How was it? That sounds interesting.

Far from high-brow, but I just finished Andre Agassi's autobiography, Open.

One of the best athlete autobiographies I've read, and I've read a lot.

If anyone's bored read " The Daddy of the Tribe " by Mary Jenkins

R. Scott Bakker's 'Prince of Nothing' trilogy.

Working my way through Game of Thrones when I have time. Hoping to finish it up and move on to the next book sometime this weekend.

Finished Fear & Loathing in America by Hunter Thompson the other day, it certainly wasnt disappointing but not nearly as entertaining as Hells Angels & F&L in Vegas, probably due to the fact that its all correspondence between himself & others, not him going for the brass ring of surrealist wordsmithery in every sentence like in his books.

The best stuff is prolly when he replies to fans who've sent him letters, a good read if only to understand the guys brilliant madness better.

Reading Under the Harrow by Mark Dunn who wrote Ella Minnow Pea.

Weird book, but I'm enjoying it.

Just ordered this, and I am super anxious to get started on it!

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-...harry%2bpotter

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/47720000/47729253.JPG

Synopsis

This volume considers the depiction of law and legal institutions in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. It contains more than twenty chapters by legal academics from the U.S. and abroad. The chapters are organized in five sections: Legal Traditions and Institutions, Crimes and Punishments, Harry Potter and Identity, the Wizard Economy, and Harry Potter as an Archetype. Some chapters analyze the way law and legal institutions are portrayed, and what these portrayals teach us about concepts such as morality, justice, and difference. Other chapters use examples from the narratives to illustrate or analyze legal issues, such as human rights, actual innocence, and legal pedagogy. The volume is suitable for undergraduate or law school courses, and will be of interest to those Harry Potter fans who also have an interest in law and the legal profession.

Starting with "Red Cell", I'm re-reading my Richard Marcinko "Rouge Warrior" collection again

A song of ice and fire. Dresdan files

I wouldn't call them high brow, but I recently listened to the audiobook versions of Larry Correia's Monster Hunter books (Monster Hunter International and Monster Hunter Vendetta). Said author comes across as a right wing nutjob (especially if you read stuff on his website...) although not necessarily in the same ballpark as, say, Orson Scott Card, but his books are hella entertaining. I basically listened to both of them straight through in a few days (these are 20+ hour audiobooks).

Kind of an inspirational story from the standpoint of somebody who's at least thought about being an author (which is probably all I'll ever do...): Correia self-published Monster Hunter International in 2008 before being picked-up by Baen Books.

Is that a new one? Dresden files are good light reading.

Next Dresden book is out in July I think. Ghost Story.

Someone convince me that trying to continue reading Joyce's Ulysses is a good idea.

Thanks Keg. I tend to read more than one book at a time and like for one of them to be entertaining, mindless reading. Dresden Files fit the bill well. So did Butcher's Codex Alera.

I'm the same way, I usually have one regular book going (right now it's R. Scott Bakker's The Warrior-Prophet, entertaining, but not mindless...), one audiobook going (Hard Magic by Larry Correia) and I'm going to add a book on writing to the mix in the near future (not sure which, I have several).

Just finished the Harry Potter series. Can't wait to see the last movie. I have a feeling it's going to be quite different from the book.

Going to read a book call Uglies by Scott Westerfeld before starting one the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

Slowly reading "the lone survivor" by Marcus Luttrell...good book.

Finished "Helmet for my pillow" last month.

Hey, this is an alright war novel.

http://www.writerscast.com/wp-conten...2119285.01.jpg

Ended up starting Hunger Games. I think I'm going to like it.

I'm finally reading A Game of Thrones and I'm loving it so far.

yep, july 26. there's an author book signing at rainy day books in kc on release day, GEEKGASM.

I've got a couple friends hounding me to start reading the Dresden books. I'd like to, but it's also just a LOT of books to read. Big commitment.

dude, just do it. the first book isn't his best (he wrote it as a college writing project), but the prose and his writing ability get better and better the further you go into the series. I can't put this more succinctly... FREAKING READ THE DAMNED BOOKS.

Ha. You sound like my buddies. I will eventually, I'm sure.

heh, it took something roughly like that for me to read them initially. my wife and MIL had read him from the beginning, and kept telling me to read them. after constant nagging and shouting at me to read them, I read the damned books. one of the better decisions I've made in a while.

if and when you read them, do yourself a favor and read them in order. it really does help, as there's roughly a 23 story main arc--he's a little over half done.

Don't worry. I'm obsessive over reading or watching things in order. I've watched TV shows where people tell me to start on the 2nd or 3rd season and I refuse. I wold rather suffer through lower quality work in order to avoid missing something that might be important later.

Maybe I'll start reading a Dresden book every other book I read to move through them without completely dominating my reading time.

I'm reading Unbroken at the moment. Excellent book written by Laura Hillenbrand, author of Seabiscuit.

http://img2.imagesbn.com/images/44000000/44000976.JPG

Just finished this book. Pretty fascinating story, but he could have hired an editor. Littered with typos, punctuation errors, etc.

Just about to start
"The Spy" by Clive Cusler

It's a lot of books, but it won't take long. They're pretty short (not in a bad way). I've gone through the first 8 audiobooks plus the short story collection side jobs in less than a month. Since the audiobook doesn't arrive until August 4, I'll likely finish well before it's out.

They're easy to get into, he does a really good job of building a collection of characters that you (well, I) care about.

Highly recommend the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

I am getting a Nook this Friday (thank you, Guru), and the first book I download will be The Help. Looking forward to it!

'dearly devoted dexter' by jeff lindsey. good so far.

After all the hype, I was disappointed with Hunger Games (the first book). I'll read the others because they're easy reading and it wasn't bad, but I didn't like it as much as all the women who commented on it when they saw me with it did. Maybe it's a chick book. :shrug:

I had a guy recommend it to me. The second book is far better than the first. Probably the best book of the series. The third book takes some wicked twists, too. There is the whole love triangle thing. I guess that might be part of what draws women.

I just bought that one. Tired of my friends talking about it and having no idea WTF is going on.

But I'm reading the other book I bought at the same time first -- SEAL Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy SEAL Sniper.

Hrmm...cookie cutter characters? That much I can't say I agree with. There are eleventy billion characters, and I thought he did a decent job with most.

For those that care, Brandon Sanderson is finally wrapping the series that Robert Jordan couldn't complete because he was still creating new plot threads when he, you know, died. Sanderson is two books into wrapping things up, and doing a VERY good job at it IMHO. The last book in the series will be released between next April and next November (2012).

There are definitely some slow points -- books 5-8 or whatever (I can't remember which, but there's a bunch in a row in the middle) where not enough ahppens and too much time is spent on people who really are ancillary to the main action, but overall it's very good stuff.

IMHO Jordan is too fascinated with physical descriptions of settings. I admit, I skim/skip alot of it. 1,000 pages describing EVERY place in exquisite detail bores me. If you can adopt a good strategy for dealing with slow stuff, then you may find you enjoy the larger plot/characters quite a bit.

I could practically teach a class on young adult dystopian literature, and I didn't like it, either. I didn't even bother with the 2nd one. That being said, it's a certifiable craze that, while not reaching Twilight proportions, swept through the YA literature world by storm. I just didn't enjoy the book, but it might be that I'm also burnt out in YA.

So I read China Mieville's Kraken, which was stinking awesome. Contemporary Urban Fantasy in the vein of Neil Gaiman. Weird stuff.

I've also been reading Lucky Peach, the new culinary magazine put out by David Chang and the McSweeney's crew.

Dean R. Koontz, Twilight series, USA Today.

Just finished The Authentic Animal by Dave Madden, which came out last week. It's likely the best book about the world of taxidermy that there is.

Have you read Lucky Peach, yet? I really enjoyed it. The essay on authenticity was pretty thought provoking and gave voice to a lot of thoughts that have been kicking around in my brain for a while now.

Yeah, Lucky Peach is really fantastic. I'm going to be a subscriber in perpetuity.

Speaking of that essay on authenticyty, I just picked up a book, The Wild Vine, by that author (Todd Kilman) about the pre-Napa American wine scene, specifically the Norton grape.

Cool. I may check it out if I ever get through my pile of reading I need to do.

Are people in this thread reading more with an e-reader or paper/ink?

Paper/ink for me, though I probably spend more time reading discussion boards, blogs and online articles on a laptop than I do reading paper/ink at this point. I just don't have an e-reader.

I don't own an e-reader and I would not like to ever own one.

I only read handwritten manuscripts on parchment.

Audiobooks (I have an audible account) and paper for me.

Finally reading A Dance with Dragons. Once I finish that in a week or so, it'll be on to either James Barclay or Daniel Abraham. Not sure which direction I'm leaning.

Audiobook wise I'm currently listening to Robert Charles Wilson's Axis, sequel to Spin, and plan to listen to the third and I think final book in the series, Vortex, next.

Just finished Full Black by Brad Thor, loved it. Also read Do The Work by Steven Pressfield, which was great too.

Back to The Sum of All Fears, hopefully will have that one done by the end of the week.

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba. No it's not about farting. Actually it's one of the most inspirational books I've ever read. That's saying a lot for a person like me who's soul is dead inside.

You must be older than I thought.

Same here.

great book

Last night I picked up After America by Mark Steyn. I'm about 30 pages in. Interesting read - I'm not expecting a happy ending, either.

Perhaps this would make a good topic for discussion in DC.

Mark Steyn is a funny guy. I thought that book was pretty good.

The last book I read was "Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society" which is a collection of essays edited by Bill Bryson that all relate in some way to the scientific discoveries/advancements made by people associated with the Royal Society of London. It was pretty dry and as far as I'm concerned it was pretty hit and miss. I was hoping for stories about the early members of the RS like Isaac Newton, Robert Boyle, and Robert Hooke. There was some of that, but there was also some preachy stuff about climate change, some boring stuff about building bridges and some interesting talk about modern concepts of time and advanced math. Can't really recommend it for general purposes.

I just started, "August: Osage County" Very good so far.

The main message I'm getting so far is STOCK UP ON AMMO.

He wrote it when he still had hope for America. I've read some of his columns since then that are less optimistic.

Have you read 'A Short History of Nearly Everything?'

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-.../dp/0767908171

Finished Dance with Dragons.

Finished Robopocalypse. If you liked World War Z, you'll like it.

Finished Dances with Dragons as well, and have started The Wheel of Time Series, which I started a number of years ago and never got all the way through. Reading Eye of the World now, hope to get through them all by the time the final one hits shelves sometime next year.

Yes. I liked it a lot. It's one of the reasons that I thought I might like this book. The other is that Neal Stephenson wrote one of the essays. He's the author of the Baroque Cycle, a sweeping fictional history that heavily involves characters and events related to the early Royal Society.

I read on Variety today that Stephen Speilberg is attached to making it into a movie for summer 2012.

Your comment piqued my interest, so I looked it up on Wikipedia, which said: "Sources like Robert Crais and Booklist have compared the book to the works of Michael Crichton and Robert Heinlein." I'm sold! It'll be my next book after I finish A Dance With Dragons.

The Baroque Cycle is so freaking awesome and impressive.

Yeah, similar to The Passagr, it has "made for Hollywood" all over it.

I've only finished the first of the three books, but I agree. Stephenson is freaking awesome and impressive.

Just finished: Game of Thrones by George R Martin
The Mist by Stephen King

Now reading: Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Recently read Sniper One, which is about a British sniper at the Al Amarah Iraq in the 2004'ish timeframe, when the Iraqi Shi'as rose up under al-Sadr. Great, fast read.

I'm not reading The Rise and Fall of Bear Stearns, by Alan (Ace) Greenberg, the former CEO and then Chairman at the time of its demise. As expected, so fast it's an easy, fast read of a narcissist who is setting things up to blame everything on his successor, Jimmy Cayne. I already read House of Cards, the Big Short, and some other books around the 2008 meltdown, so I have a pretty good understanding of the Bear Stearns collapse. Looking forward to All the Devils are Here, which was highly recommended to me by a private equity guy with a background at the big investment houses. That one's next. I bought a crapload of books at 50-60% off at Borders two weeks ago, including these two (and Sniper One).

I decided I wanted to read a sci-fi novel. Never really have before. I love sci-fi movies and tv.

I picked one at random. It ended up being Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card.

That was pretty excellent. Any more sci-fi recommendations?

Read Ender's Shadow, which is the paraquel. Tells the same basic story from Bean's point of view. Probably better than Ender's Game, imo.


You might try Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson as well.

The Magician King by Lev Grossman.


The second in the Magicians sequence (no word on how many there will be, but I'm guessing trilogy). I liked this one better than the second. It's billed as Harry Potter, if Hogwart's was an Ivy League college, but it's so much more than that. Anyone who was a fan of fantasy in their youth will appreciate the themes this series plays around with (why do we like fantasy? What if all of our childhood fantasies were actually real?).

Currently reading Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Just started it, but it's great so far, especially for children of the 80s. I don't feel like making my own synopsis, so here it is:

Just finished "A Feast for Crows" by George R.R. Martin yesterday morning. Fired up "Dancing with Dragons"' right afterwards. Thankfully, they've returned to Roy Dotrice as the narrator for DwD, who narrated the first two books.

Next on my list. That sounds excellent.

1776

Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein is excellent. The movie was way different than the book, so if you've seen the movie, try not to read the book with any pre-conceived notions.

Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke is another one of my favorites. It's about a massive cylindrical object (50km long) of unknown origin that shows up in the solar system and the team of scientists that go out to investigate it. Not much action, but some really cool concepts to think about.

Let's see.

Print book-wise I'm currently reading Elfsorrow by James Barclay. You can probably guess the genre from the title. I think I'm about ready for a switch to science fiction, although I have two more books to go in this trilogy (I finished his first trilogy a few days ago).

Audio book-wise I'm currently (re-)listening to The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan in preparation for the second book in the series, The Cold Commands. The Dervish House by Ian McDonald is in the hole. Which I suppose would mark the afore-mentioned switch to science fiction.

Picked up at a thrift store an old copy of Burrough's The Land That Time Forgot. An easy, relaxing read .....