The Official Book Thread

[tim290280]

I always have several books that i read at the same time, often times one sci-fi, one technical book and then something else. I also read a full one betw finishing the 3rd and starting the 4th, plus the 5th one still doesn't exists.
I agree with the "too much of the same" but on the other hand you don't want to forget characters and plots in a story like this one because it gets pretty "complicated" at times.

You sound like my wife and sister-in-law. They continuously have 3 or more books on the go. I don't like to make the leaps between them. I can do the fiction and non-fiction at the same time easily, two non-fictions as long as they are different topics or different aspects of the same field, but two fictions doesn't work for me.

 

[Storm]

If i'm honest usually one of the books gets more attention than the other, meaning that if at some point in time i'm reading books A,B and C i'd finish A, then D and still have B and C or one of them at least around. I hope that makes sense lol.

 

[Skeptic]

Finished The Appeal by John Grisham. 3/10. I wouldn't recommend it.

Just started The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson. Book 3 in his millenium trilogy, they're basically just 3 different books with the same protagonist.

 

[tim290280]

Finished The Appeal by John Grisham. 3/10. I wouldn't recommend it.

I've never read Grisham, I read one by another author in a similar vain. They are always just entertaining enough to keep you reading but not good enough that you feel compelled to read everything they have ever written.

Just started The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest by Stieg Larsson. Book 3 in his millenium trilogy, they're basically just 3 different books with the same protagonist.

Everyone has raved about the first book, but my wife didn't get past page 50. Aren't these just a standard espionage book like Len Deighton?

 

[Skeptic]

I've heard really good things about the first one... however my sister is currently reading it. I can't really tell you too much about the plot or anything just yet, but I do get a bit of the espionage vibe.

 

[tim290280]

Just finished Mathew Reilly's Area 7. Good fun and like an action film on paper. It had all the cliches and what not, but it was really entertaining and did not let up at any stage.

Have started Lee Child's 61 Hours which has me engrossed. Very good read so far and I can see things are going to get even more tense.

Not sure what to get to read next. I still have a few others I could read, but I feel like sticking with these thrillers before going to fantasy or sci-fi.

 

[El Freako]

Just finished Without Warning and After America by John Birmingham. More awesome Alt-history/reality from him.

Without Warning

2003: In Paris, an assassin wakes from a coma. In Kuwait, American forces are assembled for their invasion of Iraq. In the pristine forest of the Cascades, a lone hiker watches a plane fly into the side of a mountain. And just north of the Equator, a modern-day pirate, a rogue Tasmanian, is witness to the unspeakable. A wave of inexplicable energy has slammed into America. And destroyed it. In one instant, all around the world, from Cairo to Canberra, things will never be the same.

Now, allied soldiers are fighting a war without command; a correspondent files a story for a newspaper that no longer exists. The line of Presidential succession is in tatters; the functioning remnants of government are in Pearl Harbor, Guantanamo Bay, and one desperate, isolated corner of the Pacific Northwest.

For the jihadists, Allah has performed a miracle. For Sadaam, it is a chance for revenge. Iran declares war, but on an America that doesn't exist, except in the hearts and souls of the men and women who want it to. For US allies, Armageddon has arrived. Israel acts. Australasia, far from the noxious waste darkening Europe's skies, beckons as a possible oasis.

Without Warning tells a fast, furious story of survival, violence, and a new, soul-shattering reality. Here is a world without its sheriff, its Great Satan, or its saviour...

An unknowable future struggles to be born.

 

[Natzo]

Ben reads?

 

[El Freako]

^And this comes as a surprise why?

 

[tim290280]

I'm guessing John Birmingham is an Aussie author. No-one else would reference Canberra in an international context.

What sort of genre are we talking Ben?

 

[El Freako]

Yeah he's an Aussie, he wrote He Died With A Felafel In His Hand which you may recall as either book or film.

He's in the last few years began to write alt-history type novels, starting with his World War 2.1 trilogy (whereby a naval force from a few decades in our future is transported back in time to the Battle of Midway which causes immense repercussions for the war and changes the past as we know it). He does a good job of both action and intrigue and really fleshes out his main characters. Also I really enjoy his references to pop-culture sprinkled throughout his books and his adaptation of real-life people as characters in his last trilogy (Prince Harry, Einstein, J Edgar Hoover, Truman where all main characters in WW2.1). I'd be hard-pressed to give him a specific genre other than alt-history as he mixes war, action, political intrigues and the like together.

I read in an interview that WW2.1 stemmed from a conversation where he and a friend where trying to think up the dumbest plots for a book that they could. Then he wrote 3 novels with it.

 

[tim290280]

^^ Hmmm sounds half interesting. I'm usually not a fan of those sorts of techno-thrillers because they spend more time on exposition than they do on story and character. Tom Clancy is a classic for this, so much detail about crap that no-one cares about. Call it a bomb and have Jack Ryan stop it from being used for crying out loud! I don't need to hear about its manufacturing date and how the satelite relays can be duped to belive it is one of ours....

 

[El Freako]

^Yeah, he's not that silly. Science and technology are mainly used at plot-devices, not the entire plot.

 

[lifterdead]

A few books:

Galileo's Dream, Kim Stanley Robinson.
Good stuff, but no where near his previous work like Red Mars or Antarctica.

Deep Down Things, The Breathtaking Beauty of Particle Physics Bruce Schumm
VERY, very good. If you're like me and want to have a good idea what the Standard Model looks like but lack the depth in mathematics to read something like Roger Penrose's books, this is for you. If manages to give a deal with physics in a non-superficial way without giving up much.

 

[tim290280]

Finished Lee Child's 61 Hours the other night. I'm really annoyed. The new book doesn't come out for another 2 months!!!

If you haven't read this one yet, take my advice and read it once the new one comes out in late September. That way the cliffhanger will be more quickly resolved for you.

Going to start Exit Music by Ian Rankin (the final Rebus mystery) tonight. Hoping it is decent.

Also I found out that my friend's publishing company has been rolling out a few more books of late. He had just established it when I first met him, but it was always a part time thing. Now he and his wife seem to have more time to get books out. Check it out: http://ticonderogapublications.com/

 

[Line]

I'm currently reading Darwin's Origin of Species as a follow-up to Dawkins' The God Delusion. Let's say that the former's prose isn't as inspirited as the latter's. After that, I may go back to Dawkins and read some of his prior work, or I could check out Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Then again, that Deep Down Things looks like a fine read as well.

 

[lifterdead]

I'm currently reading Darwin's Origin of Species as a follow-up to Dawkins' The God Delusion. Let's say that the former's prose isn't as inspirited as the latter's. After that, I may go back to Dawkins and read some of his prior work, or I could check out Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Then again, that Deep Down Things looks like a fine read as well.

That's great! I'm a HUGE fan of Dawkins, I've read just about everything he's written, and even met him a couple times. If you like The God Delusion, I would recommend The Devil's Chaplin. It's a nice, easy read, a collection of his essays mostly dealing with psuedo-science and the like. On the other hand, if you want to read his best work on biology, nothing beats The Selfish Gene.

Btw, I'm impressed that you're reading Darwin's original work. For all my love of biology, I never got around to reading it, and I'm probably worse off because of it. Any particular edition you're reading? If you recommend it, I'll probably go pick it up.

 

[Line]

That's great! I'm a HUGE fan of Dawkins, I've read just about everything he's written, and even met him a couple times. If you like The God Delusion, I would recommend The Devil's Chaplin. It's a nice, easy read, a collection of his essays mostly dealing with psuedo-science and the like. On the other hand, if you want to read his best work on biology, nothing beats The Selfish Gene.

Btw, I'm impressed that you're reading Darwin's original work. For all my love of biology, I never got around to reading it, and I'm probably worse off because of it. Any particular edition you're reading? If you recommend it, I'll probably go pick it up.

The version of the Darwin that I'm reading is a paperback published by Bantam Classic, which I chose because it was the cheapest edition available at my local bookstore. I'll let you know my impressions of it when I get a bit further in, as it's a bit tough to gauge at this point. Certainly an informative work, and I'm reading it mostly out of my curiosity to compare it to Dawkins' (and others') take(s) on Darwinism, but his language can come off as a bit run-on and tangential: a product of different times, I'm sure. As for Dawkins, yeah, I'm not sure exactly where I'll go next. Perhaps The Selfish Gene, if only because it seems to be an ostensibly appropriate follow up to Origin of Species, but who knows. I'm certainly interested in checking out more of/the rest of his work. Sagan also appears to be someone I may enjoy. But, for now, all I know is that I'm done with literature for at least a little while, if only to educate myself for a bit (I've finally latched on to that damn concept of self-education that my professors have been preaching for science knows how long).

 

[tim290280]

professors have been preaching for science knows how long

I've only read some snippets of Dawkins. My main problem is the hipocrisy displayed by the way he rails against things. I do agree that someone like him standing up and taking the fight back is needed, but it ultimately undermines his own position.

On Darwin; his work was interesting, but both flawed and hard to read (old deliberately elitist language use). His original work would have been strengthened if his collegues had been allowed to be co-authors and added their collarborative conclusions. Darwin was, in a sense, too confined by religion to publish the best theory. This was obviously then brought out by his collegues and those he influenced as the theory became accepted fact. But we still have the fundamentalists picking holes in the theory because of his less than decisive conclusions (which is pointless considering the 140yrs of research that has followed and confirmed his work).

 

[Line]

I've only read some snippets of Dawkins. My main problem is the hipocrisy displayed by the way he rails against things. I do agree that someone like him standing up and taking the fight back is needed, but it ultimately undermines his own position.

I think this may be due, at least in part, to you only reading snippets. In reading The God Delusion I noticed that he made a few points that seemed a bit assumptive or slanted, but these were usually clarified within the context of their respective section or chapter. He's also, at times, intentionally hyperbolic, though this is usually just for humor's sake.