I've started reading Dostoevsky's The Gambler, and it definitely has me hooked already with a story that could blossom into something very intriguing.
In between mock drafts and scouting reports and highly questionable Toronto media trade rumours, I'm reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. I'm enjoying it, though perhaps not in the manner the author intended.
Thanks for reminding me I really should pick up that book, I'm curious. I'm reading To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf again. I'd like to go on and on about but I'd sound like an idiot trying to put it into words. The first time I read it it changed the way I perceived life. It was a very strange shift, it was what I needed. I'm enjoying it even more the second time around and in a different way. This is going to be a book I come back to repeatedly for the rest of my life.
I'd like the next book I read to be The Bell Jar, by Silvia Plath. However, currently, I'm reading my own writing over and over and over and over....
Before summer vacation I was reading Midnight by Dean Koontz. But since summer, my brain has sorta switched off.
I've already read 4 books since summer started mid June. I just picked up yesterday from my library the new Sarah Dessen book, Along for the Ride, and a book called Breath by Tim Winton. Winton's an Australian writer, supposedly a really excellent one, though I've never heard of him before.
BattleAxe (The Axis Triology) by Sara DOuglass Been telling myself for close to a decade id read her books, so i have. Apart from changing POV more times then i'd like, its decent i guess.
This summer I've been assigned to read The Bible for my next year's English class. So far I've finished Genesis. It's going to be a very long summer.
The Bone Garden, by my dear Tess Gerritsen - her books are the best crime/thriller stories I've ever read!
Tremble the Devil: it's an E-book Tremble the Devil, a book about terrorism. It's hard for me to pinpoint what the thesis of this book is, it tackles the issue from so many angles. Basically if you're looking for an objective, rational view of terrorism, this is the book for you. Here is a brief synopsis of the book I posted on another website where a discussion is being held. I finished reading TTD the other day. I was hooked from the first page by the author's story telling abilities. He kept me engaged by illustrating his points with stories of historical figures and groups. Not only was it an interesting read, but I could tell that it was the fruit from a long background and extensive knowledge of his subject. (I started reading before he changed the front page to include his own background. My guess was the author was ex-SF.) TTD explains that terrorism is not just suicide bombers and IEDs. Terrorism and its cousin the Commando have an ancient history that has evolved along with the development of technology and has been employed by all cultures and creeds (The Green Berets were one of the first modern innovators). The author takes us inside the minds of terrorists, withholding national bias, to show how and why they fail or succeed, their strengths and weaknesses at organizing and executing their plans, and how their intense family-like bonding allows them to sacrifice their own lives, as well as thousands of others. In a word, he makes them human. Not to say he is compassionate to their causes or deeds, but human in that they can act rashly, are capable of rallying others around them, and can be quite ingenious. One of the coolest things to me was that it sparked my interest in an area I am pretty ignorant of. He’s linked a lot of his sources to Amazon’s site so I could check out the books he’s read and see if any interest me. For instance he explained that Arabs write in Arabic which is very old and formal, kinda like Shakespearean English. But they don’t speak that way. While the spoken tongues that exist now are descendants and cross-breeds of the original Arabic, the weird thing to me was that they don’t write in those dialects at all. I guess language and writing are so intertwined in my mind, I can’t envision the two separate. Very cool. The flaws I found with the book were mostly grammatical, as I have limited knowledge on the culture, history, and current affairs of the Muslim world and terrorism's lengthy history. With that in mind I won’t try to summarize the book, or analyze his arguments. I will say that it was an objective, well researched, and surprisingly humorous analysis of a subject of immediate importance. __________________
Reading Contact by Carl Sagan. It's a book I've always been meaning to read and I'm loving every page of it.
I finished Ayn Rand's masterpiece Atlas Shrugged two days ago; it took me a good month and a half to complete, but I did. I picked up John Grisham's first nonfiction work called The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town the same day; I figured it would be a good read and much lighter than Rand's. I was right; I just finished it about fifteen minutes ago. I remember when getting through The Firm by Grisham was difficult. I was in sixth grade, I think. Now I've got to decide what to read next; I was thrilled with Rand's work with Atlas Shrugged and picked up The Fountainhead which was published a few years prior. I've also got Dan Simmons' Hyperion (the first one) to page through; I've had that one waiting for a while now. I bought it the same day I bought Atlas Shrugged... I figure I'll start Hyperion and write my essay for Atlas Shrugged so I dont confuse my philosophies or write a Fountainhead-esque essay when it should be based only on Atlas... So I guess I'm reading Hyperion now. Heard it was fantastic.
Otherland : Volume one City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams Not half bad seeing as I'm not that much of an SF fan I thought it was fantasy when I bought it. Serves me right for not reading the first few pages before I bought it.
None But You by Susan Kaye It's a retelling of Jane Austen's Persuasion but told from the point of view of Captain Wentworth.
I'm reading The Vampire Lestat by Ann Rice. Ann Rice, by the way, totally destroys anything Stephanie Meyer's ever created. =]
Audrey Niffenegger - The Time Traveler's Wife Just finished it. Beautiful book. Wonderful story. That was also the first ebook I ever read. And I can't wait to go buy it.
The Jester - James Patterson A charming book, my absolute favorite. Good action, morals, strong character development, and love to tie it all together. Everything a great book should be. However, I feel as if I am one of, say, seventeen people who will remember this book in five years, so...
I like Anne Rice, but I picked up on of her later books, Blood Canticle and I must say that I was disappointed by it. Interview with a Vampire on the other-hand was excellent. I've just finished that too. I agree, very beautiful and I'll admit that I almost cried, despite being a bloke, I spend the afternoon feeling depressed. I refuse to see the movie because the book was so good. I totally recommend it to anybody. It's funny in places, though it's a romance but it's not like a typical romance and it's something that even a person who dislikes romance novels can enjoy, it is quite an original concept and heartbreaking at the end. You might like Kazuo Ishiguro, or at least his novel, "Never Let Me Go", it's a very good book, it's a friendship story set in England, it has it's own sci-fi twist to it, but it's very down-to-earth with it like Time Traveller's Wife is. I am currently reading: Blackmoor by Edward Hogan, the guy went to my University and studied the same course, so I thought I'd pick it up and give it a read.
