What are you reading these days? (printed matter only)

arjunmenon · 2009-10-22T09:15:37+00:00

I know we've discussed what everybody is listening etc etc, but i'd like a sneak peek into what everyone is reading these days. This week,I'm on : 1. A lion's legacy - RJ Patterson (very nice book about lion conservation in northern kenya) 2. A player's guide to chords & harmony - Jim Aikin 3. Guitar Player (Al DiMeola on the cover) 4. Creative recording Vol.1 Effects & processors (Can't remember the author's name and slightly outdated book, but still a good read because it details various effects).

giggsy

Psean wrote Forever Today - the story of the worst recorded case of amnesia. It's interesting stuff - the guy was a conductor and musician and was still able to play despite having a memory that lasted only seconds.

Sounds interesting - will give it a look

Recently finished:
Burned - Living through the 80s and 90s as a rock guitarist by Bobby Devito
Life & Laughing by Michael McIntyre
I Am The Secret Footballer by... well, an anonymous Premiership footballer

And just started Skagboys by Irvine Welsh - its the prequel to Trainspotting - I've had to start reading in a Scottish accent again ?

Shibbibilybob

I just finished Life of Pi by Yann Martel in and around all the hype about the movie...then I watched the movie. Great film, but an even better book.

That got me started, so I read Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel as well. It is also really really good.
I find that Yann Martel has interesting ways of looking at things, and has expanded my point of view on many topics, often related to animals.

Now I'm reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk...only 16% in, but so far it's pretty rad. Quite a slow, intense read though.

deefstes

Shibbibilybob wrote I just finished Life of Pi by Yann Martel in and around all the hype about the movie...then I watched the movie. Great film, but an even better book.

That got me started, so I read Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel as well. It is also really really good.
I find that Yann Martel has interesting ways of looking at things, and has expanded my point of view on many topics, often related to animals.

Now I'm reading Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk...only 16% in, but so far it's pretty rad. Quite a slow, intense read though.

Booyaaa! Awesome book. I read Life of Pi in 2001 and it has been my #1 book ever since. The Time Traveller's Wife and The Raw Shark Texts did threaten to topple it but it stood firm. I was apprehensive about the movie as I didn't think that the story could be depicted in film that well but I think Ang Lee did a great job.

Oddly, I didn't really appreciate Beatrice and Virgil as much. Have you read "Self"? That was Yann Martel's first novel and I have to say, it was well weird. I really didn't enjoy that one.

Warren

Life of Pi has been a favourite of mine for many years too. Wonderful book. I have yet to see the movie...

chris77

I recently finished Dodger by Terry Pratchett. Quite nice, even though it is one of his books for "younger reader". Not quite on par with most of his Discworld books but still worth the read.

For Christmas I also received Those in Peril by Wilbur Smith. Now, back in the early ninieties I loved his books but he kinda slipped of my radar as I discovered new authors. This is the first book of his I have read since something about ancient Egypt a few years ago which was kind of bland but bearable. My. Word. What utter, utter crap this is though. It is like a dumbed down version of a Mills and Boon novel written by a twelve year old. Now, I don't know if his books were always that bad and I just loved them because sexed-up action fiction is what appealed to my hormonal teenage self back then, or if this is a new low for him - but man it is bad. Really bad.

Bob-Dubery

I just finished reading "1000 Years of Annoying the French" which is fun most of the time, but there isn't really a 1000 years of such history (though old animosities linger). So it runs out of puff towards the end.

Now reading "Taken Captive by Birds" by Marguerite Poland.

domhatch

X-rated Bob wrote I just finished reading "1000 Years of Annoying the French" which is fun most of the time, but there isn't really a 1000 years of such history (though old animosities linger). So it runs out of puff towards the end.

Now reading "Taken Captive by Birds" by Marguerite Poland.

when i was a wee lad (around 11 or 12), my grandpappy purchased for me three of ms poland's children's books - once at kwafubesi, the mantis and the moon (those two definitely), and the bush shrike, i think. i believe that somewhere in the paper recycling plant i call a book collection, these three books still survive. i fairly gobbled them up. i hope my kids do the same.

i haven't read any of her adult fiction, or non-fiction for that matter. i'd be interested to hear your take on the book.
dh

singemonkey

Omoo by Herman Melville.

Just finished "The Man-Eaters of Tsavo" which was a romp. I'm on a 19th C. travelogue kick.

Psean

Giggsy wrote
Psean wrote Forever Today - the story of the worst recorded case of amnesia. It's interesting stuff - the guy was a conductor and musician and was still able to play despite having a memory that lasted only seconds.
Sounds interesting - will give it a look

I really enjoyed it. It was written by his wife so the majority of it is about the day-to-day experience rather than the neuro side of things (although she goes into it a bit). There seem to be some documentaries about him too and I'm sure that side is covered somewhere.

And just started Skagboys by Irvine Welsh - its the prequel to Trainspotting - I've had to start reading in a Scottish accent again ?

Gotta love reading in accets ?

aja

Psean wrote
Giggsy wrote
Psean wrote Forever Today - the story of the worst recorded case of amnesia. It's interesting stuff - the guy was a conductor and musician and was still able to play despite having a memory that lasted only seconds.
Sounds interesting - will give it a look
I really enjoyed it. It was written by his wife so the majority of it is about the day-to-day experience rather than the neuro side of things (although she goes into it a bit). There seem to be some documentaries about him too and I'm sure that side is covered somewhere.

You may like this one too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bolzan

ftcl

Dead Men's Boots - Mike Carey. He's probably best known as the writer of Lucifer on Vertigo. He also wrote these two (thank you Wikipedia):

- Ozzy Osbourne: "The Comeback" (with Tom Kyffin, one-shot, 1993) (Biographical comic apparently)
- Pantera: "Power in the Darkness" (with Trevor Goring, one-shot, 1994) (A fantasy)

Bob-Dubery

domhatch wrote
X-rated Bob wrote I just finished reading "1000 Years of Annoying the French" which is fun most of the time, but there isn't really a 1000 years of such history (though old animosities linger). So it runs out of puff towards the end.

Now reading "Taken Captive by Birds" by Marguerite Poland.
when i was a wee lad (around 11 or 12), my grandpappy purchased for me three of ms poland's children's books - once at kwafubesi, the mantis and the moon (those two definitely), and the bush shrike, i think. i believe that somewhere in the paper recycling plant i call a book collection, these three books still survive. i fairly gobbled them up. i hope my kids do the same.

i haven't read any of her adult fiction, or non-fiction for that matter. i'd be interested to hear your take on the book.
dh

I haven't read any of her books previously. I quite like this one. It's quite personal, auto-biographical. Beautifully written.

Psean

aja wrote
Psean wrote
Giggsy wrote
Psean wrote Forever Today - the story of the worst recorded case of amnesia. It's interesting stuff - the guy was a conductor and musician and was still able to play despite having a memory that lasted only seconds.
Sounds interesting - will give it a look
I really enjoyed it. It was written by his wife so the majority of it is about the day-to-day experience rather than the neuro side of things (although she goes into it a bit). There seem to be some documentaries about him too and I'm sure that side is covered somewhere.

You may like this one too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Bolzan

Cool. Thanks?

wirt

I got suckered into reading "A Wheel Of Time" by a friend, who told me that it's comparable to A Song Of Ice And Fire (a.k.a A Game Of Thrones, for those who only follow the series) which IMHO is one of the best fantasy series ever. He neglected to mention that the first 5 novels are pretty bad to mediocre and it only gets great at the last 4 books, so now I'm stuck with reading 14 damned novels which I only barely like because I can't stop reading something I've started. Ain nobody got time fo dat! Fantasy writers who need an entire novel to work out a minor plot point annoy me to no end...

/rant

Norman86

Thanks for that Wirt...

Im reading "A storm of swords" at the moment. This is such a brilliant series of books!
And has changed my view on the TV series.

I had noted the wheel of time" and saw it was 14 books, but havent done much investigation yet.
I would hate to read something that long though, and feel disinterested in the first 4 books..

wirt

George R. Martin is one of only two authors I've ever loved and hated at the same time. Just when you think a character is safe he stubs his toe on something, it becomes infected and two paragraphs later he's dead in an unmarked grave. (This does not actually happen, don't worry) The man kills off characters with a kind of raw efficiency normally reserved for industrial machinery ☹ I remember in a speech he gave recently he was asked jokingly by a fan whether any of the characters will still be alive by the last book. He replied that no-one will be alive by the last book and all it is going to be is a thousand pages of describing the snow falling on graves ? But he's fantastic, nonetheless. The bastard...

I'm treating A Wheel Of Time like the first 300 pages in The Lord Of The Rings: Just powering through it and hoping there is a pay-off at the end. Ugh...

Shibbibilybob

I finished up to the 4th of the Song of ice and fire series, A feast for Crows. Those books are just so long and tedious I have to set aside about a month to read one, so I'm struggling to motivate myself to start dances with dragons just yet...
I have other things I want to read in the upcoming month ?

Norman86

Less than 100 pages left of A Storm of Swords. ?
i still cannot believe what i have read. This story is certainly quite a bit more enthralling than Lord of the rings. Or any other fantasy novel i have read!

Warren

Norman86 wrote Less than 100 pages left of A Storm of Swords. ?
i still cannot believe what i have read. This story is certainly quite a bit more enthralling than Lord of the rings. Or any other fantasy novel i have read!

Cool stuff ?

I've read the whole series so far, and it's not bad. I find his writing a bit pedestrian, but he has a couple of great characters which are always in danger of being insta-killed so you're always keen to see what will happen next. He fell into a bit of the "Robert Jordan" trap in terms of rambling on a bit, although he's not nearly as bad. Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series got two attempts from me, and the furthest I got was book 5...honestly I'd rather count the wrinkles on my dog's balls than go there again. ?

"Lord of the Rings" was the first experience of fantasy fiction for me, and as a result is still my favourite. YMMV, of course.

As for me, I've been reading a new Sci-Fi series by a couple of dudes calling themselves "James Corey", starting with a book called "Leviathan Wakes." Quite fun, and a bit less convoluted than what most mainstream Sci-Fi writers put out these days (I'm looking at you, Iain M. Banks!).

domhatch

X-rated Bob wrote I haven't read any of her books previously. I quite like this one. It's quite personal, auto-biographical. Beautifully written.

thanks bob, i'll have to take a bit of a look at that then.

cheers
dh

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