Besides Hamlet, I'm getting into another novel required for my English class. This time it's for a book conference, and the novel is Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier.

Despite that I essentially have to read this for the class, I really do like the book. It's mysterious, romantic and has plenty of plot twists. It's interesting, and kinda foreboding.

The phone and cable bills. :P

I finished reading the Amber Spyglass last night. On the whole, I thought it was magnificent. I mean, there were a couple of weaker aspects, most notably the input of those "mulefa" creatures, whose segments were a mite less engaging than the rest of the story and took a while to prove their worth, but the good stuff by far outweighed the bad. The story ended up going in a significantly different, far more interesting direction to what I was expecting, reaching a satisfying conclusion which tied up most of the major plot points very well. There's just one tiny leftover thing that bothers me:

Spoiler Below

Next up, I'm going to read Wicked by Gregory Maguire.

Macroeconomics notes for Chapter 7 in the textbook. Heh.

The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka

The Fountainhead- Ayn Rand

surprisingly easy read

ETA: and im going to reread "Eaters of the Dead", that was a great book

"When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" By George Carlin.

Another collection of insights from one of the funniest people ever.

The End of Reform: New Deal Liberalism in Recession and War, by Alan Brinkley

Hey, I've read both the books you guys mentioned! Neat: I thought I was the only one.

Also, about The Fountainhead, Partymember, it's probably an easier read than some of the things out there: It's the length that gets it, with the novel being over 700 pages (in the version I read, anyway). Eh.

On topic: I'm reading Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. It's a short story, but suprisingly filled with subtextual depth, which my class is now digging for as we read.

yeah i really dig Fountainhead.

When you're done with HOD go watch "Apocalypse Now!" the original NOT the "Redux" version.

It follows the HOD storyline in Vietnam. Although i have to warn you it is brutal and bloody and if you dislike either you may want to skip it. Monumental film, though.

The War in American Culture: Society and Consciousness During World War II, Lewis A. Erenberg and Susan E. Hirsch

A Consumer's Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America, Lizbeth Cohen

I really like The Fountainhead myself, so yay! Heh.

Funny, we were watching the opening to Apocalypse Now! today in class, where my English teacher mentioned the similarities to Heart of Darkness.

I might have to see it based on what you said. Though I'm not usually for too violent or dramatic films, I have heard it's excellent. Worth a shot.

oh good, i love the opening scene. The song is "The End" by The Doors. Cool intro, isn't it? The napalm and the helicopter just look so cool together. What a great film!

just remember... try to find the original, not the "Redux" version.

And after you check out Apocalypse Now!, don't foget to check out:

Hearts of Darkness: "A Film Makers Apocalypse" a behind the scenes documentary about the making of the film pieced together from on set footage taken by Coppola's wife.

It's a great way to learn about what can and most likely will go wrong, when trying to make a movie of that magnitude.


And then when you're done with that, check out the Animaniacs short: "Hearts of Twilight" a brilliant parody of the behind the scenes brew ha ha that was covered in Hearts of Darkeness: "A Film Makers Apocalypse"

And then when you are done with that check out the Foster's episode Adoptcalypse Now! ...Which has nothing to do with the above save for the punny title, but it's still a great early episode of Foster's never the less.

"The Sims 2 Free Time, Prima Official Game Guide". I picked this up at Best Buy last night. Free Time is likely to be the last expansion pack for the Sims 2 line. If the book is any indication, it's one of the best packs they've ever made. I now await the pirated exe file that will make it safe to play. :frankiemad:

The book itself uses a different font than the previous books in the series but is otherwise a typical Sims 2 game guide, meaning it's pretty easy to read, has a fun attitude, has lots of in-game pictures that are too small to see any details, and probably has errors. Still worth the $20.00 price tag, though, and at the time I got it it was the only copy in the store. ;D

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

Thus far this is proving to be a fantastic novel: a re-examination of the world and events described in L. Frank Baum's Oz series (which I've never actually read myself, I'm ashamed to say) from the perspective of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch of the West). Some time I really hope to see the musical they derived from it.

There's a strange exhilaration
In such total detestation
It's so pure, so strong!
Though I do admit it came on fast
Still I do believe that it can last
And I will be loathing
Loathing you
My whole life long!

When will Jesus bring the pork chops? by George Carlin

I have his previous book "Napalm and silly putty" and I have to say this new one by far easily surpasses it. This book is loaded with hilarious material, most of it is stuff not included in his usual comedy HBO specials which is VERY good because I have seen practically all of his TV specials.

Its extremely dirty and raunchy with its humor but I like all kinds and its nice to have a book that is not only consistently fresh and funny, but always manages to surprise me with how deeper into the gutter he can get with his humor 8D.

I've Got the Light of Freedom, Charles M. Payne, about the earliest parts of the Civil Rights movement. Do not read it if you have a weak stomach, as it paints a very vivid portrait of lynching and race-based violence.

I just finished with reading The Metamorphosis and other Short Stories by Franz Kafka. Right now, I'm reading an urban fantasy novel called Madhouse, the third in a book series of which I have only read the most immediate previous one, Moonshine. Maybe not the greatest books in the world, but enjoyable.

"The Monkey Wrench Gang", Ed Abbey

heck yes

Since I'm only a post away from advancing another level in my member rank, I might as well post in here.

Firstly, to taranchula and Partymember, thanks for your post-reading suppliments to Heart of Darkness. I finished the novella a few days ago, and I'll attempt to get to those.

The last thing I read was a tennis equipment catalog I found lying around. The last serious thing I read was Chapter 11 in my Macroeconomics textbook. It was about aggregate expenditure (riveting). ::)

I'm thinking of reading "20,000 leagues under the Sea". I was looking around my local book store and gave the classics section a look over. Now I want to go bury my nose in some good ol' sci-fi and horror novols.8D

The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair (Another AP Lit book)

Even though the book gets off to, IMO, a rocky start, it's really good. It follows the struggle of a Lithuanian family in Chiacgo's Packingtown (meat packing city type thing) in 1906. It's very good, albiet rather... vivid in its description of the way the sausage was made before the meat industry was regulated. (I swear, I'm never eatin sausage ever again, Pure Food and Drug Act or no. Not that I ate that much sausage to begin with. ;))

Time to rescue this all-important thread from being banished to the murky depths of the Other Entertainment back pages.

I finished reading Wicked last week. Yeah, I know I'd been reading it for a while and had always become totally engrossed by it whenever I picked it up, but I then did have to put it down periodically whenever academic reading called. By the time I got to the final portion of the book, however, I was able to read the final hundred pages in a single day. It was fantastic reading, in which Maguire really succeeds in making you empathise with and root for the cackly green horror you were brought up to fear - if not by Baum then by Victor Fleming, as in my case. Elphaba remains a flawed and at times morally questionable character, but this book really enables you to step inside her (non-ruby red) shoes and feel for her, and I found the last few pages to be extremely poignant. I'm definitely going to see the musical some time (which, I am aware, makes some fundamental deviations from Maguire's narrative, but apparently they do work), and I'm also going to make a point of checking out some more of Maguire's fiction in the future, since apparently he has a whole series of books dedicated to re-interpretation of celebrated stories from the antagonists' point of view.

I've also been reading A Rat's Tale by Tor Seidler, a lovely little book from my childhood which I'd been reminded of ever since Ratatouille and had long been meaning to revisit. Although a bit less epic than I seem to have envisioned it as at the time - well, back then a book of around 200 pages certainly seemed like an epic to my inexperienced literary mind - it was every bit as funny and delightful as I recall it being, and naturally I'm inclined to appreciate any book that gives a sympathetic depiction of my favourite rodents. I've picked up another book about Tor Seidler, which I've never actually read before, called the Wainscott Weasel, so I guess that'll be the next thing I'll be engrossing myself in.

finished reading alive a few days ago for english class. true story, great book, but i dont ever want to hear the word "fuselage" again.

Currently, I'm reading The Twelfth Planet by Zechariah Sitchin. I'm really, REALLY uncertain what I think about it right now, but I'll probably talk about it once I finish it.

"Redwall". Found the book at a local Frenchy's and dove right into it. I enjoyed the show when it first aired and I've been planning to get the book at some point. I'm loving the but much more than the the show.:D

I'm reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck for Freshman English right now. I think it's really meh so far - but it's well written, I'll give it that.

I had to re-read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain since I have to take a test on it on October 2nd. Personal favorite of mine. :D

For pleasure when I'm bored - I'm reading Half-Blood Prince(or Harry Potter 6 to non-fans) by JK Rowling as well. I know it's not exactly loved by the fans, since a lot of it was claimed to be filler for Deathly Hallows but it's my third favorite.

In fact, all of the HP books in order of how I like 'em from most to least:

*Order of the Phoenix
*Prisoner of Azkaban
*Half-Blood Prince
*Chamber of Secrets
*Socerer's/Philosopher's Stone
*Goblet of Fire
*Deathly Hallows

As you can see I dislike Hallows and Goblet with great intensity :herriman:

---

Is Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series any good? From what I'm told they read out like really bad fanfics.

I actually like the Twilight series. I'll admit, it has it's faults, and the relationships can seem kind of cheesy at times, but they are enjoyable books to read. But that's just my opinion, I'm sure someone'll disagree.:P

Interesting that Order of the Phoenix should be your favourite, since nearly all of the Potter readers I know (myself included) really can't stand that one. I put it down to the fact that Harry himself spends the entire novel in a perpetually foul mood (which, much to my relief, had been severly toned down for subsequent novels, and for last year's movie adaptation). My personal favourites in the series would have to be Prisoner of Azkaban and the Deathly Hallows (the only aspect of the latter which did not appeal to me was the epilogue, which needs no elaboration I'm sure, but everything else I found to be perfectly satisfying, and then some).

Sorry to report that I don't have much time to devote reading for pleasure right now. Pretty much everything I've been reading over the past couple of months has been related to my dissertation somehow. Curses! I'll look forward to when it's all over and I can finally get back to all the things I enjoy.

Wow, this thread has been dormant for an awfully long time, wouldn't you say? Maybe it's time to dust it off a little...

Presently, I'm half-way through Never Trust A Rabbit by Jeremy Dyson, one of the co-writers of the black-comedy series The League of Gentleman (of which I should emphasise that I'm not really a fan - I was enticed to pick this up and start reading chiefly because the title had intrigued me, although, as Jeremy explains in the introduction, it doesn't really have any solid connection with the contents of the stories, having come about as the result of some random wordplay...it was a toss-up between that and Never Love a Dragon, apparently). So far, though Jeremy's writing style is certainly very engaging and enjoyable, it's been something of a mixed bag, narratively speaking. All of the stories set themselves up very nicely with intriguing characters and scenarios, but some of them suffer from an unwillingless to develop themselves any further ("City Deep", for example which had the makings for a fine ghost story but ended upon a rather cheap piece of shock value just as it started to get really interesting, with perhaps too little substance or closure for its own good), or from dipping too heavy-handedly into morality (which is especially true of the opening story, "We who walk through walls" - though naturally it wasn't helped by the rather barmy twist ending). The best and most satisfying of the first few yarns is easily the one entitled "Love in the time of Molyneux", concerning a man who cannot help but resent the perfection and unflinching humility of his flatmate, which he's convinced conceals something of a darker side that he's determined to unravel, only for his flatmate to go ahead and drop the ultimate bombshell upon him. I got quite a substantial little smirk out of the ending of that one. "At Last", which is probably the simplest and most straightforward of the early stories, is also pretty good.

As I say, I'm only half-way through - there are still six more stories left to go, and I'm going to read them all before I form any real opinions about the book as a whole.

Currently I am Reading George Carlin's latest and last book:

When Will Jesus Bring the Porkchops?

I am reading The Ambler Report by Robert Ludlum.

Plot Summary

One of these employees, former Consular Operations agent Hal Ambler is kept heavily medicated and closely watched. But, there's one difference between Hal and the other patients - Hal isn't crazy. With the help of a sympathetic nurse, Hal manages to first clear his mind of the drug-induced haze and then pulls off a daring escape. Now he's out to discover who stashed him here and why - but the world he returns to isn't the one he remembers. Friends and longtime associates don't remember him, there is no official record of Hal Ambler, and, when he first sees himself in the mirror, the face that looks back at him is not the one he knows as his own. After meeting some of his old pals who do not recognize him Ambler goes to a cabin in certain part of country which was his lone solace even during his days as a field agent. When he reaches the place to his surprise he finds no cabin,and the landscape looked such that there hadn't been any before. A bullet nearly got him while he was off the guard.He tracks down the sniper and forces the sniper,who was a freelancer,to give him his password. He then contacts the agency that is trackinng him down. Ambler comes in contact with agents from his past in the Political Stabilization Unit. His friend is shot and killed by a Chinese intelligence officer who believes Ambler wants to assassinate the Chinese head of state. He uncovers a conspiracy involving a State Department official to kill the Chinese President. He stops the conspiracy and relaxes with a CIA officer who helped him in his search.


I had to choose a book that I haven't read for a paper, and this is literally the only book that I haven't read in my house. And the sad thing is, I was only interested (at first) because it had the words "psychiatric facility" on the back. XD But I like it.

The following Discworld books, in order:

Guards, Guards!

Men at Arms

Feet of Clay

Jingo!

The Fifth Elephant

Night Watch

Thud!

Do graphic novels count? Because I'm currently reading Gunsmith Cats.

I just finished reading volume 1 and I just got volume 2 today. Awesome series in my opinion.

I just finished reading this book & found it an interesting read.

http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Din.../dp/0805082077

I am reading a "A Cast of Killers" which is in interesting, albeit inaccurate account of the William Desmond Taylor murder. William Desmond Taylor was a famous hollywood director of the silent screen. He was murdered on February of 1922, in light of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal of 1921. This is when Hollywood was getting out of hand and the movie moguls called on William Hayes to "control" what happened in fantasyland.

Anyhow if you want a more accurate account of a still unsolved mystery, go over to www.angelfire.com/az/Taylorology/. Read Taylorology #50 for a basic understanding of the murder. The "what," "where," and "why," are established - we still need the "who." If interested, I wish you happy hunting.:frankiesmile:

Good to have this thread back.

I just finished The Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks which was highly enjoyable even if it contains few surprises for anyone familiar with his work.

I'm now consuming Philip Short's Mao: A Life, a biography of the founder of communist China. This time last year I read Jung Chang's biography of this fascinating man and she gave him a thorough kicking, which while he certainly deserves for his intense cruelty, I felt he could not possibly be as incompetent as she painted him. So I've gone to Philip's Short who's treatment of Mao's protege Pol Pot in History of a Nightmare was highly illuminating and compulsary reading for anyone concerned with how terrible crimes happen and thus how than can be avoided.

Aaaaw, you guys like me enough to have kept this thread up despite me being gone for so long. You're all my best friends.... 8D

Anyway, other than textbooks for classes, I've primarily been going through my third read of Watchmen in preparation for the upcoming movie. Other than that, I haven't really gotten the chance to read much, unfortunately.

Belgarath the Sorcerer by David and Leigh Eddings

I made the mistake of picking this up while packing. I started rereading it; packing came to a stop. The Eddings wrote The Belgariad and The Malloreon, two of the finest fantasy series I've ever read; Belgarath the Sorcerer is a look at the 7000-year life of one of the central characters, told from his point of view. Deeply engrossing with well-developed characters, world-spanning plots, and a nice dash of humor, I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys the fantasy genre. :)