Posted: 16th October 2005 05:25
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Black Mage Posts: 204 Joined: 14/7/2005 Awards: |
i'm reading all of my favorite books,
Wlak two moons, chasing redbird, and ella enchanted small books, i know, but i'm just waitng for harry potter 6 to be free. my opinin, Chasing Red bird and Walk two moons are the best books ever. and you're hearing this form some one who HATES realistic fiction. tried reading Eragon before, but for some reason, the author seemed like a poser to me... oooh the Shade! Oooh The urgals! oooh... This post has been edited by Smackthedog on 16th October 2005 05:26 -------------------- OBEY YOUR THIRST "Aww...They're SOOO CUUTE!! BUT WHO CARES!!!!?" -Excel Excel, Excel Saga |
Post #99872
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 02:56
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I feel like this might be an interesting thread to dredge up, since I always like to hear what people are reading.
I'm just started reading Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. It's fairly crazy, and therefore definitely a Faulkner, but it's been pretty interesting so far. I usually end up liking his work once I complete it and get the full picture. What's everyone reading out there? -------------------- Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen! |
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Post #186248
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 05:54
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Crusader Posts: 1,519 Joined: 12/9/2005 Awards: |
re-reading Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman. my favorite author ever, you should all read his books.
-------------------- Aujourdhui a commence avec toi. |
Post #186250
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 17:39
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Holy Swordsman Posts: 2,083 Joined: 18/7/2004 Awards: |
I'm glad you resurrected this one, DP; I too love hearing what people are reading. I've never read any of Faulkner's longer fiction, and I find his short fiction hit or miss (for instance, I loved "Barn Burning" but hated "A Rose for Emily"), but I've been meaning to check out one of his novels. Any suggestion?
Anyway, I'm reading (or planning to read) several things this summer: Fiction-- The Blacker the Berry (which is what I'm reading right now) The Old Man and the Sea A Canticle for Leibowitz Oranges are Not the only Fruit Non-Fiction-- The Dialogic Imagination The Anatomy of Criticism The Pilgrim at Tinker Creek |
Post #186262
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 18:07
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I'm reading "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug. It's a book about designing and developing websites that users can actually enjoy using instead of finding them a chore.
I'll probably follow that up with "HTML5 for Web Designers" by Jeremy Keith (who, by the way, is completely awesome). It's pretty obvious what this book is about, I think. Sure, this is pretty interesting. Right? -------------------- "To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? |
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Post #186263
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 19:48
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Disciplinary Committee Member Posts: 689 Joined: 7/12/2004 Awards: |
I agree about Catcher and the bitching.
I also agree with the awesomeness of Dragonlance. I really loved the Chronicles Trilogy plus Dragons of Summer Flame. Raistlin is scary badass. Currently I'm reading Steven Erikson's second last book in his Tales from the Malazan Book of the Fallen series, Dust of Dreams. If you've never read Steven Erikson's series, then what the heck kinda' fantasy are you reading!? The man works genius onto the page like none I've seen. My only complaint is with his editors... I notice a few typos and such here and there throughout this monster of a collection. Either way, I'm sad it's almost finished... On the upside, his friend who he founded the world of the books with, Ian C. Esselmont just started his end of the series two books ago, so I'll at least have that, as he's pretty talented a writer himself! My girlfriend read Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere not too long ago, I'll have to give that a shot since I've been hearing many good things about him, these posts included. -------------------- Games on the Go Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy: Four Warriors of Light Baldur's Gate Too much to play, so little time! Greg |
Post #186264
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 20:46
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Black Waltz Posts: 970 Joined: 23/4/2004 Awards: |
I've been slow reading ever since I finished King's Dark Tower series, but I've started reading Lewis's Out of the Silent Planet. Lewis is without a doubt my favorite author right now, so I'm pretty excited to get into his masterpiece(s).
-------------------- I fear my heart and fear my soul Life goes on, it surely will, Without me and I wonder: Will I ever see light again? Life goes on... |
Post #186267
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Posted: 22nd June 2010 23:10
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I recently discovered the 80s and 90s author Gary Jennings, and I've been plowing through his major works. Aztec and The Journeyer were both riveting and well-researched, but the sequel to Aztec isn't quite as good (at least so far). I definitely recommend those first two if you have the patience for 700+ pages of historical fiction loaded with sex and violence.
-------------------- |
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Post #186270
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Posted: 23rd June 2010 01:12
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Quote I've never read any of Faulkner's longer fiction, and I find his short fiction hit or miss (for instance, I loved "Barn Burning" but hated "A Rose for Emily"), but I've been meaning to check out one of his novels. Any suggestion? Do I ever . Some of his novels get pretty crazy (The Sound and the Fury, Absalom, Absalom! and parts of Go Down, Moses for instance), and should probably be avoided at first, until you get a better feel for him. A great book to start Faulkner with, IMO, is As I Lay Dying, which is a bit easier to follow while being really interesting. At the same time, it's one of his best regarded novels as well, so you can't really go wrong. The Unvanquished is one of Faulkner's lesser known books, but it's another good potential start because it's more of a normal read and it showcases a lot of how Faulkner views the death of the old south and its effect on the people living there. It can be seen as a bit of an introduction to some of the concepts/feelings covered in his heavier stuff that is also centered around the civil war (Sound+Fury, Absalom). He's definitely worth a gander! -------------------- Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen! |
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Post #186273
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Posted: 23rd June 2010 03:55
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Engineer Posts: 429 Joined: 28/1/2005 Awards: |
Faulkner is fantastic. The Sound and The Fury is tough reading, but should still be required reading for anyone out of high school.
Not reading anything new right now, re-reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (and THAT one should be required reading for any fans of Final Fantasies VII through IX), a biography of Kim Il-Sung, and Foucault's Pendulum. I'm a lit major, so this thread is right up my alley. Hip! -------------------- "If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate." |
Post #186277
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Posted: 23rd June 2010 07:57
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Quote (Perigryn @ 22nd June 2010 20:48) I agree about Catcher and the bitching. I'm joining this debate a bit late, but why not. I really enjoyed Catcher. I loved his tone and attitude. He's the kind of care-free guy who would start dancing in a bathroom and pretend to have been shot in the street as if he was in a film. And I also love the way he's a chronic lier, he'll say how much he hates something on one page then completely ignore that in the next either by contradicting himself or doing exactly what he hates other people doing. Brilliant to read. Right now I'm reading Dune by Frank Herbert. A friend insists that it's worth pushing through. -------------------- Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind. Me on the Starcraft. |
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Post #186278
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Posted: 23rd June 2010 17:05
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Holy Swordsman Posts: 2,083 Joined: 18/7/2004 Awards: |
Quote (Death Penalty @ 22nd June 2010 17:12) The Unvanquished is one of Faulkner's lesser known books, but it's another good potential start because it's more of a normal read and it showcases a lot of how Faulkner views the death of the old south and its effect on the people living there. It can be seen as a bit of an introduction to some of the concepts/feelings covered in his heavier stuff that is also centered around the civil war (Sound+Fury, Absalom). He's definitely worth a gander! The Unvanquished sounds right up my alley. Thanks for the suggestion! |
Post #186282
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Posted: 23rd June 2010 17:32
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Quote Faulkner is fantastic. The Sound and The Fury is tough reading, but should still be required reading for anyone out of high school. When I first read this I was only a junior in high school and I hadn't read enough Faulkner before tackling it. I was able to finish it just fine and I had a solid understanding of the events within the novel, but it wasn't until I started re-reading portions of it again earlier this year that I was finally able to gain a concrete understanding of the novel's meaning. Now I absolutely love the novel. Have you read If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem? I think it may be a sleeper pick for my favorite Faulkner. -------------------- Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen! |
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Post #186285
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Posted: 29th June 2010 02:21
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Crusader Posts: 1,519 Joined: 12/9/2005 Awards: |
just finished neverwhere, and ive now moved on to a couple christopher hitchens books
-------------------- Aujourdhui a commence avec toi. |
Post #186367
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Posted: 17th July 2010 06:30
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Disciplinary Committee Member Posts: 689 Joined: 7/12/2004 Awards: |
Quote (sweetdude @ 23rd June 2010 02:57) Right now I'm reading Dune by Frank Herbert. A friend insists that it's worth pushing through. It really is. It does a complete mind-job on you, but the amount of work Herbert put into the lore of the series is incredible. I finished the sequel a couple months ago and it was really well done too. I've heard everything after's supposed to be not so grand, but I plan to check that theory out anyways. Enjoy the read, I hope! -------------------- Games on the Go Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy: Four Warriors of Light Baldur's Gate Too much to play, so little time! Greg |
Post #186670
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Posted: 17th July 2010 15:32
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Dragoon Posts: 1,838 Joined: 3/2/2004 Awards: |
I'm currently reading the Bourne Identity. I finished The Force Unleashed not too long ago.
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Post #186674
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Posted: 17th July 2010 16:58
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Quote (GamblingCat @ 17th July 2010 10:32) I'm currently reading the Bourne Identity. I finished The Force Unleashed not too long ago. Have you read any other Ludlum? If you like the Bourne books, of which the first three are great, you should check out the two Matarese books too. -------------------- "To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? |
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Post #186682
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Posted: 17th July 2010 18:08
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Dragoon Posts: 1,838 Joined: 3/2/2004 Awards: |
R51, I haven't, this is the first book I'm reading by Ludlum, but ill definetly check out the others you mentioned.
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Post #186683
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Posted: 17th July 2010 19:14
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Quote (GamblingCat @ 17th July 2010 13:08) R51, I haven't, this is the first book I'm reading by Ludlum, but ill definetly check out the others you mentioned. PM me sometime if you want a whole list of good Ludlum books, I think I have all the ones he actually wrote before he died. -------------------- "To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN? |
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Post #186687
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Posted: 24th July 2010 02:51
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Wanted to say that I just finished Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, and it is without a doubt my favorite Faulkner. And that's actually saying something, seeing as I've read seven of his books now.
It really looks at the civil war's tie to the south, though in a way that is different from what Faulkner does in The Sound and the Fury. In Sound and Fury, Faulkner goes after, in overly general terms, the effect of the war on the south as well as the decay brought about by it. In Absalom, Faulkner looks more directly at the war, telling a story that is used by one of his characters as the reason why 'God let the south loose the war'. He traces the destruction of the Sutpen family in parallel with the destructino of the old south, each fated to destruction due to their immoral foundations. Very, very cool book. I can't recommend it enough to any Faulkner fans out there. One of my top 5 all time. -------------------- Currently Playing : Final Fantasy V Most Recently Beat : Elder Scrolls: Skyrim Favorite Game : Final Fantasy X The newest CoNcast is up! Have a listen! |
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Post #186953
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Posted: 24th July 2010 04:25
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Quote (Perigryn @ 17th July 2010 07:30) Quote (sweetdude @ 23rd June 2010 02:57) Right now I'm reading Dune by Frank Herbert. A friend insists that it's worth pushing through. It really is. It does a complete mind-job on you, but the amount of work Herbert put into the lore of the series is incredible. I finished the sequel a couple months ago and it was really well done too. I've heard everything after's supposed to be not so grand, but I plan to check that theory out anyways. Enjoy the read, I hope! Finished Dune. It's vast. I'm flicking back through the book to put a few things right. After about 20 or so pages I was hooked, which made it a lot easier to understand. I'd like to get into the sequel. The friend that gave me the book, the one I mentioned before, said the same thing as you: the sequel is good but don't bother going any further. What I like about Herbert's universe is that it's quite far away from our understanding. I like fantasy, but a lot of what I read is just like our world in the abstract, or in a kaleidoscope where the input is reality and the output is a sort of mixed reality where shields are used with guns and so on. Feist's Magician is typical of this. Books like Neuromancer are best because we can't actually imagine what the author is explaining as we simply haven't experienced anything like it. Before the end of the summer I'd like to find and read Dune 2. I'd also like to start and finish Freedom From Fear by Aung San Suu Kyi. The poor woman has been neglected for so long... on my bookshelf. -------------------- Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind. Me on the Starcraft. |
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Post #186956
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Posted: 24th July 2010 04:54
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Holy Swordsman Posts: 2,083 Joined: 18/7/2004 Awards: |
I recently finished A Canticle for Leibowitz, and I must say it's one of the best (if not THE best) sci-fi/speculative fiction/whatever-you-want-to-call-it I've ever read.
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Post #186959
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Posted: 25th July 2010 05:50
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Disciplinary Committee Member Posts: 689 Joined: 7/12/2004 Awards: |
Quote (sweetdude @ 23rd July 2010 23:25) What I like about Herbert's universe is that it's quite far away from our understanding. I like fantasy, but a lot of what I read is just like our world in the abstract, or in a kaleidoscope where the input is reality and the output is a sort of mixed reality where shields are used with guns and so on. I like the way you put that, and I agree! I haven't read those other two, though, much less heard of them. Recommendation? Dune... Messiah? I think that's the second. Anyways, it takes a moment to catch up on, I warn you, since it takes place a bit after the first - not a direct pick up, so to speak. It reads a lot like the first, though, and I found it at times harder to follow, but then others were extremely straight-forward, like the underlying main plot line. It seems so complicated, but turns out not to be so complex as it first seemed. Anyways, if you enjoyed the first, then you should like the second. Whichever of us makes it to the third installment first has an obligation to warn the other haha. -------------------- Games on the Go Final Fantasy VII Final Fantasy: Four Warriors of Light Baldur's Gate Too much to play, so little time! Greg |
Post #186981
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Posted: 25th July 2010 16:51
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Quote (Perigryn @ 25th July 2010 06:50) I like the way you put that, and I agree! I haven't read those other two, though, much less heard of them. Recommendation? ... Anyways, if you enjoyed the first, then you should like the second. Whichever of us makes it to the third installment first has an obligation to warn the other haha. I'd recommend Neuromancer. It's basically a cyberpunk heist novel, only Case is a retired information thief turned drug dealer/addict who gets his chance to go back to his old job. There are some great questions raised about life and so on, for instance he gets help from a dead man who is just a person's memories inside an AI. If you liked Blade Runner, The Matrix, Inception, Deus Ex, Ghost in the Shell or any of this brand of science fiction, then you'll love Neuromancer, which is basically the birth of cyberspace, and one of the first involving fusing man and machine. Magician is just your average fantasy book, nothing added, nothing taken away. If you want a new world where nothing is too difficult to understand then this is for you. I'd rather read it than play through a lot of the modern fantasy RPG stories. I think you'll be the one to read the third Dune first. Even if it takes you 5 years! I don't know, maybe, if the second leaves me wanting more then I'll possibly read it. -------------------- Scepticism, that dry rot of the intellect, had not left one entire idea in his mind. Me on the Starcraft. |
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Post #186987
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Posted: 26th July 2010 18:49
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Black Mage Posts: 187 Joined: 18/5/2005 Awards: |
Iam reading mr hands for the 5th time i really like it its kinda bloody but has a pretty good story if anyone want to look into it the book look on amazon the cover has a creepy doll with huge hands. just dont blame me if you start to read it then cant put it down:)
-------------------- Why is it that rpg's are now a dying breed? |
Post #187025
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Posted: 5th August 2010 06:20
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Engineer Posts: 444 Joined: 12/11/2006 Awards: |
I just read the four books that have been released so far from the "Song of Ice and Fire" series by G.R.R Martin and I really enjoyed them.
I also just read "Graceling" and "Fire" by Kristin Cashore and they were pretty good, though I'd have to say that "Fire" was definitely the better book. -------------------- Why, hello guys! Haven't been around here in a loooong time! http://dragcave.net/user/LadyTwi http://www.backloggery.com/ladytwi |
Post #187216
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Posted: 5th August 2010 09:59
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Wavey Marle! Posts: 2,098 Joined: 21/1/2003 Awards: |
I recently finished Sharpe's Trafalgar and the Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium omnibus. Sorry...
COMMISSAR CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!! Probably going to move onto another Sharpe book shortly. -------------------- "Only the dead have seen the end of their quotes being misattributed to Plato." -George Santayana "The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here..." -Abraham Lincoln, prior to the discovery of Irony. |
Post #187223
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Posted: 5th August 2010 16:35
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Lunarian Posts: 1,394 Joined: 13/3/2004 Awards: |
I finished the Anarchist's Cookbook just the other day; it's an interesting read as it tells you about an approach to human nature and the government that is quite alien - to me, at least. Some other books of the past two months
- The Dharma Bums by Jack Kerouac (fascinating and somewhat motivating) - The Language of Zen by Richard Carter (if you're into Zen, simply great) - A large collection of Sherlock Holmes stories (the world's greatest detective despised by its own author) - Autobiographies of Hunter S. Thompson, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Russell Brand (Hunter and Russell are tornadoes of character, and I mostly read Doyle to tell me more about Sherlock Holmes) - Choke and Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (an old favorite) I'm looking for work these days, which takes about one or two hours of e-mails in the morning only to leave me without any necessary passtimes for the rest of they day; good days for reading! I've been interested in Neuromancer since Snow Crash, which was just great. -------------------- |
Post #187228
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Posted: 5th August 2010 16:53
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Quote (Del S @ 5th August 2010 04:59) I recently finished Sharpe's Trafalgar and the Ciaphas Cain: Hero of the Imperium omnibus. Sorry... COMMISSAR CIAPHAS CAIN, HERO OF THE IMPERIUM!!! Probably going to move onto another Sharpe book shortly. Holy ****, Sharpe. I ran ragged through those my first year of college. It's an old favorite of my dad's. He also got me into the Flashman novels and the Alan Lewrie novels, so maybe you ought to check those out too. -------------------- |
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Post #187229
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Posted: 5th August 2010 18:51
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Engineer Posts: 429 Joined: 28/1/2005 Awards: |
Quote (Djibriel @ 5th August 2010 11:35) I finished the Anarchist's Cookbook just the other day; it's an interesting read as it tells you about an approach to human nature and the government that is quite alien - to me, at least. Incidentally, it seems quite alien to William Powell, the author, as well...he's spent decades trying to get people to stop reading it, but I guess he singed away his rights to it early and now can't do anything about it. Would actually make a pretty interesting nonfiction book... Not reading much at the moment, been trying to get some writing done, so I've been reading William Blake's poetry for inspiration...we'll see how it goes. -------------------- "If art doesn't risk upsetting expectations and challenging its audience, it can only stagnate." |
Post #187232
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