Post herer when you finish a book. Title and author at least, please; if you want to give a quick review or synopsis, that would be nice. I'll start us off.
Title: The Jennifer Morgue
Author: Charles Stross
Genre: SciFi / Fantasy
This was a good book, if a tad closed to Fantasy than my usual preferences. It's the sequel to The Atrocity Archives by the same author, following the life of a government agent named Bob Howard who's somewhere between a magician (not the rabbit-and-hats kind) and a techie. I recommended it to most of you guys, although you should probably read The Atrocity Archives first for the universe and all of the backstory.
Title: Team of Rivals
Author: Doris Kearns Goodwin
Genre: Biography
This was a GREAT multiple biography of various members of the Lincoln administration, along with the whole history of the civil war. The intro is a bit slow, but its great after that.
Title: Back to the Moon
Author: Homer H. Hickam Jr.
Genre: Sci-fi (heavy on the sci)
By the author of Rocket Boys (October Sky), Back to the Moon is the story of a disgraced NASA employee who hijacks a shuttle and refits it with the extra equipment and fuel necessary for a moon-shot, in order to retrieve a deuterium-rich mineral needed for fusion experiments. Pretty good read.
Title: Digital Design: Principles and Practices
Author: John F. Wakerly
Genre: Electrical Engineering
tl;dr
Title: Into The Wild
Author: Jon Krakauer
Genre: Biography
Could be a great book but you have to like the kind of story that starts from the end and trails back and forth in the kid's life. Forced to read it to pass english in high school and to get my diploma
Title: Into Thin Air
Author: Jon Krakauer
Genre: nonfiction
Details an expedition to the summit of Mount Everest in 1996. It's not that great of a book. Krakauer injects himself into it too much (opinionated nonfiction ftl?). Had to read this book for Contemporary Literature.
Title: The Last Lecture
Author: Randy Pausch
Genre: Biography
This was one of the best books I have ever read. It's about Carnegie Mellon professor Randy Pausch's truly last lecture in which he imparts a lot of great wisdom and tells how that wisdom affected his own life. It's a powerful book that everyone could take something from after reading.
Oh yes, The Last Lecture is a very inspiring book. Good call.
KermMartian wrote:
Oh yes, The Last Lecture is a very inspiring book. Good call.
The video of the lecture is even better.
Book: Ender's game
Author: Orson Scott Card
Genre: Sci-Fi
i read this book last year, but it was one of the best books i've ever read. ;D
i also had to read of mice and Men for the second time for school
Book: Of Mice And Men
Author: John Steinbeck
Genre: realistic fiction
Title:
Wicked: the Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
Author:
Gregory Maguire
Genre:
Fantasy/Biography
Revisionist biography of the Wicked Witch of the West as featured in L. Frank Baum's
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. Inspiration for the musical
Wicked (tied with Phantom for my favorite musical ever).
In other news, I have a bunch of e-books but nothing good to read them on. I need to get a reader.
Title: Nostradamus Ate My Hamster
Author: Robert Rankin
Genre: Far-Fetched Fiction/Fantasy
The book starts with a variety of bizarre, and seemingly unrelated subplots (involving a demon-god, the Ark of the Convenant, Hitler, time-travel and a scheme that involves selling your spine) that all tie together in a glorious finish. Actually, that's a lie, the book starts with a warning apologising for the convoluted plot and questioning the sanity of the author. On top of all this is Rankin's wonderful writing style - rejoicing in running-gags, bad puns, and amusing footnotes.
I also re-read:
Title: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
Author: David Kushner
Genre: Non-Fiction/Biography
This excellent book covers the life stories of "the two Johns", Carmack and Romero, with emphasis on their roles in the creation of id software and development of id's major games (Wolfenstein 3D, DOOM, Quake) that both were involved in. It's a quickly-paced read but packs in a lot of interesting information.
benryves wrote:
Title: Nostradamus Ate My Hamster
Title: Masters of Doom: How Two Guys Created an Empire and Transformed Pop Culture
Both of those sound intriguing. I'll have to check them out.
Title: Starship Troopers
Author: Robert Heinlein
Genre: Science Fiction
(Re-read)
Chronicle of young Juan Rico's early experiences in the Federal Service (military) as a Mobile Infantryman, armed with futuristic powered armor and a worthy sense of civic virtue.
One of my very favorite books, up there with Dune and Ender's Game. The film adaptation was regrettably terrible, though.
Book: The Light Ages
Author: Ian MacLeod
Genre: The fantastical edge of steampunk
I'm not really sure how to describe it....think the class warfare/civic unrest of Les Mis or Lloyd Alexander's Westmark, set in a Victorian England driven by steam and held together with a magic substance known as "aether"
It's a great book.
Keith, movallerik: Krakauer's books need to die in a fire. Into the Wild was one of the most disjointed pieces of crap I've ever had to read for school.
Title: To Kill A Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pretty Much Everyone's read this, so I'm not gonna explain...
Series: Sword of Truth, books:
Wizard's First Rule, Stone of Tears, Blood of the Fold, Temple of the Winds, Soul of the Fire, Faith of the Fallen, The Pillars of Creation, Naked Empire, Debt of Bones, Chainfire, Phantom, Confessor, Debt of Bones
The series starts out with a man trying to find the identity of the man that slaughtered his father. While on his quest for answers, he finds and helps a woman that sends him on a quest to stop an evil man from taking over the known world. This is only in the first book. After his magic manifests itself within his body, he is taken to another portion of the continent, where he is to be trained over the course of several hundred years to learn his gift. However, he ends up leaving after a short stay, to seal a hole in the boundary between life and death. From there, a new enemy makes itself known, one so vast that there is little chance of winning against it.
I will let you read the rest of the details of the series yourself. Quite the experience, honestly. Confessor is the end of the series, Debt of Bones is a book set before Wizard's First Rule.
The setting is fantasy, with dragons, magic, swords and the like. It is highly detailed, so much so you almost see it in your mind's eye as you are reading, kinda like watching TV, almost.
If you like fantasy books, I highly, HIGHLY recommend you at least pickup Wizard's First Rule. With 820 pages of paper back goodness, you can't go wrong. =] (Takes me roughly 3 days non stop to read this book, but I usually don't get much sleep either, I love these that much..)
Svakk wrote:
Title: To Kill A Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pretty Much Everyone's read this, so I'm not gonna explain...
I just read that too
Eeems wrote:
Svakk wrote:
Title: To Kill A Mockingbird
Author: Harper Lee
Genre: Historical Fiction
Pretty Much Everyone's read this, so I'm not gonna explain...
I just read that too
i had to read it for school last year
Title: Singularity Sky
Author: Charles Stross
Genre: Science Fiction
A bit slow to start, and not your traditional science fiction, this book portrays a near future in which the technological singularity has been reached. For those not in the Know, the singularity is the forecasted point at which artificial intelligence reaches and surpasses the capabilities of the human mind. In this case, an intelligence called the Eschaton is a shadowy entity that guards against timeline-meddling time travel (which has been invented in this particular future) to prevent anyone from accidentally or intentionally preventing its creation. Indeed, if this was the main plot, I would have found it quite good, but it is merely a side plot to a rather backwards colonial society on a distant planet, one of whose subject planets has suddenly and completely succumbed to chaos at the hands of invaders called the Festival. The Festival introduces Cornucopia machines, in simple parlance nanomachine replicators capable of making just about anything given sufficient raw materials. Id recommend giving it a read, as it turns out fairly interesting in the end, but if you get horribly bogged down in the middle, you might not have the stamina to make it to the end of the book, so try one of these others instead.
Title: Halting State
Author: Charles Stross
Genre: Science Fiction
This excellent novel set in the near-future describes a world in which augmented reality is a fact of life, but artificial intelligence has not yet reached human capabilities. Virtual reality has grown to almost completely envelope the gaming industry, and it is within a patchwork of these virtual worlds that a virtual but nevertheless devastating bank robbery takes place. The novel follows a police investigator, an insurance firm operative, and a skilled if socially-awkward programmer in their convergent quests to uncover the motive and the culprits before virtual and real countries alike succumb to ruination.
Title: The Difference Engine
Author: William Sterling & Bruce Sterling
Genre: Science Fiction
Although the concepts in this novel were brilliantly developed and seamlessly integrated with Victorian society, it was simply too disjointed and dry to hold together. The Sterlings envision a 19th century in which mechanical computers, spawned from the Babbage Difference Engine, have become a part of daily life. Calculators, databases, and even mechanical displays exist, all driven by steam and acres of gears. The plot of the story follows a set of punched cards that is rumored to have mysterious properties when executed on an Engine, but focuses so much on society, politics, and the human psyche and so little on the actual science fiction that at points it felt as much a chore as a privilege to read. If you're into steam punk, you should definitely give it a read, but if you're a hard-line science fiction reader, give it a pass.
Title:
The Adventures of Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius in the 20th Century
Author:
Michael Moorcock
Genre:
Science Fiction
This novel is based around lovers Una Persson and Catherine Cornelius, two characters from the
Jerry Cornelius (anarchistic brother of Catherine) series.
The book starts with the two women resting in depression-era USA - the characters can move through time, though how this is achieved is not explained - before growing bored and going their separate ways. The main section of the book alternates chapters between Una and Catherine, and each transition moves each character later in time. Each chapter drops you into the middle of some event; Una generally taking the part of revolutionary underdog in an increasingly unfamiliar war-torn Europe and Catherine embarking in a series of relationships or affairs, often abusive. The final part concerns the reuniting of the two characters.
KermMartian wrote:
Title: The Difference Engine
Author: William Sterling & Bruce Sterling
Genre: Science Fiction
Although the concepts in this novel were brilliantly developed and seamlessly integrated with Victorian society, it was simply too disjointed and dry to hold together. The Sterlings envision a 19th century in which mechanical computers, spawned from the Babbage Difference Engine, have become a part of daily life. Calculators, databases, and even mechanical displays exist, all driven by steam and acres of gears. The plot of the story follows a set of punched cards that is rumored to have mysterious properties when executed on an Engine, but focuses so much on society, politics, and the human psyche and so little on the actual science fiction that at points it felt as much a chore as a privilege to read. If you're into steam punk, you should definitely give it a read, but if you're a hard-line science fiction reader, give it a pass.
that was quite a good book, it had a really good storyline. I really like reading about politics
Title: The Great Hunt
Author: Robert Jordan
Genre: Fantasy
Amazing book series, very well done. The series centers around young Rand Al'Thor at first but soon extends to the views of Mattrim and Perrin, as well as others in other books. The books are about Rand, who is the Dragon Reborn (a hero from old times reborn) he is a man who can channel (kind of like magic) and the final battle is coming closer and Rand must fight the Dark One in order to save the world. Robert Jordan committed his life to this series, and he sadly died before finishing the last book, but thankfully he left enough notes for his wife to understand how it will end, and she will try to finish it. There are eleven books in the series so far (it's call the Wheel of time) and each one gets better and better.
The story is a bit slow though, but it starts off and ends off each book in a clincher, so you want to keep reading, not that I wouldn't mind reading the next book if it didn't have a really enthralling ending. The world Robert Jordan has created here is amazing, and almost real, I heartily recommend this book to anybody who enjoys slow, but really well written books.