Whatcha Reading? / What Should I Be Reading?

So, it's summer time, and for quite a few people I know, that means finding something to do in their free time. I could spend all my non-working hours playing video games, but what's the fun in that? I'd like to mix it up and get some reading done because I don't do near enough of it these days. I'd also like to exercise and I might even be able to combine the two, but that's a whole different story...

Anyway, what are you reading? Have you read any good books recently? Care to recommend any? What's it all about anyway? I have a two college, and one public library at my disposal, so I should be able to find most things. (I hope.)

You should be reading The Dresden Files. All of them.

I'm still reading Lord of the Rings for the second time. I hope to get some time to read it through this summer - I love that book!

There are many books I'd like to read after that. For example, Middlesex and The Road. There are more, but I can't think of them right now. Whenever I walk into a book store I also just feel very inspired to read all of the books in there..!

Desperately trying to improve my french so am reading Camus' L'etranger with a translation. After that I will read the Divine Comedy this summer. Oh please, someone ask me if I've started it yet in a month or so, and if I haven't (particularly if I'm reaing a potter or discworld again), bitchslap me.

I read easier books for little breaks when I get bored of heavier reading. At the minute I'm re-reading Alice in Wonderland and the sequel, Through the Looking Glass, which just happen to be the best children's books EVAR. I love them so much.

Hop down to your library, see what they've got out.

I was reading the Illiad, but haven't gotten around to finishing it, it's pretty good though, can't beat the classics.

Right now I'm reading Pro Tools 101 because Pro Tools makes Zeta cry. :(

At the moment I am reading two books: Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman and Ghost Rider: Travels on the Healing Road by Neil Peart. I do not read much so they both may take awhile.

Afterwards, I will begin Glen Cook's Chronicles of The Black Company, which contains the first tree novels in his ten book series about the history of a group of mercenaries named The Black Company. It sounds interesting.

You should read The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss.

That's most of my to-read list atm.

I just finished Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett and Restaurant at the End of the Universe by Douglas Adams. I'm currently reading Last Act by Christopher Pike, the royal diaries book about Kaiulani by someone or other, and the Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan.

Lovecraft Tales.

I think my next book will be Fight Club, just because.

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Read it.

Read the following:

A Brave New World
1984
Lord of the Flies
Cat's Cradle
Slaughterhouse Five
The Jungle
The Great Gatsby
Heart of Darkness
The Idiot
Invisible Monsters
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fight Club
Naked Lunch
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Clockwork Orange
Foundation
Dune
Ender's Game
The Wasteland
The Tempest
The Illiad
The Odyssey
Lisa Strata
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Bible
The Koran
The Teachings of Buddha
Nicomachean Ethics
Lost Gods
The Selfish Gene
The End of Faith
Leviathan
Middlesex

As for what I am reading at the moment:
Youth

I'm reading Running with Scissors for the 2nd time. I didn't really like it the first time, so I thought I'd give it a second chance.

It's really not that great of a book.

Y'all have such different tastes than I do in books. I'm not a huge fan of the classics, and aside from Tolkien, I'm not a huge fan of fantasy books.

Anyone have any good contemporary recommendations?

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Originally Posted by Miriel

Anyone have any good contemporary recommendations?

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Originally Posted by I Took the Red Pill

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

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That reminds me I must finish "Picture of Dorian Gray" and "Oliver Twist"hm..

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Originally Posted by Harle-Quin

You should be reading The Dresden Files. All of them.

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Yes.

Aside from being smack in the middle of The Dresden Files, I should be finishing up Duma Key by Stephen King this weekend and then I'm gonna read Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut and then probably As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner. Also I'm going to do a book swap with a friend of mine because I really do want to read some good sci-fi and she wants to start reading more classicy/read this if you're human type stuff so I'm sending her Catch-22 and she's sending me something by Alistair Reynolds I think. And then I need to find copies of a few books I had to put down because they weren't mine or something and finish those up. Oh, I just finished Not June Cleaver which is a book of essays on the realities for women in the 1950's as they oppose our historical acceptance and that was really kinda neat. Like real stories from real people with a little information tossed in.

Then ... hmm. I don't know what I'll read. I'm open to recommendations, always. And I suck at this so I have no suggestions whatsoever.

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Originally Posted by I Took the Red Pill

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Originally Posted by Miriel

Anyone have any good contemporary recommendations?

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Originally Posted by I Took the Red Pill

A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius.

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Already read it. I liked Me Talk Pretty One Day better.

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Originally Posted by fire_of_avalon

Then ... hmm. I don't know what I'll read. I'm open to recommendations, always. And I suck at this so I have no suggestions whatsoever.

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Have you read any Margaret Atwood books, foa? I think you'd like her. I loved The Handmaid's Tale.

Currently I'm reading King's Shield, by Sherwood Smith and I'm in love.

(I'm also in the middle of Alpha Beta, by John Man; Catch-22, by Joseph Heller; and Fellowship of the Ring, by Tolkien.)


But really, if anyone has time to read a somewhat thick fantasy book, please try Inda and then The Fox by Sherwood Smith. I am in love with these books, but I would like to hear what others have to say about them. Also, if you think Inda is only so-so, please give The Fox a try anyway because it's a million times better.

Currently reading If you Liked School, You'll Love Work by Irvine Welsh - Recently read The Club Dumas & The Natural - both of which I recommend.

Also, a favorite summer read of mine is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby - classic stuff there!

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Originally Posted by Me, in another book thread

War and Peace. Seriously, read it. I went into it just trying to kill some time, but I got completely sucked into it very fast. Tolstoy pretty much defined what a novel is with that book; it seems like it could've been written just yesterday, and there are virtually no dull moments.

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Nearly finished both the Alastair Campbell diaries and Empire of the Sun (J.G. Ballard). After that I'm probably going to read either Live and Let Die (Ian Fleming) or When We Were Orphans (Kazuo Ishiguro).

Miriel: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is an excellent, Booker Prize-winning read.

foa: I second Miriel's suggestion of The Handmaid's Tale. That's a great book. Only Atwood that I've read though.

I need to read more. I've been reading eragon on and off for a few weeks.

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Originally Posted by The Unknown Guru

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Originally Posted by Me, in another book thread

War and Peace. Seriously, read it. I went into it just trying to kill some time, but I got completely sucked into it very fast. Tolstoy pretty much defined what a novel is with that book; it seems like it could've been written just yesterday, and there are virtually no dull moments.

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tried it, didn't like it as good as anna karenina.

have you read
Lolita (irl)
Sabriel/lirael/abhorsen (kinda YA but still good, fantasy)
East of Eden (irl)
things by Terry Pratchett (humor, fantasyish)
Things by Neil Gaiman (sandman(fantasy, comic book), american gods(irl fantasy))
Flowers for Algernon (irl)
The Bell Jar (irl)
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (can you tell I'm a fan of '60s psychology novels? also, irl)
The Awakening (irl)
A Separate Peace (irl)
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (irl)
Witch World books (collected for your convenience into titles such as Annals of the Witch World and Chronicles of the Witch World, clearly fantasy)
Cloudsplitter (irl)
Contact (irl sci-fi)
Dove (irl, the ocean)
Fool's Die (and for that matter. . .) (irl)
The Godfather (irl)
Giants in the Earth (irl)
Into Thin Air (irl, for reals, mount everest)
Jurassic Park (irl)
Men of Iron (irl, middle ages england)
Snow Falling on Cedars (irl, also for reals)
Support Your Local Wizard (Young Wizards series, more excellent YA,fantasy)
The Chocolate War (irl)
The Count of Monte Cristo (irl, france)
The Day After Roswell (I hated it, but maybe other people like ex-government official accounts of aliens! irl, but probably not for reals)
The Good Earth (irl, china)
The Little Prince (fantasy, adorable)
The Moon Pearl (irl, china)
The Poisonwood Bible (irl, Africa)
His Dark Materials (fantasy)
Watership Down (rabbits)

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Originally Posted by Miriel

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Originally Posted by fire_of_avalon

Then ... hmm. I don't know what I'll read. I'm open to recommendations, always. And I suck at this so I have no suggestions whatsoever.

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Have you read any Margaret Atwood books, foa? I think you'd like her. I loved The Handmaid's Tale.

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It's really weird but I've been trying to get myself to read her since high school and she always ends up slipping through the cracks of my memory.

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Originally Posted by Heath

Nearly finished both the Alastair Campbell diaries and Empire of the Sun (J.G. Ballard). After that I'm probably going to read either Live and Let Die (Ian Fleming) or When We Were Orphans (Kazuo Ishiguro).

Miriel: The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro is an excellent, Booker Prize-winning read.

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I love The Remains of the Day so much. So. Much.

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Originally Posted by Miriel

I'm reading Running with Scissors for the 2nd time. I didn't really like it the first time, so I thought I'd give it a second chance.

It's really not that great of a book.

Y'all have such different tastes than I do in books. I'm not a huge fan of the classics, and aside from Tolkien, I'm not a huge fan of fantasy books.

Anyone have any good contemporary recommendations?

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You might enjoy Augustin's other works though. Running With Scissors and his most recent books are his more "extreme" books. I adore him. Try Magical Thinking, Dry, or Sellovision.

I'm re-re-re-re-re-re-reading Norwegian Wood.

I have American Gods by Neil Gaiman waiting to be read next.

I was finally persuaded to read Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami, and it's pretty great.

Read any of the Culture novels by Iain M. Banks. Best sci-fi ever.

Currently I'm reading the Amber Spyglass. I just finished The Subtle Knife a week or so ago.

I need to finish The Book of Lost things but I cba and His Dark Materials just drew me right in.

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Originally Posted by Breine

I'm still reading Lord of the Rings for the second time. I hope to get some time to read it through this summer - I love that book!

There are many books I'd like to read after that. For example, Middlesex and The Road. There are more, but I can't think of them right now. Whenever I walk into a book store I also just feel very inspired to read all of the books in there..!

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As much as I detest LotR, Middlesex and The Road are both novels I've been meaning to get around to.

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Originally Posted by Nominus Experse

Read the following:

A Brave New World
1984
Lord of the Flies
Cat's Cradle
Slaughterhouse Five
The Jungle
The Great Gatsby
Heart of Darkness
The Idiot
Invisible Monsters
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Fight Club
Naked Lunch
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
A Clockwork Orange
Foundation
Dune
Ender's Game
The Wasteland
The Tempest
The Illiad
The Odyssey
Lisa Strata
The Epic of Gilgamesh
The Bible
The Koran
The Teachings of Buddha
Nicomachean Ethics
Lost Gods
The Selfish Gene
The End of Faith
Leviathan
Middlesex
Flowers for Algernon
The Cider House Rules
Don Quixote
It
The Catcher in the Rye
The Dispossessed
The World According to Garp
Atlas Shrugged
Gravity's Rainbow
Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way
Dolores Claiborn

Fix'd

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Currently I am a quarter of the way through the first part of Don Quixote. It is the best adventure book ever written. EVER.

Don Quixote was incredibly hard for me, but absolutely brilliant and hilarious.

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Originally Posted by I'm my own MILF

Don Quixote was incredibly hard for me, but absolutely brilliant and hilarious.

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The only problem I'm having with reading it is that my translation sort of sounds like it's trying to imitate Shakespeare sometimes.

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies; I'm re-reading Gone with the Wind and reading Cujo for the first time. I am sufficiently freaked out. :D

Reading Choke atm and kind of Brave New World.

Next up is Fight Club and re-reading Diary. I'm on a Palahniuk binge. And then probably reading Count of Monte Cristo, Jane Eyre, Catch 22, A TON of random Vonnegut, and then we'll see. Bert wants me to read his hoity toity fantasy books.

Re-reading the Harry Potter series; currently on Order of the Phoenix.

I am also waiting to read Friends Like These by Danny Wallace. It's all about a guy who finds an old school book of his with his friend's names written in it, whilst helping his mother clean out her attic, and decides to go find them. I read about it on the Daily Mail website. Can't find it in Waterstones, so might have a little look on Amazon.

Right now, I'm re-re-reading Survivor by Chuck Palahniuk and re-reading Lullaby also by Chuck. I love that dude. And I'm also reading American Psycho again.

And since Breaking Dawn is going to be released in about 16 days, I'm reading Eclipse again.

I have nothing else to do all summer, so why not refesh my memory? xD

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Originally Posted by Spiffing Cheese

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies; I'm re-reading Gone with the Wind and reading Cujo for the first time. I am sufficiently freaked out. :D

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Cujo made me both afraid of large dogs and afraid of driving in rural areas. Seeing a dog in a rural area makes me curl up in fetal position and cry.

No, but seriously, that book scared the bajeezus out of me. Sort of like Salem's Lot, which just made me afraid to sleep.

I'm reading the Highway Code book.
And Stardust.
And the Moomins series!!! ^___^

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Originally Posted by Breine

There are many books I'd like to read after that. For example, Middlesex and The Road. There are more, but I can't think of them right now. Whenever I walk into a book store I also just feel very inspired to read all of the books in there..!

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Oprah books? :p

I like to read Oprah's Book Club, just don't tell anybody! :eek: It's one of my guitly pleasures.

The Road made me basically want to blow my smurfing brains out. Not because it was bad, it's my favorite book ever, but because it was so dark. Can't wait for the movie.

Recently I've be reading Shakespeare, which I recommend. It isn't as bad as you may think. I've also been reading a bunch of Dilbert. :love:

Finished the ones I had started in my first post; am now reading Flowers for Algernon and Annals of the Witch World, and The Han Solo Adventures (han solo at stars end, han solo's revenge, han solo and the lost legacy)

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Originally Posted by Moon Rabbits

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Originally Posted by Spiffing Cheese

I just finished The Handmaid's Tale and Lord of the Flies; I'm re-reading Gone with the Wind and reading Cujo for the first time. I am sufficiently freaked out. :D

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Cujo made me both afraid of large dogs and afraid of driving in rural areas. Seeing a dog in a rural area makes me curl up in fetal position and cry.

No, but seriously, that book scared the bajeezus out of me. Sort of like Salem's Lot, which just made me afraid to sleep.

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Oh god I know, it's horrible. :( I haven't read Salem's Lot yet but have you read It? I had to sleep with my light on for about a week after I'd read that. xD Pennywise = scariest thing in any book, film, TV show, ANYTHING. ;____;