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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

Amph What book are you reading right now?

Discussion in 'Community' started by droideka27, Aug 31, 2005.

  1. I Are The Internets

    I Are The Internets Shelf of Shame Host star 9 VIP - Game Host

    Registered:
    Nov 20, 2012
    Yeah...I haven't read anything in the last 6 months or so that's really grabbed me. It feels like I'm reading for the sake of reading. It's becoming a chore again which is frustrating. I thought branching out and reading authors and genres I'm not used to would expand my mind, but it's just made me really fatigued.
     
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  2. King_of_Red_Lions

    King_of_Red_Lions Jedi Grand Master star 4

    Registered:
    Mar 28, 2003
    Nausea by Jean-Paul Sartre

    A historian gets a sick feeling from everything in his life.


    Medea
    by Euripides

    Medea plots revenge against her unfaithful husband.


    Some Prefer Nettles by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

    A husband becomes obsessed with puppet theater while considering a divorce from his wife.


    Where Angels Fear To Tread
    by E.M. Forster

    An English family thinks they can raise a child better than its father after the death of the mother.


    Scalia's Court: A Legacy Of Landmark Opinions And Dissents by Antonin Scalia and Kevin Ring


    Scalia's writing was entertaining and readable. He strictly adhered to originalism and warned against judicial activism. His dissents were often more logical than the majority opinion.

    The Last Jedi by Jason Fry

    I stopped reading the EU after Disney bought the franchise. The novelizations of the movies are the only Star Wars novels I read now. Fry's sentence structure can be awkward to read but the novel was an improvement over The Force Awakens.


    The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

    Hammett set a high bar for me with The Maltese Falcon. This novel was easy to read, clever and entertaining.

    Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

    I read Lolita and Pale Fire years ago and thought they were brilliant. This one didn't meet my high expectations.


    The Complete Idiot's Guide To Publishing Children's Books by Harold D. Underdown

    Publishing a book is on my bucket list. Children's books can be a difficult market to break into but I want to give it a try.


    The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

    This novel moves fast and left me wanting more.


    Copyediting And Proofreading For Dummies by Suzanne Gilad

    I saw several typos and errors in the novelization of The Last Jedi - it must have been rushed to publication. It made me curious to research how one becomes a proofreader.


    Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan

    I watched the first few episodes of the series on Netflix and decided to pick up the novel. It was a decent read. Some reviews I read say the sequels are vastly different than the first novel so I may not continue the series.
     
    Last edited: May 20, 2018
    Ava G. likes this.
  3. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Yep. Not quite 200 pages in, love it and already bought the next one.
     
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  4. Dagobahsystem

    Dagobahsystem Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Rogue One novelization. It's really good so far.
     
  5. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    By Fire Above by Robyn Bennis. Sequel to The Guns Above, her novel about a woman commanding a war zeppelin in a vaguely Napoleonic-era world. Good characterizations and dialog, great action scenes, and surprising plot twists. Sign me up for the next one.
     
    Master_Lok likes this.
  6. SWpants

    SWpants Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2004
    Listening to Dragonquest by Anne McCaffrey
    I really wish you could give half-star ratings on Goodreads and Amazon. It's better than a 3/5 but not as good as a 4/5. I love the tech things but have a lot of issues with the human interactions.
     
    Grievousdude likes this.
  7. soitscometothis

    soitscometothis Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Jul 11, 2003
    If you list some of your favourite books, and a list of recent books you found disappointing, I'm sure people here could get a good idea of what you like and make suggestions. It can be very depressing to read a few disappointing books in a row.
     
  8. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    I recommend Senlin Ascends and Arm of the Sphinx. I just read them this past year, a 3rd is due out later this year. They are 2 of the best books I have ever read.
     
  9. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 27, 2004
    Just finished; The Gray Man by Mark Greaney. There's very little, if anything, here that's fresh or original. What sets it apart from the action/thriller flotsam and jetsam is its execution. Greaney really puts his hero through the wringer. I'll definitely continue the series. - 7.5/10

    About to begin; Got a number of choices here. Jeremy Robinson's #3 Kaiju thriller Project 731, John Flanagan's Ranger's Apprentice. But I've had enough breathing room and it's time to continue w/The Expanse series book #7, Persepolis Rising.
     
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  10. Sarge

    Sarge Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Oct 4, 1998
    @Juke Skywalker I enjoy the Ranger's Apprentice books, but they're definitely YA material. Expect something light and fun that won't challenge you.
     
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  11. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 27, 2004
    @Sarge I didn't do a lot of research before I picked it up, so I didn't know it was YA, but actually that ended up being a plus. Though I tend to stick to a select few genres (Sci-Fi, Adventure, Historical Fiction and Fantasy), I do like to intermix the tone/depth, w/lighter fare acting as a sorbet in between heavier fare. Plus, light and fun might act as a nice buffer @ a time when work has been anything but :p.
     
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  12. SWpants

    SWpants Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2004
    I've been in a slump the past few weeks too, and it's affecting how I view books.
    What I've done is pick up comics - and not necessarily TPBs or graphic novels, but a few issues of a comic series. In them, plots are thrown at you at a fast rate, and you can easily visualize what's going on. That's actually helped me a bit and I picked up a Star Wars GN and busted through it faster than usual (while still enjoying it).
     
    Juke Skywalker likes this.
  13. Dagobahsystem

    Dagobahsystem Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Sep 25, 2015
    Night by Elie Wiesel

    Reread. To remember.
     
  14. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    @Juke Skywalker glad you liked The Grey Man. I started reading it seeking something like Day of The Jackal and the blurb for GM read like it. of course, it is not like that but more like Bourne minus the brainwashing.
     
  15. SWpants

    SWpants Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2004
    Legacy Volume 2: Book 4

    I'm sad this subseries was only 4 books long, but also kind of glad because it wasn't as good as the original "Legacy" subseries.
     
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  16. Grievousdude

    Grievousdude Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 27, 2013
    The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
     
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  17. Juke Skywalker

    Juke Skywalker Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 27, 2004
    @VadersLaMent I'd actually never heard of the series until I saw you posting about your experience w/it, which inspired me to look into it. I'm always on the lookout for a series because that sort of gives me a deeper bench to draw from. It's one I'll definitely continue with. I was on the lookout for just such a series in this genre to mix in w/my adventure/sci-fi/fantasy. I'd given the Jack Reacher series a try, but it didn't hook me. I was considering Vince Flynn and Brad Thor when I came across your posts. The Goodreads reviews were good, so I bit, and I'm glad I did.

    It's definitely more in the Bourne mold, though I suspect the machinations behind Gentry's fallout w/his former employers will be fleshed out as the series goes along. But the first novel is a lean, mean and very propulsive start w/o a lot of the bloat that can weigh down traditional "origin stories".
     
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  18. SWpants

    SWpants Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Oct 28, 2004
    Rereading Sorcerer's Stone because I figure something I've read before and like can help me with my slump.
     
  19. Rogue1-and-a-half

    Rogue1-and-a-half Manager Emeritus who is writing his masterpiece star 9 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Nov 2, 2000
    [​IMG]

    Death Comes for the Archbishop
    (1927) – Willa Cather

    This book follows the efforts of two Catholic missionaries to establish a diocese in New Mexico in the mid to late 1800s. This is one of Cather’s absolute masterworks. The Professor’s House is the only one of her works that I would even consider putting above it and maybe not even that one. Cather’s writing is perhaps more stripped down than usual in terms of the prose; her description of the lives of these two men is sometimes spare, but always beautiful. The book is a really moving exploration of a lot of things; culture clash, male friendship, sincere faith, the workings of grace, all spread over a period of decades. The attempt to cover so much time means the book is episodic, in some ways more a connected series of short stories than a full novel, but the cumulative emotional impact is definitely that a novel in that, by the time this book winds its way to the final chapter, you feel like you have known these characters over a long, long time and care about them deeply. The title gives away the ultimate ending of the book and perhaps Cather chose to do this so that we always have a sense of time passing and the fragility of life in this place and period. We never forget the real humanity of these people and the ultimate fate of them. There are sections of the book I think I’ll never forget; a night spent stranded in a cave during a brutal storm, an encounter between a priest and a poor, mistreated servant woman, the ugly tenure of a greedy priest in a small pueblo and his ultimate fate. It’s deeply moving and, I reckon, not just for the faithful; it’s a vision of religion lived out at its most gracious and compassionate, a vision needed by both the faithful and the non-religious. It’s ultimately a warm, gracious book, full of deep empathy for its characters. It’s a true masterpiece, probably Cather’s last one and as a cap on a career with more than just one or two masterworks, it’s absolutely perfect in the peace it ultimately makes with the end of a life well lived, not something to be feared, after all. 4 stars.

    tl;dr – emotionally effecting historical novel tells a story of grace, faith and compassion filled with human warmth; Cather’s last masterpiece and perhaps her best. 4 stars.
     
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  20. Kenneth Morgan

    Kenneth Morgan Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    May 27, 1999
    Just finished Space Odyssey by Michael Benson, about the making of "2001". Now reading Cats v. Conniff by Frank Conniff, about his housecats suing him for defamation of character.
     
  21. VadersLaMent

    VadersLaMent Chosen One star 10

    Registered:
    Apr 3, 2002
    Finished Assassin's Apprentice. It had a Name of the Wind feel to it. It's long winded but very interesting. Moving on the the sequel, Royal Assassin.
     
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  22. Moll

    Moll Force Ghost star 5

    Registered:
    Jan 3, 2016
    A Series of Unfortunte Events - The Slippery Slope. :)
     
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  23. gezvader28

    gezvader28 Chosen One star 6

    Registered:
    Mar 22, 2003
    thats on my wish list , is it any good ?
     
  24. Kenneth Morgan

    Kenneth Morgan Chosen One star 5

    Registered:
    May 27, 1999
    Yes, it is. I'd read several books about the movie before, but this featured a lot of details I wasn't aware of. Very extensive and very interesting.

    And Frank's book is hilarious.
     
  25. Master_Lok

    Master_Lok Force Ghost star 6

    Registered:
    Dec 18, 2012
    Crawling through Twenty Days of Turin; it is well written; but my brain is bogged down by a mix of school and work so I am looking for research material instead. Discovered the Hong Kong Film Archives finally published one of their books in English: When the winds blow wild, Hong Kong Cinema in 1970s. It’s part background, part interviews ( oral histories ), including Shaw Brothers folks Ti Lung, Chen Kuan Tai (who revealed he lost a pinky filming Killer Constable!) and Lau Kar-Wing. Sammo Hung is also interviewed. Some intense things I never knew about. Ti was particularly kind about David (John) Chiang which was nice because they got into a nasty feud while at their height and refused to work together afterward.

    I hope the same team translates more of these books. Great stuff if you’re into film history. Download it for free here.

    I will have to read Cats vs. Coniff - sounds hilarious.
     
    Last edited: May 25, 2018