So...what's everyone reading?

[Fellfrosch]

I started Perdido Street Station, but couldn't get into it. Maybe I was blinded by the "free WFC book" stigma. I've heard very good things about Mieville, though, and the setting of Perdido was certainly intriguing. Maybe I'll give it another go one of these days.

[Fellfrosch]

I just finished Pratchett's "The Last Hero," with lots of pretty pictures and such. It was very interesting, and avoided whatever it is about his books that makes we not like the first 100 pages. I wasn't terribly pleased with some of the wrap-up at the end, and I don't hink Captain Carrot's character was at all consistent with his other books, but on the whole I liked it a lot.

I think I've finally identified the main thing that bothers me about Pratchett--95% of his characters are just archetypes, or even stereotypes. Rincewind, for example, is a coward, and that's all there is--his cowardice is funny, I admit, but there's no layers underneath it. Leonard is defined by his cleverness, Carrot is defined by his sincerity, etc. They are all very good archetypes, and their interplay is amusing, but I keep expecting something else.

Perhaps that is why I like the City Guard books more than the others (the witch books and the wizard books and all of that): Vimes is more or less the only character who doesn't exist solely as a character trait with legs.

As a pre-emptive defense against Pratchett fans, let me assure you that I like the books in general, and that I like the City Guard books a lot. But my approval has conditions, and you're the lucky audience I choose to express them to.

[Gemm: Rock & Roll Star; Born to Rock]

Well oddly enough I'm reading Dreamcatcher. And I have to read Life on Mango Street for english class. Guess thats all I have here...

[Mr_Pleasington]

Well let's see my reading list---

Clinical Opthamalogy
Binocular Vision
Will's Eye Disease Manual
And lots and lots of notes.

I can't wait until I actually have some time to do some free reading.

[Slant]

EYE can SEE from Mr. P's reading list that he is a man of great VISION and inSIGHT.

[stacer]

Mr. P, you should enroll in a program like mine. My pleasure reading and reading for class are one and the same, mainly. This week's reading: Harry Potter #1, Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones, Dealing with Dragons (a very silly stupid book), and Bed-Knob and Broomstick. Also every book Russell Freedman ever wrote. Well, not quite, but close. And every book on Rosa Parks.

That's just this week.

So far this semester for my fantasy class, I've read:

Wizard of Earthsea (which I'm ashamed to say I'd never read before)
Elske by Cynthia Voight
Tom's Midnight Garden by Phillippa Pearce (another I should have discovered as a child)
The Golden Compass
The Hobbit (again)
Winnie-the-Pooh
The Indian in the Cupboard
The Perilous Gard by Elizabeth Pope (another I should have discovered as a teen because I would have appreciated it more then)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (again)
The Wonderful Wizard of OZ
Peter Pan
Redwall
Hitty, Her First Hundred Years (story of a doll, quite annoying. Something my grandmother, who collects dolls, would have loved at the age of 9)
Charlotte's Web
Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (VERY good, a retelling of Cinderella)
The Magic Circle (anything by Donna Jo Napoli is good)
Hans Christian Anderson's tales
Five Children and It by E. Nesbit (very Victorian)
Mary Poppins
Artemis Fowl
The Wind in the Willows....

and so on.

That's just for Fantasy/SF. The nonfiction class assigns about 5-8 books a week. At least in fantasy it's only 3 to 4. But they're all good books, usually.

Sheesh! I need to get some sleep. I've developed this strange eye-twitch from all the reading....

On the bright side, Russell Freedman will be in class on Wed. He wrote the Lincoln photobiography that won the Newbery in 1988, and several other well-written biographies, including Confucius, Babe somebody, Eleanor Roosevelt, and a history of the Declaration of Independence. He's got a book on the Bill of Rights in press now.

Anybody read Feed yet? If you have don't tell me about it, but I'll be reading it for class in a couple weeks and would love to discuss it later. It's gotten a bit of acclaim this year too, though I can't remember if it won the Newbery or an honor or what.

P.S.--upcoming reading in fantasy for next week: The Borrowers, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Tuck Everlasting, and Neil Gaimon's Coraline. All except the last are books I read as a kid; will be interesting to read them with an adult's eyes. Anyone read Coraline?

[Mr_Pleasington]

I almost took a fantasy class in undergrad, but biology kept my plate kinda full.  The only really fun elective I took was my Serial Killers Class.

Sadly, there are no fantasy book classes in optometry school.

Some dare to dream though.

[Fellfrosch]

I haven't read Coraline, but I want to--Gaiman was at WFC last year and talked about it (and his other upcoming books) quite a bit.

[Kid_Kilowatt]

I read Coraline, and I liked it well enough to give it to my sister for Christmas.  I wouldn't have thought he could do it, but Neil Gaiman managed to nail the multi-level approach on the first try, creating a story that intrigues kids and frightens adults.  Neil came to Salt Lake City recently and did a reading from Coraline that was outstanding - it only takes an afternoon or two to read, and it's really worth it.  Neil's other recent novel, American Gods, is a little more of a time investment, but is just as rewarding.  Last year, it won the Hugo (best sci-fi novel), the Locus (best fantasy novel), AND the Bram Stoker  (best horror novel.)

I just finished Atonement, the latest novel by Booker Prize-winner Ian McEwan, and it’s excellent.   I also recently enjoyed Fast Food Nation, Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf),  and Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole).  And I can give a big thumbs-up to The Borrowers - classics!

[Fellfrosch]

Kilowatt? What are you doing on the forum--I thought you were on a perilous cross-country journey seeking to calm the raging beast within.

[Kid_Kilowatt]

Kilowatt? What are you doing on the forum--I thought you were on a perilous cross-country journey seeking to calm the raging beast within.

No, actually - I'm three weeks away from graduating from law school.  Then I'm going on that perilous cross-country journey (i.e. brother-in-law's Catholic wedding in Omaha.)  And then I can settle into a low-key routine of bar exam prep!  I'll probably go back to my two-reviews-a-week routine then, unless it turns out that the bar exam is hard.

To keep some semblance of on-topicness here, I've read some really good comics (or "graphic serials" or *snicker* "adventure magazines") lately: Lucifer (the Sandman spinoff on Vertigo) is very good - I read the whole run so far in a single sitting.  I'm also enjoying Queen and Country immensely - it's a very-realistic British espionage comic that just keeps getting better (as the artists continue to draw the protagonist's bosom progressively larger.)  So there's your obligatory "book" content.

[Slant]

Right now I am re-reading the Red Dwarf novels.  I just finished Infinity Welcomes Careful Drivers and am about to start Better Than Life.  I read them some eight years ago and I have no clue what I did with the books, but since I am planning on running a Red Dwarf game in the possible future, I am once more on a Red Dwarf kick.  The novels are well done.  A quick read, but sly and humorous enough to hold your attention.

Speaking of Red Dwarf, I never saw season 8 (the latest one to date).  Can anybody give me a brief synopsis?

And I don't care what anybody else thinks; I LIKE the term "Adventure Magazines."  So THERE!

[Lord_of_Me]

i'm reading the wheel of time books, they're quite good.

[Fellfrosch]

I finished the first and started the second, but I couldn't get more than forty or so pages into it.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

It took me six months to read 100 pages of Eye of the World. It was at that point that I realized I shouldn't even try. I don't care HOW long the book is, if it can't get me in 100 pages, it doesn't deserve a chance for the next 100.

Currently I'm reading Unknown Armies (Atlas Games' horror/cult/insanity rpg. There are good and bad. I'll post a review. I'm also running through the "T20" version of Traveller. ehn. I don't think d20 works very well for hard sci-fi, but they've worked it out pretty well so far, even if there is a lot of missing info.

On the non-game side, I read about 10% of McLuhan's Understanding Media today. I think it's going to bear reading, but I don't think it's what i'm looking for right now (for reasons I won't reveal now). So I was going to turn my attention to Wright's Comic Book Nation but that will be good for another project itself. So it looks like I'm turning back to the llama book and Harry Potter adn the Goblet of Fire.