What Are You Reading?

[kingoffighters]

I haven't heard of Abraham's The Long Price Quartet. I'll look into it someday. Is it supposed to be decent?

I have only read book 1 of TLPQ, and it is pretty good. It is Asian/Japanese influenced, and I want to finish it someday.

If you like Space Opera, Walter Jon Williams' Dread Empire Falls series is excellent as well.

[Rich]

What should I read next? Was reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and didn't really get into it.

[Josh]

Let the Right One In, imo.

[Drewbacca]

I signed out The Fattening Of America: How the Economy Makes Us Fat, If It Matters, and What to Do About It to use as a reference for a paper I'm writing and wound up reading it cover-to-cover. It's largely the same stuff you've heard in any number of sociologically/economically-inclined books and films about our fat asses, but Finkelstein has such a lean, droll, affable way of delivering it that makes this a great read. All of the arguments are amply supported with statistics, but the book never came close to suffocating me with numbers. The way Finkelstein relates every chapter back to his obese Uncle Al is super endearing.

Highly recommended to anyone even slightly interested in this kind of thing!

4/5

Sounds interesting. I might check this out.

[MechDeus]

[Giant wall of text about Malazan]

You convinced me to start reading this series, so I set up my iPhone to make Kindle not kill my eyes and bought a copy. I've always wanted an epic fantasy series to read, but they invariably either suck or don't get finished.

So thank you for this.

[sedition]

Yes!

[dog$]

Among the books I've finished since last posting here are Democracy In America (good, if repetitive), Challenging Chicago (great), Chicago by Gaslight (ok), Violence in the Model City (great and very thorough), Gaspipe (quick read, but I really dislike the modern writing style and current trend in non-fiction to have undeterminable emotions be stated as fact), and Super Freakonomics (lent by a coworker; another quick read, was schizophrenic in parts but overall enjoyable).

Currently:

Civil War Extra, Volume 1. It'll take me months to get through both books if I were to honestly try to read every bit of text. Really interesting stuff captured here.

Old Chicago Houses. This is shaping up to be a brisk read, and proving to be a good gateway book for me to have other things to investigate. Most of the pictures in here are new to me, which only makes me wish they were larger. There's a social photography book by Joseph T Ryerson mentioned in here and I don't think it was ever published - I hope I don't encounter more citations of material that I cannot find.

[MechDeus]

I'm only reading between my classes and a little before bed so it's slow going (I'm on chapter five), but the characters in Gardens of the Moon are pretty bland so far. I understand this is supposedly the worst book of the series and I see a lot of potential here, but the last fantasy I read was a good chunk of Karen Miller's Empress and that makes it hard to give a shit about anyone in GOTM so far. Granted, Empress was like the opposite, with it being so much about the characters while in a paper thin story, so take that as you will.

It's also hard to get into some of these names. Sorry is just so awkward.

[A Robot Bit Me]

Just finished The Hunger Games. I read the last 250 pages or so today, so I guess that says something. Still, I wasn't as captivated as some. It sheds satire in favor of raw action about halfway through and never looks back, which was really disappointing. Fun little palette cleanser, nothing more.

[Compass]

The Hunger Games seems interesting, but "young adult" + female author gives me Twilight chills.