Just ordered a few books from Amazon, most are best-sellers, but I had always wanted read them:

Freakonomics
Bringing Down the House
Ugly Americans
Moneyball
The Art of War
Ella Minnow Pea -- the one I've been looking forward to the most!!

How much of a nerd am I that I want to read one of my fiancees college textbooks for fun?

A couple of novels I recently read and recommend:

Freddy and Fredericka by Mark Halprin - a satire of Charles and Di who are sent to America to recapture the colonies

Zorro by Isabel Allende - a fun retelling of the Zorro legend

Funny you say that. I kept some of my college books exactly because I wanted to read them eventually.

Update:
Finished Ella Minnow Pea and Bringing Down the House

Used to read a lot of Koontz.

From what I can remember Twilight Eyes was pretty good.

Last book I finished was Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas by Hunter S. Thompson. It was better than the movie. I found it to be funny and entertaining while portraying serrious political views. It was a very quick read as the scenes are very simple, but described with commedic detail.

Another book I read was called The Automatic Millionaire. I read it in a day, but was pretty borring explaining how to set ones self up financially through different programs the government offers. It however did have an inspirational mini story throughout the book.

Before that was The Game by Neil Strauss. This book was pretty interesting as I try to be quite active in the Pick Up community. It is about a group of guys who call themselves pick up artists and live together in a house on Sunset Blvd., in Los Angeles, CA, with the soul purpose of picking up women. They develop all kinds of tactics and scientific methods to aid them in their never ending quest. The book is a true story told from Strauss's point of view with plenty of drama in it.

The college book was a bomb.... who would have thought a PhD would contradict themselves so many times in the first 65 pages? One of the few books I never bothered to finish.

If your talking about Sun Tzu's, then have fun. Great reading!

I'm about to purchase Arthur C. Clarke's 2001: A Space Odyssey, 2010: Odyssey Two, 2061: Odyssey Three, and 3001: The Final Odyssey. I know a little about the story already, and it sounds amazing, so I'll let you guys know how it goes.

I've been stuck on Arthur Nersesian's works as of recently. So far I've read "Suicide Casanova", "The Fuck-Up" and I've just started "Manhattan Lover Boy."

His most easily accessible and engrossing book would be "Suicide Casanova." It's a story of obsessive love and relationships - that's nothing new but it's his incredible writing style that makes it so that you can't put the book down. He tells the story of a twisted love affair concerning multiple characters and he does this from several different points in time. The story develops naturally and unexpectedly....he turns turns NYC into a character and allows the city to speak for itself....amazing character development.

I assure you that you won't see a thing coming and you won't be able to put it down.

More in-depth reviews:

Suicide Casanova Reviews

I love Freakonomics - couldn't put it down.

I recently finished Ross King's <u>Ex Libris</u> I was quite happy with it, just the kind of cozy quasi-mystery that I enjoy. Nothing deep and filled with history.
Presently I'm exploring the works of Arturo Perez-Reverte. First, I have <u>Flanders Panel</u> then onto <u>The Club Dumas</u>. I'm hoping for a bit better the second time around. It took nearly half way through the book to get anything I found interesting. When book is compared to <u>Name of the Rose</u> I'm quite the sucker for it. <u>Ex Libris</u> did deliver more for me.

I am a HUGE fan of Diana Gabaldon!! I have all of her books 1-5 and will be going out to buy book #6 this weekend - 'Breath of Snow and Ashes' I'm so excited that this one was just released (in paperback) because it shows that she might not be finished telling us the story of Jamie and Clare! I don't think I can let these guys go!

One of my favorite topics of conversation with a girlfriend of mine is discussing who would play Jamie in a movie version of the book. I think our general agreement is that they would have to find an unknown Scottish actor to fill the spot because there's so much about Jamie that he would have to live up to. And if you have any preconceived notions of an known actor than it wouldn't work.

I have honestly spent an entire night reading these novels - never went to sleep - I just couldn't put the book down!

I'll keep you updated on how 'Breath Of Snow and Ashes' plays out - though I'm sure it'll live up to the rest! :thumbsup:

I recently started the series by T. A. Barron called The Great Tree Of Avalon. He definately has some interesting concepts on Merlin and Avalon!

OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just found out that they are printing a new Hannibal book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hannibal Rising
Dec 5 is the release date!!!!!

Hannibal the Carthaginian General of the Punic Wars, or Hannibal the Cannibalisitic Psychiatrist? :lol:

Hannibal the "Hello Clarice"!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

<u>Flander's Panel</u> actually had some unexpected twists inside an intriguing mystery. I found it slow and uninteresting but for more reasons of my peccadillos than the book's lack. It spoke to my aesthete side.

<u>The Club Dumas</u> is a much finer work in just the first three chapters. Happily, I can say, The Ninth Gate movie didn't deter me from reading it.

I am 86 pages into the Richard Matheson book "I Am Legend/Hell House" combo. I am having a very hard time putting it down.l.. sucked me right in it did.

Ok, wow, Ray Bradbury was smokin something when he wrote The Martian Chronicles..... Wow.... so far its quite.... well I am getting my moneys worth in laughs... or maybe I am just that odd...

Ok, so I am talking to myself but eventually someone may join me here for a post or 3. Being close to that dreaded holiday I have been banned from buying books for fear I will buy something on my list. So I scoped out a new author.

Janet Evanovich. Her Stephanie Plum series is completely off the hook. Never in my days have I read a series so humorous and gripping. I used to read the Sue Grafton Alphabet books, those got way too predictable. These, however, wow... just wow. Talk about your underdog and dysfunctional families! This is a must read series if you like a who-done-it mixed in with a comedy.

I finished Collapse by Jared Diamond a few weeks ago, and thought it was a great book. It goes above and beyond saying "This is what is wrong!", and also does not simply attack big business, but Jared realizes that incorporating big business into using their resources more wisely is the best way to go about 'saving' our world. I would highly suggest it.

I really like this idea. It would help force me to keep up in my reading as I find some days I'll surge ahead, and then for weeks I'll barely touch a book. I'm not particular about genres, because I tend to find a genre I like, and stick with it for a long time when I would really like to get more breadth in there. If anyone else is interested I think this is a great idea; if the book is not at my small library, or my local bookstore it would take a few days for me to snag the reading.

I read Lullaby and Survivor. I enjoyed Lullaby more than Survivor, but thoroughly enjoyed both. I did not read Choke, because I don't like reading one author over and over. I find I'll start slowing down in my reading as I get tired of their style. I might have to pick up Haunted instead of Choke though for my next read from him.

The same thing happened to me when I read Harry Potter. I refused to read them, because of the hype, but took the first three books overseas with me last year, and ended up buying and plowing through the whole series. Order of the Phoenix was my favorite, but I'm afraid the movie will leave out so many details. I'm excited to see what happens in the 'last' book.

I'm currently reading The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois. I know it sounds like a Sociology course read, and that's actually how I was initially introduced to Du Bois' style of writing. I really enjoy it! I must admit it's taking me longer to get through, but I'm almost done, and it has not disappointed.

I started Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer, and so far it has intriqued me, but stories of wilderness survival always have.

My friend sent me Adrift by Steven Callahan last year, and I could not put it down.

After I finish Into Thin Air I think I'm going to finally read Ancient Iraq. It's been sitting on my shelf for too long without being touched.

I have Something Wicked This Way Comes comeing in the mail so I am pretty psyched about it. Plus one of the last couple Peter Hathaway Capstick books I have yet to read.

I'm not a devout Bradbury reader but ever since R is for Rocket in 9th grade I have wanted to read some more of his.

Try reading, after reading Krakaeur's account, the account written by Anatoli Boukerev (it's called "Climb", IIRC), the Russian guide who Krakaeur blames for some of what happened on the mountain. It is is very instructive to read the accounts of the other survivors - Krakaeur's account is the most widely circulated because of his skill as a writer, but it is not neccessarily the truth.

How come this thread doesn't get more action?

I recently read The Road by cormac mccarthy. I have to say it was pretty good, in a bleak sort of way. It's got post-apocalyptic cannibals. I think i will probably read it again.

World War Z was pretty good, too. Though apparently i'm the only person i know who's into reading books about zombies.

Also, on the nonfiction front, i highly recommend a book called Infrastructure: a field guide to the industrial landscape by brian hayes. Hayes basically traveled around for over a decade taking pictures of various industrial structures like mines, power plants, steel mills, infrastructure-y things and then wrote this book explaining roughly how all those things work. It's pretty interesting if you happen to be one of those people who wonders what all that stuff is about.

Lessee.

Not long ago I read The first Instrumentailities of Night book - <I>The Tyranny of the Night</I>. Late middle ages to Renaissance Europe and Dar al-Islam with some seriously odd magic and walking gods/ghosts/fairies. Glen Cook at his best, really. Sort of Black Company-ish with the feel of a historical fiction. (All the names have been changed to protect the sensibilities of nations, and Gibraltar is an ithsmus rather than a strait, making the geography of the Mediterranean a little different. )

Then I read the second one - <i>Lord of the Silent Kingdom</i> - which was not quite as satisfying as the first, as it didn't resolve as well as the first (but then, Cook will go on these two, three, four book mini-series within a series where the resolution waits till the last book of the mini0series - no worries). Left me wanting more. A third book. Immediately.

Next, finished SM101. Basically an intro college course to BDSM. Highly, highly recommended for anyone thinking about any sorts of power gradient informed sex.

As long as I was in that headspace, finished <i>The Story of O</i>. Kind of disappointed at how abruptly it ends. Also, while I understand and appreciate the necessity for the author to take long excursions into O's mental state, it really got tedious from time to time. If ever a woman deserved the whippings she got.... Not seriously, but sheesh!

At the moment, re-reading <i>Shadowmarch</i> by Tad Williams. He's got the kind of sinister grasp of faeries that Neal Gaiman shoots for (and misses low to the horror side - nothing wrong with that, mind you). Very rich world he has going there. Meaty. Believable politics. I've got the second book waiting on my loveseat for when I finish the first one.

I was just pleasantly surprised by finishing the first three Kushiel books by Jacqueline Carey. I haven't cared enough about a character to cry when I finished a book in years, but I did when Phedre finally came to the end of her long quest. Great series, and I plan on picking up more by the same author. If you get a chance, grab Kushiel's Dart and give it a read.

[QUOTE=filtherton]I recently read The Road by cormac mccarthy. I have to say it was pretty good, in a bleak sort of way. It's got post-apocalyptic cannibals. I think i will probably read it again.

QUOTE]

If you enjoy McCarthy you have to check out Blood Meridian. It is indescribable as a novel. Bleak, bloody, scary yet the prose is some of the best I've ever read.

It's on my to-read list. Unfortunately, my to-read list only gets larger.

For McCarthy, I personally enjoyed Suttree more than any of the Borderline / Western series, but I haven't read anything by him that I've not liked.

Currently taking a break from non-fiction and just enjoying "Harlequin" by Bernard Cornwell, self-indulgent historical fiction at its finest.

Not long finished "Tribes of Britain" which is non-fiction, a history of the British people - not of the wars and empires and kings - but of the people, their migrations, and languages, and how modern Brits became who they are.

i have not noticed this thread before.
go figure.

let's see....the last novels i read were:
thomas pynchon, against the day
1100 fucking pages. that much of anyone gets tiring. the good bits were very good indeed. and there was ALOT of other stuff.

mark z danielewski: house of leaves.
a fine fine creepy interesting book. i found myself wishing at times that danielewski was a more disciplined writer, but those times passed. absolutely worth reading.

i am reading djuna barnes' nightwood.

i love this book:

So...as advised, I'm starting with The Hobbit. I ordered the illustrated version by Alan Lee last week, got it yesterday and finished Chapter one before bed time. What a beautiful book!!! I enjoyed it for the most part thus far. The thing that I don't get is the (bracketed comments) in the book. I see that on almost every page. To be honest, it's throwing me off a little. Is that how Tolkein intended it or some smart ass editor thought it would be a good idea to put commentaries smack dab in the middle of a sentence, paragraph, page?

I just finished Catcher In The Rye. I was never able to finish the book prior times I have read it, and now that I finished it I remember why. It drags on and on and is simply a bore.

I'm currently reading More Proficient Motorcycling, and Introducing Your Children to the Outdoors. I think after that I will go back to a C. S. Lewis book.

Would anyone still be interested and reading a book and discussing it together?

I'm finishing up East of Eden right now, and I love it. The only other work I've read by Steinbeck is Of Mice and Men, and I like that one too, so I think I'm going to pick up another of his books in the near future. Haven't decided which one yet.

Any Ken Follett fans here? I heard a year or so ago that he is working on a sequel to Pillars Of the Earth...anyone else heard anything about this? If it's true, then I'm buying it the day it comes out.

And, of course, I'm eagerly awaiting the final Harry Potter release.

Kurty...I have to disagree with you on Catcher In the Rye. It's one of my all time favorites :thumbsup:

Why an all time fave? It makes some great statements about people, and the kid has the potential and capacity and simply does not apply himself. I spent the entire book wondering what all of it was building up to, in my mind imagining some either horrendous ending, or life-changing moment. Nope... Maybe that's the greatness of it?

Finished Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. I enjoyed it but just couldn't get into it as much as some of his previous works.

Right now I'm about 3/4 of the way through The Rum Diary by Hunter S. Thompson.

Not sure what I'm going to pick up next, either another of Thompson's books (probably Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72) or reread World War Z by Max Brooks.

Chronicles of Clovis - Saki.

Pwns.

I just reread The Pillars of the Earth and still rate it as a great (long!) read.

Follett's site has info on the sequel "World Without End"
http://www.ken-follett.com/bibliogra...thout_end.html

The series A Song of Ice and Fire by George RR Martin. Dragons, bastards, dwarfs, incest...its got it all.

Bernard Cornwell
 

Highthief, That is an outstanding series, as is his "Warlord" series of Arthurian books. Am waiting to get the final Chapter in his "King Alfred" series. Picked up Cornwell on a whim one day, and have become a devoted reader...

Hey Rube - Hunter S. Thompson

I've only read his Warlord series. It was lent to me by my GF's father as something I might like and I really quite enjoyed it. So much so that I tend to judge re-tellings of the Arthur legend by it.