What books are you reading now?

Converse about your favorite literature and reading in this study.

Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Aeroprism » Thu Jan 1, '15, 6:39 pm

I got my hands on a few series, namely the Perry Jackson books, the Enders Game books and the Hunger Games books. I figured I'd start with "something easy and light" so I picked up Hunger Games.

My God. I have not been this entertained by a book in a long, long time. I find this infinitely more riveting than the Game of Thrones series and by far. It's simple, elegant and unpretentious. I will be honest, twice now I had to put the book down to go to sleep and I did NOT sleep (last night in particular, happy new year). This book puts my imagination on overdrive. It's THAT good.

I haven't seen the movies yet. I will when I am done reading all three volumes. I'll be done with the first today.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Bragatyr » Thu Jan 1, '15, 11:50 pm

You'll have to let me know how you like the Percy Jackson stuff, I've heard really good things about it. I still need to get around to reading Harry Potter at some point. I did read Ender's Game, and loved that. Great book. The author is crazy and an extreme homophobe, but it's a good read.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Tanith » Fri Jan 2, '15, 5:20 am

The Hunger Game trilogy is almost impossible to put down once you get started. I also admire the stark prose. Good stuff.

I vowed to finish the Harry Potter series last year, but I stalled somewhere in the second to last book. JK Rowling REALLY needed an editor for the last four books. Then I switched to Philip K. Dick and finished three of his lesser-known novels. One of them was good, the other just OK, and the last one was an abomination of run-on sentences, unusual punctuation and choppy dialogue. It was less than 200 pages long, but it took me more than a week to finish it because I had to read every paragraph about 3 times each.

Right now I'm between books. I'm not sure what I'll read next.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Icecypher » Fri Jan 2, '15, 6:08 pm

I read Percy Jackson and the Olympians like four years ago. They are easy to read and are good at keeping the interest throughout the whole series. Mr. Riordan shows his knowledge (and love) of mythology, so another good point, if you like Greek myths, is to rediscover things you knew or discover new ones you did not.

Last year I read The Kane Chronicles, which uses Egyptian mythology, instead. They are only three books, so it is easier to finish that series. Not really connected to the Percy Jackson series (they only mention the New York area being territory of other gods).

Now, for a series I think may here would have read already, last year I bought and read the Space Odyssey series. Man, I loved it! I already loved the first movie, but the books are so much better in many ways. :mrgreen:

Last night I finished my second reading of Duma Key. Now I will start Carrie (I thought I would manage to read at least two books during my vacations, which end in two days, but I also did other things, and Duma Key is relatively long).
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Icecypher » Tue Jan 13, '15, 6:47 am

Finished Carrie and will start Lisey's Story.

I started it on 2006, but that is when I started getting all tied up for free time, plus the setting of the first chapters was something my 26 year-old self was not too ready to read (a widower going through her late husband's belongings and remembering him), especially coming from Cell, which is all action practically from the beginning.

Now I am finding all the signs of the darkness that will come later (they are not really hidden, I suppose I simply was not expecting them to be so slow back then).
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Wolf Bird » Tue Jan 13, '15, 8:52 pm

I've actually found myself reading a lot of OLD classics that I had to read for classes way back in high school. Two reasons for this: the first is that they were made freely available on Kindle by volunteers. The second is because many of them were hard to really enjoy in the high school context, considering being forced to read them, write papers, look at them a certain way, etc. But now, both removed from that context and more mature, I want to give them another go. Such books include titles like The Jungle, Heart of Darkness, Pride and Prejudice, A Tale of Two Cities, and many others.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Bragatyr » Thu Jan 15, '15, 2:42 am

I remember that phenomenon of being forced to read slightly tedious stuff in school (and accompanying terrible, oppressive feeling). I actually enjoyed most of my school reading, oddly enough, even the stuff that all the other kids were mortally bored by, like The Scarlet Letter and A Tale of Two Cities and stuff like that. I probably should reread some of them at some point, though, because I doubt that most teenagers can really fully comprehend serious literary works, at least on any kind of analytical level (which reminds me that I think the U.S. educational system should be overhauled pretty seriously, but that's for another time). I've gotten where I hate to reread stuff, though, unless it's really layered to begin with. That's why I love Gene Wolfe, I can reread his stuff for ages and still discover new meaning.

I've actually been meaning to go back and read a number of classics for the first time. I never read Gulliver's Travels, for example, or The Red Badge of Courage.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Rylen » Wed Jan 21, '15, 1:41 am

Just finished Genesis of Shannara three book set. Over all a very grim and gritty story. But the ending ties in elements from the previous books. With a few neat surprises along the way.

Starting on the next book the two books in the "Legends of Shannara" I'm about 20 page into Bearer of the Black Staff which takes place a full 500 years after the events of the previous set. Terry Brooks has some amazing talent.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Bragatyr » Wed Jan 21, '15, 3:54 am

Right now I'm back to the Norse saga stuff with Bjarnar saga Hítdœlakappa. It's one of the better sagas I've read so far, which is saying a lot, not quite in the same league as Hraknfels saga but very much on the nose with its Icelandic sense of foreboding and subtle psychology. I plan to update the Wikipedia page on it when I get a chance, because apparently the saga isn't widely translated and the Wiki has practically nothing about the plot.
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Re: What books are you reading now?

Postby Tanith » Thu Jan 22, '15, 2:30 am

I found another PK Dick paperback at the used bookstore. "Our Friends from Frolix 8." Score! Already reading it. :D I also picked up a couple of Robotech books I'll read later.
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