GODDDAAAAMMMITTT. Finished A Storm of Swords in the middle of the night last night, got real excited this morning to go get A Feast for Crows and A Dance With Dragons out of storage and continue my re-reading all to get to the latter which I have not yet read. Thought they might be in one of two boxes on top of my stuff, they weren't, definitely in like a 100+ lb rubbermaid full of books in the very back corner with stuff stacked like four feet on top. Had to give up the dream, or move half of the stuff out of the unit. Since it was a hundred degrees and a non AC'd unit, I gave it up.

I'm finishing The Captain, the book about Derek Jeter. Very good book, even if you hate the Yankees. You have to admire his passion and work ethic towards winning.

Last night I picked up three book - Stephen King's The Gunslinger (I've never read a single Stephen King book besides a young adult book in middle school called "Eyes of The Dragon.

J.R. R. Tolkien The Hobbit - I have never seen a single Lord of The Rings movie (this is insane to most of my friends), but want to see if I can get into a Tolkien book.

Paulo Cohlho's The Alchemist - Just have heard so much about this book, and thought it was finally time to pick it up.

Ok 2p2 Which book should I read first of these three?

Alchemst will take about an hour and is great.

The Gunslinger is the worst book of the Dark Tower series, which is very good. I wouldn't read The Gunslinger unless I were prepared to continue on with the series.

The Hobbit is a must read. Haven't read the Alchemist.

I'm still wishing I had enjoyed this book more...I just didn't. I think I wrote about my confused feelings about this novel some time ago itt.

Anyone read Shutter Island?

If so, how closely does the movie follow the book and would it be worth reading if I've seen the movie a couple times?

I've read the 1st 4 books in The Dresden Files and I'm kind of getting burnt out. Think I need a break from them for a bit and I'm looking for something new/different to read.

Listened to it in cd but never saw movie

I'd say no. The movie follows the book very closely. I did it the other way around and read the book before I watched the movie. I was terribly bored as I knew exactly what would happen next.

The ending is handled slightly differently iirc. I haven't read it but I remember talking to multiple people who said the movie was a bit more ambiguous than the novel.

The Walking Dead: Compendium One

Currently blazing through this at lightning speed. Goddaaaaaaaaaaaaamn this is entertaining. I sort of feel as hopeless as the ever-changing group of survivors, though. This series is meant to never end. To never have a resolution. There will always be the walking dead. I'm all for epic sagas, but how long can they keep this going before readers start wishing for a resolution? And how could they ever provide a satisfying resolution? I guess the smart play might be to fade out, knowing there are more adventures that will never be told, but I suspect even that would be frustrating.

Its like comic book crack, isnt it?

Im currently rereading it.

You know I think this is one of those books where one's opinion is based mostly on timing - at the end of the day it's not great literature, but I read it at a time in my life when I was most susceptible to its message.

has anyone ever read Dianetics (sp)?

I just read a very interesting article on Scientology, and tbh I kinda want to check out if the book reads like total BS or if it appeals to me at all. I'll put that on the same to-read shelf as Mein Kampf. Which means I'll most likely never read either.

i'd recommend watching the southpark episode on scientology instead

i'm reading Pessoa's Book of Disquiet which isn't even actually a book but just a random ~400 writings found in his trunk ~50 years after he died, and ordered into a sequence by the publisher. he's a super dark existentialist type. it's my favorite book now and a pleasure to read a few writings alone at night especially after drinking

if anyone has any recommendations on existentialist authors PM me or post here, ty

I still have very fond and vivid memories of reading Martin Gardner's Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science, which has a great debunking of what was then called Dianetics. (His book may have part of the reason Hubbard changed the name.) It's now a long time since some of those crazy theories Gardner writes about flourished -- but Scientology is still around, alas. (And I recently noticed a new round of Joseph Rhine-like ESP experiments were being conducted.)

Gonna take one post here to tout Peter Farris' Last Call for the Living. Fans of Knockemstiff/Devil All the Time/Dan Woodrell type stuff might like

http://www.infiniteboston.com/
tumbler depicting the real Boston places from Infinite Jest, pretty cool.

Robert Kirkman said he'd write TWD till demand dies down or he's too old to keep writing it.
fwiw, the stuff in the compendium is awesome. i did however stop reading TWD a few month ago. somehow it felt like it lost momentum and became kind of repetitive. but you should be still far away from that point, so enjoy the ride!

Has anyone here read Cloud Atlas? Looks interesting.

Dom it was reviewed about 15 pages back - pretty positively iirc, prob najord, right after we discussed the thousand autumns of jdz, which he was not a big fan of, but i was.

Trying to finish these by tomorrow:

How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
How we Decide by Jon Lenah or something or other

Also reading:
Game of Thrones: A Feast for Crows

The Guardian is holding a Great American Novelist tournament. Scroll down for the top 32 seeds. It's an interesting curiosity, not meant to be taken too seriously. If any absences surprise you, they might be a result of the contest's automatic exclusion of authors with fewer than four novels.

I got a Kindle for my birthday (the original, by choice; I like that it fits in my pocket) and am marathoning some Elmore Leonard. I read Pronto and Riding the Rap (both Raylan Givens novels), then a collection of short stories that was originally titled When the Women Come Out to Dance, but since Justified has been repackaged as Fire in the Hole. Now just getting into Get Shorty.

I really like his writing style and enjoyed the novels, but really enjoyed the short stories. I don't read many short stories so I have nothing to compare it to, but I was pretty impressed with how engaging and how much of a story could be told in so few pages. I'd definitely recommend picking up that collection.

One thing that I'm sure others have noted is his protagonists tend to be pretty freaking similar, even in the short stories.

Do you not actually read any of my posts, Dom? I thought we were buds.

check back like 50 posts.

Wo are you??

Jk

I will look for your post