[stone monkey]

Today I bought:

Wireless by Charles Stross - I have his other short story collection Toast which I enjoyed greatly (and which actually also contains one of the stories in this one). I'm something of a fan of his, so I'm very much looking forward to getting my teeth into this one.
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov - which I've been meaning to get around to reading for years in my quest to discover and make up my own mind about the quality of the great canonical novels of the 20th Century.
Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lindqvist - I've finally succumbed after hearing all the good things said about this, here and in other places.
A Great and Terrible King by Marc Morris - a biography of Edward "Longshanks" (Edward I, also called "Malleus Scotii" - The Hammer of the Scots, for you non-history buffs) He has an interesting place in British history and I've wanted to find out more about him for quite some time.

They should keep me occupied for a while, I feel.

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 08 August 2009 - 06:42 PM

[Slum]

Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov; Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius; and two beautiful new hardcover editions of Moby Dick and Great Expectations. All for the low low price of $3! Gotta love them library book sales. One day I might even finish Moby Dick.

Too bad the only fantasy books I saw there were W&H and Jordan....

Oh, and nothing brings the old folks out early on a Saturday morning like the allure of $0.50 paperbacks. My patience for browsing was severely hampered by these doddering old senile slowpokes.

[stone monkey]

Slumgullion Spitteler, on Aug 8 2009, 09:16 PM, said:

One day I might even finish Moby Dick.

I'm not hugely fond of it myself... Bartleby the Scrivenor is fun though.

I wasn't as impressed with the Eggers when I read it. I'm generally fond of the McSweeney's mob's take on writing, but this didn't really do it for me. I read it at the height of the hype, so I doubt that any book could have been as good as that one was built up to be. David Foster Wallace was, for me, the epitome of that set of stylistic flourishes, and Eggers, whilst not a bad writer by any means, doesn't even come close to his level of skill.

[coltainereborn]

That is some ambitious reading material @slum. I just barely finished Moby Dick cuz I had to read it for school. The brothers Karamozov, I spent a summer reading that thing and got like 3/4 of the way through before I just broke down and set it aside..good luck

[Slum]

stone monkey, on Aug 8 2009, 05:25 PM, said:

Slumgullion Spitteler, on Aug 8 2009, 09:16 PM, said:

One day I might even finish Moby Dick.

I'm not hugely fond of it myself... Bartleby the Scrivenor is fun though.

I wasn't as impressed with the Eggers when I read it. I'm generally fond of the McSweeney's mob's take on writing, but this didn't really do it for me. I read it at the height of the hype, so I doubt that any book could have been as good as that one was built up to be. David Foster Wallace was, for me, the epitome of that set of stylistic flourishes, and Eggers, whilst not a bad writer by any means, doesn't even come close to his level of skill.

Yeah, the blurbs for AHWOSG make him sound like the best thing since sliced bread. Plenty of reviews on Amazon echo your sentiments, though.

coltainereborn, on Aug 8 2009, 05:36 PM, said:

That is some ambitious reading material @slum. I just barely finished Moby Dick cuz I had to read it for school. The brothers Karamozov, I spent a summer reading that thing and got like 3/4 of the way through before I just broke down and set it aside..good luck

Well, I have a thing with buying classics at book sales. I really like to add them to my book collection when they only cost a dollar or so. It's amazing how many of these books were never even read. The Bros. K doesn't even have a crack in the spine, and Moby Dick and Great Expectations look like they were bought yesterday. Only AHWOSG has obviously been read before.

It's not like I'm on some mission to read through any of them right away. Oh, and Moby Dick and I have had our disagreements - there's been numerous times I've picked it up and put it down out of sheer boredom.

[QuickTidal]

I picked up ALTERED CARBON today by Richard Morgan. Never read his stuff and don't read a lot of sci-fi, but lots of people seem to like it, so hopefully I will dig it. We'll see...

[MTS]

Got Sailing to Sarantium and Lord of Emperors by Guy Gavriel Kay today. People on here seem to love him, and SE recommended him, so I thought I'd give him a go.

[teholbeddict]

The Sarantine Mosaic duo are my favourite of GGK books MTS. I think you will definitely like them.

Picked up Gun's Germs and Steel, by Jared Diamond. Also grabbed A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers. From the few pages I read of each at the book store it looks like they should be good reads.

[Fist Gamet]

QuickTidal, on Aug 9 2009, 09:35 PM, said:

I picked up ALTERED CARBON today by Richard Morgan. Never read his stuff and don't read a lot of sci-fi, but lots of people seem to like it, so hopefully I will dig it. We'll see...

Awesome, enjoy/

I pre-ordered my copy of DoD, yay!

[stone monkey]

Just bought Oceanic by Greg Egan, his third (I think) collection of short stories. Egan is the hardest of hard sf writers, and one of my personal favourites, so I've been looking forward to this quite a bit. His last collection Luminous contains, in the title story, one of my favourite sf short stories ever.

[Aptorian]

"Dust of Motherfucking Dreams" by the Lord Almighty.

"Shadows Edge" and "Beyond the Shadows", book two and three in Brent Weeks "Night Angel Trilogy".

"Guilty Pleasures" First book in the Anita Blake series by Laura K Hamilton.

[councilor]

dust of dream - being shipped today!

also - the complete Calvin and hobbes, should be shipping any day now.

This post has been edited by councilor: 18 August 2009 - 05:59 AM

[MTS]

Because Guy Gavriel Kay is AWESOME, I bought The Lions of Al-Rassan and Tigana to tide me over until DoD gets here.

[RangerSG]

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Aug 18 2009, 01:21 AM, said:

Because Guy Gavriel Kay is AWESOME, I bought The Lions of Al-Rassan and Tigana to tide me over until DoD gets here.

I really should read more of Kay. I thought Tigana was very interesting. The plot twists along the way made up for some character deficiencies.

[Abyss]

Aptorian, on Aug 17 2009, 03:02 PM, said:

..."Guilty Pleasures" First book in the Anita Blake series by Laura K Hamilton.

Just remember - read until OBSIDIAN BUTTERFLY and then pretend the author retired.

councilor, on Aug 18 2009, 01:58 AM, said:

...also - the complete Calvin and hobbes, should be shipping any day now.

STRONG!

RangerSG, on Aug 18 2009, 09:00 AM, said:

Mappo's Travelling Sack, on Aug 18 2009, 01:21 AM, said:

Because Guy Gavriel Kay is AWESOME, I bought The Lions of Al-Rassan and Tigana to tide me over until DoD gets here.

I really should read more of Kay. I thought Tigana was very interesting. The plot twists along the way made up for some character deficiencies.

I actually thought TIGANA (along with LAST LIGHT) was fairly weak. I way preferred LIONS, SARANTINE and SONG and even the FIONAVAR TAPESTRY. But that said, once i got into Kay, i did have to read them all.

- Abyss, also waiting for The Day of the DoD...

[Bhurnae]

stone monkey, on Aug 8 2009, 07:40 PM, said:

A Great and Terrible King by Marc Morris - a biography of Edward "Longshanks" (Edward I, also called "Malleus Scotii" - The Hammer of the Scots, for you non-history buffs) He has an interesting place in British history and I've wanted to find out more about him for quite some time.

do me a favour and let me know how you get on with this one SM?

[stone monkey]

It's very informative if rather dry...

On topic...Dust of Dreams... I haz it! It iz mine!

And damn Waterstones for making me wait an extra day!

This post has been edited by stone monkey: 19 August 2009 - 07:02 PM

[Volkh]

I just bought Brian Herberts Battle of Corrin. I have read and love all of the original dune series and my best friend ( who i got into reading with Lord of the Rings, George RR Martin and Dune ) said I needed to read the Prequel's to understand what happened at the end of the original series and the books that Brian Herbert put out as follow ups that take place after Chapterhouse. Dune is one of my fav series and have loved every book I've picked up so far in it over the years, so i can't wait to get into the meat of this one!

[Obdigore]

Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie.

[Use Of Weapons]

_Heroes Die_ is on its way to me from Amazon.

At the same time, I ordered _Higher Superstition: The Academic Left and Its Quarrels with Science_ by Paul Gross and Norman Levitt, the book that triggered the Sokal Hoax (http://en.wikipedia....ki/Sokal_affair)