[May 2015] What Are You Reading?

[delericho]

I finally finished "Vanity Fair" on Friday. There was a moment of horror when I discovered that my copy was missing pages 531 - 580 (with the next 50 pages duplicated instead), but of course the text is available online so I read it there.

It was pretty good, though not the best book I've read this year. In particular, he had a good line in sarcasm that I appreciated.

After that, I read through "The Bell Jar" by Sylvia Plath, which I got through in two days - it was rather shorter than VF, and the language was a little more accessible, too. Again, it was okay - better than "Catcher in the Rye", which was the book it most reminded me of, but then I find CitR rather over-rated, so that's not a great accolade.

I'm still waiting for this month's Pathfinder, so I'm marking time with "How to be a Time Lord" from BBC books. And I'm also gradually reading through the 5e DMG. One chapter in, it's already doing well - that first chapter reminded me of 2nd Ed's "Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide", which I consider one of the best DM's books I've ever read.

 

[Richards]

I just finished up "Tangled Threads," which was apparently the fourth in a series by Jennifer Estep, but it was written in such a way that the reader didn't really need to have read the previous three (which was fortunate, because I hadn't). Anyway, it's an urban fantasy about a semi-retired assassin named the Spider who wields two types of elemental magic, up against the woman who had killed her family when she was young (and the elemental assassin that was sent after the Spider to prevent her from having her revenge). It was pretty good...

...but nowhere near as good as the book I'm reading now, "Shibumi," by Trevarian. It's about a modern-day assassin whose training involved the Japanese game of Go. I started it yesterday and I'm halfway through it already - it's very gripping.

Waiting in the sidelines are two more books about a completely different modern-day assassin, John Rain. I guess I'm kind of on an assassin kick right now.

Johnathan