You are reading what?

I'm in the process of writing my master thesis in history of the middle ages. So I read a lot of special stuff for it mainly - about the Carolingian period between 814 and 888.

Other books I read are e.g. Erich Kästner's "Fabian", the biography about HCB by Assouline. I also started to read some novels about New York City ( Alexander Osang's "Lennon ist tot").
 
Summer page turner - "Without Warning", John Birmingham
Literature - "Norwegian Wood" , Haruki Murakami
Memoir-ish - "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running", Murakami
Neil Stephenson's Snowcrash is fantastic, he lost me lately with the Baroque thing
 
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I read Octavia Butler's "Xenogensis" many moons ago for school. I didn't like it. Her ideas about homo sapiens versus her alien race didn't make logical sense to me.

Right now I'm reading "The Coldest Winter," David Halberstam's bio of the Korean War.
 
Al Patterson said:
Last year I re-read "Friday" and "The Cat Who Walked Through Walls".
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I think I have both of those lying around somewhere. I have to confess I found them unreadable the first time around and the occasional desultory attempt to re-start them has only cemented my opinion. I can't say I found anything he wrote from I Will Fear No Evil onwards to be worth much, aside from parts of Time Enough for Love, though not nearly enough parts.

...Mike
 
enochRoot said:
neal stephenson is my favorite author! the diamond age is a good one, but if you like him at all be sure to power through the baroque cycle. then read cryptonomicon *after* the baroque cycle as it's a continuation.
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Loved "Snow Crash", liked "The Diamond Age" and found working my way through "Cryptonomicon" repaid the effort. But the Baroque Cycle thing just killed me: I ran out of puff half-way through the first one and I've never picked it up again. Not that it's bad, or anything, but I guess I'm more a "Conrad guy" than a "Dickens guy". To me, consision matters. (At least Dickens had the excuse that he was paid by the word in serialisation!)
 
ironically i had three friends, my sister, and my wife encounter the same problem. after a few years they finally dove back in and ended up loving the series. the payoff is the 2nd half of the first book and then the 2nd and 3rd books. give it another chance ;-)

btw...i couldn't read a bit of dickens without falling asleep at the page :D


mfunnell said:
Loved "Snow Crash", liked "The Diamond Age" and found working my way through "Cryptonomicon" repaid the effort. But the Baroque Cycle thing just killed me: I ran out of puff half-way through the first one and I've never picked it up again. Not that it's bad, or anything, but I guess I'm more a "Conrad guy" than a "Dickens guy". To me, consision matters. (At least Dickens had the excuse that he was paid by the word in serialisation!)
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I've been on an Albert Camus tear . . . The Plague and A Happy Death, He is so descriptive it's like looking at a photograph (well, almost).
 
I'm surprised (and happy) to find so many sci-fi fans here. I've just finished re-reading The Moon is a Harsh Mistress as well - about a week ago. Currently reading Peter Hamilton's "The Dreaming Void" - when I'm not perusing stock-take reports! I'm a big fan of Neal Stephenson and highly recommend him. After I've finished this I'll be proof reading a friend's first novel, and then I think I'll be re-reading Neil Gaiman's "American Gods". Though recently watching Ken Burns' "Jazz" documentary has got me interested in F. Scott Fitzgerald, so a wander through the local library is probably going to happen soon. Suggestions? I figured The Great Gatsby was a good starting point.

Cheers,
Steve
 
Short list of recent reads:

Bellow, Saul - Herzog
Diaz, Junot - The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Ellroy, James - The Cold Six Thousand
Fall, Bernard B. - Hell in a Very Small Place
Halberstam, David - The Coldest Winter
Larsson, Stieg - Millennium Trilogy
Lawrence, T.E. - Seven Pillars of Wisdom
Mailer, Norman - The Naked and the Dead
Manchester, William - The Arms of Krupp
Mishima, Yukio - The Sea of Fertility
Ogawa, Yoko - The Housekeeper + The Professor
Prochnau, William - Once Upon a Distant War
Proulx, E. Annie - The Shipping News
Rankin, Ian - Exit Music
Remnick, David - Lenin's Tomb
Schlink, Bernhard - The Reader
Sontag, Susan - On Photography
Steinhauer, Olen - The Confession

If I had to pick one from the list above it would be difficult.

Casey
 
I am reading the 1951 edition of The Leica Manual. I found it in a used bookstore last week ... fascinating stuff. It's got some excellent articles on photography in general, and quite a few that are really making me appreciate the history of this hobby. As a bonus, there's also thorough coverage of the truly Rube Goldberg contraptions they used to make for your old IIIf.
 
"After Dark" by Haruki Murakami. I've read everything he's written, his style and twisted sense of reality just really floats my boat.
 
Quality in Photography - our own Roger Hicks & Francis Schultz
The Art of Outdoor Photography - Boyd Norton
The Great Life Photographers
and my non-photography... The Forgotten Man - Amity Shlaes
 
mgd711,

"Underground" was a little difficult to get through when I started to read it a few years ago. I had a friend on one of the trains just prior and had just passed that station - maybe now that some time has passed I can open the book up again.

Like many, I loved "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle".

Casey
 
i've only read "hardboiled wonderland", but i loved it! i have "kafka on the shore", but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.
 
Quality in Photography - Roger Hicks & Francis Schultz. Good book lots of nice photos and carefully chosen words, has made me think about taking photos rather than buying more stuff!
Mastering mountain bike skills- Lopes & McCormack because some of us are just little kids at heart and like to play in the dirt on our bicycles:eek:
 
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