What books are you currently reading or have recently read?

I had just finished Prey by Michael Crichton.
I wish I was a better reader because it seems to take me forever to plow through a book.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:
I wish I was a better reader because it seems to take me forever to plow through a book.

Just finished the chronicles of Prydain, Lloyd Alexander. I've started The Scar, by China Mieville today, and damn good it is too.

-Matt

RPGs: Over the Edge (thanks to you, Ron, and Ken Hite), and Werewolf:TA. I loved it in high school. I'm not so impressed, now, but I think I might butcher it and play anyway. I love just being a werewolf.

Fiction: I've got 20 pages left in Harry Potter & the Chamber of Secrets. After that it's either the next Potter book, or maybe Gates of Fire.

Nonfiction: Lots of stuff. Carnage and Culture (a book about the mindset of western-style warfare in history and now--sort of a rebuttal to Guns, Germs, and Steel). Machiavelli's The Prince. Will Wilson's Arte of Defence, a book on Rapier use. Joachim Meyer's Fechtbuch of 1570 (in translation from the German). All very good.

Jake

RPGs: Underground (early-90s Vietnam-metaphor superhero game), The Burning Wheel, an independent fantasy RPG that I deem 75% of the way to greatness, with 25% of cruft that wouldn't let go.

Nonfiction: Outlaw Cook by John Thorne, an awesome book of essays on the simplicity of cooking. It's very Zen.

Computer books: Accelerated C++.

Currently, all of Kingsley Amis.

It was quite a surprise to discover that he'd written a Sorcerer novel (The Green Man).

Plus I'm slogging ever-so-slowly (although I do like it) through The Night Land, by William Hope Hodgson.

Best,
Ron

I'm reading the 10th book of the Wheel of Time cycle, whatever it's called.

Godawful long and far too lush for my tastes, but i've been reading the series for nearly 12 years, and i have to know how it ends.

Just finished Riddle of the Wren by Charles de Lint. I went to the library looking for stuff they didn't have, but I saw a de Lint novel I haven't read, so I grabbed it. It turns out that it was near-perfect inspiration for my current project, and helped me get over my mechanics-writer's-block.

Stuart

I've been slowly making my way through the Library of America's
"Reporting World War II." Fascinating but I find that the older I get, the slower I read.

I'm also reading Robert B. Parker's latest Spenser novel. Parker is like an old friend who keeps telling the same story over and over again, but I don't mind because he's an old friend.

Let's see. I'm flipping between the following:

The Art of War, by Sun Tzu.

Ars Magica, 4th edition.

Who Fears the Devil?, by Manly Wade Wellman.

From Grief to Glory: Spiritual Journeys of Mourning Parents by James W. Bruce III.

And I'm thinking of rereading Book of the New Sun to keep me focused on Alyria. (What I'm reading tends to rub off on what I'm writing.)

Seth Ben-Ezra
Great Wolf

Fiction: nothing right now, I just finished a huge fiction kick, and Wheel of Time killed all interest in fiction for a while. I despise that series. Couldn't pay me to read #10. I just don't care what color Nynaeve's dress is.

Nonfiction:
The Essential Gay Mystics ed. Andrew Harvey
The Self-Aware Universe Amit Goswami
The Kalevala tr. F.P. Magoun, "compiled" by Lonnrot
Sailors and Sexual Identity and [The Masculine Marine, both by Steven Zeeland
How to Read Egyptian Mark Collier and Bill Manley

These were the first 6 books in my reading pile, from which I pull at random, or semi random anyway. There's probably 20 books in it, and I generally finish 2 books a week.

Aidan, known on campus as "The Reader"

Just finished reading:

Kil'n People by David Brin - Loved it despite disliking mosteverything else he's written.
Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon - Nice novel about autistics
Can you keep a secret? by Sophie Kinsella - Fun girly book.

I'm sure I should only put one, but I read these three over the course of four days so it seems appropriate.

Next up I'm looking to re-read the first book of Lankhmar (fantersy masterworks collection)

Hmm - need more books.

In the middle of Vagabond (sequel to Harlequin about an English archer in the 1300's), by Bernard Cornwall. Excellent stuff.

Also forever reading the first five Amber novels (Roger Zelazny). The second five in the series are less good.

Also started on The Hinge Factor 'How Chance and Stupidity Have Changed History', by Erik Durmschmied.

Next on the list A History of Warfare by John Keegan and Duncton Wood (again) by William Horwood.

Gideon
http://www.geocities.com/simonwashbourne/Beyond_Belief.html

I just finished reading "The Web 2027" by a bunch of british authors (one was Peter Hamilton of Nights Dawn fame, I don't recall the others).

Pretty good stuff really, worth checking out.

Brian.

Trying to work up the guts to read the Harry Potter series in French.

A Wild Sheep Chase by Haruki Murakami... hard to describe, postmodernist Japanese fiction deeply rooted in history.

Campbell's Masks of God series, particularly the Oriental one.

A Clockwork Orange.

The Arabian Nights, vol. II, the Zipes adaptation of the Burton translation. Like Seth, I tend to write like what I'm reading, and Torchbearer's intended to have very distinctive diction, somewhere between Murakami's dry precision and the floweriness of the Arabic style.

Looking for a copy of Sheila Moon's Knee-deep in Thunder.

I just finsiehd CLAMP's classic manga Magic Knight Rayearth. A great story about self-discovery as three young girls find themselves in a world of magic which they are destined to save before they can go home to Tokyo.

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

I actually read this before my first GenCon 2001, but after returning home, I never got back to it to read the appendices. That's what I'm doing now.

Next in line is New York by Night for Vampire. My longest running campaign ever was a Vampire chronicle set in NYC (running on and off since 1995), and I'm reading this because I'm curious how my New York differs from what Achilli cooked up.

"I trust your good head keeps you from squandering too many hours in front of the television. Beware of the lazy eye, it only teaches you how to die." -Johnny Truant's mother, in Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves

Man, I hate to say it, but Cryptonomicon is still on my to-read list. I haven't been able to get into it for some reason. I flew through Zodiac and Snow Crash, and managed The Diamond Age all right, but despite how good it seems, Crypty is defying me. Maybe it's the weight. I have the hardback. Yeah, that's how long I've been trying to read it.

Started reading Joseph Stiglitz's book Globalization and its Discontents, which is managing to fascinate me even though I never studied economics.

Last good novel I read was probably something by Iain M. Banks.

I'm slowing picking through Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon. It rocks the catbox. It's like reading a John Woo film while William Gibson whispers dirty what-whats in your ear.

Last week:

The Fionavar Tapestry by Guy Gavriel Kay: One of the greatest fantasy story that I have ever read... it's better than Lord of the Rings... Would make a great rpg setting.

Just finished today the second book of the serie "A song of Ice and Fire" by George R. R. Martin. Great fantasy story. A lot of political intrigues. Yup a really good story but, contrary to Guardian of Order, I don't think it can makes a good rpg setting, there is not enough "setting" elements in the book (if I compare it to the Fionavar Tapestry). Just my opinion.

Patrick

grrr... sorry... I was certain that I was logged in but It came I wasn't!!!

The "guest" from the last post was just me!

Patrick

Gaming: Nothing. I should be reading the Forgotten Realms Campaign Book, but I'm not.

Fiction: First King of Shannara, by Terry Brooks. It's been years since I've read a Shannara book, so I figured I'd re-start right at the beginning . . .

Just Finished: Fritz Leiber's Tales of Fahfrd and the Gray Mouser, Sophocles' Oedipus Rex.

Current: Brick, a literary journal.

About to Begin: Hayao Miyazaki's manga Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.

~Kris

Comics: Just finished over two dozen graphic novels. (I strongly recommend the 100 Bullets series to anyone that likes bizarre conspiracies, btw.)

Fiction: Thieves' House: Tales of Fafhrd and Gray Mouser by Fritz Leiber. Perhaps another stab at making it through Focault's Pendulum when I'm done.

Non-Fiction: Drawing From Observation, CG 101: A Complete Graphics Industry Reference

Gaming: Mutants & Masterminds, rereading the Exalted main book.

I just finished The Road to McCarthy by Pete McCarthy, a very funny and insightful travel book about personal identity and Irishness.

I'm about to start either House of Leaves or William Gibson's new one, Pattern Recognition.

Jason L Blair wrote: I'm slowing picking through Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon. It rocks the catbox. It's like reading a John Woo film while William Gibson whispers dirty what-whats in your ear.

Matt Wilson wrote: Last good novel I read was probably something by Iain M. Banks.

I just finished reading H. Rider Haggard's She. Great stuff.

I'm currently winging my way through Michael Moorcock's Kane of Old Mars, which is a tremendous amount of fun. I'm also hopping my way through McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales. It's edited by Michael Chabon & is chock full of some great short fiction by Harlan Ellison, Aimee Bender, Kelly Link, Glen David Gold, & others.

And as always, I'm constantly rereading the Fritz Leiber's Lankhmar & Thieves House. My love of Fafhrd & the Gray Mouser knows few, if any, bounds.

Jürgen Mayer wrote:

Jason L Blair wrote: I'm slowing picking through Richard K. Morgan's Altered Carbon. It rocks the catbox. It's like reading a John Woo film while William Gibson whispers dirty what-whats in your ear.

What's it about?

Games: Rereading the D&D Basic and Expert rules again. Ah, the nostalgia.

Fiction: Rereading Tolkien—I’m through The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, and now I’m moving on to the Silmarillion. All along, I’ve been browsing/reading Tolkien’s letters.

Nonfiction: Right now I’m reading Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages, by John Bellamy. Not the most recent work on the subject (1973), but interesting.

Rich