Philotic Web

Re-reading EG. And it still attracts me very, very much, though I'm not too far from being able to quote the whole book.

Also going over some of my JavaScript and Java studybooks, when I have nothing else to read. It's actually pretty interesting (though the plot is weak)

I'm reading a hilarious book called Ibid by Mark Dunn.
The premise of the story is that a Biography of a three-legged boy was written, but the manuscript was lost, so all that remains is the extensive footnotes. So, reading it is like piecing together a puzzle, because all you have are footnotes. Of course, the real manuscript doesn't exist, so it's meant to be read this way and is hilarious because of it.
It reminds me (in style) of William Goldman and Jasper Fford.

This is the second book I'm reading by Mark Dunn, the first was called Ella Minnow Pea, which I also highly recommend. It's about a town that lives by the phrase "The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dog" - but when the letters begin falling off the sign, the town outlaws them from use. So, each chapter uses fewer and fewer letters.

Right now for leisure I'm reading Steinbeck's East of Eden (and as soon as I realized how much I would love it, I ordered some used copies of Wayward Bus and To a God Unknown just to get ready for a Steinbeck kick). I'm also reading a book called Dove about a sixteen year old old who started sailing around the world in the late sixties and five years, one marriage, and one child later he returns to port in California. Love both books so far.

For school I'm reading Uncle Tom's Cabin (for this Am. Lit. class at my college we've got to read a lot of stuff people have but I'd never read before: Scarlet Letter, Last of the Mohicans, Huck Finn, Portrait of a Lady, etc.).

-The art of happiness by asome pyschologist in cahoots with his holiness the dalai lama.... (for me)

-the things they carried (for school)

-1984 (for school

-catcher in they rye (for me)

-pweb (for me)

yes i am reading all of these things at the same time and at an extremely slow rate...

Thatguy1944

I just started Flowers for Algernon and I am completely in love. Great book.

Wuthering Heights.


I've been told over and over again for the past 8 years to read this book, and now that I am reading it, I don't quite understand the appeal. Granted, I'm not far into it, but if it doesn't pick up soon, I'll be dropping it.

Wicked. It's pretty sweet. I haven't seen the play, so it's fun to imagine how it would work out.

Wuthering Heights.


I've been told over and over again for the past 8 years to read this book, and now that I am reading it, I don't quite understand the appeal. Granted, I'm not far into it, but if it doesn't pick up soon, I'll be dropping it.

My goodness how I loathe this book. I can't even count the ways. Given my love for all things Austin, and general enjoyment of other Bronte offerings, I always just assumed I would enjoy it, and knew that it was one of those things I should read. Until I actually picked it up. And oh lord, how I've detested it from that day.

So just to say, I'm with you.

(In more ways than one )

I'm reading Gaiman's SANDMAN--which I've actually never read before.

It's mind-blowing.


recently I've read:

PILLARS OF THE EARTH by Ken Follet. It's book-crack. I could not put it down. Is it the best piece of literature ever? No. Is it addicting as all hell? Absolutely.

THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. Despite a zillion gushing reviews, I thought this book was completely unimpressive. It's been done before, and done better. this book is NUMBER THE STARS-meets-THE DIARIES OF ANNE FRANK-meets-THE LOVELY BONES.

EATS, SHOOTS, AND LEAVES by Lynne Truss. Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

I'm reading Gaiman's SANDMAN--which I've actually never read before.

It's mind-blowing.

Jeff approves. Probably the best thing by Gaiman.

I just started reading the Sword of Truth series by Terry Brooks.

I find it's a very interesting series, my only issue is, each book is 800+ pages long, 11 books in the series, but the author spends so much time on other details, that he saves for solving the plot within the last 100 pages.

Even though that seems like alot, when you spend 800 pages leading up to not one major problem, but about 10, and they are all solved one after the other in the last stretch of the book, it is kinda dissapointing.

It is such a great series, but I find myself dreading the end, cause I just know I'll be dissapointed about how it wraps up as each book concludes.

YV, Lynne Truss also wrote a fantastic book called Talk To The Hand.

I've created a spreadsheet (or rather, highjacked a spreadsheet from Wikipedia) to help navigate my way through the Discworld novels. I just finished The Last Continent.

I finally finished Jane Eyre, three.five hours of reading on the plane got me through all but the last forty pages. It was outstanding now to go to the book club page.

i just realized the famous and fabulous LA festival of books is less than two weeks away, and this year I'm going to have money.

oh dear, this is not going to turn out pretty. last year I managed to resist monumental tempations by going at the very end of the day and not having excess money, this year I'm thinking of going all day long. booths and booths of bookstores. oh bother.

I gave up on Wuthering Heights for the time being. I made it to Ch 16 or so before I gave into the fact that it just doesn't interest me half as much as I wish it did. Catherine drives me beyond nuts and Heathcliff? Whoa, my god. Sick, sick bastard.

I picked up The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins. Now that, on the other hand, was a really interesting read and it was one of those books that left me with a void that is not so easy to fill. I don't want to wait for the sequel.

Now I'm on Wicked Lovely, by Melissa Marr. It doesn't have me drawn in as much as THG but it's still a fun read.

I can't decide if I want to read the sequel to Life As We Knew It when I finish WL. I will definitely read the 3rd, if Susan Beth Pfeffer brings (some of) the original characters back into the story.

I can't decide if I want to read the sequel to Life As We Knew It when I finish WL. I will definitely read the 3rd, if Susan Beth Pfeffer brings (some of) the original characters back into the story.

We represent her. I've read the sequel, THE DEAD AND THE GONE, which comes out this summer. It does not have any of the same characters as LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. The events take place simultaneously with the first book, but in New York City rather than a suburb of Pennsylvania. In my opinion tD&tG is even better than the first book. But as far as I know there is no third book planned as of yet. (At least I know for a fact that no third book has been sold).

THE BOOK THIEF by Markus Zusak. Despite a zillion gushing reviews, I thought this book was completely unimpressive. It's been done before, and done better. this book is NUMBER THE STARS-meets-THE DIARIES OF ANNE FRANK-meets-THE LUCKY BONES.

I enjoyed it, but I haven't read the others. I've been reading Shade's Children by Garth Nix - very good, but rather odd.

I just finished The Great Starvation Experiment which was motivated by a conversation in the working out thread. I found it fascinating but I expected to.

And I'm now reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair, a classic, but one that I never read. This was motivated by the Meat thread. I am finding it much more character driven than I expected it to be.

I can't decide if I want to read the sequel to Life As We Knew It when I finish WL. I will definitely read the 3rd, if Susan Beth Pfeffer brings (some of) the original characters back into the story.

We represent her. I've read the sequel, THE DEAD AND THE GONE, which comes out this summer. It does not have any of the same characters as LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. The events take place simultaneously with the first book, but in New York City rather than a suburb of Pennsylvania. In my opinion tD&tG is even better than the first book. But as far as I know there is no third book planned as of yet. (At least I know for a fact that no third book has been sold).

Ah, the small, not entirely special perks of being related to a librarian; we get our hands on some galley proofs. My mom read the sequel as well -she seemed to like it well enough- and offered to pass it along if I want to read it. I knew what it was about, it's just that I have a hard time reading series if they don't follow the same characters they start off with, so a coworker of hers is reading it and will pass it back this way if I decide to give it a shot.

The third book is just something I've read about in her blog, so it may never be written and I won't have to worry about whether or not to read that one. But she did say it could focus on the son of Lisa and the dad from Life As We Knew It on a search for his half-siblings (connection!).

Anywho...I've rambled enough.

I can't decide if I want to read the sequel to Life As We Knew It when I finish WL. I will definitely read the 3rd, if Susan Beth Pfeffer brings (some of) the original characters back into the story.

We represent her. I've read the sequel, THE DEAD AND THE GONE, which comes out this summer. It does not have any of the same characters as LIFE AS WE KNEW IT. The events take place simultaneously with the first book, but in New York City rather than a suburb of Pennsylvania. In my opinion tD&tG is even better than the first book. But as far as I know there is no third book planned as of yet. (At least I know for a fact that no third book has been sold).

Ah, the small, not entirely special perks of being related to a librarian; we get our hands on some galley proofs. My mom read the sequel as well -she seemed to like it well enough- and offered to pass it along if I want to read it. I knew what it was about, it's just that I have a hard time reading series if they don't follow the same characters they start off with, so a coworker of hers is reading it and will pass it back this way if I decide to give it a shot.

The third book is just something I've read about in her blog, so it may never be written and I won't have to worry about whether or not to read that one. But she did say it could focus on the son of Lisa and the dad from Life As We Knew It on a search for his half-siblings (connection!).

Anywho...I've rambled enough.

hahaha, awesome!

It's fun (and strange!) to not be the first to have info about our clients' upcoming ventures. (I ought to read all of our clients' blogs, I really ought to. But I can't be fussed about it).

I"m reading Lord of the Flies, the Jungle book, and Phantom of the Opera. While listening to the soundtrack.

Lord of the Flies in interesting, if not a little creepy. I'm about half-way through. It sort of reminds me of Animal Farm.

Jungle book has been on my shelf for over a year, and I'm only now getting to read it.

Phantom of the Opera is pure awesomeness, though it's very different from the movie. For once, though, it doesn't bother me. And I listen to the movie soundtrack while watching it for even MORE awesomeness.

I finished the excellent Eyre Affair (it so reminded me of Read or Die the TV series) and now I need something new, though I'm tempted to reread the Darkness That Comes Before.

i have this intention of sending my little sister (she's actually a more voracious reader than I was at that age, scary!) To Kill a Mockingbird and Lord of the Flies and maybe of Mice and Men to read before school 'ruins' them for her by assigning it for her first read. I read those outside school first and really appreciate that I got to discover them on my own. (though To Kill a Mockingbird is the rare book school discussion was not insanely frustrating and sad experience, schoolmates actually got it).

I'm sad to say that I never read To Kill a Mockingbird before school assigned it, but I still liked it a lot. Lord of the Flies, though, remains one of my favorite books, ever since fifth grade. I even liked Of Mice and Men.

I think the only writer that school "ruined" me on was Mark Twain. I can't read his long fiction. Huckleberry Finn remains one of my least favorite books.

I am on a bit of a non-fiction spree, I am reading "Here Comes Everyone" by Clay Shirky.

I know non-fiction on a science-fiction forum I should be taken out and shot.

I'm reading Keeper of Dreams by Orson Scott Card
I've only read the first two short stories so far,Elephants of Pozan and Atlantis

Hey, I'm also reading Keeper of Dreams! I got it from the library. I'm up to the story Dust. It seems pretty long...at least it's the first one that I haven't finished in one sitting, at least.

I started re-reading EG a couple of days ago, and now just stopped at Ender's transfer to Command School (and just to read pweb, heh). A few random quick thoughts:

-- It's just as good as I remember. It amazes me that I still like this book this much after so many readings and so many years.

-- I still don't find the Peter/Val side story "weak" or even that unbelievable. But I suppose I'll actually talk about that more in the relevant thread when I get a chance.

-- Maybe it's just me, but I almost feel like I recognize pwebbers in characters' speech. Has it influenced some of us that much? Or perhaps it just causes me to think like it.

-- Graff is awesome. If you look at just EG by itself, I really think he is my favorite character.

Edit:

-- I didn't like Ender as much as I remembered in the earlier parts of the book. EG seems to imply that being extremely good at something inherently leads to isolation and being despised, which I think is simply not true. Ender was just not good at peacefully resolving his disputes (duh, he wasn't being trained to...) until later in the Speaker series.

I just reread Night Watch by Terry Pratchett which is one of the very best of the discworld series. it's self contained but you will really enjoy it a lot better if you've read the other Vimesy books (Guards Guards!, Men at Arms, Feet of Clay, Jingo, Fifth Elephant).

Night Watch has Vimes chasing down Carcer, the worst criminal of his career, an intelligent, stone killer he's very much a foil for Vimes, an idea Vimes reflects on often throughout the film. Vimes' wife, Sybil is also about to give birth to their first child, which has him on edge, in the attempt to chase down Carcer Vimes and Carcer and hammered back in time by an unfortunate conflux of events, magic and an unstable thunderstorm. Vimes awakens and soon realizes he has returned to the pivotal first week on the job he had as a young man ten-twenty years ago. And he soon realizes if he's to stop Carcer from running free wreaking havoc he will have to don the old persona of his onetime mentor John Keel, and he's not entirely sure if that's what happened all along, maybe and maybe not. So Vimes is in the position of changing his entire world, in many ways, but having to struggle to be able to maintain things enough that he doesn't destroy his entire future and can hopefully return to it. It is a tremendously wonderful book, one I found particularly moving and powerful upon first read, it is constantly rich and thought provoking, Pratchett's most thematically mature masterpiece. I also realize now that it is inspired in many ways by Les Miserables, a book I actually intend to read since I saw Bernard's 1935 superb five hour version back in September.

concurrently I am reading Post War Hollywood, a textbook by one of my former instructer's Drew Casper. Drew has not published anything in nearly twenty five years (supposedly working on this book which is a fraction of a larger meta-textbook on american film that will never materialize, in fact the last thing he published were doctoral studies works on Stanley Donen and Vincente Minnelli that were published under his full name of Joseph Andrew Casper. Casper is not a very good writer, while he is a tremendous lecturer (he performs his lectures, they are not just delivered) he struggles with transitions, over-simplifications, over-conciseness, tremendous leaps of logic, constantly relies on his authority rather than defending his claim (he never shows his thought process) and gets some general facts wrong. His sentance structure is at times baffling and impossible to parse (this is also true of things he says in his lectures) and he also invents words (actify) rather too often than is really necessary. He's also prone to using scholarly words and terms in a contextually incorrect manner if those terms can have multiple meanings (anamorophic, jump cut) and the more technical he gets the further off base he gets (most of the inaccuracies are in the short chapter on technology, particularly the various formats/aspect ratios and stereovision). But these are somewhat minor quibbles the book is not bad, but it is not a landmark in the field, and Casper's great strength is reinforced by the book, he is able to layout historical context and the march history took beautifully. In addition to this his breezy overview of a mutlitude of films genre by genre is quite fascinating as it strives to create a whole portrait of A list hollywood rather than just the most famous and infamous films from this era. Some of Casper's blind spots (musicals, Donen, Doris Day) are on full display but at the same time his spotlighting of Day is refreshing. Casper approaches his subject as a passionate fan of hollywood, not from the jaded and cynical distance of a scholar with an agenda or a critic playing to favorites and halfbaked totalizing conceptualizations about the films of the era. Casper still maintains his perspective, and whips you through the book quite quickly. At times it can become repetitive and almost numbing there is such a litany of names and titles. It would be a very good thing if the readers were already fairly well trained cineastes that will recognize the majority of these films, and the text will be more rewarding. That is the text's biggest problem, Casper writes in the accessible formal essay level of an undergraduate but his material demands a familiarity with the era even as all his writing is oriented to opening the era and films up for you.

So far this year, I'm really sucking at meeting my quota for books read. This same time last year I had read twice as many...oh well.

A week or two ago, I re-read EG. I'm able to appreciate Valentine more now than I was able to before and I think I know why I disliked her so much before.

After that, being in a sci-fi mood, I went to Borders and spent money on myself (on a non-bill) for the first time since April and bought InterWorld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves. It sounded fascinating. It read differently. The intended audience is for 12 year olds, I think, but I've read plenty of YA that didn't disappoint me half as much as this did.

Today, I finished a fantasy book -part of a series- that was also a bit disappointing. On the offchance that I loved it, I checked out the whole trilogy, so now I have to decide if I want to plow on through or just return them to the library.

Reread Pyramids which was better than I remembered.

Reread Moving Pictures which was as good as I remembered.

still reading that damn book of Casper's

I just finished "Twenty Years After", by Alexandre Dumas. Great book, although for it to make sense, you have to read "The Three Musketeers" first. "Twenty Years" is better than "Musketeers", if you don't mind reading 788 pages.

I just reread the EG series. I really do not like Qing-Jao or Novinha, but I get over it. They are still amazing books. And Peter is so cool--every time I read CotM, I love him more and more.

And today I read Persepolis. It's the first graphic novel I've ever read, and I'm rather falling in love with that genre.

I finally finished The Curious Incident of the Dog at Nighttime, which took me a little while to get invested in but I found really quite lovely. It was written from the perspective of an autistic 11 year old, and it was a really cool narrative voice. Much recommended if you're in the mood for a change of pace.

Awhile ago I made a deal with a comic-obsessed friend that I would read Neil Gaiman's Sandman series if he would read Neverwhere. So I'm halfway through it, which is my first comic book/graphic novel series, and I'm kind of shocked what a different reading experience it is. Kind of cool.

I also just bought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which has been on my list for forever, so I'm excited to give it a try. Anyone read it?