What are you reading?

Tekk

They're dumb, but good. I read them when I was on a vacation and wanted to just relax. Great 'on a plane' books. 

Amunet

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by L. Julie Horn. I'm addicted to non-fiction, at the moment. I also just finished reading Maya Jewell Zeller's Rust Fish, which is a great collection of poetry, and some bizarro fiction out of Portland - The Haunted Vagina, by Carlton Mellick III...which actually wasn't as terrible as it sounds. I mean, the quality of the writing isn't the best, and the storyline is absurd, but it's worth reading just to say you've read it. The author has written other stuff, but posting the titles of some of them may well get me forum-banned. 

Prior to this, I was reading Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield, Strange Customs of Courtship and Marriage by William J. Fielding, and Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, by Barbara Ehrenreich. The former is probably the only one that will appeal to most Achaeans, being a fictionalized account of the battle of Thermopylae. 

Eld

Amunet said:

The Porcelain God: A Social History of the Toilet, by L. Julie Horn. I'm addicted to non-fiction, at the moment. I also just finished reading Maya Jewell Zeller's Rust Fish, which is a great collection of poetry, and some bizarro fiction out of Portland - The Haunted Vagina, by Carlton Mellick III...which actually wasn't as terrible as it sounds. I mean, the quality of the writing isn't the best, and the storyline is absurd, but it's worth reading just to say you've read it. The author has written other stuff, but posting the titles of some of them may well get me forum-banned. 

Prior to this, I was reading Gates of Fire, by Steven Pressfield, Strange Customs of Courtship and Marriage by William J. Fielding, and Dancing in the Streets: A History of Collective Joy, by Barbara Ehrenreich. The former is probably the only one that will appeal to most Achaeans, being a fictionalized account of the battle of Thermopylae. 

I'm sad that I can't come up with a "THIS...IS...SPARTAAAA" joke to respond to that with.

Averi

Since this is a forum post about books and all, I was wondering, do you guys have any suggestions on what I can read to a 12 year old kid who likes action + comedy?  I read him The Princess Bride and he loved it.  I tried to follow it with Good Omens but he was lost after the first 2 chapters.  He wasn't a fan of the 1st of the circle of magic books either. the first chapter was interesting and exciting but then it just became too un-actiony. XD  

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I am wracking my brain trying to think of something. TT_TT

Chryenth

I might suggest Cry of the Icemark. That was moderately amusing, but I found it a little childish (I'm 19). Windsinger and it's squeals were pretty good - I read them at that age and enjoyed them. That's probably the only suggestions I have, leastways until he's ~16.

Currently reading The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan. I find I'm almost struggling to like it - I can only hope the series becomes more engaging as it goes along.

Adet

@Chryenth: The Great Hunt is by far my least favourite of the first half dozen or so... The key "mechanic" seems to come from absolutely nowhere.  I much prefer The Dragon Reborn.

@Averi: Have you tried him with the Discworld novels?  I can't remember when I really got into them: I think I tried reading them when I was young, and a lot of the jokes just passed me by.  I find the Watch books to be particularly amusing - there's no great loss if you read them out of order.

Another good one is The Lies of Locke Lamora, by Scott Lynch.  I only read that last year - and wasn't doing so with an eye for how suitable it would be for a 12-year old - but again, I thought it was quite funny.

Regarding my personal reading at the moment, I have regressed to childhood.  Specifically, I'm re-reading the Redwall series - in part due to the upcoming game based on the series.  I'm also reading Ian Rankin's Rebus novels in parallel.

Chryenth

@Adet I have Dragon Reborn sitting on my bookshelf, waiting. SOON. (tm)

I was going to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora, and then thought 'This is probably not suitable.' It certainly was funny. Republic of Thieves is meant to come out in October, right?

If you're looking for something a little less 'funny' and a little more 'deep' then I might suggest Elantris.(@Averi, obviously.) On the other hand, I recommend that to everyone regardless of taste because I love it so much.

Taraus

To those speaking ill of King and /or the Dark Tower series, I offer this: *rude gestures*

Jordan's Wheel of Time series was okay. Started out strong, but got seriously waffle-y in the middle.

And I actually just finished 11/22/63, one of King's recently releases (deals with time travel and the assassination of JFK), and am at the tail end of The Pregnant Widow, by Martin Amis, which is actually horrible, both in plot and in writing - summed up essentially as "this story in which the main character is this [whiny] dude and how girls messed with his head in his early 20s, and thus ruined the rest of his life".

Oh, and this quote was the entire reason I started reading the book:

“The death of the contemporary forms of social order ought to gladden rather than trouble the soul. Yet what is frightening is that the departing world leaves behind it not an heir, but a pregnant widow. Between the death of the one and the birth of the other, much water will flow by, a long night of chaos and desolation will pass.” ~ Alexander Herzen

Yue

Discworld novels can be organized by the order they came out in or according to which (group of) character(s) is featured in the book.

Character Series - First book:

Rincewind (terrible Wizard) - The Colour of Magic

Death - Mort (possibly my favorite Discworld novel)

The City Watch (Sam Vimes) - Guards! Guards!

The Wizards - Sourcery

The Witches - Wyrd Sisters

(Note: The Witches and Wizards both first appear in Equal Rites)

The City Watch books are my favorite. Then Death. I have a hard time stomaching the Witch books. Rincewind and the other Wizard books are all pretty good. Then there are a few books that don't fit into these categories, like Pyramids and Small Gods which star main characters other than those which have a series focusing on them but often features the other main characters. (Pyramids and Small Gods were both great reads.)

Some of my favorite Discworld novels: Night Watch, Mort, Pyramids, Thief of Time, Going Postal...

Read them. Especially the Watch series. You will fall in love with Vetinari.

edit: Oh yeah, I almost forgot! The Discworld MUD (officially approved by the author) can be reached at http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/ and is one of the better LP muds I have played. I have had a character on their for... 10+ years I think. It's fun!

Jiraishin

@Averi I wouldn't suggest the Discworld books for a  twelve-year-old if he couldn't get into "Good Omens". I would, however, suggest Diana Wynne Jones if he hasn't read her. Try Homeward Bounders (my personal favorite) and Dark Lord of Derkholm.

Berenene

@Averi Yeah, the first Circle book does suffer from a from that, I think because of it trying to establish things. The other three do pick up. My favourites were 2 and 4.

@Yue that's funny because the Witches are my favourites followed by death.  I don't really like the Rincewind ones very much.  The Watch ones are ok, but I think the only reason I like them is because of Vertinari.

Also, I hear that many people think of Mat from WoT as their favourite character from said series. I personally can't stand him.  All he ever seems to do is whine and complain about how the entire world, and Rand's decisions in particular, are only made because they make his life more difficult.  I don't know if he improves over the rest of the books, I'm only up to book 7, but as it stands I don't see any way for me to start liking him again.  Oh, and one other thing I really can't stand in the books so far is how everyone seems to think that each of their friends is really stupid, can't think for themselves and will get into disastrous trouble unless they themselves make the decisions for them.  It seems that pretty much all the characters are doing this.

Yue

@Berenene: Weird!! Yeah, I'll be honest, I don't like the Rincewind ones very much either. The other Wizard books are good.

Death and the Watch books are undoubtedly the ones I enjoyed the most. Death is a fantastic character, so is Vetinari, but tbh, it was Sam Vimes that I fell in love with. Then Carrot. Then all of the watch (after Monstrous Regiment, etc.) Sargent Detritus (the troll)... omg

"Sergeant! Were you about to kill that man with your crossbow?!"

"No sir! Just a warning shot in the head."

edit: Is the WoT series good? I have played the MUD but never bothered with the books.

(books sitting on my computer desk)

Ender's Game (Orson Scott Card) - one of my favorite books of all time

The Player of Games (Iain M. Banks) - part of The Culture series, fantastic sci-fi 

The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)

The Host (Stephanie Meyer) - actually a decent book, much better than that fairy-vampire BS she wrote

Halo: The Fall of Reach (Eric Nylund) -- these are some of my favorite books, favorite sci-fi books

Halo: The Flood (William C. Dietz) -- and one of the best "soldier hero" stories I have ever found

Halo: First Strike (Eric Nylund) -- R.I.P. Chief

The Game of Thrones (George R.R. Martin) - Haven't read this yet, hear it's good

Master Chief Petty Officer John-117 is a SPARTAN-II commando of the UNSC Naval Special Warfare Command. He became one of the most important heroes of the UNSC during the Human-Covenant war. With nearly 30 years of active duty, he is one of the most decorated war veterans in the United Nations Space Command, and has earned every known medal in the UNSC except the Prisoner of War Medallion. (Read them, they're good.)

Berenene

It's not bad, but like others have said, it does get a bit waffley.  He likes to go into a LOT of detail of things, but I don't mind it.

Trevize

Achaea.

Tania

I love the Witches, too. I like the Watch books, but not as much as I do the Witches.

Melodie

Discworld Witches books are fantastic. I've also played the Discwotld mud @Yue mentioned on and off about as long as Achaea, and while the learning curve is steep, if you have a friend willing to help you get started, it's a lot of fun! It's just too bad the roleplay is lacking.

As I mentioned in OOC raves, I recently chewed through about 2/3s of The Hunger Games in a day at work. I need to find a copy to actually finish it, then go ahead and read the other two. The boyfriend also recently picked me up some other books, including A Game of Thrones, and a four book series that is a mixed romance/fantasy thing by Diana Gabaldon that starts with Outlander. I hardly know where to begin!

Edit: Oh! Almost forgot to list some I've read and liked. Lesse... one of my all-time favorite fantasy series was the Sword of Truth books. It had it's ups and downs, but few books made me so -emotional-. I would literally have to take a break for some hours just to get away from how depressing the series could get. Loved them so much, though. Long books and a little bit of everything to make them enjoyable and very re-readable.

Blujixapug

Averi said:

Since this is a forum post about books and all, I was wondering, do you guys have any suggestions on what I can read to a 12 year old kid who likes action + comedy?  I read him The Princess Bride and he loved it.  I tried to follow it with Good Omens but he was lost after the first 2 chapters.  He wasn't a fan of the 1st of the circle of magic books either. the first chapter was interesting and exciting but then it just became too un-actiony. XD  

Any suggestions would be much appreciated. I am wracking my brain trying to think of something. TT_TT

Animorphs? Animorphs was awesome when I was around 12.

Kyrra

Animorphs. Loved the books as much as the tv show when I was younger.

Firien

Melodie said:

The boyfriend also recently picked me up some other books, including A Game of Thrones, and a four book series that is a mixed romance/fantasy thing by Diana Gabaldon that starts with Outlander. 

The Outlander series is actually seven books long, with an eighth to be released this fall, I think. I hope you like them!

I bought an excellent Christmas card featuring the Death of Rats and Quoth the raven. You can see it here. 

Melodie

Oh wow, really? I figured with the copyright date of the Outlander copy I have being 1991, the series was long over. Good to know it has more!

Berenene

Ooo, another one that I recently reread after finding it when I unpacked all my books after moving was Sorcerer's Son by Phyllis Eisenstein.  I actually picked it up way back at high school. I was helping out in the library, and every year they get rid of books that are older or haven't been checked out for a long time.  Well, I dived right in and took bagfulls of them home with me.  That one in particular turned out to be really good.  I didn't know it at the time, I only recently found out that it was actually part of a trilogy.  However, the ending didn't feel like it was part of one, so I didn't feel like I'd missed anything by reading the second book 11 years after I read the first one.  The only downside is that the publisher that was publishing the books went out of business before she finished the third in the series.  But the 2 of them in that series are still quite good.

Adet

One problem with these forums is that you can often tell when someone's been too lazy to type out an author's name, and has just pasted it in from somewhere else... 

Another problem is that the smilies are all vile.

Tekk

@Berenene I stopped liking the WoT about 5 years ago. The books are dull, everyone woman crosses her arms, drinks tea, tugs a braid, and thinks men are idiots. Every man tamps a pipe, lays back on an elbow.....well you get my drift. 

Berenene

@Adet it wasn't laziness. I was unsure how to spell her surname. Rather then make a mistake, I looked it up and copied it over from another page.

Skye

Chryenth said:

I was going to recommend The Lies of Locke Lamora, and then thought 'This is probably not suitable.' It certainly was funny. Republic of Thieves is meant to come out in October, right?

I have been meaning to get a start on that book for YEARS. that and the Malazan series.

The Discworld series has incredible shelf-life though. I've been re-reading Pratchett's books for years when I should be starting new ones *coughcough*^^^

Adet

Berenene said:

@Adet it wasn't laziness. I was unsure how to spell her surname. Rather then make a mistake, I looked it up and copied it over from another page.

Sorry - this is what I meant about the lack of (acceptable) smilies.  It was meant as a tongue-in-cheek comment (in part about invisible formatting), rather than a dig at you.

Yue

@Melodie - so, you, Tania, and Berenene have convinced me to give all the Witch books a shot, so now I have something to read for a couple weeks. You said you play the mud, too? I love it. Discworld and Achaea are definitely my two favorite muds. We may have to meet up so I can steal all your shiny things.

Melodie

@Yue Glad you decided to give the books another try. Also, I'm not PK! I'm afraid I'm untouchable. :P

I don't play like I used to, but the boyfriend and I log in to steal from Sto Lat, Djb/the harbour, BP, etc to maintain a house. Mostly play a witch and a Pishite (you'd think I'd follow the sea god, but small showers is more amusing). Send me a PM, maybe we can hook up at some point and rob the new city (Ephebe? I think) blind!

Back on topic: I decided to start Game of Thrones, since I only have the first book anyway. So far it is interesting, if a little difficult to follow who is what and where. Hoping it picks up, though.

Zael

Reading World War Z at the moment.

Vayne

Not technically reading them, but I have been listening to Manly P Hall lectures.