What book are you currently reading?

[cattlekid]

The author of "The Filter Bubble" is Eli Pariser.

It was an excellent read and not overly tech-y.

I just started a non fiction book "The Filter Bubble" about Internet personalization and its drawbacks/benefits.  It is really fascinating and will make you really rethink your use of Google, Facebook, etc.

Who was the author CK  I would like to read this??? 

[jbeany]

Stuck home, can barely walk, can't bend over, need to keep my feet elevated as much as possible -so it's been book hour 24/7 around here.  I've gotten through the first 13 books in the Aunt Dimity series, finished 2 short story collections by sci/fi-fantasy authors, half a dozen assorted kids books and I'm in the middle of a brain-candy murder mystery - one of those that includes recipes for the treats the "detective" makes all though the story.

No point in reading anything serious - not with the amount of oxy I'm taking!

[HouseOfDialysis]

I just finished Prayers for the Assassin by Robert Ferrigno. Great book! The US turns into the Islamic States of America, Nevade becomes a neutral free state, still with booze and broads, and The Confederacy is known as The Bible Belt, holdouts against converting to Islam.

[Riki]

I just finished reading Cell, by Stephen King.  Very creepy apocalyptic read, where at a certain time, on a given day, something in the signal that the cellphones receive turns their users into what look like mindless wanderers.  It is very good.

I'm thinking of starting the Harry Potter series.  That requires a trip to the library

[HouseOfDialysis]

I really liked Under The Dome by King, but... His characters are second to none, but his endings have a habit of falling flat.

[lmunchkin]

" The Protector" by Dee Henderson

lmunchkin

[Riki]

I really liked Under The Dome by King, but... His characters are second to none, but his endings have a habit of falling flat.

I have noticed that.. I was disappointed with the ending in Cell, but I liked Christine and The Green Mile

[cattlekid]

I haven't read any of his new stuff since Insomnia.  That one just bored me to tears and I swore off King forever after that.  I swear, he started writing books by the pound in the late 90's. 

However, I devoured his old stuff when I was a teenager.  I just downloaded Carrie from the library to my Nook Color yesterday and read half of it in about two hours at dialysis.  My favorites are the short novellas he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (can't remember if it's one n or two).  Anyhow, "The Long Walk" is one of my all-time favorites. 

I really liked Under The Dome by King, but... His characters are second to none, but his endings have a habit of falling flat.

I have noticed that.. I was disappointed with the ending in Cell, but I liked Christine and The Green Mile

[monrein]

"Honeymoon in Purdah - An Iranian Journey"  by Alison Wearing.

[Riki]

I always wondered if The Rage by Richard Bachman was what the Carrie 2 movie ws based on, but never actually looked it up to find out

I haven't read any of his new stuff since Insomnia.  That one just bored me to tears and I swore off King forever after that.  I swear, he started writing books by the pound in the late 90's. 

However, I devoured his old stuff when I was a teenager.  I just downloaded Carrie from the library to my Nook Color yesterday and read half of it in about two hours at dialysis.  My favorites are the short novellas he wrote under the pseudonym Richard Bachman (can't remember if it's one n or two).  Anyhow, "The Long Walk" is one of my all-time favorites. 

I really liked Under The Dome by King, but... His characters are second to none, but his endings have a habit of falling flat.

I have noticed that.. I was disappointed with the ending in Cell, but I liked Christine and The Green Mile

[Rerun]

With my NookColor I've made it through Robert Redford's bio, Shania Twain's bio and Tina Fay's Bossypants.  All were good.

I like nonfiction......... any suggestions?

         

[Riki]

I've decided to start reading the Harry Potter series.  I finished the Philosopher's Stone the other day, and I'm about to start the Chamber of Secrets

[MooseMom]

I just finished reading a fascinating book:  Exorcising Hitler:  The Occupation and Denazification of Germany.  When learning about any war, so much emphasis is put on military strategy or specific battles or the nuts and bolts of warfare, but we rarely get a look into the lives of people and the way society copes the day after the war ends.  Germany was practically obliterated and was then carved up by the victors, and there was a mass migration of people as they tried to escape the Red Army coming in from the east.  The rape and atrocities committed certainly rivaled those inflicted by the Germans as they pushed west into Russia.  The Czechs and the Poles who were the victims in the early years became the avengers in post-war Germany, but we don't hear much about that.  We don't hear what happens to the ordinary citizens (usually women, children and old or wounded men) who survive in vanquished territory.  How was Germany "denazified", and who decided how that was to happen?  The French, the Americans, the Brits and the Russians all had their bit of Germany to take care of.  Since Russia and France had both been occupied at one time by the Nazis, Germans in those sections didn't fare well at all (witness the creation of East Germany).  The British had a very difficult time because they had to feed the most people; Germany's largest cities were in the British sector, and Britain could barely feed her own people back home, much less millions of starving, defeated German civilians.  Most German soldiers wanted to surrender to the Americans, but there were so many POWs that in one area, there were 2500 US soldiers guarding 300,000 German POWs, and there was no food, water or shelter. 

I had not known any of this.  I've been schooled in the Pacific Battles, the Battle of Britain, the Holocaust and the racist policies of the Nazis, but there are few lessons offered covering the aftermath.  It was really, really interesting.

[cariad]

I am reading Water For Elephants and really detesting the experience. At around 100 pages in, I am wondering if it is worth if to finish, as I am easily grossed out, and sideshows are not a topic I wish to explore. I find her writing style so very grating as well, there just is no artistry to it. I enjoyed The Help even though I thought it faltered at the end. Is the plot of Water For Elephants worth trudging on, because her clunky writing is not enough for me to stick with this. I have not been this angry with a book in quite some time. I should have known when my mother completely tripped over herself, rushing to offer me her copy. I did not take it - I've got it from the library.

I have many other books to read and have to download The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks tonight or lose it. I found that author a mite irritating as well when I heard her on NPR, but I think the story is interesting enough to plough through. Maybe.

[jbeany]

I thought Water for Elephants was fab.  If you plan to give up, at least skip to the last two chapters and read the ending!

I need to remember to put The Help on my wish list on my book swap site.

The author of Immortal Life gave a lecture locally in the spring - the hype was so over the top on campus, I had no desire to attend or read the darn thing.  Yes, I think it sucks that her kin are too broke for medical insurance, while the researches make mega bucks from her cancer sample - but I've guess I've signed off on too many release forms giving the hospitals control of any bits they remove from, or images they take of me, or educational instances they can use my case for to get to hyped about the situation.  They didn't take all those photos of my extremely rare transplant complications just to tuck them away in my file, after all.  Someone is charging the textbooks to use the pics, and I'm sure not making a dime....


Anyhoooo....I'm knee deep in a complication of dragon stories, and eying my freshly opened copy of Jim Butcher's "Ghost Story" with eager anticipation.  Forgot I pre-ordered it from Amazon with all my health complications mess!  Yum, yum, yum - so many good things to dive into at once.  What do I chomp into first?

[Riki]

I know the feeling.. I have several of Anne Rice's Witches of Mayfair books yet to read.  I'm told that I also need to read The Hunger Games series. My friends and I read a lot of YA. *G*

[MooseMom]

I know the feeling.. I have several of Anne Rice's Witches of Mayfair books yet to read.  I'm told that I also need to read The Hunger Games series. My friends and I read a lot of YA. *G*

I recently read the first in the Hunger Games series, and it is definitely YA, a bit too much for me, sadly.  I need something meatier.

I thought something "meatier" might be "The Pale King".  I'd read that it was supposed to be one of the most highly anticipated books of the season.  The author died before he could finish it, but it was still published and was hailed as brilliant.  I've read the first several chapters, and I am having trouble concentrating on it.  Normally, I would just go ahead and plow through it, but ever since I've known that I have such bad kidneys, I am loathe to spend time doing stuff I don't like, and while I hate giving up on a book, I am not sure I want to waste time with this one.  It's pretty rare that I don't finish a book, but this may be one of those times.  My husband just bought me the whole Songs of Ice and Fire series, so I may just dump The Pale King and go right to those. 

[cariad]

I thought something "meatier" might be "The Pale King".  I'd read that it was supposed to be one of the most highly anticipated books of the season.  The author died before he could finish it, but it was still published and was hailed as brilliant.  I've read the first several chapters, and I am having trouble concentrating on it.  Normally, I would just go ahead and plow through it, but ever since I've known that I have such bad kidneys, I am loathe to spend time doing stuff I don't like, and while I hate giving up on a book, I am not sure I want to waste time with this one.  It's pretty rare that I don't finish a book, but this may be one of those times.  My husband just bought me the whole Songs of Ice and Fire series, so I may just dump The Pale King and go right to those. 

Ah, MM, if you're going to go for David Foster Wallace, read Infinite Jest. My great friends, the twins who've read everything between the pair of them, said that it was not perfect, and a bit long, but that it was hailed more for what it attempted to accomplish than what it actually was. I have been thinking of grabbing a copy myself, as it is supposedly almost as cynical about the role of business in America as I am. I am loathe to give up on a book as well, and I am far too much of an uptight purist to skip to the end, as jbeany suggested, so I am continuing with Water For Elephants. The print is about four feet high, so it is a quick read, and might just be getting a wee bit better.

As an aside, the night David Foster Wallace killed himself, I pulled an 8-hour shift on the LA suicide line, filling in for people who needed a break. When I woke up to the news he was dead, my first thought was "Oh, God! Did I talk to a David last night?!" (For you see, it's all about Ms. Cariad....) I mentally replayed every caller in my head, but there was not a one that sounded like a depressed, middle-aged literary sensation. Sad, because one of his friends had contacted him shortly before he died, and he emailed back saying how much the message had cheered him. I don't know that many books that are unfinished by authors are worth reading. Some of my favorites, like Charles Dickens, left unfinished manuscripts but I cannot take the disappointment. I may make an exception with The Original of Laura, just because I followed that whole saga with Nabakov's son and Ron Rosenbaum for years. I think they made the wrong choice in publishing it against the author's wishes, but now that it's out there, I may as well read it. 

[cattlekid]

I am not reading anything highbrow right now - just started "Professional Idiot" the memoir of Steve-O (real name: Steven Glover) of MTV's Jackass fame.  It is really interesting so far.  I have a newfound fascination with "celebrities" that fall from grace and what makes them tick.  I can't get enough of Celebrity Rehab on TV, didn't miss a minute of the Casey Anthony trial etc.  I feel there are a lot of life lessons to be learned when you strip away all the "glitz & glamour".

[MooseMom]

Cariad, I have read that Infinite Jest may be the best work of DFW (not "Dallas-Fort Worth"), or at least the most illustrative of his talents, so perhaps that might have been the better choice.  I've been doing a lot of reading lately, swerving quickly from the Barcelona gothic stories of Carlos Ruis Zafon to denazifying Germany to DFW, and maybe my brain is rebelling.  What's funny is that The Pale King is, by what I gather, supposed to be about the courage it takes to survive a life of boredom.  The "action" takes place in the IRS tax returns processing department in Peoria, IL.  In the opening chapter, we see the main character on a communter flight from Midway to Peoria, and his mind wanders from the details of the old woman sitting next to him to the exam he will soon be taking to upgrade his job level to the way his plane window is fashioned (not well) and back to how the woman can't open her bag of peanuts....and lo and behold, I found my mind wandering, too.

[jbeany]

Yeah, and Gertrude Stein is a big literary genius, too.  Doesn't make her work something I wanted to read, though!

[MooseMom]

Yeah, and Gertrude Stein is a big literary genius, too.  Doesn't make her work something I wanted to read, though!

So true.  However, many years ago I was encouraged to plow through James Joyce's Ulysses, and I am glad I made the effort.  When I finished, I felt a real sense of accomplishment, although feeling a "sense of accomplishment" is not usually the reason to read a book.  But I try to keep my mind agile despite it floating about in a toxic soup; sometimes I want to be challenged because CKD has robbed me of just about everything, and if a book can give me a "sense of accomplishment", I'll take it.

[jbeany]

I started on my Jim Butcher book today.  I'm halfway through already.  I always end up at the end of them far too fast and then it's back to the long, dreary wait for the next one..... 

[Riki]

You guys are way above me, when it comes to literature, I think.  I have a hard time with books that are someone's masterpiece, as there are usually layers upon layers of symbolism that I just don't get.  I enjoy the story, even with nonfiction books, as they all tell a story of some sort, but if they're supposed to have a deeper meaning, I'm just not going to see it.

I discovered this issue, and I think it's probably a reading comprehension issue of some sort, in my grade 12 English class.  We read A Separate Peace, and from what I was told, it was full symbolism about choices and separation and stuff like that.  All I saw in it was a story about 2 friends, one of which caused an accident which eventually killed the other, but he wasn't sure if he did it purposefully or not.  Kind of sad, really.  It's no real wonder why I repeated that class

[Poppylicious]

You guys are way above me, when it comes to literature, I think.  I have a hard time with books that are someone's masterpiece, as there are usually layers upon layers of symbolism that I just don't get.  I enjoy the story, even with nonfiction books, as they all tell a story of some sort, but if they're supposed to have a deeper meaning, I'm just not going to see it.

Riki, sometimes it's so important to JUST enjoy the story.  I know so many people who have done Eng. Lit. degrees who just cannot pick up a book without dissecting every single word used and it's so sad.  I don't think you need to notice all the layers, or the symbolism or even fully grasp the author's intention (if indeed there is one) to enjoy a good book.

I'm currently reading LJ Smith's Night World series.  I like it because I don't have to think (they seem to all be human meets non-human, falls in love, hides from the Night World, makes human non-human and then discovers they were part non-human anyway and didn't even know) and it satisfies my need to escape from reality for a while.  I've had a bit of a teenage fiction thing going on for a few months now ... Neil Gaiman, Diana Wynne Jones, Charlie Higson ... it's all been a jolly good romp and THAT'S what I love about reading.