Which book are you reading currently? #7

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I enjoyed Piers Anthony at one point in time. I haven't read him in awhile, though.

And, unfortunately, I realized I'm not superwoman, so I've had to suspend some of the reading. I did finish Othello and The Crucible, but lesson planning has taken over the rest. I haven't been writing, either.

 

I'm reading Illusions by Richard Bach. I read it a long time ago and it really said something to me. About 2 months ago I found another copy at a garage sale that I paid .10 for. I guess its one of those books that you read when you need to.

 

I've never read Illusions, but several of my friends have read it so it's on my list of To-Be-Read books.

 

Anyone read the Virga series by Karl Schroeder? I read them a while back and they were really unique and awesome! Really awesome worldbuilding combined with a good story arc.

 

I've got an Anthology of Vampire stories titles "Rivals of Dracula", which have been written in the last 50 years. I'm enjoying it. I've got more on the list to read, but I don't actually sit and read that much, so it may take some time...

 

Last saturday I finished Der Steppenwolf and I'm now continuing with the second book of Don Quixote. I really like both, Der Steppenwolf turned out to be very well written and one of the few that I just couldn't stop reading. Don Quixote is also a very interesting one, being the grandfather of modern western literature and massively influential; it's witty and you really get a feel for the main characters.

 

I am chugging through "Gai-jin" by James Clavell. Stumbled upon "Tai-pan" a few months ago, read it and enjoyed it. Read "Shogun" during my vacation and it was ok but not a page-turner like "Tai-pan" and now "Gai-jin" is pretty damn stodgy. Halfway through a thousand page brick and not much at all has happened. I have "Noble House" as well and I hope it is better. Seems like I am still to find a non-fantasy series that I really really like.

 

Finally picked up a copy of the first Wheel of Time book. Fell in love. Am now skint

 

Finally began reading through the Babylon 5 books after having them collect dust for about 10 years. The two standalone books were quite boring but the techno-mage trilogy seems interesting so far.

 

Promise of the Witch King by Salvatore. It's long overdue...

 

The Many Face of Political Islam by Mohammed Ayoob
Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Mohammed Hafez
Tribes and Power, edited by Faleh Jabar and Hosham Dawod
Ulysses by James Joyce
Why Intelligence Fails by Robert Jervis
Life in a Medieval Village by Frances and Joseph Gies
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh
Power, Faith, and Fantasy by Michael Oren

In grad school, plus I'm what you might call a "reader." For the last 25 years I've typically had 2-8 books going at a time and probably read 30-100 books a year.

 

On a Pale Horse and its sequel Beyond a Pale Horse were an interesting twist on immortally.

 

I though Congo possessed amongst the best writing Crichton had ever done, at least in the first 2/3 of the novel.

I'm a big fan of Eaters of the Dead. Writers who re-imagine classic literature or add some sort of faux-historical basis to it, in order to tell a different, but also excellent, story, are pretty fun.

 

Just finished The Octagonal Raven by LE Modesitt, and now started The Timegod by the same writer. There appear to be quite a few similarities between the world and the main characters of Modesitt's The Timegod and The Hammer of Darkness.

Overall, Modesitt seems to enjoy writing about societies and how they are balanced between the rich and the poor, or how power is countered by heavy restrictions or something similar to make sure the one with power doesn't abuse it. As he does in Adiamante and Gravity Dreams. In the Octagonal Raven the power isn't balanced, so it runs out of control at some point in the book.

Even though a lot of his books seem to run on the same train of thought, I don't really mind as his writing as overall fairly solid. Didn't care too much for his Magic of Recluce series, though.

 

In Her Name The Last War by Michael Hicks

Just finished this series. Each book progresses the story well. Oh, The first book in the series is entitled First Contact, the 2nd is The Legend of the Sword and the 3rd is the Dead Soul. This is a space oddesey in which humans stumble onto a much advanced alien race who wish to dominate the known universe. Good series that moves all through all three books.

 

The Passage, by Justin Cronin
Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, by HR Ellis Davidson
The Sisters Brothers, by Patrick DeWitt
Warlords: Strong-Arm Brokers in Weak States, by Kimberly Marten
The Changing Face of War, by Martin van Creveld
From Kabul to Baghdad and Back: The US at War in Afghanistan and Iraq, by John R Ballard et al
Warfare in African History, by Richard J Reid
The Collapse of the Soviet Military, by William E Odom
Endgame: The Inside Story of the Struggle for Iraq, from George W Bush to Barack Obama, by Gordon and Trainor

Almost done w/ grad-school but the reading never ends. Distracted by all of AMC's monster-movies and "Walking Dead" re-runs which so predominate at Halloween-time.

 

Trying to finish Jesus of Nasareth by Card. Ratzinger => Benedict XVI, plus been trying to read Tolkien's trilogy in the original English version finally but that's been lagging horribly, and a ton of law books right now. I'm hoping to get rid of the law stuff ASAP.