Just finished Neverwhere. It took me a while to start, because Neil Gaiman books, while awesome, are usually depressing as hell, but I’m glad I finally read it. It was awesome.
LOL. Half of Brown’s references are based on conjecture anyways. Like the Priory of Sion as a secret society founded in 1099, is a complete load of bullocks. The society was founded in 1956 by a Frenchman by the name of Pierre Plantard who claimed he was of the Merovingian bloodline. He distributed texts into various notable libraries in France. One such book is known as Les Dossiers Secrets, listing various Priory Grand Masters over the centuries. The society was officially disbanded and pronounced defunct a couple years later by the French government, based on illegal activities, and fraudulant practices. Plantard tried to keep it going on into well past the millennium where he edited his original Grand Master list to include a powerful French politician who was charged with serious allegations after the publication was printed. Because of this, Plantard was called to the witness stand because of the Frenchman’s inclusion on the list, where he publicly announced that all he claimed was fabricated and false.
It’s funny what you can dig up, just by doing a little research.
Not like anyone’s responding to this thread. But I’ve since moved onto Dan Brown’s final chapter with Robert Langden in The Lost Symbol.
Pretty cool Mason conspiracy thriller.
Re-read Men At Arms as part of my quest to re-read Discworld in chronological order. It’s funny, but the first time around, I didn’t realize how GOOD some of these books were. I mean, they’re all good, but… Men at Arms was, like, GOOD. I had remembered it as my least favorite of the Watch books, somehow.
The lost symbol is the worst book in the series, and is horrible!
Terry Pratchett is awesome, looking forward to my birthday so I can get Snuff!
Currently reading through the A Song of Fire and Ice series, reading a Clash of Kings. It’s engaging stuff, my big issue with a Game of Thrones was the fact that while Martin tries to catch the reader out with many little twists and they are all quite predictable, its like he telegraphs them a page or half a page before he ‘springs’ it on you.
Read a decent chunk of Going After Cacciato before I had to return it to the school library. It’s a very well written book.
Now, I admit, Angels and Demons is the best out of the three, I wouldn’t describe The Lost Symbol as horrible. Da Vinci Code and Lost Symbol are certainly not great books, but they make for an entertaining read, though shallow at best, but not bad.
James Baldwin - Go Tell It On the Mountain
Cormac McCarthy - Blood Meridian
Raymond Carver - What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
William Burroughs - Junkie
Started rereading Roadside Picnic. I can’t wait till the reissue comes out next year so I can pick up a physical copy of it.
Got quite a bit further into Atlas Shrugged. Into Part 2 now.
Monster by A. Lee Martinez.
Finished The Lost Symbol. I felt that it ended well, if not a little too predictable. Once they were like, “I know why this dude hates your family so much…” it became quite apparent, before they actually came out and said who the main antagonist actually was. What a twist!
Tonight I also finished The One Minute Entrepreur by Ken Blanchard and Don Hutson with Ethan Willis. A book about a guy starting up his own sucessful business, and the best way to get there. It’s a little hokey in the first chapter, but it picks up pace shortly after the second. It has some excellent insight into developing a small business, and is recommended for anyone aspiring to run their own company.
Carl Sagan - The Demon-Haunted World
Walter Issacson - Steve Jobs
John Steinbeck - East of Eden
I saw the Green Lantern movie recently, which inspired me to go on a Green Lantern binge. Green Lantern has always been my favorite superhero, but it’s been on backburner for a little while. So, I picked up Blackest Night, one of the more recent DC Universe comics, which features Hal Jordan in a really prominent role. It was sweet.
Also, I’ve read a bunch more Pratchett (The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, The Fifth Elephant, The Truth) in my ongoing quest to reread the series in chronological order. While I was home over the holidays, I visited Powell’s City of Books in Portland, OR and picked up I Shall Wear Midnight, one of Pratchett’s more recent novels (I also saw Snuff in hardback, and it took a great deal of self-control not to buy it; I don’t buy hardbacks if I can help it); Dreadnought by Cherie Priest; Tom Swift and His Polar-Ray Dynasphere (which I probably won’t actually read; I have an extensive collection of old Tom Swift hardbacks, which I used to love the hell out of when I was younger, but which I now keep around pretty much exclusively as collectibles); and Look to Windward by Iain M. Banks, which I’m reading now.
[color=Black]Just for a minute, let’s all do the bump… bump bump bump… yeeeeeah
Just read:
“Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline
“Equations of Life” by Simon Morden
Now attempting to read:
Full text of H.R. 3261, otherwise known as the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
Currently reading Russia by Philip Longworth
I tried reading Afghanistan by David Isby, but it became veeerrry boring veeerrry fast.
I’m through Thief of Time and Night Watch, two of my favorite Discworld novels. I’m currently halfway through The Wee Free Men. I also just read yesterday Green Lantern: Rebirth, which is a collection of the first six issues of Geoff Johns’ reboot of Green Lantern. So good.
Just sort of bringing this thread back up with an inquiry:
Has anyone read the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Blue Mars, and Green Mars) by Kim Stanley Robinson?
I had never really looked into them before but they seem interesting. Plus i feel like ordering something more than just Neuromancer now that I’ve actually remembered adding that one to my “to-read”-list.
I’ve recently gotten started on Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, by Douglas Adams, which I have been meaning to pick up for the past two years.
40-some pages into it, and it seems to be a case of “if you like the author you will like the book”.
Just read:
This thread