What are you currently reading?

[Jann]

I have finished reading Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Angel's Game.  I haven't finished thinking about it, nor have I been able to conclude firmly what exactly I think about it. 

The Angel's Game is a very curious book, one well worth reading.  It takes the reader to early 20th century Barcelona and paints a vivid picture of its strange and glorious architecture, its appalling industrial squalor peopled by magnates and their creatures, workers and paupers, writers and would-be writers, and roaming squads of pistoleros dispensing justice or revenge for hire.  At our present remove in time it is perhaps difficult for us to imagine such a world, one of catastrophic world wars, brutal civil wars in what we now consider to be civilized countries, great epidemics and all the attendant economic crises.  Yet Ruiz Zafón slips his narrative into this era of pain and chaos and makes it fit.  That narrative siezes hold of its readers, drawing us into the madness. 

Sometimes when I read to a certain point in a story I have the ending figured out, or think that I do.  This novel kept me guessing;  guessing the veracity and sanity of the narrator.  Wondering whether he was relating the facts objectively or living out a dark fantasy in the furthest reaches of a diseased mind. 

The end was fulfilling, if indeed it can ever be said to end at all, for The Angel's Game is the story of past and future history.

I will read this book again in a year or so.  Like its sequel, The Shadow of the Wind, it has a permanent place on my bookshelf.  Now I have to get my hands on a copy of The Prince of Mist.

Thank you for pointing me toward these novels.

 

[King Pizza]

Since school is finally over and I finally have had time to read again, I have most recently read, Working at Play and A brief History of Nakedness.

[Jann]

Just finished Peter Høeg's Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow, an excellent book . . . this is actual literature . . . if there is any justice it will become a classic

Just started Freya Stark's The Valleys of the Assassins

[Historybuff83]

Finished up Lamb finally, for this week I'm doing readings for my business and environmental law classes.  I have Christmas/Holdiay exodus coming up so that gives me some time to do some personal reading.  I am thinking about The Power of Babel which is about the history of language.

[hemingway]

currently reading Hunter Thompson's "Hells Angels"

Not suggesting its a boring book, but his loopy addled writing style always helps me get to sleep

[Stuart]

Whoops!: Why everyone owes everyone and no one can pay by John Lanchester, it explains the current economic crisis and why we're all just as dumb as the people who brought about the hyperinflation in Germany in the 1920s.

[Setesh]

"Dark Force Rising" by Timothy Zahn.

[AElf]

Re-reading Tolkien, all of it.  Well worth the review.

[King Pizza]

I'm rereading The Giver by Lois Lowry. 

[simonalexander2005]

I'm reading "World without end" by Ken Follett - sequel to "The Pillars of the earth"

[jedinudist]

Currently about 1/2 way through Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 and a few medical ref books for the non-profits I volunteer for. The Mark Twain book is really good.

BTW- simonalexander05, I loved pillars, how is world without end compared to it?

[simonalexander2005]

Currently about 1/2 way through Autobiography of Mark Twain, Vol. 1 and a few medical ref books for the non-profits I volunteer for. The Mark Twain book is really good.

BTW- simonalexander05, I loved pillars, how is world without end compared to it?

I'm about a third of the way through, and really enjoying it!

It's set a few hundred years later, but the writing style is just as good as pillars. Highly recommended.

p.s - Call me Simon :-)

[grapesmugg_3]

I am currently reading "The Pathological Protein" by Philip Yam, it is about various prion diseases (Mad Cow Disease, Creutzfeld-Jakob Disease, Chronic Wasting disease, Kuru), those prions are very scary stuff... This one guy died at only 19 years old with symptoms that looked like Alzheimers! Not to mention mad cow disease can potentially spread to people who eat infected beef, but symptoms can take years to develop, so that means thousands of people could be running around with this deadly disease and the only way to confirm the diagnosis is a brain biopsy.

I admit this isn't the kind of book most people read, but it is really well written and absolutely fascinating.

I find that stuff fascinating as well. Have you checked out Richard Preston? The first book I read of his was required for a history class was "The Hot Zone" a true story and it got me hooked. Its about the Ebola virus and how it causes havoc in the human body. There is also "The Demon in the Freezer" about Small Pox, and "Cobra Event" a theoretical book that is also great. Richard Preston is one of my favorite authors.

[MrDude]

I am just finishing "in the hand of Dante" by Nick Tosches.
It is a great novel .. The book interweaves two separate stories, one set in the 14th century in Italy and Sicily and featuring Dante Alighieri, and another set in the autumn of 2001 and featuring a fictionalized version of Nick Tosches as the protagonist. The historical and modern stories alternate as Dante tries to finish writing his magnum opus and goes on a journey for mystical knowledge in Sicily. Meanwhile Tosches, as something of a Dante expert, is called in by black market traders to attest to the authenticity of a manuscript of the Divine Comedy supposedly written by Dante himself.
Included in the modern sections of the book are musings by Tosches on the state of modern publishing, the futility of excessively flowery poetry and prose, references to his own previous books (including a lengthy passage directly out of the introduction to The Nick Tosches Reader), the September 11th attacks, and the Rolling Stones.
A movie featuring Johnny Depp is following!

[Sik]

Microsoft .NET Framework-Application Development Foundation (MCTS Exam 70-536).... :P


For my free time, I'm hooked to Isaac Asimov's "Foundation", and planning to repair my shameful lack of "Asimovian" cultural background.  This is fun ! ^^