The BOOK Thread

[carries an axe]

just started Dune.

 

[Nemo Brinker]

I should read the Dune series.

I just got done with Ursula LeGuin's -Lavinia-. Instead of her usual sci-fi, she takes a character from classical mythology (Virgil's _Aeneid_ to be specific), Aeneas' wife Lavinia, and fleshes her out. She's also a character who knows herself to be contingent, and that makes for some interesting meta-analysis of her own identity. Virgil comes off as pretty whiny, though. Overall it made me wish that I still had the skills to read the _Aeneid_ in the original Latin. It's so fricking beautiful in the original language.

"Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae..."

 

[wackyiraqi]

Just finishing up John Irving's In One Person. Irving is one of my favorite authors, and while this isn't on par with his best, it's a pretty compelling story.

 

[SuperSixFour]

I just finished up a couple Neal Stephenson books:

Two great books that are not even remotely like each other. It's actually pretty refreshing because most authors, even if I totally love them, get very repetitive if the write long enough. Can't wait to read more of his work. And no, I have not read Snow Crash!

 

[wackyiraqi]

Reading MaddAddam now, the third in in a trilogy by America's Hat native Margaret Atwood.

The first book (Oryx and Crake), was really amazing—I loved it. The second (The Year of the Flood) was pretty good, but didn't quite live up to the first.

I'm interested to see how the whole story arc ends.

 

[CoorsLight]

I just finished up a couple Neal Stephenson books:

Two great books that are not even remotely like each other. It's actually pretty refreshing because most authors, even if I totally love them, get very repetitive if the write long enough. Can't wait to read more of his work. And no, I have not read Snow Crash!

Read Snow Crash! It's not as well written as Quicksilver, but the story is...well there's simply no words that do it justice.

 

[UDRider]

Finished Enders game. Mainly because movie is coming out soon. Writing felt really amateurish, but the story was interesting.

 

[SalCal]

Finished Enders game. Mainly because movie is coming out soon. Writing felt really amateurish, but the story was interesting.

Well, I believe it is a kids book/series. Oblique references and double entendres are not par for the course. Though they can be nice easy, wash your mind out, reads. James Patterson's Maximum Ride and Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass Series are like that. I have not read the Enders Game series though, so I may be talking out my a$$.

 

[UDRider]

Well, I believe it is a kids book/series. Oblique references and double entendres are not par for the course. Though they can be nice easy, wash your mind out, reads. James Patterson's Maximum Ride and Philip Pullman's Amber Spyglass Series are like that. I have not read the Enders Game series though, so I may be talking out my a$$.

Hmm I think you are right. I just heard sci-fi nerds raving about it as the book to read. Didn't realize it was a kids book. Makes sense thought.

I am thinking of reading "The Game" next. Does that make me an asshole, or a potential one?

 

[Cincinnatus]

Ender's Game is not a kid's book, altho it got a Scholastic award of some kind. Kids are the primary characters, but the subject matter is not. Similarities to Starship Troopers.

 

[CoorsLight]

Ender's Game is not a kid's book, altho it got a Scholastic award of some kind. Kids are the primary characters, but the subject matter is not. Similarities to Starship Troopers.

It's a strange book with little kids that think and speak like seasoned litigation attorneys. It's certainly got tons of elements borrowed from Starship Troopers, but very little of the challenging social commentary that made Starship Troopers so interesting.

That said, Card was able to make a banal, repetitive, and unoriginal plot with astonishingly unbelievable characters into a reasonably entertaining read, and that speaks volumes for his writing style.

 

[TylerW]

Read Snow Crash! It's not as well written as Quicksilver, but the story is...well there's simply no words that do it justice.

It's his worst book! At least among the stuff he's popular for.

Just finished up with Murakami's Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and just cracking into Little Brother. Really liking the latter. It's a good meditation so far on privacy vs security - what's more, it's pushing the nostalgia buttons for me the way Ready Player One was supposed to but never did.

 

[Nemo Brinker]

I finished Barbara Tuchman's history of the first month of World War I, _The Guns of August_ recently.

HOLY SHIT she is the best narrative historian I have ever read. She was also the daughter of diplomats, and brings that interpersonal political sophistication into her analysis of the causes, personalities, and events that got WWI going. She also has an incredible, bitter, acerbic wit that she uses to just demolish some of the strutting jackholes who pulled the world into a vicious waste of a war--but she's not afraid to give heroic and tragic credit to those who deserve it, either.

I've never read another book of military history that made me fucking weep, but this one did.

 

[kevin 714]

Such pointless Insanity...

 

[carries an axe]

I finished Barbara Tuchman's history of the first month of World War I, _The Guns of August_ recently.

HOLY SHIT she is the best narrative historian I have ever read. She was also the daughter of diplomats, and brings that interpersonal political sophistication into her analysis of the causes, personalities, and events that got WWI going. She also has an incredible, bitter, acerbic wit that she uses to just demolish some of the strutting jackholes who pulled the world into a vicious waste of a war--but she's not afraid to give heroic and tragic credit to those who deserve it, either.

I've never read another book of military history that made me fucking weep, but this one did.

will read thx

 

[carries an axe]

I should read the Dune series.

I just got done with Ursula LeGuin's -Lavinia-. Instead of her usual sci-fi, she takes a character from classical mythology (Virgil's _Aeneid_ to be specific), Aeneas' wife Lavinia, and fleshes her out. She's also a character who knows herself to be contingent, and that makes for some interesting meta-analysis of her own identity. Virgil comes off as pretty whiny, though. Overall it made me wish that I still had the skills to read the _Aeneid_ in the original Latin. It's so fricking beautiful in the original language.

"Arma virumque cano, Troiae qui primus ab oris
Italiam, fato profugus, Laviniaque venit
litora, multum ille et terris iactatus et alto
vi superum saevae memorem Iunonis ob iram;
multa quoque et bello passus, dum conderet urbem,
inferretque deos Latio, genus unde Latinum,
Albanique patres, atque altae moenia Romae..."

I read the Ænead in third grade, translated of course, I dont know latin.

 

[wackyiraqi]

I finished Barbara Tuchman's history of the first month of World War I, _The Guns of August_ recently.

If you're interested in WWI in general, you should really watch this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_War_(documentary)

It is absolutely exhaustive, and totally heartbreaking.

It's also a bit of an undertaking—twenty-six 40-minute episodes—but well worth the journey. I can't recommend it highly enough.

 

[wackyiraqi]

Finished Lexicon a couple of days ago, and I LOVED it. Great page-turner—I plowed through it.

 

[Butch]

maybe we should alert newbies that barf has a literary geek contingent...
that rocks.

 

[RobertJ]

Just finished the second book of the His Dark Materials trilogy. Very entertaining so far.

Awesome books...it's a shame a bunch of religious zealots managed to keep the 2nd or 3rd movies from being made.