Reading The Count of Monte Cristo by Albert Dumas now

In France for the summer so I figured why not read some French classics.

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert next

Brag: took out Sherlock Holmes collection from library can't wait to read it, only read 2 short stories so far.

Beat: took it out 2 months ago its overdue and i don't want to drive 10 mins to renew it.

variance: last person to take it out was 1999 so I don't think the library will miss it too much.

Now reading Pushing Ice by Alastair Reynolds. Via this book I've discovered one of the few things about our solar system I didn't already know; that two moons of Saturn, Janus and Epimetheus, are co-orbital and switch orbits every few years, as Wikipedia kindly explains.
I loved his trilogy Revelation Space, Redemption Ark and Absolution Gap, even if he had clearly become bored with his fictional universe by the end of the third. Pushing Ice seems decent so far, though the characters are so far less endearing than his trilogy. His original trilogy is definitely worth a read, though.

I am about to read this in a few weeks. What did you think?

Right now I am reading Catch-22 by Joseph Heller. I can't remember laughing loud while reading a book, but some the dialogue is absolutely hilarious. There does not seem to be much of a story, although I am 2/3 through the book so maybe it will all come together by the end. The story is written in a nonlinear fashion, which doesn't really work for me since I have a horrible memory if I take longer than a week to read a book.

Yeah some books you can dip in and out of but some kind of count on holding onto you tight until they're done. I usually read lots of books at a time. The result is that I often start over completely, or at least reread the last chapter or two and skim the rest before continuing. It's not the smartest thing to do and it means I duplicate a lot of effort, but if I didn't like the variety of reading many things at once and think it was worth it, I'd do it differently. So, my bad.

The worst thing about that is forgetting names. I'm bad enough with names IRL, but when reading ... ugh, in and out of my head too fast. I'll come back to a book remembering who everybody is but not their names, and get confused.

[QUOTE I am about to read this in a few weeks. What did you think?QUOTE]

I liked it more that The Tipping Point. The opening part about hockey players sort of blew my mind at first and made it clear why i am not in the nhl (born in october ffs). You sort get the point by the end of the book and see where all his examples are headed but it's still a good read.

This is exactly my MO, including being poor with names and that being my biggest difficulty. Still, I just get so excited about new books that I cant be bothered to finish the one I'm on before starting new ones.

The SUM of all MEN - by David Farland

It's a fantasy novel. So far it's pretty enjoyable and easy reading..

Just got done reading Too Fat to Fish by Artie Lange and that mofo is one f'd up dude.. great book, full of laughs and some hilarious pictures! Overall a great book!

I read Angels & Demons this week. It touches on controversial topics, but I will say that it was interesting and imaginative at certain points, which kept me reading. It is a mystery novel with a few nice twists, so if that's what you like then give this a read.

Next on the list for me is The Last of the Mohicans. This book randomly appeared in my house a few years ago, and nobody in my family knows where it came from. It's been lying on my shelf for a long time now, so I guess it deserves a read...

The part where he falls out of the helicopter into the river and is fine completely ruined this book for me. I mean come on!

No it doesn't. Just watch the movie and know that the movie isn't anything like the book, which is a great thing.

Just picked up Blue Highways by Willain Least Heat Moon (yes, it's his real name). This is supposed to be a best-seller and a classic. Confirm/deny?

About the names in books: yeah, I forget them, but I very good with names in real life.

Blue Highways got pretty much unending rave reviews when first released. Never read it myself.

Started Against A Dark Background by Iain M Banks. I utterly his "Culture" novels about a human/machine symbiotic anarcho-socialist post-singularity society, though this is set in a different universe. Has the usual Banks emotioanlly-involving mythology behind his characters (even in the first thirty pages) and is pretty good so far.
Anyone read The Algebraist? Looking forward to his new book Transition, too, since the few details about it that have leaked out sound craaaaazy.

Big Banks fan, and enjoyed Against a Dark Background, but haven't really liked his latest stuff much. I thought The Algebraist was the worst of all his sci-fi stuff, and Matter was average. Now that I think of it, The Steep Approach to Garbadale was pretty far down amongst his literary fiction too. I'm now wondering why I'm still looking forward to Transition so much.

Dave,

It's his real name now since he had it changed; he was born William Trogdon, and he recently published another road book called Road to Quoz, which, unlike his classic book, has not received rave reviews. Still, after hearing him interviewed on NPR, I thoght it sounded good too.

His father's Indian name was Heat Moon and his brother's, I think, was Little Heat Moon, so he became Least Heat Moon.

Thanks for The Algebraist thoughts; I was also tremendously disappointed by Matter, especially since it came straight after Look to Windward which I think is probably the best Culture novel.
Bah. Hopefully Transition will be epic.

I've read, so far as I know, all the classic American road narratives. _Blue Highways_ would certainly rank high among them. Moon has a very likable voice and his point about taking the "blue highways" on the map instead of the expressways has even more resonance today than it did when he wrote the book. He inspired me to make just that choice a few years ago when I needed to drive from Toronto to Montreal and wasn't in a hurry -- and that trip remains one of the most pleasant drives I've experienced.

Fair enough about Leonard's westerns: I actually enjoyed the ones I read (didn't get to _3:10 to Yuma_) but enjoyed his tough guy narratives so much more.

I'm surprised about your objections to Lee Child. I only read one, and that quite recently: _The Persuader_. I decided to pick it up because of Malcolm Gladwell's over-the-top recommendation in in the Toronto Globe and Mail, where he wrote that the novel "is to noir roughly what Paradise Lost was to poetry”! Having read it I thought that comment was quite hyperbolic, but I did find it enjoyable enough. (I wouldn't have called it bland.)

But I'm not much of a thriller reader: who would you recommend as superior? I keep hearing about Harlan Corben: should I try one of his?

Thus far, Blue Highways is not what I say typifies a travelogue, or any memoir. Least Heat Moon writes at breakneck pace, not very descriptive, and doesn't reflect on anything that happens. A strange book to take a fly on the wall approach, but I can get it: travelling is a truly personal experience; one that does not fit into words.

It would be hard to find that comment anything but hyperbolic even before reading the book. I stopped after the first few Lee Child books, when I thought he was turning into a gritty version of James Patterson - formulaic books that are technically average, narratively weak, full of unbelievable characters, and written primarily to make a buck. Not even the intention of outperforming himself next time around, deliberately as close to the last one as possible, because the last one sold, and that's what the publishing company wants.

I think The Long Goodbye is to noir roughly what Paradise Lost is to poetry.

Have only read a couple of Harlan Coben's. Didn't grip me enough to go in search of more, I guess. As modern genre staples go, I like Lawrence Block, Michael Connelly, Dennis Lehane, Donald Westlake (particularly writing as Richard Stark), and Andrew Vachss. Enjoyed Stieg Larssen's recent stuff. Several people tell me George Pelecanos is good, though I haven't managed to actually read anything by him yet. But these are all guys that consistently turn out decent stuff while rarely reaching great.

I can think of a dozen novels by guys who are inconsistent or not very prolific that are better than anything anyone in that list has done (Block aside, a couple of his really are classics). The Fencing Master, by Arturo Perez-Reverte; Run, by Douglas E Winter; No Country For Old Men, by Cormac McCarthy; The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley; Dog Eat Dog, by Edward Bunker.

reading Third Reich

its basically a huge textbook of ww2. kind of a hard read at first but very well written/researched and is probably the best documentation of the german side of the war ive seen. Learning A LOT about the war, especialy the events leading to hitler's rise to power.

The principal argument of Nonzero is to demonstrate that natural selection results in increasing complexity within the world and greater rewards for cooperation. Since, as Wright puts it, the realization of such prospects is dependent upon increased levels of communication, cooperation, and trust, what is thought of as human intelligence is really just a long step in an evolutionary process of organisms (as well as their networks and individual parts) getting better at processing information.

Through this lens, and an overview of human and global history, Wright typifies the argument against the views of noted paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould. Gould wrote that "Humans are here by the luck of the draw." Wright acknowledges one aspect of Gould's argument--that the evolutionary process was not such that it would inevitably create humans as we know them today ("five fingers, five toes, and so on") but that evolution would almost certainly result in the creation of highly intelligent, communicating organisms, who would in turn develop tools and advanced technologies.

Evidence for natural selection driving improvements in information processing is given throughout, including the case of the bombardier beetle, an insect that developed the ability to spray its attackers with harsh chemicals. This, in turn, favored predators via natural selection who had techniques to avoid the spray. As Wright puts it, "complexity breeds complexity." This is the often referred to evolutionary phenomenon of the "arms race," wherein competing organisms stack up their developments in competition with one another.

Via this increasing complexity, according to Nonzero, higher intelligence was thus destined to happen, perhaps even "inevitable" (see discussion of inevitability below). Though the stated thesis is that evolution is headed in the direction of "non-zero-sumness," Wright argues that the realization of such prospects is dependent upon improvements in information processing, thus neatly carving out a reason for the creation and cultural evolution of the human species.

-wiki

Sounds interesting, added to the list. Finally finished Fall of Hyperion by Dan Simmons, and am almost done with Cryptonomicon. I gotta start completing all these half-finished books so I can get into some new stuff.