Whats everyone reading?

[Colin YNWA]

Alice in Wonderland. Don't laugh. I got it as a free download for my Kobo ereader.

Why would we its a fantastic book.

[Zarjazzer]

Anno Dracula by Kim Newman a really refreshing look at vampires with the British Empire now run by Vlad (Dracula) who has enamoured Queen Vic. Meanwhile a killer stalks Whitechapel murdering vampire ladies of the night. Quite alot of characters but it worked out pretty well in the end. Good but grim fun.

[Davek]

Reading The Hot Kid by Elmore Leonard. Read about 1/3 of it, sharp concise dialogue-would recommend so far.

[Kerrin]

Kerrin, can you recommend one of his 'earlier, more sterile, cosmic destruction' books? I like reynolds off and on, but havent yet read anything to equal 'pushing ice', which i found almost worthy of clarke. I started revelation space, but didnt get on with it.

Stevie's Pick of Reynolds' Novels are the later stand alones.

Both House of Suns (Edmund Hamilton & Doc EE Smith's rebooted in a 21st  Century Space Opera Year Zero)  & Terminal City   (simultaneously a homage to Clarke's City & the Stars, a critique of steampunk & the history of science fiction as a genre rendered as narrative) are just stunning.

That said, if the Clarkean Blue Remembered Earth is anything to go by this new trilogy will be the business.

Stevie speaks the truth Brother Blue Thing.

Having finished "Blue Remembered Earth" I think I might have a reread of Ken MacLeod"s "Engines of Light" series. Enough time has now passed that I can't remember a damn thing about them.

Giant squids and aliens swim languidly to mind though.

[House of Usher]

I am only just now reading Lord of The Flies.

Again, for work. And I am really glad. I've wanted to read it for about 25 years but never got round to it. No time, and I found the two film versions so harrowing I didn't feel brave enough for the print version.

But it is a wonderful book, every bit as good as I've ever heard it is, and as an object of study it's an absolute gift. If you've thought about reading it but not taken the plunge, think about the fact that it's not much more than 200 pages long and mostly speech. It's a quick read.

[judgefloyd]

I wouldn't laugh at anyone reading Alice In Wonderland either, unless they were wearing something very funny at the same time. 

I've started reading 'A Princess of Mars' which is fun in a very old fashioned way.  The writing is good.

[Mardroid]

Reading Thor: Reborn at the moment.

Not bad. It strikes me as a slightly odd book to introduce the character to a new audience though. The 'story so far' at the start serves it pretty well but there's still that sense of jumping on quite a way into a journey. As an introduction to the character from a personality perspective rather than  his story, I guess it works very well though.

Anyway, I'm undecided at present how much I like it. The ideas are certainly very interesting. The plot feels a little disjointed. I'll see how it fares at the end. The art is smashing. Even if I end up disliking the story I think I'll still find it very readable, although would I come back to it?

[Gonk]

reading plays is difficult as they are supposed to be watched. In "The Taming of the Shrew" the character Petruchio role is to domesticate his newly aquired bride Katherina. According to the play Petruchio manages this by cruelly inverting the situation between him and his wife by escalating and redoubling her so called bad behaviour by "acting" more angrier, tempermental, perverse and noisier than Katherina. In this way Petruchio moulds his wife into a norm of female good behaviour that is recognised, sanctioned by the institutions of the State and the Church.

As the play progresses the moral judgements that constitute the differences between good and bad behaviour become less and less distinct as each character is revealed as just that : an actor playing a role.

Then, God be blessed, it is the blessed sun.
But sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.

On the stage created by Shakespeare's play, there is not any fixed identity, it is mask upon mask.

[markgr]

Just finished The Ganymede Takeover by Ray Nelson/Phil K Dick-I enjoyed it better than his collaboration with Roger Zelazny.

And just finished the GN, To the ends of nu earth (Rogue Trooper)-Haven't read it in years, but still classic and enjoyable stuff.

[House of Usher]

reading plays is difficult as they are supposed to be watched. In "The Taming of the Shrew" the character Petruchio role is to domesticate his newly aquired bride Katherina. According to the play Petruchio manages this by cruelly inverting the situation between him and his wife by escalating and redoubling her so called bad behaviour by "acting" more angrier, tempermental, perverse and noisier than Katherina. In this way Petruchio moulds his wife into a norm of female good behaviour that is recognised, sanctioned by the institutions of the State and the Church.

As the play progresses the moral judgements that constitute the differences between good and bad behaviour become less and less distinct as each character is revealed as just that : an actor playing a role.

Then, God be blessed, it is the blessed sun.
But sun it is not, when you say it is not,
And the moon changes even as your mind.

On the stage created by Shakespeare's play, there is not any fixed identity, it is mask upon mask.

Discuss with close reference to the extract. [20 marks]

[judgefloyd]

reading plays is difficult as they are supposed to be watched.

I like reading plays.  In particular, George Bernard Shaw's plays are fun to read, because they're so interesting.  Shakespeare's plays are good to read for the convoluted interesting language. 

[House of Usher]

reading plays is difficult as they are supposed to be watched.

Agreed: it really helps a lot if you can visualize what is going on. The graphic novel adaptations by Classical Comics are a great aid to understanding for GCSE students in particular. Not only do they come in original and translated editions (including a simplified 'quick text'), but the characters move around and do things naturalistically while they are speaking, which makes it livelier and more dynamic than reading the text alone.

I like reading plays too. I've found George Bernard Shaw, Oscar Wilde, Joe Orton, Harold Pinter, Samuel Beckett and Shakespeare pleasant enough to read. I found An Inspector Calls by J.B. Priestley a bit of a chore at first but it gets easier every time you read it. I hated Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde, but loved The Importance of Being Earnest. I liked The Crucible by Arthur Miller but struggled with Death of A Salesman over and over again because I found it such a bore.

Blood Brothers by Willy Russell is a perennial favourite with GCSE exam boards but it doesn't make great reading - far better off being performed, and sung, on stage.

[Gonk]

Wilde's Salome is an interesting one. You can justifiably say that one is quite a misogynistic drama; this accusation has been leveled unfairly at "The Taming of the Shrew" by critics who just do not get what the play is about.

A really good one to read is Sophocles' Oedipus plays; generally these plays are more reliant on narrative than action because all the major events happen off the stage and are only related to the audience through the dialogue between characters. The events of the tragedy are told, not acted out; the audience does not even get to see Oedipus' act of self mutilation.

[Gonk]

                            WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
           
                     Not if men's tongues and angels' all in one
                       Spake, might the word be said that might speak
                            Thee.
                       Streams, winds, woods, flowers, fields, mountains,
                             yea, the sea,
                      What power is in them all to praise the sun?
                       His praise is this,-he can be praised of none.
                         Man, woman, child, praise God for him ; but he
                         Exults not to be worshipped, but to be.
                       He is ; and, being, beholds his work well done.
                       All joy, all glory, all sorrow, all strength, all mirth,
                       Are his : without him, day were night on earth.
                          Time knows not his from time's own period.
                       All lutes, all harps, all viols, all flutes, all lyres,
                       Fall dumb before him ere one string suspires.
                       All stars are angels ; but the sun is God.

by A. C. Swinburne


This Victorian poet regarded Shakespeare works as outliving all other creative works because it contained the whole of nature and experience, it was complete in every sense of the word. Swinburne places Shakespeare words higher than the ones found in Genesis. For this poet, Shakespeare transcends all time and history, and this is what makes his works monumental for Swinburne. Shakespeare is still monumentally important in our own era, whilst Swinburne's fame is a lesser known one.   

[GordyM]

The End Specialist - Drew Magary

A very interesting look at what would possibly happen if scientists developed a way of stopping our bodies from ageing and basically make anyone who takes the cure immortal. It's taken from the POV of an average guy who gets the cure, keeping it nicely grounded and showing us how society would change from the bottom up.