What books are you reading right now?

john eliot gardiner's back: music in the vaults of heaven.
it's quite enjoyable. i'm learning a lot about 17th century music from it.

still wading through gibbon's decline and fall of the roman empire. i'm somewhere in volume 2. lots of whacking and dismembering. every so often, gibbon takes a break from that to do some sophisticated analyses. then it's back to whacking and dismembering.

 

I've recently replaced my old broken Kindle with a Kindle Fire. To my surprise, it was really easy to gain possession of all my old books again from the cloud.
So I reread the first three books of the Star Force series by B.V.Larson and discovered there are now 8 books in the series.
I'm almost finished the 4th book now called Conquest.
It's a really good series about aliens coming to Earth

 

um. the gardiner book is about j.s. bach. criminy.

 

Just finished Sue Grafton's W is for Wasted on audiobook and moved into The Killing Floor. Emotional Intelligence by Someone Coleman is coming in the mail on Monday.... an actual book. I'm excited.

 

Thomas Pynchon's latest - The Bleeding Edge

 

"Cather in the Rye"....never read it in Jr. High and wanted to finally see what it was all about. Very real slice of life dealing with mental illness. I was surprised, actually. Looking for a better gem next.....any suggestions? Would love to know the top 5 books according to our readers here at tfp.

Gimme a book anytime. It's always better than the crap on TV. Oh and thanks.....

 

Sherrilyn Kenyon's Dark Hunter Series- Styxx It was the other side of the story to Acheron,Her other book about one of the brothers

 

Today, I read "Tourist Season", by Carl Hiassen.

 

I followed your link and liked the look of this.
So I downloaded Raft, Timeline Infinity, Flux & Ring...
I've just started Raft (about 17% of the way in) I'm enjoying it so far.

 

this is one of the reasons that I like this thread. I just finished Transcendent this morning. You should download that as well ( I think I got my copy from Tuebl.ca). I think I'll try Ring next. I know these Xeelee books are supposed to be stand alone, but I'm trying to read them in order as best as I can. Just not sure what that order is... (ahh, i just read that this book isn't part of the Xeele series o=but is the 3rd and final volume of the Destiny's Children series. Oh well, now I don't have to read the first two)

Transcendent:

http://www.amazon.ca/Transcendent-Stephen-Baxter/dp/0345457927/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1384781213&sr=8-1&keywords=transcendence+stephen+baxter


I noticed that Doris Lessing passed away yesterday. She's considered a 'feminist' writer and that may be so. But she brought some of her sensibilities to bear on her 'sci-fi' work that really made for a deep and enjoyable series of an alternate society. Check out her Conopus in Argus: Archives series - which consists of five novels: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canopus_in_Argos

1) Shikasta - A secret history of Earth from the perspective of the advanced Canopus civilisation that is thinking in eons rather than centuries. The history spans from the very beginning of life into our own future. The book ends with a metaphorical telling of the trial of Socrates
2) The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five: Depicts the influence of unknown higher powers on interactions between a series of civilizational "zones" of varying degrees of advancement that encircle the planet Earth. One zone is representative of an overtly feminine high civilisation initially coupled by royal marriage to a militant and male civilisation. The novel culminates with the latter, male, civilisation allying with a tribal female realm again following directives from Canopus.
3) The Sirian Experiments: Focuses, like Shikasta, on the history of Earth, but from the perspective of visitors from Sirius rather than Canopus. The Sirians are depicted as a highly managed society with fascist overtones, that attempt experiments on lesser civilisations while trying to mitigate the stagnation of their ruling class. The story is told from the perspective of Ambien II, one of a peer group of five who rule Sirius.
4) The Making of the Representative for Planet 8: The story of the civilisation on a planet that, because of interstellar "re-alignments", is slowly facing extinction, and Canopus's relationship with them. The story is greatly influenced byRobert Falcon Scott's Antarctic expedition, and is Lessing's homage to it.
5) The Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire: A story of Canopean agents on a less advanced planet; explores hazards of rhetoric and mirrors events in revolutionary societies such as Communist Russia

 

I'm a few chapters into Pride and Prejudice. I'm not sure how I've made it this far without reading it, to be honest-- my high school English teachers liked the Bronte sisters more than Jane Austen, I guess. It's more amusing than I thought it would be.

 

A confession of sorts. I have read all six of the books in the "Earth's Children" series by Jean Auel. They are not very well written, & are atypical of my normal reading choices. Somehow I got hooked after the first book, The Clan of the Cave Bear, and kept going even though I really didn't care for the second book, The Valley of the Horses. The parts about Ayla's survival skills were OK, the many mentions of Jondular's looks and massive "woman maker" not so much. It really does reach the point where even a horny virgin would say: OK, Auel, enough already, seriously, we get it--he's tall, handsome, muscular, and has an incredibly large penis; no woman could refuse him.

I would reccomend the EC books for light reading, when you need to put your brain in neutral. Younger readers would probably very much enjoy them (please note that some of the sex, esp. the cunnilingus, gets very descriptive).

 

I must admit, I've never read Pride & Prejudice myself.
I tried to read Pride and Prejudice and Zombies once by Seth Grahame- Smith but I found the language too difficult. I had trouble following the story and I never finished it.
I liked Seth Grahame- Smiths other book, Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. But didn't like the movie.

 

I'm into Team of Rivals. Been meaning to read this for a long time.

 

I recently read The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, I was expecting "a great American novel."

The 'simple country folks' dialogue was almost comical at times. Hungry & broke folks eating meat instead of beans was a serious oversight (based on personal knowledge). Way too many loose ends. 'Mother's milk' ending was certainly unusual, but disappointing, a major loose end.