I'm polyamorous (in a bookish kind of way)

[Rumple Foreskin]

DaVinci Code I got a kick out of the whole 'sacred feminine' ideas, and started to get really pissed off at the idea that 'civilization' and religious leaders downgraded the status of women from equals to whatever it is we are now.

LJ, the book is FICTION. But I'm glad it helped you endure a long flight.

Recent books/authors:
Just finished: Gabriel García Márquez, The Autumn of the Patriarch / William Faulkner, The Snopes Triology: The Hamlet, The Mansion, The Town. Reading: Joyce Carol Oates, Middle Age: A Romance,

Comfort authors:
Elmore Leonard, Walter Mosley, Frederick Forsyth, George MacDonald Fraser

Rumple Foreskin

 

[LadyJeanne]

LJ, the book is FICTION. But I'm glad it helped you endure a long flight.

Rumple Foreskin

Well, yes, but some of the Pharaohs were women and matriarchal societies did exist, and yet we're still trying to come around to the idea of a woman President in the US. We got off track somewhere along the line...

 

[tolyk]

I read a lot of Fantasy, though only recently have I gotten back into books. For some time I just couldn't get into them at all.

Lately I've been reading a series by Dave Duncan, enjoying it quite a bit, except far too many made up words that I'm having to stumble over.

My usual authors include, but are not limited too, Tad Williams, David Eddings, Terry Brooks, Margaret Weis, and some Fred Saberhagen.

Comfort books would be Tad Williams "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" series, which I enjoyed about immeasurably more than I did Lord of the Rings. (all you LotRs fans out there, try this series )

 

[AppleBiter]

I am currently reading "Mind Hunter" by John Douglas. In addition to my numerous text books, that is.

Some that I have recently read and enjoyed include:

"The Lovely Bones" Alice Sebold
"Death Masques" Various Horror Authors
"Everything's Eventual" Stephen King
"The Truth" Terry Pratchett
"Still Me" Christopher Reeve, and
the Dave Pelzer trilogy: "A Child Called It," "The Lost Boy," and "A Man Named Dave"

 

[hmmnmm]

Guilty of laxity on the fiction these days.
Although there's this set of The American Peoples Encyclopedia from 1957... volume 14, Mormons to Optimism the best of the set. Of course I mostly just look at the pictures; since I discovered these books a lot of other literature is rather dull.

Oh, there's Narcissus and Goldmund that I've been meaning to go through a second time.
But not today.

 

[R. Richard]

Much of Musashi's work is very philosophical. However, I do not agree with much of what he (and/or Sun Tzu) say. I originally read the philosophical stuff in order to try to comprehend what some of my opponents were thinking. However, I found a gold mine in the two swords techniques. Some of the restrictions Musashi cites are not actually restrictions but limitations that the advanced practitioner can overcome. Fascinating stuff!

 

[Huckleman2000]

Most recently finished is Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson. First book of his that I've read, and I was very impressed. He has a distinct voice that lent itself to the ideas explored in the book, and it makes me curious to know if he adapts that voice to other ideas in his other books.

Before that, I read three Grisham books that I hadn't read yet. I was doing some business travel, and Grisham is good for planes and hotel rooms. Readily available in all the airports, and you know you'll get a good read out of your $7.99.

I've read everything by David Baldacci too - I like his books more than Grisham, really. And I went through the Dan Brown oeurve pretty quickly as well. Very clever and imaginative, but the one-day conceit gets old very fast. True, it produces an urgency that is compelling, but it also starts to ring false. As a reader, you know you're being gamed.

As for other books I've read recently that I'd recommend:

A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson - if you need proof that reality is stranger than fiction, on so many levels, and that science can be written about in an engaging manner, pick up this book.

Me Talk Pretty One Day, by David Sedaris - also, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. Several times, I burst out laughing on the bus ride to/from work, but I was worried that people might think I was gay, not just gay-friendly. Has Sedaris found an audience outside the gay community? He's sort of a gay Dave Eggers.

Surprisingly, my mother, she of the five virgin births, really liked A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, even though the style of writing must have seemed alien to her.

A book that I'm curious to get, but don't want to spend hardcover prices - Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything, by Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner. I know, Economics is the Dismal Science, but my depressed brain finds the analysis fascinating. Engrossing, even.

 

[SeaCat]

Right now I'm not reading too much. Almost finished with a great book called "Blade Dancer" by S.L. Viehl. Also currently reading Ralph Wetterhans book "The last Battle", "Infantry Aces" by Franz Kurowski, "Dead Center" by Ed Kugler, as well as "The Road to Arnhem" by I don't know who. (I don't have the book in front of me, it's on the front seat of my car right now.)

Cat

 

[minsue]

Right now I'm working my way through my collection of Richard North Patterson books. Those be my comfort books and I never tire of them. That's helpful since it helps to put off the bookstore runs that I simply cannot afford. I can never get out of there for under $100. It's pathetic.

 

[Huckleman2000]

Right now I'm working my way through my collection of Richard North Patterson books. Those be my comfort books and I never tire of them. That's helpful since it helps to put off the bookstore runs that I simply cannot afford. I can never get out of there for under $100. It's pathetic.

Y'know, I've read a couple of those and I know I liked them, but I just can't bring myself to buy one in the bookstore because i can't for the life of me remember which ones I've read! I read the back cover, and they all sound familiar. Same thing with Mary Higgins - I know I've read one or two, but I couldn't tell you which ones.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Recently? Well, this month so far I've read or am reading:

Reiko Momochi's latest english translation of her work, "Confidential Confessions". Very good character development and story work. She makes me jealous with how well she plays the emotions of the reader.

"The Magic of Shapeshifting" by Rosalyn Greene (promised a good friend I'd check it out for him as he's going through his religious transcending and what not)

"Hogfather", "Mort", "Thief of Time", and "Soul Magic" by Terry Pratchett

Reread "The long dark teatime of the soul" by Douglas Adams because it fucking rocks.

Finally read "Let's all kill Constance" by Ray Bradbury

Reread some short stories by Poe

"Trader" and "Jack, the giant killer" by Charles de Lint

My school books and various research articles (don't count, non-fiction is too fake)

"The Filth" by Grant Morrison

"Preacher" by Garth Ennis

"Lucifer" by Mike Carey

"Stone Butch Blues" by Leslie Feinberg

"Love Hina" by Ken Akamatsu

Some more short stories by H.P. Lovecraft

"Practical Demonkeeping" and "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" by Christopher Moore

"The Losers" by Andy Diggle

And just starting "Dr. Bloodmoney" by Phillip K. Dick



And for comfort books, Adams and Bradbury are my big mainstays as well as Pratchett to a degree. I also seem to be rereading Poe more and more these days and of course I keep rereading Shakespeare plays almost festivally biannualy.


But yeah, I'm pretty polyamorous with my reading. In truth, I'm probably a book slut. Hardly catching a breath as I finish one before I start slobbering on the head of another and always drenching myself with hot thick themes and pearly characterization.


EDITED TO ADD: Forgot I read "Cunt-ups" on a dare. If you think my random tagging attack is random, then you obviously didn't read that book. Like Kathy Acker on snake venom.

 

[Verbena]

I read to relax and, perhaps escape. I seem to be in a stage where I’m warmly returning to old favourites – I don’t know what that says about me.

Just finished The Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon and I’m now deep into Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. Re-reading Fingersmith next.

I am reading more and more online but, unfortunately, it’s difficult to snuggle down in bed with a computer and that’s where I love to read.

 

[LadyJeanne]

"Practical Demonkeeping" and "Island of the Sequined Love Nun" by Christopher Moore

I've read the Love Nun! And then went on to "Coyote Blue". But "Lamb" was the first of his that I read and remains the favorite of the bunch.

Comfort books include the Armistead Maupin "Tales of the City" series, the Narnia Chronicles, and Sarah Parestky mysteries.

 

[Kassiana]

"Oriental mind", eh? Does he think we are cold and calculating and likely to consume our own young for "honor"?

--It's more like he'll (Robert Ludlum) make comments that "most Americans don't understand the twists and turns in the Oriental mind." Never mind that most of the real fuckers in the story are the Brits and Americans putting the hero through hell by kidnapping his wife and forcing him to become a cold-blooded killer... ::rolls eyes::

I love, love, love LKH! Are you reading the Merry Gentry series, too?

--Hm...let's see...must sleep with huge numbers of men in order to get pregnant + faeries...hell yeah!

Utterly unrecommended: Terence Faherty's "The Ordained." The main character is boring and impossible to follow.

 

[Huckleman2000]

--It's more like he'll (Robert Ludlum) make comments that "most Americans don't understand the twists and turns in the Oriental mind." Never mind that most of the real fuckers in the story are the Brits and Americans putting the hero through hell by kidnapping his wife and forcing him to become a cold-blooded killer... ::rolls eyes::

That's not the new one I've seen on bookstands that's "inspired" by the Bourne characters of Robert Ludlum, is it? I know I've read the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum. He definitely had a Jones for that whole East/West cultural dichotomy stuff. Post-cold war, it starts to seem a bit anachronistic.

 

[Kassiana]

That's not the new one I've seen on bookstands that's "inspired" by the Bourne characters of Robert Ludlum, is it? I know I've read the Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum. He definitely had a Jones for that whole East/West cultural dichotomy stuff. Post-cold war, it starts to seem a bit anachronistic.

I just picked up Supremacy from my local Salvation Army thrift store. I also have Ultimatum. I liked the movie version of Bourne Identity. I would guess from my reading of B.S. ( ) so far that Identity was actually a better book, but I don't really know.

 

[NoJo]

I read to relax and, perhaps escape. I seem to be in a stage where I’m warmly returning to old favourites – I don’t know what that says about me.

Just finished The Wonder Boys by Michael Chabon and I’m now deep into Tipping the Velvet by Sarah Waters. Re-reading Fingersmith next.

I am reading more and more online but, unfortunately, it’s difficult to snuggle down in bed with a computer and that’s where I love to read.

Tip: The older ibooks have curved edges.

 

[Verbena]

Tip: The older ibooks have curved edges.

I wish I knew what you meant.

 

[NoJo]

I wish I knew what you meant.

I probably would be even duller if you did.

 

[yui]

I wish I knew what you meant.

Laptops. Apple Computer. iBooks. Curved edges so you can read in bed (and still be online).

 

[Verbena]

Laptops. Apple Computer. iBooks. Curved edges so you can read in bed (and still be online).

I understand, thanks.

I probably would be even duller if you did.

Impossible.

 

[NoJo]

Laptops. Apple Computer. iBooks. Curved edges so you can read in bed (and still be online).

Yui, is that the avatar that caused Elsol to explode? It's nice, but less pink than I'd expected.

 

[yui]

Yui, is that the avatar that caused Elsol to explode? It's nice, but less pink than I'd expected.

Nope. That one was the pink knickers.

 

[NoJo]

Nope. That one was the pink knickers.

I ddidn't see that. Unless you were in them, I don't see what all the fuss was about.

 

[yui]

I ddidn't see that. Unless you were in them, I don't see what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was because they're a wee bit lewd, don't you think?