currently reading....

[SoM]

this thread, then i quit after this post

[R00k]

I'm about 60 pages away from finishing Crime and Punishment.

What a wonderfully written book.

[werldhed]

Currently reading: How Soccer Explains The World


Rook and Werldhed, you have to read Ulysses to understand why people love Joyce.

Crime and Punishment is a classic.

I don't doubt that his stuff is good; his writing is really impressive. It just so happens that particular book of his blows. Similar to how Crime and Punishment is great, and The Idiot sucks. Some writers just have moments of shit.

Will check out Ulysses at some point. Is Finnegans Wake any good?

[Hannibal]

Read Dubliners before tackling the bigger stuff.

[seremtan]

Seymour Hersh - Chain of Command

[Underpants?]

I'm about 60 pages away from finishing Crime and Punishment.

What a wonderfully written book.

OK well I'll go with it but if there are references to prison sex contained within those pages, consider your invitation to my birthday party canceled, fuck-knuckles.

[R00k]

You wouldn't dare!

Besides, what's a birthday party without two grown, hairy men awkwardly having sex with each other? Those are some of my best memories as a child. I was so happy when I got a trampoline that year....

[HM-PuFFNSTuFF]

Currently reading: How Soccer Explains The World


Rook and Werldhed, you have to read Ulysses to understand why people love Joyce.

Crime and Punishment is a classic.

I don't doubt that his stuff is good; his writing is really impressive. It just so happens that particular book of his blows. Similar to how Crime and Punishment is great, and The Idiot sucks. Some writers just have moments of shit.

Will check out Ulysses at some point. Is Finnegans Wake any good?

Finnegan's Wake is rewarding but slow going. It's more difficult to read than his other stuff.

[R00k]

I haven't had a lot of time to read lately, but I finally finished Crime and Punishment this morning.

It's certainly one of the best books I've ever read, if not the best, in terms of overall satisfaction in having read it.

Something about the story and the characters throughout the book seems entirely too real, and is much too compelling to ever stop before finishing the story. It's a book full of gray areas that leaves you with a lot to think about after it's over. The main character/protagonist, Raskolnikov, is very complex in his thoughts and emotions, but at the same time you're frequently compelled to consider him in a certain light, as a certain "type" of person or ideologue, and paint him in a black or white brush. But these urges always fall apart, and you're left reflecting on your self and your own views, trying to determine if humans are even capable of passing the kind of judgment that all of us ultimately want to, in an instinctive way. The fact that the harsh truths of reality sometimes preclude us from being capable of even seeing all the parts that make up a life in that reality, and that many people aren't remotely (perhaps even physiologically) capable of seeing reality through a window on it that isn't their own, or stranger yet (to me) seemingly aren't even capable of a desire to do so, at times makes the whole pursuit of any kind of truth seem like a hollow victory when it is actually achieved.

But even so, to me, it's not amazing when people stray from the reality that exists in the majority consciousness by definition (in terms of mental health, delusions of grandeur, or even simple dreams); what's amazing is that so many people can and do share enough parts of their own reality with others, intentionally or not -- what's really amazing is that through the millions of years of evolutionary change that has produced the human mind and its ability to be aware of reality, we are somehow able to express a shared majority view of things at all. The miracle of the human mind is that insanity is even a word; that it's an aberration instead of the norm. And that in itself seems to be a victory that we can all share (even Roskolnikov), by realizing that we're contributing to it every day.

[Canidae]

Just started reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson.

I tried to read Snowcrash, but all that cyberpunk crap really turned me off -- especially since the technical aspects were dumbed down to the point of being meaningless. I only read about 100 pages or so.

Quicksilver is good so far, I just hope it focuses a little less on alchemy later on.

I put down my Hunter S. Thompson for a bit to read it.

I'm plowing thru the 1050 pages that is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicron and its not exactly gripping either, but I did like Snowcrash.

I think I'll go back to Neil Gaiman and Robert J. Sawyer books than this guys other stuff.

[Ryoki]

Finally started in The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein.

[Grudge]

I got Iain M Banks new Culture novel 'Matter' in the mail today, so I'll be reading that.

Other than that, I'm slowly going through 'The Emperor's New Mind' by Roger Penrose.

[R00k]

I can't decide what to read next

Blackwater
The Alpha and Omega
Confessions of an Economic Hitman

or a Sci-Fi book by Harry Turtledove that a friend loaned me.

[scared?]

lol...what kind of a moron reads fiction?...

[seremtan]

just finished

'counterknowledge: how we surrendered to conspiracy theories, quack medicine, bogus science and fake history' - Damian Thompson. similar in kind (though shorter) to Francis Wheen's epic survey of stupidity in 'how mumbo-jumbo conquered the world'

currently reading

'panic nation: exposing the myths we're told about food and health' - eds. Stanley Feldman & Vincent Marks. everyone should read this book

god i love a good debunking. watching the idiocies and intellectual prejudices of 'smart' people get bent over and fucked silly is way more exhilarating than watching some council estate gormie not being able to locate uzbekistan on the map

[scared?]

example or it didn't happen...

[seremtan]

example or it didn't happen...

every thread you've ever made?

[Geebs]

I'm plowing thru the 1050 pages that is Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicron and its not exactly gripping either, but I did like Snowcrash.

I think I'll go back to Neil Gaiman and Robert J. Sawyer books than this guys other stuff.

Reading the whole Baroque Cycle is a waste of time. Cryptonomicon, Diamond Age and Snow Crash are worth it though.

[Canidae]

If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman you can vote on which of a selection of his books you would like to read for free and the one with the most votes will be available online.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/02/b ... thing.html

[Fender]

Purchased Richard Dawkins - How a Scientist Changed the Way We Think today. 25 "reflections by scientists, writers and philosophers."
It was equally cool and depressing that the evolution section at Cleveland's natural history museum had such a large selection of book about evolution vs creationism, all in favor of evolution, of course. I usually don't see all those together. Good to see somebody is fighting the good fight, but a shame they need to.

[Mat Linnett]

In my search for another decent zombie genre novel I've read a lot of dross, but turned up another decent one finally:
The Words of their Roaring: London's Falling

Written by Matthew Smith, ex-editor of 2000AD, it gets a lot of things right.
It focuses on strong characters and their relationships and struggles rather than the zombies themselves.

Granted, it also makes mistakes, some purely personal bugbears (the idea of intelligent and evolving zombies) and some schoolboy science errors that make you wince (referring to virii as bacteria and vice versa), and it makes the number one mistake of trying to explain the origin of the zombie outbreak, but it's written with such passion and verve that you can forgive these slips.

Not a World War Z by any stretch, but a metric shit-tonne better than most of the other crap out there.

[werldhed]

Currently reading: students' assignments.

[chopov]

Pascal Mercier: Night train to Lisbon
Just began reading it, can't tell if its as good as everyone says.
Charlotte Roche: Feuchtgebiete ("wetlands")
Ex-Viva-(MTV-like channel here in Germany)- presenter writes semi-biographical about a stay in a clinic after cutting her sphincter during shaving her private parts (sic!). About her collection of avocado pits she not only uses for growing new avocado plants....and a lot more indecent, nasty, kinky stuff... Fun to read...

[R00k]

I started reading Next by Michael Crichton, but put it down halfway through for In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan.

First time I've read any Crichton, but I'm not overly impressed thus far.

[Canidae]

If you're a fan of Neil Gaiman you can vote on which of a selection of his books you would like to read for free and the one with the most votes will be available online.

http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/02/b ... thing.html

The winner was :American Gods.

Free for the reading here: http://browseinside.harpercollins.com/i ... ess_022208