Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine So what are you READING?

I'm currently reading the first books in Clive Barker's "Arabat" trilogy.

Its about a young girl who makes her way into a mystical island world called Arabat. I'm only about 1/5th of the way through, so the story is just starting to pickup, and being a Barker story I'm not really clear on where its going to go.

Here's the wierd thing about it though (if you are familiar with Barker)....This is a young adult series and despite never straying from that format, it is easily recognized as one of his books.

I'm down to my last 40 pages and am looking forward to book 4, A Feast For Crows! I love how Martin takes characters I feel I should out-and-out HATE, and make them sympathetic at times, i.e. Jaime and The Hound.

Agreed on your three favorites, but my sympathetic favorite is Bran; When I get to the point of using a powerchair regularly, I shall call it Hodor. And Sansa is the series' equivalent of TV Andrea, LOL.

Darth Plagues: Thank the good citizens of my community for internet renewal because it's taken me about a month to get through this library book. Hasn't grabbed my attention but I'm determined. I've got one more renewal available, lol.

I finished Arabat a few nights ago. Excellent young Adult story with all the usual elements of Barker's fantastique without the sex, swearing and violence.
Still two more books in this series (that I know of), I'll have to grab them soon.

I'm now reading "Maia and Icarus" by one of our very own LWers.
It's enjoyable so far, while it also seems to be geared towards the young adult set, I'm finding myself reading for far longer than I intend to because I am so drawn in.

I am also reading several new books on SEO and the latest Google engine updates...so far nothing groundbreaking for my methods of website optimization.

And on the magazine front I am still picking up "Advanced Photoshop" whenever the local store has it in...I find the magazine great in learning new ways to do things, plus the pack in disc makes it worth the purchase for the specialty fonts and stock photos alone

Just finished Trapped by Kevin Hearne. Lots of fun with Atticus O'Sullivan and crew.

I've started reading / rereading the works of Robert Louis Stevenson, since I feel he is a highly under appreciated writer (especially in the last 100 years or so) even though he's one of the most read authors ever.

I'm reading the "Suicide Club" three parter right now and its fantastic! One of the best stories I've read in an age. Prince Florizel, "borrowed" from Shakespeare is a fantastic character, and the premise is such a classic and simple suspense / noir type premise. Highly recommended.

I'm doing a lot of the short stories, then I'll read Jeckyl & Hyde, then end with Treasure Island.

So where you at now? I KNOW you had to have cheered at a certain death scene in book 3!

And totally agree about Martin getting you to like characters you should hate. My siblings all told me I'd eventually start to love Jamie and I said no way. Well, they were right--and I wanted him DEAD.

Another character I absolutely love is Davos. Hell, I love them all.

Also: amazing how the actress who plays Sansa is able to make her 1000 times more likable right?

And on getting your Hoder!!

"Gore Vidal: Snapshots in History's Glare" - It's like a scrapbook of Vidal's life. He lived a fascinating life. It's been my coffee table book for months. I recently started flipping through it and got pulled in. Committed now to reading each word.

RLS is an awesome writer, one of my favorite writers of "Classic" books.

I'm now into another Brandon Sanderson book "Alloy of Law".
It takes place in the same world as his original Mistborn series, but is set well after the events of that trilogy.

In this stand-alone novel the people have guns, steam power and are just developing cars and electricity....but they still have all the magic from the earlier books too.

Still have a big backlog of books to read, but the last Wheel of Time book was finally released for Kindle, so yesterday I bought that, Dance for Dragons (GRR Martin's Song of Ice and Fire) and Crippled God (final book in Stephen Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen series)

Too much to read, not enough time!

RLS is on my short list of writers that I want to a serious reading of!

If nothing else for RLS read his most well now books, Jekyll and Hyde and Treasure Island.

I'm finished Alloy of Law, I saw the "twist" coming a long way off in this book and oddly enough for Sanderson's Mistborn books, actually had it right.

So I've started "Memory of Light", the final book in the whell of time series. So far it seems to have the exceptional quality I've come to expect from the series even though the point I am at is still setting up the events for the remainder of the book


And before I start Dance of Dragons I am going the reread the other ICe and Fire books. I've come up with a new theory and need to see if it holds true before the reveal.

Finished Clive Barker's "Mister B. Gone". Not his best effort. The book is more interesting in premise than execution (There's a demon trapped in the book you're reading trying to convince you to burn it). The conceit grows old pretty fast, and the constant interruption of the narrative trying to convince/trick/cajole you keep falling flat. Probably the first Barker book I didn't really enjoy.

"Memory of Light" was as awesome all the way through as it started and was an excellent finish to the series.

And then my kindle died
I rolled over on top of it in my sleep and cracked the screen.
However, my ma-in-law has a broken one with an intact screen so I will attempt a repair before buying a new one.

In the meanwhile I managed to find a real book that was unread, so now I have returned to the world of Malazan, with a side-story called "Return of the Crimson Guard"

Since I became a Cub leader for my son's pack, I decided to read the Jungle Book, which a lot of the program is based around. It's actually been quit enjoyable, and not as "childish" as I expected.

Haven't been able to read anything lately except for a traffic ticket.

Currently reading The Three Musketeers.

Just finished reading Salamander, a true-crime book about the Mormon Murders in Utah back in the 1980s.

Honestly, it was pretty slow going, though forensics hounds would probably get a lot more out of it than I did. Given my own... issues with religion, it was hard for me to feel a lot of sympathy where the authors clearly meant me to. But again, other readers might not have this problem.

Now rereading Cookbooks Worth Collecting. Which is pretty much just what it says in the title. Lots of interesting trivia about U.S. history as reflected in what we cooked and ate. Some interesting and outright hilarious visuals, too. (Did you know that there used to be a company called Pebeco Toothpaste that made an, er, mint publishing a cookbook "based" on Gone With The Wind?)

I just finished Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking. In it, Didion chronicles her first year of grieving after the 2003 death of her husband, John Dunne. At the same time, their daughter, Quintana Dunne, was in and out of a coma and various rehabilitation centers. My late partner, David, read all of Didion's books. Prior to his death, he encouraged me to read this one thinking that it may offer me some solace after his passing. I put it off until well into my second year of grieving. Glad I did. There is no arguing with Didion's talent as a writer. She captures the complications of the grieving process in raw detail and with much honesty. As such, she captures some of our common experiences. However, her noble attempts at hope and optimism fall short. She was in a dark and difficult place when she wrote this. The reader goes to those places with her.

There is an excerpt from Didion's book in one of the textbooks I teach from. I agree. It's powerful writing.

Last month I started reading a book called Lemons Never Lie, which I got from an eBay lot of 8 Hard Case Crime novels several years ago. (I read a few of these when I got the lot. One was great, but the others othe lot that I read were a mixed bag.) I revisited this particular previously unread one because I realized it was written by Richard Stark (a pen name for Donald Westlake), who wrote the Parker novels that Darwyn Cooke has been adapting so excellently in GN form at IDW.

I was especially excited when I realized that Lemons stars a supporting character (Alan Grofield) of Parker's who appeared in 2 of Cooke's adaptations and also showed the "after" of a relationship between Alan and his hostage who decided to run away with him during The Score.

Unfortunately, I got nearly 80 pages into the book and lost interest. It's painfully slow-moving and at that point, I still didn't know what the story's big plot thrust would be. There's some set-up and a little bit of suspense, but not enough to reel me in. Considering this was a third of the entire book, that's pretty disappointing.

I was really hot to read an actual Stark novel after enjoying Cooke's adaptations, but this is discouraging to make be read more. I know it's not a Parker novel and most likely not one of his best, but if Stark's style and pace here is in any way representative of his usual prose, I'll most likely stick with Cooke's interpretations.

I am currently reading "A Case for Solomon"

It is the true story of 4 year old Bobby Dunbar who went missing in Louisiana in 1912. He was found 8 months later with a peddler. He was returned to the Dunbar, but a woman from North Carolina claimed that the boy was actually her son Bruce.

One of the authors is the granddaughter of the boy.

A few posts ago I mentioned I had a theory for ASoIaF...so far in my re-read the evidence is slowly piling up, nothing to give direct confirmation. BUT thus far not a single word to contradict it either. Done some digging on fantheory sites as well, some people have put forth part of my idea but a major piece is missing from what they say.

I hope I'm right because it is awesome if true!

Deddy, my siblings and I also have a theory on ASoIaF. It involves the true parentage of a certain character.

Who? Jon Snow's mom?

Mine is along those lines, but involves multiple characters...even if it turns out i'm wrong I'll post what i was thinking when i have enough evidence one way or the other