Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 19, 2013 12:17:27 GMT
I'm reading Divine Vintage, by Randall Heskett and Joel Butler. It's a history of viniculture, wine making, and the sacramental uses of wine in the Fertile Crescent and eastern Mediterranean. I'm also just starting Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Jan 23, 2013 20:46:05 GMT
I have moved on to Pratchett's Interesting Times, wherein Rincewind, the 'wizzard' of dubious thaumaturlogical skills, is sent as an emissary to Hunghung, on the Counterweight Continent, and is reunited with Twoflowers and meets Genghiz Cohen, the Barbarian, and his 'Silver Horde' (five old geezer barbarian heroes and a former geography teacher) whilst he practices his typical routines of cowardice and self-preservation in the midst of a foreign culture which smacks very much of an amalgam of China and Japan.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 18:18:17 GMT
I'm reading "Life of Pi" right now since I felt like it is something I should know.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 19:26:00 GMT
I'm starting Jamaica Inn by Daphne Du Maurier and Guard of Honor by James Cozzens.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 2, 2013 17:34:28 GMT
I just finished a lightweight but fun read called Buddy: How a Rooster Made Me a Family Man by Brian McGrory. Next up is a sci fi novel, The Revisionists by Thomas Muller. I'm also reading What Happened at Vatican II by John W. O'Malley.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2013 18:04:01 GMT
Just finished The Revisionists, turns out it wasn't a sci fi book after all, it only looked like one... Anyone who likes well written thrillers might like it. It has the best use of a "unreliable narrator" I've seen since An Instance of the Fingerpost.
It its place, I'm beginning Just My Type: A Book about Fonts by Simon Garfield.
|
|
|
Post by Kye on Feb 3, 2013 18:09:12 GMT
*tries to imagine reading a book about fonts*
*fails*
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Feb 3, 2013 18:48:04 GMT
*tries to imagine reading a book about fonts* *fails* Oooo...I saw the title and started thinking about getting ahold of it. I love to just scan various fonts. I could definitely see an entire book about fonts. I'll be interested to see Sven's report back. I can see that I am going to be practically required to read Buddy.
|
|
|
Post by Karen on Feb 3, 2013 20:58:53 GMT
Speaking of fonts, I just got this book - hours of fun to leaf through!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 3, 2013 21:10:38 GMT
Must be catching!
|
|
|
Post by tangent on Feb 3, 2013 21:59:26 GMT
Wonderful book. Here's a link to some sample pages.
|
|
|
Post by Kye on Feb 3, 2013 22:18:37 GMT
Weirdos...
|
|
|
Post by charliebrown on Feb 4, 2013 10:16:08 GMT
Me shares same sentiment as Kye. I finished Byakuyako by Higashino Keigo. Besides suspense and psychological play, it says a lot about the Japanese society. Japanese literature is full of gloomy stuff like this. I can't read such thing consecutively, it makes me extremely sad. So I am going to read some lighthearted stuff, like Sherlock Holmes.
|
|
|
Post by whollygoats on Feb 4, 2013 14:38:20 GMT
Speaking of fonts, I just got this book - hours of fun to leaf through! Want.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2013 16:17:27 GMT
Just My Type was pretty good. It covers the history of type design broadly but not deeply, concentrating on whatever colorful bits the author could find (see the Baskerville-Mrs. Eaves* scandal). There was also quite a bit about (book/LP/CD) cover design. Apparently it's in most public libraries, so it shouldn't be too hard to find a copy. *Borrowing the name to use as a stage name, there is a modern day performance artist who does an, erm, show at type conferences where she writes in different fonts on her body messages like "Write here, right now": Now I'm beginning Warren Ellis' Gun Machine and Ian Mortimer's The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England.
|
|
|
Post by Miisa on Feb 9, 2013 17:21:08 GMT
More nonfiction, "Tracking the Chupacabra" by Benjamin Radford.
|
|
|
Post by Shake on Feb 12, 2013 1:51:35 GMT
Recently found the Goodreads site via some postings on Facebook. Am in the process of adding in books I've read, and marking ones I'd like to read.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 14, 2013 15:48:32 GMT
Starting new books. Unusual Uses for Olive Oil (Alexander McCall Smith) and The Secret History of Science Fiction (ed. Kelly & Kessel).
|
|
bigsleepj
Senior members
The King in Mellow
Posts: 50
|
Post by bigsleepj on Feb 14, 2013 16:50:39 GMT
Currently reading Zoo City by Lauren Beukes, an interesting fantasy noir story (somewhat in the vein of District 9) set in a post-apocalyptic Johannesburg, South Africa, albeit a post-apocalyptic setting that eschews many of the cliches, as it was not war, famine or plague but an "ontological shift". Several humans have been bound psychologically to animal spirits, which also gave them magical powers, and this has upset human society. Those who have been 'animalled' are treated as lesser, inferior and are sometimes openly persecuted, but many have found their own little place in the cultural melting pot that is the Johannesburg CBD, now nick-named Zoo City. Zinzi December is a former investigative journalist turned third-rate sleuth (pared with a sloth) who is hired to track down a missing teenage pop star in order to pay off her debt to a cruel hearted gangster, but finds herself falling deeper and deeper into the dark heart of the crime capital of the world. Its a well-written novel so far but also very cynical, b;eak and politically incorrect. Just like Joburg.
|
|
|
Post by Karen on Feb 14, 2013 22:47:26 GMT
Am finishing up Thomas Mallon's Watergate, a fictionalized account of the scandal, extremely well-researched and a great read, especially if you lived through the era.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2013 7:16:18 GMT
I'm reading "The Long Earth" by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 18, 2013 12:03:22 GMT
I liked that one, Kaylee. It's pretty easy to pick who wrote what parts of the novel. If there's an interior monologue, it's Pratchett I'm starting Robert J. Sawyer's Triggers.
|
|
|
Post by Mari on Feb 20, 2013 21:42:46 GMT
Just read another Erica James book. I like her books, they are darker than Katie Fforde's books, but very realistic. (all romantic novels by the way) I've also been reading children's lit and young adult lit. I especially loved the books by John Flanagan. Extremely well-written, though it is obvious that he was a commercial man before this. Aside from that stuff I've been reading Markus Heitz's Elves in bits. It's too grande to read in one go, interesting though it is. You just overload at some point. Well-written and interwoven though!
|
|
|
Post by raspberrybullets on Feb 22, 2013 16:24:00 GMT
I'm currently re-reading the His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. Just started on book 2. The more I read them, the more I love them. And especially since we saw the Northern Lights ourselves, I am completely mesmerised with the descriptions of them. In a dilema right now about books as I want to buy quite a few to read but the more books we buy, the more books we have to ship to Oz when we relocate. An e-reader could solve that issue but Ronald is not cooperative about the idea.
|
|
|
Post by Kye on Feb 22, 2013 16:27:29 GMT
I love my e-reader! I wasn't expecting to, but I got used to it more quickly than I thought I would. And when I run out of things to read it only takes seconds to get a new book.
|
|
|
Post by Mari on Feb 22, 2013 16:54:20 GMT
Yes, I do love the feel of a real book above all else, but my tablet is very handy in getting and checking books out fast. And if I like them a lot, I will buy them as real books.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2013 20:54:35 GMT
Plus if you need a book lightening fast it's a handy way to get a hold of it.
I'm reading Peter Ackroyd's London Under, plus Connie Willis' Blackout (to be immediately followed by its sequel, All Clear).
|
|
|
Post by Kye on Feb 22, 2013 21:20:33 GMT
I loved the Willis books!
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 22, 2013 21:48:13 GMT
My favorite of her's was To Say Nothing of the Dog, especially the little twist at the ending.
|
|
|
Post by Kye on Feb 22, 2013 22:45:47 GMT
I loved the Domesday one.
|
|