What are you reading right now?

[Scott the Pirate]

Reading what?

[Ubi Dubium]

Maybe he's finished with reading, and isn't going to do it anymore.

[Scott the Pirate]

Maybe he read



and just gave up on reading altogether?

[tris]

Maybe he's finished with reading, and isn't going to do it anymore.

Maybe he read
"I, Weapon" by Charles W Runyon
and just gave up on reading altogether?

There's some interesting speculation on my literary inclinations going on there... but in fact I don't intend to give up reading... and maybe should steer clear of "I, Weapon." by Charles W Runyon in order to keep up this intention!
I looked it up on amazon where I saw it described as "This is a dire piece of drek. It combines everything that was bad about the New Wave, made the sex and violence both utterly gratuitious and utterly uninteresting, and makes blunders about biology, physics, and computers on nearly every page."
The synopsis says:
To create the man named Raki, Earth had broken its most rigid taboos against interbreeding. His grandparents were a four-foot tall female genius; a rapacious, blue-skinned space brigand; an enormous superstud gladiator with long, silky fur; and a bland telepathic huntress. His parents were the most gifted creatures ever to walk the Earth-until Raki was born to surpass even them.

Actually tho' I was gonna say "I just finished reading 1000 splendid suns by Khaled Hosseini... should be obligatory reading in schools I'd say... most women in afghanistan (and I suppose many other Muslim countries too) were (are) basically born into a sort of lifelong prison made of constrictions, psychological oppression and physical repression just because of their sex... it's obscene...."
I just didnt get a chance to continue cos the site access froze up on me after I prematurely sent the post by mistake! So there you are... mystery solved!
Now i'm reading short stories by HG Wells... they're a lot of fun!

[Scott the Pirate]

I posted that bit over in "Worst book ever written" some time ago.

[Wawizzle]

I began reading "Nickeled and Dimed", a sort of "Minimum-wage Like Me" book where a reporter lives in different U.S. cities and tries to make enough money working minimum wage to afford rent and food.

I'm really loving this book and it's opening my eyes to a lot.

What class is it? Just curious because i had to read it for an Organizational Psychology class.

Worst. Class. Ever.

I'm reading it for a class called "Ideas of Origins and Origins of Ideas." We're not reading the whole book, just an excerpt.

The main book of the class is "Ten Theories of Human Nature." There's a chapter in there about Plato so we also are reading "The Death of Socrates." there is a chapter about Karl Marx, so we're reading Nickeled and Dimed. The extra books are to give an extra emphasis on chapters in the main book.

[Detective TurtleHolmes]

I can not finish Pride and Prejudice. I just hate the characters so much*, and nothing happens. I'll read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies after my current book, The Princess Bride, William Goldman.
I bought it today!

*edit: Except for Mister Bennet, he's pretty cool. None of this social mumbo-jumbo affects him!

[daftbeaker]

I can not finish Pride and Prejudice. I just hate the characters so much

Yay, someone agrees with me. Your hatred of the damn thing won't be fully complete until you meet someone arguing it was a revolutionary feminist discourse of similar importance to The Communist Manifesto.

Then you will truly embrace the Dark Side

[Ubi Dubium]

.... after my current book, The Princess Bride, William Goldman.
I bought it today!

You are in for a treat! I laughed so hard at that book, and even after having practically memorized the movie it never failed to surprise me.

[Detective TurtleHolmes]

I saw the movie a few years ago, it was fun.

[Tigger_the_Wing]

Tris, sorry I missed the song. It's brilliant! Thanks for the laughs!

I'm part-way through Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow. This is the legitimate free download version from the author, who justifies its lack of a price by 'advertising' (actually, doing an amusing description of) his favourite bookshops at the beginning of each chapter.

He rightly assumes (because his fans write to tell him so and his sales figures confirm it) that those of us who read his books online go on to buy several copies, not just for themselves but to distribute to others. He should be made an honorary pirate!

Oh, and it is very good.

[daftbeaker]

I'mma readin ma Dawkins.

Pretty good book actually, he's specifically stated it's about the evidence for evolution, not an anti-religion book (that being 'a T-shirt [he's] worn before' ) and has in the space of the advertising blurb and first chapter called creationism nonsense, likened evolution-deniers to Holocaust-deniers and is referring to creationists as 'history-deniers' and '40-percenters' (from those disturbing polls that show on average 40% of Americans do not think evolution is real).

Plenty of good metaphors, writing style is less irritating than the God Delusion (he hasn't mentioned skyhooks once) and fairly simple language.

[Zankou 2.0]

Since I've been away, I've:

-Read and re-read Brisingr, which is a very good book, and which got me addicted to Inheritance and Alagaesia again.
-Read The Tales of Beedle the Bard, which is quite interesting.
-Read[i] By The Time You Read This, and excellent Canadian mystery novel by Giles Blunt.[/i]
-Read Inkdeath, which wasn't bad.

I've not read very much of late, actually.

[Scott the Pirate]

Having a nice light read with the Xanth series by Piers Anthony.

[tris]

Just before leaving the village I almost read M Crichton's "Prey"... He has such great ideas, especially in the first half of his books where he puts forward plausible and fascinating explanations of how, for example,
1 Nantechnology might become a viable industrial proposition (Prey) -
2 Time travel might work by turning people into digital datastreams and sending them thru subatomic quantum dimension wormholes in the spacetime continuum (Timeline) -
3 Dinosaurs might be brought back to life with genetic code sequencing technology (Jurassic park),
4 Apes might be taught language and collaborate with humans (Congo)
etc.
He gives you a whole load of fascinating background scientific theory and makes it all sound very coherent.
But then in the second half of his books everything goes to shit and all the wonderful new futuristic technology leads to some terrible disaster and we end up with carnivorous nanoclouds feeding on those who created them or carnivorous dinosaurs feeding on those who created them or people stuck in the middle ages getting the shit kicked out of them by knights in armour or people stuck in the middle of jungles getting the shit kicked out of them by psychopathic gorillas....
He puts in a lot of reflections about the abuses of knowledge and untrammelled unregulated use of futuristic technology, but in the end a lot of that stuff goes out the window and the books basically become "boy's own" rollicking adventure yarns where nerdy computer scientists and bookish academics and mannish girls heroically rise to the occasion and end up defeating their nasty adversaries (nanoclouds, dinosaurs, knights in armour or psychopathic gorillas as the case may be) through their courage and profesional expertise...
It's a bit formulaic, and the schizophrenic division between the first contemplative half and the second gungho half is a bit disconcerting... but it works pretty well... the guy sure does his homework and puts on a good show
Has anyone else noticed that about MC? (PS I havent finished Prey so no spoilers please, I might have to wait till Christmas till I get my hands on the book again... altho I've got a pretty good idea about how it's gonna end!)