Books and Literature

[Pickie]

Started reading Shutter Island after watching the trailer for the movie. It's alright so far.

[Tarquinius]

I've noticed a lack of Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves in this thread, which disappoints me. Trying to explain the book is difficult due to how it's written, but I'll try. The first plot is about Johnny Truant, who finds in his recently-deceased neighbour's apartment a massive stack of notes and pages. As he pieces the notes together, he learns that they're a review of a non-existent movie entitled The Navidson Record. The second plot is Zampan?'s review of The Navidson Record, a movie about a family who decides to move into a new house to try and solve their family issues. After a vacation, however, they discover that the house has changed and is now larger on the inside than on the outside. This is only the surface of the plot, though. As the book goes on, the first plot begins to become influenced by the second plot, and a third plot is eventually added in. It's complex and difficult to read and understand, but I highly recommend it.
I've also began to read Pynchon's Mason & Dixon, but I haven't read enough of it to talk about it here.

[_Zac_]

I don't read, but I'm reading Metamorphisis by Franz Kafka right now. Just got finished with ONE.

And by "I don't read" I mean I havn't read a book for enjoyment (until Kafka) since I read halfway through Eragon in middle school.

And for Psychology class I have to read "Walter Dean Myers" by Slam! Oh wait, I thought that giant text at the top was the title. Don't read it, everything about his style is so pointless and it feels as if it was written by a gradeschooler.

[Menorah Jams, Pham]

Currently reading Personal Days by Ed Park.  It's less like a modernized, less "how to improve the workplace" Dilbert, more like how people in the workplace deal with office politics, isolation, firings and downsizing, in a modern context.  It's actually really freaking hilarious and I highly recommend picking it up.

[HakureiSM]

I'm building pacience to read The Lost World.

[Senimiligone]

Reading Netochka Nevzanova by Dostoyevskty

[Toasty]

Reading The Critique Of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant, wanting to obtain and read The Magus by Francis Barret, The Grimorie of Armadel, and many more.....

[rogles]

I just finished Vacuum Diagrams by Stephen Baxter yesterday. Frickin' delicious SF; it takes place from like 3500 AD to 500,000,000 AD, the end of the baryonic universe after the godlike Xeelee's conflict with the dark matter Photino Birds. The writing is just enchanting, it even supersedes Larry Niven, who for a while I considered the king of SF. Other SF I'm into include the Known Space universe by Larry Niven(obviously), and the Eschaton series by Charles Stross, though I've only read one of the two books in it, Iron Sunrise. I do consider it to be the best hard SF book I've read, but it depends on what you're looking for. Iron Sunrise delivers a very dark and gritty, almost cyberpunk-like plot, while Known Space deals more with fanciful theoretical physics and alien species.

For fantasy I really only like Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. Discworld is some of the most well-made and hilarious stuff I've ever read, though His Dark Materials is a whole different experience. The concepts Pullman introduces with his multiple universes and epic plot kind of tower above Discworld's offerings, but like Eschaton and Known Space, it depends on what you're looking to read. The Amber Spyglass, book three of His Dark Materials, is the only story of any kind to evoke a strong emotion from me other than laughter. The end actually had me depressed and mopey for a good three hours. But all the books I've mentioned are worth a read.

[kreb cycle]

Been reading a lot of weird science fiction lately; Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep etc... Not bad at all.  I've also been re-reading a lot of books by Kurt Vonnegut.  I think everyone should read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five at least once.

I like sci-fi in general, since it seems to me to deal with the things that are really most important in the world;  who and what we are, where we're going, what kind of world we really want to live in.  Most people think of SF as an action genre, people using technology to blow stuff up, but there are some really touching stories in the genre.

I like fantasy when it's really imaginative, like harry potter and narnia...  And lovecraftian horror, strangely enough for the same reason.

[kreb cycle]

Recently I started The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which I can't stop feeling I should've read a long time ago.

Haha, I know the feeling, although I myself read HGttG when I was around 12.

We're all mostly harmless after all.

[Alfred F. Jones]

Just finished readin' The Secret Garden. Best thing in the world for someone obsessed with flowers.

Now I'm just confounded as ta why I haven't read it before. Oh well.

[Toasty]

Reading machiavelli's "the prince". Also got ahold of the grimorie of armadel.

[kreb cycle]

"DO NOT STEAL BOOKS FROM YOUR LOCAL LIBRARY, PLEASE - Voile Staff"
I recognize this quote from SOMEWHERE...  But I can't for the life of me place it.  I almost want to say it's from a really old Infocom text adventure, but I can't be sure...

[Toasty]

Speaking of....

For the heck of it i have stolen a copy of "Desert notes, River notes".

DA ZE!

[Tengukami]

Reading Shame in the Blood by Tetsuo Miura. Probably one of the most believable love stories I've ever read. And by that I mean it's emotionally difficult, turbulent, joyous, heartbreaking and hilarious.

[HakureiSM]

I started The Parsifal Mosaic, but it will be stalled till last month. This month is rather important.

[einhorn303]

I tend to read multiple books at a time, so I can divide up my flittery attention span. Right now I'm working on:

The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
American Nerd: The Story of My People, by Benjamin Nugent
Naked Economics: Undressing the Dismal Science, by Charles Wheelan
Last and First Men, by Olaf Stapledon
The Year's Best Science Fiction: Twenty-Third Annual Collection, edited by Gardner Dozois

I usually try to read about 5 books per month...for December I finished:

The Theban Plays, by Sophocles, translated by Ruby Blondell (for college)
What Makes You Tick?: The Brain in Plain English, by Thomas B. Czerner
Crystal Nights and Other Stories, by Greg Egan
The Notenki Memoirs, by Yasuhiro Takeda
Extras, by Scott Westerfeld

Plus I've gotten a whole big new stack of new books from amazon.com, woot.

Been reading a lot of weird science fiction lately; Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson, Vernor Vinge's Fire Upon the Deep etc... Not bad at all.  I've also been re-reading a lot of books by Kurt Vonnegut.  I think everyone should read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five at least once.

I like sci-fi in general, since it seems to me to deal with the things that are really most important in the world;  who and what we are, where we're going, what kind of world we really want to live in.  Most people think of SF as an action genre, people using technology to blow stuff up, but there are some really touching stories in the genre.

I like fantasy when it's really imaginative, like harry potter and narnia...  And lovecraftian horror, strangely enough for the same reason.

I mostly read SF and non-fiction myself. SF is "the literature of ideas." There really is so much more out there than the generic Hollywood stuff most people think of...there's a big divide between SF media and SF lit. It's all about the "sense-of-wonder," the planet-sized distributed nanotech consciousnesses and quantum cross-brane missions of love and stuff.

Have you ever read Greg Egan? He's one of my favorite authors, for pure hard science and speculation. Though he's able to introduce good characterization and emotion too, so it's not too dry. But he still has stories with summaries like "some polis residents, Diaspora style, perform a highly complex experiment regarding quantum physics and existence." Though I have tons of other favorite SF authors and books I could rant on and on about.

Just finished readin' The Secret Garden. Best thing in the world for someone obsessed with flowers.

Now I'm just confounded as ta why I haven't read it before. Oh well.

I read that and "A Little Princess" over the summer. Frances Hodgson Burnett is genius. I love those sentimental old English-y novels. Also, Victorian England had some sort of proto-moe going on.

[insaeno]

Seeing as we're on the current SF roll, I'll put in a recommendation for Alastair Reynolds and his Revelation Space series (Revelation Space, Chasm City, Remption Ark, etc). They're really interesting, with elements of Lovecraftian in them. Although he's relatively recent, you'll find him on Amazon.com.

Highly recommend his work to anybody who loves sf.

Also, I'm reading Dostoyevsky's The Double right now, can anybody recommend me some other classics from this period?

[Aoshi-shi]

I just finished "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime" by Mark Haddon. It's really quite interesting. Though after finishing it, it made me realize how much the main character, Christopher and I are so much alike. -Plays ominous music.-

[Alfred F. Jones]

Extras, by Scott Westerfeld

I like you already. Scott Westerfeld is a genius. Right now, I'm typing with The Last Days nestled into my chair next to me. His Uglies series is great, and while Extras (am I the only one who thought of Aya and her Moggle as Aya and Momizi?) isn't the best one in the series, it's still worth your time. I do like his Peeps series as well. A smart, believable, biological vampire story? Yes please.

I read that and "A Little Princess" over the summer. Frances Hodgson Burnett is genius. I love those sentimental old English-y novels. Also, Victorian England had some sort of proto-moe going on.

A Little Princess is great. Also, even though it's quite far from Victorian England, I get those same kinds of vibes from Anne of Green Gables, which I need to get back into at some point.

[Fetch()tirade]

The Great Ghastly Gatsby

[Barkof]

I'm currently reading L'?le myst?rieuse (The Mysterious Island) by Jules Verne.

I have a bunch of books I'd like to read soon (in order):
The Republic by Plato. I've read some dialogues in the past few months and liked them.
Notre-Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre-Dame) by Victor Hugo. I've listened to the musical a couple of time and I really enjoyed it.
A few more books by Jules Verne that have been in my room that I've bought a few years ago and never got to read...

I'd like to read those before summer starts. I'll probably have to read a few more books for Philosophy/English/French classes this spring.

[Toasty]

I recently got my own solid copy of Critique of Pure reason, so I don't have to use a library copy.

Hooray.

[Nobu]

Hey, a literature thread. I've been wanting to get back into reading for quite some time now, as it's something that I've always enjoyed yet always put off as well. Maybe this thread will help out.

Right now i'm working on the Art of Happiness, with the Stuff of Thought by Steven Pinker currently on the backburner.

[theshirn]

Overload of Terry Pratchett (Vimes and Moist, and some Death thrown in, but mostly Vimes, because he's possibly the best character ever written) and Brandon Sanderson (Warbreaker and third Alcatraz).  About the only things making being at home tolerable.

[Fetch()tirade]

Just finished Gatsby. Probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

[Barkof]

Oh God.

I just finished reading The Mysterious Island, and it was amazing. You have to love Jules Verne's style (a lot of descriptions, which I believe is part of the beauty of his books) and a bit of science fiction. Considering the story is during the 19th century, though, most inventions he describes exist now. There aren't a lot of inventions in this book though, since it tells the story of five people landing on an island (a mysterious one, you guessed), and they don't invent a lot of things, but it's very interesting to see them build a place for them with nothing at all to help them.
The events happening around them kept me up at night,  wanting to know more and I had to hold myself not let tears of joy flow out at the end.

The Republic, here I come!  :V

Edit: I almost forgot, I suggest you read Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea before reading this one. You'll understand why.

[Jam-Kiske]

Just finished Gatsby. Probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

Don't tell my mom that.
We gave her 2 obviously depressing books and that one to read. She says she doesn't want to be sad so I'm telling her to read Gatsby as it's not glaringly sad right off the bat.

[einhorn303]

I like you already. Scott Westerfeld is a genius. Right now, I'm typing with The Last Days nestled into my chair next to me. His Uglies series is great, and while Extras (am I the only one who thought of Aya and her Moggle as Aya and Momizi?) isn't the best one in the series, it's still worth your time. I do like his Peeps series as well. A smart, believable, biological vampire story? Yes please.

A Little Princess is great. Also, even though it's quite far from Victorian England, I get those same kinds of vibes from Anne of Green Gables, which I need to get back into at some point.

I first enjoyed one of Westerfeld's books back when he didn't write YA, "Evolution's Darling," a nice little SF novel. I haven't read any of his other YA, but I do have Leviathan sitting on the top of my "To read" stack I never thought of that Aya connection, but now I can't unsee it.

Yeah, I want to read Anne of Green Gables too. And not just so I can better enjoy the anime adaptions!

The Republic, here I come!  :V

I just read it myself for college last semester, and there's one particular edition I recommend:

http://www.amazon.com/Republic-Plato/dp/0872207366/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

The major difference is that instead of presenting the text in prose form like the original, ("That's true," he said. "It is indeed, " said I. "But I have another question...") it presents it like the dialogue in a play or a screenplay, ala:

CEPHALUS: That's true.
SOCRATES: Indeed, it is. But tell me something else...

I think it makes the book flow way better. It's far more orderly and clear, not just long jumbled paragraphs of "I said," "He said," where you can barely tell who's talking. Plus it's a good translation and has notes throughout the book. After reading it I liked it so much I got my brother a copy for Christmas. It's got some really fascinating and challenging social concepts in it. Also, "lol the Greeks were all pedos."

[Nietz]

Just finished Gatsby. Probably one of the most depressing books I've ever read.

For me that was The Unbearable Lightness of Being.