Literature; what are YOU reading, and why?

[Ahchay]

I'm in the middle of a monster sci-fi sesh after finding an orange crate full of 50's and 60's pulp sci-fi collections in, of all places, a national trust farm thing in Norfolk. 20p each! I just picked up the lot, gave the old girl with the tin £20 and ran out feeling vaguely guilty.

The highlight is a Frederic Brown collection (Daymares) which includes "The Angelic Angleworm". He's one of my all time favourite authors - although, tragically, mostly out of print nowadays

Oh, and chalk up another for the Wee Free Men too. I like these "stories of discworld" much more than his more recent "adult" novels.

Cheers
Chris

[aureole]

You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers: reading it because: Amazon were selling it half price; I needed to bulk an order for free delivery; I'm an avid reader of McSweeneys and I really liked his first book. YSKOV isn't as good as A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, but it's not bad as a second book.

I'm also technically reading Gravity's Rainbow, although I've been doing that for nine months now - jsut can't seem to get a handle on the book to finish it, and I take long breaks and have to have another run at it.

[spinlizard]

Current Reading:
Diary of Anne Frank (because I want to). Very harrowing read.

Accidental Empires (because I have to - Open Uni course work). Good book about the rise of the PC industry.

[stark]

Accidental Empires (because I have to - Open Uni course work). Good book about the rise of the PC industry.

the cursed T171 ?

[SimonB]

This morning I finished a re-read of Pratchett's Feet Of Clay which having left a good few years since the last time I really enjoyed re-discovering. Looking forward to Nightwatch and wee free but will wait for the paperback (likewise with Harry Potter unless MrsB defies my requests and buys it for me in HB anyway).

TP chosen simply because I tend to go fiction/non/fiction/non etc and I wanted something fairly lightweight this time round as I'm in the middel of Tad Williams Otherland Saga.

Non-fiction now started is Mercator: The Man Who Mapped The Planet by Nicholas Crane. Because I love maps (well, I didn't go and get a degree in Geography for any othe reason!). Not far enough into it to give a valid opinion (little Mr M is only 6 at the moment and not the cartographic giant he was to become) other than that the quality of the writing is very good indeed.

Next up will be Otherland 3 then whatever the shelves throw at me.



Simon

[Dvorak]

Cosmological Inflation and Large-Scale Structure by Liddle and Lyth. Being no cosmologist, I confess that I still hardly understand what a metric tensor is, but I love this ice-cold view of modern cosmology - just space with some perturbations in it. Makes me shiver.

Theodor Storm - Complete Works. A german regional writer. That's often opposed to High Literature, but who cares. There are some texts of him that brim over with fat emotions. The right stuff for me now. Makes my heart ache for ... uh, anyway.

After working me through Romeo and Juliet for the same reason and finding it quite disappointing, I read on with the next play in my Shakespeare edition, which was King Lear, and *that's* really amazing, in a way it's a very modern text, very dense.

That leads me to Woyzeck from Büchner, one of my all-time favorites. In spite of being written in 1837 it's definitely modern - a cornucopia of potential citations "Something's moving behind me, under me [Stamps on the ground.] Hollow--you hear that? It's all hollow down there. The Freemasons!" You should see the film with Klaus Kinski...class!

And by now I'm nearly through the complete Lovecraft, but I come to the finding that "The Colour Out of Space" is the only text from him that's worth reading.

And I havent read a computer book for years now.
I'm not proud of that.
But I don't miss it...

[MadHippo]

I'm reading a quite old version of Jules Verne's 20,000 leagues under the sea.. Lots of long words and really detailed descriptions of everything. It's heavy going because it's just SO detailed, but it really is good.

I've got a newer one too and it's nowhere near as well written and misses entire sections of text out, which seems mad to me - but I suppose it just goes to show you can't even judge a book by it's title, let alone it's cover!

[Kemper_Boyd]

And by now I'm nearly through the complete Lovecraft, but I come to the finding that "The Colour Out of Space" is the only text from him that's worth reading.

Yup, good choice that one and The Dunwich Horror IMHO.

[Flojomojo]

Has anyone else experienced a severe decline in bedtime (or hell, any) reading due to the GBA-SP? I have a stack of stuff just waiting...

I just got one of these (in exchange for some XBOX dross and my old GBA) and I can see what you mean. The ergonomics are perfectly nailed, not just the screen, but the whole package. It's so easy to kick back with this thing, and time just melts away.

Books? I'm not sure if I'm a non-reader, or if I'm a voracious reader of websites, newspapers, and magazines. I don't feel like I'm lacking for intellectual stimulation, but it's been a few weeks since I finished a book. Lying around the house/car/office, I've got a few dog training books from the library that I mean to digest, Lucky Wander Boy which is "the great American videogame novel," "a stack of Star Wars Marvel Comics reprints (that counts as much as any of the EU books IMHO), and a few P.K. Dick novellas. Since someone else mentioned it, I don't feel too embarassed to admit I've got the first Halo book and all the Harry Potter books sitting out in plain view, too. Also must get through Communications via Satellite and Principles of Project Management. Lord give me strength.

[mk1]

Went up into my attic the other week and came across the old bible "Programming the Commodore 64" by Raeto West - currently rereading this - its magic.

[nighthawk]

Snowcrash - Neal Stephenson (haven't tried his others they look a bit heavy )
Any of the William Gibson tomes - just got his new one Pattern Recognition - anyone read that yet ?
Agree any of the Pratchett books, Douglas Adams, Terry Brooks, Alastair Reynolds and oh yes Backwards, Colony and Last Human by the Red Dwarf writers.

Although favourite book of recent years is Altered Carbon by Richard Morgan, just got the new one by him Broken Angels so looking forward to getting into that.

[betamax]

I've just finished Terry Pratchett's latest "Wee Free Men" and excellent stuff it is.

Sorry, whats that? Did I miss something? Can you tell me more about this? Does it feature the Nac Mac Feegle at all ?

[Saint Sandy]

got the complete works of Shakespeare by the bath for a nightly hour's soak...err..in the bath,me,not the book

love James Clavell's work - top big long books

...blimey, don't diss Lovecraft when James is around!!!

ohhh and E.A.Poe of course, can re-read that till the proverbials come home

So - the question is:
How Many Times Have We Read Lord Of the Rings??

eh?

I'm on 4th time round - but the TT is still a slog

wait till Shalob's lair kicks in, and put "In the Light" by Led Zep on!

[HGFB]

Does it feature the Nac Mac Feegle at all

Oh yes

It's his new "Stories of Discoworld" book and like The Amazing Maurice is aimed at the younger reader. However since this is Terry we're talking about it's basically just a normal Discworld novel with a bigger font. He's not one for talking down to the young 'uns is our Terry.

And it's one of his best works in ages (IMO).

[shobet_mawr]

I'm about to reread "The Antipope" by Robert Rankin, I find him more entertaining than Pratchett.

More info about his books can be found at http://www.sproutlore.com/index.php

Mind the sprouts