What are you reading right now?

By Rappy
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Grand Master

rajputwarrior

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so i just finished the first game of thrones book (well almost) and what to move to something else. I kinda struggled finishing the book (effin book is massive) are the next 4 better/more exciting? (lookin at you saints fan...) I kinda want to take a break from the fantasy genre. Thinking of starting the hunger game series (anyone have any quick reviews of those books?), reading The Black Banners or Common's new book . Thoughts? Up for recommendations too... i love pretty much any non fiction involving history events or anything involving current issues. Also, the cheaper the better!

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neo158

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I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. It's a good enough book, but the manner in which it was written is quite unusual, and I'm not sure I liked that aspect much. I'm now debating with myself whether I should read Where Eagles Dare or Lenin: A Biography by Robert Service. I'm leaning towards Where Eagles Dare at the moment though, seeing as it always gets praise as a book. I may just get all three of Service's books on the main Soviet political powers (I need Trotsky and Stalin), and just read the three of them all together.

I wouldn't mind getting a copy of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler but it's surprisingly expensive, presumably due to the controversial nature of the book.

Given the choice I would read Where Eagles Dare, the movie is one of my favorites.

Grand Master

Mathachew Veteran

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so i just finished the first game of thrones book (well almost) and what to move to something else. I kinda struggled finishing the book (effin book is massive) are the next 4 better/more exciting? (lookin at you saints fan...) I kinda want to take a break from the fantasy genre. Thinking of starting the hunger game series (anyone have any quick reviews of those books?), reading The Black Banners or Common's new book . Thoughts? Up for recommendations too... i love pretty much any non fiction involving history events or anything involving current issues. Also, the cheaper the better!

All of the books provide great story telling, but some are better than others. If you find A Game of Thrones to be a tough book to finish, you'll be more hard pressed to finish others, especially the further along you get. A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons are nearly 1,000 pages each (not including the appendix); A Feast for Crows and aDwD are essentially one book split into two volumes and focus on a specific set of characters in each. In aDwD, the timeline eventually converges with aFfC and time progresses further.

As for the Hunger Games. Easier reading and much shorter, but not even remotely as good as A Song of Ice and Fire series. However, they're two different genre's. Hunger Games is good, Catching Fire is decent, but Mockingjay left much to be desired. It's a joke that four movies are planned for the trilogy when there's not nearly enough from the books to fill them.

If you're interested in Fantasy books, Brandon Sanderson has several under his belt and I loved every one of them. Most of his books are shorter than A Game of Thrones, but well over 500 pages easily. His biggest is Way of Kings at 1008. That said, I've read all of his stuff except for his Wheel of Time books as I haven't started that series yet, but what I have read, I have not been disappointed at all.

If you don't care for fantasy books and want something futuristic, Old Man's War is excellent. I do have some issues with it, but overall a nice quality Science Fiction read. I'd also recommend reading its two sequels and then picking up Fuzzy Nation. That was pretty good as well. Side note: FN is a reboot or rewrite from Little Fuzzies, but I never read that and probably enjoyed FN more because of it.

With all of that out of the way, it depends on what you're looking for. I know of some other books you may be interested in, but they range from mysteries/thrillers, to science fiction/fantasy, historical fiction, political thriller, etc.

Grand Master

rajputwarrior

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Posted

All of the books provide great story telling, but some are better than others. If you find A Game of Thrones to be a tough book to finish, you'll be more hard pressed to finish others, especially the further along you get. A Storm of Swords and A Dance with Dragons are nearly 1,000 pages each (not including the appendix); A Feast for Crows and aDwD are essentially one book split into two volumes and focus on a specific set of characters in each. In aDwD, the timeline eventually converges with aFfC and time progresses further.

As for the Hunger Games. Easier reading and much shorter, but not even remotely as good as A Song of Ice and Fire series. However, they're two different genre's. Hunger Games is good, Catching Fire is decent, but Mockingjay left much to be desired. It's a joke that four movies are planned for the trilogy when there's not nearly enough from the books to fill them.

If you're interested in Fantasy books, Brandon Sanderson has several under his belt and I loved every one of them. Most of his books are shorter than A Game of Thrones, but well over 500 pages easily. His biggest is Way of Kings at 1008. That said, I've read all of his stuff except for his Wheel of Time books as I haven't started that series yet, but what I have read, I have not been disappointed at all.

If you don't care for fantasy books and want something futuristic, Old Man's War is excellent. I do have some issues with it, but overall a nice quality Science Fiction read. I'd also recommend reading its two sequels and then picking up Fuzzy Nation. That was pretty good as well. Side note: FN is a reboot or rewrite from Little Fuzzies, but I never read that and probably enjoyed FN more because of it.

With all of that out of the way, it depends on what you're looking for. I know of some other books you may be interested in, but they range from mysteries/thrillers, to science fiction/fantasy, historical fiction, political thriller, etc.

(Y) thanks for that. i'll keep reading the game of throne books (did pay for them) but after i read another one. definitely want a break. yeah i know they keep getting bigger. the stories are awesome, i love it. but sometimes the ADD just takes over and i can't keep going. As soon as the war and what not started i got pretty hooked, but everything before that was good, but not great IMO. Martin is a fantastic story teller though, i'll give him that. Definitely knows how to set up the mood and setting as good as anyone.

I'm interested in hunger games cause 1) i've heard good things about it and 2) it's a solid price for 3 books...

The John Scalzi books you have been all about in this thread are peaking my interest as I am also a sci-fi so maybe i'll check those out. But to be honest, i am in the mood for some non-fiction...

Mentor

Emily_June

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stiff.jpg

An unexpectedly interesting and humorous look at what happens to human bodies after expiration.

I read that one a couple of years ago. Hilarious, and educational. Loved it.

That's being made into an HBO series for 2013. Playtone (Tom Hanks) will produce with author Neil Gaiman writing the pilot.

Yeah, I know. I didn't realize it wouldn't be until 2013 until after I finished it, though. Now I'll have to reread it before the show starts. I read so many books, that after a couple of months of finishing one, I forget a lot about it.

Mentor

Paul Ferson Veteran

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Finally finished Clive Cussler's The Spy. It took me quite a lot of time because of readjusting to school and trying to create a proper sleeping schedule. It got better as it went on. Since it's my first Cussler novel I have no idea if all his books are like that but it definitely was a slow burner at the start. It was well enough written, all the same. I might go through the trouble of finding other books in the Isaac Bell series, so I can have the full collection.

25623.jpg

Now, I'm onto this. This is Young Stalin by Simon Montefiore (perceptive, aren't I?). It's a biography of Josef Stalin during his early life. For anyone who's been looking at this topic regularly, you might remember I read Young Hitler by Claus Hant. I'm reading this because of Hant's book, which is definitely one of my best reads this year. I hope this can be just as good. So far it's started off brilliantly, retelling the bank robbery Stalin masterminded in Tiblisi, in Georgia. I hope it remains as decent to read. A bit pointless but worth noting is the back cover gives literally no information, but has a pretty cool series of images of Stalin during his early life.

Grand Master

Mathachew Veteran

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was written in such a way that I could not continue. It's only the second book I ever stopped reading willingly, which is unfortunate. It reads far too much like it was written nearly 200 years ago. It would be understandable for the dialogue to match the time, but even the sentence structure and odd way of people coming in and going out of scenes was, I found myself rereading certain parts because I couldn't tell when person X joined the scene or if person A or person B were actually speaking. Far too much figuring what just happened to even remotely enjoy it. Bummer.

book_the_androids_dream.jpg

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newguy88

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I just finished reading Benjamin P. Thomas's biography of Abraham Lincoln and I am currently reading Lincoln by David Herbert Donald. Thomas's biography was very good and Donald's is good too. Interesting to learn about Lincoln's human side, he was quite a prankster and jokester.

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