Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy

Started last night, now only 1,450 pages to go! I'll keep you abreast on progress...

Thats funny; i'm about 200 pages into Anna Karenin and loving it.

Now that's much much more than your average bathroom reader there!

Last 3 books
Demian - Interesting, but i think people completely misinterpret it and like it for the wrong reason but im still not sure where the author intended either.
Old man's war - good sci-fi
River of Gods by Ian McDonald -excellent sci-fi

currently reading:
The Fall - i dont know, im half way through and so far all he does is go on and on about how mutch a fraud he feels he is for helping people because it makes him feel good. Its really exaggerated. I hope something interesting/useful comes up. Some good prose through.
Infidel - interesting autobiography
What we believe but cannot prove. - short get you thinking essays, very good

Beyond the Sea of Ice - William Sarabande

Men At Work - George Will

My Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

I'm impressed with your staying power...

Currently reading about 5 - my flat is such a mess I keep losing the ones I've started.

The Dark Tower by King, except it's cheating - I have been looking for The Song of Susannah for a couple of months in the charity shop and decided to skip it for the time being. I've got a large, colour illustrated copy of The Dark Tower and I can't guarantee I'll find it again easily. I told myself I'd hold it in reserve until I found Susannah - I lasted a day.

In my bag - so least likely to get lost - is Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. Took me a little while to get into it, but in hindsight reading it in the pub during a Liverpool vs AC Milan game might have been a reason.

Just finished 6 Graham Masterson books (2 x omnibus). Not that impressed, but I bought them for braindead entertainment and they surprised me with some nice turns of phrase.

Finished Sputnik Sweetheart by Huruki Murakami - didn't impress me that much. I think because it's so short. Some beauty in there, but the two previous books of his (Hardboiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Dance, Dance, Dance)I have read have had the edgy feel of revealing something at the edge of our lives - like if you stepped into the wrong railway carriage you would see a different world. This one seemed pedestrian in comparison. But hey, if anyone wants it send me a PM :)

I didn't have very high expectations, so I thought it was okay. Not so okay that I'm going to get the rest of her books, though.

All of his books stand alone, and you don't need to read them in order or immediately upon publication. I really recommend "Haunted."

Rant: The Oral Biography of Buster Casey was very strange. I tried describing it to someone, and well, you just can't.

Thanks, I really like the first book so its only natural to go onto the sequel. After "My Ishmael" I don't know if I will read other books by Quinn or move onto the list of 10 or so books I have.

I tried four at once and that didn't work. I usually try to go one at a time, maybe two if one book isn't that interesting.

I do the same thing. Usually three at once. 1 literature, 1 sci-fi and one non-fiction. Usually with the literature after a chapter or 2 i feel i just have to sit and absorb what i've read. Non fiction my eyes start to glaze over after few chapters. Than i usually go finish half the fiction book! :-) lol

I typically have two going at once ... one that I carry around, and one that I leave in the special reading room with the porcelain chair.

The book in the reading room is usually one with short segments that lends itself to intermittent reading. Currently I'm reading Mars and Venus in the Workplace.

The best book so far that I had for that kind of occasional reading was The Encyclopedia of Mystic Places ... had a page or two on all kinds of cool sites, both real and fabled, like Glastonbury Tor, Stonehenge, Atlantis, the Piri Reis Map, etc.

Right now it's The Bomb, A Life by Gerard J. DeGroot. It's a look at how it "dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a touchstone of popular culture, celebrated or decried in mass political movements, films, songs, and books." That is, it's a social history of The Bomb.

He does bend over too far backward to give the Soviet Russians the benefit of any possible doubt, and such effort towards the US is not evident, but keeping this in mind allows one to gain much from the book.