So What Do You Read?

[zephyr.cirrus]

What I'm reading
High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Slander
Treason
How to Talk to a Liberal (If you must)

[daemonchild]

Well?  I wish I could say I'm in the middle of something but unfortunately I read really fast.  A 250 page book I could easily nail down in a few hours.  However, the longest it took me to read any book was the 48 Laws of Power.  Great read, very useful, but all the anecdotes kept my mind a-swirling.   Took me on and off about 2-3 weeks.

Just finished reading Life in Medieval Times by Rowling as research for the CoS fiction I'm writing.  Keith is very knowledgeable in that area of history and I have a lot of catching up to do.

Other than that, everything else has been RPGs for writing reviews, or brain candy fiction not worth mentioning.

[Bill Cook]

Hesse, "Siddartha." Hippie lameness.

I cried when I finished it. My life's never been the same.

Just finished: The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz.
Current: Fats that Heal, Fats that Kill by Udo Erasmus.

[Ian Cooper]

Reading:

Iron Council by China Miéville
The Mead Hall, by Stephen Pollington[/list:u]
Just Read:
Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula Le Guin[/list:u]

Miéville can write (which can't be said of all genre authors) and is very enjoyable. I'm resenting only having an hour or so a day for it, rather than being able to read it all in one sitting like his last two. I enjoyed Earthsea less than I expected, can't put my finger on why.

[Kit]

Currently reading alaistair reynolds's "Redemption Ark" interspersed with Alexander Kechris's "Classical Descriptive Set Theory".

Also flicking through Mind Hacks when I have the time, rereading Perdido Street Station (having read The Scar a few weeks ago and decided that I should refresh my memory of PSS) and have recently finished my umpteen and a halfth rereading of the earthsea quartet. (Well, the first three. As usual I've lost steam somewhere through the fourth book).

[Luke]

Sorry, no nerdy reads for me.

Sorry, but Gibbon's unabrigded is about as nerdy as you can get. Maybe if you were reading raw machine language code I'd give you a few more points.

-L

[Meguey]

Reading now:
The Tiger Ladies: A Memoir of Kasmir by Sudha Koul - Oh this is a good one. Very rich and enveloping writing.

Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond - Whoa. Must read for everyone interested in culture or history, in my mind.

The Burning Times by Jeanne Kalogridis - Novel set in 1357 France, dealing with Knights Templar, submerging Goddess faith, questions of right/wrong.

Hidden in Plain View by Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard - Quilts on the Underground Railroad. Facsinating, and occasionally seems a bit of a reach, but then, it has Cuesta Benberry as a supporter, so that's a big name to me.

Folk Legacies Revisited by David S Cohen - Dry and oddly bland presentation of really interesting anthropology.

Just read:
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks - Novel set in 1666 England, based on the actual village of Eyam, which quarentined itself with the Plague. I really liked this one, right up to the last ten pages, when it feels a bit contrived and rushed.

Wicked by Gregory Maguire - Novel by turns engaging and irritating, with the point, about  the nature of evil, burried near the end and a bit heavy-handed.

Remember When by Nora Roberts/J.D. Robb - I also like good suspense in which there isn't (neccessarily) a murdered body. She's a fair writer, and I've read a lot of her stuff as mind candy. The earlier you go, the trashier it gets.

Angels & Demons by Dan Brown - Yeah, I read it. I liked it too, but I'm a sucker for religious conspiracy. I have the other one but havn't read it yet.

The Mole People by Jennifer Toth - Anthropology of homeless people in NYC's tunnels. A great and compelling book, esp. the last chapter where she realizes she's at risk for losing her objectivity, and gets out.

Next up:
Jewel by Bret Lott
America (the book) by (mostly) Jon Stewart
A whole big stack I saw today and even wrote down, but don't have with me.

Also a whole slew of kid books, too many to write out.

It's safe to say I read a lot.

[Larry L.]

Currently (upper titles have diverted attention from lower titles):
Introducing Stephen Hawking, J.P. McEvoy and Oscar Zarate
The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian, REH
Solaris, Stanislaw Lem
The Golem at Large:What you Should Know about Technology, Harry Collinds and Trevor Pinch
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Our Posthuman Future, Francis Fukuyama
Downbelow Station, CJ Cherryh
Entering Space, Robert Zubrin

The situation is likely only to worsen as I have indulged myself at a recent bookstore liquidation sale. Pity, I had been doing much better at finishing my reads last year.

Recently completed:
Introducing Sartre, Philip Thody and Howard Read
Chomsky and Globalisation, Jeremy Fox
Hellboy: Seed of Destruction, Mike Mignola