What are you reading?

[SnoringFrog]

Im reading To Kill a Mocking Bird for school,

Is TKaMB any good? I've been meaning to read it but haven't picked up a copy. Who wrote it?

I just finished Shadow Puppets by Orson Scott Card yesterday, and now I'm working on Shadow of the Giant from the same author.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I don't think I quite got To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it ^^' I could tell it was trying to tell me something, but I couldn't quite grasp it...

[mitsuki lover]

The last book I read was when I read Children of the Night by
Mercedes Lackey last week.

[Bobtheduck]

Geometry for dummies... I'm fine with figuring angles out and all of that, it's those bbbb proofs that I hate... I mean, the fact I have to know the term that explains that 3=3 is sort of stupid, then I have to identify that principle in action... So much of this is stuff I can do in numbers, but to have to explain it seems a bit absurd to me...

I haven't done Geometry since Jr High... I wasn't too good at it, then...

Algebra isn't necessarily easier, just the majority of it seems more practical than things like proofs... Plus, we don't have our books yet, so we're required to do the work with no examples to guide us... Hence my checking out the dummies book...

[Shao Feng-Li]

Reading Specter of the Past by Timothy Zahn.

[Wave]

Till we have faces by C. S. Lewis. This has got to be one of the best books I have ever read.

Wave.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Till we have faces by C. S. Lewis. This has got to be one of the best books I have ever read.

Ah, Till We Have Faces. One of my favorite C.S. Lewis books. I read it in eighth grade, and loved it, but I still have the lingering feeling that I didn't get everything out of it I should have. I should probably read it again. I really like kind of abstract, thoughtful stories like that.

And Till We Have Faces also helped inspire one of my own stories ^_^

[mitsuki lover]

I'm still trying to figure out WHERE in Europe Till We Have Faces is supposed to take place,though knowing Lewis' love for 'Northerness'
I would guess somewhere in Germany or Central Europe.One of the
hints is that Greece is mentioned as being far to the south.

[bigsleepj]

I re-read Stephen King's Misery this week. This is the first time in nearly a decade that I've read anything by King again and I seem to have forgotten just how good a writer he is (if incredibly unsubtle).

[uc pseudonym]

The Eye of Argon

By the surly beard of Mrifk!

[the_wolfs_howl]

Finally finished Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. I'd forgotten just how sad the ending was. Tomorrow I'm going to begin Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, reading it aloud to my mom and brother.

[Tenshi no Ai]

Along with working through Half Blood Prince, I'm also reading .hack//Another Birth: Quarantine during work.

[uc pseudonym]

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Targeted toward a younger audience, but very enjoyable reading. Its take on the usual modern fantasy felt refreshing to me. Finished it in an evening.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer

Targeted toward a younger audience, but very enjoyable reading. Its take on the usual modern fantasy felt refreshing to me. Finished it in an evening.

I didn't really like those books, mainly because of the dwarves *pukes* However, I did like the child criminal mastermind aspect of Artemis Fowl.

[Technomancer]

Terrible Lizard: The First Dinosaur Hunters and the Birth of a New Science

It's quite a good book, and much more enjoyable than the dull-as-dishwater Before Darwin (which admittedly was more theologically oriented).

[bigsleepj]

I'm re-reading James Stoddard's The High House, an excellent but imperfect fantasy.

[Htom Sirveaux]

On about page fiftysomething of James Clavell's Shogun. Interesting, but not enough to really grab my attention so it's kind of slow going. Also Andrew Vachss' Dead and Gone. I wanna read more of his Burke books, those are great.

[uc pseudonym]

I didn't really like those books, mainly because of the dwarves *pukes* However, I did like the child criminal mastermind aspect of Artemis Fowl.

He makes for an interesting character but I dislike him, myself (which is unusual, because I tend to like masterminds). Butler is my favorite character by a long shot.

As for the dwarves... at least it's a different take on the whole "miner" archetype. Not a pleasant one, but different.

[Freezair]

The dwarves of Artemis Fowl are very--er, well, unecessary in some ways. But Mulch Diggums is an oddly essential and he somehow becomes an endearingly hateable character throughout the series. My favorite characters, though, are probably Foaly and Holly--Foaly is just plain fun, and Holly is--well, c'mon, she's Holly! I find the evolution of Holly and Artemis' relationship throughout the series to be fascinating; a great piece of character interaction--though I felt

[spoiler]that in the most recent book, they were just a bit too buddy-buddy. Although Artemis' reaction to Holly's death--and then revivial--in the climax is a striking scene, I feel like they were just a bit two "bee eff effs!" Now to be fair, Coifer has spent five books developing these character's relations, and there is more than enough fodder in the series to make that sort of chumminess possible, it still felt slightly hokey in places. But perhaps it's just that I'm more used to Holly and Atremis sharing disapproving respect of each other instead of outright friendship, and I'm just not used to it. I'll have to re-read Opal Deception and Lost Colony to refresh my memory.[/spoiler]

After that tirade on the literary merits of young adult fantasy... I'm currently reading something I discovered in the YA section of the local B & N, called The Secret Country. Apparently, it hails from 1985 but is in a fairly shiny new printing. The last experience of this sort that I had ended marvelously, with a charming and delightful little (500+ pages little) yarn called The Hounds of the Morrigan. (Not too hard to track down, and if you like fairy-tale esque fantasy, I recommend you give this book a go. It's quite adorable, and it's a fun adventure story.) I immediately identified with the premise of the book, which is that five cousins get sucked into the fantasy world they invented to play pretend in. I would have LOVED for something like this to happen when I was a kid, and even today the idea appeals to me. I'd love to visit my Kliktz universe, if only for a day, but for reasons which are hard to get into without explaining Kliktz in detail. Suffice to say it partially involves seeing people use idioms and pieces of "common knowledge" that don't exist in this world, such as the fact that one of the synonyms for "monster" is "grimli," and that shooting a Kliktz is about as effective as hacking at Fort Knox with a butter knife, and that Humphy Bogart was actually a phoenix, of sorts.

I've only gotten about a chapter into this book, so I'm not sure how it's all going to be just yet.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I finally started Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. I'm so excited, yet terrified at the same time!

[Alice]

Larklight: A Rousing Tale of Dauntles Pluck in the Farthest Reaches of Space, by Philip Reeve, decorated throughout by David Wyatt. Coolness. So far: Victorian alternate world with aether, space travel, mushroomy moon people, pirates, and giant white spiders.

[Sayuri]

I'm currently reading the following:

Chosen

Arena

Catch-22

[Technomancer]

Seventy Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler

I love the description on this one:

A mysterious stranger in outlandish Edwardian garb defaces a painting in the National Gallery. Then a guest at the exclusive Savoy Hotel is fatally bitten by what appears to be a marshland snake....Art vandalism, an exploding suspect, pornography, rat poison, Gilbert and Sullivan musicals, secret societies...and not a single suspect in sight.

[Freezair]

So far, I really rather like The Secret Country. The writing style is similar to mine... but sometimes it's difficult to tell what's going on.

I also have a play I'm reading for a class now. It's called Trifles.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I read Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar for school, and I liked it much more than Romeo and Juliet, which I read last year. Though after talking about it with my dad, I get the feeling that I was rooting for the wrong person (Brutus).

[Ragsolith]

I'm currently reading Lirael by Garth Nix, the second in the Abhorsen/Old Kingdom trilogy. <3 I'll be done with it before tomorrow is up. ^_^

[uc pseudonym]

Syllabi

Soon to be a great many books. I'm also reading a variety of literature concerning Atzlan.

[Alice]

Yesterday I finished Gregor and the Code of Claw, by Suzanne Collins. I really hope she writes more.

[the_wolfs_howl]

I'm currently reading Lirael by Garth Nix, the second in the Abhorsen/Old Kingdom trilogy. <3 I'll be done with it before tomorrow is up. ^_^

Garth Nix is awesome. I'm glad to see someone else is reading his stuff.

[jon_jinn]

i'm reading The Pearl by John Steinbeck.