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I'm returning to Steven Erikson, and his "Malazan Book of The Fallen." He's a Canadian archaeologist and anthropologist who's brick sized books blow every conventional understanding of "Fantasy Literature" out of the water. It sure ain't D&D. By book 4, "House of Chains," I found myself taking notes while reading! He covers so many aspects of evolution, religion, folklore, fantasy and philosophy I actually had to have a break after the aforementioned book, just to get my brain de-scrambled. That was a year ago. Since then I've read it again, joined discussion groups covering every aspect of the material, and now I'm ready for "Midnight Tides."
Which probably means Yuletide in my house will be a lot of sleepless night of pondering, a lot of arguing and not a fat lot of parttaking in the annual family "yada-yada-let's pretend to be friends for one day every year."

I can't wait!

Moonbiter, that sounds intriguing. I will look for his books while prowling the dozens of bookshops around town this weekend.

Lately, I have been reading the ingredients list on packaged foods. Two things grab my attention: "spices" and "natural flavoring." Hmmm.

You do that! Be warned, though, it is actually considered hardcore Fantasy, so don't misunderstand the subject matter. It's just that it is soooo much more. Oh, and if anyone here feel that they've "read it all" in the field of Fantasy/Dark Fantasy, and feel it's all the same'o same'o, then don't hesitate to ask for some advice. If there's one thing I DO, it's fantastic fiction. fun fact: In 1997 I actually had to move because the books squeezed my bed out on the sidewalk.

If you want a really good read try and find the Wanderers trilogy by Caiseal Mor. The amazon UK site has a few used since it's now out of print. I'd catagorize it as historical fantasy. It's about the Romans coming to Ireland, how they brought "civilization" to an "uncivilized" land and how the "pagan" Irish preserved their beliefs. It was so controversial that it was never printed in the US. Only the UK and Australia. I liked it as much or more than the Lord of the Rings. I don't care what anyone says.

A good story...

Try Shaturanga. It's a post-apocalyptic fantasy but it takes place like 2000 years after a major comet impact. The oceans are gone, leaving mankind to rebuild from scratch on the ocean floor. It has come cool & unusual civilizations and a lot of action. Most of all the story is satisfying.

My girlfriend recently picked up a book titled Why Men Don't Listen & Why Women Can't Read Maps By Barbara and Allen Pease. She has a warped sense of humour and its pretty funny as well as being quite informative. Alas I can now say that there is scientific proof that women for all their effort simply cannot parallel park amongst other things. The less said about men though the better I think...

I have been meaning to get my hands on Terry Pratchett's recent novel Going Postal. Just wondering if any else has read it and is it any good?

*bump*

I'm currently reading Isaac Bashevis Singer's Shadows on the Hudson, very good book. I just finished reading After Many a Summer dies The Swan, from Aldous Huxley.

Both fantastic books, I can say.

Rainbow six for the 10 time. Damn i love Tom Clancy. Excellent author.

I just started reading Ilse Witch by Terry Brooks.

Good book. But then again i am biased as i like Terry Brooks alot.

Well i just finished Skavenslayer by William King.

It had it's moments. But I wouldn't recomend.

I just finished Chainfire by Terry Goodkind. If you've been reading the whole Sword of Truth series, it is an absolute must read. Goodkind finally got back to his original style of writing found in the first four books.

Right now I'm reading The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Really a suprisingly good book so far.

I don't think it's surprising to find Dumas a good author

Currently reading Khrushchev's memoires and collected works of Lenin...these guys are intensely boring.

I'm reading a translation of Tale of Genji. I wish I could read it in the original Japanese, but I've never been fond of learning languages. Tale of Genji, for those who don't know, is considered to be the worlds first real novel, written about 1000 years ago. I haven't even gotten through the first 100 pages, but I'm really enjoying it, though I wouldn't reccomend it to anyone who's phazed by 1000+ page books.

Just finished Rainbow six and Ironically i am reading the Quran. I also wanted to know can anybody recommend a bible or version of a bible for me to read? I know there are various versions or something like that. Any ideas?

@CM, try any bible. There is not a big deal of differences, but the RCC bible has a few books that the others bibles neglect.

I'm currently reading Pushkin's The Captain's Daughter, and its surprizingly cool for such a short book.

Donna Tartt's "the Secret History"
This is the most brilliant book I've read in the past two years. The story is intruiging, the characters are very well developed and you become addicted to the writer's smooth, but detailed writing style. Plus I'm a student Ancient Greek too, which makes the book even more interesting

I am reading Battle Field earth.It is a great book so far.But the Movie sucked @$$!I hated John Travolta even more beacuse of that.He did it beacuse of some colt...A sifi series writter made a whole religion behind it all.So he made the movie.I hate him for it though.

New international collection of critical revisionist essays on the period of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Excellent book entitled "The Waning of the Renaissance," that points out all the problems that derived from the change of world view in Europe from the Renaissance, measured against its striking developments. Very well-researched, and not (for a change) limited only to France or the Low Countries.

I've been reading Bolshevik history itself recently...

'A People's Tragedy' by Orlando Figes, apparently a paragon of contemporary post-modern historiography is absolutely brilliant. It is refreshingly uninterpretative and bottom-up (which is very rare where history of Leninism is concerned) and gives decent credit to the Russian people including the peasant class who are normally a kind of crippled mule in history books. Also brilliantly researched and eminently readable, although quite long.

'Let History Judge' by Roy Medvedev is an interesting piece of angry anti-Stalinism, but is fascinating coming from a hardline Leninist Marxist, writing during the Cold War. A lot the information comes from (nowadays) pretty commonly cited sources:the various Sochineniia, Reed, Khrushchev etc, but it must have been very exciting at the time, and is mostly interesting in revealing bloody details about Stalin's terror methods, and demonstrating how Leninism as a cult managed to pervade even into serious academia fourty years after his death is Russia.

'The Road to Terror' by John Arch Getty is more like a source book than a history text, which is absolutely brilliant. It is an extremely selective collection of unbelievable documents from about 1928 onwards which shows what a gruesome vipers' nest the upper echelon of the Bolshevik party always was.