What are you reading? What was the last book you enjoyed?

Oh man, this is a good one. I'm only 1/2 way through. It's a page turner. Go find it, put it on your gift list, etc. Highly recommended.

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Finally finished Clash of Kings and I am about to start Storm of Swords, even though I promised myself I would break from these books to read something a little less complex. Just cannot wait to see what stays/goes in season two of Game of Thrones.
 
jerseydevil said:
Finally finished Clash of Kings and I am about to start Storm of Swords, even though I promised myself I would break from these books to read something a little less complex. Just cannot wait to see what stays/goes in season two of Game of Thrones.
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oooooo storm of swords is the best book in the series IMO...
 
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Just started the second book with with lead character Liz, an Edinburgh police detective, following Halting State. Stross has a quirky, pervy view of near future techno society and so far it's off to a pretty good start.
 
Just finished up American author Jennifer Lee Carrell's two novels "Interred With Their Bones" (called "The Shakespeare Secret" in the U.K., from 2008) and "Haunt Me Still" (called "The Shakespeare Curse" in the U.K., from 2011).

The lady graduated with undergraduate degrees from Stanford (1984) and Oxford (1988), rounding off her schooling with a PhD in English Literature from Harvard (1994).

The plots of both novels are based on Shakespeare-related fascinations. The first is about a race to find a lost Shakespeare play called "Cardenno".

The second novel concerns finding the original witches incantations that were deleted from the original version of "Macbeth".

Highly recommended.

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Book Review: The Child Thief | Geeks of Doom

Brom's artwork is beautiful...Whelan-esque, sounds like his storytelling still needs some work though.

Chesley-winning illustrator Brom (The Plucker) weaves together gloomy prose and horrifying adventures in this macabre fairy tale inspired by J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Born of faerie blood, Peter hunts abandoned children, runaways and the hopeless, recruiting for his Devils in Avalon and promising them a place where you never have to grow up. He conveniently fails to mention that Avalon's monsters are very real, and the Devils must practice their war games or risk being tortured to death, eaten or worse. While early chapters are promising, this gothic fantasy stumbles on its own darkness. The devilishly amusing flashbacks to Peter's origins don't make up for the heavy-handed bloodshed, rampant violence and two-dimensional characters. It's all fiendish monsters and desperate battles in this twisted, dark Neverland; the Disney Peter's mirth and good humor are nowhere to be found.
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Yet, it's an adult take on the Peter Pan mythos, so there is that.
 
The prologue to artist Brom‘s novel The Child Thief begins with a girl who is afraid of an abusive stepfather, which leads into the appearance of Peter Pan, who has come to “save” this child from the certain doom she faced at the hands of the malevolent step-parent. But in Brom’s world, things are not as clear cut as they seem. When people grow up, they often start to see the odd perversity in the idea that a teenage boy who is perpetually young can bring little boys to an island with no grown-ups (and seemingly no problems), which ties into the whole Michael Jackson and Neverland Ranch issues. But in this version of the tale, Peter Pan is about as similar to his Disney incarnation as Robin Williams is to Justin Bieber.



Although the Peter Pan in this book saves a girl from rape in the first scene, the reader will get the feeling right away that Peter’s not going to be as benevolent or silly as his Disney version. Instead of liberating these troubled youths, he steals the lost children (sad ones filled with despair and devoid of hope) and takes them back to Avalon (yes, that Avalon of Arthurian legends).

For the most part, the dialogue was fine, but in the first half of the book, some of the exchanges between teens felt forced. No self-respecting teenage boy would ever compare himself to Steven Seagal (at least not the current Steven Seagal) or Jake the Snake, a retired WWE professional wrestler. Peter’s dialogue on the other hand is hilarious because it’s in Disney speak but he adds things like “ball-sack” and “**********.”

The novel is urban fantasy at its finest and in the traditional sense — a work that even Neil Gaiman would be jealous of. Peter comes off as just plain creepy at first, but as the novel progresses, Brom reveals more intricacies and subtleties to the character that make him more interesting. Avalon, although the same place mentioned in Arthurian tales, is a wasteland of children’s corpses and a force called the Mist, which consumes everything. The spirits of the dead invade this place and they try to kill all new arrivals. Survival is next to impossible, and this proves no different for Peter’s latest acquisition, a boy named Nick. It turns out that Peter himself is trying to survive the island and seems to be its prisoner. He uses children to feed the forces that rule Avalon in the hopes that they’ll free him from his tie to the land. But Nick does something that none before him have done — he survives.
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Prolly not...here's a better idea of what to expect.
 
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Not as good as I thought it would be, but I did enjoy it and it looks like there will be a sequel. I might have to check that out too. And the old creepy pictures throughout the book are spooky! :O

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Pretty interesting book about our consumer culture that loves bargains and the implications that cheap culture has. And the cover reminds me of Watchmen. It might be all the yellow! :O

And I am still working on that Heinlein book!
 
I'm starting this in 5 minutes - heading out into the beautiful morning here with my French press right after this post. I don't know why I hadn't read it yet having read my fair share Russian lit over the years. High hopes.

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Stormy2213 said:
I'm starting this in 5 minutes - heading out into the beautiful morning here with my French press right after this post. I don't know why I hadn't read it yet having read my fair share Russian lit over the years. High hopes.

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That book is ****ing fantastic!
 
Catch Me If You Can,

The True Story of A Real Fake, Frank W Abagnale,

I liked the movie but the book is awesome because it is different from the movie. This guy had large balls. He is a crook but at 17, a Doctor, College Teacher, Lawyer and Pilot, you have to be kidding me.
 
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