What BOOK(s) are you reading?

stormseeker75 wrote: I'm in the middle of 1984. I'm digging it. Orwell was either a Communist who didn't really believe the cause or he was fucking terrified of it.

That and Crime and Punishment are two of my favorite books, and both were assignments for school at some time or other.

TXTing, tweeting, and modern political rhetoric remind me of Newspeak so hard it hurts. Epic, LOL, awesome, anything PC, etc.*

*had to include etc. for fun.

I recommend checking out his essay on Politics and the English Language if you are interested in further discussion of this topic.

I finished Dance with Dragons by George R.R. Martin... So little happens in these last two books that it astounds me. It's like 4 and 5 are part I of a trilogy. Here's hoping that 6 and 7 are as good as 2 and 3.

Dance with Dragons was boring as FUCK. If Martin uses the word cyvasse one more time I'll jam it up his ass.

I only read Game of Thrones. It had its good points, but Martin is not above using terms like "throbbing manhood," which is hacky no matter how you slice it.

Yeah, some of those parts induce even more cringes as the series goes on. I wish someone had the stones to tell him to just edit that stuff out.

San Il Defanso wrote: I've been reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It's an impressive book so far, if a little dense at times. I'm about 100 pages from the end at this point, and I'm excited to get into the sequel as well.

Be aware that the overall story is split down the middle between the two books. There is zero resolution in the first book. I was pretty pissed when I finished it because I hadn't realized this was the case. Build up, build up, I see the end coming, build up, build up, THE END PLEASE START BOOK 2.

Orwell was a communist or socialist. He was one of the people who believed that communism was good but that the soviet execution of it was what was flawed.

As to phrases George R. R. Martin should be dick punched should he ever type them again, one must include:

"man grown"
and
"mummer's farce"

Both are WAY over used.

Disgustipater wrote:

San Il Defanso wrote: I've been reading Hyperion by Dan Simmons. It's an impressive book so far, if a little dense at times. I'm about 100 pages from the end at this point, and I'm excited to get into the sequel as well.

Be aware that the overall story is split down the middle between the two books. There is zero resolution in the first book. I was pretty pissed when I finished it because I hadn't realized this was the case. Build up, build up, I see the end coming, build up, build up, THE END PLEASE START BOOK 2.

Thankfully I received this warning, so when I was at Half-Price Books buying the first one I grabbed the second one too. We'll see if I read it right away, I tend to run out of gas when I go directly into a sequel. So I might burn through some escapist novel before hitting part 2.

repoman wrote: Orwell was a communist or socialist. He was one of the people who believed that communism was good but that the soviet execution of it was what was flawed.

Otherwise known as a Trotskyist.

Even Lenin never called himself a communist (or the Soviet system BTW) he was trying to reach socialism, which then might lead to communism and then the state withering away to some form of social anarchism.

Just finished reading Watership Down with my girls (9 and 7). That's always been a favorite of mine, but this was a particularly great experience over the past few months to share that together with them.

Grudunza wrote: Just finished reading Watership Down with my girls (9 and 7). That's always been a favorite of mine, but this was a particularly great experience over the past few months to share that together with them.

Awesome. I read The Hobbit with my daughter at about that age and it was one of my most cherished experiences. She cried at the end and when I asked her why she said "Because I'm going to miss the characters".

One thing I look forward to with my boys (one is 2 and the other is on the way) is reading to them. The Hobbit is very high on the list, as is Watership Down. Those are lovely books.

I finished Hyperion last night. Overall, I'd say it's just about the best sci-fi I've read in years. While he's able to craft a solid and complex scientific core, he focuses instead on characters and emotion. It's a lyrical story that never falters and always remembers to show instead of tell. It's true that it basically stops instead of ending. But it's still a tremendous book, and I'm looking forward to getting into the second half of the story with The Fall of Hyperion.

My two oldest hated reading The Hobbit and put it down after about 30 pages each. They were about 10 and 12 at the time. So one night the 10yo boy asks for a bedtime story (for the first time in 7 years) and I just riffed The Hobbit to him off the top of my head. I haven't read it since 1980 or so. It took three nights to complete, and when I was done I told him I had gotten the story from the book he wouldn't read. He indicated he didn't have to now.

Next he asked what other books I could recite to him from the top of my head and I was stuck. I needed a theme he was interested in and relatively short so I downloaded Dunsany's stuff off of Gutenberg in the audio format and listened to a story each day on the way into work so that I could give it to him that evening. Dunsany doesn't necessarily believe in happy endings so my boy had to stay awake because the lead character could die in the last six words of the night.

Dunsany needed to write more. Once that stuff ran out I was empty. I considered Lovecraft but it was bedtime after all.

S.

SAG - I read it to her, which is a very different experience. She could enjoy the language without having to work at it. Our big beautiful edition of the Hobbit with full page paintings didn't hurt, either.

SAN II - I have had a copy of Hyperion collecting dust on my bookshelf for YEARS. Guess I should crack it open, eh?

engineer Al wrote: SAG - I read it to her, which is a very different experience. She could enjoy the language without having to work at it. Our big beautiful edition of the Hobbit with full page paintings didn't hurt, either.

I'm reading the Battletech rulebook to the kids instead. Maybe I should spend the time reading literature to them? It's an interesting option.

S.

engineer Al wrote: SAN II - I have had a copy of Hyperion collecting dust on my bookshelf for YEARS. Guess I should crack it open, eh?

For sure. It's not exactly an easy read. The first 25 pages especially just throw tons of new terms and characters at you, but that's the biggest hurdle. Past that it's lovely. I also would recommend getting the sequel if you haven't already, since as Disgustipator pointed out Hyperion doesn't so much end as it stops.