GameBanshee Forums

Like i said i havent read many books over the summber.
I think i finished 1 book over the past 4 months.
Have 3 unfinished books.
But i want to diversify what i read.
I mainly read politics and international relations books.
I was just wondering what is on the bedside table of the SYMers.
What you reading and if there are any books you guys would recommend to read.
And please lets maintain a level.
If you want to recommend as reading James Joyce i will seriously kill you

I'm actually rereading the Dragonlance Chronicles right now, Watership Down, and the new Drow novel, Dissolution.

I read a good autobography Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng. It's about her life in prison in communist China during the cultural revolution. Very good.

I've just finished re-reading the Otherland books by Tad Williams. There're 4 of them, and they're each thicker than just about every other book I've ever read, but if you can get through them they make an excellent read. Sci-fi, about a super-internet/VR type thing. Highly recommended.

I am currently reading Great Apes by Will Self, quite bizaare, it features a man who goes on a night of debauchary and wakes up living in a world run by apes, i haven't got that far in it yet, but it is very witty and verbose. He uses words that i have never even seen in my life before.

Just finished Clans of the Alphane Moon by Philip K D!ck, not as good as Do Robots dream of Electric Sheep, but surreal and interesting none the less. It can be quite hard to keep hold of where the story is going but interesting none the less.

Recommendations:

That depends, i read a great deal of crime novels, James Ellroy is my current favourite, out of his books i would recommend the Big Nowhere and American Tabloid, both really good and even the prose is written to the times, so it has a kind of bebop feel to it American Tabloid features a great deal of what surrounded the Kennedy assasination, like the bay of pigs etc.

Thanks alot guys.
I need to read more, and i think i will be picking up around 90% of the books,here as most of you read better literature then i would.

What i am reading is Politics related.
Pakistan and the US / Disenchanted Allies.
Good book, covering the relations over the past 50 years.
Havent gone to far in it, but it seems to be objective.

Well, I am halfway into the first drizzt book, "Homeland", by R.A. Salvatore. Excellent writing IMO.

Dying

Im dying to get my hands on some more Paulkaniuc books (I spelled his name wrong, he wrote fightclub) his book CHOKE is what I want next. just gota find the time.

thug

Reading:
Java Thread Programming
Systemdeveloping
Distributed Systems
and
Modern Operating Systems

besides this - there isn't time for much else.

I decided to read Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury. Amazing book, one of the best I've ever read. The whole idea of humans and martians (I won't spoil it anymore) is very interesting. A great sci-fi book.

Also read "Servants of the Shard" (Drizzt). A good book, not in the same calibur IMO of the Dark Elf trioligy or the first few books in the Legacy Drow series, but still good. No Drizzt in this book. Its all Artemis. An interesting twist towards the end. Jaraxle and Eterni aren't that bad after reading this. This one continues from the Silent Blade. Its much better than Spine of the World, which was one of the worst books in the whole Drizzt series. Hopefully all the characters can get reunited for more adventures in the Sea of Swords and later books.

Currently reading Robert Heinlein's "Number Of The Beast". I picked it up in an used book store, and I must say it is a piece of crap. All of the characters do nothing but squabble amongst themselves about very, very petty things. The book's treatment toward the female gender is ridiculous at best and blatantly offensive at worst. The ideas in this book weren't original or innnovative, and I can't believe it was actually a best-seller once. The worst part is that this book is actually quite long, and I am giving up on finishing it.

I've been reading Dante's "Divine Comedy" which is a three book series about Dante getting to see hell, purgatory, and heaven. Very interesting and well written, even for non-christians imho.

I have also been reading the "Otherland" series mentioned by Kameleon, currently on the second book, very nice combination of sci-fi and fantasy.

I'm reading the truth(Terry prattchet) at the moment, but I'm waiting for the amber spyglass, and two oher books in a series and 1 other book in the series.

I'm reading the Discworld novels too - so far, I've read The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic, The Fifth Elephant and Thief of Time.

I don't read any books at the moment, only scientific journals.
Nature, Science and Neuroscience letters were the last ones I read. The next book I plan to read though, is The Soulmountain by Gao Xinjian, Chinese writer who got the Nobel prize in literature 2000.

WANNA BIKIT!


'lephant!

I'm on the same boat as Xandax and CE. Currently about halfway through MCSE guide for 70-215: Windows 2000 Server training kit. Whoever writes books for Microsoft should be shot! This book reads like a software instruction manual!

I just finished rereading three mysteries featuring the T'ang Kingdom character, Judge Dee. The Dutchman Robert van Gulik (an important diplomat, in his real job ) wrote 'em back in the 1950s. They're pretty much in the vein of modern detective stories, but filled with a wealth of accurate cultural incident because van Gulik was a world-renowned Asian cultural historian. The books are a good, very light read, and they touch on religious, national, and sexual morays of the time.

There's a book I've been meaning to read for some time, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, by David Landes, Harvard professor emeritus in history and economics. That's next up, and I'm looking forward to it.

Tom Clancy's...

... The Bear and The Dragon.