What are you reading right now?

[onewheeled]

I recently read 1984 by George Orwell for the first time, for school. It absolutely blew me away, and it's now one of my favorite books of all time.

And in the near future, I plan on reading Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, H. G. Well's War of the Worlds, and the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

 

[Vengeful Dusk]

I'm currently reading Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein", then I'm going to read "Romeo and Juliet" for shits and giggles, and finish up with Dante's "Inferno".

Then once those are finished I get to start on my university reading list, and then the bets are on as to how long it takes me to kill myself...

 

[Mace Tulio]

I just started reading "The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity" by Tariq Ali. Just finished a little book Chinese History.

 

[Extraintrovert]

Fanfiction. Lots and lots of fanfiction. Shinji and Warhammer 40K (still ongoing after four years and still as awesome as ever), Imperfect Metamorphosis, The Shape of the Nightmare to Come, Interstitium, The Punishment, among many others (thank you, non-existent attention span), all of them clearly demonstrating the only difference between professional and amateur fiction is that the former has a publisher. Then there's all of the My Little Pony fanfiction I've found after becoming part of the herd, from It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door to Don't Let the Sun Catch You Crying.

I'm also currently working my way through the Gaunt's Ghosts books (yes, it's fanfiction) after purchasing nine of them at once, which I do not regret in the slightest.

 

[Titan Buttons]

Gotrek and Felix and False Gods
They are both well written and keep me interested.

 

[Rage Builder]

"A storm of Swords" by George R.R. Martin and "A Kingdom Besieged" by Raymond E. Fiest.
Not very far into the latter though but so far they're both books that I would recommend.

(Both pretty deep within their own series though)

 

[WolfThomas]

Finishing off The Losers from the Vertigo line.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Ooh! The Windup Girl! That's one of my all-time favorite books!

Calm down dear chap, you're getting hysterical! =P

How do you like it? I don't normally read science fiction, but what I loved about The Windup Girl is that Bacigalupi's vision of the 23rd century Bangkok is so complete and so exotic to my own realm of experience that it's just as compelling as a good fantasy.

I like it quite well, thank you. I do read sci-fi quite a bit (more a fantasy reader, personally, though I write more sci-fi... weird...), though I've heard this book described as 'biopunk'(!) Anyway, wrt sci-fi, I prefer space-opera/cyberpunk, but here, it's got me quite intrigued because of the concept of 'natural food' that brings a certain rough-around-the-edges feel, and yet it's handled very well ('real' for a lack of a better way of putting it).

If you like it, try Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi. It is less fantastic, but nevertheless it is the depth of the vision which makes it worth reading. Hehe, funny thing about Bacigalupi's writing is that he loves writing miserable stories of human suffering in apocalyptic-dystopian futures caused by our environmentally unsustainable practices. Did you know he was raised by hippies?

Interesting... strange choice of genre for a hippy raised author to write...(!) What you mentioned about 'human suffering in apocalyptic-dystopian futures' reminded me of Ian Irvine (his Three Worlds series in particular), man can he make a reader on edge and miserable as hell...

I have an enormous vocabulary and haven't had to use a dictionary when reading a novel in probably close to a decade, but this one sent me to the dictionary several times within the first few pages. And it's usually worth knowing what the words mean since most of the book is written with very figurative language such that it's hard to know what's going on if you're missing pieces of her analogy and metaphor. Luckily, I've been reading it on a Kindle, so that's made it somewhat easier.

Huh... may I take this opportunity to use this for once:

Seriously, though, I find that swamping the reader with ordinarily incomprehensible language is somewhat flow-breaking. Judging from your descriptions... I'm both curious... and wondering what she was attempting to achieve...

EDIT:

At the moment I'm reading Magician by Raymond E. Feist, it's the first book in the Riftwar trilogy. The book is incredible thus far, perhaps the best book I've ever read (I might be enjoying Magician even more than The Hobbit).

*random exultant shouting*

I'll be honest, I re-read Magician much more than LotR. Such a damned good book, just more exciting a journey, I think...

 

[Truniron]

Bones of the hills, by Conn Iggulden. Brutal and awesome. A little heavy at times, but gives one hell of a payoff at the best moments.

 

[Nexoram]

Well, I just the latest Skulduggery Pleasant book Death Bringer a week ago. Pretty awesome book, funny and full of action. Also, I realized I bought it the DAY it came out in Australia. I haven't even bought a game on release day.

 

[Caliostro]

Just finished Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and just started Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

 

[LadyTiamat]

"The Female Man" by Joanna Russ

A sci-fi feminst novel about what happens when 4 alteratve selves from different universes meet, each universe is different in regards with woman's place with man. Joanna= our world, Jeannine= a world where WW2 ever happened, Janet= a world where all the men died 1000 years before (reproduced with combining ovums), and jael= final war between man and woman (the part im just getting to). Its a facinating story on the hypocracy and inequality of women in gender roles and I think is still relevent today (celebs like Jodie Marsh and Jordo...oh wait Katie Price comes to mind and the celeb worship culture that comes with it)

 

[LadyTiamat]

Two books at the moment.

Steven King's "The Stand" and Deus Ex: Icarus Effect.

Both are pretty damn good.

The Stand is one of my favorate books of all time!

 

[llama32]

Terry Pratchett's Mort. After finishing that, will be moving on to Mogworld

 

[Sniperyeti]

The Man Without Qualities, that's going to take me a while to get through.
Man reading through this thread makes me jealous, all these good books I've already read that I wish I could start over again for the first time.
You can reread books but getting into good new one is intense.

 

[k-ossuburb]

Necronomicon: The Best and Weird Tales Of H.P. Lovecraft Commemorative edition.

I'm up to "In The Vault" so far and there's still a load more to go. I've also noticed that "Call Of Cthulu" isn't his best work, it's pretty average in comparison to "Herbert West: Re-animator" and "The Lurking Fear". Don't get me wrong, it's good and very atmospheric, but I'm more fond of his other work.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor. I got a signed copy from the British Museum Really enjoying it so far!

 

[Shodan1980]

Like so many others I'm reading "A Dance with Dragons" after picking up "Game of Thrones" cause I felt I really should. I normally hate fantasy but A Song of Ice and Fire is just incredible. George R.R. Martin is like a fantasy Peter F. Hamilton; great characters, epic stories and great dialogue.

Also just finished re-reading Order of the Stick book 4, "Don't Split the Party". Love it.

 

[Mrselfdestruct]

The Hobbit. Best book I've ever read methinks.