What Books Are People Reading Now ?

[Shurup]

Just finished a series of 3 books by Richard Philips: Second Ship, Immune, and Wormhole. Good stuff.

[essexman]

I have the 3 Millennium trilogy books in paperback. Girl with the dragon tattoo, girl who played with fire, and the girl who kicked the hornets nest. A really fantastic read and all three books became international best sellers. Tragic really as the author Stieg Larsson never saw the success as he dropped dead at 50 while the books were still in the manuscript stage.

Have watched the films, also very good.

[maxme]

Rendevouz with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke and Splinter Cell. Two complete opposites when it comes to writing yet still intriguing.

I have all the Rama series books (4 in total I think??) and was about to start reading when found out a new book from the WOOL series was just released. So reading it now - Dust (by Hugh Howey).

Sadly I started with the last book which kinda ruined the reading for me yet it is still entertaining as each book has a different set of characters from one another.

I have all the books from the 2001 series but I would say I prefer the Rama series. Rama focuses more on characters while 2001 more on the technological matter.

[Ron19]

I've just finished a number of books by Wilbur Smith.

I found the four of them a good read like most of Wilbur Smiths novels.

The only ones of his that I have a problem with are two books in the egyptian series.The 1st two "River God" and "The Seventh Scroll" were fine but I felt he went a bit overboard with the 2nd two "Warlock" and "The Quest".They were almost entirely based around the occult,hocus pocus etc.I can appreciate that the people in the era that the books were set in may have believed in that sought of thing but it does nothing for me.

I am currently reading two books that are E Books from kindle by using the kindle app for a computer.

[GarryP]

Deeply Odd by Dean Koontz

I've started the Odd series myself, after having seen the recent movie

I didn't know a film had been made. I love the character. I like Dean Koontz for light reading. My only complaint is that in many of his novels the build up is great but the climax is very short, as if he has got bored of writing the book and decides to wrap it up.

[ev1lchris]

I have the 3 Millennium trilogy books in paperback. Girl with the dragon tattoo, girl who played with fire, and the girl who kicked the hornets nest. A really fantastic read and all three books became international best sellers. Tragic really as the author Stieg Larsson never saw the success as he dropped dead at 50 while the books were still in the manuscript stage.

Have watched the films, also very good.

Love the references to computers in the 90s.

[BookMan]

Deeply Odd by Dean Koontz

I've started the Odd series myself, after having seen the recent movie

I didn't know a film had been made. I love the character. I like Dean Koontz for light reading. My only complaint is that in many of his novels the build up is great but the climax is very short, as if he has got bored of writing the book and decides to wrap it up.

Here is the trailer for it. I watched the movie before I read the book. In fact I didn't know it was a series until FiftyTwo told me about it.

http://youtu.be/MH0cdcBtuc8

[Gaccha]

The Rising Tide of Color Against White World-Supremacy

by Lothrop Stoddard

With a title like that, and in the context of today's extreme sensitivity towards race, this book probably wouldn't make many best-selling lists today. But in 1920 it was a serious best-seller. It is mentioned in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, when we hear about "this man Goddard". President Harding praised the book.

What is often noted is the presience of some of the ideas in the book, such as the rise of Japan.

But let's look at the racism. There are several types all flushed together. If you dig, he is clearly a white supremacist. But at other times his racism is not unlike later notions of folkways (see, for example, the 'Albion's Seed' bestseller book).

Also, this issue deeply interests me because of two points that are coming to ahead. Firstly, the dominant political correctness of favouring peace over truth has reached a crescendo of criticism and turmoil.

But even more importantly the scientists of today have awkwardly noted a point in the last 5 years or so. There are seemingly huge racial differences. At the prestigious theedge website the renowned scientist Jonathan Haidt writes:

"

A wall has long protected respectable evolutionary inquiry from accusations of aiding and abetting racism. That wall is the belief that genetic change happens at such a glacial pace that there simply was not time, in the 50,000 years since humans spread out from Africa, for selection pressures to have altered the genome in anything but the most trivial way (e.g., changes in skin color and nose shape were adaptive responses to cold climates). ...

But the writing is on the wall. Russian scientists showed in the 1990s that a strong selection pressure (picking out and breeding only the tamest fox pups in each generation) created what was — in behavior as well as body — essentially a new species in just 30 generations. That would correspond to about 750 years for humans.

"

This alone makes a read of this very old book fascinating in its predictions on race relations. I give it 3/5 for readability, but 5/5 for relevance in today's world.

[SpokaneAl]

I have the 3 Millennium trilogy books in paperback. Girl with the dragon tattoo, girl who played with fire, and the girl who kicked the hornets nest. A really fantastic read and all three books became international best sellers. Tragic really as the author Stieg Larsson never saw the success as he dropped dead at 50 while the books were still in the manuscript stage.

Have watched the films, also very good.

This is absolutely one of the finest book series I have ever read. I really grew attached to Lisbeth - she is one amazing fictional character.

[Neeranam]

I'm reading "manual for Living" by Epictetus

[GarryP]

I am reading my first Ian Rankin, "The Complaints". Rather long winded but an enjoyable read nonetheless. It is one of the 25 or so books I picked up at the book fair at the Queen Sirikit exhibition center in late October. Really good value, I spent about Baht 1,000 in total to get a good selection of new, but not newly published, books.

Before the Complaints I read:

1. Dial M For Merde by Stephen Clarke, a really funny book (I now have his full series),

2. & 3. "Crime" and "If You Liked School, You'll Love Work" by Irvine Welsh (both good reads, expecially Crime which I rate very highly)

4. Play Dead by Harlan Coben

5. The Forgotten by David Baldacci

All purchased at the book fair so plenty to keep me going on my trips to and from work.

[Konini]

I'm giving this post a bump - I used to enjoy seeing what others were reading, it's been a year since it stopped.

I've not been reading the books I don't have on unspeakable subjects, because they are banned here, but whilst in Europe earlier this year I found several of them quite fascinating, opening up a world of intrigue and twists and turns.

Not recommended of course, unless you read them outside the Kingdom.

[tutsiwarrior]

goody, someone bumped the thread...'cause I wanna talk about Patricia Highsmith; specifically The talented Mr Ripley and Ripley's game that I have just finished...

and, I happen to have the screen adaptations for both by Anthony Minghella and Wim Wenders (The American Friend) and both were unsatisfactory which is surprising as both film makers are no slouches...check it out and see what I mean...it's not that psychological thrillers are hard to adapt; Strangers on a train was successful, however Hitchcock is in a different league, one of his own...

[champers]

I read a lot and I don't think that I've read a better author than Rose Tremaine. The last book of her's I read was Music & Silence. It's about an English lute player in the Court of the King of Sweden in the Stuart era. Sounds riveting, eh? I read it because all her books are outstanding; not highbrow at all; they are bawdy and hilarious. Read it and revel in the best ever villainess, the deliciously evil Kirsten.

[Ulysses G.]

I Just finished "Winter of the World" by Ken Follett. I really enjoyed it. Historical fiction beginning with the rise of the Third Reich, through the Spanish Civil War and the great dramas of World War II, to the explosions of the American and Soviet atomic bombs and the beginning of the long Cold War. I really like this genre as it makes history easier to remember for me. The main characters are all involved in main events and you get insight into how and why they happened, instead of just a dry factual report. Ken Follett is a great storyteller and has become much more literary than he was in he beginning of his career.

[Sigurris]

I am on the last of the Bernie Gunther Novels by Phillip Kerr. He is a detective in Germany and the books cover 1932-1954, not always in that order. Excellent historical research and interesting crimes. I will be sorry to see old Bernie go.

I also re-read Private Dancer. Read it when I first came here 7 years ago. Reading it now it still resonates and is an excellent warning to people. But they probably wouldn't listen. I am glad i did.

[A1Str8]

Thais are famous book readers. Should ask them.

[jaywalker]

I've just finished a number of books by Wilbur Smith.

I found the four of them a good read like most of Wilbur Smiths novels.

The only ones of his that I have a problem with are two books in the egyptian series.The 1st two "River God" and "The Seventh Scroll" were fine but I felt he went a bit overboard with the 2nd two "Warlock" and "The Quest".They were almost entirely based around the occult,hocus pocus etc.I can appreciate that the people in the era that the books were set in may have believed in that sought of thing but it does nothing for me.

I am currently reading two books that are E Books from kindle by using the kindle app for a computer.

Nex-6.jpg

FOR SURE! They do not get much better than Wilbur Smith.

I always thought he was my favorite author, till a buddy turned me on to H. Ryder Haggard.

Haggard wrote King Soloman's Mines & played a part in S. Africa's history. He also wrote about 25 other fiction novels, all of which are fantastic.

I'm quite certain Wilbur Smith took a lot of inspiration from Haggard, yet both are very unique from one another.

Another great is Edgar Rice Burroughs (the guy that invented Tarzan). His Barsoom series about John Carter on Mars was excellent (the women never age & do not wear clothes :=).

If you go to gutenberg.org you can find the Haggard & Burroughs novels for free online there as the copyrights expired years ago.

The People Of The Mist by Haggard has to be my most favorite book of all time. Keep in mind, Haggard was writing in the late 1800's so his style is a bit different. Whereas Wilbur Smith will grab you by the nuts in the first 2 pages, it takes Haggard a good 20-30 pages before you get hooked......then you can't quit. The guy's like heroin once you get into his books a bit.

I just read a non-fiction book called Son of Hamas by Yousef Mousab. You see that guy on CNN every once in a while. Pretty good read.

[Ulysses G.]

Another great is Edgar Rice Burroughs (the guy that invented Tarzan).

I loved the Tarzan series and Wizard of Oz series when I was a very young kid. They had a lot to do with my love of reading.

[pgrahmm]

A Most Wanted Man - John le Carre.....

A plodding yawner - don't reccommend....

[DMC1]

Ben Elton - Two Brothers. Good read, set in Nazi Germany. I must try some of his other books.

[giddyup]

Does anyone have epub or mobi copies of Don Winslow's "The power of the dog" and "The kings of cool" they can email me? Also after "Dog Soldiers" by Robert Stone. Be much appreciated.

[umbanda]

A couple more which I have read recently and found very interesting are: – "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz and translated into English by J M Cohen and it is a first-hand account of the overthrow of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish as well as preliminary explorations of the Mexican coast under Cordoba; and "The American West" by Dee Brown which shoots down a lot of the myths surrounding the West, cowboys, Indians and much of what went on.

Do not read fiction as a rule, however I did read, "Lovely Bones" and found it a good read, so followed up and watched the movie, which wasn't as good as the book!!

Are you interested in Isabel Allende's "Daughter of Fortune"?..I will exchange for yours " The Conquest of....

Now I am reading "The Race" by Richard North Patterson..an interesting Political fiction very subtitled " Can an honest man becomes President"

How abour starting a book exchange site?

[giddyup]

A couple more which I have read recently and found very interesting are: – "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz and translated into English by J M Cohen and it is a first-hand account of the overthrow of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish as well as preliminary explorations of the Mexican coast under Cordoba; and "The American West" by Dee Brown which shoots down a lot of the myths surrounding the West, cowboys, Indians and much of what went on.

Do not read fiction as a rule, however I did read, "Lovely Bones" and found it a good read, so followed up and watched the movie, which wasn't as good as the book!!

Are you interested in Isabel Allende's "Daughter of Fortune"?..I will exchange for yours " The Conquest of....

Now I am reading "The Race" by Richard North Patterson..an interesting Political fiction very subtitled " Can an honest man becomes President"

How abour starting a book exchange site?

I've never sent an ebub/mobi book as an email, I suppose it's easy enough? I have over 1000 ebooks in Calibre.

[xylophone]

A couple more which I have read recently and found very interesting are: – "The Conquest of New Spain" by Bernal Diaz and translated into English by J M Cohen and it is a first-hand account of the overthrow of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish as well as preliminary explorations of the Mexican coast under Cordoba; and "The American West" by Dee Brown which shoots down a lot of the myths surrounding the West, cowboys, Indians and much of what went on.

Do not read fiction as a rule, however I did read, "Lovely Bones" and found it a good read, so followed up and watched the movie, which wasn't as good as the book!!

Are you interested in Isabel Allende's "Daughter of Fortune"?..I will exchange for yours " The Conquest of....

Now I am reading "The Race" by Richard North Patterson..an interesting Political fiction very subtitled " Can an honest man becomes President"

How abour starting a book exchange site?

Hi umbanda,

Thank you for your kind offer, however unfortunately I feel I must decline it. I have had this book for decades and it has a hardcover which is quite "artistic" and I would be scared of losing it in the post, or it becoming damaged in some way or another.

Is it possible that you could download this book?

[i claudius]

i hate books why read when you can get the dvd or blueray,its the 21st century now, book are things of the 1900s,cop on buy a dvd player. books

How sad so much pleasure missed

[giddyup]

i hate books why read when you can get the dvd or blueray,its the 21st century now, book are things of the 1900s,cop on buy a dvd player. books

How sad so much pleasure missed

He seems to think there's a movie made for every book written, and even if there was, there's no substitute for exercising the imagination as only a book can do.

[Konini]

How abour starting a book exchange site?

We'll put Ulysses G out of business.

[StreetCowboy]

i hate books why read when you can get the dvd or blueray,its the 21st century now, book are things of the 1900s,cop on buy a dvd player. books

How sad so much pleasure missed

One of the things I like about reading books is that one subconsciously learns punctuation and grammar.

SC

EDIT: To get back on topic, I picked up a copy of The Jungle by Upton Sinclair at Philadelphia airport, to get me through the flight home.

Edited October 11, 2014 by StreetCowboy

[NoshowJones]

Just finished Martina Coles "The Jump" and now watching the DVD of it. I also like Michael Connellys books, and the one with Jack Reacher. That's Lee Childs Character.