Whats everyone reading?

[ThryllSeekyr]

I'm busy ploughing through all seventeen volumes of The Walking Dead.

I've just started volume eight.

I still can't get over the how much it differs from the television series.

[Charlie boy]

Legion- William Peter Blatty.
Brilliant, brilliant book.

Out of curiosity, would you agree that The Exorcist offers a scientific explanation to the very last page? Even the self sacrifice of leaping out of the window can be explained because Father Karras earlier reads a document on Exorcists coming to believe they've been possessed during the ritual and they've then killed themselves.

[djangoesque]

At the moment I'm enjoying the Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, Savage Wolverine, Batman, Star Wars...and 2000AD of course!.

[PreacherCain]

Currently reading through every Prog and Megazine from the last year as I've just returned home and need to catch up. From Prog 1782 and Meg 323 onwards.

Zarjaz!

[NorthVox]

Dredd TPB's, Rubicon: Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic, and I'll probs get around to re-reading City of Owls again.

[Mabs]

Currently reading through every Prog and Megazine from the last year as I've just returned home and need to catch up. From Prog 1782 and Meg 323 onwards.

Zarjaz!

Its good to have you back on more familiar shores, PC! 

[Colin YNWA]

... Rubicon: Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic...

That's a great book right there.

[sheldipez]

Dynamite's Army of Darkness 1st omnibus, it's purely disposable (it has nothing interesting nor groundbreaking to say) but Nick Bradshaw's art is the perfect balance of Evil Dead's grotesque and Army of Darkness' comedy. Though it looks like the art of recent issues has dropped of a cliff (is that meant to be Ash? I can't tell).

[TordelBack]

On the go or recently finished...

Having fallen in love with David Foster Wallace's essays in the magnificent collections Consider the Lobster and A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again I'm starting into his last (unfinished) novel The Pale King.  This man was gobsmackingly good, another unimaginable loss to suicide.

Also rapidly running out of unread material from the other great (happily still living) American wit David Sedaris, whose collection When You Are Engulfed In Flames is pant-wettingly funny, personal highpoint being the perils of using the phrase 'd'accord' around a French doctor, dentist or even concierge.  Perhaps not quite enough about his siblings in this one, but if every homophobe was forced to read Sedaris' testimonials of pure, enduring, devoted love for another man expressed through the most mortified scathing prose, the world would be a much better place.

Tom Shippey's lit-crit-lite analysis of the divisive appeal of J. R. R. Tolkein at least lets you know in advance what you're getting into, boasting the neutral tag line 'Author of the Century'. 

Francis John Byrne's staggeringly brilliant Irish Kings and High Kings is exciting me all over again, a surprisingly readable book which I never tire of.  FJB briefly attempted to teach me Early Irish History nearly 25 years ago, and while he failed miserably at the time his magnum opus is one of my Desert Island Books.  He's the Robert Graves of Ireland.

Paolo Bacigalupi's The Windup Girl turned out to be a treat, a deeply depressing look at a world that's running in ever decreasing circles through the colourful lens of a future Thailand.  An endearing alternative to Ian McDonald, and very much recommended.

JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire proved to be an ordeal to read aloud to eldest sprog, a truly ham-fisted chapter of monotonic monologued exposition at the climax almost killed me.  That said, the stresses of fame are wonderfully exorcised, it's a gripping tale right up to the end, and my Mad Eye Moody/Brendan Glesson impersonation has to be heard to be believed.  A bit of a break is called for before we approach the brick-sized Order of the Phoenix, and so we've begun CS Lewis' The Magician's Nephew, which is way better than I remember, and features one of the most unpleasant adult characters in any kids' novel in the ghastly Uncle Andrew.

I completed my full re-read of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and now think it ranks on the Top Three of all Moore's work.  Phenomenal, taken as a whole, and ever-improving.

Finally, it's a while ago I had just finished The Hydrogen Sonata when I learned of Iain Banks' terminal illness.  That it is one of his very best, and that it is to be the final Culture novel brings tears to my eyes even as I type this.

[Colin YNWA]

JK Rowling's Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire proved to be an ordeal to read aloud to eldest sprog, a truly ham-fisted chapter of monotonic monologued exposition at the climax almost killed me.  That said, the stresses of fame are wonderfully exorcised, it's a gripping tale right up to the end, and my Mad Eye Moody/Brendan Glesson impersonation has to be heard to be believed.  A bit of a break is called for before we approach the brick-sized Order of the Phoenix...

I find JK Rowling's progression really interesting. I don't think she's a good writer, but in the first three books she showed she was a good storyteller and could tell a gripping yarn over three hundred pages, where the action and adventure helped you get past the inadequacies in her characters and prose.

When you get to the later books, I only got a far as Order of the Phoenix so can't comment on the last couple, she is still a good storyteller, who can spin a ripping yarn over three hundred pages, its just for whatever reason she then felt the need to pad it out with another 4 - 500 pages or so, of the bad characterisation and prose, which made the pretty much a struggle to get through.

[TordelBack]

When you get to the later books, I only got a far as Order of the Phoenix so can't comment on the last couple, she is still a good storyteller, who can spin a ripping yarn over three hundred pages, its just for whatever reason she then felt the need to pad it out with another 4 - 500 pages or so, of the bad characterisation and prose, which made the pretty much a struggle to get through.

Yeah, it's strange to find myself dreading reading Order of the Phoenix aloud -  I'm a big fan of the HP series, and on my third run through now - but it's just so intimidatingly huge, with all the action squared away in the last 100 pages.  I actually find the penultimate volume to be the best of the lot, The Half-Blood Prince, in which stuff actually happens, and we learn the reasons for much of what has gone before, as well as commencing the slimming-down of the series towards the more modest greatest-hits tour that is Deathly Hallows. 

I'll say this for Rowling, she builds a world that kids really want to understand, and she tends to deliver on both subtle setup and satisfying explanation: she leads the younger reader into intended misconceptions and mistaken assumptions the eventual overturning of which really pay off (these tend to be a little too obvious for the older reader, but sod them).  Since we started the series as bedtime story choice, I am bombarded with questions as to motivations and mechanics, most of which I'm happy to realise will be explained in the fullness of time.  For now I just answer: "Honestly, haven't you read Hogwarts: A History yet?".

(That my boy is still paying rapt attention even as we wade into the longer volumes is evidenced by his picking up things I've never noticed:  characters in Goblet of Fire keep harping on about how Voldemort kills[spoiler] him-with-the-eyebrows-off-Twilight[/spoiler], but as was pointed out to me they're all wrong, and for some reason Harry doesn't correct them: it was actually his lickspittle Wormtail that did the killing, making his [spoiler]eventual turn[/spoiler] in Deathly Hallows even more dramatic).

[judgefloyd]

just re-read 'The Calculation of N'Bambwe' by Nigel Kneale.  Great British horror, very subtly done.

[NorthVox]

... Rubicon: Triumph and Tragedy of the Roman Republic...

That's a great book right there.

Certainly is, just wish I had more time to read it!

[Mabs]

I've got Judge Dredd Vol.1 (IDW) & Hawkeye: My life as a weapon Vol.1 lined up. 

[Spikes]

just re-read 'The Calculation of N'Bambwe' by Nigel Kneale.  Great British horror, very subtly done.

Now i just love everything by Nigel Kneale - a total genius, but havent been able to track down an affordable copy of the collection of short stories this is included in.

Is this (or a reprinting of) what you read it in?