Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading? - Page 687

Patricia81 · 07-29-2011, 08:24 AM

Now I'm reading 1984 by George Orwell. It's a great book. I love it!

Iridal · 07-29-2011, 10:31 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

Hey, I bought the UHGTG today! But right now I'm reading Dragon Wing, the first book of the Death Gate Cycle (by Weiss & Hickman)

Quote:

Originally Posted by orlok

but...but...that wasn't one on your list!

(mutter...women...mutter...mutter)

WT Sharpe · 07-29-2011, 11:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maianhvk

Too late, I started reading The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Man, it is hilarious!!

I bought that a while back because I know one day I'll be re-reading the series. In my opinion it's the funniest sci-fi ever.

maianhvk · 07-29-2011, 11:24 AM

I REALLY enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide

it cracks me up every five seconds, just like The Princess Bride and I LOVE books like those

Can you guys recommend some more?

@ Iri: watch out. There's a chance people think you're crazy or something, laughing your *ss off while reading.

WT Sharpe · 07-29-2011, 11:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Yes, utterly splendid. I'm a little biased in favour of the original radio series. I urge you to avoid the dreadful film. The TV series is interesting in a "what people did before CGI" kind of way.

I agree with you about the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy film, but I loved the radio & TV series. The special effects on the TV series were God-awful, but the dialog was hilarious.

The worst offense of the film? Making Marvin Disney-cute.

Fbone · 07-29-2011, 07:07 PM

On impulse I picked up Grass by Sheri Tepper. After reading a couple of chapters, I returned it as it didn't hold my interest. Fox hunting never appealed to me.

Fortunately, one of my ILL requests came in ... The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Originally published in UK as Tiger Tiger!

montsnmags · 07-29-2011, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fbone

On impulse I picked up Grass by Sheri Tepper. After reading a couple of chapters, I returned it as it didn't hold my interest. Fox hunting never appealed to me.

Fortunately, one of my ILL requests came in ... The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Originally published in UK as Tiger Tiger!

I would not try to convince you to pick Grass back up (because life is too short to read books that don't maintain interest), but I would offer for others considering it that fox-hunting not appealing to you might actually be a good reason to continue reading. Of course, it, and Raising the Stones are two of my all-time favourite SF books, so I may be biased.

Cheers,
Marc

MickeyC · 07-30-2011, 09:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by maianhvk

I REALLY enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide

it cracks me up every five seconds, just like The Princess Bride and I LOVE books like those

Can you guys recommend some more?

You might try Oyster Blues by Michael McClelland; it's not SciFi but is a real giggle

HomeInMyShoes · 07-30-2011, 11:14 AM

I've got all of the radio plays for HGG on audio CD. Love them. They have a peremanent spot on the iTouch. I've probably read the books at least three times as well. I've got "The More than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide" on my shelf and the rather large "Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy" as well.

Just finished Jules Verne "Around the World in 80 Days". Really disappointing. After having liked "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" quite a bit, 80 Days was just lame.

I finished "Pride and Prejudice" last week. And despite my earlier annoyances with it being bland and dull. It turned out pretty well. The first quarter just irked me for some reason, but I'd definitely recommend it to others.

DixieGal · 07-30-2011, 05:24 PM

Funniest book in 2011 so far is We're Just Like You, Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle by Celia Riverbark. It is a collection of essays, so it is in short chapters for us low attention span readers.

It's rolling off the couch funny, y'all.

And 35th of my "100 in 2011" fun run.

thinkpad · 07-30-2011, 05:36 PM

Just finished the latest book in A Song Of Ice And Fire series. Pretty much similar writing compared to the previous books. Lots of places and new characters introduced. I'm tired of reading series where the last book isn't out.

Moving on to a stand alone fantasy by Stephen King, The Eyes of the Dragon, http://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Dragon-ebook/dp/B002SR2PSS

beppe · 07-30-2011, 07:14 PM

I just finished reading The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (2009). An unforgettable experience.

Byatt started writing the book with observing an "uneasy recurrence of unhappy fates for the children of writers". Writers of children's stories, like J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. The story is placed at the end of the 19th Century. The short period between the Victorian Period and the First World War, marked by the rising of a new free, artistic and socially conscious way of living: the Fabians, the Art Nouveau, the Suffragettes' movement, the anarchism in England, in Europe and in America. The action is mostly in London and in the counties of Kent and East Sussex but it moves to the Exposition Universelle of Paris, to Munich, ...

The book follows the children from the golden childhood given to them by their enlightened parents, to the cruel ending of many dreams in the first world war. It is threaded with fragments of marvelous fairy tales that Byatt creates in the spirit of the time, and with the description of the new cultural and social themes that after more than a century are still vital and active nowadays. While reading the book I was constantly driven to consider what remains nowadays, and it is not little, of the struggles, of the injustices, of the discriminations, which dreams have become delusions, which are still dreams.

Byatt masters the art of description, and the dramatic construction. One would like to get closer to some of the many characters and identify with him or with her. But deliberately Byatt shifts the focus so that one is forced to perceive a wide, complex image of the time. When characters return in first plane they have grown some and new events and developments are there to catch the reader interest anew.

It is both an historical novel and a Bildungsroman. Actually, the children and their education is one of the central themes of the work.

Byatt lectured for 11 years at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design: she knows about art and artists. In this book it is mostly the wonderful pottery of the time that she describes in fascinating details. And the clothes, oh yes, the Edwardian fashion.

A friend gave me these brief interviews with A.S. Byatt, that give a useful idea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsWQu...layer_embedded

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJc1B...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8xeo...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3sQU...eature=related

caleb72 · 07-31-2011, 05:03 AM

I dumped Shattered Wings for the moment and started The Ark of Adams by Jack Kane. Looks like a cyberpunk experience at this stage.

I'll also be starting A Passage to India soonish - which I guess is a pretty long way from being cyberpunk.

pdurrant · 07-31-2011, 08:19 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I did enjoy that. A fascinating murder mystery, with the return of Mr Satterthwaite and, of course, Hercule Poirot.

Next, another Grantville Gazette, #31, edited by Paula Goodlett.

Which was still fun, so I swiftly read through Grantville Gazette, #32, and now I'm on Grantville Gazette, #33

I'm looking forward to more episodes of the story started in #32. Did you know that dodos didn't become extinct until the late 1600s, with the last sighting being in the 1660s or 1680s... and the Grantville Gazette stories are set in the 1630s.

beppe · 07-31-2011, 09:32 AM

Even in peripheral and culturally marginal Italy, the new literary effort of Harold Bloom, The Anatomy of Influence has been noticed, with a full page in the cultural section of our main newspaper. I did not know about him. I found out that he is a living monument to literary criticism. This is the 5 pages review of his book in the New York Times (5/20/2011).

The book is carried by Amazon, even in ebook format. I downloaded the sample, of which I am happy to provide two quotations that to me appear at least meaningful. I will get the book and read it carefully, bit by bit.

"It is a banal truism that the cultural present both derives from and reacts against anteriority. Twenty-first-century America is in a state of decline. It is scary to reread the final volume of Gibbon these days because the fate of the Roman Empire seems an outline that the imperial presidency of George W. Bush retraced and that continues even now. We have approached bankruptcy, fought wars we cannot pay for, and defrauded our urban and rural poor. Our troops include felons, and mercenaries of many nations are among our “contractors,” fighting on their own rules or none at all. Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of plutocracy, oligarchy, and mounting theocracy that rule our state? How do we address the self-inflicted catastrophes that devastate our natural environment? So large is our malaise that no single writer can encompass it. We have no Emerson or Whitman among us. An institutionalized counterculture condemns individuality as archaic and depreciates intellectual values, even in the universities."

" ... Gertrude Stein remarked that one writes for oneself and for strangers, which I translate as speaking both to myself (which is what great poetry teaches us how to do) and to those dissident readers around the world who in solitude instinctually reach out for quality in literature, disdaining the lemmings who devour J. K. Rowling and Stephen King as they race down the cliffs to intellectual suicide in the gray ocean of the Internet."

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07-29-2011, 08:24 AM	#10291
Patricia81 Junior Member Posts: 3 Karma: 10 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	Now I'm reading 1984 by George Orwell. It's a great book. I love it!

07-29-2011, 11:24 AM	#10294
maianhvk whimsical Posts: 2,779 Karma: 88193939 Join Date: Dec 2010 Location: in darkness Device: current: PPW 4. brick: K3 & Voyage.	I REALLY enjoy Hitchhiker's Guide it cracks me up every five seconds, just like The Princess Bride and I LOVE books like those Can you guys recommend some more? @ Iri: watch out. There's a chance people think you're crazy or something, laughing your *ss off while reading.

07-29-2011, 07:07 PM	#10296
Fbone Is that a sandwich? Posts: 8,296 Karma: 101697116 Join Date: Jun 2010 Device: Nook Glowlight Plus	On impulse I picked up Grass by Sheri Tepper. After reading a couple of chapters, I returned it as it didn't hold my interest. Fox hunting never appealed to me. Fortunately, one of my ILL requests came in ... The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester. Originally published in UK as Tiger Tiger!

07-30-2011, 11:14 AM	#10299
HomeInMyShoes Grand Sorcerer Posts: 19,226 Karma: 67780237 Join Date: Jul 2011 Device: none	I've got all of the radio plays for HGG on audio CD. Love them. They have a peremanent spot on the iTouch. I've probably read the books at least three times as well. I've got "The More than Complete Hitchhiker's Guide" on my shelf and the rather large "Illustrated Hitchhiker's Guid to the Galaxy" as well. Just finished Jules Verne "Around the World in 80 Days". Really disappointing. After having liked "A Journey to the Center of the Earth" quite a bit, 80 Days was just lame. I finished "Pride and Prejudice" last week. And despite my earlier annoyances with it being bland and dull. It turned out pretty well. The first quarter just irked me for some reason, but I'd definitely recommend it to others.

07-30-2011, 05:24 PM	#10300
DixieGal Hi There! Posts: 7,473 Karma: 2930523 Join Date: Feb 2008 Location: Ft Lauderdale Device: iPad	Funniest book in 2011 so far is We're Just Like You, Only Prettier: Confessions of a Tarnished Southern Belle by Celia Riverbark. It is a collection of essays, so it is in short chapters for us low attention span readers. It's rolling off the couch funny, y'all. And 35th of my "100 in 2011" fun run.

07-30-2011, 05:36 PM	#10301
thinkpad David Posts: 1,808 Karma: 8916183 Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Norway Device: Kindle, E.Edge (sold), Irex Iliad (retired)	Just finished the latest book in A Song Of Ice And Fire series. Pretty much similar writing compared to the previous books. Lots of places and new characters introduced. I'm tired of reading series where the last book isn't out. Moving on to a stand alone fantasy by Stephen King, The Eyes of the Dragon, http://www.amazon.com/Eyes-Dragon-ebook/dp/B002SR2PSS

07-30-2011, 07:14 PM	#10302
beppe Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,161 Karma: 81026524 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Italy Device: Kindle3, Ipod4, IPad2	I just finished reading The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt (2009). An unforgettable experience. Byatt started writing the book with observing an "uneasy recurrence of unhappy fates for the children of writers". Writers of children's stories, like J.M. Barrie, the author of Peter Pan. The story is placed at the end of the 19th Century. The short period between the Victorian Period and the First World War, marked by the rising of a new free, artistic and socially conscious way of living: the Fabians, the Art Nouveau, the Suffragettes' movement, the anarchism in England, in Europe and in America. The action is mostly in London and in the counties of Kent and East Sussex but it moves to the Exposition Universelle of Paris, to Munich, ... The book follows the children from the golden childhood given to them by their enlightened parents, to the cruel ending of many dreams in the first world war. It is threaded with fragments of marvelous fairy tales that Byatt creates in the spirit of the time, and with the description of the new cultural and social themes that after more than a century are still vital and active nowadays. While reading the book I was constantly driven to consider what remains nowadays, and it is not little, of the struggles, of the injustices, of the discriminations, which dreams have become delusions, which are still dreams. Byatt masters the art of description, and the dramatic construction. One would like to get closer to some of the many characters and identify with him or with her. But deliberately Byatt shifts the focus so that one is forced to perceive a wide, complex image of the time. When characters return in first plane they have grown some and new events and developments are there to catch the reader interest anew. It is both an historical novel and a Bildungsroman. Actually, the children and their education is one of the central themes of the work. Byatt lectured for 11 years at the Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design: she knows about art and artists. In this book it is mostly the wonderful pottery of the time that she describes in fascinating details. And the clothes, oh yes, the Edwardian fashion. A friend gave me these brief interviews with A.S. Byatt, that give a useful idea. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CsWQu...layer_embedded http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJc1B...eature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8xeo...eature=related http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3sQU...eature=related

07-31-2011, 05:03 AM	#10303
caleb72 Indie Advocate Posts: 2,863 Karma: 18794463 Join Date: Sep 2010 Location: Melbourne, Australia Device: Kindle	I dumped Shattered Wings for the moment and started The Ark of Adams by Jack Kane. Looks like a cyberpunk experience at this stage. I'll also be starting A Passage to India soonish - which I guess is a pretty long way from being cyberpunk.

07-31-2011, 09:32 AM	#10305
beppe Grand Sorcerer Posts: 5,161 Karma: 81026524 Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Italy Device: Kindle3, Ipod4, IPad2	Even in peripheral and culturally marginal Italy, the new literary effort of Harold Bloom, The Anatomy of Influence has been noticed, with a full page in the cultural section of our main newspaper. I did not know about him. I found out that he is a living monument to literary criticism. This is the 5 pages review of his book in the New York Times (5/20/2011). The book is carried by Amazon, even in ebook format. I downloaded the sample, of which I am happy to provide two quotations that to me appear at least meaningful. I will get the book and read it carefully, bit by bit. "It is a banal truism that the cultural present both derives from and reacts against anteriority. Twenty-first-century America is in a state of decline. It is scary to reread the final volume of Gibbon these days because the fate of the Roman Empire seems an outline that the imperial presidency of George W. Bush retraced and that continues even now. We have approached bankruptcy, fought wars we cannot pay for, and defrauded our urban and rural poor. Our troops include felons, and mercenaries of many nations are among our “contractors,” fighting on their own rules or none at all. Dark influences from the American past congregate among us still. If we are a democracy, what are we to make of the palpable elements of plutocracy, oligarchy, and mounting theocracy that rule our state? How do we address the self-inflicted catastrophes that devastate our natural environment? So large is our malaise that no single writer can encompass it. We have no Emerson or Whitman among us. An institutionalized counterculture condemns individuality as archaic and depreciates intellectual values, even in the universities." " ... Gertrude Stein remarked that one writes for oneself and for strangers, which I translate as speaking both to myself (which is what great poetry teaches us how to do) and to those dissident readers around the world who in solitude instinctually reach out for quality in literature, disdaining the lemmings who devour J. K. Rowling and Stephen King as they race down the cliffs to intellectual suicide in the gray ocean of the Internet."