Thread: What are you reading?

Just finished The Magic Cottage by James Herbert - boring for the first 300 pages and gets ridicuous after that.

atm am reading Desperation by Stephen King which is good for the moment. I've only got to page 32 but it's excellent already.

The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien

Second or third time.

Almost done with 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King

The End of Mr. Y
its a pretty crazy book but I like it

Just finished The Other Boleyn Girl which was really good, much better than the film but then again the books usually are.

Currently reading Breakfast At Tiffanys, by Truman Capote, which a friend left at my house. Never knew it was a novel until I found it last night.

Halfway through the tiny book, not a big fan of it though.

Originally Posted by Suzip

Just finished The Other Boleyn Girl which was really good, much better than the film but then again the books usually are.

agreed - though I love Eric Bana

North and South - Elizabeth Gaskell

Just finished:
'Salem's Lot-Stephen King
Violin-Anne Rice
Lonesome Dove-Larry McMurtry
Persuasion-Jane Austen
The Dispossessed-Ursula K. Le Guin

Now reading: Northanger Abbey-Jane Austen

I've read all of Anne Rice's Vampire and Mayfair Witch books, including The Servant of the Bones, but out of all of them Violin was my least favorite. It wasn't that it was really bad, but just that I liked all the others so much more.

I absolutely adored Lonesome Dove. Every page had at least a little humor, but McMurtry also managed to be serious and even romantic at the same time. I hope I get the chance to read the rest of the series.

Persuasion was a good one too. It was pretty short, but I really enjoyed reading it. It's probably one of my favorites of all her books.

The Dispossessed was very different. I've read Le Guin's Earthsea series, but The Dispossessed was nothing like any of them. It was more of a science-fiction novel. It's about two planets similar to our earth and the moon, and each is inhabited. The people on the moon, though, don't own any property or have any government. They work voluntarily and share everything they have. One of the physicists of the planet, a man named Shevek, decides to visit the earth-like planet, called Urras, in an attempt to bring people together in brotherhood.

I haven't got far into Northanger Abbey yet, but it's pretty entertaining so far.

The Dispossessed is not more like a science fiction novel, it is a science fiction novel. An award-winning, truly well-written one. It's set in the same milieu as The Left Hand of Darkness, which is highly recommended. The Earthsea Trilogy is more or less YA, atypical of Ms. LeGuin's work. She's one of the best, her website is here.

Originally Posted by Chrispian

I tend to read too many technical books. Right now though, I'm readint the Wheel of Time (Robert Jordan). I recently read Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn, which was awesome. I'm going to pick up his new series soon.

What is everyone else reading right now?

Chrispian, I love the Wheel of Time books. They're some of my favorites. I've read the series twice and the suspense is still killing me. I know Jordan didn't meant to go and die with the series unfinished, but I sure wish I could know how he was planning on wrapping it all up.

Oh yeah, back to the original question. I'm currently reading a Christine Feehan paranormal romance novel, but I have to admit I've found it a disappointment. She's so famous I wanted to try out some of her stuff, but I haven't been as impressed with it as I expected.

Just finished NEXT by Michael Crichton.

Right now I'm reading The Holy Bible, by our Lord and God.

Just finished:
Northanger Abbey-Jane Austen
A Christmas Carol-Charles Dickens
Mansfield Park-Jane Austen

Now reading:
Robin Hood-Henry Gilbert

Just finished "The Legend of the Ice People 1: Spellbound" by Margit Sandemo. I read the whole thing (47 books) in norwegian years ago, but they are just starting to release them in english. The second book was released a few days ago, in fact.

Not sure what to read next, but it's either "Warhammer: The Von Carstein Trilogy" (don't remember who wrote it) or "The Bronce Canticles" by Laura and Tracy Hickman. Unless I can find "The Legend of the Ice People 2: Witch-hunt" in english, of course.

While I was on holiday I read "A Passage to India" "The Outcast" and "44 Scotland Street"

Passage to India was interesting as it described an attitude to the rest of the world that no longer exists. Just before my holiday I had had a conversation with a young Indian after returning from Glastonbury to the effect that the reason Glastonbury has changed is that as hippies we were inclusive, welcoming others into our group and our discussion rather than excluding them. He had personal experience of this having grown up in a poor family in Goa and spending his childhood selling drinks and fruit to the hippies on the beach, this culminated in his presence in London. How this developed from prewar Anglo Indian relationships is amazing. The book is very well written and some of the issues raised still have pertinence, I am unsure whether they are enough to call it a classic.
The Outcast also deals with an England that vanished during the sixties, though it was still there during my childhood. I did not suffer under it personally as my parents were most certainly not run of the mill, but I saw it affecting my friends and understood why they kept themselves aloof from the larger part of society. It is a gripping, annoying, moving book. Worth reading, but not for fun.
44 Scotland Street is a well written froth, like The Number One Ladies Detective Agency, I think of Alexander McCall Smith as being of the caliber of C.S forester who wrote the Hornblower series and Brown on Resolution or Arthur Updike who wrote detective stories about the Australian outback, in other words a very competent writer who occasionally surpasses himself but does not quite make it into the top bracket. The sort of writer I feel I might be if I had started earlier and tried harder. In the preface he says how he wrote it to be published as a newspaper serial and it is interesting to read with that in mind.