Books you're currently reading???

[Griff]

Islands in the Stream- Hemingway It was actually edited after he died. It isn't as riveting as his other stuff but still interesting.

Just finished my parallel read V. Pretty dark stuff.

[Hoof Hearted]

Originally Posted by Griff

Islands in the Stream- Hemingway It was actually edited after he died. It isn't as riveting as his other stuff but still interesting.

I just finished "The Sun Also Rises". Much preferred "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and I would like to read "Death in the Afternoon".

I read a short story in college, "The Short and Happy Life of Francis MacComber(sp)" and can't recall if Hemingway wrote it...but I remember I loved the story for all its' hidden meanings and symbolism.

[orthodoc]

Originally Posted by Hoof Hearted

I just finished "The Sun Also Rises". Much preferred "For Whom the Bell Tolls" and I would like to read "Death in the Afternoon".

I read a short story in college, "The Short and Happy Life of Francis MacComber(sp)" and can't recall if Hemingway wrote it...but I remember I loved the story for all its' hidden meanings and symbolism.

Yes, 'The Short Happy Life of Francis MacComber' was written by Hemingway. It's one of my favorite stories. Like you, I didn't find "The Sun Also Rises" great, but I was also probably too young when I read it. Doesn't mean I'd like it now, though - what I can remember, I don't much like.

I just finished "The First World War" by John Keegan. Great book, very detailed. It made me both sad and furious, reading about the rigid thinking and ineptitude of the generals that resulted in casualties I could hardly comprehend. More than 250,000 just at Gallipoli! Agghh! Keegan stresses that they didn't use the communications technology available, i.e. radio. Unbelievable.

Currently I'm working through a number of P.D. James's novels. She's marvellous. And she's in her eighties and still writing the best crime fiction out there!!!

[Happy Monkey]

Originally Posted by Ibram

Just checked out A Feast Of Crows from the school library!

Cool! Good library.

[Ibby]

Brand new library, just opened yesterday. It's been closed for remodelling, and its waaay cool now.

[WabUfvot5]

Currently making my way through Heimskringla. Yes, the whole thing. Yes, it's fucking massive.

Grabbed the version from Project Gutenberg. 500+ pages. Uff da! Formatted it into two columns, 10 point font, horizontal page layout. The printed 2-up (two pages side by side on a single piece of paper) to a PostScript file. 192 pages 8-) I can upload the file if anybody wants it.

[lumberjim]

The Time Traveler's Wife.

damn good.

What do you do when you meet the love of your life when you're six years old? And he's 36, but he's really only eight years older than you are? If you're Clare Abshire, you wait for each of his visits throughout the years until you meet him in real time.
Henry DeTamble is a time traveler, although not by choice. A genetic mutation causes him to spontaneously travel through time, disappearing from view, leaving behind his clothes and possessions, and arriving naked in another time and another place. For the most part, this is a curse. Henry often has to turn to petty crime to feed and clothe himself when he travels, and must run from people, thugs, or the police. Eventually Henry returns to his present time, bringing only the bodily injuries he's suffered back with him. Sometimes he travels back in time and visits an earlier version of himself. One of the places to which he travels often is the meadow behind Clare's house, and throughout her younger years, Clare meets him there and falls in love with him.

[Guyute]

Just finished "Ghost Force- The Secret History of the SAS". If half this stuff is true, or even if it isn't, it's a great book.

[JayMcGee]

If you liked that, Guyute, you might like 'the phantom major' by Virginia Cowles..... the story of David Stirling and the founding of the SBS/SAS

[bluecuracao]

I just found a book called Vamped in my office, by David Sosnowski--"Author of Rapture." Anyone ever read it? Is it total crap?

[Shawnee123]

I just finished the worst book ever...The Hidden. Lucky it was a library freebie.

[Clodfobble]

I finally gave in and decided to read some of the Heinlein books we have around the house. (Generally I don't like hard sci-fi, so though it obviously came highly recommended I kept putting it off.) I started with--don't ask me why--"Job: A Comedy of Justice," and this almost stopped me from reading any of the others at all. What a retarded book.

But then I moved on to "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress," which I definitely enjoyed but wasn't blown away by. I think it would have been better if I could appreciate firsthand how revolutionary it was at the time it was written. As it is, I can intellectually know it was an amazing book for its time, but it didn't awe me. I felt the same way about J.R.R. Tolkien.

Now I've just started "Stranger in a Strange Land." This one I'm liking the best by far, and I have high hopes that it will help Heinlein live up to all the recommendations everyone gave me.

[JayMcGee]

Early Heinlein was very good. The Moon.. and Stranger... are probably his two finest works. 'Time enough for Love' is also not bad, but by this time he was letting his politics show. Check out his early stuff 'the puppet masters', The man who sold the moon, orphans of the sky.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by JayMcGee

Early Heinlein was very good. The Moon.. and Stranger... are probably his two finest works. 'Time Enough for Love' is also not bad, but by this time he was letting his politics show. Check out his early stuff 'The Puppet Masters', The Man Who Sold The Moon, Orphans of the Sky.

Jay, the man's politics always showed. Even his first juvies from the very late forties and early fifties, Red Planet, Rocket Ship Galileo, Space Cadet, Farmer In The Sky, all include their Heinlein Lecture at some point. It's perhaps easiest to spot when you read a fistful of them one after another. Some of his later material conceals the Lectures more invisibly and smoothly, usually by spreading it throughout the plot and dialogue. Starship Troopers and Tunnel In The Sky come to mind, both of which have a coming of age as the backbone of their plots. The Lecture hits several points: liberty is good; competence also, and the more varied the better; maturity is essential; skill at arms can save you when nothing else will do; discipline is accomplishment's handmaiden; government should be minimal, for a government that governs most governs worst -- and that was the essential plot of more than one of his novels. It's all through Time Enough... with its hero who sticks around long enough to take a very long perspective -- personally. I'd call that one his masterpiece. You can run your life around his Lazarus Long's Notebooks entry on "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

Some Heinleinery, including other links

[Spexxvet]

I just finished Dance Dance Dance, having found out about it here. I was not really impressed.

I just started Going Postal, having heard about the Discworld books here. I hope it's a good one to start with.

I'm not too influenced by you guys, am I? Just don't tell me how good it is to jump off a bridge, kay?