What are you reading right now?

three mint tea said:
Have you read Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke? Without going into too many details, it's about life on Earth after an alien invasion which resulted in exchanging human individuality for peace.
I think it's one of the best novels of the genre out there, you might find it interesting when you feel like reading sci-fi again.
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Read it a long time ago and don't remember it. I'll probably pick it up soon. Threw it on the list, anyway
 
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Andrew Neiman said:
What translation?
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It's the Penguins classic release, and after a quick googling it is the Anthony Briggs translation since that book looks like the one I have.

It's rather nice to read, at least the way they translated. A lot easier and has a better flow than the version my library had in school when I tried to read it the first time.
 
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Reading Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds because the events of it where mentioned in Diamond Dogs, Turquoise Days (which had an interesting hook, first of Reynold's books I'd read because of it) and it also seemed like an interesting premise.

Truth be told those events have not been the primary focus of the book and I am at the halfway mark, but it does offer some interesting ideas all the same.
 
The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis.

Read it when I was a teenager and I appreciate it more now.

Even divorced of its religious implications, it's a very funny book with a lot of insights on human nature and foibles.
 
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I've picked up City of God again, I've been chipping away at it over the last few months occasionally. I'm surprised by how succinctly St. Augustine puts forth theological arguments, to where anyone could follow his logic. Understanding the doctrine of Christianity, compared with the alternatives of the time, goes a long way towards explaining why the church was so successful. It's funny, because some of the arguments he rebukes are exactly the ones I hear repeated ad nauseam by the militant atheists I know - humans have been having this argument for 1600 years now. I read it merely out of an interest in theology but I'd consider it required reading for Christians.

three mint tea said:
Today I'm going to start The Map and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq. I liked Submission and I found Serotonin quite interesting. My main gripe with both is that the narrators felt much too similar, and I hear that is the case for many of Houellebecq's novels.
I wonder whether he'll be considered a classic some day. But then I'm not really sure what makes a classic, other than a mastery of the language perhaps.
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You might've seen for yourself by now but I find Jed to be a much more dignified. His quiet sentimentality is refreshing compared to the usual character in this kind of work. The Map and the Territory is my personal favorite of Houellebecq's but Serotonin is the one I usually lend to friends and family because it's more entertaining on a surface level.
 
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I’ve been reading a book called the Blink. It’s about how our brain slices small moments in time in milliseconds and changes are perspective, and sometimes, almost magically as a gut instinct, is right. Someone identified a statue of marble from a supposedly famous long dead artist on Greece, but an expert who looked at it for just 2 seconds said it was a fake. And low en behold, many months later, it does turn out to be fake, despite the fact an entire museum and a team of other professionals were fooled.

I recommend it. It is very interesting.
 
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Dead Wayne said:
You might've seen for yourself by now but I find Jed to be a much more dignified. His quiet sentimentality is refreshing compared to the usual character in this kind of work. The Map and the Territory is my personal favorite of Houellebecq's but Serotonin is the one I usually lend to friends and family because it's more entertaining on a surface level.
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I agree, this book felt more profound than his other ones. Serotonin was good too but I'm glad I read it before The Map and the Territory, it would have felt like a downgrade otherwise.

What did you think of Atomised, if you've read it? It seems to be his most popular novel but I wonder if I'd be able to get something out of it that I didn't out of Serotonin already.
 
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I'm listening to Purgatorys Shore by Tailor Anderson it's the prequel books to the Destroyermen series, a group comprised of US soldiers shortly before the American Civil War get sent to another world where the Dinosaurs didn't go extinct, there is a satanic form of neo-Catholicism called The Holy Domminon and a bipedal intelligent species of Lemurs who get called Cat's who come from across the Atlantic where they have settled with different cross overs including Roman 10th Century legionary, British, Dutch Chinese explorers etc.

Good book so far, a T-Rex like creature has just stalked on the the site of a major battle and is eating the dead so the Artillery unit shoot it with a 6lb field gun.
 
I finished Hunter S. Thompson's Hell's Angels and am now working on What it is Like to Go to War by Karl Marlantes.

The latter is actually bringing me to tears, especially realizing that he relates many of his personal experiences in Matterhorn. I don't want a war to happen. I've helped too many people in too many wartorn and recovering nations and feel my heart drop as the same things are now slowly happening at home.
 
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Famine by Graham Masterton. It's about a blight that wipes out all the crops in the US, plunging the nation into famine and the middle of Road Warrior.
 
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Obie said:
Famine by Graham Masterton. It's about a blight that wipes out all the crops in the US,
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If you like that try One Second after, it's a 3 book what if series about what would happen to the USA if a EMP was detonated 250 miles above the surface of the earth and for America and most of the world it would not be pretty.
 
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three mint tea said:
I agree, this book felt more profound than his other ones. Serotonin was good too but I'm glad I read it before The Map and the Territory, it would have felt like a downgrade otherwise.

What did you think of Atomised, if you've read it? It seems to be his most popular novel but I wonder if I'd be able to get something out of it that I didn't out of Serotonin already.
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I'm glad you liked it! It strikes a rare balance for me of having enough to say to be stimulating but being entertaining enough to keep my short attention span.

It's been a few years since I've read it but it but it was the book that got me following Houllebecq. Ironically enough despite being a major character in the Map and the Territory I feel like Atomised has more of the author in it in terms of personal philosophy. Just as his more grounded guesses at the future turned out to manifest in some form in reality, I really wouldn't be surprised if Atomised's forecast comes to pass in our lifetimes or beyond, despite it verging further into science fiction than the others.
 
Since I liked the film I started reading Annihilation by Jeff VanderMeer. I can tell he took a lot of inspiration from Lovecraft's Dream Cycle, and so far I'd say he managed to adapt it quite well. It's very atmospheric.
And while the supporting characters have been quite flat until now, the narrator is interesting enough to keep me going.

Dead Wayne said:
It's been a few years since I've read it but it but it was the book that got me following Houllebecq. Ironically enough despite being a major character in the Map and the Territory I feel like Atomised has more of the author in it in terms of personal philosophy. Just as his more grounded guesses at the future turned out to manifest in some form in reality, I really wouldn't be surprised if Atomised's forecast comes to pass in our lifetimes or beyond, despite it verging further into science fiction than the others.
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Is it semi-autobiographical? I remember reading something a while ago about how his mother was furious about the portrayal of a character she had inspired.

The premise of it sounds depressing, but that's not at all surprising coming from him. Still, I think he had something worthwhile to say in every book I've read from him so far, so I'll check it out, thanks!
 
"Our Band Could be Your Life"

About the hard-core bands in the early 80s.
Black Flag, The Replacements, etc.
Very in-depth and informative book.
 
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