I'm sure you're aware, but he does have a new (Tyrion) chapter up on his website:
http://www.georgerrmartin.com/if-sample.html

That sample is 2 years old as well =*(

Just finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I liked it. Some parts were over-the-top dark, but nonetheless I liked the story and characters. There were some heavy exposition passages on the front third that could have been shortened, but the book really picks up two thirds in.


On a related note, this was the first book I read on my nook. Overall, I loved it but I have to put some blame on the publishers: the formatting sucks. Huge gaps delineating pages, apparently, but why? Occasional typos. And with these they want a price increase on Amazon's nice $10 or less price point? Give me a break.

And on THAT note, an interesting article on a point I hadn't considered about ebooks/ereaders.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/books/31covers.html

It's happened to me many times where I buy a book because I've seen someone reading it and the cover intrigued me.

Just on the topic of book covers- I have to take off the book jacket when if I buy a hardcover. For some reason it just bothers me to have it on there.

I didn't read the article, but I assume it's about the social aspect of seeing other people's reading and getting reading choices from that. While I think that will be missed, I think the marketing/viral power of seeing someone with a book power pales in comparison to the potential of meshing of social media with book publishing.

There are already tons of sites like goodreads and such out there. These are all linked into facebook and twitter. As (if) e-readers become more and more widespread and more interactive, I imagine that the e-readers will integrate this technology and allow virtual communities to build up around people reading certain books at that time in their e-readers.

Oh, I agree. Amazon's "users also bought this" can hook me for hours.

Yeah, I'm aware, but I can't bring myself to read that or the Daenerys chapter that was up either. I don't even read the bonus chapter at the end of the book. I relish each new chapter way too much. When I first read AGOT, and the bonus chapter that was included, and then went to ACOK, I'd never been so dissapointed as when I got to a "new" chapter which I had already unknowingly read. I won't be doing that again!

I'm currently on the sequel to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo entitled The Girl Who Played with Fire.

However, I'm looking past to my next nonfiction marathon. My last marathon was on the food industry where I read a wide variety of books on food, what to eat, how to eat, etc. (Though still need to read Fast Food Nation, to complete the track.) I've done a half-marathons on happiness and the underpinnings therein as well general psych (Predictably Irrational, Tipping Point, etc).

So, I'm looking for a good marathon. And I think I have the target: finances. I'm at the point to start thinking about investing and I know very little other than a biz minor course in Finance. Plus, Michael Lewis' new book The Big Short (which I plan to read) has pushed me into considering this track. So my question is:

What books (open to magazines, podcasts, websites, essays etc) would you recommend in this sector?

Just finished Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal.

Great book.

Just started The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.

At over 1200 pages, I'm guessing I'll still be reading it late this summer.

Just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Blink and moved on to Outliers.

The Pacific. The book is same concept as the HBO series one of the researchers wrote it, but has some focus on different characters. Really good so far.

I'm going to read some Irvine Welch books starting with trainspotting.
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:thumb:

That was a funny book.

I love Christopher Moore, and that's my favorite of his books.

I just finished re-reading Confederacy of Dunces. Amazing book.
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