Books - What are you reading?

They're all collected in to 3 books, that's how I bought them. Really enjoyed the whole series.

I ended up reading a lot of his stuff last year and he s got some great stuff, and some not so great.

Whilst doing some research today I discovered that Hugh Howey also runs this site http://authorearnings.com/ Has some interesting stuff on there if you're interested in publishing/author royalties

Anything by Philip K Dick, particularly Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, The Man In the High Castle and A Scanner Darkly. As others have mentjoned, the Wool series is also worth a read, mainly for some interesting ideas and a good storyline, although I didnt particularly like the writing style personally. Also, I just finished The Sirens of Titan by Kurt Vonnegut and enjoyed it. It is very Vonnegut though, I don't know if that's a positive or negative for you!

Agree with you about The Count of Monte Cristo...excellent book! Haven't read it in French though....but have read Orwell's 1984....but that was a translation (obviously) so wasn't too difficult to read. Started reading Balzac's Le Père Goriot in French........now that's a different matter!!

Got this...

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Reading Jonathan Franzen's Purity third of the way through - very impressed.

It's taking me forever to be honest, but it feels like it's helping my French. Best book I've ever read though, looking forward to seeing if it's better in French.

Just found the following thing in my profile, makes it much easier to see replies!

read these over the summer. all good. would definitely read more of Ted and John. I haven't read The Outsiders for approx 25 years....used to love that as a kid. Still good. I was surprised that it was written in 1967. I thought it was a lot later - like late '70s

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It's a damn good read.

One of the best books I've read. Made me feel really uncomfortable eating meat for a while...

Also read Dark Eden by Chris Beckett. Really great SF novel about a tribe of in-bred decedents of stranded astronauts on a starless planet covered in bio-luminescent geo-thermal trees.

re-read the Dalkey Archive, still amazing.

Have also just finished the English Passengers by Matthew Kneale which is an adventure/historical novel told from diff perspectives/characters throughout the book. Really fantastic.

Also the non-fic Stranger from Abroad: Hannah Arendt, Martin Heidegger, Friendship and Forgiveness by Daniel Maier-Katkin is a very nicely written exploration of them, their thoughts and their lives. Quite uplifting despite the obvious subject matters.

got some good reading done last week on holiday.

EM Forster's, 'A Passage to India'. Infinitely pissed me off. Imperialistic, colonial writing at it's very worst. Finished it but left it there.

Roger Deakin's 'Waterlog'. Beautiful writing. Amazing idea. Great writer.

Reread the Beach too. So so much better than the film

Birthday gift from my sweetheart. Excited

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I read the beach in one sitting. I think my memory of it is tainted by the film but it's a pretty well paced and gripping book!

Sapiens is very good.

Not read Homo Deus so interested to know how you find it.

Will read homo Deus first. Was wondering where to start. The latest or earliest. Figure that reading latest thinking then see where he came from...

My inclination would be to start with Sapiens... Understand the past to understand the future.

I don't know how repetitive Deus will be, but I thought Sapiens provoked some pretty interesting questions about what the future holds. I imagine that Deus will probably build on that foundation.

I just saw I had a couple of credits available on audible so just downloaded it too.

Interestingly, I read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel (published 1997) immediately after I read Sapiens and there were times I felt like I was reading the same book again. Still excellent though.

Dis exactly the same. Sat on a beach and fired through it. Well in.
The film is piss poor and embarrassing tho

Finally finished Infinite Jest this week, although I think I need to read it again in more lengthy spells than I had time to so I can make more sense of some of the threads. Going to dive into some of David Foster Wallace's other stuff first though.

@t_w His other book The Book of Strange New Things is another awesome book, I love the sort of quiet, everydayness of his sci fi.

I'd also recommend John Wyndham if you're still looking for good SF, Day of the Triffids is incredible.

Quiet, every day sci fi is right up my street. Ever since I ploughed through wyndhams books as a nipper in fact.

Have you read 'The Stone Man' by Luke Smitherd?

I'll check out The Book of Strange New Things for sure.

Day of the Triffids was read to me when I was a kid but it might be worth a revisit. All I remember is that it was good.

I read the sequel to Dark Eden, Mother of Eden last week. Really enjoyed it although it wasn't what I was expecting. The third and last one is coming out in October so I'll probably read that as well... Never really done the whole sequel thing with books before.

Haven't read The Stone Man, will have to check it out.

I've just got back from a holiday, 3 books in 10 days, perfect. Read Ursula Le Guin's Left Hand of Darkness and Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. Both are the first I've read from either author.

Oryx and Crake is absolutely fantastic.

Left Hand of Darkness is really interesting, the language she uses is a bit overly sophisticated at times but the concept was great.

As above I highly recommend The Book of Strange New Things, and Under the Skin from same author, so different from the film (which I also loved).

I always dismissed Day of the Triffids after seeing a little bit of the black and white BBC version. Picked up the book in a charity shop and read it in an entire sitting. The Kraken Wakes, Chocky, The Midwich Cuckoos, he's done some great stuff.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is one of the only sequels I've really done that (surprisingly) just got better and better.