What are you reading right now?

[Tiny Gigan]

Will probably finish Blasphemy - How the Religious Right is Hijacking Our Declaration of Independence by Alan Dershowitz this afternoon, at which point I will start either Revolutionary Spirits - The Enlightened Faith of America's Founding Fathers by Gary Kowalski or The Ten-Cent PLague - The Great Comic Books Scare and How It Changed America by David Hajdu.

I kind of want to read the Kowalski book first because it sort of goes hand in hand with the Dershowitz one, but I read a chapter of The Ten-Cent Plague last night and I can hardly wait to dig into it. What a predicament.

[lhb412]

Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut, a collection of his short stories he wrote for magazines in the '50s and early '60s. It is a sort of sequel to his more famous collection, Welcome to the Monkey House.

[lhb412]

...don't usually mention comics as the only ones I read (Hellboy, BPRD, The Goon) are pretty breezy and don't take long too long to get through, but I just read Watchmen by Alan Moore.

[lhb412]

Letters from the Earth by Mark Twain.

[lhb412]

American Gods, my first not co-written by Terry Pratchett Neil Gaiman book.

[briizilla]

[MouthForWar]

[lhb412]

[Tiny Gigan]

I finished The Ten-Cent Plague last weekend and I'd recommend it to any comic book fans or pop culture buffs. It deals with the evolution of comic books out of the Sunday comics section around th eturn of the century and then talks about how comics developed all the way through the 1950s and the big row over the EC horror lines. Unfortunately it kind of cuts off abruptly at the end. The subtitle is "The Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America", but the entire "how it changed America" bit was dealt with in like one chapter at the end. It would have been interesting for him to go a ways farther and address how the Comic Code Authority eventually came to be abandoned my most publishers. I suppose that would have made for an 800 page book, though.

Right now I can't decide on whether to start Revolutionary Spirits by Gary Kowalski, The Lucifer Effect by Phillip Zimbardo, or The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins next. I've had the first two for a while and have yet to get around to reading them, so I feel like they should get priority, but I also really enjoy reading Dawkins, so for now it's a toss up.

[canofhumdingers]

well, i left my copy of The Oddyssey on an airplane when i was about halfway through it. So, i read H Rider Haggard's "King Solomon's Mines" until i could find another copy of Homer's epic.

As for King Solomon's Mines, WOW! That was a great adventure book. I think my enjoyment was multiplied by the fact that I was so disappointed by Indiana Jones 4 & was REALLY in the mood for a good adventure story in that vein. Well King Solomon's Mines delivered in every way! I can see why some people might be offended by the depiction of natives, but i would consider those people just as ignorant as the people who think Huckleberry Finn is racist.... If you actually pay attention to what the natives do & how they are portrayed as opposed to the way the characters talk about them, you'll see the book isn't racist at all. Anyway, good adventure book. Read it.

As for the Oddyssey, I finally got another copy & finished it just the other day. That, too, was quite good. A bit long winded, but i expected that going in. I can say that i'm glad i never had to read it in high school b/c it would've felt like torture. But reading it at my leisure & not feeling pressure to get through it for some report or paper was a very enjoyable experience. I think taking a break & reading a fast paced adventure novel halfway through actually helped as well...

[MekaGojira3k]

Breaking Dawn by Stephanie Meyer
and re-reading the Lord of the Rings (not read them since the 7th grade)

[lhb412]

The Time Machine by HG Wells

[baragon123]

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark trilogy. Damn talk about disturbing. When I was about 8 or 9 I never got the courage to read these cause of those drawings.

[Legion]

[baragon123]

[Tiny Gigan]

The Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark books had the most terrifying art ever. Those books freakin' haunted my childhood. I picked up the same collection you're talking about a while back and the stories weren't remotely what I remembered, but those drawings, man...

[Robert Saint John]

[lhb412]

Pyramids by Terry Pratchett.

[Tiny Gigan]

I finally got the chance to start in on The Blind Watchmaker recently and I've got about 50 pages left. Unfortunately I'm having to fight the urge to rush through because my girlfriend got me some of the Savage Sword of Conan collections for my birthday last week and I'm really anxious to dig into those. Science is one thing, but massive barbarians cleaving things in twain and humping tavern wenches appeals to a totally different center of the brain.

[lhb412]

A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens. I'm ashamed to say I haven't read any Dickens before and yet I can already tell that his prose in this story is right up my alley. When it gets down to it many of my fav writers are his literary descendants so this isn't suprising.

[GhostMachine]

[Tiny Gigan]

Was the whole "Dickens was paid by the word" thing real or just an old wive's tale? Frankly, it's believable. Great Expectations was probably the most irritatingly verbose go-nowhere book I ever had to read. (At least as far as fiction goes.)

Unfortunately, I won't be reading anything for a while because Louisville lost most of its electrical service Sunday because of a wind storm and we mere peasants have been informed that we won't have home service for 10-14 days because repairs will be initially focused on getting things back on line for the freakin' Ryder Cup. Bah, I guess I can't be too mad, though. At least my house didn't get knocked down or anything like those poor folks in Texas.

[lhb412]

[MekaGojira3k]

[Tiny Gigan]