What books have you read recently?

[x88x]

Well, we have one for music and one for video games, so why not? :D

Recently I've been reading through the Dune series. I also recently found a collection of short stories by Orson Scott Card set in his Ender universe...that was fun. :D IMO the Ender and Shadow sagas are just about the best science fiction ever written.

Not exactly recent, but thought I'd throw it out there because I think a lot of people here would enjoy it. Makers by Cory Doctorow is great. It's a nice change to see a novel written with an insider view into maker culture. :D For anyone interested in information security, his earlier novel Little Brother is also a good read.

[mDust]

I just read Ender's Game last week. It was really good...so good in fact that I'm going to have to read the other three now.:D

I also read a book called 'Hold Tight' by Harlan Coben. It is a #1 New York Times Bestseller just like every other book, but I liked it.

And before that I read 'Earth (The Book) ... A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race'. It was mildly entertaining and not at all what I was expecting.

[farlo]

well, it doesnt qualify as a book, but i re-read the walking dead comics issues 1-80 in a couple days. prior to that was world war z.

[killergamer]

Right now, I'm not currently reading any thing good. I finished "The Law of Nines" by Terry Goodkind, he is the author that wrote The Sword Of Truth Series. They are all great books! I've also finished Butcher Bird and a couple other Richard Kadrey books they were amazing books to!

[x88x]

I just read Ender's Game last week. It was really good...so good in fact that I'm going to have to read the other five now.:D
FTFY (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender%27s_Game_%28series%29#Novels_in_the_series). ;)

I would also highly recommend Ender's Shadow. It follows Bean through the same time period as Ender's Game. The Ender series is more hard sci-fi, following Ender, whereas the Shadow series is more political intrigue, following Peter, Valentine, Bean, and a few others. Personally, I thought all of them were amazing.

First Meetings was the collection I read recently. I actually didn't know it existed until I found it on a bookstore shelf a couple weeks ago. :D

[Lothair]

Harry Potter. Lord of the Rings. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Sword of Truth. Forgotten Realms. Fablehaven. Septimus Heap. Chronicles of Narnia. Artemis Fowl.

I have an interesting taste in books. It seems I'm very bipolar within one genre. It's either an adult book suited for fairly mature audiences or it's a children's book suited for pretty much anybody. Well, except the religious right. But they're all insane to begin with so of course they'd relate "the anti-christ here to corrupt our youth" with a feel-good book about a young, innocent and good hearted boy wielding an imaginary magic piece of wood whose sole purpose basically becomes to defeat evil itself. lol I've never quite understood that.

I've read plenty of other books, but those are the most recent one's I've enjoyed reading. My library looks like it belongs to a nerdy teenager. :/

[artoodeeto]

Re-reading Harry Potter, also re-read LOTR, finished Sword of Truth series not too long ago, and I'm starting to read the new "History of the Hobbit" boxed set that came out recently. My fiancee got it for me for Christmas, 3 volume set, should be interesting!

[billygoat333]

I just finished Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan/Brandon Sanderson. two thumbs up.

[dr.walrus]

textbooks :hurt:

[Technochicken]

"Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)"

A great, very funny book, especially if you are interested in science/physics.

Plus SAT prep books.:dead:

[AmEv]

Percy Jackson series.

Good, clean humor.
Very entertaining.
Ties very well with Greek mythology.

[Snowman]

I hate to admit this but... breaking dawn.. worst book ever.. or rather ending to a book.

[tomkndy]

Recently, I finished reading 'Diary of Anne Frank' by Anne Frank. Diary of a young girl is the English version of the book, based on the writings of a diary that was written by Anne Frank while she was in hiding for two years with his family during the Nazi occupation of Holland . The book is now considered one of the main texts of the twentieth century.

[CorsePerVita]

I recently picked up my old copy of "Dune" and started reading that again. I am an addict of the Frank Herbert books. Dune fanatic.

[x88x]

Heheh, I started reading Ender's Game again last night...and ended up not getting to sleep until 5:30... :whistler:

[CorsePerVita]

Wow, that good?

[Snowman]

I have also tried reading Mein Kampf several times I just can't commit to it, people are very judgmental when they see you carrying that book around. There are several people in history that could have ended up on the complete other end of the spectrum that they did, understanding them is half the problem.

[x88x]

Wow, that good?
Yup. That night I read almost half the book in one sitting. :P It really is a great work of science fiction. Plus, it resonates with me personally for several reasons....but I won't spoil the story for you by going into those. ;)


I have also tried reading Mein Kampf several times I just can't commit to it, people are very judgmental when they see you carrying that book around. There are several people in history that could have ended up on the complete other end of the spectrum that they did, understanding them is half the problem.

IMO there's no such thing as bad knowledge. As someone somewhere once said, if we do not learn from history, we are doomed to repeat it. If we don't learn how monsters came to be, how do we expect to stop the same thing from happening in the future.

[dr.walrus]

I have also tried reading Mein Kampf several times I just can't commit to it, people are very judgmental when they see you carrying that book around. There are several people in history that could have ended up on the complete other end of the spectrum that they did, understanding them is half the problem.

I have personally tried to read it too, for the same reason, but certainly would never openly carry it around!

[diluzio91]

I have personally tried to read it too, for the same reason, but certainly would never openly carry it around!

E reader? much more sneaky.

Just finished HP 1-7 over break, Got the 3rd and 4th percy jackson book but havn't read them yet, and am now working on the girl with the dragon tattoo.

[Snowman]

E reader? much more sneaky.

Just finished HP 1-7 over break, Got the 3rd and 4th percy jackson book but havn't read them yet, and am now working on the girl with the dragon tattoo.

Just can't bring myself to use an e reader, I don't like them. Text on good old paper is so much better and rewarding for me and easier on the eyes, not to mention a whole lot cheaper than going out and buying an ereader when I have Mein Kampf in pdf.

[diluzio91]

I use one out of necessity... In my dorm there is no room for books, having them all on my nook is nice... i haven't had any problems with the screen on it either, I think its the easiest screen to read on, but ill admit that the experience of a paper book is much more rewarding

[x88x]

I saw a nook on the plane back from Defcon back in August, and I have to say, I was quite impressed by the epaper screen. ..of course now they've ruined that with the color Nook, but whatever. :P There's just something about a paper book that just gives me warm fuzzies though. :D Plus, if I lose/etc a paperback, that's me out, absolute max, $10 or so (much less if, like the majority of my books, I bought it second hand). ..if I lose/drop/get stolen/etc an ereader... Speaking of second hand, that's another thing I like about paper books...you can sell them if you want to. And you can buy them secondhand. With most (if not all) of the current ebook DRM schemes, you buy it and it's yours forever (well, until the service dies), and the only place you can buy them is for full price from the 'publisher'. Besides, I like having shelves full of books in my house. :D

[Snowman]

Besides, I like having shelves full of books in my house. :D

makes a good place for hidden doors to hidden rooms that lead to the booking agent for the sterile white planes with the single horizontal red line that doesn't fly to area 51... Or just to your bedroom that nobody knew was there.

[Kayin]

I'm currently reading Moby-Dick, and just finished The Count of Monte Cristo unabridged.

Kindle III for the win, huge books are suddenly more portable in my severely damaged hands...

[x88x]

makes a good place for hidden doors to hidden rooms that lead to the booking agent for the sterile white planes with the single horizontal red line that doesn't fly to area 51... Or just to your bedroom that nobody knew was there.

Crap! He's on to us! We have to change the color of the striiiI mean...ummm...what planes? I do not know what you are talking about. <_< -_- >_> -_- <_< -_- >_> *The rabbit is in the cuckoo's nest. Repeat, the rabbit is in the cuckoo's nest.*

[msmrx57]

My wife loves her kindle. I've read on it a little bit and was happily surprised it's not like reading on a screen at all. The only down side is if you read in bed and fall asleep you get wacked in the nose with hard plastic intead of paper.

That being said recently finished "The Heroin Diaries" very interesting read. Now I'm reading "Life On The Mississippi"

[Lothair]

I love both books and E-Ink. I feel so... divided. If only they would include a free PDF with book purchases, then I would do both. It doesn't even have to be free, it just has to be not so insanely expensive. The savings by going digital over hard copy is ridiculously small. Frustrating.

[x88x]

The savings by going digital over hard copy is ridiculously small. Frustrating.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with it. The hardback costs $16, the paperback costs $8, and the ebook costs..$7? Maybe $5? (disclaimer, values pulled out of the air, estimating things I've seen before) Sorry, I know you're saving more than $1-3 by not having to print the thing. Come on. What I would like to see is two things; a good method for selling used ebooks and a library-like service with ebooks. Maybe have some sort of P2P sort of thing, but with DRM that will lock files so that only one person at a time can access each file per license. Then the member can buy licenses and they mark their files if they want them to be available to others and if so, if they want to get priority access (like, say, someone else is reading using the license you bought but you want to read it, so it gives them a notice that they will be logged out of that book in [n] seconds/minutes/etc. Maybe give the option to open up an IM chat with them to negotiate a time that works for both of you. Then, whenever the file isn't being actively accessed, it gets 'checked in' so someone else can access it, with the option of setting a long-term lock on the file if needed.

[Lothair]

Yeah, I just can't imagine where the cost is coming from. Storage should not be an issue, at all. I'm sure they could set it up so that there is basically just one copy of the book that they have stored that you then get sent a copy of, right? It'd be just like a torrent. There's only one file uploaded that many people then download from. So you'd only need to store one file for each book. That's what? 20MB at the most for a high quality copy?

Then you'd have traffic cost, I suppose. But when a book is only 20MB at it's largest and given the fact that books aren't exactly super popular compared to most digital products... There really isn't any cost here. Amazon offers this kind of thing for free and over 3G none-the-less.

The only cost I can see is the publication of the book and whatever percentage goes to the author. Now, if Hardcover books cost around $15 - $20 and Paperback $8 - $15... then a digital copy can't seriously cost $8-$11. That's the same as Paperback! But without any of the associated costs.

Digital copies should not cost more than $5 per title. Perhaps it's just not worth it to even sell them for that amount?

[x88x]

I haven't seen any recent files, but I would be very surprised if a normal ebook, without pictures, was more than a few hundred KB. Text is tiny...really tiny. Another thing I would like to see is a purely ebook publishing company startup that, being solely ebook, would have essentially no distribution costs, and would pass on a higher percentage of the sales to the author. Kind of like the Steam and XBL Indie channels..but for books! :D Hmmm....actually...I wonder what would actually be involved in setting up something like that... :think:

[Snowman]

I haven't seen any recent files, but I would be very surprised if a normal ebook, without pictures, was more than a few hundred KB. Text is tiny...really tiny. Another thing I would like to see is a purely ebook publishing company startup that, being solely ebook, would have essentially no distribution costs, and would pass on a higher percentage of the sales to the author. Kind of like the Steam and XBL Indie channels..but for books! :D Hmmm....actually...I wonder what would actually be involved in setting up something like that... :think:

Not sure it would work you would have to fight the entire publishing industry... it is a great idea in theory but I see the black robe society of publishers coming down on you hard.

[Snowman]

Not sure it would work you would have to fight the entire publishing industry... it is a great idea in theory but I see the black robe society of publishers coming down on you hard.

My tinfoil hat is on extra tight today apparently...

[Lothair]

PDF is the only format that I've seen hit around 20mb. Most hit around 1mb through 4mb. I've never seen a book in kb. Maybe if it were entirely written in notepad or something like that.

I have about 1500 ebooks that takes up a little over 5gb. I'm not saying how, though. :p

[DynamoNED]

While I'm thoroughly enjoying this ebook debate, I feel obligated to steer us back on topic. :P

Recently, I finished reading Tom Clancy's newest novel, Dead or Alive. While a good espionage thriller, it isn't his best work. Before that, I finished re-reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never gets old. Right now, I'm reading Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, which is about how a WWII German U-Boat was discovered off New Jersey in 1991. Believe it or not, it's nonfiction.

[x88x]

My tinfoil hat is on extra tight today apparently...
lol. What are they gonna do, sue me for giving my clients too much money? IDK, it'll probably end up being one of those things that I think of, think "Hey, that's a cool idea, I should do that!", then forget about it and see someone else do it a few years down the road. :P


PDF is the only format that I've seen hit around 20mb. Most hit around 1mb through 4mb. I've never seen a book in kb. Maybe if it were entirely written in notepad or something like that.

I have about 1500 ebooks that takes up a little over 5gb. I'm not saying how, though. :p
Probably have pictures and/or lots of colourful stuff. Years ago I saw a bunch of ebooks (before it was a 'thing' ..wink, wink.. ) circulating as text files, and yeah, in just straight text you can fit a decent sized book in a couple hundred KB. :D All that DRM adds a lot of cruft too.

[Lothair]

I checked one of the larger files and I believe it's some sort of photocopy type of deal. I'm not sure how, though. You can't see any shadows or the binding or anything like that and it looks pristine in quality. But that's my guess. It's definitely a full quality copy, pictures and everything. Otherwise I too would be like WTF? lol

[Snowman]

While I'm thoroughly enjoying this ebook debate, I feel obligated to steer us back on topic. :P

Recently, I finished reading Tom Clancy's newest novel, Dead or Alive. While a good espionage thriller, it isn't his best work. Before that, I finished re-reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never gets old. Right now, I'm reading Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson, which is about how a WWII German U-Boat was discovered off New Jersey in 1991. Believe it or not, it's nonfiction.

Would we really have missed New Jersey? I enjoy re-reading tolkien and feist all the time although feist I can see being a lot harder read.

[x88x]

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle never gets old.
Heh, yup. Love those stories. :D


I checked one of the larger files and I believe it's some sort of photocopy type of deal. I'm not sure how, though. You can't see any shadows or the binding or anything like that and it looks pristine in quality. But that's my guess. It's definitely a full quality copy, pictures and everything. Otherwise I too would be like WTF? lol

Yeah, that makes sense. I've done a bit of digitizing and it is really hard to get a good, legible scan and have a very small file size.

[Kayin]

Project Gutenberg. Free books for the taking.

[d_stilgar]

I recently read all the Harry Potters in prep for the last two movies coming out. I also re-read most of the Ender's Game series except #1 because I've read that one like nine times now. I read all the Ender's Game comics recently too.

I also read all the Walking Dead comics after the first season of the show ended. Both the show and the comics are really really good.

I just finished Daemon by Daniel Suarez and am now reading the sequel, Freedom. These books are really good in a DaVinci Code sort of way. Just remove all the dumb cult and secret society stuff and add in WoW set into an augmented reality. It's really fun, mostly based in technology that already exists, is cutting edge, or the next logical step in the next decade.

After I finish Freedom I'm going to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I'm told it's really good and despite being written 40+ years ago, really depicts the world we live in today.

[x88x]

Project Gutenberg. Free books for the taking.

Great source, definitely. :D Also, if audio books are what you want, librivox.org has a lot of volunteer-read recordings. That's how I finally got around to 'reading' The Origin Of Species...hour long drives to class + audiobooks = :D

[billygoat333]

I just finished Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. Why isn't this a freaking movie? great book... perfect for a movie adaptation.

[Diamon]

"Atlas Shrugged" by "Ayn Rand" (the book that inspired Bioshock!)

"Metro 2033" by "Dmitrij Gluchovskij" (some good parts but not worth reading imo)

"Shantaram" by "Gregory David Roberts" (quite good, some parts when the protagonist annoyed me but well worth the read)


After I finish Freedom I'm going to read Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. I'm told it's really good and despite being written 40+ years ago, really depicts the world we live in today.

I can vouch for that. The mono- and dialogues can get a bit lengthy at times but I really enjoyed almost all of the 1200 pages :D

[x88x]

"Metro 2033" by "Dmitrij Gluchovskij" (some good parts but not worth reading imo)

So is the game based on the book or is the book based on the game?

[Diamon]

So is the game based on the book or is the book based on the game?

Game's based on the book.

[x88x]

Game's based on the book.

Ok, good...I was worried about humanity for a second there... :P Though to be fair, the story in the game was pretty good (I guess because that part was already done for them). I never did finish it though.

[x88x]

I was just thinking today that I should make a thread like this....then remembered I already did! :P

I just finished Destroyer of Worlds by Larry Niven. Another great addition to his 'known space' universe. :D

Incidentally, if anyone wants hard sci-fi, Niven is your man. ;) I've read most of his stuff (strike that...just looked at his Wikipedia page looking for something else and...I've read maybe half his stuff..) and have yet to be disappointed. ...and he's been writing (and published!) for 47 years!

..and, in reading that article, I realized that Destroyer of Worlds is the third in a quartet! ...must...find...

[diluzio91]

I just finished the Percy Jackson series. Short but surprisingly good read. Next up? a bunch of books for school, then my summer reading.

[NightrainSrt4]

Finished The Dark Tower: The Drawing of the Three.

Needed a break from King's writing style, so I started Eyes of Prey by John Sandford. Already nearing completion. I like his style of showing you the killers right off, and flipping back and forth between their perspective and the detectives. It's different than keeping the killer from you and having that big climactic moment of *Dun dun dun, XYZ is the KILLER*, but you get more info about the killer. The climax seems to be an event in his books as opposed to a revelation.

[x88x]

I started Hidden Empire last night. It's a sequel to Empire, both by Orson Scott Card. If you like political/spec-ops action and sci-fi, I highly recommend them. Card is another author who has yet to steer me wrong. :D