OT: What are you reading?

Currently reading Seneca's Letters from a Stoic, and Martin Gardner's The Night is Large for non-fiction. And Flannery O'Connor Complete Stories and Leo Tolstoy Collected Shorter Fiction Vol. 1 for fiction books.

I have over 600 books in my Library! I should post a picture one day.
 
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Anthem by Ayn Rand (or if you can stand it, Moralia by Plutarch is essentially the same philosophy, just non-prose, and less preachy)
Now that made me immediately think of Terry Goodkind. I haven't read Ayn Rand and am aware that Terry Goodkind is somewhat controversial, but I really enjoyed the first 4 books of the Sword of Truth series back when I was in my late teens. Then it started to get awkward, because his goal to make his books "character driven" wasn't met as he used the characters to hammer home Rand's (and his) philosophical and ethical believes... It gets repetitive the next dozen books... But as I said, the first for books I found quite good, esp. the fourth.

From reading Goodkind's series, it doesn't surprise me then that you call Rand's work preachy 😬
 
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Now that made me immediately think of Terry Goodkind. I haven't read Ayn Rand and am aware that Terry Goodkind is somewhat controversial, but I really enjoyed the first 4 books of the Sword of Truth series back when I was in my late teens. Then it started to get awkward, because his goal to make his books "character driven" wasn't met as he used the characters to hammer home Rand's (and his) philosophical and ethical believes... It gets repetitive the next dozen books... But as I said, the first for books I found quite good, esp. the fourth.

From reading Goodkind's series, it doesn't surprise me then that you call Rand's work preachy 😬

I've actually read the whole Sword of Truth series. There were some okay bits, but gods there were so many preachy monologues, especially in the later books. Will not be reading again. :p
 
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@Vildecor : Yeah, I've read the whole series including The Third Kingdom etc., too, and I totally agree. it started with Faith of the Fallen IMO to get really annoying - I once counte the pages from one of Richard's rants about communism Jagang's Empire and it was like 16 pages or so...repeatedly in the same book...

Does anyone know the Darkness within Saga from JD Franx? It is so cheap on Kindle that I think about buying it...
 
@Grisu @Vildecor
Wow, yeah, that sounds pretty awful... never read that series, and I guess I won't be, now ;)

Seriously though, Rand had some good points, but I've never seen the sense of hammering on the same points quite so much... it starts to come off as condescending pretty quickly, imo. Notice how I didn't list Atlas Shrugged, because if Anthem is preachy, Atlas Shrugged is like a transcript of the sermon, in triplicate...
 
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Dirk Pitt series from Clive Cussler. Imo he's never great, but also never bad.
 
Always liked Gaurdians of the Flame series by Joel Rosenburg (that said, I never have read the last book... I should probably do that)

I haven't seen those books in over 25 years, though I usually check through any new library or bookstore i visit. Never found them since my high school days.

I just started reading Candy Shop War by Brandon Mull, but this is another one to keep up with my kids and the jury is definitely still out on it.
 
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Dirk Pitt series from Clive Cussler. Imo he's never great, but also never bad.

Used to read these all the time.

These days its Scott Mariani's Ben Hope series which next out n 2 weeks or so and 2 or more a year. Also the Matthew Reilly various series too.
 
LOL, my wife just reminded me of a series we both read and enjoyed last year when she came in and asked for a "big pocking wrench" to perform a bit of percussive maintenance :LOL:

Had to look up the name of the series... Empire of Man, by David Weber and John Ringo... we just called them the 'Prince Roger' books, as they follow the development of Roger from spoiled royal brat to hardcore imperial badass... campy but a lot of fun

And as long as I'm recommending books by David Weber, I really liked his Safehold series, in which a tiny remnant of humanity survived the genocidal Gbaba by fleeing to the other side of the galaxy and abandoning technology to avoid detection. 1000 years later, their descendants must overthrow the rabidly anti-tech universal church before they can regain the stars... 10 volumes now, with a cast of characters and nations easily as long as G. R. R. Martin's aSoIaF

WoRG
 
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Read through the Stand again last week (unabridged). Almost terrifying how Stephen king can predict the future. The dead zone, the stand, really hoping cell isn’t next....
 
I recently listened to an excellent audiobook performance of The Tombs of Atuan by U. K. Le Guin. It was a fantastic experience. The moods painted by the author and voice performer kindled some of the same delightfully dark and foreboding emotions that I felt when I played D2 or listened to Matt Uelmen's D2 soundtrack.

 
Black Company is now finished, except for the one written later that I can’t download for Kindle. I’m feeling that end of series blues at the moment, I really enjoyed it.

What next? I need some recommendations.
- Malazan Book of The Fallen?
- Brandon Sanderson Mistborn series?
- Something else?
 
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@maxicek niiice. which books were your favorite in the series? I absolutely loved shadows linger and shadow games.
when raven was assassinating those thugs on the nighttime rooftops that was when i REALLY decided I liked the series.
As far as what to read next, I do read Sanderson's major series, but feel very meh about them. He's great at plot and action but his characters feel very flat to me and just have no attitude or panache. Malazan is good for sure, but is so grandiose that it gets tiring to read. I still havent started book 4 in it despite it being several months since finishing book 3.

Since you are a fan of first law, I reallllly recommend you check out the acts of caine by matthew woodring stover. First book is Heroes Die. I may have already recommended that before, so tell me if I'm overdoing it or something. But that can be read as a standalone, is kind of a fantasy/sci-fi combo, and is a "before its time" grimdark novel that i think does the genre better than First Law. I still haven't read a little hatred yet though ;).

And I will give WoT another shout out if you feel like one of fantasy's "main" series. It doesn't quite reach the insane levels of zealous hype that I got when reading kkc or asoiaf for the first time, but it gets pretty close, and is just one of the more "comfortable" and satisfying series out there.

@Noodle @Grisu You guys read peace talks? If so what'd you think of it? Just finished it a week or so ago.
 
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Well, since I apparently can't keep my tabs straight and posted a bunch of migration stuff in here, I'll update my reading situation as well!

I'm still on a dystopian/apocalyptic kick, so anyone who's interested in that genre may find this interesting.

Finished off the Silo series, and it was GREAT. Very interesting concept and his delivery was fantastic, I'm already looking forward to my next read-through of it. Also props to the author who went from self-publishing a short novel to turning it into a NYT best-seller, and then a trilogy. Really cool.

Now currently on book 3 of 3 of The Passage series. The books are absolutely great, I highly recommend it. If anyone has seen the show based off of it (which ran for only one season and got promptly cancelled) just forget you saw it. It's a shame that when things get turned into TV/film they often fall very flat, though I understand sometimes adaptations don't really translate well. They changed basically EVERYTHING that was interesting about the book and simplified everything down to 'ooo scary vampire-monsters!' to the point of frustration. Ah well, the books are great, so beggars can't be choosers!

Once I finish that series, I'm going to read The Lathe of Heaven, which sounds like an awesome sci-fi/dystopian hybrid which I'm very excited about.

After that, not sure. Maybe pick one from the 'I've-been-meaning-to-read-these-for-years-and-never-got-around-to-it' pile blindly and see what happens.
 
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I liked all the Books of the North best, the characters were much stronger. The last two were very good too, I liked how the plot got wrapped up. A great end for Croaker too.
There were some huge plot holes though. The power of true name seems to get completely forgotten in the South or they could have dealt with Soulcatcher and Lisa Bowalk easier. I did like the whole concept of the glittering plain though, but looking at the series as a whole it doesn’t feel like it was an idea he had at the beginning.

I have Acts of Caine on my Goodreads “want to read list.” I think I will give Malazan a go first, it is already on my Kindle.
 
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@maxicek nice. I agreed on all fronts. And sounds great. Hit me up with any discussion on Gardens of the Moon. I read it more recently than black company so probably remember a lot more details. Have fun!
 
I want to participate in this thread as well! Why havent I seen it before? Oh, well... let me start by saying that I possess many more books than those that I have read. A lot of them are on chinese ancient philosophy since I was really into that when I was in highschool, but I've read a little bit of everything: psychology, literature, arts, biographical, history. My taste in books is all over the place.

Last book I read:
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco (Historical crime and mystery novel set in Italy in the middle ages. Amazingly well written!!!)

Now reading:
Recollections of a Provincial Past, by Domingo F. Sarmiento (Autobiography of this extraordinary man who "invented" the school system in Argentina. In reality he just was influenced by the US's educational system and was the first one to apply it here)
The Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin (I suppose everyone knows this one)
The Moral Landscape, by Sam Harris (Philosophical arguments on how to create a moral system based on a scientific exploration and understanding of the brain of sentian beings)
 
Garden's of The Moon and Deadhouse Gates are finished, on to Memories of Ice now.

I'm really enjoying the series. The huge cast of characters is a bit overwhelming at first, I read that Erikson wanted the reader to feel a bit like they did not know what was going on and the the plot to emerge slowly, like Frank Herbert did in Dune. Well he definitely succeded, the Malazan Wiki was invaluable when I couldn't remember who a character was. Deadhouse Gates was much easier to pick up once I had the characters from the first book. I think the world building and magic concept is excellent. I imagine warrens a bit like skill trees in D2.

@Kinkara Some heavy stuff there. I used to push myself a bit more to read challenging stuff, but these days I'm reading to unwind. I seem to be catching up on loads of Fantasy series I have somehow missed at the moment.
 
Unfortunately I had to put them all on hold for now and had to replace them with papers about the nature of the mind and some other stuff for school :D I hope I can resume with the reading soon :)
 
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