What are you reading now?

[FischerKing]

Currently I'm going through a Stephen King book of short stories - "Everything's Eventual". It's been a good read so far. I think what I like most about the short story format is that you can just take an evening, get through the story and be done with it. I don't feel compelled to try and read an entire novel in one sitting. Also, if I get busy, which I often seem to do, I don't have to worry about where I was in the story.

I'm also making my way through another book of short fiction stories - ghost stories to be exact - by Ramsey Campbell titled "Ghosts & Grisly Things". This is the first time I've ever read this guy and it's been absolutly amazing so far. Really good stuff. Some of his stories are boardering on Flash Fiction - only being a few pages in length.

Finally I'm working my way through a religious book titled "Wild At Heart" by John Eldredge. It's about recapturing the adventurous spirit in your day to day life as a Christian man. I've only read the first chapter and it's okay so far. I've been told that it gets better the further you get into it - I'm hoping so.

Shawn

 

[Chaplin]

North and South by John Jakes. And trying like hell to get into it.

 

[AZCB34]

I am about one chapter away from finishing "Looking for Alaska" by Peter Jenkins. Having been to Alaska, I am really enjoying this book. Really makes it like you are there and reminds the readers that Mother Nature rules in the Alaskan Wilderness.

After that I will launch into "The Summons" by Grisham. I try and follow up a non-fiction with a fiction just to vary things a bit.

Shawn, I really liked Kings set of short stories in the Bachman Books...especially "The Long Walk". Very good stuff.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

About halfway through Left Behind: The Remnant. Wanting to get it finished before Left Behind: Armageddon, which comes out Tuesday.

Going to read Holes by Louis Sachar before the movie comes out on the 18th. Bought it for my wife and she read it in a day (and loved it).

I have Everything's Eventual and plan to read it soon, either in one setting or a story at a time. Am a huge King fan and have read almost everything he's written (especially his older works).

 

[Coyote Tony]

Recently finished: The Same Sex Controversy by James R. White and Jeff Niell (friend)

Looking for another to start now.

AZCB34:
When I lived in Alaska I met Larry Kaniut. He wrote a book that every Alaskan loved and it was given to me as a welcoming gift. Alaskan Bear Tales ... just a little book of real life attacks of bears in Alaska ... amazing how some of those people lived.

 

[Yuma]

I just finished Everything's Eventual, too. So far Riding The Bullet has stuck with me for some reason. I keep thinking about that story. Although, some of the others, even the Dark Tower short story, were quite good. The Death Of Jack Hamilton is very well writen. The Man In The Black Suit is scary because I have been fishing by myself when weird characters show up, and you wonder who they really are!

 

[SirStefan32]

"God Who Is There" Fransic Shcaeffer.

Stefan

 

[FischerKing]

Originally posted by Yuma
I just finished Everything's Eventual, too. So far Riding The Bullet has stuck with me for some reason. I keep thinking about that story. Although, some of the others, even the Dark Tower short story, were quite good. The Death Of Jack Hamilton is very well writen. The Man In The Black Suit is scary because I have been fishing by myself when weird characters show up, and you wonder who they really are!

The DT short is what I'm going to be reading tonight as long as the Sears Siding Man doesn't give me a call and interrupt me...oh wait, my numbers not listed. I guess I will enjoy a short little story.

I'm reading them in succession - so far my favorite has been...well, I can't really pick yet, they've all been so well written. The Death of Jack Hamilton was just gross and not scary at all, but it was interesting. The Man in the Black Suit was also pretty good. In the Deathroom lost a bit of it's punch for me because that story appears on the Blood & Smoke CD Book which I purchased for a long trip when I was driving to Albuquerque, NM and back. It was still a good read though.

I'm really anxious for the new DT books to hit the shelves. I'm not looking forward to the end of that series though, I just wish it would go on forever.

Shawn

 

[FischerKing]

Originally posted by AZCB34
I am about one chapter away from finishing "Looking for Alaska" by Peter Jenkins. Having been to Alaska, I am really enjoying this book. Really makes it like you are there and reminds the readers that Mother Nature rules in the Alaskan Wilderness.

After that I will launch into "The Summons" by Grisham. I try and follow up a non-fiction with a fiction just to vary things a bit.

Shawn, I really liked Kings set of short stories in the Bachman Books...especially "The Long Walk". Very good stuff.

Thanks for the recommendation. I've only read "Read" out of that collection. Ever since I've read it, it has been my hands-down favorite short story by anyone so far. I think I read that story for the first time about 10 years ago and I just love it. I don't know why I've never taken the time to read the other 3 stories - perhaps when I'm finished with Everything's Eventual I'll blow the dust off of that one and start it.

One of my goals - since I own all the entire King/Bachman stuff is to start with his first novel and read his entire catalogue in chronological order. I always wanted to see how long it would take me to do it if I read just one story after another without reading another author in between books. Maybe I can take donations like you did as a kid for the March of Dimes or something. "Hey, I can read the entire King Collection in a year - wanna sponser me?" - lol. I can walk around the neighborhood and get a penny or a nickel per page. Yeah, maybe not.

Shawn

 

[Dan H]

I usually read 2-3 books at a time. Right now I'm reading:

Deathday, William C. Dietz (SF/Action)
Black Hawk Down, Mark Bowden (NF)
Making the Corps, Thomas Ricks (NF)
and
Storm of Swords, George R.R. Martin (SF/Fantasy)

 

[mdamien13]

I just finished "30 Days of Night" by Steve Niles. Very cool little graphic novel about vampires attacking a town in Alaska when the sun sets for a month straight.

I'm still reading "Jack the Ripper: Case Closed". It's really good but damn if I don't get lost in the technobabble quite a bit.

"Everything's Eventual" was one of the best collections I've read lately. The short story "Riding the Bullet" was awesome! They're working on bringing it to the big screen.

 

[Chaplin]

Dan, Storm of Swords is a great book--very much an "adult" fantasy.

I can't really fathom (or maybe I can) the extreme popularity of Stephen King amongst people on this message board. I like some of his older stuff, like The Stand, Misery and It, but he just got way too commercialized. Too many references to Pepsi or Levis for me.

 

[Mike Olbinski]

I'm reading "The Day The American Revolution Began" by William Hallahan...

Amazon Link

Great book, gives an almost story-like read about the day the Revolution began, starting in the city of Boston with PauL Revere, the first battles at Lexington and Concord, then moves on to New York, Philly, London, etc.

Amazing stories of people you've never heard of, how Samuel Adams basically led the propoganda charge that really turned the colonies against Britain, and stuff like that.

Mike

 

[FischerKing]

Originally posted by mdamien13
I just finished "30 Days of Night" by Steve Niles. Very cool little graphic novel about vampires attacking a town in Alaska when the sun sets for a month straight.

I'm still reading "Jack the Ripper: Case Closed". It's really good but damn if I don't get lost in the technobabble quite a bit.

"Everything's Eventual" was one of the best collections I've read lately. The short story "Riding the Bullet" was awesome! They're working on bringing it to the big screen.

30 Days and 30 Nights - now that sounds like a really good read. I'll have to let the wife know about that book for sure. Thanks for the tip.

Still haven't got around to starting the Jack The Ripper book - but I'm really wanting to.

I just read "The Little Sisters of Eluria" last night. Oh man, that was awesome - just awesome. I love the Dark Tower stuff - has to be my favorite story. That short story was just soooo creepy - it was great. That's the best one that I've read in that "Everything's Eventual" collection so far. Loved it.

Shawn

 

[justAndy]

...

Sci Fi - Stephen Baxter, a degreed engineer - "Manifold: Time" and "Manifold: Space" - mind stretching speculation on creation and destruction of this universe in order to create a multitude of successor universes in order to give consciousness a better chance to evolve multiple times
Rudy Rucker - "Spaceland", about beings from a spacial fourth dimension that augment a human so he can go there. Also has excursions into lower and higher dimensions.

 

[AZCB34]

Originally posted by Chaplin
I can't really fathom (or maybe I can) the extreme popularity of Stephen King amongst people on this message board. I like some of his older stuff, like The Stand, Misery and It, but he just got way too commercialized. Too many references to Pepsi or Levis for me.

I only like his older stuff. I have tried to read the past 3-4 books he has come out with only to find them impossible to get through. His older stuff is great though!! "Bachman Books" were short stories long before King became King. Very good stuff.

His stories recently have lacked much in the way of story-telling as he did in earlier stuff. It seems to me like he is just going through the motions.

 

[FischerKing]

Originally posted by AZCB34
I only like his older stuff. I have tried to read the past 3-4 books he has come out with only to find them impossible to get through. His older stuff is great though!! "Bachman Books" were short stories long before King became King. Very good stuff.

His stories recently have lacked much in the way of story-telling as he did in earlier stuff. It seems to me like he is just going through the motions.

That's probably why he's retiring now that the DT series is complete.

He said that he felt as if he was starting to repeat himself and he wanted to get out when he started doing that. At least he's smart enough to recognize it.

Shawn

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Originally posted by mdamien13
I just finished "30 Days of Night" by Steve Niles. Very cool little graphic novel about vampires attacking a town in Alaska when the sun sets for a month straight.

http://movies.hsx.com/servlet/SecurityDetail?symbol=30DAY


Director Sam Raimi will produce the comic adaptation of 30 Days of Night. Created by Steve Niles, the comic is about a small town in Northern Alaska that is beset with evil vampires during a month of total darkness.

 

[Audrey19]

I just started reading The Mask by Koontz, but after the first few pages I knew I'd read it before. It was in my stack of ones I hadn't read, so does anyone know if he put that book out under another title or author?

 

[Mike Olbinski]

Originally posted by Audrey19
I just started reading The Mask by Koontz, but after the first few pages I knew I'd read it before. It was in my stack of ones I hadn't read, so does anyone know if he put that book out under another title or author?

Never even heard of that one...but it doesn't look like it's an older, renamed one:

http://www.koontzmania.com/books2.htm

Mike

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Originally posted by Audrey19
I just started reading The Mask by Koontz, but after the first few pages I knew I'd read it before. It was in my stack of ones I hadn't read, so does anyone know if he put that book out under another title or author?

It's the second of two books originally released under the pseudonym of "Owen West."

http://koontz.iwarp.com/mask.html

 

[Audrey19]

Thanks!

 

[minercon]

Just before Christmas there was an advertisement for the book FOUR BLIND MICE. I saw it about 50 times and it looked interesting. Recently, I have once again had the chance to read and just finished it. In the first chapter they tell you WHO DID IT. The mystery was above average. I enjoyed the 2 and 3 page chapters. It made the reading go fast.

I read another cute mystery called " The Christmas Train" as I am drawn to any book about Christmas. That was a good book as it was easy reading.

Presently I am trudging through the novel "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister". The word trudging is a good implication of what I think of this difficult to read novel.

 

[FischerKing]

Originally posted by minercon
Presently I am trudging through the novel "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister". The word trudging is a good implication of what I think of this difficult to read novel.

I bought that book for my wife for Christmas. She likes that author, but she hasn't had time to read it yet. Is it good?

Shawn

 

[FischerKing]

Chaplin - I bought Robert Jordan's Eye of the World last night and have started it. Geez, the first book is over 700 pages long - lol. And there are ten of these in the series? Holy cow.

Shawn