Books you've read recently

[REDVAN]

Here's another go at this thread, it seems to pop up every few months but I wanted to get it started. Below are some books I am/recently read (ing), so please add some of your current books, and your favorites.

Currently I am reading a couple of books:

The End of Mr. Y - by Scarlett Thomas
The Zero - by Jess Walter
Adverbs - by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket)

However, my favorite book of all time, which I recently finished for the third time, is The Average American Male- by Chad Kultgen. It is the funniest book I have ever read in my life. Completely plays on every male/female stereotype known, and is so offensive it's funny. It's about a guy and his love life, basically, and what he learns along the way. Quite an interesting read if you want to laugh every page. Just don't take it seriously at all. This is not really a book you want your mother to read, extremely offensive and very crude language!

I also recently read The Futurist - by James P. Othmer, but I wasn't all that impressed by it. Nothing really to say other than I didn't like it. It was decently written, but the main character seemed too hollow and one-dimensional for me to identify with.

Anyone read these books? Others? Are there any book clubs for guys, where you don't have to read the weirdo books all the time? I might be interested in joining a book club, but I am not interested in joining to meet women, or to read dumb books that Oprah said were good.

[Hakan]

Reading Ghost Wars by Steve Coll

Just read White Man's Burden by William Easterly

[HOZ]

Ninja by Eric van Lustbader: Absolute crapola.
- It is a wonder that Japan lost WWII when they had the ultimate weapon....the Ninjas.

You Gotta have WA. Forgot the Author; Life and experiences of foreigners in Japanese Pro baseball. Don't have to like baseball to find this book interesting.

[doozwimp]

Catch Me if You Can by Abagnale.

If you re looking for a quick read this is a good one.

[Five-hole]

On my vacation I read:

We The Living - Ayn Rand. This was a pretty good shock to the last vestiges of college-inspired Communism in me. Paints a pretty ugly picture of Leninist Russia.

jPod - Douglas Coupland. Personally I loved it to death but it certainly isn't for everyone.

Anna Karenina - Tolstoy. I got halfway through this a couple of summers ago and stopped since I only read when I'm abroad. Figured I'd start it again and get all the way through. Picked up a great translation from Pevear and Volokhonsky. It's trite to say that you feel you know characters at the end of books ... but with Tolstoy, you don't. They're so vivid yet so deep and nuanced that they still surprise you even after 800 pages. Anyways if you like classics it's such a great book.

Freakonomics - Don't remember the author. I found it very interesting but I discussed it with a friend of mine who knows a bit about it and he denigrated it pretty harshly, which took some of the sheen off. I finished it in the two hours on the plane between Athens and Frankfurt so it's a pretty quick read for the non-fictioners out there.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy. Even more bleak than We The Living. It's a "quick read" as they say because you just cannot put it down. This is a two, three-nighter at most and you'll sacrifice sleep every one of 'em.

As for favorite books, I'd have to go with:

House of Leaves - Mark Danielewski. What a cool book. A complete mindf---.

Sailing to Sarantium - Guy Gavriel Kay. I don't read fantasy much anymore but this book meant a lot to me when I did.

[Eastern Girl]

I just finished Hey Nostradamus! by Douglas Coupland. It's my first of his that I have read and I enjoyed it, one of those books where you just keep reading, until you've almost finished the whole thing in one sitting. I need a new one to read now.

[bigtmac19]

Right now reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns" and really enjoying it.

[TimSJ]

just finished reading Water for Elephants by Sarah Gruen

Pretty good.

[habernac]

reading Neil Young's biography "Shakey". Very interesting (and holy crap, musicians are a messed up bunch).

[Burninator]

God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

It's ok. The rest of the title is "How religion poisons everything" but he hasn't really touched on that. I am only have way through, so maybe it'll pick up. But at times he just seems more interested in showing how big his vocabulary is than making his point.

[JerzeeGirl]

I'm in the middle of a couple:

The Rookie: a Season With Sidney Crosby and the New NHL by Shawna Richer & Roy Macgregor - very interesting read from a journalist who had pretty exclusive access to Crosby thru his entire first year in the NHL

Smart Women Finish Rich: 9 Steps to Creating a Rich Future by David Bach - cuz I want to retire early and have fun when old

In Her Shoes by Jennifer Weiner - an excellent movie and the book is proving to be even better

[Resolute 14]

A Secret Atlas - Michael Stackpole
Just starting the sequel: Cartomancy

MCDST study guides.... great for curing insomnia.

[Hakan]

Originally Posted by habernac

reading Neil Young's biography "Shakey". Very interesting (and holy crap, musicians are a messed up bunch).

I love that book.

[kermitology]

Originally Posted by Five-hole

jPod - Douglas Coupland. Personally I loved it to death but it certainly isn't for everyone.

I read that one fairly recently. It had it's moments, and was certainly funnier than I expected, but it started out so well, and then kind of fizzled a bit. Still a decent read. My favourite part was seeing one page entirely in code (which to my shame I understood, and thought it was well written code)

Originally Posted by Burninator

God Is Not Great - Christopher Hitchens

It's ok. The rest of the title is "How religion poisons everything" but he hasn't really touched on that. I am only [half] way through, so maybe it'll pick up. But at times he just seems more interested in showing how big his vocabulary is than making his point.

You have to have the right frame of mind for reading Hitchens. He's an egomaniac, so you have to keep that in close mind. He makes compelling arguments, and he's very believable, if only because he sounds so smart. But some rebuttles to his book say that he takes things out of context. To that I have to ask, who doesn't?

Personally I just finished The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk. And my goodness was that a tough read. Originally written in Turkish, and translated to English, the book is a Nobel Prize winner and it's so swamped in imagery that you get bogged down in it. It's beautiful in terms of literature, but just so slow and hard to read, and though I'm an engineer, I pride myself on my literary understanding, and reading ability.

[Sylvanfan]

I finished reading Angels and Demons by Dan Brown a couple of weeks ago and about 4 years after everyone else has. Just finished reading Deep Fathom by James Rollins yesterday. That one was pretty quick moving and entertaining although a bit cheesy. Still a good book for a guy with a grade 4 education like myself to read.

[octothorp]

Recently picked up A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian, which was a booker prize nominee and sounded like my sort of book from the back cover. Couldn't stand it; it thought it was far more charming than it actually was. Struggled about half way through and then put it down.

Currently reading 'The Artful Sentence: Style as Syntax' by Virginia Tufte. By far the best book on sentence structure and style I've ever read, and I'd recommend it to any aspiring writers out there.
Also re-reading The Sound and The Fury, which is easily my favorite Faulkner novel.

[worth]

Started reading the foundation season by asimov. It's a different read because the characters only last 50-75 pages because we keep jumping years ahead in every section and we're introduced to new characters, but i'm enjoying it.


Hyperspace by Michio Kauku was a great read.


And previous to that I read Starship Troopers by Henlin, which is an excellent read for anyone interested in a look into an army unit. The story is fiction, but it is based upon fact that any one in the army will tell you. It's on the US Marine Corp reading list.

[TheyCallMeBruce]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

[FlamesFanInEdm]

I just read the Andromeda Strain by Michael Crichton. Great book!!

Right now, I kinda want to read East of Eden by John Steinbeck again...read it in grade 12 and for some reason want to read it again already. It was a great book as well.
________
FFM TUBES

[troutman]

The New Space Opera - SF compilation

The End of Faith - Sam Harris

The Bone Hunters - Steven Erikson

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Evolution - Richard Dawkins