So what is everyone reading?

[Pyrotex]

Disgrace - by JM Coeztee. Started reading it yesterday to figure out why this guy's the first person ever to win the Booker Prize twice, and believe you me, it's that good.

Okay, said I, if Boerseun thinks it is that good, I will take a gander at it. Googled it. Amazon dot Com let me read the first two chapters. Wow. :) It is that good. It is mesmerizing. How does Coeztee do it? Except for the word "uxoriously", he used the same words as I do. But his writing is like a precisely focused laser beam, compared to my sputtering candle flame.

 

Uxoriously. :doh:

 

Thanks, Boerseun!!!!!!!!! :)

[freeztar]

Kurt Vonnegut - Slapstick

 

Hmmm...I don't know if I'm cut out for Vonnegut. I'm so close to the end, but trudging along. It's only a mild curiousity that keeps me going.

 

In the meantime, I picked up Digital Fortress by Dan Brown and read it in a day. That was a page turner and a very cool read (if a bit dated now) for those interested in computer security at an NSA level.

 

Looking up Coeztee now...

 

I've finally rediscovered my passion for reading books of the paper kind. :)

[maikeru]

Where Our Food Comes From by Gary Paul Nabhan. Retraces the travels of a plant pathologist, Nikolay Vavilov, who revolutionized farming and crop breeding. Gives "food for thought" on why biodiversity, preservation of breeds and species, mixed crop cultures and diverse farming methods, and local agricultural are so important to having healthy, well-fed people and diverse cultures. It's difficult to genetically engineer entirely new genes even with the best of technology and know-how to fight pests, disease, or environmental challenges, so it provides a compelling argument on why we should strive to preserve and develop as many crop varieties as possible, from which resilience and genetic treasures come.

[Pyrotex]

Found "Love in the Time of Cholera" by Garcia in old box of junk and papers I found in the garage.

So, I started reading that. Edwin Hubble will just have to wait.

[freeztar]

I'm reading "The Fragrant Chilli" written by our very own Michaelangelica. :evil:

[Jay-qu]

I'm reading "The Fragrant Chilli" written by our very own Michaelangelica. :evil:

Maybe you can do a review for the site :(

[REASON]

I'm reading "The Fragrant Chilli" written by our very own Michaelangelica. :thumbs_up

 

I had some fragrant chili the other night.............twice!

[Boerseun]

Finally getting around to reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, again.

 

I read it many, many years ago, but found the "Uncut Version" in a bookshop over the weekend. I can't remember the one I read years ago being this fat! Quite a bit more flesh to this story (a good two/three hundred pages, by the looks of it) than the first one.

 

Humans raised by Martians only to get back to a totally alien (to them, at least) Earth? You betcha. Got me some readin' to do!

[Turtle]

strange ya say!? ain't life full of serentripities & cowinkydrinks? i just purchased and i will be, but i am not currently, reading i am a strange loop by douglas hofstadter. :phones:

 

I Am a Strange Loop

by Douglas R. Hofstadter

[Tormod]

Ian Banks, "Matter". Science fiction, but as boring as it gets. :beer:

[Pyrotex]

I've got "I am a Strange Loop" -- read half of it. Can't remember why I quit. :hihi:

 

But right now, I'm reading my latest SciFi short story here in Hypography!

 

Bogart Reprise.

 

Yup, even though *I* wrote it, it's what I'm reading right now!!! :( Not boring, Tormod!!!

[Jay-qu]

I started reading some of the short stories in The Cyberiad by Stanisław Lem - absolute brilliance of the Douglas Adams type (or should I say Adams is like Lem since he was earlier..). I highly recommend it :hihi:

[olla86]

Now I am reading The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and I like it greatly. It is a detective with the elements of history.

[Pyrotex]

Umberto Eco is awesome! Spine-tingling, brain-warping awesome!

He's in the same league as Gabriel Garcia Marquez (100 Years of Solitude, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera)

 

I'm nearly finished reading the latter, Love in the Time of Cholera. Amazingly marvelous. Marvelously amazing.

 

The Name of the Rose was done into a movie some 10 or 20 years ago. Starring Sean Connery. It was a pretty good movie, but totally lacked the genius, the warped comedy, the historical intensity of the book's author. It was like they made the movie from the Cliff's Notes of the Reader's Digest Condensed Version of all the odd numbered chapters of the original book.

 

Still, it starred Sean Connery, so it couldn't really be "bad". :hihi:

[Turtle]

I've got "I am a Strange Loop" -- read half of it. Can't remember why I quit. :)

 

i'm about 1/3 through, and have every intention to finish. but, i know you and doug well enough to suggest that you got far enough to get an idea that doug might be suggesting that the territory is a map. :eek:

[Pyrotex]

i'm about 1/3 through, and have every intention to finish. but, i know you and doug well enough to suggest that you got far enough to get an idea that doug might be suggesting that the territory is a map. :eek:

Oh no! That would be sacrilege!!!! :) :eek:

[Turtle]

...the territory is a map.

Oh no! That would be sacrilege!!!! :) :eek:

 

indubitably.

 

"preceded by itself in quote marks yields a full sentence" preceded by itself in quote marks yields a full sentence.