What are you reading at the moment?

[Guest]

Reading Freedom by Jonathan Franzen at the minute, ploughed through about 350 pages of it here during a wet weekend, really enjoying it. Very observative but easy to read. Might have to read the Corrections after.

[Miner Willy]

Recently finished Open, Andre Agassi's autobiography. I loved it, but imagine it would also be enjoyed by people not so into tennis as I. Agassi was always great value in interviews, and his wit and intelligence definitely come through. The opening chapter especially is amazing, and while it doesn't maintain that level it is very good throughout.

[Flub]

I've just finished the rather good but annoyingly first part of a trilogy The Quantum Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Now I'm not sure what to read next. I have plenty but I think it's down to The City and The City or Perdito Street Station by China Mieville or Seeds of Earth by Michael Cobley. I'm leaning towards The City and the City to be honest. I've never read any Mieville before and City looks to be different enough from what I normally read to intrigue me.

[Flub]

The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

I’m about 50 pages into this one. It’s set in a post-something Thailand of the future; post-apocalypse, post-oil, post-silicon or post something unspecified. Genetically modified elephants are used to turn turbines to generate electricity, abandoned sentient robots (the windup girls) live on the streets and food corporations search the back alleys of shanty towns for new (old) food stuffs they can clone.

I’ve enjoyed this so far and it reminds me of a few other authors. There’s a definite Alex Garland vibe off it. So far no central plot has emerged and I hope a story develops and it’s not just a well drawn universe. Interesting stuff.

Have you finished this yet? I've actually got a legal free copy of this sat in Stanza at the moment. Months ago when i09 were doing the book as part of their book club you could email the publisher for a free copy. I just never got around to reading it.

[cassidy]

Currently half way through The Painted Man by Peter V Brett. It's ok, not gonna set the world on fire but a decent enough entry into the Fantasy Genre.

Next will be book 2 of the same series, then onto the Millenium trilogy to see what all the fuss is about.

[Dannon]

I'm just about to finish Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, it's taken me a couple of months to get through, trying to find time has been hard recently, I've enjoyed it though, the first half has was better than the second unless the last 30 pages absolutely blow me away, I'd recommend if someone is looking for something to read.

[___]

Autumn by David Moody - it finally got a mainstream release a few weeks ago and I won a copy in a competition on the author's website.

The writing is as annoying as I remember from my first read through 4 years ago (adjectives always appear in bunches of 3, constant restatement that the protagonists are undergoing/have undergone imaginable anguish/fear/suffering instead of just showing us that they are through the writing, people acting bizarrely frightened before they discover they have any cause to be) but I just love the Autumn scenario.

[Silent Runner]

Have you finished this yet? I've actually got a legal free copy of this sat in Stanza at the moment. Months ago when i09 were doing the book as part of their book club you could email the publisher for a free copy. I just never got around to reading it.

No, not yet. I got distracted by a few other books but I'm going to get back into it. I have enjoyed it so far and it has that real 'exotic but familiar' quality I like.

[CouldBeWorse]

Just finished 'The Perks of being a wallflower' by Stephen Chbosky. Great book, didn't want it to end.

Now moving onto 'brave New World'

[Jab]

Recently finished Outliers. It really is a fantastic book and puts in to plain language a lot of the theory I have been learning about in my course. It's very easily readable and well referenced if you want to check anything up (for a lay book it is pretty well referenced anyway). The chapter on why your birth day matters was amazing. 10,000 hour rule is almost a cliché now but that chapter still had great worth. I learnt a lot from this, even having watched some of Malcom Gladwell's lectures. Highly recommended.

Currently I'm in the middle of "Guns, Germs and Steel" by Jared Diamond. I am really enjoying it so far. His writing may perhaps be a little dry for some but there is wry humour under the surface and everything is presented incredibly straightforwardly and simply, which is remarkable given the overwhelmingly complex subject matter. Diamond is attempting to explain the broad patterns of history in the last 13,000 years. So far I have learned a lot of interesting information on why the development of farming was so important and now he is attempting to explain why farming developed in the way it did.

[Mallet]

I thought I'd try out the True Blood novels as people seem to rave about them so I downloaded the sample to my Kindle.

It's absolutely awful, hideously bad writing and it's probably the worst thing I've ever read. You'd think it was written by a 12 year old and this is supposed to be better written than the Twilight books?

[Scribblor]

I looked at the back of one of the novels, saw the word 'Werepanther' and put it back on the shelf. Picked up a Jeeves and Wooster book instead, which is just as silly in its own way, but far more appealing to me.

[Miner Willy]

Recently finished Outliers. It really is a fantastic book and puts in to plain language a lot of the theory I have been learning about in my course. It's very easily readable and well referenced if you want to check anything up (for a lay book it is pretty well referenced anyway). The chapter on why your birth day matters was amazing. 10,000 hour rule is almost a cliché now but that chapter still had great worth. I learnt a lot from this, even having watched some of Malcom Gladwell's lectures. Highly recommended.

I just started reading Matt Syed's Bounce, and he references this book in the opening chapter. I'm guessing Syed's theories aren't news to anyone who knows a lot about this subject, but he presents them well. I'm only a couple of chapters in and have been really impressed.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

I looked at the back of one of the novels, saw the word 'Werepanther' and put it back on the shelf. Picked up a Jeeves and Wooster book instead, which is just as silly in its own way, but far more appealing to me.

Holy crap.

[Flub]

It turns out that China Mieville is bloody awesome. Halfway through The City & The City at the moment. It starts off appearing to be a police procedural set in a run down Eastern European city and then completely naturally introduces the second city, then crosshatching, breach and finally reveals just how it all works. But it does it without needing info dumps or heavy exposition. Almost all of it is from the point of view of characters to who it's completely natural and we find out about things as the case makes the characters think about them.

I think I'll be following this up with another of his. Do we have any China fans here? I was thinking Perdido Street Station since that's more of a traditional (If weird) sci-fi book.

[Scribblor]

Perdido Street Station is excellent. The Scar I enjoyed less, though, because it read much more like a bit of a socialist rant to me and I don't like feeling preached at. I haven't read any more of his stuff, but that's only because I haven't got round to it yet. I really fancied The City & The City.

[Flub]

I'm actually tempted to read this next

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce. The review I read in SFX earlier got me very interested.

[csuzw]

I recently finished Perdido Street Station and loved it. I haven't read any of his other books but I certainly intend to. Probably starting with The City & The City as it keeps being recommended.

[Glasgowchivas]

I've read Perdido St. Station, The Scar and Iron Council, the latter of which I felt was his best work. His imagination is incredible and having read two previous novels I knew what to expect going in but the sequences with the Golum's and the flowstone and *that* ending left me incredibly moved.

[Flub]

The Iron Council definately has me interested.

[merman]

Just finished Gangsta Rap by the poet Benjamin Zephaniah. A very good story about three young boys excluded from school but given a second chance through a special unit. They form a rap group, cut an album and become famous. But not everything goes right... clever twist at the end.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

I thought that Perdido Street Station was poor. The parallels with the city it takes place in and London were interesting and it was certainly imaginative in places, but I thought that the story was unfocussed, the characters affected and over-sincere, the weird obsession with flatulence and other distasteful aspects of the body to be part of some strange attempt at artistic vulgarity framed in a pseudo-romantic context in order to alter the perception of them – or make the reader think ‘Wow China is really pushing it here!’ and other assorted complaints that I can’t really remember having now.

I seem to think that China himself is an absolute twonk too, but I can’t remember why.

I bought it on the back of people going on about it being an entirely new genre/mature fantasy at last/utterly original, and it has put me off this type of thing for good.

[Scribblor]

I thought that Perdido Street Station was poor. The parallels with the city it takes place in and London were interesting and it was certainly imaginative in places, but I thought that the story was unfocussed, the characters affected and over-sincere, the weird obsession with flatulence and other distasteful aspects of the body to be part of some strange attempt at artistic vulgarity framed in a pseudo-romantic context in order to alter the perception of them – or make the reader think ‘Wow China is really pushing it here!’ and other assorted complaints that I can’t really remember having now.

I seem to think that China himself is an absolute twonk too, but I can’t remember why.

I bought it on the back of people going on about it being an entirely new genre/mature fantasy at last/utterly original, and it has put me off this type of thing for good.

Plus it has no werepanthers in it. Only cactusmen.

[Eats hoops and leaves]

And I have recently finished Sanshiro by Natsume Soseki. Murakami before Murakami existed.

Part sarcastic, part funny, part helpless and part infuriating, it is about a boy moving from rural Japan to 1903 Tokyo. He meets girls and he’s crap with them. The city terrifies him at first but he grows into it and the reason for him moving – university – doesn’t live up to his expectations. Instead of finding answers to his life, he finds more questions – but at the same time, the questions he moves with are answered – but of course he doesn’t realise that at the time.

The honest descriptions of his gradual loosening of his ties with home and the blend of disenchantment and excitement at his new life are immediately recognisable. His ability to interact with women is infuriating but utterly sympathetic. The friends he makes piss you off chronically but you can’t wait for them to appear again. The portrayal of a fast-moving, new Japan is somewhat reliant on the reader being Japanese, I suspect (and this goes for Sanshiro, the character, too), but still engaging enough. The feel of the book as a whole is that of slow Sunday afternoons wrapped in headache-inducing banks of cloud punctuated by dazzling sunlight that bounces off the floor a little too brightly but makes you feel very good indeed. You don’t know why it is enjoyable, so you make the effort to take a step back and just enjoy it for what it is.

It’s difficult to describe the book because nothing much happens. But that’s the point. I burned through the 270 pages because it was so compelling that I read while on the bus – reserved only for the best reads because doing so makes me feel sick. If you know what I look like when I feel sick, that should be convincing enough for you to pick this up ASAP!

[Alquanis]

One of the Flashman books by George Fraser. Fookin' hilarious stuff.

[Yasawas]

It turns out that China Mieville is bloody awesome. Halfway through The City & The City at the moment. It starts off appearing to be a police procedural set in a run down Eastern European city and then completely naturally introduces the second city, then crosshatching, breach and finally reveals just how it all works. But it does it without needing info dumps or heavy exposition. Almost all of it is from the point of view of characters to who it's completely natural and we find out about things as the case makes the characters think about them.

I think I'll be following this up with another of his. Do we have any China fans here? I was thinking Perdido Street Station since that's more of a traditional (If weird) sci-fi book.

Bought this today as it sounded interesting and I was won over by the enthusiasm of the post.

Barely started it but are you reading the Kindle one? The main place name with the accented Z in it is doing my head in, that one letter seems to be bolded in larger text than all the others and ruins the formatting, they seriously need to sort this shit out.

[OogyBoogy]

Since my last update, I've finished the following books:

The Bonehunters by Steven Erikson

In the Ruins by Kate Elliott

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie

and I will finish The Fires of Heaven by Robert Jordan later tonight.

No idea what's next yet, as I've literaly got around 100 books I have yet to read here.

Why do I still visit bookstores?

[Monkeyspill]

I've almost finished this. It'd been lying around for ages - I'd bought it in hardback when it was first published early this year, but never got around to it.

Zeitoun - Dave Eggers

If you haven't read it, do so, because it's quite amazing. I bought it after reading the review here http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/11/dave-eggers-zeitoun-hurricane-katrina

[glb]

Skin Tight - Carl Hiaasen.

Very enjoyable read so far (about halfway through). Only read a couple of his but already really like the easy-going vibe Hiaasen creates in his books, must pick up a few more.

[Flub]

Barely started it but are you reading the Kindle one? The main place name with the accented Z in it is doing my head in, that one letter seems to be bolded in larger text than all the others and ruins the formatting, they seriously need to sort this shit out.

Yup and yup. It was very annoying. I started to tune it out fairly quickly though. Publishers doing bad jobs on ebooks is fairly common sadly. Even for new books.