So What Do You Read?

[Rich Forest]

Hey, the birthday forum. Neat.

Ok, currently reading (finishing up) Textual Interaction: An Introduction to Written Discourse Analysis, by Michael Hoey. It's a relatively recent summary/introduction of Hoey's approach to discourse analysis. Nothing new, but a nice overview. I tend to like Hoey's work, which always offers clear claims that are easy to assess, agree with, disagree with, work with, etc.

Last read Pathways of the Brain: The Neurocognitive Basis of Language by Sydney M. Lamb. Actually a re-read that I pulled out because I was reading some claims in some of Hoey's more recent articles that seemed really compatible with Lamb's claims but coming from an entirely different starting point. So I pulled it out to see if my memory was accurate. I think it largely was.

I haven't read any fiction in a very long time. I keep meaning to remedy that, but I also keep not succeeding.

Rich

[pete_darby]

Currently:

The Complete Conan vol I, RE Howard
The Iliad, Homer (Trans. Fagles)
The Merchant of Venice, Shakespeare

Previous:
Going Postal, Terry Pratchett
Free Range Education, various

[Eero Tuovinen]

Currently reading: Convinction and Thread, ideology of Sakari Topelius by Matti Klinge, this famous Finnish historian. It's a book about a Finnish author from the 19th century and his politics. Pretty heavy cultural history.

Before that, Poetry of Finland, one of those big-ass (1000+ pages) poetry compilations, starting from around 0CE and going until the end of the eighties.

[Yokiboy]

On top of my RPG reading list (which is always long), I'm currently reading:

The Theory of Poker by David Sklansky. It's the bomb! This is just one in a whole string of poker books I've been reading lately, and there's more to come.

The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian (Conan of Cimmeria, Book 1) by Robert E. Howard. Great stuff, the stories are so cool in their original form.

The Game Inventor's Guidebook by Brian Tinsman. This one hasn't impressed - or surprised - me much.

Vägen till Jerusalem by Jan Guillou. Swedish book about a little boy that ends up a knight templar taking part in the crusades (man there's gotta be a better way to sum this up). It's the first part in a trilogy. (I think this is the same book in English.)

I used to always wonder how people could read so much in so little time, but have come to the conclusion that I read just as much, I just read several books at once.  :p

TTFN,

Yoki

[Alan]

I too am one of these people who reads more than one thing at once.  I'm currently in the middle of:

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Jagged Orbit by John Brunner
The Hour of the Dragon by Robert E. Howard

The last book I finished (re)reading was Red Planet by Heinlein

[JamesNostack]

Currently:

DeQuincey, "Confessions of an English Opium Eater."  First 70 pages = dull.
Howard, "The Coming of Conan the Cimmerian."  Overrated!
Vance, "Tales of the Dying Earth."  Funny!
Clark, "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell."  
Chernow, "Alexander Hamilton."
Hesse, "Siddartha."  Hippie lameness.

Just finished:

Camus, "The Plague."  Excellent!
Calvino, "Invisible Cities."  Atrocious!

[MPOSullivan]

well, i work at a porn store to pay the bills.  outside of that i'm a freelance illustrator.  this means i draw a lot, but i should really be drawing a lot more.  my skills are finally getting honed to the point i need them to be at, but i'm not quite there yet.  along that path i also pain and do graphic design, though neither incredibly well.

i enjoy reading, though i'm incredibly picky about what i'm reading.  I just dinished reading the book Film Noir, a survey of films of that genre, in research for the RPG i've been designing for about two years now.  i also just picked up V. but Pynchon, so we'll see how that is.

When in my environment (a large, metopolitan city) i tend to be an outdoorsy kinda person, as much as a city guy is.  i like going to parks, walking around town, that sort of stuff.  

I'm also a big music snob.  currently on the top of the list are the Twilight Singers and Chris Whitley.  I live on an island in the pacific right now though, so i don't really ever get to see a concert, which is very bad for the soul.  

finally, i'm a comic geek.  love the stuff.  always have, ever since i was itty-bitty, and i still do to this day.  nothing makes me happier than having a new comic in my mits, all full of possibilities.  

that's pretty much it for me.  i'm boring, what can i say.  ;-)

[Matt Machell]

Currently reading:

Quicksilver, by Neal Stevenson (more at http://www.nealstephenson.com/ )

The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse, Robert Rankin


-Matt

[GB Steve]

Calvino, "Invisible Cities."  Atrocious!

One of my favourite books!

Currently:
The Annals of Heechee by F. Pohl - OK
Shadows over Baker Street by Various - a curate's egg. Here's one of the better stories.

Previously
The other Gateway books by F. Pohl

[beingfrank]

Currently reading The Dark Between the Stars, by Damian Broderick (read more Australian scifi peoples!), and last read was On Blondes, by Joanna Pitman.

[joshua neff]

Calvino, "Invisible Cities."  Atrocious!

One of my favourite books!

Same here.

I hold in my head close to Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, another of my favorite books.

[Matt Wilson]

Currently reading Planet of Adventure, by Jack Vance.

Previous to that, I'm sorry to say, was The Honor of the Queen.

Previous to that was more Vance:     The Demon Princes, Vol 1.

[James Holloway]

I hold in my head close to Milorad Pavic's Dictionary of the Khazars, another of my favorite books.

I am probably the only guy in the world who bought Dictionary of the Khazars hoping it would actually be about the Khazars, and was so disappointed that I could never finish it.

Mind you, it was only a quid. I love my local booksellers with the burning passion of a thousand suns.

[Andrew Morris]

Currently Reading: The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan (again)
Last Read: Declarations of Independence by Howard Zinn (again)

[Paul Czege]

It didn't used to be this way, but these days I read books the way some people watch TV. I read several at a time, rarely finish what I start, and if it's nonfiction, I skip around the chapters until I think I have a good idea of the author's message and then I put it on the shelf.

Currently I'm reading Aleister Crowley's Liber Aleph Vel Cxi: The Book of Wisdom or Folly, James P. Carse's Finite and Infinite Games, and Robert Sardello's Facing the World with Soul, all like this. (In case you're curious, I don't recommend becoming this. It's grotesquely unsatisfying. And yeah, I read games like this too. In fact, it may be reading games that did this to me.)

The last book I actually read, cover to cover? Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Paul