anger toward his small town. A part of him wants to see ’Salem’s Lot get its comeuppance, and this part gives the novel a degree of frisson that most vampire stories lack. And yet, in the end, the vampires don’t win, at least not exactly. Yes, Ben Mears pounds a stake in Barlow’s heart, but that isn’t enough. The evil continues to thrive. The town needs its own stake. Writers of every kind—from Nathaniel Hawthorne to Grace Metalious to John Updike to Carolyn Chute—have wrestled with their mixed feelings about the small towns of New England. But it took Stephen King to burn one down.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 22, 2012, 09:58 PM
Now reading Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5) by Stephen King. I'm reading this one since it has Father Callahan from 'Salems Lot in it.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FRRTvFYsL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

Roland of Gilead's quest to save all worlds from evil continues in this fifth installment of King's epic tale, which finds the gunslinger and his companions helping the farmers of Calla Bryn Sturgis fight against the terrifying "Wolves" who threaten to kidnap the Calla's children. Joining them is Father Callahan, who first appeared in King's second book, 'Salem's Lot (1975). Using a low, gruff voice that only Clint Eastwood could equal, Guidall aptly captures Roland's rough-edged character, but it's often difficult to distinguish between the tenors he employs for the book's many male characters. Andy the robot, however, is one character that listeners won't confuse with the others. Wise-guy gunslinger Eddie might compare Andy to Star Wars' C3PO, both in his "complacent, slightly prissy voice" and his lanky, mechanical appearance, but avid listeners will find that the tone Guidall adopts for Andy more closely resembles that of the beloved 1980s toy Speak & Spell. In the afterword, King thanks the narrator of the first four Dark Tower novels, Frank Muller, whose debilitating motorcycle accident in 2001 prevented him from finishing the series. "[A]udio insists you absorb everything," King notes, and in Muller's absence, Guidall does a fine job of bringing this epic tale to life.--udio insists you absorb everything," King notes, and in Muller's absence, Guidall does a fine job of bringing this epic tale to life.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on August 22, 2012, 11:33 PM
I happened across a book I read back in school and decided a re-read was in order.  It's a murder mystery by Agatha Christie called "And Then There Were None."  I remembered the setup, but not the ending, so fun to read it again after all these years.  Essentially, 10 people are invited to an isolated island by a mysterious benefactor, then they start dying.  I love the premise of wondering who the killer is, and having your theory shift with each new murder.  Despite being written over 70 years ago, I'd love to see a movie version of this. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 23, 2012, 09:51 AM
Really? You've never heard of this? There has been quite a few movies and tv movies based on that story. There was even a play.  The most famous version of this was "And then there were none" in 1945. Most recently was "Ten Little Indianas" in 1965. There are quite a few others.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Symposium on August 24, 2012, 04:28 AM
Yeah Ten Little Indians was the original Amercian book title, as for the original British title......... :o

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_then_there_were_none
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on August 25, 2012, 11:10 AM
I juzst finished a book entitled "Five Equations that Changed the World: The Power and Poetry of Mathematics"...it delved into how some of the most famous natural phlosophers (Newton, Bernoulli, Einstein, Faraday and Clausius) casme up with their revolutionary equations.

It read more like a history book than a mathematics text, and it was very insightful.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on September 1, 2012, 01:15 AM
Hi again dear sw fans

I am sharing with you my last podcast,

it is about Spanish writing for universitary level,

focus on the teaching of new comers to University.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-8WFE4Y-p8


If you are studying Spanish, this emission will serve you well.


Thanks for your attention.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: JediJman on September 2, 2012, 11:19 PM
Really? You've never heard of this? There has been quite a few movies and tv movies based on that story. There was even a play.  The most famous version of this was "And then there were none" in 1945. Most recently was "Ten Little Indianas" in 1965. There are quite a few others.

Umm...I did hear about it, as I read it back in high school.  I just didn't remember the ending.  I did NOT know there were a few movie renditions, though I admittedly don't watch much that was made before 1975.  Have you seen either of the movies?  Any good?  I was thinking a modern remake of the story on film would be well received. 
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: P-Siddy on September 5, 2012, 07:15 PM
"A Clash of Kings" by George R R Martin.  Just finished "A Game of Thrones" a week ago.  I have yet to see the series, so I'm happy about that.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Nicklab on September 6, 2012, 03:55 AM
"A Clash of Kings" by George R R Martin.  Just finished "A Game of Thrones" a week ago.  I have yet to see the series, so I'm happy about that.

The books and the television series have definitely been divergent of one another.  That was more apparent with season 2.  I'm wondering if the next couple of seasons of the HBO series will be more true to the books, since they're going to be stretching book 3 into two seasons of the tv show.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on September 6, 2012, 10:25 AM
After working my way through all 5 volumes of A Song of Ice and Fire, I've read the following:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/273/0446612731.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/344/0446613444.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/44/235/978/1442359781.jpg)

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/661/758/044661758X.jpg)

Now reading:

(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/44/656/307/0446563072.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on September 16, 2012, 09:31 AM
(http://images.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/30/788/744/0307887448.jpg)

Highly recommended to anyone who loves the geek culture of the 80s and 90s. 

It's been optioned as a movie and hopefully there won't be any issues with the massive amount of licensing rights they'll need to secure.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on September 16, 2012, 11:52 AM
Ready Player One was alot of fun! Would you push to big red button?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on September 16, 2012, 12:14 PM
My brother strongly recommended Ready Player One as well. I've been trying to get through the Song of Ice and Fire first.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on September 16, 2012, 10:38 PM
Yeah I read that this Spring, really well done
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on September 17, 2012, 09:30 AM
Christmas present that I'm just getting to, but should also serve as a source for my masters thesis.  It's a pretty good read if you are interested in the day to day activities of command in Iraq interspersed with action in the field during the search for Sadaam.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51kaLAa6BxL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Tracy on September 22, 2012, 11:58 PM
"The Ups and Downs of Raising a Bipolar Child: A Survival Guide for Parents"; and
"A Clash of Kings" by George R R Martin; and
"Becoming a Woman of Extraordinary Faith: What If You Gave It All to God?" by Julie Clinton
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on September 24, 2012, 12:22 PM
about a 1/3 through Dance with Dragons.  After binge-reading through the series, I'm not sure what I'm going to do when I'm done with the wait for the next installment.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: McMetal on October 4, 2012, 11:10 AM
I dislike reading generally, because it is so time-consuming and as a former English major I just find it tiresome as a mental exercise, but I finally picked up The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

I know the movies backwards and forwards, so I was always keen to read the book hoping it would be like Harry Potter and there would be tons of interesting stuff that they left out of the movies.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, so we'll see. It is already overwhelmingly apparent to me that the movies are FAR, FAR SUPERIOR to the book itself, at least as an artistic enterprise.

Puzo had a great story to tell but he is no master of prose, IMHO. Coppolla really breathed life into that thing and gave it a bread and depth all his own.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on October 4, 2012, 11:41 AM
Just started:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510IEa8frmL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871404095)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: McMetal on October 4, 2012, 12:26 PM
I dislike reading generally, because it is so time-consuming and as a former English major I just find it tiresome as a mental exercise, but I finally picked up The Godfather by Mario Puzo.

I know the movies backwards and forwards, so I was always keen to read the book hoping it would be like Harry Potter and there would be tons of interesting stuff that they left out of the movies.

I'm only a couple of chapters in, so we'll see. It is already overwhelmingly apparent to me that the movies are FAR, FAR SUPERIOR to the book itself, at least as an artistic enterprise.

Puzo had a great story to tell but he is no master of prose, IMHO. Coppolla really breathed life into that thing and gave it a breadth and depth all his own.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on October 20, 2012, 08:14 AM
Been reading Caesar's Civil War with what little time I have. His book on the war in Gaul is so much better and apparently more genuine that this one is coming along painfully slow. The preface actually states outright that only the first third is "probably" Caesar and the remainder is absolutely not his words.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 22, 2012, 09:25 PM
Now reading, "Ghost Story: A Novel of the Dresden Files" by Jim Butcher.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51czhyIIkjL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

When an unknown someone shoots him and leaves him to die, Harry Dresden hopes he might be heading to a better place. Unfortunately, being dead doesn’t make Harry’s life any easier.
 
Trapped between life and death, he learns that his friends are in serious trouble. Only by finding his murderer can he save his friends and move on—a feat which would be a lot easier if he had a body and access to his powers. Worse still are the malevolent shadows that roam Chicago, controlled by a dark entity that wants Harry to suffer even in death.
 
Now, the late Harry Dresden will have to pull off the ultimate trick without using any magic—or face an eternity as just another lost soul…
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on October 22, 2012, 09:28 PM
Already reading on the Kindle, "Empire  (In Her Name: Redemption #1)" by Michael Hicks.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51VpIJ8wYLL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-67,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

EMPIRE is the coming-of-age story of Reza Gard, a young boy of the Human Confederation who is swept up in the century-long war with the alien Kreelan Empire. Nightmarish female warriors with blue skin, fangs, and razor sharp talons, the Kreelans have technology that is millennia beyond that of the Confederation, yet they seek out close combat with sword and claw, fighting and dying to honor their god-like Empress.

Captured and enslaved, Reza must live like his enemies in a grand experiment to see if humans have souls, and if one may be the key to unlocking an ages old curse upon the Kreelan race. Enduring the brutal conditions of Kreelan life, Reza and a young warrior named Esah-Zhurah find themselves bound together by fate and a prophecy foretold millennia before they were born.

Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: P-Siddy on October 23, 2012, 03:33 PM
Continuing the "Song of Ice and Fire" series... Now on "A Feast for Crows."  Man, this one is the weakest one so far.  Not enough going on and the interesting characters are left out for the next installment.  I guess I find that I don't give a damn about the people on the Iron Islands.  Maybe that'll change once things get moving?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: EpicGon on November 12, 2012, 11:13 AM
Today I finished "About the Sublime" by Casio Longinus
an aesthetian whose book continues in certain way
"Ars Poetica" by Quinto Horatius Flacus.

Longinus is strongly inspired by Demostenes and Plato.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: P-Siddy on November 12, 2012, 05:21 PM
And now, A Dance with Dragons.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on November 13, 2012, 07:34 AM
Y'all are nerds.

Reading Divine Comedy.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: P-Siddy on November 13, 2012, 10:39 AM
Y'all are nerds.

Takes one to know one.  :P
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on November 14, 2012, 11:46 PM
Just started reading Glover's WATERLOO ARCHIVES. Volume 1 is a collection of English accounts of the Waterloo campaign. I read the first five or six letters and then dropped everything to order Volume 2, which I believe is a collection of Prussian accounts.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 26, 2012, 08:18 PM
I'm starting a new epic series with "The Eye of the World: Book One of 'The Wheel of Time'" by Robert Jordan.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515tAgOTomL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

The peaceful villagers of Emond's Field pay little heed to rumors of war in the western lands until a savage attack by troll-like minions of the Dark One forces three young men to confront a destiny which has its origins in the time known as The Breaking of the World.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: BrentS on November 26, 2012, 10:59 PM
I finally finished Mockingjay over the holiday weekend. I will probably got back to Feast of Crows next.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 28, 2013, 09:51 PM
I've got two going right now.


The Last Praetorian by Mike Smith
Commander Jonathan Radec is a man desperately trying to escape from the mistakes of his past.

Now the owner of Vanguard Shipping, his primary concerns are trying to keep his ships flying and his crew alive. However, the shadowy Syndicate organisation has set their sights on the Commander and his business, having sent a beautiful assassin to kill him. To make matters worse, she’s become the target of his infatuation, much to the dismay of his ex-girlfriend. Recently elevated to President of the Confederation, she’s still very much in love with him and capable of making his life a living hell.

Surrounded by a galaxy beginning to tear itself apart, with enemies on all sides, he’s now also unwillingly tasked with trying to save the Confederation – for which he has little regard. Jon has little going in his favour, except a crew consisting of the elite of the old Imperial Navy, all of whom would fight to the death for him, and a past that possibly makes him one of the most dangerous men alive.

The Last Praetorian is a Science Fiction adventure/romance, which tries to answer the question: “Can you ever find redemption for the mistakes of your past?


Also,  Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
When eleven-year-old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats&#151;but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.

Gregor wants no part of a conflict between these creepy creatures. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a strange prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland's uncertain future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him and the Underland forever.

Rich in suspense and brimming with adventure, Suzanne Collin's debut marked a thrilling new talent, and introduced a character no young reader will ever forget.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on March 2, 2013, 04:54 PM
The Sagas Of The Icelanders :)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 2, 2013, 06:00 PM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51IiP7QgakL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX240_SY320_CR,0,0,240,320_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

I'm about 100 pages from finishing, but I'm in the middle of my last class before I begin my thesis, so those pages are on hold for now.  But this is a great, great book.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 18, 2013, 07:14 PM
Finished Gregor the Overlander. Now reading the Colorado Kid by Stephen King.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51MBV0rzzTL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA278_PIkin4,BottomRight,-68,22_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

DeMunn offers an appropriately lighthearted reading of this surprisingly toothless mystery from King. The prerequisite is the ability to handle the pronounced Maine accent the book demands, as it features a pair of veteran newspaper reporters from an island off the state's coast relating a story to an eager young intern. DeMunn handles the old men's colloquialisms with consistency and ease while the two take turns spinning the tale of "the Colorado Kid," a man found dead on a local beach years ago without any identification or any feasible reason for being there. With its regional flavor and chummy protagonists, the book never lacks charm, and the story is intriguing. It hardly delivers the kind of noir tale that the first entry in the Hard Case Crime series would lead one to expect, but DeMunn does a more than adequate job of narrating this cozy mystery that will leave listeners not so much shocked as pleasantly perplexed.



Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on March 19, 2013, 04:43 PM
I'm currently reading Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly.  It's just as good as Killing Lincoln.  I highly recommend both books.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 29, 2013, 08:50 PM
Now reading, "Blue Remembered Earth" by Alastair Reynolds.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sx8L0Nv5L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_SX285_SY380_CR,0,0,285,380_SH20_OU01_.jpg)

With his critically acclaimed Revelation Space novels, Alastair Reynolds confirmed “his place among the leaders of the hard-science space opera renaissance.” (Publishers Weekly) With Blue Remembered Earth, the award-winning author begins a new epic, tracing generations of one family across more than ten thousand years of future history—into interstellar space and the dawn of galactic society…

One hundred and fifty years from now, Africa has become the world’s dominant technological and economic power. Crime, war, disease and poverty have been eliminated. The Moon and Mars are settled, and colonies stretch all the way out to the edge of the solar system. And Ocular, the largest scientific instrument in history, is about to make an epochal discovery…

Geoffrey Akinya wants only one thing: to be left in peace, so that he can continue his long-running studies into the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But Geoffrey’s family, who control the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans for him. After the death of his grandmother Eunice—the erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur—something awkward has come to light on the Moon, so Geoffrey is dispatched there to ensure the family name remains untarnished. But the secrets Eunice died with are about to be revealed—secrets that could change everything...or tear this near utopia apart.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Mikey D on June 11, 2013, 08:15 AM
Finished:

(http://covers3.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/0/06/220/057/0062200577.jpg)

Currently reading:

(http://covers1.booksamillion.com/covers/bam/1/78/116/264/1781162646.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 15, 2013, 05:04 PM
If you have read The Road I highly recommend you read The Dog Stars

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/71mJiF-AaKL._SL1500_.jpg)

Finished Inferno a few days ago...meh.  I think I am done with the Robert Langdon books

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I read most of this after the last Oz movie as I had never read any of them and it was like a buck on the Kindle store

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/711z5LkXcSL._SL1200_.jpg)

And finally, it took me a long long time but I got through The Making of the Atomic Bomb...it was awesome from a scientific and history standpoint I just couldn't stay awake at night reading it

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61VMRSpE%2BxL._SL1000_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Scott on August 15, 2013, 05:06 PM
Just started:

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/510IEa8frmL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg) (http://www.amazon.com/Why-Does-World-Exist-Existential/dp/0871404095)
I also read this after I saw Rob had started it...I liked it, lots of good philosophy and science
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on August 15, 2013, 11:55 PM
"Arctic Drift" (a Dirk Pitt novel #20) by Clive Clussler

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Bestseller Cussler and son Dirk imagine the U.S. and Canada on the brink of war in their third collaborative Dirk Pitt novel (after Treasure of Khan and Black Wind). In 2011, as the price of gas hits $10 a gallon, President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that's subverting efforts to solve America's energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming. That discovery may be connected with a legendary failed 19th-century sailing expedition to the Arctic as well as a series of deaths due to the phenomena that the Native Americans of British Columbia know as the Devil's Breath. The Cusslers won't suspend many readers' disbelief, but thriller fans in search of a quick, exciting read should be satisfied.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 9, 2013, 05:18 PM
Sorry, I haven't been listing my books recently here. I just finished Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast a couple of nights ago. It was fun to get back into a Star Wars book again.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sLc1RFlmL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

Does a new start for the Galactic Alliance mark the beginning of the fall of the Jedi Order?
 
After a violent civil war and the devastation wrought by the now fallen Darth Caedus, the Galactic Alliance is in crisis. From all corners, politicians, power brokers, and military leaders converge on Coruscant for a crucial summit to restore order and determine the future of their unified worlds. But even more critical, and far more uncertain, is the future of the Jedi.

In a shocking move, Chief of State Natasi Daala orders the arrest of Luke Skywalker for failing to prevent Jacen Solo’s turn to the dark side and his subsequent reign of terror as a Sith Lord. But it’s only the first blow in an anti-Jedi backlash fueled by a hostile government and suspicious public. Negotiating his freedom in exchange for his exile from the Jedi Order, Luke, with his son, Ben, at his side, sets out to unravel the shocking truth behind Jacen Solo’s corruption and downfall. But the secrets Luke uncovers may bring his quest—and life as he knows it—to a sudden end. And all the while, another Jedi Knight, consumed by madness, is headed to Coruscant on a fearsome mission that could devastate the entire galaxy.




Currently reading Death Masks : The Dresden Files #5. I kind of skipped ahead of Harry Dresden back when I read Ghosts. Now I'm back on track with the series.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FROPTF3yL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But now he's getting more than he bargained for: A duel with the Red Court of Vampires' champion, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards ...Professional hit men using Harry for target practice ...The missing Shroud of Turin ...A handless and headless corpse the Chicago police need identified ...Not to mention the return of Harry's ex-girlfriend Susan, who's still struggling with her semi-vampiric nature. And who seems to have a new man in her life. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. No matter how much you're charging.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on November 21, 2013, 04:47 PM
Now rereading, "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card. Sequal to Enders Game.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51sl0FsT8cL._SL160_SH30_OU01_SX135_.jpg)

In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
 
Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on December 1, 2013, 08:27 PM
On the fourth and final volume of Professor Donald Kagan's Peloponnesian War series. Might try to squeeze in one more book before classes start.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on December 20, 2013, 10:12 PM
Reading "Xenocide" by Orson Scott Card

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51UvDFCDZEL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

The war for survival of the planet Lusitania will be fought in the heart of a child named Gloriously Bright.

On Lusitania, Ender found a world where humans and pequininos and the Hive Queen could all live together; where three very different intelligent species could find common ground at last. Or so he thought.

Lusitania also harbors the descolada, a virus that kills all humans it infects, but which the pequininos require in order to become adults. The Startways Congress so fears the effects of the descolada, should it escape from Lusitania, that they have ordered the destruction of the entire planet, and all who live there. The Fleet is on its way, a second xenocide seems inevitable.
 
Xenocide is the third novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on December 21, 2013, 09:08 AM
I'm finally able to get into reading what I want again.  So I decided to celebrate with "Duel of Eagles" which is a pretty good story on the US involvement in the Texas Revolution, the people, and the events leading to Texas independence.  Really good story if you are into the history of Texas.  What's really cool is it takes into account the Mexican perspective and accounts of the war.  A lot of historians tend to neglect that particular aspect of history.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41dAh6nFd0L._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: name on January 4, 2014, 11:50 PM
I've been doing audiobooks lately since I have such a long commute to work.

Finished Ender's Game last month, and am halfway through NOS4A2 this month.  It's pretty damned good.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on January 6, 2014, 06:36 AM
(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51FqfJvlO8L._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

Started this last night and I'm about 50 pages in.  So far it's typical of Clancy and its just a bunch of story lines to get started.  I imagine after about 100-150 pages it will really take off.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Morgbug on January 12, 2014, 11:07 PM
(http://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/sports/hockey/2013/03/20/bobby_orr_memoir_to_be_released_at_start_of_next_season/bobby_orr_book.jpg.size.xxlarge.letterbox.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: evenflow on January 13, 2014, 09:33 PM
Just started A Feast for Crows. Hoping I don't think it is as boring as most people have suggested.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Angry Ewok on January 13, 2014, 11:47 PM
So... reading "selections" from the following, for class...

Virgil Aenid
Suetonius The Twelve Caesars
Tacitus Agricola
Stambaugh The Ancient Roman City
Statius Silvae
Syme The Roman Revolution
Morgan 69 AD

...at least most of it is in English.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 4, 2014, 03:11 PM
Finishing up the Ender books with "Children of the Mind" by Orson Scott Card.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51tZTgjh3VL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

The planet Lusitania is home to three sentient species: the Pequeninos; a large colony of humans; and the Hive Queen, brought there by Ender. But once against the human race has grown fearful; the Starways Congress has gathered a fleet to destroy Lusitania.

Jane, the evolved computer intelligence, can save the three sentient races of Lusitania. She has learned how to move ships outside the universe, and then instantly back to a different world, abolishing the light-speed limit. But it takes all the processing power available to her, and the Starways Congress is shutting down the Net, world by world.

Soon Jane will not be able to move the ships. Ender's children must save her if they are to save themselves.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 4, 2014, 09:57 PM
Interesting and easy read.  However, as a historian I have a problem that Kilmeade doesn't actually leave citations in the text or any real endnotes.  He simply has a selected sources at the end.  In the history world, that doesn't fly too well.  He also mentions in his foreward that some of the conversations are made up based upon notes and letters.  So while the "historical" aspect is good and I have no doubt of the action taking place, the conversations leave something to be desired and only build drama.  With that in mind, I would count this book a very good piece of historical fiction.

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Lmii-maoL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 13, 2014, 12:00 AM
Just looking for a quick burn here. Now reading, Omen (Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi book 2) by Christie Golden. 

(http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51EGuigaUPL._SY344_PJlook-inside-v2,TopRight,1,0_SH20_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)

The Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.

Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate. Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.

But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on February 13, 2014, 06:18 AM
I'm on my fourth book in about a month and a half. Woohoo for free time now.

I've been wanting to read "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose for a very long time and got it as a gift a few years ago. So far, it is somewhat interesting, but unlike a lot of Ambrose's work, it is a little tedious and overly wordy. Very, very unlike most of Ambrose's work that I normally like. However, I've always heard its a good read, so I'll keep plugging onward.


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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on February 19, 2014, 11:59 PM
The Broker by John Grisham/

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In his final hours in the Oval Office, the outgoing President grants a controversial last-minute pardon to Joel Backman, a notorious Washington power broker who has spent the last six years hidden away in a federal prison. What no one knows is that the President issues the pardon only after receiving enormous pressure from the CIA. It seems Backman, in his power broker heyday, may have obtained secrets that compromise the world’s most sophisticated satellite surveillance system.

Backman is quietly smuggled out of the country in a military cargo plane, given a new name, a new identity, and a new home in Italy. Eventually, after he has settled into his new life, the CIA will leak his whereabouts to the Israelis, the Russians, the Chinese, and the Saudis. Then the CIA will do what it does best: sit back and watch. The question is not whether Backman will survive—there is no chance of that. The question the CIA needs answered is, who will kill him?
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on March 14, 2014, 04:20 PM
Changes: A Novel of the Dresden Files - by Jim Butcher.

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Long ago, Susan Rodriguez was Harry Dresden's lover-until she was attacked and left struggling with the bloodlust of the vampiric Red Court. Now, she needs Harry's help. Harry's enemies have found the secret she has hidden for so long, and he will have to unleash the full fury of his untapped power.

Because this time, he's fighting to save his child.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Rob on March 14, 2014, 06:26 PM
Almost done...

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Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Matt_Fury on March 15, 2014, 08:33 AM
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Started this last night and I'm about 50 pages in.  So far it's typical of Clancy and its just a bunch of story lines to get started.  I imagine after about 100-150 pages it will really take off.

I'm reading this one now (received it for Christmas, but it's tough to read with a 3 year old and a 4 month old in the house).  It's crazy on how it's paralleling what's going on in current events in regards to the Ukraine!
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Chris M on March 15, 2014, 10:00 AM
Matt, that's excactly what I was thinking about the other day when I was watching some Ukraine coverage. 

Overall, I don't think the book is anywhere near as good as his previous books.  But I'll let you read on and decide that for yourself.
Title: Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
Post by: Phrubruh on April 29, 2014, 09:32 AM
Now reading Star Wars Abyss Fate of the Jedi #3 by Troy Denning.

Peace is the way of the Jedi. But with deadly enemies on every side, war may be the only way out.
 
On Coruscant, an epidemic of madness is preying on the ranks of the Jedi Order—driving the Galactic Alliance to martial actions. As Han and Leia Solo, along with their daughter, Jaina, join the fight to protect more stricken Knights from arrest, Jedi healers race to find a cure for the rapidly spreading affliction.
   
Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker continues his quest to find the reasons behind Jacen Solo’s dark downfall and to win redemption for the Jedi Order—a journey that draws Luke and his son, Ben, to the forbidden reaches of the Maw Cluster. There dwell the Mind Walkers: those whose power to transcend their bodies and be one with the Force is as seductive as it is potentially fatal. As Luke and Ben push their Force abilities beyond known limits, they draw closer to a nexus of dark-side energy unprecedented in its power, and to an explosive confrontation from which only one Master—good or evil—can emerge alive.