I started reading the first book in The Aspect Emperor series, so far I'm loving it, I had loads of frustrated questions at the end of The Prince of Nothing trilogy and it seems like they're going to be answered.  The author is unashamedly inspired by Dune (and LoTR), he dumps you at the deep end of a foreign culture in the midst of an apocalypse, leaving you to piece together the world while keeping the plot clear.

I've been going back through the Ring of Fire - Eric Flint's 1632 and onwards.

I'm actually upset that I'm almost done with 2nd Patrick Rothfuss book.  He's the best writer I have read in a long while, and I want the third book now.

I felt the same way

 

 

I'm about to start some really short Shadowrun books I picked up on Amazon

 

The Vladivostok Gauntlet and Another Rainy Night

Making may way through The Dirty Streets of Heaven by Tad Williams

 

I like it well enough but I'm easy like that

The Last Dark:  The Last Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant 

 

by Stephen R. Donaldson

 

The final book of The Last Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, and the climax to the story of Thomas Covenant. 

Nearing the end of the diary of Anne Frank. It's all a bit creepy just now. If you've read it, you'll know why.

My brother sent me this for my b-day. Evidently contains some history of TSR and Gary Gygax and some insight into the "first-ever nerd subculture."  I remember my religio-parental units outlawing D&D at the time, you know, cause it was a gateway to devil-worship. Seriously. 

 

Just finished the second book in the Bobby Dollar series, Happy Hour in Hell, by Tad Williams

 

I liked it

My brother sent me this for my b-day. Evidently contains some history of TSR and Gary Gygax and some insight into the "first-ever nerd subculture."  I remember my religio-parental units outlawing D&D at the time, you know, cause it was a gateway to devil-worship. Seriously. 

 

 If you think you had it bad imagine living in South Africa during Apartheid and playing a game like D&D

 

The government was run by people who justified institutionalized racism through certain passages of scripture. So you can imagine how they felt about the concept of a game like D&D

 

The government was run by people who justified institutionalized racism through certain passages of scripture. So you can imagine how they felt about the concept of a game like D&D

 

 

Ugh, I ... did not know that, over there. A more passively similar vein in this country, when I was a kid, except the momo scripture race reference was changed from "white and delightsome" to "light and delightsome." They hated D&D because it encouraged imagination, which of course leads to the awareness jesus actually doesn't want ten percent of your personal income, monthly, on time. 

 

 

The government was run by people who justified institutionalized racism through certain passages of scripture. So you can imagine how they felt about the concept of a game like D&D

 

 

Ugh, I ... did not know that, over there. A more passively similar vein in this country, when I was a kid, except the momo scripture race reference was changed from "white and delightsome" to "light and delightsome." They hated D&D because it encouraged imagination, which of course leads to the awareness jesus actually doesn't want ten percent of your personal income, monthly, on time. 

 

 

Wait, what?

 

 

 

The government was run by people who justified institutionalized racism through certain passages of scripture. So you can imagine how they felt about the concept of a game like D&D

 

 

Ugh, I ... did not know that, over there. A more passively similar vein in this country, when I was a kid, except the momo scripture race reference was changed from "white and delightsome" to "light and delightsome." They hated D&D because it encouraged imagination, which of course leads to the awareness jesus actually doesn't want ten percent of your personal income, monthly, on time. 

 

 

Wait, what?

 

 

Nothing, sorry, forget I mentioned it. Let's read, instead. 

 

The government was run by people who justified institutionalized racism through certain passages of scripture. So you can imagine how they felt about the concept of a game like D&D

 

 

Ugh, I ... did not know that, over there. A more passively similar vein in this country, when I was a kid, except the momo scripture race reference was changed from "white and delightsome" to "light and delightsome." They hated D&D because it encouraged imagination, which of course leads to the awareness jesus actually doesn't want ten percent of your personal income, monthly, on time. 

A friend of mine went through that as well. His family has nothing to do with him now.

 

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

A friend of mine went through that as well. His family has nothing to do with him now.

 

 

OK, now I'm really interested. These days being disowned by your folks seems to generally mean a free ticket out of visiting them when they're senile.

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

You have my sympathies. Once I borrow them from someone else, anyway.

I've been reading 19th century authors on Project Gutenberg. Not too long ago discovered Stanley J Weyman : http://www.gutenberg.org/browse/authors/w#a742

 

Pretty good if you like romances

 

A friend of mine went through that as well. His family has nothing to do with him now.

 

OK, now I'm really interested. These days being disowned by your folks seems to generally mean a free ticket out of visiting them when they're senile.

 

Then you should have been born a rebellious Mormon child.

 

 

Reading A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

You have my sympathies. Once I borrow them from someone else, anyway.

 

I need your pilfered sympathy.

Edited November 2, 201312 yr by KaineParker

I hit up a used book store and got back some Poirot novels I lost in my first basement flood.

 

Right now, I'm reading Appointment With Death.

Finishing the Diary of Anne Frank now.

 

It's really weird. Much like with Martin Luther King's last speech, there is a profoundity which seems hardly plausible. I can only assume that Frank knew something was very wrong, and danger increasing. Certainly the inhabitants of the annex are behaving like bloody idiots, and the SD are picking up many of the people involved in supplying them.

The Stand, by Stephen King.

 

And it's the 1990 unedited 'special version' which teaches us the importance of editors.

 

I have such mixed feelings about Stephen King. On the one hand he's a towering genius. On the other, his obsession with over-wordy, insignificant Americana drives me to distraction.

 

The Stand is meant to be King's homage to TLotR, an American Gothic epic. Which it certainly is, Mama Abagail is a brilliant character.

 

Anyway, I'm about halfway through and recommend it as long as you know it's hard work.

Just finished reading Cornwells Sharpe's Rifles. Now reading.... ah screw it, that title is too long... this: http://www.amazon.com/Wallace-Underdog-Conquered-Championed-Bulls--One-ebook/dp/B007FEPQCQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1383874612&sr=1-1&keywords=wallace+the+pitbull#_

I'm getting around to reading Crime and Punishment for the first time since I was about 19.  (And a far more reputable translation.) 

 

I am reminded and continually amazed by the ways Dostoevsky manages to inject so much humor the small details of such a serious story.  The characters are so fiercely defined that each little iteration of their core traits becomes humorous.  Even so early in the story, the reader already understands Raskolnikov so well that, when reading the letter from his mother, we're already picturing the ways that the supposedly good news contained within is going to throw him into impotent rage (followed quickly by resignation and despair).  It's funny in the same way that, say, George self-sabotaging everything potentially good that happens to him in an episode of Seinfeld is funny.

Finished the diary of Anne Frank, and have now lent it along to a friend. I'd put it in my top ten, probably top five. Which is just a bit weird, when you consider who wrote it and when.

 

But it is, at turns: funny, moving, philosophical, infantile, thrilling. Forget the 'poor jewish girl' component. It's 80% a story about families, and shouldering responsibilities. 

 

With fart jokes.

 

I really can't recommend it highly enough. 

Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 by Marcus Lutrell with Patrick Robinson

 

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to be very close to Bin Laden with a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive.