What are you reading now?

[Louis]

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

Next Up

The Book Thief - Markus Zusak

Death himself narrates the World War II-era story of Liesel Meminger from the time she is taken, at age nine, to live in Molching, Germany, with a foster family in a working-class neighborhood of tough kids, acid-tongued mothers, and loving fathers who earn their living by the work of their hands. The child arrives having just stolen her first book–although she has not yet learned how to read–and her foster father uses it, The Gravediggers Handbook, to lull her to sleep when shes roused by regular nightmares about her younger brothers death. Across the ensuing years of the late 1930s and into the 1940s, Liesel collects more stolen books as well as a peculiar set of friends: the boy Rudy, the Jewish refugee Max, the mayors reclusive wife (who has a whole library from which she allows Liesel to steal), and especially her foster parents. Zusak not only creates a mesmerizing and original story but also writes with poetic syntax, causing readers to deliberate over phrases and lines, even as the action impels them forward. Death is not a sentimental storyteller, but he does attend to an array of satisfying details, giving Liesels story all the nuances of chance, folly, and fulfilled expectation that it deserves. An extraordinary narrative

 

[Ronin]

This Present Darkness.

 

[PortlandCardFan]

This Present Darkness.

Ha, the main character in the triology I'm reading is named 'Ronin'...

 

[Bada0Bing]

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Recently finished this:

Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel

http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Impos...leportation/dp/0385520697/ref=bxgy_cc_b_img_b

Really interesting if you're into physics. It's amazing how close we're getting to making things happen that we thought were impossible not too long ago. (like invisibility) He lost me a little when he was talking about string theory, I haven't read much about that yet.

 

[jstadvl]

Hey Ropnin, how are you liking "This Present Darkness"? Do you have the follow up "Piercing The Darkness"?

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Just breezed through "Act of Treason" (great read) and started "Protect and Defend."

:vinceflynn:

 

[Ronin]

Ha, the main character in the triology I'm reading is named 'Ronin'...

 

[dodie53]

night angel trilogy

i'm on the 2nd book,

shadow's edge

 

[Ronin]

Hey Ropnin, how are you liking "This Present Darkness"? Do you have the follow up "Piercing The Darkness"?

I liked the beginning of the book so far, especially when everything in the church is being made beautiful. Right now, Im stuck in the middle of this book.

Piercing the Darkness is the next book that I'm going to get.

 

[jstadvl]

I'm about two thids, perhaps a bit more, through. It's on now. Almost complete showdown time. I'm pretty jacked about it. "Piercing" is waiting on my book shelf. lol

 

[Cheesebeef]

just finished my 3rd Chuck Palcuhknik (or whatever his name is) book Survivor. Really interesting but not as good as Snuff or Lullaby.

Also about halfway through with The Psycho Ex Game which is hysterical.

 

[Ronin]

I'm about two thids, perhaps a bit more, through. It's on now. Almost complete showdown time.

Finished with the book....very good ending, except i was disappointed with:

Spoiler

the fight between Ba-al Rafar and Tal. It could have been a better fight imo.

 

[jstadvl]

just finished the second one "PIERCINg". Same theme, more fights, closer to losing. Intense? A bit more, but nothing like you and probably I are lokking for in fight scenes.Though some are a bit closer.

 

[CorporalCardinal]

I'm reading the outstanding Sharpe's series by Bernard Cornwell. Great Historical fiction. Just finished the India Trilogy of Sharpe's Tiger, Triumph, and Fortress now I'm waiting on Sharpe's Trafalgar to arrive so I can continue it

 

[Louis]

Reading Coraline by Neil Gaiman and bought Infected.

Coraline should be quick it's a children's book that is only 150+ pages long with large font. Alice in Wonderland-ish with a touch of eerie like Pan's Labyrinth.

Should be a good movie.

Still have a Ron Suskind and Richard Engle book in the wings.

 

[dodie53]

dan brown - deception point

 

[BACH]

Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin. Excellent biography!

 

[AZZenny]

Louis, my daughter gave me Neil Gaiman's 'American Gods' but I haven't gotten to it yet -- she thinks it's an incredible book. Have you read any of his other things? I'd never even heard of him.

 

[Louis]

American Gods is decent. It was worth the read, but not great.

It's an interesting take on the many gods that exist and the story revolves around them waging battle with each other including a lot of usage of text from religious books.

He writes pretty creative stuff.

I certainly have enjoyed Coraline the most of his offerings.

 

[Louis]

Zenny, if your daughter enjoyed American Gods recommend "The Divine Invasion" by Philip K. Dick.

IMO, it qualifies as one of the 5 greatest books I have ever read and I've reread the thing 3 times.

It's pretty much about how a future world has become so advanced it no longer relies on God. He is exiled to the moon. He then wants to return to Earth and a virgin woman becomes pregnant and during the transport home she is killed and the baby lives. The baby is God and can only become God by realizing his true self. All the characters are biblical characters like Moses and the Devil.

Great stuff.

 

[rsegov11]

"the know-it-all" by a.j. jacobs. its really funny. its about this guys mission to read the encyclopedia. sounds boring but its not

 

[Shogun]

A manga called The World is Mine. It's interesting.

 

[LVG]

Just polished off "How to Break a Terrorist" - nonfiction by Matthew Alexander.

Excellent book - highly recommended - easy read.

 

[AZZenny]

Partway into The Well-Dressed Ape, by Hanah Holmes.

Good stuff, very enjoyably written good science. She has a wry sense of humor about the human animal, using herself as a starting place as if being described by a field biologist. She writes very well, and it's pretty funny as well as informative, although at times she sacrifices science to the irresistible too-witty phrase.

Biologists have long created fact sheets on other animals, organizing their traits into categories including physical appearance, habitat, behavior and reproduction. She set out to create one {on homo sapiens}, and the result is sometimes illuminating and often funny. While examining herself for the Physical Description chapter, Holmes explains how extra food that isn't burned off as energy gets converted to oil stored in fat tissue. "Evidently I've done this a few times," she writes, "because cookies are too damned easy to capture."

Holmes covers hormones and brains, our use of tools, how we see, smell and hear, reproduction, our tendency toward territoriality and our complicated relationship to food. "Of all the human young that perish each year (twelve million)," she writes, "the failure to find food is the underlying cause for about half the deaths." At the same time, she points out, humans in developed countries often eat with a "foraging style" that "borders on suicidal."

 

[dodie53]

dan brown - angels and demons