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I just finished the Justice League series of novels (I started a thread about them)
I am currently reading "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart D Ehrman. It is not a novel, but about how the text of the Bible has changed, sometimes accidentally and sometimes intentionally. So far the biggest "shocker" was that the story of the Adulteous woman (Let he who is without sin cast the first stone) was an add in.
One of the reasons for accidental mistakes (aside from some of the "scribes" being illiterate) was that the early manuscriots were written without punctuation, all capitalized, and without spaces between words. And the problem with that is illustrated by this example in English.
GODISNOWHERE
Is this "God is nowhere" or "God is now here"?
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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Oh and Semi, I am glad you liked "Making History"
-------------------- Five billion years from now the Sun will go nova and obliterate the Earth. Don't sweat the small stuff!
From: Boston | Registered: Aug 2003
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Quislet, I saw Misquoting Jesus in Borders a couple of weekends ago and almost picked it up. Bart D Ehrman has also written several books about the scriptures that weren't included in the Bible. I've not read them, but they look very interesting and I've had them sitting in my Amazon cart for many months now (that's my way of keeping track of the things I mean to read).
Registered: Aug 2003
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I'm reading Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome - part of the 'Swallows and Amazons' series. I'm steadily working my way through the series, which I've never read before. Why didn't I? If I had gotten to these when I was, say, ten, I would have thought they were the ocelot's overshoes. Oh well; I still like 'em.
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Let's see... I haven't been on this thread since last September... So since then I've read...
The latest Star Wars PB trilogy by Troy Denning. -The Joiner King -The Unseen Queen -The Swarm War
They were decent reads, but I'd recommend reading all of the New Jedi Order books first to really appreciate these three.
I read the HC Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader. Not a bad book by any stretch, but there's a little bit of a pattern here where you know the book has limitations going into it. I find I don't remember much about it other than it was a quick read with not enough Vader in it. I like the good guys, but unfortunately you know where the story is going way before the characters do.
I'm ashamed to admit that I've picked up the three available young reader books by Jude Watson, The Last of the Jedi. They are set inbetween Eps 3 and 4 and are surprisingly good, despite being geared at younger readers.
I recently picked up Outbound Flight by Tim Zahn. This is another Star Wars book that tells a pretty good story in its own right, but it also sets up just about all of the other Star Wars books that Zahn scribed. As far as I'm concerned... Zahn can do no wrong in the Star Wars galaxy. He is my favorite SW author.
Other than that... my Dad is in the process of writing his first novel. I've read about half of it. It's a little historical fiction piece set in the late 1700's America. There's a little adventure, a little romance, some Indians, some sci fi, some history, some Brits, a tad bit of combat, and a bit of irony/fate/serendipity. It also has a horse.
So far I'm pretty surprised by it. Taking away as much bias as I possibly can, and I'd tell you if it sucked, it's kept my attention fairly well. He's got a few places that need smoothing, but overall I find myself enjoying it. The best way I can describe it... It's alot like a Louis Lamour book, but with maybe a bit more intrigue or politcal wrangling and sci fi. Its an odd combination, but it works so far.
-------------------- Something Filthy!
From: NOVA by way of NOIN | Registered: Jul 2003
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Best of luck to your dad on his writing efforts, minesurfer.
I've just reading "Mr Tambourine Man: The Life and Legacy of The Byrd's Gene Clark". A pretty sad story about an underrated singer/songwriter who just couldn't handle what fame he did get.
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I reading "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book." I've had this sitting on my bookshelf for about a year now. I've heard great things about it. I'm at page 11, so I don't have a lot to tell you yet.
Registered: Aug 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Semi Transparent Fellow: I reading "Men of Tomorrow: Geeks, Gangsters and the Birth of the Comic Book." I've had this sitting on my bookshelf for about a year now. I've heard great things about it. I'm at page 11, so I don't have a lot to tell you yet.
I enjoyed it. So much so that I hunted down a couple other books by that author (Gerard Jones) and liked them too (Killing Monsters and The Comic Book Heroes, if you're curious).
I recently read a few superhero-relate novels:
Those Who Walk in Darkness by John Ridley. Well-written.
Wild Cards XVII: Death Draws Five by John J. Miller. I'm a huge Wild Cards fan, and this book does tie up the biggest loose plot thread from the original run, but if Martin and co. aren't willing to devote more time to this series they may as well not bother, because this was not one of the stronger entries. I mean, it was okay, but the bar for Wild Cards books has been set pretty high.
Nobody Gets the Girl by James R. Maxey. It wasn't bad. Like a lot of superhero fiction, it was kind of underwritten.
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Matthew, as I get more into it, I'll post what I think. So far I'm enjoying the descriptions of turn-of-the-century New York and Cleveland (yes Cleveland - apparently at one time it was the 5th largest city in the U.S. and the most progressive).
Registered: Aug 2003
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Just finsihed reading 'The Know-It-All' by A.J. Jacobs. Was a little hard to get into but overall an excellent read.
Have started two new books. 'The Alchemist' and 'Middlesex.' 'Alchemist' because all my friends tell me to so I finally broke down and bought it. Bought the other at Borders at the Buy Two get Thrid free. That always sucks me in to buying books.
So far I am enjoying 'Middlesex' more.
From: Texas | Registered: Apr 2004
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"The Orientalist", by Tom Neiss - the biography of Assad Bey, aka Lev Nussimbaum aka a few other names. He was born in Baku in 1905, to an oil baron and a Russian revolutionary; a Jew who fell in love with Muslim culture just as European/Russian/central Asian society was falling apart. He and his father lived on the run from various revolutions and economic disasters for the rest of their lives. Bey/Nussimbaum ironically became the toast of Nazi society for his anti-Communist writings. A New York newspaper described him: "He hates trouble, but he's ready for anything". A fascinating, complicated look at a turbulent life in very turbulent times.
quote:Originally posted by legionadventureman: What sort of book is "Middlesex", rtvu? Sci-fi? horror?
From Amazon.com
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com "I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory. Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:
Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." … I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever. When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. --Brad Thomas Parsons --
From: Texas | Registered: Apr 2004
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