Whats everyone reading?

[TordelBack]

Just started Umberto Eco's The Prague Cemetery

Ack!  I started Praque Cemetery but never finished it, no idea why because I love Eco, and if I remember rightly I was really enjoying it.  Time to dig it out again, I think.

[Spikes]

Intrigued by some of the images in Cam Kennedy's recent sketchbook (along with seeing some original art, for this, online) ive picked up, for the first time, The Light and Darkness War six issue mini-series set off of e-bay, and Mr Postman has just delivered them.
A quick flick through them reveals page after page of Cam Kennedy goodness, so looks like some good reading ahead.

[GordyM]

'Stories': a collection of, yup, stories by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Joe R Lansdale and about 20 others. Very entertaining!

[strontium_dog_90]

'Stories': a collection of, yup, stories by the likes of Neil Gaiman, Joe Hill, Joe R Lansdale and about 20 others. Very entertaining!

There's some great stuff in there - particularly the Chuck Palahniuk one 

Just read the novelaisation of the first "Dirty Harry" movie - impossible to read without hearing Eastwood's voice, and also the villain is a lot more fleshed out than in the film, and even scarier because of it. I hope no one is thinking right now of re-making this movie, though it's probably inevitable at some point.

[SuperSurfer]

Just read the novelaisation of the first "Dirty Harry" movie - impossible to read without hearing Eastwood's voice, and also the villain is a lot more fleshed out than in the film, and even scarier because of it. I hope no one is thinking right now of re-making this movie, though it's probably inevitable at some point.

I recently bought that from my local Oxfam. What a brilliant cover (and back cover).

[Hap Hazzard]

I'm quite lucky in that my work gives me lots of downtime where I can read. So I keep one book on the go at work, and one at home at the same time.  Currently reading the new Dredd novel, set after he's only got a year on the streets. Very good so far. At home I'm reading for the second time The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Great book. 

[Colin YNWA]

At home I'm reading for the second time The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Great book.

Isn't it just, one of my all time favs. Always doing the rounds with my friends but must get to a read myself at some point.

[Hap Hazzard]

At home I'm reading for the second time The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Great book.

Isn't it just, one of my all time favs. Always doing the rounds with my friends but must get to a read myself at some point.

Yeah it's superb. I do think Chabon's The Yiddish Policemans Union is the better book though by a margin, but jeez that guy can write a good book.

[DeFuzzed]

Jack Reacher books up to #11, by Lee Child

Despite some clunky dialogue here and there, this is a truly entertaining read. And this is also despite Jack failing to see some things that he really should, being a great investigator and all. He's one helluva vigilante, and you're not going to get any deep soul-searching stuff which is refreshing. Own moral code, anger issues, huge beast of a guy and his physicality really is a big part of Jack Reacher, so now more than in the beginning when I first started reading this series, I'm really curious how the movie is going to tackle that.

The nouveau noir feel is not present anymore, or maybe it's just me sinking into the books and feeling comfortable in there. No idea. All I know at this point - eleven books down, 6 to go - I'm definitely a fan now despite the little and not so little annoyances. Good outweighs the bad. Good stuff.

Quote from #10, The Hard Way:  '.... the remorse gene was missing from his DNA. Entirely. It just wasn't there. Where some men might have retrospectively agonized over justification, he spent his energy figuring out where best to hide the bodies....'

[Mardroid]

I have two books on the go at the moment. In the comics area I've got Judge Dredd Case files 2. On the more traditional front* I'm reading 20th Century Ghosts a book of short stories by Joe Hill. I was expecting and (I'll admit) hoping they'd all be ghost stories. They're not. At least not in the literal sense. They're not all even supernatural.  They are however mostly good stories, which is all that matters really, although  I prefer some to others, which is usual with these things, and those less liked are still highly readable.

If I had a criticism at all, it would be that I sometimes come suddenly to the end of a particular tale hoping for more. That was the case in the last story I read 'The Black Telephone', but on thinking about it more, the ending for that was perfect. [spoiler]"It's for you." It really was.[/spoiler] A small spoiler there, but nothing you should get without context.

*Although that's debatable considering some of the earliest forms of writing were comics of a type.

[TordelBack]

The Life of Pi, Yann Martel.  Spotted this down the recycling center this morning and decided that the fates had clearly decreed it was time to get round to reading a book that has been recommended to me by several dozen people.  It starts well, anyway.

(Also found, a brand new copy of Dora the Explorer: Let's Explore!  As a second child whose new book intake is mainly from the library and/or parish sales, I think my daughter was astonished to find that some lift-the-flap books actually have flaps, and not just Daddy's rapidly-substituted hand).

[Colin YNWA]

The Life of Pi, Yann Martel.  Spotted this down the recycling center this morning and decided that the fates had clearly decreed it was time to get round to reading a book that has been recommended to me by several dozen people.  It starts well, anyway.

I called a book on here one of my all time favourites, well this one is up there and possibly scrapping for number one spot. Bloody love it.

[Professor Bear]

Sword of Sorcery, a comic I bought on the basis that I realised I'd dumped every other DC title I was reading and didn't want to be seen as a purely Marvel snob.  Despite the name, it's more of a sci-fi anthology, and I thought opening tale Amethyst was good, if a little derivative of a lot of po-faced smoldering YA/teen fiction like Twilight that really doesn't gel well with the stuff in the premise clearly aimed at young girls, mainly a blonde-haired barbie doll princess on a quest to reclaim the throne of Gemworld from her wicked aunt.  But lawks o' lawdy - it is actually a pretty decent opener in what seems like a dedicated fantasy tale of dual worlds with some minor superhero trappings: think of other kids' properties like W.I.T.C.H. or that oversexed Italian shit with the fairies - Wopz or whatever it's called - and you're not far off, or She-Ra banged onto Stargate SG1.
The gender balance is off with there being no male characters in the cast at all beyond a trio of high school gang-rapists who show up in a scene that has garnered some unfortunate buzz for the book that I can't quite muster up any enthusiasm to join in with seeing as it seems to stem from a misplaced belief that rape has no place in comic books because it didn't used to be in them*, but the sad fact is that a lot of young women get their first experiences of being viewed sexually from an unwelcome quarter, and at an inappropriate age**, and it's not victimising the female readership to acknowledge this in fiction as much as it is acknowledging that it exists and is viewed by sensible people as abhorrent.  The benefits of acknowledging it outweigh the benefits of sticking to plain old murder and genocide to drive comic book stories, but having said all that, the scene is drawn in rather a sensational fashion that for me doesn't gel with the way it's written and I can see why it takes some readers out of the story.  For me, what takes me out of the story is the shoehorning-in of John Constantine in four panels for some reason that will probably result in Amethyst being inducted into some superteam or other and thus prompt writer Christy Marx to join what seems like every other writer in North America in an exodus from the company saying her stories were chopped off at the knees in some way, which would be a shame as there's a ton of stuff in here that I haven't seen in a while in the superhero book that would be undermined by jumping into the DCU paddling pool too quickly and abandoning the world of Nilaa where the bulk of the action is designed to take place.

By contrast, Beowulf is overly-familiar to the point that it was described to me as being "just fucking Skyrim", but that's unfair... there's a good bit of Rage and Fallout 3 in there, too.  The problem is that so much of the mythology and lexicon of Beowulf has appeared elsewhere in popular culture in the last decade that it's hard to shake the suspicion that the writer just strip-mined whatever SyFy "original" movie he just watched or videogame he was playing to flesh out a pretty basic story: three house slaves in a post-apocalyptic future defrost a warrior from stasis and he kills them - that is literally it.  It looks great, but there's nothing of interest to latch onto and if I wanted this kind of thing I'd just read a third of an issue of Wasteland instead.  Still, I can see it might have some fans who don't want to admit they like reading the girly first half of the anthology and I suspect that's why it's here instead of an update of the far more well-known Kamandi, who's been in quite a few episodes of Brave and the Bold recently and has the Jack Kirby factor in his favor.  "Beowulf?  Who cares?"

Sword of Sorcery is at least half decent, then, and worth a punt at just 15p more than an issue of 2000ad, and without the swearing and nudity.



* I'm reading the original Amethyst comics (from 1983) at the minute, spurred on by SoS and though only halfway through the second issue, the 13 year old main character has been almost raped twice, and when I put the book down last she was in the process of being groped on the back of a robot tiger...
** Thanks for ruining my Twitter feed forever, @EverydaySexism

[Davek]

Catcher in the Rye for the first time. Love all that 50s Ivy League preppy style.

[shaolin_monkey]

By contrast, Beowulf is overly-familiar to the point that it was described to me as being "just fucking Skyrim", but that's unfair... there's a good bit of Rage and Fallout 3 in there, too. 

You win the prestigious 'shaolin_monkey's favourite quote of the week' award.  Sit back and bask in the kudos, my friend.