Quote from thisnameistaken :

You should definitely read The Eyre Affair first. It's a pretty bonkers little universe and getting the books in the right order will help. A lot.

Will do. They seem to pop up a lot in the thrift stores here... shouldn't be too hard to snag a copy.

Harry Potter


well it was a good book


Formula 1 1950&Today


Great book.... i love that..

The book of 5 rings by MIYAMOTO MUSASHI
________
Vapor genie

"Notes from a Small Island" by Bill Bryson

It's an interesting read rather than a riveting one. I'm not entirely sure why it was so critically acclaimed, but 'another mans meat' and all...

I've enjoyed all of the Bryson that I've read (most especially A Walk in the Woods) but he does get to be a bit much at times.

i just started reading the swarm by frank schätzing, should be a great book. its about nature fighting back. very well researched.
edit: btw, there will be a movie of it pretty soon.

before i read never let me go by kazuo ishiguro, pretty nice read, bit slow though.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

but he does get to be a bit much at times.

Yeah, i find myself reading it in that laconic almost monotone voice of his, and whilst it helps with the jokes it does kinda drag after a while.

Quote from dodo.ger :

before i read never let me go by kazuo ishiguro, pretty nice read, bit slow though.

Yeah, fantastic book. One of my favorites that I read last year, and led me to read three more of his (A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, and When We Were Orphans). I think he might be one of my favorite authors working today.

That said, you might want to edit that plot summary. A large part of the attraction of the book, IMO, hinges on NOT knowing what it's about for the first half.

I recently read Fujifilm Digital Camera Finepix S700, Digital Camera Finepix S5700 owner's manual

I read a lot of fiction. I do like James Patterson, as well as Dean Koontz. I rarely look at the titles though, so I can't really list any. Basically, everything that my mother sends me which could be James Patterson, Sydney Sheldon, John Grisham. The Koontz books I buy myself, mom doesn't read those.

A few other titles I'm reading, in e-book form....

Digital Photography - The Missing Manual
Digital Photography All-In-One Desk Reference for Dummies
Digital Photography - Expert Techniques
Lightroom - Getting Started
and finally.... Help.pdf (which is the help "manual" that comes with Lightroom)

Can you tell I got a digital camera for Christmas?

Oh, and of course there's The Cat in the Hat, Hop on Pop, Go Dog Go, and many others with the 4 year old. Though, we are beyond the Dr. Seuss books with her. Haven't actually read Dr. Seuss in quite some time.

More non-fiction for me:

http://www.britains-smallwars.com/swbooks/Vulcan-607.html

Excellent read, beats any fictional air-war stories sideways!

Books on my "to be read soon" list:

'As long as you dont kiss me': (Brian Clough Biograhy)

'Eric Clapton biography'...got it for Xmas and haven't started it yet.

Changed from a signed copy of Ronnie O'Sullivan's auto-biography "Ronnie". I've have been reading this over a year because I stopped for a long period.

Chris Moyles second auto-biography. I bought this for my mum at Christmas as did my Dad so I blagged my copy.

Richard Hammond's Auto-biography. A very good read so far, this is the one I am reading the most at the moment.

I plan to buy Clarksons book, I didn't bother with his first as I wasn't really into reading much, then when his second came out I wish I had bought the first.

I want to read more novels.

Michael Crichton - State of Fear. Only just started it.

I'd recommend the Hammond book to anyone, car lover or not. It's a must-have I think.

I do enjoy the Clarkson books, but it's not a book - it's a series of articles for when you are doing a Kimi. They should not be read like a book, but in short bursts. Therefore it should be impossible to say "I'm reading the Clarkson book at the moment".

Even though I don't really like him, I'd like to read (or attempt to) Russell Brand's 'My Booky Wook'. I don't know why.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

Yeah, fantastic book. One of my favorites that I read last year, and led me to read three more of his (A Pale View of Hills, An Artist of the Floating World, and When We Were Orphans). I think he might be one of my favorite authors working today.

That said, you might want to edit that plot summary. A large part of the attraction of the book, IMO, hinges on NOT knowing what it's about for the first half.

yep, would say he is one of my favorites at the moment too, planning to get 'we were orphans' next. or would you recommend one of the others?
removed the plot summary.

another one i want to read is the newest of michael crichton, 'next'. i heard many different views on 'state of fear', some loved it, others hated it. tell us what you think when youre finished tristan.
one of my all time favorites is still 'sphere' too.

you might like my other recommendation too, should be pretty similar in style.

Quote from dodo.ger :

yep, would say he is one of my favorites at the moment too, planning to get 'we were orphans' next. or would you recommend one of the others?

I think I actually liked that one least, though it's still very very good.

A Pale View of Hills might be my favorite. It's extremely short and slow-moving, but packs a big, big punch at the end. Ishiguro is very good (sometimes too good) at being subtle, and this might be the best example. Though I haven't read The Remains of the Day, which is supposed to be his best (seen the movie too many times recently).

edit: I also love Sphere. So underappreciated as a legitimate science fiction classic.

Varlam Salamov - I racconti della Kolyma "The Kolyma tales"
Lord Russell of Liverpool - I cavalieri del Bushido "The Knights of Bushido"
Very interesting books, Salamov tales are even more touching than Solgenicyn.
And "The Knights of Bushido" it's shocking, never know about that part of history.
Another one that i read not so much time ago was Kien Nguyen - Indesiderato "Unwanted", a very sad book.

Edit - other books that i dont know if are published outside Italy:
Luigi Venturini - La fame dei vinti
Vincenzo Pappalettera - Tu passerai per il camino ("You will pass trough the cimney", it's a possible translation)

Then 2 good books for the aviation entusiast:
Saburo Sakai - Samurai!
Boyington Gregory - Baa baa, black sheep

Right now I'm reading the 4th book of the Dresden Files (I forget the name). I've got 2 more Dresdens waiting and Pratchett's Making Money.

And as light reading pick-ups I have I Before E (Except After C) - Old Fashioned Ways to Remember Stuff and How to Fossilize Your Hamster to keep me amused (seriously, there are some fantastic experiments in that book - I want to try them all)

Quote from Rish :

The Bible!


I read the first one and omg i've never laughed so much. Great book and a must read!!!

+1111111111111111111

The Outsider by Albert Camus and The Psychopathology of Everyday Life by Sigmund Freud were the last couple of books I read.

I'm currently reading Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson M.D Volume 1 by Richard Bandler and John Grinder.
The next book on my list will be Volume 2 if I can find a copy and if not then it'll probably be Uncommon Therapy The Psychiatric Techniques of Milton H. Erickson M.D by Jay Haley

Last thing that really got me into it was 'A Game of Thrones' (A Song of Ice and Fire) by George R.R. Martin. Some really good stuff. Don't think I can wait for them to translate all the novels into Estonian.. got to try and understand English.

I read tons of other stuff, but nothing real good.

I'm ashamed to say that the only book I read over the whole year was 'Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows'!! :vomit:

Actually, that's probably because I live in Turkey and hardly ever come across English book stores. I picked up a dusty old copy of William Blatty's sequel to the Exorcist, but only got 20 pages in. I picked up an old Jack Vance novel but couldn't vibe with it. The Harry book was the only other book to cross paths with me at home which wasn't in Turkish, and since my GF loves it, who am I to argue? Yeah but it was pretty crap.

I said to my girlfriend the other day 'from now on I'm only going to read technical manuals'.

edit: now reading 'Shoot like a pro! Digital photography techniques'

Quote :

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick (7/10)

Haven't read this one but the title always immediately reminds my of PKD's last work 'The Transmigration of Timothy Archer' - which forms part of the VALIS trilogy. Those last three books are a real knock-out.

Last book: Red Dwarf - Backwards (Rob Grant)

Current: Clarkson - And Another Thing...

Next: Clive Cussler - The Chase

Got to love Christmas, I get enough books to last me a good couple of months. Mostly in shiny hardbacks too. I only read in short bursts (30 mins/day typically) so I don't tend to read any fiction thats too deeply involving.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

Haven't read this one but the title always immediately reminds my of PKD's last work 'The Transmigration of Timothy Archer' - which forms part of the VALIS trilogy. Those last three books are a real knock-out.

VALIS is just mindblowing stuff, and The Divine Invasion is a great read too. Still haven't read Timothy Archer, but it's high on my list.

i like stephen king...

Some great books in this thread! I read some good books last year actually, not a bad 12 months for my list.

Breaking The Spell - Religion as a natural phenomenon by Daniel C Dennett. A sober, rational look at religion. As far from Christopher Hitchens' style as you could get, but they basically agree with each other.

Steep Approach to Garbadale by Iain Banks. An intricate Scottish tale of family, lust and highly successful strategy games Waiting for his next scifi novel. The last one, The Algebraist, was Banksy's usual mind-expanding writing. Very, very immersive, high-concept epic space-opera. Also re-read Excession, which should be made into a very long movie with the original score written by Muse.

@Crashgate - I bought Reality Dysfunction a couple of years ago on holiday but didn't have time to read it. Might just hook into that next. Epic scifi ftw :up: Should throw some PK Dick on the list too.

Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. Just read it. If you're not in love with the heroine by chapter 2 you're broken

God Is Not Great - How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens. Never backward in coming forward, Hitch tells you exactly what he thinks of religion and its effect on the world. Exactly what he thinks. This man knows not the concept of word-mincing! Highly inflammatory and flat-out offensive or jolly good fun - depending on your perspective

The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins. Long before he was one of these laughably, oxymoronically-named "fundamentalist atheists" he was a highly respected evolutionary biologist. Following on from his earlier work The Selfish Gene, Dawkins uses Watchmaker to further explain the development of biological diversity on Earth.

Right now: Guardians Of Power - The Myth of the Liberal Media by David Edwards & David Cromwell. A great eye-opening account of US/UK media slackness, covering the reporting of actions in (so far) Afghanistan, Iraq and Kosovo and the giant gaps between it and what was actually going on at the time. Wish they'd included Australian media idiocy but there's only so much paper in the world

Very soon: the autobiography of Gunners guitar-lord Slash \m/

edit: forgot Douglas Adams' (may Something rest his soul) The Salmon Of Doubt! It was published after he died and was compiled by his family, friends and assistant from stuff left on his many Macs. He'd started another Dirk Gently novel too, which will now never be completed

Quote from Rtsbasic :

Next: Clive Cussler - The Chase

Bah! How could I forget Clive Cussler! Clive Cussler is my favorite. Just the fact that I haven't read anything of Dirk and Al's adventures for such a long time, it completely slipped my mind.