What BOOK(s) are you reading?

"Woostah"

You need to sell that "oo" in Woostah as the "oo" in book though. Not WOOOOStah, it's ˈwʊstə .

As for Innsmouth, think of Plymouth. No one says PLY MOUTH. They say Plihməth.

I recently finished A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS, which was pretty good. Nice table reading, at least. Brief article about items from the British Museum. That's the worst part really, that all this awesome shit it at the British Museum, because they took it for the most part. But it well written.

Also read CLOUD ATLAS, which is a better concept than book. Still rewarding as a book, I can recommend it, but I wish it was even better.

Preordered this from Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

jeb wrote: I recently finished A HISTORY OF THE WORLD IN 100 OBJECTS

The podcast for this was simply excellent.

S.

jeb wrote: Also read CLOUD ATLAS, which is a better concept than book. Still rewarding as a book, I can recommend it, but I wish it was even better.

Dammit, that's been sitting on my shelf for almost a year and I haven't read it yet.

I just finished Paolo Bacagalupi's "The Windup Girl", which is an awesome piece of grim meathook future SF.

Semi-recently, I read Lev Grossman's "The Magicians" (wizard school with an R-rating), Ian McDonald's "River of Gods" (AI issues in near-future India), and David Liss' "A Conspiracy of Paper" (intrigue among Jewish stockjobbers and peerage investors in early 18th-century London, with a proto-private eye narrator)

None of them sucked. I'd recommend all of them if you're interested in that sort of thing.

ioticus wrote: Preordered this from Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

Sam Harris has done a total debunking of this book on medical/neuroscience grounds. I will try to dig up the reference. Very sad that, basically, a promo for this ended up on the front page of Newsweek a couple of weeks ago.

ThirstyMan wrote:

ioticus wrote: Preordered this from Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

Sam Harris has done a total debunking of this book on medical/neuroscience grounds. I will try to dig up the reference. Very sad that, basically, a promo for this ended up on the front page of Newsweek a couple of weeks ago.

Wow, that's sad I'd like to see the reference.

ioticus wrote:

ThirstyMan wrote:

ioticus wrote: Preordered this from Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

Sam Harris has done a total debunking of this book on medical/neuroscience grounds. I will try to dig up the reference. Very sad that, basically, a promo for this ended up on the front page of Newsweek a couple of weeks ago.

Wow, that's sad I'd like to see the reference.

www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven

Comics-wise, I finished Big Questions (Anders Nilsen) and Criminal: Coward (Ed Brubaker & Sean Phillips) last week. Big Questions paid off to the point where I went from despising it to wanting to reread it (now that I know where everything's going), and Criminal was ridiculously cliche-ridden. THIS is what nearly everyone is saying is Brubaker's best comic??!? Sorry, I know Brubaker is Jason Lutes' buddy. Out of the few I've read (Criminal, Sleeper, Captain America, Daredevil), my pick would be Sleeper, no contest.

I have it for sale in my comics thread, though. Critically-acclaimed! One of the hottest mainstream writers, doing creator-owned work in the genre that he very clearly loves above all others!

Also in the middle of reading Peanuts, Prince Valiant, Little Orphan Annie, Pogo, Polly & Her Pals, Bringing Up Father, and Captain Easy. McManus' comedic writing on Bringing Up Father is *so sharp*. Enjoying all of these, with Peanuts and Captain Easy at the bottom. Little Orphan Annie...Harold Gray might actually improbably be rising to my top 5 of comics art, ever, the level of those whose art I think transcends even needing to be a comic and just stands alone, picture by picture.

Just biding my time until I pick up my copy of Building Stories, though, really.

dragonstout, I'll be the guy that defends Criminal. I would be hard pressed to pick it over Sleeper, but it is still one of my favorite books. It may be a bit cliched Noir, but that is exactly what he is going for. It is Noir in comic form, and that is a genre that lends itself to cliche. I enjoy it for what it is and understand that it isn't breaking new ground. It is just using a new medium.

I've been on a Stephen King kick lately. I read Duma Key and I'm nearly finished with The Running Man. I really enjoyed the former, although I found myself enjoying the less fantastic and supernatural parts of the book best. This is pretty normal for me. I've always felt King's strong point is his character interactions. My favorite parts of his past books are almost always removed from the horror aspects.

The Running Man has been a fun action romp. Nothing deep here (other than intimations about television's negative aspects and the distopian idea of extreme class divisions), but highly enjoyable.

Not exactly reading but listening to the audio book of Swords Against Death, the second collection of stories featuring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. Such classics as Jewel in the Forest aka Two Sought Adventure and The Bazaar of the Bizarre.

Good Lord do I love how that man wrote. The words he chooses ("sidewise"? How many authors could pull off using that word), the way he describes his fights, and the subtle irony and humor in his tales. Fantastic.

I haven't read these since I was an early teenager and have forgotten how good they are.

One notable scene is where after a fight Fafhrd and Mouser have killed a couple of nameless goons. As the adrenalin of the fight wears off Fafhrd breaks down and weeps for his dead victim while the Mouser is nauseated and sickened by what he had to do. It shocked me because in no other pulp adventures have I read such a reaction by the heroes.

ThirstyMan wrote:

ioticus wrote:

ThirstyMan wrote:

ioticus wrote: Preordered this from Amazon. Can't wait to read it!

Sam Harris has done a total debunking of this book on medical/neuroscience grounds. I will try to dig up the reference. Very sad that, basically, a promo for this ended up on the front page of Newsweek a couple of weeks ago.

Wow, that's sad I'd like to see the reference.

www.samharris.org/blog/item/this-must-be-heaven

I'd still recommend reading the book and forming your own opinion. I understand Harris hasn't read the book (where I read some of Harris' criticisms are addressed) nor will he consider debating the author.

www.skeptiko.com/sam-harris-wont-debate-...-experience-science/

Just finished Philip Kerr's Berlin Noir.

It's a trilogy of books dealing with a hard bitten detective in Berlin. The first two are before the war during the rise of Facism and the second is, maybe, 2 years after the war in a devastated Berlin prior to the Berlin Wall being built. Very good, very complex, detective stories set in an incredible environment for imaginative story telling.

On the strength of those books, I just bought Dark Matter: The Private life of Sir Isaac Newton, which is fiction and sounds just excellent. Will eventually read all of this guys books, I think.

reading Stephen King's 11/22/63. Really liking it so far. just 1/3rd done.

Reading the Requiem Vampire comics as touted by Michael, pretty damned awesome I have to say just coming to the end of the first part, whopping 91 pages!