Now Reading Thread

[Nicky007]

Also, I started reading George Orwell's Animal Farm.
I've heard it is interesting.

Yup, Paxi, 1984 and Animal Farm are two masterpieces. Thrilling 

I actually oughta read'm again. More than thirty years since I did last. Thanx for remindin 

Nicky.

[erik]

Catch 22 is a classic.  I think you have to be in a bit of a crazy mood yourself to fully appreciate it.

Quite true, it's insane really, but that's apt 'cause it's about the insanity of war. I like it!

Yup, Paxi, 1984 and Animal Farm are two masterpieces. Thrilling
I actually oughta read'm again. More than thirty years since I did last. Thanx for remindin

Both great, I want to re-read them as well. Hasn't been thirty years yet (wasn't reading this sort of stuff at age 2 ), but it's been quite some time. I like these kind of future dystopian novels, Brave New World (Huxley) and This Perfect Day (Ira Levin) are also recommended. Look forward to Ridley Scott's take on the former that's in the making now.

[Steve Jones]

Truly you a prince among men, Steve.  I'm proud to be your fictional alter ego.

Currently reading Dean Koontz - Odd Hours

[Steve Jones]

Yup, Paxi, 1984 and Animal Farm are two masterpieces. Thrilling 

I actually oughta read'm again. More than thirty years since I did last. Thanx for remindin 

Don't forget, 1984 can be read online at http://www.george-orwell.org/1984/index.html if you can live without the feel of good old paper in your hands

[Nicky007]

Brave New World (Huxley) and This Perfect Day (Ira Levin) are also recommended.

Re-read This Perfect Day recently. Whew, one'o my fave books. About feeling different from everyone else in all ways - a real proggie story 

I'v read a buncha books by both Aldous Huxley and Ira Levin - two of my alltime fave authors 

Ha bloody ha. 

And does that mean that you already knew about Polari, Iggy 

Nicky.

[Iggy]

And does that mean that you already knew about Polari, Iggy 

Nicky.

No I didn't.

[erik]

Read quite a few books whilst on holidays in the south of Spain: Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind by Ursula Le Guin, Salmon Fishing In the Yemen by Paul Thorday and am now halfway in Ghosts Of Spain - Travels Through A Country's Hidden Past by Giles Tremlett. Also just read the graphic novel The Sandman - Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman.

[Manatee]

Read quite a few books whilst on holidays in the south of Spain: Tales From Earthsea and The Other Wind by Ursula Le Guin, Salmon Fishing In the Yemen by Paul Thorday and am now halfway in Ghosts Of Spain - Travels Through A Country's Hidden Past by Giles Tremlett. Also just read the graphic novel The Sandman - Endless Nights by Neil Gaiman.

Ursula LeGuin is fantastic.  She's one of my favorite authors.  If you haven't read them, The Disposessed and Always Coming Home are particularly good.  She's classified as sci-fi or fantasy, but mostly she really just writes about people -- very very well.

[erik]

I agree, she's a marvellous writer and she adds such amazing depth and emotion to her characters. I really liked these two latest installments in the Earthsea cycle and it left me wanting more. Read The Dispossesed quite some time ago, must check out the other title, thanks for the tip!

[Steve Jones]

Ursula LeGuin is fantastic.  She's one of my favorite authors.  If you haven't read them, The Disposessed and Always Coming Home are particularly good.  She's classified as sci-fi or fantasy, but mostly she really just writes about people -- very very well.

Now there's a good idea.  I haven't read her for ages, my last one was 'The Left Hand of Darkness' if memory serves.

[Iggy]

Just finished Ben Elton's - The first Casualty.

Best thing I've read in ages.

[maddox]

I'm currently reading and English book of Brad Thor, called The First Commandment.
Despite the title, it has nothing to do with religion, but it's a classic story about CIA operatives and their fight to uncover all the lies.

And to find out who shot the girl he loves. 

[Steve Jones]

Dean Koontz - The Taking

[Draco chimera]

Now reading Raptor Red, by Robet T. Bakker.
This book tells the life of a female Utahraptor. I guess it was a kind of challenge for the author.
I just began it. The press was very optimistic when it was written, so am I. It seems good.

[Steve Jones]

Terry Pratchett - Unseen Academicals

Only got it yesterday, which is a bit late for me.  I'd normally get a new Pratchett book as soon as humaly possible and cancel all engagements for the next 24 hours so I can read it uninterrupted

[Deenfan]

Robert Harris - Enigma

About the decryption of the German codes during WWII. Very exciting.

[Manatee]

A bunch of music reviews, especially those by Nicky's pal "Batman," who always writes very well-considered, detailed reviews.  He had rather a lot to say about Beardfish, which is on my possible (UK) punt list.

[keyboardistmatt]

The internet mainly;
I'm researching The Cascadia Subduction Zone

[Nicky007]

Robert Harris - Enigma

About the decryption of the German codes during WWII. Very exciting.

From Wiki (my boldface):

"Enigma is a novel by Robert Harris, about Tom Jericho, a young mathematician trying to break the Germans' "Enigma" ciphers during World War II. It was adapted to film in 2001. He is stationed in Bletchley Park, the British cryptologist central office, and is worked to the point of exhaustion.

Apart from the plot, the book is notable for its grim descriptions of winter in a war-torn Britain.

The book, though fiction, is criticised by people who were at Bletchley Park as bearing little resemblance to the real wartime Bletchley Park."


NR  Hegel's Phenomenology Of The Spirit

Got the Hegel-group moving again, after ½ year's pause.

Difficult book, but uniquely edifying.

Noone here into pure philosophy ?


Also NR  William Gibson:  Neuromancer

A cult book. Had it lying around for a while, but recently I got real curious. I understand why it's cult:  Gibson shows an amazing intelligence here. To plod thru this book ya gotta understand English well and keep track of a tremendous amount of threads 

About a future dystopia where an ace computer (matrix) specialist cheats on his employers, whereupon he's basically emasculated. He's a survivor tho, he struggles like crazy, and gradually moves up the social strata again.

Amazon.com Review:

"Here is the novel that started it all, launching the cyberpunk generation, and the first novel to win the holy trinity of science fiction: the Hugo Award, the Nebula Award and the Philip K. Dick Award. With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace--and science fiction has never been the same.

Case was the hottest computer cowboy cruising the information superhighway--jacking his consciousness into cyberspace, soaring through tactile lattices of data and logic, rustling encoded secrets for anyone with the money to buy his skills. Then he double-crossed the wrong people, who caught up with him in a big way--and burned the talent out of his brain, micron by micron. Banished from cyberspace, trapped in the meat of his physical body, Case courted death in the high-tech underworld. Until a shadowy conspiracy offered him a second chance--and a cure--for a price...."

Nicky.

[Deenfan]

About the bold paragraph: All movies, books or theater pieces that take place somewhere that actually exists will get that, unless the main goal of the writer is to tell exactly what happened. This author informs the reader that the messages themselves are genuine, but that no character is supposed to bear any resemblance to any actual person. I don't know what the complaints are really about, but given that every character in the book is purely fictional, the environment (what do you call it... ) and the intrigues and all that comes with them will also be different from reality.

What else? The barracks weren't like that? They didn't work that way? There was a pizzeria?

Maybe some aspects are detrimental to the book as such, but if you have to be a native BletchleyParker to pick up on it, I'm not too bothered!

[Nicky007]

Maybe some aspects are detrimental to the book as such, but if you have to be a native BletchleyParker to pick up on it, I'm not too bothered!

This sentence evades me, Deenie. Could you please expand ?

It's just that: This subject interests me a lot. Having pursued maths and languages all my life, and working as a programmer (mainly Fortran and SAS) for many years, semiotics and codes really grip me. So I'm on the lookout for authentic material on these matters.

Nicky.

[Deenfan]

The codes and the messages are supposed to be authentic. What I mean is, maybe there are things in the book that should have been closer to how it really was, because it'd have made the book better. But I do doubt it. Unless you were there, and reading the book, knowing that it wasn't "exactly like that".

The author would be a rare one to change something for the worse. The usual - and sensible - way about it is to "adjust" reality a bit, to make it more exciting - to make it work better as a novel. Which doesn't bother me at all.

[Manatee]

Neal Stephenson - Anathem

No "a".  I've yet to read anything by this guy that wasn't excellent.

[Nicky007]

I've yet to read anything by this guy that wasn't excellent.

His Mom probably still has some of his toddler scribbles 


NR  An interesting article in Snopes.com (Rumor has it) about the Eagles' Hotel California.

Claim: The song is about Satanism.

Man, what people have dished up in this direction 

Iac Snopes astutely disproves all these claims.

http://www.snopes.com/music/songs/hotel.asp

In fact, the song is "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles," and "it's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about." - Don Henley  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California_(song)

Nicky.

[Manatee]

In fact, the song is "our interpretation of the high life in Los Angeles," and "it's basically a song about the dark underbelly of the American dream and about excess in America, which is something we knew a lot about." - Don Henley  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotel_California_(song)

In a stunning reversal of trend, this song is about exactly what it sounds like it's about!