Reading anything?

[Vik]

@FatFreddysCat: If you like that book by Ebert you should also check out "Awake in the Dark" also by Ebert. It has some good interviews and reviews in it.

I started reading The Stand by Stephen King. 180 pages in right now, but it's only just starting. Enjoying it so far.

[FatFreddysCat]

@FatFreddysCat: If you like that book by Ebert you should also check out "Awake in the Dark" also by Ebert. It has some good interviews and reviews in it.

Cool, will look into it. I just read his other collection of bad reviews, "I HATED, HATED, HATED This Movie" -- it was a hoot. I rarely agree with Roger when it comes to films but I love the way he writes, always have. Sometimes I'll just go to his web site and flick through the review archive.

...and now in addition to the books I mentioned in my last post, one of my co workers just loaned me "White Line Fever," the autobiography of Motorhead's Lemmy!! Sweet.

[indianasmith]

Just finished SEAL TARGET GERONIMO, the story of the Seal Team 6 operation that took out Osama bin Laden last spring.  Very well written piece of work; Navy's high command dissed it, which means it probably has a high percentage of truth.

[AndyC]

I got Stephen King's new book, 11/22/63, for my birthday and read it in three days.  It's the best thing he has written in years, and thoroughly enjoyable - even if he did give Dallas a bit of a rough treatment.  Then again, I live 50 miles from the place and ain't that fond of it myself!

I want to read that one. Just waiting until I can get it cheaper.

Finished Magnificent Desolation over the holidays. While I was always a fan of Buzz Aldrin, reading this book gave me an even greater respect for the man. The battles with depression and alcoholism, going public with mental illness back when it carried much more of a stigma, joining expeditions to the north pole and the wreck of the Titanic as a senior citizen, loads of work put into promoting space tourism and private-sector space travel, continuously pushing to get space exploration moving forward again, and just generally trying to put the adventure back into space.

Now reading "Knots and Crosses" by Ian Rankin. Was looking for some more crime thrillers, having read every Michael Slade book, and decided to give this Scottish writer a try after reading some good things about his work. Still too early to say much about the book.

[Psycho Circus]

This is now makes seven books that I have on the go!

[InformationGeek]

BioShock: Rapture

The original story/prequel to the events that happened in BioShock 1 & 2 from the point of view of many different characters.  It pretty cool so far.  I'll get back to you after I finish it.

[Doggett]

On King books too (must be something in the air...)





and this one...

[InformationGeek]

On King books too (must be something in the air...)

If you are still into some King's book, I recommend this one (Comic, yes, but I must spread the word.  Other must see a vampire tale done very right):



One of the best modern day horror comics ever and probably the best vampire tale in a very long time.

[ER]

Ghosts And Others I Have Met, by John Kendrick Bangs. Written about 1898, this recounting of famous and little-known ghost stories from a number of regions is at times satirically funny, at others almost a little spooky. More or less faded from the public mind today, this book was wildly popular in its time (Mark Twain loved it). In a lot of the cases, Mr. Bangs, who had a gift for language, retells these tales in a tongue-in-cheek first-person perspective, as if it is he, like some unflappable Gilded Age X-File researcher, who actually experienced them.


"Who are you?" I cried, starting back, the physical symptoms of a ghostly presence manifesting themselves as usual.

"I am the ghost of one long gone before," was the reply, in sepulchral tones.

I breathed a sigh of relief, for I had for a moment feared it was a burglar....

[Pilgermann]

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.  I read it several years ago but I recently found a copy for a buck and decided to revisit it.  It's basically about a family who run a traveling circus and sideshow.  The freaks are the children of the couple who own the show, but they're the result of experimentation with drugs and poisons during each pregnancy.  The story is told by one of the children, now an adult, and she's been anonymously trailing her own daughter who was given up for adoption in a part of the novel that bookends the circus bits.  I really don't want to give much away but it's pretty gruesome and bizarre stuff, dealing with murder, cults, incest, love, hate, and the moral complexities of all these things, but it's so well-written and compelling that the ugly details don't feel like they're simply there for shock value.

[AndyC]

Geek Love by Katherine Dunn.  I read it several years ago but I recently found a copy for a buck and decided to revisit it.  It's basically about a family who run a traveling circus and sideshow.  The freaks are the children of the couple who own the show, but they're the result of experimentation with drugs and poisons during each pregnancy.  The story is told by one of the children, now an adult, and she's been anonymously trailing her own daughter who was given up for adoption in a part of the novel that bookends the circus bits.  I really don't want to give much away but it's pretty gruesome and bizarre stuff, dealing with murder, cults, incest, love, hate, and the moral complexities of all these things, but it's so well-written and compelling that the ugly details don't feel like they're simply there for shock value.

First thing I saw was "Greek Love" and I thought "What kind of book is this?" Then I read the title again.

[Vik]

I just finished The Stand today. It was really good but not great. In my opinion, King's written better things. It was very easy to read for a book that's 1300 something pages in length, with parts ranging from OK to pure excellence. The characters I thought were a mixed bag. Some were sublime like Tom Cullen, Nick Andros, Harold Lauder, ... while certain others we were supposed to like I just couldn't stand (e.g. Frannie Goldsmith). The final chapter was also anticlimatic in many ways. With 1000 pages build-up, it seemed to end very abruptly. But despite those complaints, it was still an awesome read.

[JaseSF]

Just finished Pet Sematary - pretty darn solid, creepy, unsettling little horror story. Really grabs you and involves you in places and ways you don't want to be involved. I found it really gripping the more I read into although the Wendigo described doesn't entirely match my own experience although it some ways it does.

Getting set to read Wrath of the Lion by Jack Higgins next.

[Rev. Powell]

"A History of Experimental Film and Video."

[Vik]

Started "Rebel Without A Crew" by Robert Rodriguez today. It's really interesting and inspiring so far.