Books - What are you reading?

Read the first one when I was in Thailand ages ago, and it did indeed take ages. Very, very long. Forgotten most of it, but can't face the thought of trying to read it and the other two in the series. Have the hard copies, but am waiting for the price to come down on the kindle versions to add them to the collection.
From memory it was well written and dense, and have a vague sense of wanting to see how it finished.
But increasingly becoming disillusioned with trilogies, quartets and quintets. Just tell the story in one book! One of the reasons I stopped reading as much science fiction. Takes far too much of a time investment.

Starting reading david wingrove's the Middle Kingdom ages and ages ago and then realised it was the first book in ten and fucked it off..

Just finisher The Rider By Krabbe. Kind of interesting as I'm considering starting to train for racing. Now started "Slaying the badger" about Hinault vs. Lemond duel. I find it silly that I have plenty of good climbing books, but there are not that many good books on cycling.

Done the Badger
Now onto the fallen angel @fausto

Just finished Slaughterhouse Five.

In two minds whether to start on Count of Monte Cristo or delve into some John Le Carré. I've heard 'Spy that came in from the cold' is rather brilliant

Count of Monte Cristo is one of my favourite books but my god is it long.

I find if you are reading classics like that, get a kindle and get one of the cheap/free classic collections. The Delphi works series are great, I've read most of the Dumas one.

I grabbed an unabridged version for under a quid.

The length is what is tearing me between it and something shorter and probably lighter like The Spy that came in from the cold. It's under 300 pages and I should get through it in 2 or 3 days and I can start on something else, whereas the former I will have to devote a month to it like I did The Brothers Karamazov.

Not that that's a bad thing, of course.

The Count is great but I prefer Don Quixote if you're gonna read a lump of a book.

I've already started The Count, supplemented by one of the Librivox recordings for when I walk to and from work.

We touched upon Quixote at school (I was brought up in Spain) but I never really fancied reading it. One day I will get around to it, probably in its original form.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold is indeed a cracker.

For a real lump of a book and classic great read, it's Moby Dick!

War and Peace.

Call him Ishmael!

Moby Dick is fucking amazing.

+1 for Moby Dick.

All on my To Read list.

Moby Dick
War & Peace
Anna Karenina

All in good time :-)

Yeah, I've got Anna Karenina in my sights too. Not sure how I managed to get through life without reading any Tolstoy. Well, I read the first hundred pages of war and peace once. I don't think that really counts.

Call him Ishmael!

@Ishmael on here?
:)

War and Peace is a good book but it's unnecessarily long.

I named my cat after Pierre Bezukhov.

^^^ love Philip K Dick, A Scanner Darkly and Do Andorids Dream of Electric Sheep? are two of my faves

Up to chapter 15 of The Count and fuck, this book is amazing. I'm not sure if its a French lit thing but the prose is quite often beautiful.

Id definitely go for Anna Karenina before War & Peace. Its a better book, though both are greats. I went through a bit of a Russian Lit binge a fair few years ago and Dostoevsky was my favourite, Crime and Punishment is a bit of a go to book now. Following that theme Pushkin should also be on the list, The Captains Daughter is worth a look.

The Man in the High Castle is my favourite Philip K Dick work. To link my two comments together Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is properly exceptional. Its less well known but alongside The Iron Heel is incredibly influential.

C&P has a very tricky middle in my opinion, overly long. You really have to stick with it.

Completely worth sticking with. I demolished it without really stopping so didnt really notice that, the pace does change as you go though.

Yevgeny Zamyatin's We is properly exceptional.

Fuck yeah. Everyone should read We. It's the superior dystopian novel.

Im not sure if you are taking the piss...?