What are you currently reading?

[mn dave]

SABRIEL by Garth Nix

YA fantasy

not bad

[adamdavid80]

And I am reading this:



Damn, and there are still so many cool books about opera singers!!! I gotta read them all.

Tha's an EXCELLENT cover!  Cool art direction and graphic design...looks like something Chip Kidd would do.  If the book is half as good, it's gonna be good.

[mozartsneighbor]

and

[val]

KAFKA:    Complete Works (I)

This first book has all of Kafka's works that were published during his life. They all are very famous.

[Opus106]

Bought this along with the Mahler CD...

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Brain
Douglas R. Hofstadter

I'll have time only skim through the pages for the next couple of weeks.

[mn dave]

A couple reviewers at Amazon are slamming this but so far--I've just started reading it--I can't see why.

Screw genre labels. Gene Wolfe is one of America's greatest living writers and it's always a pleasure to experience his prose.

[mn dave]

I'm reading this too.

[adamdavid80]

A couple reviewers at Amazon are slamming this but so far--I've just started reading it--I can't see why.

Screw genre labels. Gene Wolfe is one of America's greatest living writers and it's always a pleasure to experience his prose.

Wait...can you not see why others are slamming it, or can you not see why you're taking the time to read it??

[mn dave]

#1

[SonicMan46]

Drink:  A Cultural History of Alcohol (2008) by Iain Gately - just started this book today, so far getting into the early Middle Ages (chapters on Greece & Rome quite enjoyable) - should be a fun read - click HERE for Amazonian comments & reviews - 

Well, as usual , I've been reading numerous different books - but am about half way through the above which I posted recently on this thread - this book is indeed fascinating and enjoyable despite its length (about 500 pages); really, a brief history of the world and 'how' alcoholic beverages of all sorts have impacted & influenced history - looking forward to finishing this tome, and would recommend the book to others w/ similar interests - 

[Norbeone]

Gödel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Brain
Douglas R. Hofstadter

I'll have time only skim through the pages for the next couple of weeks.

Good luck with that one! Great book, but very challenging at certain parts. That's always a good thing, though.

[Opus106]

Good luck with that one! Great book, but very challenging at certain parts. That's always a good thing, though.

Thanks. I put off buying this book for a long time, since I assumed that the reader requires previous knowledge of music and art. Having read a few web-pages recently, I came to the conclusion that no such thing is needed, and the reader must only be ready to face the challenges, as you say, presented in the book.

[Lethevich]

As Christmas is coming up:



Edit: Oh, and is it good? It's less essential TP, like all the new books. But TP is one of the best authors when it comes to complacency - the less original books are still lots of fun to read, mainly due to his "themes".

[pjme]

Rimsky-Korsakov's auto-biography. A great way to discover some aspects of the 19th century in Russia.



P.

[Heather Harrison]

I have been reading short stories from 1843 issues of Graham's Magazine, one of the top literary magazines of its day.  I love 19th Century literature, and these moldy old magazines are a good way to venture off the beaten path.  Today, I read "The Fire Doomed" by Reynell Coates and "The Enchanted Gun" by C. F. Hoffman.  "The Fire Doomed" is a story about a man who goes insane after losing the love of his life; Romantic notions about fate and destiny pervade the story.  "The Enchanted Gun" is a funny short story about backwoods people who are freaked out by a gun that is going off by itself.

Heather

[Philoctetes]

Learning a Trade by Reynolds Price

I love these type of books that allow one direct knowledge of the thought process of an author. Allowing insight into their intent, their workings, their etc.

[Bogey]

From 1927



From the web:
Armageddon 2419 A.D. is Philip Francis Nowlan's novella which first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. Later, in the 1960s, the novella and its sequel, The Airlords of Han, were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim into one paperback novel, titled Armageddon 2419 A.D. The characters and setting eventually evolved into Buck Rogers.

[Hector]

John Maynard Keynes and John Kenneth Galbraith.

The latter is hilarious to the extent I laughed myself all the way from the bank!

[orbital]

[mn dave]

From 1927

]

From the web:
Armageddon 2419 A.D. is Philip Francis Nowlan's novella which first appeared in the August 1928 issue of the pulp magazine Amazing Stories. Later, in the 1960s, the novella and its sequel, The Airlords of Han, were combined by editor Donald A. Wollheim into one paperback novel, titled Armageddon 2419 A.D. The characters and setting eventually evolved into Buck Rogers.

I dig the look.