I'm still slowly making my way through 2312. But in the meantime I read Eaarth which I've seen recommended on this site a few times. I think kleinbl00 is a big proponent? It was a good read, although a bit disheartening considering it was written 5+ years ago and not nearly enough has changed for the better since then.
Hell, since the book was written we've crossed 400ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide. I like it because it isn't about "ZOMG we must change things immediately or we are teh doomz" it's about "since we probably aren't going to fix this in time, here's what you can expect" without sugar-coating or doomsaying. As for me, I'm still cranking through The Twelve Million Dollar Stuffed Shark and enjoying it dearly. I worry it's going to make me insufferable in discussions about art (crafty - you're still due). I also plowed through The Men Who Stare At Goats and found it every bit as enjoyable and disheartening as Ronson's books tend to be. I tried to start Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian but I'm unconvinced.
I invested probably about 200 pages into BM (pun intended) by the time I decided to cut my losses. I only got that far, because I was stuck in jury duty with lots of down time, and it's what I had picked up for the Hubski book club that month. Otherwise, I think I would have quit around page 50.
I've never read any of his other stuff. I know that there are people whose opinions I respect who like him, and I know that there are film adaptations of a couple of his stories that I like. But so far, they only things I've gotten direct are this and The Counselor, which he wrote the original screenplay for, if I'm not mistaken. I'm pretty sure that movie would have been terrible even if Cameron Diaz were replaced by a competent actor. So that brings to 2 out of 2 things of his that I've consumed and hated. Think I'm done unless someone puts together a really compelling case for me to try again.
I must say, I look forward to even the most insufferable discussion of art; it is one of the few topics I'm slightly knowledgeable of. There's only a very tiny handful of artists and art that I dislike, and I must admit, I'm not a Hirst-hater, although I recognize him for what he is.
I just installed the Kindle app on my Nexus 7 tablet and bought some of the Hugo nominees. Not sure if I like the e-reader thing yet. There is a sad lack of serious non-fiction for the e-readers yet that is not insanely priced. For $20 I can get a physical book I own and can lend out, or for $19 I can get a file that I have a license to possess that can be revoked at any time for any reason? That is nuts. I can't even tell you what I bought, but each book was $3-$6 and there were five of them. I don't read fiction as a rule; the real world is way more interesting. So I'll read these few books and decide if it is for me.
I just finished A Slow Death: 83 Days of Radiation Sickness. The book is the more in-depth version of the Japanese documentary (according to the author, can't seem to find the documentary itself anywhere). It's about the first worker (Hisashi Ouchi) who died 83 days after receiving higher than lethal dose of radiation and the uphill battle he and the medical workers had to face trying to keep the man alive. It was a short read, but it's definitely worth it. It made me consider and appreciate the dilemma medical workers have to face when they're confronted with a terminal case as severe and relatively unknown (at the time) as this one. It's definitely one of those situations where if I had to make the decision to keep the man alive or let him pass away, I honestly wouldn't know what I would choose. Needless to say, I'm glad I'm not a doctor. I'm not sure I could handle the stress of such a decision (and I stress out real easy). I've also started on Voices of Chernobyl and finishing Leviathan Wakes (this is my fifth time reading it). I'm probably going to focus on Leviathan Wakes first. My boyfriend is almost done with Abaddon's Gate. I have some catching up to do before he reaches Nemesis Games!
5 times?! That's crazy! I've read each book in the series once and enjoyed all of them but haven't gone back to read any a second time. Have you read the character specific novellas at all? They've released them as ebooks in between each major book of the series.Leviathan Wakes (this is my fifth time reading it)
Yeah, I keep rereading all the books every time a new one comes out. I might have to stop doing that soon, don't have as much free time as I used to! I haven't gotten around to reading the character specific novellas. I'm not sure why, so I guess I'll have to put it on my to-read list :)
Just discovered this as well, it's a nice little bit of extra backstory. http://www.syfy.com/theexpanse/drive/
I'm finishing up Cockroach by Rawi Hage. It's gone in a whole lot of different directions, and I have no idea exactly how it will end up. I don't know if I would recommend it, but I have enjoyed my read as I come to the end.
finishing up Infinite Jest for the second time, totally worth it. Since I'm starting up as a freshmen in college my literary endeavor will unfortunately be put on hold. Looking into finishing my Dostoevsky collection though.
A chap at work lent me Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell after a brief conversation about Orwell. I am nearly finished, and while I started off really enjoying it, it has become increasingly painful to read. It reads like a train wreck in slow motion. On the whole, I am still enjoying it though.
Glimpses of World History by Jawaharlal Nehru. Nehru was the first Prime Minister who served for something like 15 years I think. Glimpses is a collection of letters he wrote to his daughter while imprisoned by the British during the struggle for Indian independence. The letters were Nehru's attempt to instruct his daughter on the history of the world. It comes in at around 1000 pages and is remarkable in it's detail. It is absolutely the most complete world history ever written from a prison cell. Nehru must have passed a very keen and orderly mind. I've read worse histories of the world from people who had access to libraries and experts. The book gives some insight into the struggle for independence. I'm not very far in but it's good so far.
Neat. I'm taking a Security Issues in South Asia class for my grad program this semester and would be really interested in reading that. Nehru is a fascinating figure.
I just finished The Grace of Kings - it is an epic fantasy book by Ken Liu. Interestingly enough, he was also the translator of Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem. The Grace of Kings was pretty fantastic in that it was just something really different in a pretty stale genre: third person omniscient; Polynesian setting; and a story that is told much like Romance of the Three Kingdoms and is basically the fantasy version of the Chu-Han Contention and the fall of the Qin Dynasty in Chinese history. It was fucking awesome. It's strange, cause when I first read about the clusterfuck that was the rise of the Han Dynasty I thought it would make an awesome fantasy book and someone went and did it. I'm glad. Right now I'm reading The Sorrow of War because I read The Things They Carried last week and I wanted a war novel from the perspective of the Vietnamese.