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What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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"Happyslapped by a jellyfish" by Karl Pilkington. And if you don't know who he is you have to listen to the Ricky Gervais show!
 
Roderick Random, by the ever-popular Tobias Smollett. Can't believe I never read it before. What a violent book! What a movie it would make!

I assume that the Beeb has had a go an RR mini-series, yes?
 
Just finished the Kite Runner. Wish I hadn't. I can handle tragedy in a book, but this one was just too hopeless, too empty. A very well-told story, with lovely and complex characters, but just too much sad.:(
 
RobRoy said:
The Gunslinger by Stephen King. It's gotta be my eighteenth re-reading.
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I just re-read 'Salems Lot for the 10th time. Gunslinger isn't due for a re-read yet. I've got a large back log at the moment. The Ultimates2 finally came out in a complete edition, so I had to shoehorn it in.
 
I just finished Hell Hawks by Robert Dorr & Thomas Jones I'm currently reading Empires of the Sea by Roger Cowley
 
Roboramma said:
I'd think you were weird if it didn't. You may enjoy this:



I'm reading The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, by Melvin Konner, which is pretty amazing. It's the first book in a while that's really grabbed me in my chest or brought tears to my eyes the way the above sagan passage always does. His science is superb, taking a broad look at evidence from many fields and developing a very sophisticated view of a complex topic. And the prose is amazing, poetic, stirring.
It was written in 1982, yet, to my best ability to see, still retains its value.
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Okay, you got me. (I should have known not to watch this at work!)

The Tangled Wing sounds interesting, and it looks like it was updated in 2003. I read a bit of an excerpt on Amazon and it looks like I'm going to have to get this book, now... :) Thanks!
 
Stiff, by Mary Roach About the "lives" of cadavers - voyeuristic, and well told, though I wouldn't read it while eating if you are squeamish. Lively telling ;) and really expands what "donating your body for science" looks like.
 
Aurelian said:
Stiff, by Mary Roach About the "lives" of cadavers - voyeuristic, and well told, though I wouldn't read it while eating if you are squeamish. Lively telling ;) and really expands what "donating your body for science" looks like.
Click to expand...

That is an EXCELLENT book.

My current list is as follows:
"Hollow chocolate bunnies of the apocalypse" by Robert Rankin, 'cause you can never have too many stories about living toys.
"Thank God for Evolution" by Michael Dowd. I've seen him speak a couple of times so I figured that I should get a more permanent form.
Various research articles, mainly about transformer construction, Marx generators, FPGA construction and transforming time-variant signals into frequency spectra. Yeah, I'm a geek, so what of it?
Finally, on my ride into work in the mornings, I listen to "1776" by David McCullough. I loved "John Adams", like the miniseries of the same name. I got ~30 minutes to kill every morning so I choose a book on CD. I'm on the thrird disk and, so far, so good.
 
I just finished up two books:

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston. This book is actually a great read for skeptics, as it illustrates the danger of jumping to conspiratorial conclusions.

Satan's Circus by Mike Dash. Another great book about Charley Becker, the only NYPD police officer to be executed.

I just began Sin in the Second City, which is about the Everleigh House, Chicago's premier bordello during the turn of the century. Just started it, but it's great so far.
 
I just finished up two books:

The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston. This book is actually a great read for skeptics, as it illustrates the danger of jumping to conspiratorial conclusions.

Satan's Circus by Mike Dash. Another great book about Charley Becker, the only NYPD police officer to be executed.

I just began Sin in the Second City, which is about the Everleigh House, Chicago's premier bordello during the turn of the century. Just started it, but it's great so far.
 
Aurelian said:
Stiff, by Mary Roach About the "lives" of cadavers - voyeuristic, and well told, though I wouldn't read it while eating if you are squeamish. Lively telling ;) and really expands what "donating your body for science" looks like.
Click to expand...

Have just finished The Italian boy, murder and grave-robbery in 1830s London, by Sarah Wise.

Am now halfway in Snakes in Suits, by Robert Hare. It's about psychopaths in the work place. Scary, fascinating and revealing.
 
'Shark Music' by Carol O'Connel

I've been a fan of the 'Mallory' books right from the first one (Mallory's Oracle), and this is shaping up to be a good example. I'm not keen on some of the caricature-ish characterisations that have emerged in the series, and sometimes the psychological side of tghings gets a bit weighty for my tastes, but overall the characters are solid, beautifully flawed, and compelling.
 
I am currently reading Opening Atlantis by Harry Turtledove, and just finished

When You are Engulfed in Flames By David Sedaris.
 
Having fallen in love with the movie The Whole Wide World, I'm reading One Who Walked Alone by Novalyne Price. This is about Robert E. Howard, author of the Conan the Barbarian stories among others.

Ironically, I have no interest in Conan.
 
I usually have several going at once (short attention span :) ). Most recently:

*Charles Seife, Zero: The Story of a Dangerous Idea ISBN-13: 9780140296471

One of a series of 'books about numbers' that I've been working through, including
such titles as The Joy of Pi; The story of e; [square root of -1]: An
Imaginary Tale; etc.

A fascinating history of the introduction of zero into our number system -- and of the
great resistance to it. Goes a good deal beyond the title subject, taking up a number of
themes of 20th century physics near the end.

*Lee Smolin, The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, the Fall of a
Science, and What Comes Next ISBN-13: 9780618551057

Highly recommended for anyone wondering what the bloody hell "string theory" is, and
why it has (or hasn't) taken over modern physics. Explores the rationale behind string
theory, problems with it, and some of the alternatives being proposed. [Note for those
put off by the heavy math involved with such things: hardly an equation in the book.]

*Tom Standage, The Victorian Internet: The Remarkable Story of the Telegraph and
the Nineteenth Century's On-Line Pioneers ISBN-13: 9780802716040

I'm actually rereading this. It's a fun book that finds a number of convincing parallels
between the social changes wrought by the internet and those wrought by the
telegraph 100 years earlier. Especially interesting to a techno-geek like myself was
the discovery of some of the companion technologies developed to support the
telegraph -- like faxes and vacuum-tube delivery systems.

And just for fun:

*Karen Wilikin (ed.), Ascending Peculiarity: Edward Gorey on Edward Gorey
ISBN: 015601291X

To describe Edward Gorey as a 'graphic artist' is to severely limit what he did, but it's
as close as I can come without actually showing you some of his stuff. Gorey's work
isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you have a taste for the absurd you should check it
out. His original publications were printed in limited editions, often privately, and are
hard-to-find collectors' items, but several collections with variations on the title
"Amphigorey" can be had. Even if you don't know who he is, when you open
one of these books you will probably recognize his style. A true American eccentric, as
this quasi-autobiography confirms.

Cheers!
 
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