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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?

"The Heart and the Fist" by Eric Greitens.

"Nemesis" by Philip Roth.

"Blur" by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel.
 
Based on a recommendation I got from this thread, I just finished the Nebula and Hugo award winning book, Ender's Game, an interesting SciFi story about children being trained as soldiers to fight off insectoid invaders, slang name, buggers. I'm not calling it the best thing I've ever read, all most all of the book takes place at a war academy, focusing on relationships and manipulation, but it had an intricate plot, with surprising depth, and held my interest. Now I'm thinking about reading the sequel, Speaker For The Dead. 🙂

endersgame.jpg
 
Currently reading the Hunger Games trilogy right now, and then I'll re-read all the Harry Potter books once they come out as e-books.
 
TaterToT said:
Currently reading the Hunger Games trilogy right now, and then I'll re-read all the Harry Potter books once they come out as e-books.
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I'm thinking about Hunger Games. How is it? Best thing you've ever read? 😉
I'm also thinking about jumping into Game of Thrones.
 
Huntn said:
I'm thinking about Hunger Games. How is it? Best thing you've ever read? 😉
I'm also thinking about jumping into Game of Thrones.
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Hunger Games is pretty good. I would definitely reccomend reading it, Huntn. Try not to get to involved in the series, esle you'll be pretty angry around Mockingjay.
 
anjinha said:
I'm re-reading the Harry Potter books.
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Scepticalscribe said:
Truly, I envy you; someday, I promise myself I shall sit down and re-read them all, slowly, savouring the full sequence, when I have a week or so in bed. While I have read all of them, - when they came out - I have only re-read the first and the last of them.
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Skip book #5, instead read #6 or #7 twice. 🙂

anjinha said:
I've been really enjoying it. 🙂 I used to read a lot and then I kinda stopped for some reason.
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Same here. I really should stop lurking on MR and read a book again...
 
TaterToT said:
Yep I'm not too far into it but it's grabbing my attention right now so I'd recommend it!
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Took a chance and just ordered the first 2 books, Game of Thrones ($6) and A Clash of Kings ($4). If you like reading paper books, and ordering them online with free shipping and no tax (depends where shipper and you live), I recommend thriftbooks.com. I've ordered about 10 books from them and am happy with the results. Thriftbooks.com is the site, but they have member stores around the country participating.
 
(marc) said:
Skip book #5, instead read #6 or #7 twice. 🙂
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Why do you say that? I actually liked Book Five - the DA was brilliant and I loved the character development of not simply Our Three, but also of Neville (who has long been one of my favourite characters - the scene on Christmas Day in St Mungo's was heart-breaking and his evolution through the DA presaged his terrific role in DH), the character of Luna as well, the extremely dramatic & satisfying manner of the departure of Fred & George from Hogwarts, and the sheer evil of Professor Umbridge, who was a satisfyingly appalling creation. I haven't read it since the year it came out.....

Book Six - apart from the brilliant backstory of Voldemort - annoyed me in places; all that adolescent stuff, for example, got a bit tedious, but then, it's a while since I've been an adolescent. In its favour, it did nicely set up the character of Severus Snape - the only truly conflicted character in the entire series - for his tour de force appearance in the final installment.....

DH is brilliant; I have re-read it, but shall happily do so again.

Given that we now know the outcome, I'd like to re-read the entire series again, with, as it were, somewhat fresh, or new eyes.....

Cheers
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Why do you say that? I actually liked Book Five - the DA was brilliant and I loved the character development of not simply Our Three, but also of Neville (who has long been one of my favourite characters - the scene on Christmas Day in St Mungo's was heart-breaking and his evolution through the DA presaged his terrific role in DH), the character of Luna as well, the extremely dramatic & satisfying manner of the departure of Fred & George from Hogwarts, and the sheer evil of Professor Umbridge, who was a satisfyingly appalling creation. I haven't read it since the year it came out.....
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I remember finding the departure of Fred & George very silly and not entertaining. Professor Umbridge was not realistic because she was evil in and out.

Scepticalscribe said:
Book Six - apart from the brilliant backstory of Voldemort - annoyed me in places; all that adolescent stuff, for example, got a bit tedious, but then, it's a while since I've been an adolescent. In its favour, it did nicely set up the character of Severus Snape - the only truly conflicted character in the entire series - for his tour de force appearance in the final installment.....
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I agree on the adolescent stuff. For example, I wish JKR had left out the whole Ginny stuff...
 
(marc) said:
I remember finding the departure of Fred & George very silly and not entertaining. Professor Umbridge was not realistic because she was evil in and out.



I agree on the adolescent stuff. For example, I wish JKR had left out the whole Ginny stuff...
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Re George & Fred's departure, my work environment at the time was not at all pleasant, so it may well have been some sort of envious displacement on my part.......

Agreed on the romantic stuff in Book Six (and not just the Ginny stuff, but Ron's immaturity, and the endless teenage tantrums, outburts of jealousy, etc) but I have to say that I thought the portrayal, in Book Five, of Professor Umbridge's increasing control of the school - by the means of a carefully planned and quite meticulously vicious incremental bureaucratic control and abuse of power, was a very convincing picture of petty & vindictive tyranny and how it can be allowed to develop over time. She was evil, but in a banal way, (Hannah Arendt's classic quote about Adolf Eichmann) like the classic time-serving, career-protecting bureaucrat in a vile dictatorship, rather the the completely deranged ideologically driven evil of someone like Voldemort. As such, to find such a convincing portrayal in a novel - especially with that sort of teenage readership in mind - is very impressive to my mind.

What else did you like about Book Six?

Cheers
 
Currently, I'm reading Naked Economics. It's for the economics class I'm taking. Extremely interesting, IMO.

I finished Hardball for the Government class I'm taking. I liked it, but it got too boring at times. But overall, a good read.


I also read The Alchemist for English. I really liked this book also.

Heck, I'll pretty much really like any book, as long as I get some value out of it. 😛
 
Just finished Tell-All by Chuck Palahniuk, Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman, Ghost Story by Jim Butcher, Wise Man's Fear by Patrick Rothfuss (and by just finished I mean I've read these over the past little while). Currently reading The Fall by Chuck Hogan and Guillermo Del Toro.
 
Scepticalscribe said:
Agreed on the romantic stuff in Book Six (and not just the Ginny stuff, but Ron's immaturity, and the endless teenage tantrums, outburts of jealousy, etc) but I have to say that I thought the portrayal, in Book Five, of Professor Umbridge's increasing control of the school - by the means of a carefully planned and quite meticulously vicious incremental bureaucratic control and abuse of power, was a very convincing picture of petty & vindictive tyranny and how it can be allowed to develop over time. She was evil, but in a banal way, (Hannah Arendt's classic quote about Adolf Eichmann) like the classic time-serving, career-protecting bureaucrat in a vile dictatorship, rather the the completely deranged ideologically driven evil of someone like Voldemort. As such, to find such a convincing portrayal in a novel - especially with that sort of teenage readership in mind - is very impressive to my mind.
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Maybe I should read the book again after all, I might perceive it differently now.

Scepticalscribe said:
What else did you like about Book Six?
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Like you, I really liked Voldemort's story. I also enjoyed the meetings of Dumbledore and Harry.
 
Finished King Lear and Pride and Prejudice over the summer. I am reading I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell by Tucker Max right now.
 
Almost finished reading Kevin Mitnick's Ghost in the Wires - reminds me of Neuromancer, this guy was a serious hacker...

He uses the words "social engineering" a lot, but they weren't really using that term 30 years ago, right?
 
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