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So...what is everybody reading now? (part Deux)

Do you have so little faith in Weekly World News? It'll be back in no time at all :p
 
Now, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl.

Leaving for a conference to the Czech Republic tomorrow morning .. taking Contact, by Carl Sagan, with me.
 
I'm still waiting for The Power of One to be posted to me.

I bought the book version of The Princess Bride to tide me over tillit gets here though.
 
I just finished Shards of Honor and I'm about to begin Barrayar, the first two books (chronologically) of the Miles Vorkosigan series, by Lois McMaster Bujold; a really gorgeous sci-fi series by a really fantastic writer. I know few other authors who can make you laugh and weep in the space of three paragraphs quite like Bujold can, and besides, her main hero is a frenetic control-freak dwarf. How could you go wrong?
 
Jade Jaguar said:
I loved that when I read it, when I was about 9. I also found it interesting that things, like names and concepts, were taken from it and used in Boy Scouts, and Cub Scouts.
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I was disappointed at the Jungle Book .. not in quality, but in quantity. I had never gathered that it was a collection of short stories, and NOT a book just about Mowgli. So there was I, a third into the book, and suddenly noticing that Mowgli's story was over already. Bah! :p .. oh well, I should have the Second Jungle book somewhere.

I also noticed quite a few names and concepts that must have been popularized by the book, also if not created by Kipling. Great PR for Indian languages, in any case.

Finished Contact by Carl Sagan, which I greatly enjoyed.

Now reading "From the Earth to the Moon", by Jules Verne.
 
Ah, so you did like Sagan's "Contact"? I didn't read much of his writing, only two or three books, but they are sometimes pretty interesting. :)
 
hypatia said:
Ah, so you did like Sagan's "Contact"? I didn't read much of his writing, only two or three books, but they are sometimes pretty interesting. :)
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I quite liked the movie already, in spite of Matthew McConaughey. The book was great though - was my first encounter with anything directly made by Sagan, fiction or non-fiction. Though, as fun as much as I enjoyed the real science in the book, there was one huge flaw - in the ending. No idea if you remember it :-D

SPOILERS FOR CONTACT

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In the end, Ellie discovers a message hidden deep into Pi, when looking at Pi in base-11 arithmetics. A message that is "statistically impossible".

There is no such thing as a "statistically impossible" series of numbers in an infinite array of random numbers. No matter what array of numbers you think of, it'll be in Pi, *somewhere*.

Link

My phone number is there quite quickly, for example. :D
 
Oh, and I was surprised to find out earlier today that my aunt knew Carl Sagan. Her husband is a (retired, now) professor of biology at Cornell University, where Sagan was, and got to hang out with him a lot in the old days. Enough that my aunt got to meet him too. Small world :p .. any details I should try to squeeze out of my aunt? :p
 
(bumping this.)

I am reading "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card. I feel like such a ninny, but I can't believe I've gone this long w/o reading it. My dad wouldn't leave me alone about it, so I had to give it a shot.

Awesome so far, though OSC has a severe obsession with farts. (snicker)
 
I just starting reading Harry Turtledove after finishing the 6 books in the Novels of the Change series by S.M. Sterling. I recommend Stirling if you enjoy, end of the world kind of themes which i do. I seem to have a fascination with how the world might end. LOL
 
Funny, I've also never read Ender's Game. I was going to but I saw Collen McCullough put out another book in her Rome series, so I picked that up.
 
Jonny_Fever said:
I just starting reading Harry Turtledove after finishing the 6 books in the Novels of the Change series by S.M. Sterling. I recommend Stirling if you enjoy, end of the world kind of themes which i do. I seem to have a fascination with how the world might end. LOL
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I am just finishing the Protector's war, I find it fascinating to speculate how we would survive if we had to do without our technology, if we could go on and not self destruct.

I liked the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy by Stirling, it was the flip-side of the Novels of the Change and took technology back into history and how that effects what goes forward.

You should enjoy Turtledove a lot, my hubby has read just about everything he has written.

p.s. I wonder why someone would think the Novels of the Change was cribbed from Independence Day? There is no relation as far as I can see :p

As for those who are just getting around to reading Ender's Game, it is better late than never. I read it about 10 years ago and enjoyed it a lot.:cool:

One last recommend, I am also into a fantasy series called His Majesty's Dragon. It is set in Napoleonic times and the battles are historical but they fight with dragons as well as their ships. It has been very enjoyable and a clever story line.

phew!:LOL:
 
Finished "The Prestige" by Christopher Priest the other day. Great book, highly recommended.

BUT

Only for people that have already seen the movie. Firstly because this is one case where the movie is actually better than the book - not due to any failings of the book, but simply because the movie is bloody fantastic. Also, the movie is only a very loose adaption of the movie. Knowing the book will ruin the later half of the movie. Knowing the movie will not spoil the climax of the book, as the book's climax is part of a plot line completely abandoned for the movie.

....

Now reading "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe", second book in Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide series.
 
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