Re: What are you reading?
 

"The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail" by Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln. Bit of a hard book to categorise, as it encompasses Mediaeval history, origins of Freemasonry, Knights Templar, Crusades, and other stuff much more modern; however it all starts with the mysteries and myths surrounding the village of Rennes-le-Chateau in France.

It's a heavy read, and some of the threads are difficult to keep track of. However it's been interesting, and I would recommend it if you fancy something that tests the brain cells. It's also got a certain significance to me personally as the village is in a part of France that I love.

Re: What are you reading?
 

In a similar vein to that I recommend :

The Templar Revelation: Secret Guardians of the True Identity of Christ
By Lynn Picknett & Clive Prince

Their 'Stargate Conspiracy' is a good read too...

Re: What are you reading?
 

Thanks. I actually picked up "The Hiram Key" and "The Book Of Hiram" at the weekend, but I shall look out for that one too.

Re: What are you reading?
 

panasonic lcd projector operating instructions

wow 200" screen :hyper: :PP:

Re: What are you reading?
 

I'm fairly sure that Dan Brown read this book before he wrote the 'Da Vinci Code'

Re: What are you reading?
 

I have heard something similar about a couple of books of this genre. But isn't "The Da Vinci Code" a kind of fictitious tale?

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yeah, it's ficiton (despite what Dan Brown says) - but alot of the background he uses has been talked about in these books, such as 'The Prioy' (which was proved not to exist in that book) - Da Vinci supposedly knowing the 'truth' about Christ and hiding things in his paintings (though having said that, one of the theories is that the painting actually say that Jesus wasn't the 'chosen one' and that it was infact John The Baptist and Jesus just cashed in on it and exploited it - which is why there's a 'pointed finger' in some of the paintings (if I remember rightly)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Hmmm... yes, there are a few contradictory things flying around about a lot of the areas covered in these books. There is some interesting stuff about Da Vinci in "Holy Blood..." though. Personally I find it fascinating; I only wish I had the time to research it thoroughly myself. I'm going over there at some stage later this year, so I shall scout around the region as much as time allows. Incidentally, there's also the theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdalene...?

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yeah, that's a fairly common thread running through most of the theories - to be honest I find some of the other bits a bit more interesting - like the one that Jesus was trying to introduce aspects of the Egyptian/Gnostic religion into the Jewish religion - and that the whole cruxifiction was just a well played out ruse (though apparently it went a bit wrong and he ended up worse off than expected).
A lot of the theory comes down to comparisons between Jesus and Mary Magdalene, and Orisis and Isis, the Egyptian gods - with the familiar 'resurrection' theme running through both stories.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yep, it certainly does have some interesting threads; and they are annoyingly enticing! They seem to keep feeding my brain, but making it want to learn more!

I have to say though, that the current book I am reading raises a lot of questions of the religious aspect, and other matters eg Freemasonry etc. Fascinating stuff.

Re: What are you reading?
 

In my quest to find a rep free thread, I thought I would come here and tel lyou what i am reading at the moment..

Someone Comes to Town Someowne Leaves Town by Cory Doctorow.

He posts his boks for download and I ve been reading it as it has a slightly techy nerdy edge to it... but all I can say is its one hell of a strange book.. people being born from washing machines women with wings... Thankfully I donttake drugs or my brain would be seriously damaged know... oh hold on it already is :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Reading "In your Dreams" by Tom Holt at the mo. Is a follow on from "The Portable Door". Very surreal fantasy along the lines of Robert Rankin only IMO more readable.

Re: What are you reading?
 

I'm reading 'The burning girl' by Mark Billingham - so far so good -some hit man seems to be taking out mafia guys - and somehow it's linked to a previous case where a girl was set alight in the school yard.

Re: What are you reading?
 

'Hothouse' by Brian Aldiss

an 'at the end of time' story - the sun is starting to grow, vegetation takes over, humans shrink, giant spiders transport them to the moon, and back - all the while a fungus tries to control their minds........

classic scifi, I love it :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just started HP 6.... hopefully have that finished tonight or at the latest tommorow night, so I can attack a new book I got told about..

Unsure if it's already been posted in this thread, but ;

http://www.underground-book.com/about.php3

Seems promising, will post back once I've read it :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've read The Portable Door which was pretty good, but I tried others of his like Snow White and the Seven Samurai which I just found tedious and unfunny.
__________________

I tried reading this one many years ago and was totally baffled by it! :erm:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Sorry, not read all this thread as only just picked it up.

Just finished The Da Vinci Code - very good imo.

Now on A Paratroopers Story of D-Day and The Fall Of Nazi Germany. Just started, but seems okay so far.

Re: What are you reading?
 

A book a friend of mine wrote currently untitled about vampires and dark adventures in Romania. Very interesting and chilling read.

Re: What are you reading?
 

See Delphi and Die by Lindsey Davis

Off beat crime novel set in the time of Vespasian featuring an informer (detective) called Falco with a pratician wife Helen (who keeps him in line) and various disfunctional family members.

First book in the series is The Silver Pigs (set mostly in Britain and where he meets his future wife).

Re: What are you reading?
 

The Sentinel by Arthur C. Clarke.

Dilligaf told me about it in another thread, so I thought that I'd better read it. :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

They went to the death chamber........very interesting factual book

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just finished 'The Black Angel' by John Connolly - very good book - little bit strange at times, but it does seem to offer some explanations about why certain things happen to him.

Next up is Pandora's Star by Peter F Hamiltion (best known for the nights dawn trilogy..)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just started "The Hiram Key" by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas; it's early days yet, but it's an alternative approach to a topic that greatly interests me.

Read an interesting book last week called "Hateland" by Bernard O'Mahoney; it's fascinating. It tells how someone who was involved in the British Nazi movement changed his opinions completely after becoming great friends with the very people he thought he despised. It is quite brutal in parts as the man is a self confessed former thug; but it also tells the story of someone who had an upbringing that I would never wish on my worst enemy. It is honest, frank, occasionally humorous, and desperately sad at the end. I recommend it.

Re: What are you reading?
 

It's an excellent little story. I'd recommend virtually all of his works (apart from the later stuff, especially where he started franchising out his name) as quality hard SF.

Or, for some good chuckles, try his "Tales from the White Hart" :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yep, very good read. Read it a long time back but still it sticks in my mind as a memorable read.

Re: What are you reading?
 

The Castle of Mirrors by Jenny Nimmo (Children of the Red King IV)

:blush: Yes I know it's aimed at children but this is the fourth book in the series and the plot and story line is good. A bit like HP but with loads of relatives both good and bad (and no broomsticks).

Re: What are you reading?
 

Read a good book recently called 'A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' by Marina Lewycka. Nice light-hearted, quite fun, quite sad. About to read 'Orientalism' by Edward Said which will neither be light-hearted, nor fun.

Re: What are you reading?
 

The highway code :(

Next in line is The doll who ate his mother :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just finished re-reading Isaac Asimov's "I Robot" (butchered in the Will Smith film, but heh, what can you expect).
Sadly lots of this guys stuff now out of print, and getting harder to replace moth eaten copies I own.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Thought I would revive this one...

I've just finished 'Journeys in the dead season'.. has anyone else read it, and if so - can they explain it to me? - more specifically what the epilogue has to do with anything?

Re: What are you reading?
 

Humph! Well I've been reading 'Learning Legal Rules' by Holland & Webb. Great night time reading I can assure you. :erm:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Going Postal by Terry Pratchett

Re: What are you reading?
 

Jack higgins - the eagle has landed

Re: What are you reading?
 

The Mail

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've broken out my copy of the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy again (the Hardback edition with all 5 books in it) :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Handstands in the dark. A very good book about a girl growing up in poverty in Scotland and how she made it through to become a author and comedian

Re: What are you reading?
 

Lolita it's not like the movies at all :Yikes: much better more of an Adult theme.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Can I just remind people posting in this thread that rather than just a single line listing what they're reading (or have just read), it would be useful if they could include a short review/ description of the work so others can get some idea of whether they'd like to read it, thanks :)

The Runes of the Earth - Stephen Donaldson

Continuing the story of "The Land" from the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, this new series features Linden Avery "The Chosen".

As before, some thousands of years have passed in The Land, but Lord Foul has, it seems, risen again and is threatening destruction again, this time by influencing Covenant's son and driving his ex-wife insane.

He also has arranged for Linden Avery's adopted son, who appears to have some link with The Land, to be kidnapped.

Linden Avery returns to The Land to discover that the Harauchi (the people who formed the Bloodguard) have assumed the position of "Masters" and decided that since Earthpower was the cause of so many of the problems of the past (eg the Desecration caused by Kevin Landwaster) that they should deny all knowledge of it to the people in the hope that this will prevent more destruction, but they fail to realise that Earthpower was also its salvation.

This book is more classic Donaldson, somewhat overblown and over-written (as usual a good editor could have trimmed out some of the excess, and just *how many* times can you use a word like "crepuscular"?!), but none the less his descriptions are vivid and striking and his characters thoughts and actions credible.

For those who have followed the stories of The Land, this one is worth reading.

(One minor chuckle, it's generally agreed that, in the Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, "The One Tree" is a bit of a waste of space, achieving nothing much except increasing the page count. In the synopsis at the start of TRotE it gets about one paragraph...!! :) )

Re: What are you reading?
 

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown.

Not all that impressed, Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Deception Point and DF all have the same structure and basic premise (which I won't do in to as it could possibly be a spoiler for some) and it's getting a bit boring now.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Thud by Terry Pratchett

Commander Vimes is under scrutiny again (for once it's not Vetinary) in this original 'Book of the Game' as the Battle of Koom Valley threatens to be held all over again, with the Watch somewhere in the middle. Hilarious as usual :D :rofl:

Re: What are you reading?
 

I'm waiting for the copy of Thud I've got on order from the local library to come in... :grind:

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've just finished "Adrian Mole And The Weapons Of Mass Destruction".

Its the latest Adrian Mole diary. He's about 35ish in this one, and set to the run up of the war in Iraq. Its nowhere near as riotously funny as its predescessors, but amusing in places. Its always an enjoyable read though. Its interesting how the characters have changed from being kids. Or rather not changed.

I'd give it 8/10. A must if you like those books.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Ender's Shadow, Shadow of the Hegemon, Shadow Puppets - Orson Scott Card.

The first is the story of the boy known only as "Bean", from his early childhood on the streets of Amsterdam to his view of the events that happen in Battle School from Ender's Game, but it's by no means just a re-write.

The second and third tell how he helps Peter Wiggin (Ender's older brother) in his quest to become Hegemon of Earth following the chaos that resulted after the end of the war against the Buggers.

IMO the continuing Ender stories (Speaker for the Dead, Xenocide and Children of the Mind) weren't particularly good, going completely away from the original themes of Ender's Game but if you enjoyed EG then I strongly recommend these.

Re: What are you reading?
 

My favourite Holt is Faust Among Equals. Has to be. The ongoing battle of wits (or lack thereof) between Lucky George and Kurt Lundqvist rivals anything Terry Pratchett's done. Phrases like 'up above the world so high, like a death ray in the sky' still have me in stitches. The idea that Menelaus didn't actually want Helen of Troy back because of her tendency to go insane with an American Express card and a Liberty catalogue, and that it took 10 years and the concentrated moral pressure of three continents to force him to take her back...totally irreverent.

Djinn Rummy, My Hero and Paint Your Dragon are pretty hysterical, too.

Re: What are you reading?
 

A 'bit' different? A BIT? The character of Rico was utterly butchered by Verhoeven! For a start, the Rico in the novel would never have done something as stupid as allowing a member of his squad to remove his helmet during a live fire exercise! At the very least, he would have called 'cease fire' to his squad. Nor would he have received only ten licks - it'd have been more like a court-martial followed by dishonourable discharge. There is no room for such incompetence in the Mobile Infantry.

And as for pulling that claw out of Dizzy - oh, please! That was easily the worst thing he could've done - if you come across someone who's been impaled, stabbed, whatever, you do NOT pull the damn thing out! At least while it's in there it's plugging the wound. But no, this moron yanks it out, doing even more damage to poor Dizzy's lungs as he does so, condemning her to an agonising death. If he'd left the claw in, she'd have had a chance.

Plus the future world portrayed gave most viewers the (utterly false) impression that the Federation was a military dictatorship. This is because the question of why only veterans were eligible to vote was glossed over. Verhoeven completely missed the whole point of the novel, viz. the difference between a civilian and a citizen.

And no way - no way - would a cap trooper barely out of boot camp have been promoted to lieutenant that fast. In fact, none of the squad had even finished their training; no matter how short of men the M.I. might have been, they would not send anyone into combat who wasn't qualified. Picture it: you're a veteran, you've survived multiple combat drops, and suddenly you're expected to babysit raw recruits who haven't even finished boot. Yeah. The cap troopers described in the novel would, under those circumstances, refuse to drop - and their CO would back them to the hilt. What would you do?

Having said all that, Sgt. Zim was spot on. :p:


Anyway. What am I reading? Well, I read a lot. Heinlein (duh!), Clarke, Asimov, Pratchett, Holt, Rankin, Dick, Adams...my bedroom is more like a library. Over 700 books, collected over 30+ years. One author I recently discovered, though, totally took my breath away: Richard Morgan. His books so far are Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Market Forces and Woken Furies.

Altered Carbon - something of a cross between Total Recall, Neuromancer, Starship Troopers and more, but it's all original. For a first novel it's incredible. It'd do justice to an established writer. The premise is this:

It's the 26th Century. Science has advanced to the point that at birth, everyone has a cortical stack implanted at the base of the skull, which records not just your memories, but emotions, thoughts, personality - everything. The upshot is that if you have the money for it, you can live out your life, pay for a new, cloned body and be downloaded into it - you might be a 100-year-old man in a teenager's body. Or you can swap bodies at will - a standard practice for the rich is to have two or more clones and swap between them every few months, to save wear and tear. You can have custom-made bodies, or sleeves, as they're termed. Want to change sex, to find out how the other half lives? Not a problem - just have yourself downloaded into a sleeve of the opposite gender.

Not only that, you can, if you're very rich, have updates to backup copies of yourself broadcast to a storage facility every few hours - so even if someone torches your head off in an attempt to permanently kill you (termed Real Death, as opposed to the faux, impermanent death you experience if your stack is intact), all you lose is a few hours of your life.

It adds a new twist to the idea of a murder mystery, which the novel essentially is - namely that the person retaining a detective to investigate a murder is in fact the victim. In other words, he's saying 'Someone killed me. Find out who and why.' The mystery is deepened by the fact that there's no point in killing a man who's backed up - you can't kill him just by torching his stack; you'd have to deal with the storage facility, too. To do that, you've got to find it, and the kind of money this man has buys a lot of protection. Having found it, you've got to get in, and of course the highly paid and therefore generally unbribable security staff might have something to say about that.

So why kill him?

No hints. Read it. You'll love it. I can't recommend it highly enough, though it does get rather gruesome in places. Hardly surprising in a world where it's possible to torture someone to death several times, either physically or in virtual or both, and therefore there really are worse things than death...

There was a terrific joke in the novel, too; one character, a cop, wears a T-shirt saying 'You Have The Right To Remain Silent - Why Don't You Try It For A While?' I loved that so much I had Streetshirts put it on a T-shirt for me!

Broken Angels and Woken Furies are sequels (sort of; they deal with the same protagonist, one Takeshi Kovacs, ex-member of the feared Envoy Corps, but they don't follow on exactly); Market Forces is set in our near future, and speculates about the way things are going with multinational corporations. It's reminiscent of Rollerball (the original version, if you please).

In an earlier post, someone mentioned Ronan the Barbarian. Brilliant stuff. A female warrior, Tyson, throws three spears - one takes out a zombie, the other two hit double top in a dartboard. What does the bartender shout? "One Undead and eighty!", of course. :D

Tales From The White Hart - superb. My favourite Tale is definitely The Reluctant Orchid.

Hothouse - entertaining, but if the novel is set 2000 million years in the future, then the Sun has entered its red giant phase at least 2000 million years too early. And while the Moon and Earth are indeed exerting a gradual braking effect on each other (to the extent that 400 million years ago, the day was only 20 hours long), there won't be time for their rotation to be reduced to zero because the Sun will go nova before then.

Re: What are you reading?
 

I am just about to finish Stephen King's Danse Macabre.

Which is an interesting view/lesson on the horror genre. Not just Kings work by the way, although he does explain the thoughts behind some of his books in it.

My dad just gave me my old copy of Have Spacesuit, will travel (Heinlein). Old but good (at least when I was 10)

p.s. the thing that I really missed from the film version of starship troopers was powered armour - I was looking forward to seeing that. Oh and we'd better not mention the evilness that was starship troopers 2

Re: What are you reading?
 

Calm down, you'll have a coronary! :angel:

Quote:

The character of Rico was utterly butchered by Verhoeven! For a start, the Rico in the novel would never have done something as stupid as allowing a member of his squad to remove his helmet during a live fire exercise!

Well, there was a touch of irony in my comment, but yes, you're right.

And them walking along a valley in a nice neat column? No one on point, no one up high to scout the flanks and, "oh, look, falling rocks. We'll look at them suspiciously, but not do anything about it"

Or what about "before this girl even gets to pilot the Starship, she does some insanely dangerous manouevres around the space station, then when she gets into the pilot's chair she does some more really stupid stuff, but instead of her getting a new a$$hole ripped into her, it's 'wow, wasn't that well done'"!!

Or how about "let's send massed infantry onto this planet with no armour or air support and then be surprised when they get butchered".

And talking of which, massed infantry??? Where the hell were the armoured suits of the novel which allowed a squad of men to fight with the effectiveness of an armoured brigade?

Apart from a couple of bits of dialogue and good effects, the whole thing was a waste of time.

Quote:

Anyway. What am I reading? Well, I read a lot. Heinlein (duh!), Clarke, Asimov, Pratchett, Holt, Rankin, Dick, Adams...my bedroom is more like a library. Over 700 books, collected over 30+ years.

I've only got about 300 at the moment, but I cleared out a lot of stuff that I hadn't read for ages and didn't want to read again when I moved.

A lot of it matches your list, apart from Holt and Rankin who I just can't get into as mentioned earlier in the thread.

Quote:

One author I recently discovered, though, totally took my breath away: Richard Morgan. His books so far are Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, Market Forces and Woken Furies.

Not heard of him, but the review sounds interesting.

Have you tried Allen Steele: Orbital Decay, Lunar Descent, Clarke County Space etc? I found his stuff very readable and good "hard" SF.

Useful! :)

:rofl: Nice one!

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just finished 'State of Fear' by Michael Crichton. Just wait til another thread appears here on global warming!! :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yes, I forgot about that. Isn't it crazy that with all the gravimetric, motion and other sensors at their command, they could've avoided that asteroid just by looking out of the freakin' window a bit sooner?! What kind of pilot relies solely on instruments? A dead one, that's what! And who places a cadet at the helm of a multi-million-credit starship like the Rodger Young?
Yes, that was stupid, given that they already knew the Arachnids tended to number in the tens of thousands at any given location. I don't even want to think about how many billions of them there must've been on Klendathu itself. Why didn't the Navy plaster the landing areas before the M.I. dropped?

On the other hand, Verhoeven occasionally has a macabre sense of humour. Remember Shujimi in the shower scene (Dina Meyer naked. Naked in a shower. Right in front of the guys. Ooh, those lucky b***ards!) saying his Harvard tuition was going to cost an arm and a leg? Well, on Klendathu it did - the Bugs ripped both off before dismembering him totally. Wheter the joke was intentional, I don't know.

Remember Total Recall? "You think this is the real Quaid?" The guards turn away - "It is!" and he handily blows them away. Or Richter having his arms ripped off by the elevator and falling back down the shaft - Quaid tosses the arms after him and calls, "See you at the party, Richter!"

We'll leave the glaring scientific inaccuracies of Total Recall's Mars for another time, I think...

Re: What are you reading?
 

I'm reading 'To Kill A Mocking Bird' at the moment, I haven't read it since school!

Re: What are you reading?
 

Dan Brown, Angels and Demons. :tu:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Cracker of a book, that :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Definitely, loving it. Got Digital Fortress to read next. :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've read Brown's last 4 books and I'm not going to give anything away, but they all have the same basic structure which is quite frustrating. If you've read The Da Vinci code then you'll see the similarities with A+D.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just finished Sue Townsend's Adrian Mole and the Weapons of Mass Destruction - easily the best Adrian Mole she's done since the Growing Pains. Very laugh-aloud funny, which is quite embarassing for me as I do most of my reading on planes. :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Sunday Money - Jeff MacGregor

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/006...83155&v=glance

An account of an interesting experience

Re: What are you reading?
 

I'm just nearing the end of 'The Big Over Easy' by Jasper Fforde - the blurb says:

It's Easter in Reading--a bad time for eggs--and no one can remember the last sunny day. Ovoid D-class nursery celebrity Humpty Stuyvesant Van Dumpty III, minor baronet, ex-convict, and former millionaire philanthropist, is found shattered to death beneath a wall in a shabby area of town. All the evidence points to his ex-wife, who has conveniently shot herself.
But Detective Inspector Jack Spratt and his assistant Mary Mary remain unconvinced, a sentiment not shared with their superiors at the Reading Police Department, who are still smarting over their failure to convict the Three Pigs of murdering Mr. Wolff. Before long Jack and Mary find themselves grappling with a sinister plot involving cross-border money laundering, bullion smuggling, problems with beanstalks, titans seeking asylum, and the cut and thrust world of international chiropody.

And on top of all that, the JellyMan is coming to town . . .


I'm a big fan of his books anyway, but this one is top class - thoroughly recommended :tu:

Re: What are you reading?
 

'An illustrated brief history of time' :disturbd:
.....the illustrations don't really help much :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Errr.... :erm:

I wonder what the hell he was smoking when he wrote that :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Who cares? When you're reading it, you feel like you've got some of the same stuff :disturbd:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Exactly Nugget, a good book equals escapism:tu:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Indeed... I am definitely going to check that out soon :tu: :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

i'm ploughing my way through the "the dark tower" books by stephen king. onto number 4 of 7 at the moment... :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

am reading the Conquest of the Incas by John Hemming.. .. showing my intellectual side for a change with my reading.. well written book that's gripping from start to finish.. and it's a history book as well so i'm learning stuff too

Re: What are you reading?
 

Ooh ooh - they're all fab! I finally finished book 7 in September and it was top class :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

If you like that perhaps you would like some of Simon R Green's books about The Nightside.

After that you might like the Deathstalker series or the Hawke and Fisher set..

Mind you have to like gore and horror to appreciate them... ;)

Not the Stephen Kings.You two post faster than I can type. :(

Re: What are you reading?
 

it's so bloody confusing though... my mind can't keep up with all the changes in languages and worlds.... grrr

Re: What are you reading?
 

Any particular recommendations Coggy?
__________________

Meh - you ain't seen nothing yet :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

:(

im all for epic books etc, but to be honest i think mr king got verbal diarrhoea a bit. also, all the made up words and switching between "thee, thou and thy" and modern day languages just frazzles the old circuits.... *mumble chunter*

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've just read a book called "Always A Marine" by Steven Preece. It was a sequal to another book called "Amongst The Marines." Personally I wouldn't have chosen his first one by the book cover. But you need to step inside these stories to understand them. The first book was violent, disgusting, exteremly funny and yet at times quite sad. The sequal was a different approach and the emotion captured in it was immense. I didn't just read it, I actually felt it.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Currently reading 'The Stainless Angel' by Elizabeth Palmer.

The blurb says 'Writing with wit, humour and compassion, Elizabeth Palmer is a welcome addition to the ranks of English storytellers like Mary Wesley and Joanna Trollope' but I assume this is a quote from her agent; it's rubbish ;)

Re: What are you reading?
 

'Les Miserables', Victor Hugo.

In French.

:D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just read 'Touching Earth' by Rani Manicka. It was really good and beautifully written, although very dark in places.

Re: What are you reading?
 

The Wizard Knight by Gene Wolf.

An enormous tome but very readable and flows along nicely, apart from the authors propensity to end a section of the hero's journey somewhat abruptly and launch into the next stage without any intervening narrative.

An otherwise linear tale (so far) of a youth's trip to a new land, his abrupt growth and all the adventures he has along the way.

Re: What are you reading?
 

To see what all the fuss was about, I'm currently reading The Da Vinci Code.

Top read so far,:tu:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Love All The People. Letters, Lyrics, Routines - Bill Hicks.
Genius. Just so right and sadly missed.

Going Postal - Terry Prachett
Pratchett's skill at using the fantasy world to satire the real world remains undiminished. Very funny and I now can't look at pins without smiling.


Next on my list :) .

Re: What are you reading?
 

Yes Man - by Danny Wallace

Really enjoying it an all :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

is that Danny Wallace the footballer ?

Am reading from Goals to Guns : The Story of Hungarian Football 1950 - 56

Re: What are you reading?
 

:erm: errm no, http://www.dannywallace.com/

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just be sure to take what he calls 'facts' with more than a pinch of salt....!

Just finished Double Eagle by James Twining, a very Dan Brown-esque read. Pretty good too :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

going through the 'back catalogue' atm,

"Icerigger" by Alan Dean Foster - good pulp scifi from an ace storyteller :)

Re: What are you reading?
 

A skip full of salt more like! LOL:D A case of trying to turn fiction into fact.;)

:angel:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Hmm, so much for the Government's "Six Grammes Per Day" campaign :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

Currently not reading anything.The minute I pick up a book I find myself waking up with a crick in my neck and drool coming out of my mouth while my husband bitterly complains about the snoring during his tv watching. :erm:

Re: What are you reading?
 

Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince

Re: What are you reading?
 

Depends on your view on life etc.

Re: What are you reading?
 

am now reading Four Novels by Dashiell Hammett.. it's got the Maltese Falcon.. i've already read it before but i've seen the film a few times and am now reading the book again.. after a few more times i might be able to work out what's going on :-)

Re: What are you reading?
 

Goblet of Fire, other recent reads have been a quick whip through the Dan Browns, Fish! and Who moved my BlackBerry(TM)?

Re: What are you reading?
 

think we need to make sure everyone does a review of books after they've read them otherwise this thread isn't that usefull

Re: What are you reading?
 

Dan Brown - DaVinci code - good airport / beach read, enjoyable romp around Paris (even if he does not know his North from his South) that should make a great movie, though Tom Hanks?

Angels and Demons - the prequal to DaVinci, much better story IMHO.

Deception Point - a bit to implausable IMHO, least enjoyed of the 4 books.

Digital Fortress - NSA / US Govt. / Encryption Keys / Supercomputers / EMail security - CF Geeks should enjoy this one.

Who moved my BlackBerry(tm)? - Martin Lukes and Lucy Kellaway
A book of the emails published in the FT of the days in the life of Martin Lukes a high flying executive. All the Management Buzzwords and re-engineering you can take, just remember be Creovative(tm)

Fish! - Management Motivation, how to have a happy workforce like the one at Seattle's Pike Place Market. Narrators tell the stories of various managers and corporations who strive to transform their businesses into places where people play, are nice to each other, and cooperation and teamwork are commonplace. A good read.

Re: What are you reading?
 

thanks for the above.. kepe meaning to check out Da Vinci code just to see what the fuss is al about but i don't like getting on a train and reading the same books as everyone else.. i like to be different.. still my brother has it so will see if he will lend it to me

just to be abit more usefull i review my last book as well

From Goals To Guns : The Story of Hungarian Football 1950-56 . A really good book with lots of great details on the Hungarian football team that lost only one match between 1950-56 (including friendlies Mr Eriksson).. they won Olyimpic Gold and lost the world cup final even though they were the best team.. team had Puskas one of the greatest players every plus a host of other personalities.. still missing out on some more info on the final that has come to light but a very good read.. could have had a few more stories of humour etc from the players that happened at the time

Re: What are you reading?
 

So come on, is the da Vinci code worth reading? or is it just 'fashionable' to do so. Only asking cause it's lying on my book shelf waiting to be read. Should I bother? And whats it all about?

Re: What are you reading?
 

It's a really good read and I reccommend as long as you realise that what Dan Brown claims is 'fact' is often far from it.

Re: What are you reading?
 

You'll know by the time you have reached Victoria whether you want to carry on reading it. Probably yes. The Rough Guide to the DaVinci Code is also on my reading list, as Russ says, take the gospel truth according to Dan with a pinch of salt, it is sold as a work of fiction, it effectivly fictionalises Holy Blood Holy Grail, another one on the reading list.

Re: What are you reading?
 

It's a terrible, terrible book but you can't stop reading it. You are reading chapters thinking, "What ridiculous plot twist will he use now?" but still end up enjoying the book.

Re: What are you reading?
 

Just finished The Orchard On Fire by Shena Mackay:

When Percy and Betty Harlency abandon their seedy Streatham pub for the Copper Kettle Tearoom in Kent, life for their daughter, April, changes dramatically. She is befriended by the wonderfully dangerous Ruby, whose red hair and brutal home life emphasize her love of fire, and by the creepy but immaculately dressed Mr Greedridge, who likes to follow her around the village.

Mingling the innocent with the sinister and laced with the tragic and the bizarre, this is a true evocation on a 1950s childhood.

Excellent novel: great characters who you really empathise with, really well written with wit & compassion - definitely recommend it ;)

Re: What are you reading?
 

I picked up Something Rotten in the airport bookshop yesterday while I was waiting to fly home. I bought it after being hit smack between the eyes by the most unbelievably surreal opening I've ever read in any book.

A pair of special detectives are on the trail of a minotaur who has escaped from his own novel and has gone to ground in the back-story of a third-rate western. And it gets a whole lot wierder than that. I bought it and am now reading avidly. :D

I just finished Ben Bova's latest 'tour of the solar system' novel, Mercury. It is by far the weakest of the four I've read so far (already finished Mars, Return to Mars and Venus). Mercury suffers from a disappointingly thin plot and a series of increasingly unlikely coincidences about two-thirds of the way through a flash-back that itself occupies about three quarters of the entire book. The whole thing reads like he knew he had to write Mercury to add to the series but didn't have much in the way of ideas for an actual story. Unless you're particularly a fan of the series (and so are interested in how the characters and events fit into the overall back story he's created) I wouldn't bother.

Hey, I used 'back story' twice in one post. Does that make me a real critic? :D

Re: What are you reading?
 

I just finished The Stand again - The Complete uncut version.

One of my most read books, I definately have a hankering for an apocolyptic story and this delivers on so many levels.

I bought 'IT' by the same author today, which is one of the few books by King that I've not read.

Re: What are you reading?
 

I just finished reading Michael Crichton's newest creation: Prey. I only have one word to describe it: SUPERB. This book is really great. The plot gives us an insight on what would become of nanotechnology when it is incorporated with genetic engineering and computer engineering. It also shows us what happens when our own creations become our own enemies. I really recommend it to those who love science fiction books, but beware of the jargon. Those who are not familliar with modern physics and some biology terms might not find this book easy to understand.

Re: What are you reading?
 

I've posted about "Always A Marine" previously, but have just clocked this link to a newspaper article about the author. Cool I thought.

http://archive.thisisthenortheast.co...16/214137.html