What are you reading at the moment?

[floody]

I can't be the only one on here who likes reading books from time to time...
What are other farkiners devouring at the moment?

I just knocked over the Marquis de Sade's The Misfortunes of Virtue, and Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, I'm now reading De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and other writings by Oscar Wilde. I get enough of modern life every day, so my reading generally leans toward either non-fiction of 19th century and earlier fiction/poetry.

 

[RCOH]

I just finished John Irving's "Until I Find You". I love Irving's books & this is one of his best IMO, it has continues with great recurring theme/places/ideas common to irving's books but has added bonus of being semi autobigraphical. Fantastic book.

I am waiting for my girlfriend's dad to finish 'Emergency Sex' which is the diaries/recounts of 3 UN peacekeepers in rwanda & somalia. Apparently the UN tried to stop being published because of disparaging content.

 

[dilemma]

I'm with you on pre 20th century literature, I've always had a thing for classics (Oscar Wilde, Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy, even the Brontes, James Joyce...) and literature in general.

Just finished 'One Hundred Years of Solitude' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Columbian writer, it won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1982 or '84.

Currently reading 'How to have a beautiful mind' by Edward de Bono, and 'Memo for a Saner World' by Bob Brown, although admittedly I've been reading these on and off for a little while, between everything else.

I think I'll read one of my favourite books again soon, which is 'The house of the spirits' by Isabel Allende, a fantastic Chilean writer.

 

[Binaural]

Next to my bed right now...

Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
Guns, germs and steel - The third chimpanzee - Jarrod Diamond
The future eaters - Tim Flannery
He died with a Felafel in his hand - Off ones tits - John Birmingham
Lonely planet guides to Thailand - Belgium - Ireland - Cycling Australia
Stasiland - Anna Funder
Programming with C++
Recollections of a bleeding heart - Don Watson
Loudspeaker design cookbook - Lance Dickason
The pillars of hercules - The great railway bazaar - Paul Theroux
Automation with Step7 and Simatic
Edward Teller, the real Dr Strangelove - Peter goodchild
Surely you're joking, Mr Feynman - Richard Feynman
Faster - Isaac Newton - James Gleick
Hitchhikers guide to the galaxy - Douglas Adams
Virtual light - William Gibson

I don't watch much TV and read a lot, don't have any space to put them away

 

[October26]

Fred and Rose - About the 'House of Horror' murders in Gloucester England.

American Dream Global Nightmare - It's about how Seppo culture formed and why they feel the need to push their crap on the entire world.

 

[Binaural]

I just knocked over the Marquis de Sade's The Misfortunes of Virtue, and Thomas de Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater, I'm now reading De Profundis, The Ballad of Reading Gaol and other writings by Oscar Wilde. I get enough of modern life every day, so my reading generally leans toward either non-fiction of 19th century and earlier fiction/poetry.

My favourite "classic" books at the moment are the Illiad and the Odyssey by Homer - wonderful books, a little older than the stuff you mentioned though...

 

[Adrian]

Yep, Homer's writings are pretty good. I'm on the last book of the deverry series by Katherine Kerr. I read mostly celtic/sword-fighting fantasy...

 

[nevot]

last few of the books that i have read

Perfume - [font=verdana, helvetica, arial]Patrick Suskind
Jitter Bug perfume - Tom robbins
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson
Quicksilver - Neal stephenson
throwim way leg - Tim Flannery
Sophies World - [/font][font=verdana,arial,helvetica][size=-1]Jostein Gaarder[/size][/font]
[font=verdana, helvetica, arial]An australian atlas
Melways - Melbourne
Anything William Gibson
some Frank Herbert stuff
Apache security
Linux Shell scripting
[/font]

 

[Toxic]

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. makes a nice mindless change from the scientific papers.

 

[ona rampage]

I am getting through Fear and loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.....not sure if it just me or not, but I really don't see how this is anything approaching good (although I am deteremined to get to the end of the thing).

Also some Terry Pratchett for entertainment value at night.

 

[Techno Destructo]

Pffft... judging by the content spewed out by the majority of people on Farkin, I'm amazed if 50% are even literate... (not that I'm worried about that opinion of mine... probably only 1% of Farkin's membership will actually open this thread....)

But anyway... I'm reading Animal Farm (again) by George Orwell, when I don't have my head in Complete Maya Programming Volume 1.

I love how you see familiar faces in threads like this, too!

I'm sure more of the usual suspects will pop up....

Hey Emma, Floody... what do you guys think of Oscar Wilde? I've been meaning to check out his stuff for a while, having been such a fan of his quotes for years....

 

[nevot]

I am getting through Fear and loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson.....not sure if it just me or not, but I really don't see how this is anything approaching good (although I am deteremined to get to the end of the thing).

Hunter S. is my hero . I bow to the harbringer of gonzo jounalism..........

I have a couple of the compliations of his letters to various people, and i can understand that some folks may not get along with the style, but if find it to be fantastic. Good read if you dont take it too seriously.

 

[nevot]

Another one that i just thought of for the commited reader is House of Leaves by [font=verdana,arial,helvetica][size=-1]Mark Z. Danielewski.

This has to be one of the most difficult books that i have read. It is an arthouse novel of sorts with the most funky design and style.

<Shameless_theft_of _review_from _somewhere_else>

[/size][/font]This postmodern, typographically chaotic novel is a monstrous book, both in page numbers and ambition. It is the literary equivalent of "The Ring."
As we learn in the introduction, Johnny Truant, a tattoo parlor employee, has come into possession of a trunk full of bizarre scraps of paper once owned by an old blind man, Zampano, now dead.
The papers comprise an exploration of a cult film called "The Navidson Record" and its sub-films, documentaries about an ever-expanding house that's bigger on the inside than it is on the outside and which consumes the lives of anyone who enters its dark hallways or watches the tapes. Johnny becomes himself obsessed with Zampano's papers and, in turn, with the Navidson house.
He is haunted by the beast he smells and the descending madness he had no inclination to stop. The book itself is the melding of Zampano's papers, Johnny's footnote digressions into his own life and its troubles, and the debate among academics as they struggle to make sense of a film that probably never existed.
The result is a dark, wild, often hilarious, sometimes excruciatingly boring foray into the meaning of home, family, love, and self.

[font=verdana,arial,helvetica][size=-1]</Shameless_theft_of _review_from _somewhere_else>[/size][/font]

 

[dilemma]

Hey Emma, Floody... what do you guys think of Oscar Wilde? I've been meaning to check out his stuff for a while, having been such a fan of his quotes for years....

Do it Rawb!

Read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The Importance of Being Ernest', great stuff.

 

[McBain]

Always interesting to see what others are reading - some of the better stuff I've read in the last month or so is:

Cloudstreet and Dirt Music - Tim Winton
Sophie's World - Jostein Gaarder (thanks for the spelling nevot!)
Brokeback Mountain - Annie Proulx
Fever Pitch - Nick Hornby
The Rider - Tim Krabbé

currently reading Microserfs by Douglas Coupland and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.
[font=verdana,arial,helvetica][/font]

 

[Binaural]

...and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins.
[font=verdana,arial,helvetica][/font]

There's a great collection of his essays - "A devil's chaplain" that I recommend you read when you finish that

 

[chie]

next to my bed are half finished:
Cosa Nostra - A History of the Sicilian Mafia
1812 - Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow, Adam Zamoyski

only got halfway through the first one because I just lost interest, the 2nd however is awesome but i gotta try and keep up with readings for class, new kingdom egypt , vikings , russian history and succession which keeps me flatout so ill get back into it over xmas hols.

 

[GoingDHfast]

I was thinking about book reading the other day, an interesting phenomenon occured to me; why is it that whenever you see a guy reading a book, he's at the start - but whenever you see a girl reading a book, she's close to finishing? Probably just an error of judgement on my behalf.

Also, I prove that rule: I have about 15-20 half finished books under the 6ft fish tank next to my bed.. And another 60 or so that I've finished over the last year, mostly business type books though.

Books I've read, last 6 months:

Eric Newby - A short walk in the Hindu Kush. Great book about two englishmen who try to climb a 20,000 ft mountain in Nuristan.

Cory Doctorow - Someone comes to town, someone leaves town. This one hasn't even been published yet actually, I read the pre-edit version. Strange sci-fi/tech-geek book about a magical dude who sets up a WiFi network.. Hard to read, but definitely an eye opener.

Paulo Coelho - The Alchemist. Classic about a shephard trying to find his destiny. I must read more books by this author...

 

[ona rampage]

Do it Rawb!

Read 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' and 'The Importance of Being Ernest', great stuff.

The picture of Dorian Gray was a good read; read it quite a while ago now, but remember being entertained by it.

 

[Laurie]

Uni text books.....My favourite.
Nah some of them aren't that bad. They're for my degree in international relations. You know politics, history, diplomacy. How many bad things Australia and the rest of the world has done......