Never heard of that.... is it girly or dark and horrific? That is, compare sparkling twilight to gory and insane alucard in hellsing.
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Never heard of that.... is it girly or dark and horrific? That is, compare sparkling twilight to gory and insane alucard in hellsing.
Seen as I've already covered one of the critical questions, I may as well ask: do you like Justin Bieber? ;p
Interesting... I ask about the book because I find novels, which females are generally interested in, tend to have more character development than just more and more action. And I'm always trying to find that novel which is dark, fantasy, gritty and has strong character development. Let me know how that turns out.
Well i'm almost finished with it, and basically the storyline arcs around 3-4 characters at first, you get to know them, their motives, ect... then later it all joins together.
I'm not sure what counts as good character developement, as i wasn't really a bookworm before... basically this is the first book i started reading by my own interest :) But one thing for sure is that i enjoy it a lot... a lot more than what i expected at first... There are 2 more books that continue the story, then there are 6 more books which are related in terms of "prequel" and i plan on getting ALL of those :D
P.S: No, i don't like Justine. I listen to rock and metal mostly :)
Tshh, implying I'm a bookworm? Well, well... you'd be right. 3-4 characters is a good sign though, as it sort of necessitates character development. Not to mention its scope doing the same.
And I just realised it takes place in the Forgotten Realms... like Neverwinter Nights. I like.
+1 for no Bieber Fever
I just finished some of the Vampire Chronicles and just started Firestarter. Both of them have psychic powers through out the book and I feel its helping me with my Psychic powers in my dreams.
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This one exactly. "Diary of Young Girl"
it's so good <3 love dis gurl. Heartbreaking though what happened :/
Just got the second book today ^^ Gotta start reading it today :) I just can't wait to continue the adventure :P
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What's up with the last book? Where do you stand on this?
I just finished The Scarlet Pimpernel, so now I'm back on my previous book:
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Almost finished with it; I'll probably finish tonight.
I am reading the final book of the dark tower series. started the series last october.
I read the first book last year, but never got around to buying the second one until a few weeks ago.
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I just started this one, and its fascinating
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I just bought The Quantum Universe, mostly because I had the previous book in the series and felt the need to complete the collection of cat covers lol. It's a fun read so far. I also just started the second book of Lord of the Rings.
Just started:
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To Kill a Mockingbird, reading it for school. It's not terrible, I guess, not as bad as some books I've had to read for school. Like Great Expectations. That was hell bound at the edge of each page.
I like Great Expectations :( The movie with Hawke, Paltrow and Deniro was pretty cool, too. To Kill a Mockingbird is okay.
I'm pretty much sticking with audiobooks until a point where I'm not reading stuff online all day for work (which will be no later than June 5th--just hoping I have something else lined up before then). Ready Player One had its flaws as I said, but all in all it was brilliant. After that I blew through Storm Front by Jim Butcher, the first Harry Dresden novel, and it was really entertaining (read by James Marsters a.k.a. Spike from Buffy). It's hard boiled detective urban fantasy; the main character is a wizard for hire in Chicago who ends up solving supernatural crimes.
I jumped into the first book of David Eddings' Belgariad after that, and it was just okay. I'll probably come back to the series at some point. I started Stephen King's The Wind Through the Keyhole on my bike trip today, read by the author, and it's great so far. People scoff, but he's a master craftsman. Midworld and the characters of Roland's ka-tet are so vivid and real. I don't remember every event of the Dark Tower series, but I recognized Eddie, Susannah, Jake, Oy and Roland instantly.
DANG IT. My friend gave me another book that I have to read before I finish Catching Fire. (That's a good "dang it" by the way.)
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Nearly done with The Alchemist - Paul Coelho
Mmm, didn't really like that. Felt like it was promoting that odd stuff you find in The Secret.... Compare this in The Alchemist: "When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.." to the 'serious' premise of The Secret: "It is based on the law of attraction and claims that positive thinking can create life-changing results such as increased wealth, health, and happiness."
I know it's only a fictional novel; however, the way it came across had those strong undertones. What do you think of it?
"Doing Nothing"
^
books .. someday, someday
I'm actually finishing up several books at the moment, Divine Comedy being among one of them. Honestly... >_< It's kind of hard to understand with the language. So far, I just know it's some guy going into hell and meeting all these famous people.
Finishing up The Way of Kings (Stormlight 1) by Brandon Sanderson. It's probably his best and most original work. With this one, I'll have read just about everything except his finishing volumes for Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series. Again he's created a really intricate magic system (or systems) driving an equally involved wheels-within-wheels sort of world, but he doesn't get as bogged down in the details as in some of his other works. Granted, this is the first book of a projected trilogy, so there may be towering infodumps ahead :P
There are several narratives going on, following different characters at different times in their lives, and I got an experience I really like in a novel, where early on you're more interested in one storyline over the others, but then it shifts and another storyline is the most interesting, and by the end you're totally engaged in all of them.
I just read The Call of Cthulhu.
Err. Meh.
Is this Lovecraft dude's stuff actually good? I think I'd like to read more, but the sheer amount of things to choose from is a bit intimidating I think.
Just finished pandoras star, which is now officially my favourite book, now for the sequel judas unchained.
Just finished VALIS.
Starting The Jungle and A New Kind of Science. AT THE SAME TIME, WAT.
Finally I'm back to this book. And I can't put it down! I was up until 4AM reading...
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I'm reading Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway, which is quite the post-genre mashup. British spy thriller is probably the chief organizing principle, but with the feel of a caper film (not sure I've ever read a caper novel) and the events rest upon a sort of steampunk hidden history. It's intentionally absurd and oozing wry Britishness: thoroughly entertaining so far.
I'm also poking at the second Belgariad audiobook, but I don't know... it's such plain blah-blah sword fights blah-blah wizards fantasy. The characters are somewhat engaging, but I'm thinking it's time to bail on this one.
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin. It's not my kind of book, and the only reason I'm reading it is because of educational purposes.
Starting this book next, I'm saving the last Hunger Games novel for a while (I have to savor it!)
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Finally got the third book ^^ Already read 50 pages today... i would've read more, but i don't want to finish it too fast :P
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Btw i really like the cover of these Lady Penitent books. Once i finish the third one, i'll place them somewhere where they can be well seen :D
Yeah, I think it has some wisdom in it..but it barely brushes the surface if you know what I mean. I had much higher expectations for it. I just didn't get a lot out of the book, because I felt like everything being presented to me was something I'd already discovered or had made my conclusions about. Maybe if I had read it when I was, say, 15. Not to sound like an arrogant douche.
I guess the message is good overall (be optimistic! shoot for your dreams! things will work out!), it wasn't meant to be literal. It is an allegory after all. A little too idealistic. I liked the part where he leaves the little arab town and the passage about love being distinct from possession.
Overall I wasn't impressed.
Situations matter, written by Sam Sommers.
Really interesting
Sounds a lot like Richard Bach, or The Celestine Prophecy, or the Ishmael books. They all have their redeeming qualities and get the gist of a lot of stuff right, but they're also all a bit over-earnest and impressed with themselves, and have fanatical pseudo-religious followings that blow their value way out of proportion.
I'm reading serious literature: book 3 of The Dresden Files :cheeky: Actually I'm still reading (with my eyeballs) Angelmaker, but in the meantime I blew through the audiobook of Dresden #2 and also most of The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell (which I read probably ten years ago and it's giving me great ideas for one of my several novels-forever-in-progress).
Dresden gets billed as urban fantasy and, yeah, the guy's a wizard, but it's really more horror--it reminds me a lot of Supernatural (which is a very fun show).
Cunningham's Understanding America
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge. Had to at some point!
OK. It's time to finish the trilogy with
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...Mockingjay.JPG
And I'm also reading through this simultaneously.
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I love used book sales. I got two books and a DVD for 4 dollars!
Currently reading A Clash of Kings by George Martin (the sequel to a Game of Thrones). I loved the first book and this one seems to be just as good, but I've sort of gotten out of the habit of reading books at the moment. It's annoying, makes me want to put away the book before I've finished a chapter every time.
Currently reading this:
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and, I'm working on the 'Gone' series, which is actually surprisingly good.
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I'm currently reading:
Darth Plagueis
MSPress MCTS 70-642
We Are Anonymous
<---- Nerd
Not at all! I've wanted to read We Are Anonymous, and I like Star Wars books! I recently read Revan (because I was such a fan of KotOR I and II).
Finished Mockingjay, it was quite good but did make me shed a tear or two... >.>
Now I'm on to this...
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Slaughterhouse-Five was quite good. On to the next book!
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Fucking amazing.
So i finished the Lady Penitent trilogy, so now it's time for the War of the Spider Queen books. Which is a series consisting of 6 books and the story tells the happenings leading to the story of the Lady Penitent books :)
Starting with this one that i just got today:
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Ah, so these are the four books you got? Unless I'm mistaken.
The War of the Spider Queen series consists of 6 books. The one i posted above is the first of the six. But i got the second one too :)
I'll get the others when these 2 are finished.
Edit: Oh now i understand what you meant by the 4 books. No, i bought the first and second book of the War of the Spider Queen series and got 3 extra free books because of the special offer. These 3 free books are not related to my bought books at all. They are just random books. :)
One is about world war 2, the other is about love, the third one is about nature... lol.
No wonder they were free. Such excitement to be found in them.
Currently have two audiobooks going, Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars and the sixth Dresden Files book, Blood Rites. I wasn't all that impressed w/ DF #5, Death Masks, but it was still fun. The new characters it introduced seemed cartoonish, and it seemed like Butcher was going out of his way to drop pop culture references.
Red Mars is based on the premise that you'd have to be at least a little crazy to sign up for a one-way Mars mission, and at least a bit of a genius to be accepted, and follows the social, political and psychological consequences for the first 100 colonists and the world they found. There's a decent amount of hard science thrown in, too.
Finished Push, on to
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I've only read one Christopher Moore book, but it was hilarious. I'm excited for this one.
Yes to Foundation, no to Disch. I read Foundation straight through just a couple years ago, and it was cool but I felt like the Dune books covered a lot of the same ground and did it better (up through God Emperor, anyway). I'm getting a little genre'd out, honestly, but I don't have much literary/general/historical stuff on my reading list.
Just finished all audio books of Stephen King's The Dark Tower
Reading a swedish book about the worlds most secretive and dangerous countries, it's called "Greetings From the Axis of Evil".
Here are some books I've read or started recently
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I also just recently finished this one after forgetting about it for like a year
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Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice and East of Eden by John Steinbeck. Both. Simultaneously. >:D
Just started The Stupidest Angel by Christopher Moore.
At the moment:
Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
The Wise Man's Fear - Patrick Rothfuss
Journey to the West - Wu Cheng'en
Some I finished recently:
Long Earth - Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
A Dance with Dragons - GRRM
^ Murakami's style is excellent.... such a mellow tone played with a jazzy beat.
Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World.
Easy Riders, Raging bulls.
It details the massive change in the Hollywood studio system that took place in the late 60's through the mid seventies, and is a fascinating read. I didn't realize the old Hollywood studio system had existed essentially unchanged from the very beginning of silent cinema, and still consisted of the septa-and octa-generians who had started it so many decades ago. These guys were totally conservative and old-school and completely out of touch with what America had become in the 60's, with hippies, vietnam protests, rock music etc. And as that system collapsed under its own weight they became desparate and let a couple of young hippies direct movies (Dennis Hopper with Easy Rider most notably) that the old-school studio execs totally didn't understand and hated, but became a breath of fresh air that re-invigorated the dying Hollywood, eventually allowing Lucas and Spielberg to do their thing. For a period of about 5 years Hollywood was actually making powerful, relevant movies (after finally ditching the Rock Hudson / Doris Day productions) that drew inspiration from the European auteurs like Bergman and Godard etc - but then they also found a new marketing strategy and ushered in the Blockbuster, which again killed imagination and relevance and turned movies into big business that has grown steadily bigger ever since.
Fascinating stuff - the old studio system was like Mad Men - a bunch of conservative elderly Jews chomping cigars and drinking hard liquor all day, cursing each other out like sailors while making movies in which husband and wife never sleep in the same bed - then the New Hollywood was a bunch of hippies in tie dye and ripped denim smoking dope all day and doing acid and speed.
Some of the interviews on which the book is based were collected into a documentary film of the same name:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eTb0Q9AgCw
Finished Dissolution yesterday, now time to continue with this :D
http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/n9/n48602.jpg
Consilience
by E. O. Wilson
Right now I'm reading Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes, God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper, and The Gnostic Bible, which is a collection of Gnostic texts from various religions translated into English with provided commentaries.
^ I think once i'm down with WotSP, i'll start reading some sci-fi :P
Part 1 is just over 1000 pages, but I'm liking it so far. And it's very detailed, though you get used to it pretty fast. How's the WotSP progressing -- still holding up good?
Yeah, i'm at the 13th chapter of 20 in the second book right now. It's still pretty fun... i'd even say that i like the second book somewhat more than the first :) There's even a succubus like demon girl in this one (not spoilerish, don't worry), she's an alu-fiend demon, but they are almost the same. I love reading the parts where she is there... :P
The 3rd and 4th books are in the shop and i'll probably get my hands on them tomorrow :)
Scifi eh? Here's my recommendation...
Spoiler for Books:
Right now I'm reading the only one of his I haven't read. With a glass of whisky of course.
Spoiler for Book and whisky:
I have read a lot of scifi, and Iain Banks totally eclipses everything. Even Asimov.
If you decide to take my recommendation then I would suggest starting with either 'Use of Weapons' or 'The Player of Games'
Haha yes, I am an enormous fan. Met him twice, and actually managed to chat to him the second time.
Foundation was amazing, really incredible scope and intelligence. I think Banks puts a similar amount of care and intelligence into his writing as Asimov does, but has an added layer of fun and humour which Asimov sometimes lacks a bit.
I would think any scifi fan would enjoy Banks, if you start with Player of Games or Use of Weapons. For me, they take scifi to a new level. But since it's all opinion anyway I can't guarantee you'll feel the same :)
Nah, not in the Abyss yet... but who knows... maybe later on :) The Lady Penitent books had parts in the Abyss though.
It takes place at Mezoberranzan and Ched Nasad, the two big drow cities so far... and also in the caves of Underdark. But i'm sure there will be more places as the story advances :)
I'm not even reading them as fast as i could, because i don't want to finish them too fast, so i hold myself back a bit xD
As for the sci-fi recommendations... i would like something that's adventurous... like i don't only want to read about a planet or stuff like that... i want to have protagonists and follow their story. I like the adventure in books the most ^^
I don't know which category those fit into.. i never read a sci-fi book before.
I reckon you should try Murakami: Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. The book is split in two by chapter, and half takes place in reality and the other in the protagonist's subconscious mind (like a lucid dream in some sense). It's adventurous, sciency, and focuses on a few people -- character driven. Not exactly sci-fi, but a good read nonetheless, and Murakami's style is so smooth and a bit mad. :]
The part in the protagonist's mind is a whole new world, and in some sense is a reality of its own....
I always recommend this to people purely because I'm interested in the mind, identity, and lucid dreaming (subconscious)... as I imagine people here would be too.
And if not this, have you checked out the cyberpunk genre at all? It's sciency in the technological sense, but more grounded and focused...
The Player of Games by Banks follows a man living in a super-advanced society called 'The Culture', a utopian society where everyone gets what they want, where the authority is in the form of super-intelligent machines called 'Minds'. This man is an expert at playing games, and is blackmailed to travel to another planet to play the most complex game in the universe; where the winner is crowned Emperor.
Use of Weapons follows a man who is introduced to The Culture, and follows his past and present at the same time in a really interesting narrative structure.
Both have lots of adventure, and aren't particularly 'technical' scifi books.
That sounds good, i like these stories where a part is played in the protagonist's mind... that's always interesting ^^
It's not a problem if it's not exactly sci-fi... by sci-fi i meant something futuristic or things like that... since i'm not really at home in the sci-fi genre, i don't know the exact description of what is sci-fi and what isn't anymore :P
I don't really have much idea about cyberpunk, other than seeing stuff like that in games.
Interesting... but dunno, somehow i feel like that's a bit too dry for my taste :/ But i'll read after it in more detail once i'm done with my current books, maybe i would like them...
Ah, well... it's usually a future where technological advancement has led to a gritty dystopia, where criminals are abundant and nearly everything has been augmented by machines (say, like, your senses from nanobots/implants etc). It usually has a dark style and is quite graphic. Also, there is rarely any central government.... usually whoever has the most assassins and power is boss, basically. It's like the game Syndicate or Mirror's Edge.
Some things considered cyberpunk:
Films:
Ghost in a Shell
Existenz
Twelve Monkeys
Blade Runner
Books:
Neuromancer
Altered Carbon
Only Forward
One of Us
If you're looking for space opera (wild adventures with space ships) with some mind-bendy twists, Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep is great.
Continuing with Condemnation ^^
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Started reading The Golden Compass.
Also been into a creepypasta marathon lately...some of those stories are pretty disturbing and scary. o_o
Great poster and beautiful book. I hadn't heard of that film but I've made a point of seeing the other two. I guess I'll have to add that one to my list of movies to see.
New creepypasta fan aye? This guy is a must: iTunes - Podcasts - MrCreepyPasta by Mr Creepy Pasta
Just about halfway through Asimov's Caves of Steel. I like the world, but the characters are really predictable. I understand why, for its time, robot-racism was interesting. But the directness of it is unnecessary. I, Robot did a much better job handling (and evolving) the conflict.
But then again, I still have half the book left, and Lije's hate has just been completely laid bare.
Also reading Dawkins's The Ancestor's Tale. Because I absolutely need to read at least one Dawkins a year (and The Greatest Show on Earth, though full of neat trivia, was clearly written for Americreationists--I need to learn something new when I read).
I'm approaching the halfway point in Neal Stephenson's Reamde, and loving it so far. There are echoes of Cryptonomicon, but Reamde is much lighter fare with almost a Danny Boyle comedy-of-errors crime movie plot. It's still pretty nerdy, but one of the most accessible things he's written. Hopefully it holds up for another 400 pages--his first novel, Snow Crash, seemed like it was going to be amazing up to about 1/3 of the way through, and then just got ridiculous (and not in a good way). He's written a lot of good stuff since then, and I'm not expecting Reamde to stand up to his last book, Anathem, which was mind-blowing all the way through.
^ Heh, we seem to read the same books.
The story is getting more and more exciting :P
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Still Sputnik Sweetheart :3 and now new Cloud Atlas from David Mitchell.
Jane Eyre, but only because of school work. Damn my English teachers for setting me homework over the summer!
However, I am a rather amazing English student.
This is going to sound completely ridiculous but I'm re-reading Redwall by Brian Jacques. It's honestly just a great book. I've only read it about five hundred times now.
Finished up both Reamde and Red Mars last night. Red Mars was my back burner audiobook (I finished a couple ebooks and a couple other audiobooks in the midst of listening to it, but did keep going back to it). It was good, but the wandering travelogue aspect with characters in the forefront and plot as an afterthought challenges some people's patience, based on Goodreads reviews. The way I read it was probably a good way to read it.
Reamde was a lot of fun with some engaging characters and lots of action, not the deep mindbender one might expect from Stephenson, but a good read especially if you are familiar with and/or interested in virtual worlds (though most of the action takes place in meatspace).
Right now I'm between books and will probably start something new tonight, but I don't know what.
Ugh, i'm reading these books a bit faster than i wanted to.... :P
Finally i got my hands on all 6 of them, so now i can continue with the 5th :)
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Finally reached the last book... i feel a bit sad that the story will soon end :( But it was really fun so far :D
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I'll start looking for something new soon, i can't be left without a book to read :P
The void trilogy
The tao of tai-chi
and lucid dreaming: gateway to inner self,
I'm reading The Swerve, which won a Pulitzer this year and the National Book Award last year:
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It's fascinating so far. The first part is mostly a biography of the papal secretary and founding humanist who re-discovered Lucretius' On the Nature of Things 600 years ago, and the historical context of that discovery, including a lot of detail of the papal court, monastic culture, and the origins of the humanities as a field of study. Greenblatt hasn't really touched on his thesis yet, that Lucretius' almost-lost poem is the founding document of Modernity, but I mainly got into it for the historical stuff, anyway--a friend recommended the book when I mentioned I wanted to pick up some history after my recent sci-fi jag.
I'm also listening to Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light, about future space colonists who found a medieval society with their cloned offspring and then rule from orbit in the guise of the Hindu pantheon, opposed by one of their own number who acts as a Buddha of sorts. It's proven way too engaging for bedtime listening, so I've also resumed the comfortably mediocre Belgariad series as a sleep aid :cheeky:
- A Student's Guide to Maxwell's Equations by Daniel Fleisch: a really good book if you want to review or learn about the four fundamental equations of electromagnetism
- The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins: I wanted to read this for a while now and I share most of my views on religion with Dawkins.
- Introduction to Tensor Analysis, Relativity and Cosmology by D.F. Lawden: I would like to know more about relativity and tensors but I still lack the physics background to tackle this book so I had
to put it away for now.
- The Red Queen: sex and the evolution of human nature by Matt Ridley
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The fourth book in the series and actually one of the best books in it so far. I've read quite a few fantasy series but "A tale of the Malazan book of the fallen" is definitely the most intellectually challenging so far. It's unpredictable and very imaginative. However it can get a bit too deep sometimes, especially the previous books, there's alot of philosophy stylish monologue which can get tiring.
I really recommend this series to anyone who's into fantasy.
The Swerve was interesting throughout, but never made much of a case for its thesis, or rather had a much less ambitious thesis than the subtitle "How the World Became Modern" suggests. People who were blown away by it seem mainly to have been moved by the short, straightforward introduction to Epicureanism and the anti-religious sentiment. For me, the former struck me as a sort of under-developed Buddhism with a couple crucial parts missing, and the latter as a personal hangup of the author.
Now I'm reading a pretty trashy (but not altogether bad) old horror novel, Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. It's about puppet masters or "mind vampires" who can psychically control one or two people near them and get a special kick out of making those people do violent things. There's a definite BDSM vibe to the whole thing.
I just finished reading The Hunger Games books by Suzanne Collins which were really enjoyable.
I'm currently reading 'Invisible Monsters' by Chuck Palahniuk (fight club) about a fashion model who's face gets disfigured.
The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Just discovered it's nearly 800 pages long. Yay. But it's good, though.
im reading "the fires of heaven" book 5 in the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan :)
I'm about to start The Electric Jesus: The Healing Journey of a Contemporary Gnostic by Jonathan Talat Phillips.
Also eager to start the Aghora trilogy by Robert E. Svoboda, even knowing the controversy surrounding its authenticity.
I kinda like it so far, but only for the absurdity of the character. Nothing in the story has really hooked me.
Well, i decided to stay in the Forgotten Realms so far. I'll be reading all the Drizzt Do'Urden books from now on :) Starting with this:
I love reading Iris Johansen's books.. "The Ugly Duckling" and Cherry Bennet's "Life in the Fat Lane" I enjoy reading it.:)
I got to like Drizzt already :)
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I love Crime and romance books but for a change I'm reading manga right now..it's "venus cappriccio":)
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Really interesting read so far :) Also well written and illustrated.
Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku & Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, whom I happen to be related to! ^_^
I am currently reading Creative Visualization by Shakti Gawain.
Pretty short book, I enjoy it though.
Just finished Robert Monroe's books, probably gonna reread them because they are awesome.
I just finished reading:
-Trance-Portation: Learning to Navigate The Inner World by Diana Paxson
-Lucid Dreaming by Stephen LaBerge
-Astral Travel for Beginners by Richard Webster
I am currently reading:
-Hypnosis for Beginners by William W. Hewitt
All I highly recommend!
~Lunessa
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About a third of the way through the book and it's fairly entertaining. It's interesting seeing how many of the things in the book are true today (book was written in the '50s (I think) and based in 1984), and also a little bit creepy.
I made another completely random mid-train-ride selection from what I had on my tablet: Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo.
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For the first chapter or two I wasn't sure if I would continue with it, but now I'm drawn into the absurdist humor at least, without much notion of where the book is going. So far it's very Vonnegut-esque, with the nominally sci-fi premise providing more of an excuse than an organizing principle for the sequence of odd interactions among damaged individuals.
Carrion Comfort was a very satisfying horror story, by the way--creepy on many levels. It was also epic in scope, with several full-on battles against and among the big baddies.
Tuesdays with Morrie
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I'm reading this interesting book about a guy who tries to destroy his identity by making all decision by throwing dice.
I know it's outdated but I just read "Life in the Fat Lane" by Cherrie Bennet and I love it.
Started the Multidimensional Human. It's actually a fascinating book that helps us learn how to get to 'other' states like lucid dreaming, astral projection and various OOBs, etc. It's a book written in a different style, it's not the typical cookbook step by step way, so I'm really enjoying it now.
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Why Am I Afraid to Tell You Who I Am?
Fallen Masters, by John Edward.
I am only 150 pages through, but so far so good. It is a fictional mystery and combines science, spirituality, politics, and various religions to face a growing dark matter. But what is that dark matter?
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Agent Zigzag, known to those around him as Eddie Chapman, was by any measure Britain’s most unlikely intelligence asset. He was a longtime criminal turned double agent who, in the course of his career as a spy, would flit back and forth between Britain and Germany, occupied France and occupied Norway on one top-secret mission after another.
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6th book in the series "The Horus Heresy" which is about humanity 30.000 years into the future. Based on the "Warhammer 40k" universe. Betrayal, mysterious powers, loyalty and lots of action. Great series and extra rewarding for those who plays/have played the miniature game.
Lovecraft out the wazoo
several things
just finished The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, was good but that was to be expected.
im really struggling through hemmingway's The Old Man and The Sea right now. it's just. . .boring. i actually like complicated and unnecessary prose, which old ernest is severely lacking of. it feels like i'm reading a chapter book
also going through a collection of nicolai gogol's short stories which are great. particulary liked The Overcoat and The Nose
and every single one of my english classes is having a 'british postmodernism' crisis which isn't as bad as i thought it would be
and apparently you can't edit posts any more. maybe it's just me
..
maybe it's always just been me. . .
does this mean death is near
Just finished Mad in America. I am now disgusted with the history of psychiatry.
Currently reading Galapagos by Vonnegut. Also Ficciones, by Borges, and learning lots of new words in the process.
Now reading The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect. It's free and online and about the singularity and I'm 7 chapters in and it's awesome so far.
Just finished Bitten - werewolf book. Pretty good. Wanted something easy :)
Now I'm reading Y: The Last Man because I put it on my Goodreads and it got such high ratings.
I really want a challenging book but an interesting one, and it seems like all the difficult ones are plain boring. IDK. PM me suggestions?
I'm reading The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss. I'm pretty sure it's my favorite book (and the sequel right along with it)!
I haven't really been reading anything specific, just kind of dabbling in different places in books as interest sparks or just to spark some interest. Although, I haven't finished Lord of the Rings yet (just started the second book) and I was thinking of starting over and making a chart of all the characters, family lines, wars, eras, etc just to get the full experience out of the book. I've been kind of skipping over a bunch of those details to get to the action, but I think it might be worth it.
To NewArtemis and anyone else: Books I'd recommend to anyone would be The Trouble with Physics by Lee Smolin (a beautiful summary of the mysteries theoretical physics faces today and a critical analysis of string theory) The Dragons of Eden by Carl Sagan (speculations on the evolution of the capabilities humans possess such as reading, writing, and art) and Reason for Hope by Jane Goodall (the story of how she went about going to Africa to study chimpanzees and her experience there).
1984- The last four words of the book showed how powerful Oceania's government is. Physical torture is common in our history as humans. Physical torture isn't really that painful or degrading, in fact, it can turn one into a hero/martyr. But psychological torture, the ability to bend a person's will up to the point where he accepts a lie as a truth is just terrifying.
I started reading "Life of Pi" and "South of the Border, West of the Sun".
Just finished America Again, my next book is a short Agatha Christie, Easy to Kill.
Just started Full Tilt by Neal Shusterman. Unwind was amazing, and Everlost was pretty good, so I'm excited for this.
Factual not fiction but i've just started reading "Are You Dreaming?" by Daniel Love (Are You Dreaming?: Exploring Lucid Dreams: A Comprehensive Guide: Daniel Love: 9780957497702: Amazon.com: Books)
It arrived in the post this morning :banana: and so far looks awesome!! great book on lucid dreaming. Will write a review when im done :D
Exploring the World of Lucid Dreaming, Adventures Beyond the Body, and Stray Souls. When I get a chance I want to get back into Nekropolis the first book in a series, the Sandman Slim series and the Eye of the World series.
A Song of Ice and Fire - A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin
and
A Clash of Kings - A Game of Thrones, also by George R.R. Martin.
If I ever get around to finishing these masterpieces, I will definitely read the next 2 in the series :)
I just finished up Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark audiobook, which was fascinating. The narrator is autistic in a near future where multiple, increasingly effective early interventions for autism have been developed. If he had been born ten years earlier, he might never have learned to talk, but if he'd been born ten years later he might have been cured completely--spared the sensory overload and social blindness he's spent years learning to manage. It's thoughtful and engaging throughout.
I've also been reading Harvey Pekar's American Splendor comic books, which can be depressing but on the whole are much better than I expected.
Before The Speed of Dark I listened to the first of Roger Zelazny's Amber books, and now I'm listening to the second. It's fun pulp adventure with the slightest psychedelic bent.
I'm on a classic horror literature kick right now. Just finished up Dracula, and now I'm on to Frankenstein.
^^ Awesome! I went through the exact same kick. You should definitely add Moby Dick and The Hunchback of Notre Dame to the list.
Oooh yes! I've already read Moby Dick, but I think I'll make The Hunchback of Notre Dame my next read.
Already done Lovecraft, Poe and Ambrose Bierce? If not those all come highly recommended of course.
I'm rereading Silmarilion. It's indeed the greatest book ever written by Tolken.
Once my salary arrives, incoming Are you Dreaming through amazon...can't wait ^^
I've read what I believe to be everything ever published by Poe, and a great deal of what else I've come across concerning him. I'm a bit of a fanatic. Lovecraft and Ambrose Bierce, however, I haven't given a try yet. Thanks for the recommendations! Is there anything by either that you would particularly suggest?
I'm reading Warren Ellis's Gun Machine, which is better than I had expected based on his comic book work. Then again, his comics often started strong then went all limp a bit past the halfway mark, so we'll see how it finishes.
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The discworld series by TP...pretty funny :D
Robots and Empire by Isaac Asimov :).
Stangor, Charles. Introduction to Psychology :D
Currently Frankenweenie, the Visual Companion. Amazing book for an amazing movie. Gorgeous black and white photography.
Also on tap now - Are You Dreaming and Process-Relational-Philosophy-An-Introduction-to-Alfred-North-Whitehead (sorry, so lazy I just copypasted it from the Kindle book source)
Right now all I have going are the American Splendor graphic novels and the Amber audiobooks, but enjoying both quite a bit. American Splendor really is something special. I was reading one today where another tenant in Harvey's building gets on the elevator with a flashlight someone gave him, and he says he's going to put it away. "Y' know whatcha do when someone gives ya somethin? Y' thank 'em... ...an' then ya put it away."
When I got to work today, someone started broadcasting that it was my birthday, and one of the guys I work with hands me twenty dollars. He's a gay guy and sometimes I get the feeling that he's nice to me because he's into me, but I'm no homophobe (which I recently saw defined as a guy who's terrified that gay guys will start treating him like he treats women), so I thought of the comic, said "Thank you," and put it in my pocket :D
The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.
If you love Sci Fi/Fantasy this book and the next one (A Wise Man's Fear) are absolutely FANTASTIC.
I'm reading The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks!
Nekropolis by Tim Waggoner
A New Kind of Science - Stephen Wolfram
This is my third attempt to read this 1000+ page beast. And the first 350 pages have been sooooo slow and boring and layman. I want this book to be better because I really like cellular automata. ;___;
He's talking about fluids now. Which has been the most recent cool thing I've read. I used to think that the random swirly behavior of smokes and currents was due to randomness in the environment, but he's starting to show that there are far simpler systems which produce similar complexity, and furthermore they tend to 'cancel out' the effects of environmental noise rather than incorporating them. SO COOL.
I'm currently reading Kill the Dead by Richard Kadrey the second in the Sandman Slim series and just started to read The Secret History of Dreaming by Robert Moss. I just found a book site Share Book Recommendations With Your Friends, Join Book Clubs, Answer Trivia. I think the site will motivate me to read more. :)
"Call Me Joe" by Poul Anderson, which Avatar ripped off horribly and a really poor guitar book.
Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche "The Tibetan Yogas of Dream and Sleep"
Game of thrones, I bought all seven books some weeks ago. Once I enter vacations, burst speed!
"Metaphors We Live By" by Heorge Lakoff and Mark Johnson
Just finished reading a number of Philip K. Dick novels, including but not limited to Ubik, Time out of Joint, Confessions of a Crap Artist, Martian Time Slip, and Do Robots Dream of Electric Sheep. He's currently my favorite author but unfortunately I've run out of novels by him and I don't really like reading short stories. I just love the way he deals with the human mind. I don't think I've ever read a book that paints a better picture of insanity than pretty much any of his novels.
Now I've started Infinite Jest (again) and I'm starting to remember why I stopped reading it every other time I've tried. I'm a huge David Foster Wallace fan but this book is just so damn boring! The only reason I keep reading it is because his writing is so pretty. On the plus side it's one of the best sleep aids I've ever come across.
false memory by dean koontz
A New Kind of Science is really getting zany. The dude claims the universe can be simulated by a network automata. Actually, a simpler (single live cell) automata that simulates a network automata. Then he talks about consciousness and is vague. Then he talks about definitions of randomness and complexity, which were far too vague for me to take seriously. "Randomness is that whose underlying pattern cannot be readily identified by a simple program, such as a brain." "Complexity is that which increases with a pattern's description length." Ugh. The next 200 pages are going to drag and drag.
Which is why I'm taking a break and reading Robert Heinlein's The Number of the Beast. I'm 200 pages in, and there's a lot of math-nerd stuff in there, though it's predominantly sci-fi. It's also been unexpectedly slice-of-life, which has been enjoyable. It's told from four different perspectives, of the two freshly-married couples who are travelling in what amounts to a trans-universal TARDIS.
The Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve. Excellent post-apocalyptic novel series and has provided me some inspiration for lucid dreaming. :)
Oh man I love the Mortal Engines books so much! I also would highly recommend the View from the Mirror Quartet from Ian Irvine, and any of his other books, for a truly outstanding fantasy world which blew my mind when I read it, and inspires me to do some of the stuff in the books in a LD.
I am currently reading 'The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss, and while I have only read around 50 to 100 pages into it I already think it is going to be one of my favourite books, and it is written wonderfully. Also there is plenty of inspiration for LD's in the book.
I've had a few Name of the Wind dreams. Not as many as I'd like, considering how much I enjoy both The Name of the Wind and Wise Man's Fear.
I just finished Codex of Alera (again) and I started reading H.P. Lovecraft, I bought one of those 'complete works of' books.
into the silence by wade davis. just started reading it so not much to say at this point.
The 48 Laws of Power.
Pretty interesting.
I am reading two books now:
"Discover the Power Within You" by Eric Butterworth. This book sounded interesting, but I expected to disagree with it more than I find myself doing so. It is one of those books that make me reexamine my own spirituality, though I do not agree with all if it, but I am reluctantly agreeing with more of it than I thought I would be willing to. A thought provoking book for me.
The second book I am reading is "Meditation for Beginners" by Jack Kornfield. I just started it tonight. I expected to love it and I do. The trouble is that my natural tendency with a good book is to stay up reading it from cover to cover, and with this book I feel I should stop after chapter one, start practicing what it taught me thus far, and only progress once I am ready for more. This is going to be hard. Did I think I am now more patient than I was when I was younger? How silly of me. I just tried meditating, and I have a renewed respect for the realization that I am an impatient human being who cannot sit still and be comfortable and focus yet. Hmm.
Jack Kornfield is the man. I keep a copy of The Wise Heart: a Guide to the Universal Teachings of Buddhist Psychology next to my toilet and I've probably read it in bits and pieces like 20 times. I haven't read Meditation for Beginners, but what I love so much about The Wise Heart is that he uses a very logical and scientific approach to deal with spiritual topics. It seems like a lot of Buddhist literature is just like "do this, it'll make you feel better" with no explanation of why your mind works that way.
People should post pictures of the books they are reading, I love the draws of the covers ^^
About to start reading this one in preparation for my upcoming course "The Social Context of Mental Health and Illness":
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I am reading this:
Flush: Carl Hiaasen: 9780375861253: Amazon.com: Books
Carl Hiaasen is one of my favorite authors, and I just finished reading the other three books of his, all amazing.
My favorite would have to be this one, Scat:
Scat: Carl Hiaasen: 9780440421047: Amazon.com: Books
"The Alchemist" by Paulo Coelho (when I went to juvie in 08 I was reading this book and hid it in my pants when I left wanting to finish it, but I never did. So i found it in my closet library. and BOOM here i am :])
"My Bright Abyss: Meditation of a Modern Believer" by Christian Wiman