What are you reading right now?

[funkykingston]

Stealing the idea from the music thread, I thought it would be interesting to see what books are sitting on people's night stands.

For me right now its:

The Blank Slate - Steven Pinker

the curious incident of the dog in the night time - Mark Haddon

The Blind Watchmaker - Richard Dawkins

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

I've stopped trying to read just one book at a time and given in to my ADD. Whichever one interests me at any given time is the one I pick up and read. When I finish one, I put another in rotation.

 

[kings52/23]

um i dont think theres a book on my nightstand although devos for sports fans is on my floor and my fanfare, and sports illustrated, and got sports for kids are there with it

 

[VF21]

The Last Season (A Team in Search of Its Soul) - Phil Jackson

Werehunter - Mercedes Lackey

Disorderly Conduct (Verbatim Excerpts from Actual Cases) - Rodney R. Jones, Charles M. Sevilla, Gerald F. Uelmen

1st to Die - James Patterson

 

[GoGoGadget]

Choke, Chuck Palahniuk

Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard

 

[linzeesan]

I'm still reading the Series of Unfortunate Events books, even though the movie sort of ruined it in a way for me. Also Jon Stewart's text book on America, there's some really funny stuff in there. Soon I will be reading an anatomy text book.

 

[funkykingston]

Choke, Chuck Palahniuk

Rum Punch, Elmore Leonard

I've always liked Elmore Leonard. The last one I read was Cuba Libre which was a bit of a disappointment.

One of my students has been recommending Choke for quite a while. I've read Fight Club, but I'm not sure I'm ready for another Palahniuk novel just yet. And I don't read much fiction to begin with.

That said, my next book is likely Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues by Elijah Wald.

 

[Londonking]

'Runes of the Earth (The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)'.....by Stephen Donaldson.

'Killing Pablo'.....Mark Bowden

Im also dipping in and out of 'A Brief History of Time' by Stephen Hawking, but i havent got quite enough brain cells to fully appreciate the concepts he puts forward...this frustrates me so i put the book down...but i'm interested in space and time, quantum mechanics and relativity so i get drawn back to it again...only to find that i couldn't follow the conclusions of the last chapter i read...so i put it back on the shelf...but it sits there looking at me with potential answers to mysteries of our universe within its pages and i know im going to have to have another go before long....

 

[doone]

Jeet Kune Do by Bruce Lee

 

[Fillmoe]

[font=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]1,000 PLACES TO SEE BEFORE YOU DIE, by Patricia Schultz
[/font][font=Times New Roman,Times,Serif]THE DA VINCI CODE, by Dan Brown[/font]

 

[arwen undomiel]

The Far Pavillions by M.M. Kaye

Cosmos by Carl Sagan

awaiting the next Harry Potter on 7/16

 

[quick dog]

In line for consumption are:

Wawro, G., 2003, The Franco-Prussian War, Cambridge University Press.

Peters, C.J., and Olshaker, M., 1997, Virus Hunter, Anchor Books, Doubleday.

Enger, L., 2001, Peace Like a River, Grove Press.

The first one is interesting, but it puts me to sleep.

 

[Evenstar]

"salt" mark kurlansky

waiting for harry potter and the 1/2 blood prince to come out!!!

i also have "the bartemus trilogy, the amulet of samarkind" waiting to be read ( i forget the name of the author at the moment)

 

[SDKing]

the curious incident of the dog in the night time - Mark Haddon

A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving

Haven't read the curious incident, but hear it's great.
Prayer for Owen Meany is excellent.

My girlfriend recommended The Memory of Running. I don't know who it's by, but it's apparently getting wonderful praise, so that's next on my list.

Choke is very good as well, but I know what you mean about too much Palahniuk

 

[GoGoGadget]

One of my students has been recommending Choke for quite a while. I've read Fight Club, but I'm not sure I'm ready for another Palahniuk novel just yet. And I don't read much fiction to begin with.

It is definitely very typical Palahniuk -- certainly an acquired taste. I loved Fight Club, so I picked this one up last time through Barnes & Noble (and I now plan on reading the rest of his books). I picked it up the other day to take a break from my other reading and just skim a chapter or two and ended up reading the whole thing straight through. Completely sick, twisted, slightly disturbing and incredibly hilarious. I highly recommend it.

 

[KingKong]

Shantaram- Greagory David Roberts

 

[ILV]

The cobra event by Richard Preston

 

[Prophetess]

'Runes of the Earth (The Final Chronicles of Thomas Covenant)'.....by Stephen Donaldson.

please tell me more. I've read the others. It's a continuation? When did it come out?

 

[thesanityannex]

the curious incident of the dog in the night time - Mark Haddon

.

very good read.
i'm a care provider for two autistic adults so its interesting to get a feel for how they think, and this book provides that.

 

[EmKingsFan4]

Little Women

 

[iheartBrad]

Technically its not sitting on my stand but its on top of my TV but I'm currently reading..

Can You Keep A Secret by Sophie Kinsella (the author of the Shopaholic series)

 

[captain bill]

Not very literate, are we? I thought this was a good idea for a thread so I went and dug it up.

A few weeks ago I finished reading "Multitude" by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri. For those of you interested in politics and philosophy, or really the modern world at all, I highly recommend this book. Could be better, but very thought provoking. Had some good discussions with myself over this one.

Just picked up "The World is Flat" by Thomas Friedman. I've disagreed with just about everything I've read by this guy (just his NY Times articles) but I've been hearing about this book all over C-SPAN and NPR and somewhere else I can't remember. And should also be informative, even if I disagree with him.

And reading "The Sun Also Rises" when I have the chance.

 

[RoyalDiva]

I think it's best if we stay away from discussing political books as that would lead to the banned discussion of politics.

I need to start reading BOOKs again. For the past year it's just mainly been magazines and such, that's all I seem to have time for. Last year I did manage to get through the 900-page 'Helter Skelter', but that's been it.

 

[And1]

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - J.K. Rowling

When I heard the 6th book in this series was coming out, I realized that I had read the 5th one so long ago that I couldn't remember any of the details about it. So I'm re-reading this one before I start the 1/2 Blood Prince (It's been very hard to avoid all of the press about the new one, though, so I'm trying to read this in a hurry.).

I also just finished The Taking by Dean Koontz. He's one of my favorite authors and it was great.

 

[BigSong]

I'm reading A Collecton of Essays, by George Orwell

and once I get around to it i'm picking up Cormac McCarthy's new book,
No Country for Old Men.

 

[Bballkingsrock]

Harry Potter an the Half Blood Prince. I am 1/3rd of the way done.

 

[PixelPusher]

Just finishing up "Dune: House Atreides" written by Brian Herbert (Frank Herbert's son) and Kevin J. Anderson (prolific sci-fi writer).

It's the first of a couple of prequels to the original Dune novel series.

 

[VF21]

And how is it? I generally dislike/abhor/detest characters and stories that are picked up by someone after the original author has either died or become to senile to write any longer.

 

[funkykingston]

I've added "Collapse" by Jared Diamond to my list of reading books and I've been intermittantly been reading essays from "Dinosaur in a Haystack" by the always awesome Stephen J. Gould.

For fiction I think I'm ready to read more Kafka. I bought "The Castle" years ago but never read it. The last thing I read of his was "Metamorphosis" for a class in college.

 

[GoGoGadget]

I just started "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris. Very funny.

 

[PixelPusher]

And how is it? I generally dislike/abhor/detest characters and stories that are picked up by someone after the original author has either died or become to senile to write any longer.

They're faithfull to the original Dune books (probably because of Brian Herbert and his fathers notes), and are actually a little easier to read. Frank Herbert would tease the reader by trickling out vital information and clues as the story went along, so that all the threads didn't come together until the very end of the novel; these prequels assume most of the readers are already familiar with all of the political, technological (and metaphysical) concepts, so it lays them out in a fairly standard, up-front exposition at the appropriate times. It even "cheats" a little by introducing protoypes for things like the "no-field" and "artifically produced melange" centuries before they were introduced in the original novels.