Book(s) You're reading for the Summer

[Kerui]

Reading:

Manifold: Time - Stephen Baxter
Deathnote #1 (Manga) - Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
The Historian - Elizabeth Kostova

Will be reading:

Manifold: Space - Stephen Baxter
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
Diablo: The Sin War - Scales of the Serpent - Richard A. Knaak
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

[ampersand]

Plato and a Platypus Walks into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy through Jokes, by Cathcart & Klein.

(May purchase a platypus plushie for my baby niece.)

[StruckingFuggle]

And now, once I get myself to a book store, I shall be reading Oliver Sacks's 'The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat'.

A bit into this book, and it's proving to be one of the most fascinating books I've ever read.

[Kerui]

Just finished:

Manifold: Time - Stephen Baxter
Death Note #1 (Manga) - Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata

"Manifold: Time" was a fast-paced, hard science fiction novel, a novel of time travel, love and loss, super-smart cephalopods, and apocalyptic prophecy. Woo! What a ride!

Death Note has turned out to be a really good manga from the first volume, can't wait to get the second.

Started on "To Say Nothing of the Dog" by Connie Willis...so far it is quite amusing.

[SevTiZ]

It took me about a month to get through Watership Down. Great premise at the start, then it slogs on with a couple of rare peaks until halfway through, when they actually REACH the Down. Once I got done with that, I tore through Deathly Hallows in about a day...and AGAIN, title doesn't come into play until halfway through!

Still better than Jordan, where

we don't see the Eye of the World until the farkin' END!

Now starting on Hogfather. Ah, Discworld, how I've missed thee!

[Deacon]

For those interested, The Name of the Wind has garnered some rather amazing acclaim.

[ampersand]

The Cartoon History of the World, Volume III - Larry Gonick. Also have Volumes I and II.

[The Cid]

Been reading:
Now I Can Die In Peace - Bill Simmons
It's a good bathroom book. Great sports humor, and a pretty accurate explanation of why Red Sox fans are so absolutely insane.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
I read this book when I was in the sixth grade. When a friend started talking about it, I realized I really wanted to read it again.

Finished:
Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
I once thought I was long-winded. Then, one day, I started reading the works of Thomas Pynchon. I've now gone through this book twice, a couple years apart. I'm still not sure if I like it, but at times it makes me really hungry. I think I'm going to have to read it again.

The White Guard - Mikhail Bulgakov
I really enjoy Bulgakov's writing. I had wanted to read this one for a while, but never got around to it until this summer. It's amazing.

Game of Shadows - Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams
Gives exactly what it promises: a brutal history of BALCO and a few of its clients, such as Greg Anderson, Barry Bonds and Marion Jones. It's a good book, but reading it in the summer of 2007 was a real bummer.

[kaiju01]

Gravity's Rainbow - Thomas Pynchon
I once thought I was long-winded. Then, one day, I started reading the works of Thomas Pynchon. I've now gone through this book twice, a couple years apart. I'm still not sure if I like it, but at times it makes me really hungry. ...

That last sentence becomes so much funnier when people know about a certain scene involving a military officer indulging in certain deviant activities... with excrement.

[StruckingFuggle]

I guess this thread works instead of making a new one, even if it's not what I'm reading yet, and summer's kinda over.

Recent discussions, and playing BioShock, have made me a bit depressed on the way the media and art handle technology. I'm looking for some well-written, neophillic, tech-positive science fiction, especially regarding the topics of computerized intelligence / robots and bio-engineering.

Anyone got anything?

[Rorschach]

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
I read this book when I was in the sixth grade. When a friend started talking about it, I realized I really wanted to read it again.

How does it compare to your first reading, The Cid? I don't think it's aged particularly well, despite being clearly brilliant.

Waterstones are just giving the classics away. I bought a rather nice edition of The Pickwick Papers for £1.99 yesterday. I'd buy that for a dollar.
Or a pound ninety-nine, as the case was.

[adciv]

StruckingFuggle, maybe John Ringo's There Will be Dragons? or Watch on the Rhine?

[StruckingFuggle]

After a quick Wiki, "There Will Be Dragons" hardly seems to be a tech-positive novel... o.o

[adciv]

Paradise has been canceled due to technical difficulties.

Here's the chapters as put online by Baen. Give some of it a shot.

[StruckingFuggle]

Paradise has been canceled due to technical difficulties.

I'm failing to see how this paints technological developments, especially ones that can widely change society, in a positive light, showing technology as something that improves life, something to look forward to, to be on the side of, rather than opposed to. Technology as a promise, rather than a threat.

For example, dealing with Robots, more Asimov than Skynet.