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Sartre's definately a better novelist than philosopher, but he's awful anywhere IMO. I read the Myth of Sisyphus a while ago, it is absolutely beautiful and is a good introduction to other areas of interesting writing like Dostoevsky's bits about philosophical suicide...

I have never heard To Kill a Mockingbird accused of being a child's novel before, but I've never read it just cos it's a standard text for English lit class and therefore not l33t enough.

Other books and short stories by giphart are certainly better, though usualy still not realy good.

Currently I am reading "the dark jewels", a trilogy of , ummm, forgot the first one, "heir to shadow" and "queen of night". Thing to know about the book: it plays in a world where irritated is standard mood, murder is accepted by law as a reasonable way to calm your anger and agry is something you get after a stupid question or something similar.

I'm reading Macroeconomics by Mankiw to keep my economics studies up to date and also The Art of War from Niccolo Machiavelli (yes, its his). Mankiw is a very cool book - more practical than theoric - and The Art of War is a conversation between italians about the italian army and how to make "things happen" on the field in a period when the italian army was kinda disorganized enough to be innefective.

The Cairo Trilogy of Naguib Mahfouz. I wanted something interesting but not weighing 15 pounds on our Hungarian vacation, and this seemed perfect, as Ive been looking forward to making his literary acqaintance for some time. Mahfouz died just recently in his 90s, I think, and won the Nobel Literature prize a few years back. His work focuses on the individual personalities of people in modern Egypt, how as with all of us, selflessness and selfishness constantly war, allowing things to get better for many, or better for a few at the expense of so many. To put it in extremely simplistic terms.

Besides of DnD rulebooks I'm currently reading the latest release of "Malazan Book - A Tale of The Malazan Bok of The Fallen". Great fantasy serie from Steven Erikson

I'm reading Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. That guy is just amazing! Ever since i first read the graphic novel Sandman written by him, I fell in love with his fantastic stories and his humerous form of writing.

What am I reading? Well, when I'm not reading The Riverside Milton, it's Stalin and Stalinism or Russia: The Tsarist and Soviet Eras or The Norton Anthology of American Literature: Between the Wars 1914-1945. I have no time for recreational reading.

I'm reading the book titled, 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven' by Mitch Albom. Quite an interesting book, to be honest. He's also the author of 'Tuesdays with Morrie.' also quite a good book too.

Once again I am reading both for English as Dutch class (and soon will have to start catching up on my German class as well), so two books at the same time. The first one is The Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams . I've read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy two years ago and thought it was both hilarious as good, but I find less satisfaction in reading the sequel. Basicly, it's the same style and the same story as the first one - or wait, let me put it like this: it's the same style and the same style of the main characters traveling through space, not really following a clear story thread, just winding up on a new planet every ten chapters and having adventures that are so goofy, that you barily mind how far-fetched they are. I don't think that Adams really had a plan of writing for say, a book at a time, he probably had some definite ideas and a plan for the next few chapters, but if something else popped into his mind he just let the story go that way. I do get a tiny bit annoyed this time by this loose style of story telling, and I also don't like the writing style as much as I did two years ago (probably something with me getting older) - the events and actions by the characters described are too technical, the writing more or less lacks a "soul", if you get what I mean. But the humour is still brilliant at times, and is the thing that keeps me reading.

Second book is De Kroongetuige by Maarten 't Hart, more or less a detective about the main guy getting suspected of feeding a girl he secretly went out with a couple of times to his laboratory rats. He gets taken into custody and from there on his wife becomes the main character, trying to find both if her husband killed the girl as if he cheated on her. Where I'm reading now, the man could be both guilty as innocent in both cases, so I really don't know how this will all end. Started off a bit slow and pessimistic, but now that the wife has taken over, it has actually become a very good book.

frogus23 wrote:I have never heard To Kill a Mockingbird accused of being a child's novel before, but I've never read it just cos it's a standard text for English lit class and therefore not l33t enough.

The way I expressed myself was not really the way I meant it to be, since I did not really mean to call To Kill a Mockingbird a children's novell. It's a book where the events get viewed through the eyes of a child, which kinda gives the book an innocent atmosphere, since the girl doesn't understand how bad excactly the bad things portrayed are, so she doesn't bring it in an extra critical or troubling way. It's a book about a girl's childhood as a background for the more important issues of segregation and racism. Definitely more a book to be read by adults than children, definitely a very good book.

Oskatat wrote:Other books and short stories by giphart are certainly better, though usualy still not realy good.

Yes, I agree with you on that one. Giphart's short stories and columns are quite good and I actually enjoyed most of Phileine Zegt Sorry. I even like the man himself when seeing him in talkshows. He just doesn't really know how to handle a long, deep-going story line like the one of a book and that is when things run out of hand. And on top of that, the book Giph was probably just exceptionally plain awful, while his other books are probably indeed better.

Currently, I am reading Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith. I think most of you wouldn't like it. It's a nice, gentle detective book, the second of a set of five, iirc, and is set in Botswana, Africa. The detective is a fat black woman, Precious Ramotswe, usually called Mma Ramotswe, with a lot of wisdom and simple honesty.
I say it's a gentle book; and it is; but all the same McCall Smith's series deals with some nasty issues at times. All his books do; but the stories are told in a gentle, almost comfortable, style, that lulls the reader into thinking nothing is happening - but it IS! Like dozing off in a comfy old chair, then having a broken spring spike your backside. :mischief: :laugh:

Book 11 of the Wheel of Time series - Knives of Dreams
It'll take a long time considering the lack of time I use to read at the moment

At the moment, Plutarchs Lives for a class I'm taking, and In the Name of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy for my own reasons. It's an overview of Romes more notable military commanders.

I also read Cracked magazine from time to time. Old issues of course, so I can relate to them better

The Future of Business, Microeconomics, Computer Confluence, and Introduction to Logic.

If it weren't for those stupid books I'd be reading the last two books to the War of the Spider Queen series, but noooooo; I have to study.

im currently reading "the cry of the icemark" really good book. the best books iv ever read are the inheritence trilogy books(currently only 2. third book is comin out some time summer 2007 i think) Eragon and Eldest, by Christopher Paolini. some claim its a ripoff of lord of the rings, but its great nonetheless. i admit, some things are like lotr but the storyline isnt near the same. i think. i havent read the lotr books in a while, but im pretty sure its nothin alike as far as plot goes.

Right now I'm reading Ubik by Philip K. Dick. I read Man in the high castle before this but didn't really like it. However this book turns out to be pretty good. It's fun to try to figure out what's real and what isn't. It's so obvious the guy was on drugs when he wrote it.:laugh:
@TheAmazingOopah Hey, I'm reading the same thing! I finished HHG and The Restaurant last week and now I'm getting ready for "Life, the univers and everything". The best part, IMO, in the second book is the indirect discusion between the contractor who wanted to put in a new model teleport thingy and the accountant of the band. Did you get to that part?

Professional C# published by Wrox.
Lighthearted bedtime reading.

1984 by George Orwell, Read it a couple times already, never gets old.

Been able to catch up some on my recreational reading for a change. Just finished "The Victors" by Stephen Ambrose. The focus was primarily on Eisenhower and the troops under his command. I like Ambrose's writing style as he tells history primarily by using personal experiences that veterans share with him. People's personal stories (and histories) are what's most fascinating to me when it comes to history. Also just reread Lord of the Rings. Trying to decide what to read next, have many good prospects on my "unread" shelf.

Tom Clancy`s Rainbow Six.