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Picking up "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi at the library today. A friend recommended it to me and it sounds pretty good.

bearfacedkiller wrote:Picking up "The Windup Girl" by Paolo Bacigalupi at the library today. A friend recommended it to me and it sounds pretty good.

I've had that on my to-read list for quite some time. If I recall correctly, it was recommended by Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy) at a Comic Con panel I attended. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on it.

The Mystery of the Shemitah by Jonathan Cahn

Just started reading Slan, by A.E. van Vogt.

'The Onion Field' by Joseph Wambaugh

I will be traveling across the country today so I should get a good chunk of it finished.

I am maybe 2/3 of the way through 'The Onion Field' and man it is good. Aside from it being the telling of a true story, it is also just really well done. You get a sense for what every character is about, while at the same time leaving a portion of each to the imagination, and hopefully going into later.

It is also just a gripping story to begin with. I am glad a competent writer took on the task of telling it, as it is always a shame when a bad writer manages to butcher a true story.

The Face of Battle by Sir John Keegan

I just finished "Open" by Andre Aggasi. It was a very fast, easy and immensely entertaining read. His life was incredibly interesting, and made all the more so by the fact that he pretty much lived a lie for the bulk of his tennis career, and thus is very far off of what our impression of it may be. Imagine if, in 15 years, Tom Brady wrote a book about how he secretly hated football and only continued to do it because of the immense pressure, and didn't like Giselle, or Belichick (those last two might be true). Also his famous Brady hair is a toupee. Strike that, his famous Brady chin cleft is a prosthetic!

We tend to assume that the incredibly talented athletes appreciate their talent and life, and that it makes them happy, which is not always the case. I finished it in a week and a half, which is absolutely blazing for me. His descriptions of matches and opposing players are awesome, and really flesh out the strangely lonely experience of playing a professional tennis match. Even non-sports fans (of which Agassi is one) will enjoy Open.

Almost done with "Dracula."

Real life got in the way, and not in any enjoyable way. Glad May is over. Hopefully June will be better. At least filled with far less B.S. than May.

im reading currently reading: "Room" by Emma Donoghue
A compelling and gripping story told from the perspective of a five-year-old boy, Jack, who is being held captive in a small room along with his mother

Just finished Slaughterhouse Five and Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut. I liked BoC better even though it got a little weird at the end.

I just started 'Alan Turing: The Enigma', like really just started, but am excited about it.

just started reading 'snow crash'. i really enjoy watching sci-fi films but never had the chance to read a book in that genre.. so this will be the first one. i already got past chapter 4 and i find it very entertaining

npad69 wrote:just started reading 'snow crash'. i really enjoy watching sci-fi films but never had the chance to read a book in that genre.. so this will be the first one. i already got past chapter 4 and i find it very entertaining

Read Neuromancer. It started it all.

"Pacific Crucible" by Ian Toll. The war in the Pacific, 1941 - 1942.

MichaelScott wrote:

npad69 wrote:just started reading 'snow crash'. i really enjoy watching sci-fi films but never had the chance to read a book in that genre.. so this will be the first one. i already got past chapter 4 and i find it very entertaining

Read Neuromancer. It started it all.

that is what im going to read next after SC :D

When the Game Stands Tall: The Story of the De La Salle Spartans and Football's Longest Winning Streak by Neil Hayes

I had dropped a few books I was half way through now I am going to start re reading, 'Collapse How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' By Jared Diamond, 'The Bizarre Truth' by Andrew Zimmern, 'Huckleberry Finn' By Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) and I plan on reading Jurrassic Park and The Lost World after those.

"Collapse" is the shiz. Love that book along with GG&S.

About to start "Shades of Grey" by Jasper Fforde, at the recommendation of one if the good folks here. (Not to be confused with 50 shades of gray by some no-talent-a$$clown).

Just finished Shades of Grey, which I enjoyed very much. I liked how the world was better and worse at the same time. Lying is not only highly punishable but also a serious faux pas. Obviously, this (helps to) prevent the big lies, but it even prevents those white lies we make so often that we don't even notice it. This, in turn, has the effect of preventing the expectation of these polite lies, and there is a lot less social tension:

"How were the cookies I made for you?"
"I found them to be inedible."
"I thought as much, we ran out of sugar so I replaced it with sand."

I also dig the dry British humor. The Brits do book-humor right, IMO. Thanks for the rec, Demon (I think it was you).