Which book are you reading right now?

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Hopefully this is not a double post, I searched for a similar topic but there doesn’t seem to be one yet. Please notify me if there’s another one already.

Any avid readers here on the forum? What are you reading at the moment?

I just finished “Shadows of Self” by Brandon Sanderson, it’s a fantasy book set in a fin-de-siècle setting. Cars and electricity have just begun to be a part of everyday life. The main character is a crime fighter who has to take on others who have superhuman abilities. It has a Sherlock Holmes feel to it

It’s a part of the Mistborn series, a fantasy series about people who use metals to gain superhuman abilities to manipulate the world around them. People with those powers could for instance: push themselves off of a piece of iron to fly through the sky, soothe someone’s emotions, heal faster or take a short glimpse into the near future. Warning: this series is highly addictive ^_^

The first 3 books of the series are high fantasy in a low-tech setting, the later books take place in the same world but several hundred years later in a world where modern technology is slowly rising. It’s funny to see the references to the first three books everywhere: streets, squares and buildings are named after the characters in the first three books. Some characters actually have religions based on them, and it’s interesting to see how their legacy was changed into mythology and later: doctrine.

Just finished book 5, and I need some time to grieve before starting book 6. Anyone ever grieves about finishing a really great book? If so, tell me, because I’m always interested in great fantasy or sci-fi

[Reesebun]

I’m reading War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells, he published it in 1892. The setting is in England, around the time period when it was published. It is about intelligent Alien life coming to Earth and terrorizing the humans. I told my friend to read it, but he could not understand it. I think most american kids would not understand it because of the “old English words” or something or other. Sci-fi is my favorite! Other books I’ve read, like The Count of Monte Cristo (lol autocorrect tried to make it “crisco”) and Moby Dick I think are very boring. I like Science Fiction and Fantasy books with Magic and aliens and stuff. I am also reading Calvin and Hobbes: the Complete Collection every night, I’ve read it 100 times and I still love it!

[Nibbles]

I really like science fiction/fantasy also! Unfortunately I don’t have as much as I would like for fun reading ?
I did read Station Eleven over winter break. it’s set in the future after a disaster has wipes out most of the population. Ancillary Justice by Ann Lecke, first book of a series, was one I read over the summer.
My kids and I are (re)reading Over Sea, Under Stone from the Dark is Rising series by Susan Cooper. I’d forgotten how much I liked those books!
I’ve never read War of the Worlds and will have to look up the books you’ve mentioned Ellie!

[Q8bunny]

Ooo… is it steampunk, Ellie?

I just finished The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter. Realistic adventure/mystery kids’ novel.

At the moment I’m also reading the odd National Geographic and The Heaven Tree by Edith Pargeter (epic historical fiction)

[LittlePuffyTail]

I was going to start a new “Watcha Reading” thread. Former FL, Sarita, used to do these threads frequently. I love these threads as I’m an avid reader and always have at least 1 book on the go. Not near as much reading time as I would like. I buy books much faster than I can read them.

Sounds like you are all working on some very interesting reads.

I’m pretty boring in that I pretty much always stick to the same genre: Historical Fiction, for the longest time, pretty much exclusively 1400-1700s England and Scotland, especially the royals of those eras. Huge Tudor Fan!!!!

But I fell hard for Downton Abbey and now find myself completely enamoured with anything 1920s and my current read “Silk” by Penny Jordan is set in 20’s England. It’s really good.

I’m also a huge Outlander fan. Both the books and the show and I’m so excited because I got my tickets yesterday to attend a lecteur and book signing by the author Diana Gabaldon here in April. I’ll probably get nervous and say something stupid to her…..

[Q8bunny]

I love the Outlander books (up until colonial America comes in, and then they lost me). I remember I stayed up all night to finish the first one the night before final exams in uni. Needless to say, it was hard concentrating the next day

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Posted By Q8bunny on 2/19/2017 9:57 AM

Ooo… is it steampunk, Ellie?

I’ve been planning to delve into the steampunk genre, so I couldn’t say if this is steampunk. At first glance, steampunk does seem to be about the mix between technology and victorian times. This book is a bit later in history, more 1920-ish. It does have an interesting mix between fantasy and tech though.

[Bam]

I have to read a book about navigation. I have new glasses now, so I don’t have any excuse not to. But I happened to find this super-interesting MOOC on world wide diabetes type II- so now I’m doing that instead. It’s not really reading, it’s listening to web lectures and taking notes. But so crazy interesting.

[Nibbles]

I liked the Outlander series also. Have you read any of the books by Jennifer Chiaverini? I think the series is called the Elm Creek Quilts? You don’t need to read them all in order and quiet a few of them are historical fiction. Quilts and quilting are part of the story but it is not what the books are about, they focus on the characters.

[LittlePuffyTail]

Will have to check her out, Nibbles. Thanks

[BubblesJo]

Ellie, Sanderson is so good! I haven’t started with Mistborn, but I’ve read Elantris and loved it. He’s a really nice guy too, I got to meet him at a Con years ago.

I read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy! The books I’ve read this year:
– Pyramids, by Terry Pratchett
– Harry Potter & the cursed child, by John Tiffany
– Gathering Blue, by Lois Lowry
– All the names, by Jose Saramago

I’m reading something a bit different this time, Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. It’s historical fiction, about the famous paleontologist Mary Anning. It speaks a lot to women’s roles in science in the 19th century.

[Q8bunny]

Just saw the documentary Pratchett did about assisted dying. So heartbraking

[LittlePuffyTail]

Bubbles- I’ve read quite a few Tracy Chevalier. They are very good. Never read that one.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

@Q8: that sounds like a must-see. I’ve always been a huge fan of Pratchett’s works. He’s missed by many fans, but his death also felt like a bit of a mercy to me. His health was deteriorating quickly, and it would have been horrible for him to keep losing his brilliant mind piece by piece. Blasted horrible disease… Hopefully we’ll find a way to cure/prevent it.
His works will continue to live on, and we all thank him for bringing so much humour, clever writing and memorable characters into the world.

For me he was the writer who inspired me to start reading books in their original language. Despite all the efforts the word plays and jokes can’t be translated properly. It inspired me to improve my English so I could read his books and enjoy all the clever little jokes and allegories in them.

Tonight I’m starting with Mistborn series book 6: bands of mourning. Audiobook, blankie, embroidery, cup of tea and a cuddly bunny. Can you think of a better way to spend an evening? Introverts unite! (From the comfort of your own home.)

[LittlePuffyTail]

That sounds wonderful, Ellie. The most relaxing time for me is after Evi has gone to bed and I’m sitting with my tea, a bunny hopping around and a good book or some crafts.

[Q8bunny]

I’m with you guys… library mouse time is glorious!

[BubblesJo]

Oh, I should watch that documentary. But I know it’ll break my heart. It is an awful disease

LPT, it’s the first one I’ve read from her and I’m really enjoying it! The topic is pretty awesome too.

Ellie, I get you. I do that when I have the house to myself. Just me and the bun, a blankie, tea and a good book! Pratchett was one of the writers that got me reading in English too, so I wouldn’t miss out on the wordplay. The other one was J. K. Rowling, because I wanted to know what was going to happen in next as book and couldn’t wait until there was a translation. That would take months

[LittlePuffyTail]

I have to stop reading my book before bed. I’ve been staying up way too late and then I’m exhausted in the morning. Best book I’ve read in a while and I’m so close to finishing it. Only 100 pages to go!

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

LOL @LPT

Sounds like the start of a serious book problem!

[vanessa]

I’m reading “Who Wrote the Bible”, by Richard Friedman, which is a critical look at which individual or group of people could have authored different sections of the old testament. It’s my second time reading this book.
For the car, I’m listening to “The History of God” by Karen Armstrong. It’s a critical analytical approach to the history of Christianity, Islam, Judaism. I’ve read it before, now I’m listening to the book-on-CD with my boyfriend.
We decided to listen to books together, and each read a different book, and then swap books, so we can exchange meaningful conversation about what we’ve read. He is reading a book that I have also read, about Old Testament History. I can’t remember the author’s name… Once we are done, we’ll swap, and I’ll read Old Testament History for the second time, and he’ll read Who Wrote the Bible.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. It’s historical fiction, about the famous paleontologist Mary Anning

Read that a few years ago and loved it – have since read another TC, Burning Bright (William Blake) and was a bit disappointed (thats the prob with reading a really good first novel, the bar is high !)… but maybe the subject didn’t grab my attention as much.

Am currently trudging ‘The Little Friend’ by Donna Tartt, it’s like pulling teeth even though i liked the first few pages (lol), and I’m hoping the end will make it worthwhile…. but really, one or two pages at a time… can’t get into it.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

That’s a problem indeed: if the first book is really good, the second can be a huge let-down.

I had that with the Kingkiller books by Patrick Rothfuss. The first book “The Name of the Wind” was a sublime coming-of-age fantasy story about a boy with a tragic past learning how to use magic. Beautiful character development, with an occasional heart-wrenching sob-story. One of the most impressive books I’ve read in the last couple of years.

——- Possible spoilers and adult stuff down below!! Tried to keep it down as much as possible.. ——-

The second book of the series is possibly the biggest turd sandwich I ever had the displeasure of reading. It’s like it was written by a teenager who inhaled too much Axe body spray, and started writing out his testosterone-drenched fantasies. I’m not a prude in any way, but this book crammed so many useless erotic scenes into it that it was distasteful, boring and altogether skippable. This is how utterly useless the book was:

At the end of book 1 the hero is a university student. Book 2, The Wise Man’s Fear, starts at uni again and the (now teenage) hero goes on a mission for some important noble. During his mission he meets this magical sex-obsessed faery creature who lures men into her realm of faery and “loves” them to death. The hero is famously shy around women and has never been with a woman before. However, after toying with him for quite a while, the age old sex creature is so impressed by his sexual prowess that she lets him escape her realm of faery. He only has to make 1 promise: he must come back to her realm some day and stay there forever after, supposedly not only for tea…

End of story: he’s back at uni, pretty much nothing happened, but the author is sitting there contentedly next to a wastebin filled with dubious tissues.
Book 3 is on the way, let’s hope the author has taken a cold shower in the meantime and we can get back to the actual storytelling
There’s a time and place for distasteful erotica, and it’s called fan-fiction. Kindly keep it there…

[Reesebun]

LPT: read Calvin and Hobbes instead of chapter books and you won’t feel the need to keep on reading, but it will still be entertaining.

Ellie: Why would anyone even want to read a horrible book like that? What kind of twisted mind wrote that book

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Posted By ReeseBun on 2/23/2017 3:58 PM

Ellie: Why would anyone even want to read a horrible book like that? What kind of twisted mind wrote that book

 

The first book was excellent and made me really curious about the next book. The second book started out a bit less interesting than the previous book, but sometimes it’s hard to top a real success. It became boring halfway, and suddenly everything went downhill into a pit of sheer sadness and lonely creepy dork fantasies. It was as if his teenage son played a prank on him by editing a steaming heap of filth into the book just before printing.

I prefer audiobooks so I can do crafts while reading. The audiobook lead to a funny situation. My BF was playing a game on my PC, and he was pretty immersed into it. When he wanted to say something to me he picked up some words from the book, and was horrified. He went: “Honey, what on earth are you listening to?”, this happened several times. We ended up laughing at it because it was so horrible, like an awfully bad cult film.

I really hope that the writer found his inspiration again to write a good third book. If that’s anything like the first book again we’ll try and forgive him, and forget that the second book ever happened.

 

 

[LittlePuffyTail]

ReeseBun- I used to read Calvin and Hobbes in High School. I really love reading. Always have. I’m always teasing my hubby because he only reads comics. He did get me into a comic series by a local author about a homicidal pet bunny….

[Q8bunny]

That sounds hilarious! What’s it called?

[Reesebun]

Lol What is it called? I always read comics before bed because chapter books make me stay up too long. So far I have read the entire collection of Calvin and Hobbes 4 times and the entire collection of the Far Side Gallery 3 times. I think I need something new like a homicidal bunny to add to my collection of comics! Is it too inappropriate though? 

[Azerane]

Reesebun, my favourite comic series is Footrot Flats. More of a particular taste since a lot of the jokes are farming based, but it’s by far my favourite. A dog is the start of the comic  For example: https://scontent-syd2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-0/p320x320/16508703_329792950750196_1953577619279125106_n.jpg?oh=22dad59871bbc574384d1b993127e004&oe=5936016D

[jerseygirl]

Posted By LittlePuffyTail on 2/23/2017 6:35 PM

ReeseBun- I used to read Calvin and Hobbes in High School. I really love reading. Always have. I’m always teasing my hubby because he only reads comics. He did get me into a comic series by a local author about a homicidal pet bunny….

Same!  I really got into Calvin and Hobbes then. I had several of the books. It was good for reading on the school bus.  I think donated them to local library when I moved a couple years ago. 

[pinknfwuffy]

I’m a librarian so this thread makes me very happy!

I’ve been reading The Paper Menagerie by Ken Liu. It is a series of short stories that have scifi/fantasy/historical fiction twists. Each one is drastically different in plot and time-frame so it is a really great collection if you’d like a taste of many different genres. His writing is beautiful and some of the stories broke my heart in the very best way. The book’s namesake, Paper Menagerie, is one of the best.

[LittlePuffyTail]

The Comic Company is called “Brainslug”. It’s a local comic book creator, like I mentioned. We have a few of the books but I think they are mostly only available when he does crowdfunding type sales. I always talk to the guy when we go to the local comic-con. He always has Dante stickers to give me. Daunte is the bunny. My cell phone and laptop are covered with them. You can see some of his work here. 

http://brainslug.com/Comic/vol-3-br…-of-dante/

[Q8bunny]

Lurv iiit!

Pink: Squeee! You have one of my ‘i wish’ jobs!

[Reesebun]

Lol I love the Dante comic

[BubblesJo]

Vienna, yeah I get you. Sometimes it’s hard after a first great book to recreate that magic! I’m almost done with Remarkable Creatures really loving it!

The only Donna Tart I read was The Secret History. It was a bit hard to get into, but really good!

Reese, I’ve read the whole Calvin & Hobbes collection. They’re so good

LPT, that comic looks awesome!

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Awesome comic LPT, I have to show this to my BF when he gets home!

I may have a book problem… You all know it: just a quick read before bed. Suddenly it was 5 in the morning, I fell asleep and woke up at 14:30 with a headache. I looked at my phone and saw a big discussion going on in the flat group app, there were people who had been celebrating carnaval. Long story short: I had a rougher night than one of my neighbours who’s one of the chairmen of a carnaval club. Flat nerd status established

[Reesebun]

Aww man, I read all of it already. Thanks for sharing it LPT!

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

“The Way of Kings” by Brandon Sanderson, book 1 of the Stormlight Archive series.

I go through books so fast these days, luckily fantasy books are often thick and part of a series. My favourite writers at the moment are Steven Erikson and Brandon Sanderson. Keep writing at full speed good fellows, my fysio said that my back problems may still last for several weeks and I’m flying through the pages ^_^

[Q8bunny]

And I’m sitting here desperately hoping that Martin will hurry up and finish the GoT series in this lifetime

[Q8bunny]

Just put in the movie Rings. Really liked the first one. Got to ‘test audience’ it when I was living in Toronto and it startled me half to death. LOL Second one was ok. Hoping this one won’t be too awful.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Posted By Q8bunny on 2/28/2017 8:23 AM

And I’m sitting here desperately hoping that Martin will hurry up and finish the GoT series in this lifetime

Shhht! Every time people complain about that he kills another Stark!

[Q8bunny]

[Nibbles]

Or their dire wolves…

Just started reading the Mistborn series, probably not the best book to start mid-semester!

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Hehe, rather addictive isn’t it? ^_^

[LittlePuffyTail]

I read the first few GOT books but stopped because I found it pointless to read the adventures of a person and for them to die….I still watched the show and enjoyed it but it’s like he has no direction. He doesn’t know where the character or the story is going so he just kills them.

[jerseygirl]

I just found my Calvin & Hobbes books! I could have sworn Id given them away. Another thing that’d I’d intended to do but never did…  

[Azerane]

I still have lots of things that I intended to throw/give away

Currently I’m reading House of Tribes by Garry Kilworth. I read a lot of animal fiction I did go to the library today and borrow some random books, so I’ll check back in once I’ve read some of those. Admittedly I do want to read all the Warriors series, but I only have two books and have trouble finding the whole series to borrow.

[grayson]

I’m reading The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joël Dicker. What a stunner! I have not read a book this captivating in a long time. I find it very hard to put it down.

[Reesebun]

I’m reading “To Kill a Mockingbird”

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Thanks for giving this topic a boost! I’m reading the Pratchett books again, I’m now nearly through “Wyrd Sisters”.
Pratchett’s humourous books frequently have me rolling on the floor with laughter (metaforically speaking ). Like this quote from the book I’m reading right now: “The Duke had a mind like clockwork. And like any good clock, it regularly went “cuckoo!”.

[Q8bunny]

He really did have a very tongue in cheek sense of humour

[Q8bunny]

I’m reading an English translation of Alamut by Vladimir Bartol.

[Vienna Blue in France]

I have FINALLY started the Da Vinci code which has been on my bookshelf for a few years !!! A few chapter in im already hooked .
Yup I’m on holiday so its reading time
Why am i on BB on my hols? Well I’ve been out for a loooong walk yesterday and a less loooong walk today, both under very leaky crowds…. and i came back to the hotel a tad frozen… so I’m reserving my next 2 nights’ accom on the ipad having just had a nice hot shower.

The book is being read over a pub meal in the evenings….. (yuuuum).

[Q8bunny]

Sounds lovely, Vee

I’m so stressed out that I’ve come home from work crying nearly every day since last week… why aren’t Choo and I in Halifax already?

[Blue Moon]

I’m currently reading a book called Hatchet its by Gary Paulsen. about a city boy named Brian who gets in a plane crash and is crash landed in a rural area with no inhabitance that he know of. not very far in yet. just getting good.

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

Sorry to hear that Q8. Is it a temporary spike in workload or has this been going on for a longer time?

[Q8bunny]

It’s a permanent spike in insanity – going on 9 years now

Completing my contract in a year, and then starting the repatriation process.

[Vienna Blue in France]

Ahhh Q8… sorry to hear that.
But a year will fly by and you could choose to now look very distantly at your work and try not to get stressed out about it…. think to yourself… is it going to matter in a few months? (nope!! )

ps the “leaky crowd” above was supposed to be leaky clouds…… rofl…..

[Q8bunny]

Or a great pub…

[Ellie from The Netherlands]

I hope that year flies by Q8, and stay strong!

[Bam]

Just one more year Q8, then you and the Chewster are FREE!!!

I’m about to start reading Mrs Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children.

[Reesebun]

Posted By Blue Moon on 5/17/2017 6:24 PM
I’m currently reading a book called Hatchet its by Gary Paulsen. about a city boy named Brian who gets in a plane crash and is crash landed in a rural area with no inhabitance that he know of. not very far in yet. just getting good.

That’s a good book, I think you will like it! I read it in 3rd grade and it was awesome!

[Author]

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