What are you reading? April 2009

[Atlatl Jones]

For fiction, I'm reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery.

For non-fiction, I'm reading The Fall of Rome: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather.

I'm also reading a couple books and way too many journal articles for my dissertation. It's weird: To relax and unwind from all the reading I have to do for school... I read some more.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Rereading L. Sprague De Camp's trilogy beginning with The Goblin Tower.

Absolutely the inspiration for the old classic D&D rope trick spell. No doubt about it. A rope bundle snakes upward into the air, ending in an ethereal cloud, once the climber climbs up in he can look back down and even pull the rope up into the extradimensional space. Yeah. Right out of the opening scene.

In fact, the spell casting by the wizards feel more D&D-like than Jack Vance's Dying Earth does. The memorizing, the components, the explicit limit per day of spells.

And the dialogue of the characters! I've never had to break out my dictionary as often as I ever have for another book, short of Shakespeare. I'm loving it.

 

[Arkhandus]

Finally got some new books to read, after re-reading old ones for the past few months. Read Mistborn: The Final Empire a few months ago. Now starting on book 2 of Mistborn, The Well of Ascension. Just finished reading book 2 of the Dark Templar trilogy: Shadow Hunters, yesterday (a StarCraft novel).

I need to find a local bookstore that has the current Shadowrun novel line, since I couldn't continue reading it right after the first book, and haven't been able to pick it back up again from book 2, for lack of seeing any copies in local bookstores. I also need to find a local store with the last 2-3 Robotech novels that I don't already have; read most of the series in high school, but didn't buy copies of the books I read in the library. Only in the past few years did I start slowly buying up the compilations of the series; I've got the Battlecry, Doomsday, and Southern Cross trilogy compilations, but not the Invid Invasion trilogy, and there were 1-2 books from later in the series that I never bought.

 

[S. Baldrick]

The Sword of Rhiannon by Leigh Brackett

 

[Wombat]

Away for the weekend ... I left my book behind.

So, since it is at hand, I am reading a bunch of Lovecraft out of season.

 

[drothgery]

Currently re-reading Bujold's Vorkosigan series.

On-deck later this month due to sequels hitting paperback in April
Sanderson's Mistborn books
Campell's Lost Fleet books
Tad Williams' Shadowmarch

 

[Tinker Gnome]

Winter's Heart by Robert Jordan.

 

[Darth Shoju]

Inside Straight, the new(ish) Wildcards novel. I just finished Rise of a Merchant Prince by Feist and I'm not sure if I'm going to continue with the series. It's been fairly mediocre so far. I also just completed Zoe's Tale by Scalzi and really enjoyed it. I've got The Android's Dream sitting in the pile and I might go for it next, or Lost by Gregory McGuire.

I also started Crisis on Infinite Earths the other day and it's been tedious. If it wasn't for George Perez's lovely art I might have given up on it by now.

 

[Mark]

Friends of the Library, Mount Prospect, IL

There is a sale coming up for the Friends of the (Mount Prospect, IL) Library where they have great prices on used books. I would not normally mention this but in the last couple of weeks two estates have donated an unusually large quantity of military history books which might be of particular interest to our community. The library also recently purged their Science Fiction and Fantasy section so, if you do not mind owning former library books, there are hundreds of hardbacks of this genre fiction for sale at $1.00 each and pocket paperbacks for $0.25. The sale takes place on April 17th, 18th and 19th, but Friday evening is reserved for members. You can however choose to become a member and pay a $5 fee at the door which covers you for all four sales in the year (not the calendar year but from when you sign up until one year later). Some prefer to be there on Friday because a number of "dealers" who buy and resell on eBay or through bookstores do so, though there are plenty of great deals all weekend. The address is on the website -

Mount Prospect Public Library

Members Only Night: Friday, April 17, 6:30-9:30pm
General Public: Saturday, April 18, 9:00-4:30pm
General Public: Sunday, April 19, Noon-4:30pm

I have also been asked, because of my own interest in hobby gaming, to put a number of the specialized books online through my eBay store. These have specifically to do with military miniatures and model building, so feel free to have a look -

eBay Store - Creative Mountain Store:

Thanks and good book hunting!

As always,
Mark Clover

 

[Wombat]

For non-fiction, I'm reading The Fall of Rome: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians, by Peter Heather.

When you get a little deeper into this one, I'd love to hear the author's theories. I like keeping track of all the various permutations on "What/When was the Fall of Rome?" and I have a couple of friends who study the historical division now known as Late Antiquity.