quote:

Originally posted by ArkanGL:

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Started Philip Pullman's Northern Lights.

I forgot to mention :
At the bookshop, I asked the girl at the counter if they had anything by Philip Pullman.
She replied : "Yes, but it's upstairs, in the teenage section. Do you still want it?"

I thought for a second and went upstairs.

Now, I wonder : why were the Harry Potter downstairs, in the regular 'Fantasy' section ?

1 billion dollars isn't fantasy.

Three readings (simultaneous)

By WG "Virtual Light" (re-reading the "Bridge Trilogy")
By Scott Sigler "Infected"
By Bruce Sterling "Distraction"

in the queue:

Little Brother

Question: how is "Saturn's Children" from Stross? I liked Halting State but it seems that Saturn's Children is quite different.

Saturn's children is great. If you liked halting state give it a go if not then I probably wouldn't bother

quote:

in the queue:

Little Brother

Cool. I enjoyed it immensely, though it got a bit corny at times. I think the age of the protagonist had a lot to do with that, though. If nothing else, it's a very nice love letter to San Francisco.

If your interested in some not so light reading this month.

quote:

"The average Joe Surgeon, civilian or military, has never seen this stuff," Lounsbury said. "Yeah, they've seen guys shot in the chest. But the kind of ferocious blast, burn and penetrating trauma that's part of the modern IED wound is like nothing they've seen, even in a Manhattan emergency room. It's a shocking, heart-stopping, eye-opening kind of thing. And they need to see this on the plane before they get there, because there's a learning curve to this."

douglas adams: "salmon of doubt"

loads of writings salvaged from his loads of hard drives

espcially lmao with unfinished dirk gently novel

"The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East" by Robert Fisk

"Watchmen" by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

"Roll Me Over: An Infantryman's WWII" by Raymond Gantter

"Barbarossa: The Russian-German Conflict, 1941-45" by Alan Clark

Farthing by Jo Walton
Duma Key by Stephen King....and
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski

I have Cory Doctorow's Little Brother on deck, and Neal Stephenson's Anathema on pre-order.....

quote:

Originally posted by Boogerhead:
Still working on "Call it Sleep."
Will start "Underworld" by Don DeLillo, who's quickly becoming one of my all time favorite authors. As "Underworld" is 800+ pages, I expect it will keep me busy for the better part of the month.

w00t.

Finished "Call it Sleep" and I think it was a tragedy, but am not so sure what happened. Anyone else read this?

Didn't quite feel like lugging the hardcover of "Underworld" to work this morning, so instead started "Lonesome Traveller" by Kerouac.

that is funny I just started reading 'On the road' for the first time. Good so far, I love the way it flows.

That's a great Kerouac to start with. I picked up a few of his earlier books last weekend from Value Village.

I've loved all the Kerouac I've read. My fave is probably Desolation Angels, though.

funny, i've known some kerouac haters in my time, so while i've been curious i've never actually read any.

started reading "rumble strip" before bed last night, got half way through before deciding to call it a night.

Finally finished Stross' Occult Service collection.

Started up STORMING THE REALITY STUDIO ed. by Larry McCaffery. pOmO+scIfI=CP :: = )

Also lots of training materials and wiki at new job.... = 0

Have a feeling I might get a bit more reading done now at work; not much else to do on lunch at 2am except read or play WoW....

the adventures of una persson and catherine cornelius in the twentieth century - michael moorcock. read about half of this on trains back and forward to edinburgh over weekend. one of a handful of related novels i never read when i was reading most of his work way back. stuff like this is pretty much out of print as far as i can tell, i got an old copy.

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funny, i've known some kerouac haters in my time, so while i've been curious i've never actually read any.

Yeah I'm one of those, only book I've actually thrown out a window was Dharma Bums.

Currently reading Snow Crash, good so far very different from his other tomes.

How can you hate Kerouac?

Anyway, I've been trying to do some reading since I've been on vacation. If only to keep me from watching tv. I read Anthony Bourdain's A Cook's Tour and found it to be quite entertaining. He makes me hungry with descriptions of wonderful food, both expensive restaurant style and poor street vendor fair.

I also read this book Superpowers by David Schwartz, about college kids that develop... superpowers and how this affects there lives. Less about battling supervillans and more about dealing with everyday life in an unusual circumstance. Kinda pulpy, but good reading on the beach.

And I'm almost finished with I wanna Be Your Joey Ramone by Stephanie Kuehnert. It's a story about a punk rock girl growing up in the midwest. Not bad, especially if you're a fan of that type of music.

quote:

Originally posted by halucinagenia:

quote:

funny, i've known some kerouac haters in my time, so while i've been curious i've never actually read any.

Yeah I'm one of those, only book I've actually thrown out a window was Dharma Bums.

Currently reading Snow Crash, good so far very different from his other tomes.

i think some people don't like his rambling style, or something, thats as far as i could gather from what people said.

stephenson has had periods over the years. his first couple of novels were more toned down present tense. then snow crash and diamond age broke the market for him with that further future/harder stuff. cryptonomicon is the present/past tale of the waterhouses and shaftoes, which set up (kind of) the baroque trilogy that you already read.

Seriously, anyone who "hates" Kerouac ought to rethink every aspect of their lives, belief systems, philosophy and world in general.

Jack was love.

Finished Basyl. Very very good. Just got River of Gods. Oh. Finished TH1RTE3N last night. Loved it. The entire interior of the USA is a separate nation called Jesusland.

Just got Thomas Frank's The Wrecking Crew (how Conservatives rule). I approach stuff like this sceptically, believe it or not. But this is a good book, so far. Anyone can assemble provable facts that might, by themselves shock the reader. Frank has assembled proved facts that shock outside of any conceptual vacuum. You just can't think of anything that would explain them as being anything other than pretty fucked up.

Like that the richest county in the USA is a suburb of Washington DC, as are the second, third, sixth and seventh richest counties. These rich folks are not congress critters nor their staff nor are they anyone else paid directly by the government. They're lobbyists and PR people, mostly from the following industries (and in this order):

1. Defense

2. Pharma and Health Care

3. Insurance

Big oil? You get all the way down to 8 for big oil. Doesn't mean they're the 8th most powerful lobby, just that the oil lobbyists have the stroke to make legislators come to Houston.

But number 1, Defense is a very very big number 1. Military Industrial Complex. MIC. Not military. Defense and Homeland security. Private firms. They don't lobby the military. They don't even like the military. They lobby Congress and the White House.

Amazing book.


Small Government my ass.