What book are you reading?

[Fumarole]

I'm currently reading The Gripping Hand, the excellent followup to the sci-fi classic The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. These guys sure do know how to write.

[Jesus_Phish]

I'm just about finished the first book in ASOIF, then I'll read something short to tide me over until Peter Bretts next book "The Daylight War" is released in February.

I've got both "To Kill A Mockingbird" and a collection of HP Lovecraft stories to pick from that should carry me over until then.

[Tikey]

I've finished A Dance with Dragons and AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH I want to read the next book!!! :(

[Nalano]

The Untold History of the United States by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick

The chapters on Wilson and FDR alone are worth their weight in gold.

[fiddlesticks]

Is it Oliver Stone being factual or is it Oliver Stone being Oliver Stone?

[Nalano]

Is it Oliver Stone being factual or is it Oliver Stone being Oliver Stone?

It's a history book, not a historical fiction book. And Kuznick's the historian.

[fiddlesticks]

In that case I might consider picking it up as well. I've been looking for something to read since I finished Dracula and I do enjoy obscure history.

[Nalano]

It's not so much obscure as it is decidedly against the starcrossed narrative. In a sense, it's something like a parallel to post-colonial British historical narrative as contrasted with colonial British historical narrative.

It delves into the eddies of the American political scene such as fascist subparties, the collusion with and subsequent criticism of business and the military, the rise and fall of the American Socialist and Communist parties, social movements such as Eugenics and the like.

[Ravelle]

Currently reading, or rather listening to the Audiobook of the second Dresdel Files book, great stuff.

[Kadayi]

Went mad and decided to tackle 'The brothers karamazov' by Dostoyevsky. Surprisingly accessible in truth, though admittedly I'm only about 20 pages in. The Kindle makes it seem less intimidating.

Aside from that I'm dipping back into the Neuromancer trilogy. Strong memories about the first book, but I must admit to being fairly sketchy these days on what happens in the other two bar a few notable moments that stick in the mind.

[sylskull]

Currently reading, or rather listening to the Audiobook of the second Dresdel Files book, great stuff.

somebody lent me a copy of one of this series. i like it conceptually, execution feels...frustratingly geeky.

[Outright Villainy]

Before that it was way of kings by brandon sanderson,I loved this book even tho the setting took awhile to get into.A very good read if a bit slow at times now i just need him to finish the next one.

Way of Kings was a good read. I'm not quite as invested in it as I was with the Mistborn series, but its early days yet, there's still 9 books to go. I just hope he kills off Dalinar twenty pages into the next one, dear God that guy is boring. The next book will also be interesting because (presumably) we'll be seeing a lot more of the magic system, which is just great as it tends to be with Sanderson.

OT: Just finished up the Chaos Walking trilogy a couple weeks ago, which has eclipsed pretty much everything I've read in recent memory. I've never seen a series balance really exciting pacing with such well expressed themes.

[ShitfacedZombie]

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs. Its an absolute amazing book. If you're into mystery/thriller/fantasies/WW2. This is the book for you, its combines a wonderful use of old pictures to build a story you will probably never forget.

[Ravelle]

somebody lent me a copy of one of this series. i like it conceptually, execution feels...frustratingly geeky.

If you like wizardry, fantasy creatures and noir you'll really like it.

[fiddlesticks]

It's not so much obscure as it is decidedly against the starcrossed narrative. In a sense, it's something like a parallel to post-colonial British historical narrative as contrasted with colonial British historical narrative.

It delves into the eddies of the American political scene such as fascist subparties, the collusion with and subsequent criticism of business and the military, the rise and fall of the American Socialist and Communist parties, social movements such as Eugenics and the like.

Still sounds interesting. Thank you.

[squirrel]

China's Superbank: Debt, Oil and Influence - How China Development Bank is Rewriting the Rules of Finance by Mr. Henry Sanderson and Mr. Michael Forsyth.

This book, as its title says, is about the China Development Bank. It is a policy bank (I say "a", this is a national one and there are local level policy banks controlled by local authorities. How the central authority regulates them seems to be an issue getting more and more attention these days. While the China Development Bank is almost free of bad debt, non-performing loans of those local level policy banks is reaching an alarming level.) 100% owned by our government. It doesn't support only China's own development projects, but also has increasing and substantial presence overseas. The book begins by giving a story that the bank had loaned over USD40B, or on average USD1.4K for each Venezuela citizen. I just start on this book, and expect that it will provide insights on how our government promote modern developments internationally through financial support.

Governmental financial institutions established for development projects has been a concept prevailing long ever after the Second World War, probably with the establishment of the World Bank. They all seem to share a similar title: XXX (region one covers) Development Bank. For some of you may have forgotten this obvious fact: China is still essentially a third world country. No third world country has its own privately owned, well established investment bank like Goldman Sachs, so in stead of looking for funding from the private sector, we set up state owned one. China's Development Bank is owned by a sole state, but there are also Development Banks jointly owned by more than one state, such as the Inter-American Development Bank for Latin America.

This book seems to be rather new.

[Tikey]

Finished Stanislaw Lem's The Star Diaries. And I must say I loved it. It's a collection of humorous short stories half sci-fi half fable with a touch of social commentary.
Lem's work is a pleasure to read.

[Rath]

Any Star Trek book by David Mack is going to be good. A trilogy, even better.



I am not disappointed. The first book is a recounting of the life of Datas' creator, Dr. Noonien Soong.

[Track]

Just finished The Post-Mortal, a brilliant sci-fi novel about the discovery of a cure for ageing. Highly recommended.

[Cryptoshrimp]

I started Hydrogen Sonata, but I couldn't get into it at all. I guess you must read earlier Culture novels to know what the hell is going on?

So I read Modesitt's The Order War, which was equally hard to get into. Protip Fantasy authors: Don't make up your own system of measurements and then only tell me what it represents somewhere in the first book. Highly annoying.