Recommended Books?

[Casperian]

For those interested A Dance With Dragons has a release date on amazon.com of September 29, 2009. This is contingent upon Martin finishing the book sometime before the end of this month. Here is where the book will first be announced as being finished, it's from Martin's personal site:

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/if-update.html

If you don't see a update announcing the book's completion by July 4th, expect another push back on the release date, probably to sometime in 2010.

Here's the US cover:



Also this is a cool tidbit from the asoiaf.westeros.org site:

Book Six will be called The Winds of Winter. No information is known on it other than that George plans to have all the characters back together in one novel. Book Seven will be called A Dream of Spring and is currently planned to be the final book in the series.

Saw that Nick.  I like that he has plans for 7 books to match the 7 gods.

The thing that's killing me with the 4th book are all of the new characters he's introducing, when I'm 500 pages in and I haven't heard a thing about some of my favorite characters.

BTW, I think my favorite chapters so far were involving the battle at the Wall.

I loved the Aria becoming an assassin storyline and everything and anything to do with Tyrion, Daenyrys and Jon. The whole Iron Islands story, while relevant and needed to tie up all the knots, bored the hell out of me.

Yup, those are definitely my favorites too. I think the younger characters in general are more compelling.

I finished the 4th book, and I'm feeling rather empty with nothing more to read from the series for now.  The bright side is I can start pecking away at my pile of "other books".

I am currently reading "Raising Steaks", which is about the history and culture of beef/cattle etc...in the U.S..  Quite a departure from I'm used to but it's well written and I'm making my way through it just fine.

I swear this is the first time I clicked on this thread, and I wanted to recommend "A Game of Thrones". Too bad I just gave you a TP for another post, nick.^^

But I have to admit that I don´t like the 4th book (which I currently read). It´s not even the lack of most of the protagonists, it´s just pretty average storytelling...lame, if you want to. I´m not finished, yet, but I`ve read the first three books in a row, and I can´t get myself to finish the 4th, which is never a good sign.

Hodor.

[Redz]

For those interested A Dance With Dragons has a release date on amazon.com of September 29, 2009. This is contingent upon Martin finishing the book sometime before the end of this month. Here is where the book will first be announced as being finished, it's from Martin's personal site:

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/if-update.html

If you don't see a update announcing the book's completion by July 4th, expect another push back on the release date, probably to sometime in 2010.

Here's the US cover:



Also this is a cool tidbit from the asoiaf.westeros.org site:

Book Six will be called The Winds of Winter. No information is known on it other than that George plans to have all the characters back together in one novel. Book Seven will be called A Dream of Spring and is currently planned to be the final book in the series.

Saw that Nick.  I like that he has plans for 7 books to match the 7 gods.

The thing that's killing me with the 4th book are all of the new characters he's introducing, when I'm 500 pages in and I haven't heard a thing about some of my favorite characters.

BTW, I think my favorite chapters so far were involving the battle at the Wall.

I loved the Aria becoming an assassin storyline and everything and anything to do with Tyrion, Daenyrys and Jon. The whole Iron Islands story, while relevant and needed to tie up all the knots, bored the hell out of me.

Yup, those are definitely my favorites too. I think the younger characters in general are more compelling.

I finished the 4th book, and I'm feeling rather empty with nothing more to read from the series for now.  The bright side is I can start pecking away at my pile of "other books".

I am currently reading "Raising Steaks", which is about the history and culture of beef/cattle etc...in the U.S..  Quite a departure from I'm used to but it's well written and I'm making my way through it just fine.

I swear this is the first time I clicked on this thread, and I wanted to recommend "A Game of Thrones". Too bad I just gave you a TP for another post, nick.^^

But I have to admit that I don´t like the 4th book (which I currently read). It´s not even the lack of most of the protagonists, it´s just pretty average storytelling...lame, if you want to. I´m not finished, yet, but I`ve read the first three books in a row, and I can´t get myself to finish the 4th, which is never a good sign.

Hodor.

Yeh, Casp.  he admits as much in his notes at the end...not his most inspired work, but hopefully it was just a necessary tying together of loose ends in the middle of the series.

[makaveli]

One of the few books i've read is Sun Tzu Art Of War...nice stuff

[Casperian]

Yeh, Casp.  he admits as much in his notes at the end...not his most inspired work, but hopefully it was just a necessary tying together of loose ends in the middle of the series.

I`ve heard he had to scrap a lot of what he had already written, because of problems with the timeline. I have to say, if a book is your baby, and you even admit that you`ve messed up, I can respect that. I may not like it, but at least I can look forward to the next three books.

...and after reading the rest of this thread, the TP belongs to incoherent, who was the first who mentioned the book...in October 2008. I`m always late to the party.

[incoherent]

thank you kindly for the TPs

[Rida]

Shantaram is awesome its almost 1,000 pages but an awesome read

[hwangjini_1]

ismael.

you will never, ever again see the world exactly as you do now.

[Redz]

I posted it in the "what hapopens after you die" thread, but I'll post it here too.  I just finished reading "Sum: 40 stories of the After Life".  It is 40 vignettes.  A quick read, with a bunch of different ideas on what might happen in the after life.  Some good, some funny, some absurd...All in all I liked the book and would recommend it.

Has anyone else read this?

[indeedproceed]

you can read the first couple pages on amazon too.

[Redz]

you can read the first couple pages on amazon too.

Sum?

[BudweiserCeltic]

I just read the first book of the series Shadows of the Apt called Empire in Black & Gold by Adrian Tchaikovsky.

This is really good fantasy book, by the looks of it a new author. A very easy read, some great action and interesting characters. It's got a bit of a steampunk feel, but it's dominated by fantasy elements. The characters are humans but with a twist, in that the different races are depicted by different insect characteristics/specimens.

I highly recommend it. It's currently not sold in the states, but if you go to amazon.com and simply buy from it's sellers (look for ones that ship from the US) you should be able to get the books at a good price and not be subjected to the expensive iternational shipping costs. Like here for example: http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/0230704131/ref=dp_olp_new?ie=UTF8&condition=new  I bought my copy from the_book_depository_.

The series is currently a trilogy with plans for more. The next two books are Dragonfly Falling and Blood of the Mantis, which I hear are even better than the first book.

In all, I highly recommend it because it's a fun read. Here's a review:
http://speculativehorizons.blogspot.com/2008/09/book-review-empire-in-black-and-gold.html

[RebusRankin]

I'd recommend The Senior by Mike Flynt. Its about a 59 year old who returns to college at Sul Ross to play his final season 36 years after he got kicked off the team.

Just finishing The Heroin Diaries by Nikki Sixx which is interesting but repetitive.

[BoyBee]

I just finished reading “The Shadow of the Wind” by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, which is set in Barcelona during the lead-up to the Spanish civil war & beyond.  We got it as a send off for our trip to Spain, and I wish I had finished it before we went, it’s a great story.

I’ve picked my way around the thread and have seen a lot of fine suggestions – someone said that science fiction reading starts with “The Foundation Trilogy” as the cornerstone.  I have been meaning for so long now to go back and read it, and now’s as good a time as any given that October 27 is not quite here yet.

In recent years I’ve particularly enjoyed Ray Bradbury, who seems to me to be miscast as purely a science-fiction writer, there are so many other genres skillfully presented in his work. Jack London has been knocking my socks off too (Call of the Wild, The Sea Beast, and a collection of his short stories called "The Call of the Wild and Other Stories"... the story titled "The Big Red One" is just mad nuts.

In looking at the past five years or so, these books stand out for me (among many other good reads such as The Kite Runner, The Secret Life of Bees, a bunch of Grishams, Dan Browns, Pat Conroys, et al):

Ray Bradbury:  Fahrenheit 451, The October Country, The Illustrated Man, The Martian Chronicles.

Ayn Rand:  The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged

Pearl Buck:  The Good Earth

Howard Zinn:  Voices of a People’s History of the United States

Shakespeare:  Hamlet, Othello, King Lear

John Knowles:  A Separate Peace

Johnathan Swift:  Gulliver’s Travels

Jared Diamond:  Guns, Germs & Steel – The Fates of Human Societies

Kurt Vonnegut:  Slaughterhouse Five, Cat’s Cradle & Breakfast of Champions

Chaim Potok:  The Chosen

Joseph Campbell:  The Hero with a Thousand Faces

Mary Shelley:  Frankenstein

Oscar Wilde:  The Portrait of Dorian Gray

Camille Paglia:  Break, Blow, Burn

Sun Tzu:  The Art of War 

Don’t worry guys, Danny’s put together a hell of a team for us this year.  Barring an unforeseeable injury (knocks on wood), the title is ours.  And that’s a book I’ll be glad to read in 2010.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Sorry for doing a bit of advertising, but I thought this was worth mentioning... though I haven't tried them yet. Though I've bought from them through them as Amazon sellers.

Anyways, http://www.bookdepository.com/ seems to be providing good prices for books with free shipping world wide. Seems worth investigating.

And to keep this thread on topic, right now I'm finishing the second book of the Night Angel Trilogy, Shadows Edge. So far this book has been better than the first. In all it has been a cool book, with tons of action. Lots of violence and some sex for those interested in that aspect.

[cdif911]

currently reading:

stop dressing your six year old like a skank

not bad so far, pretty humorous

just finished a psychology book called blind spots, about why smart people do dumb things - it was ok, not great, but ok