[September] What are you reading?

[Mercutio01]

Finished The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (I am not a fan), and started The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and 11/22/63 (audiobook for my commute), both of which I'm enjoying so far.

 

[Nellisir]

Read A Short History of Nearly Everything. Excellent, excellent book.

 

[Krug]

Finished Ready Player One. It was good, but not great. Too much exposition, and some of the challenges were just total geekouts. Like knowing every line in Wargames and Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The last third of the book was surprisingly straightforward. Expected a lot more backstabbing and betrayals.

 

[Jhaelen]

I finished the third installment of the 'Game of Thrones' novels ('A Storm of Swords') and have to agree that it's a better novel to stop reading than the second was.

I've now started reading 'Leviathan Wakes' by James S. A. Corey which so far (after about 2/5 of the novel) isn't bad but also nothing overly exciting.

 

[Mark CMG]

Read A Short History of Nearly Everything. Excellent, excellent book.

A Walk in the Woods is a favorite of mine. I'm guessing this has all the same sense of irony and humor that is his trademark?

 

[Nellisir]

A Walk in the Woods is a favorite of mine. I'm guessing this has all the same sense of irony and humor that is his trademark?

I won't say this is the best quote, but I found it really funny. There are many, many others:
"How do you spend forty-two years on one species of plant?" I asked.
"It's remarkable, isn't it?" Fortey agreed. He thought for a moment. "He's very thorough apparently." The lift door opened to reveal a bricked-over opening. Fortey looked confounded. "That's very strange," he said. "That used to be Botany back there." - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pg. 352**

 

[Mark CMG]

I won't say this is the best quote, but I found it really funny. There are many, many others:
"How do you spend forty-two years on one species of plant?" I asked.
"It's remarkable, isn't it?" Fortey agreed. He thought for a moment. "He's very thorough apparently." The lift door opened to reveal a bricked-over opening. Fortey looked confounded. "That's very strange," he said. "That used to be Botany back there." - Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything, pg. 352**

Thanks! Nothing like a bit of befuddlement to get the weekend rolling!

 

[Dioltach]

I'm a big Bill Bryson fan. I've read all his travel books several times, as well as Notes from a Big Country/I'm a Stranger Here Myself and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and most of A Short History of Nearly Everything and At Home. The latter two books contIned too much information to absorb at once, though, which is pretty much the default way to read Bryson seeing as his books are so difficult to put down.

If you like his travel books, I can recommend Pete McCarthy's books The Road to McCarthy and McCarthy's Bar.

 

[Nellisir]

I just read Wuthering Heights, which was fantastic, and am almost finished The Unincorporated Man, which is a 400-page novel built around an interesting idea for a short story. It's dull and not that well-written.