Right now I'm juggling between three books: Ken Bruen's Priest, Nicholas Blincoe's The Dope Priest and an anthology of works by Kahlil Gibran entitled A Treasury of Kahlil Gibran.

I've been reading the Bruen book most, and it's, as typical with Bruen, quite bloody good.

I plan to acquire William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch soon.

Ironic that you happened to mix him up with someone whom has also written Conan books. I used to always get Stephen R. Donaldson and Stephen R. Lawhead mixed up in my head.

I'll read some of Howard's Conan books if you read some of Jordan's.

Reading a few, back and forth..

The Chrysanthemum and the Bat - Robert whiting
- The author (an american) writes about his years of involvement with Japanese baseball. Reading this one because i love baseball, and am curious to see how the game differs between nations (let's see how accurate that Tom Selleck movie really was)

Toons for Tunes - Dan Goldmark
- Just a book about cartoon music. Almost finished this one - not a bad read at all, though quick. Talks about Carl Stalling, Scott Bradley, and then about both jazz and classical music's influence on the medium.

Psychology of Music - Diana Deutsch
- This one will take a while. Basically a collection of 21 academic journal articles on music psychology research. Very tough read! But it's where i wanna go with my life, so let's hope it's worth it

Good luck on Chaucer, I hated it when we had to read the Tales in high school (maybe it's different for you since you're a native speaker, but to me it was incredibly boring). I really like Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman, although I read some of the stories before in his other work. I think that it shows you that Murakami has grown in his writing, especially since it seems that he can come up with short stories on a whim, whereas he seems to have more difficulties with novels. Look at Kafka on the Shore, for example, brilliant book, read the first volume in 2 days, but near the end he somehow got lost in his own story. He doesn't seem to have this problem with simple stories, although they can be rather confusing too.

I haven't really been reading for pleasure lately, too busy for my Japanese Literature class. I've had to read Oe Kenzaburo's The Silent Cry (horrible, horrible book, really overrated), Jun'Ichiro Tanizaki's Sasameyuki (awesome), and I just started Confessions of a Mask (Mishima Yukio). I'm still a bit baffled that the teacher failed to include Natsume Soseki's work, seeing as he's probably the best Japanese writer ever.

I have a few books lined up for when I finish my exams, Jose Saramago, Chuck Palahniuk and Alexandre Dumas (again), but if you guys have recommendations, I'm always open to suggestions.

Chaucer's not all that bad. Just like anything else that's used widely in school settings, it's over analyzed, and as such, incredibly dreary. The actual linguistics of it are really interesting, the usage of old and middle English for punning and comedic effect. Now, I find a lot of the old stuff incredibly dull. I get that Virgil and Chaucer are incredibly important, but I've read them once. And that's enough, yeah?

Finished Chelsea Quinn Yarbro's Borne in Blood.

It ended well, so I was pleased with having finished it, at least.

Pros:
Good language.
Very historically accurate.
Good ending.

Cons:
Drags on. Too many scenes about how the fuck nobles dine, dress, and travel.
At some points, reaks of female sex fanfics. I can't remember the word for that for the life of me right now, but yeah.

Overall, I'd only recommend this book to a girl that was into sci-fi or manga or like shit. For being the TWENTIETH book in said particular series, I'm kinda let down. I've yet to decide if I'll read any at all of the other nineteen, but the answer is probably no for a long while.

And right now I'm halfway through The Gunslinger.

And so far, I likey. But FUCK does Stephen King have a dirty fucking mind. Guy needs to lay off the sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

The Way of All Flesh, by Samuel Butler: I've just started this one, so I've only been introduced to Mr. Pontifex...

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down: GREAT BOOK. Written by Anne Fadiman, it's about the cultural difference between a Hmong family whose daughter has epilepsy, and the Californian doctors that want to treat the epilepsy...except Hmongs believe that people with epilepsy are blessed by God, and they don't see it as the life threatening condition that modern American society does. It's fabulously written, and it's really really good.

The Golden Compass, by Phillip Pullman: Ummm...I finally got around to reading this because people kept on telling me how amazing it was, but I don't know if I like it or not so far. I like the story line, but not the way he writes it...

Philip Pullman is great if you're 12. After that, holy christ dull.

Right now I'm reading Bunker 13 by Aniruddha Bahal. Got it for cheap at a warehouse clearance sale (like, USD$1.50 or something?) and I have to say that I'd have paid quite a bit more for it, judging by what I've read so far.

It's set in India, deals primarily with a reporter getting involved with a certain regiment (is that the proper word?) of the Indian army involved in the Kashmir (Kashmiri?) conflict who are, for lack of a better term, morally loose.

It's a bit demented, perhaps, as a review would have it, but I'm liking it so far.

The quote from the Guardian on the cover goes like: "Imagine Catch 22 rewritten by Hunter S. Thompson [and] set in an unapologetically modern India.", which may just describe it quite well. I'm not familiar enough with Catch 22 and/or Hunter S. Thompson to say for sure, though.

I very, very strongly recommend you grab Catch 22 next. And then some Hunter S. Thompson. Can't go wrong with either.

Will do.

I've been meaning to do so, actually but got side-tracked by my sudden desire to read Burroughs' Naked Lunch (which I have now finished, by the way. I liked it.).

Would Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas be a good starting point in regards to Hunter S. Thompson?

I'd probably dive in regardless, though.

Godddamn, I love Naked Lunch. Ever seen the movie adaptation? It's tremendous.

Anyway, yeah, Fear and Loathing is a good starting point, in that it really does a nice job of acclimatizing you to Thompson's sheer madness.

It's an awesome book, isn't it? Quite... crazy, if I do say so myself. Haven't seen the movie adaptation, though. Will try and track it down.

Ah, ok then, Fear and Loathing it is.

One of the few times the movie is as good as the book, but that's largely because the movie is just so excellently handled. Absolutely brilliant.

And cheers, have fun with Fear and Loathing.

So I bought Fear and Loathing the other day, yeah, and I started reading it tonight.

Up to the fifth chapter now and I can tell that I'm going to enjoy it greatly.

Didn't really feel like studying the last week, so I spent most of my time reading books in the park. The first one I read wasThe Gunslinger, the first book in the Dark Tower series by Stephen King (first of his works that I read). They've only recently started translating the series to dutch (never bothered trying to read the English version), and it was cheap so I thought I'd give it a shot. It took me a while to get into it, since the story seems to move rather slow in the beginning, and it's difficult to understand the world that it's set in, but it got a little bit better near the end. Of course, The Gunslinger basically serves as the prologue to the rest of the series, so even though it got me intrigued, I'll wait until I read the next volume before I write a more conclusive review.

The second book I read is Mo Hayder's début, Birdman (I read Tokyo before). Most people say that it's pretty gross, and I'm not saying that it's pretty, but I guess that TV shows like CSI present roughly the same level of gore (aside from one or two rather disturbing scenes), so I've gotten used to it. I liked the book, Hayder knows how to create a creepy setting, and how to give you a feeling of uneasiness during certain moments. The characters that she describes are interesting, and even though the story lacks balance at some points, it's still better than your average Nicci French book.

The last book I read is called Op Drift by Belgium's famous detective writer Pieter Aspe (although I seriously doubt that anyone knows him outside Flanders). He has written like 20 books about two detectives, Van In and Versavel, and even though he seems to be running out of inspiration to describe settings or characters, the stories are still quite entertaining, and make for a nice afternoon.

I just started Kader Abdollah's The House by the Mosque. He's one of the more famous muslim writers in the Netherlands, and this book was voted second best dutch book (The Discovery of Heaven by Harry Mulisch was number one, and I would seriously recommend it to everyone). Abdollah's been on the news quite a lot for the past few months, with the whole Fitna debate, and his own interpretation of the Quran, so I thought I'd check out his most famous novel, and so far (halfway), I'm really liking it.

I've been working my way through the Black Library's Horus Heresy series and I've now caught up to the current releases, being halfway through the seventh book, "Legion" (First six are Horus Rising, False Gods, Galaxy in Flames, The Flight of the Eisenstein, Fulgrim and Descent of Angels). The books tell the story of events surroundng the Horus Heresy in Games Workshop's Warhammer 40,000 universe and although they're squarely aimed at fans of the games, I reckon they're good enough science fiction to appeal to anyone with a passing knowledge of the subject material.

Each is written by a different author (To enable them to release one every six months or so I imagine) but there aren't such differences in narrative style that you lose cohesion from one book to the next. The stories are largely tales of great battles and deep betrayal but the last two, Decent of Angels and Legion have been less about the big battles and a bit more thoughtful and explore more behind the scenes stuff.

If you like Warhammer 40,000, you'll fucking love 'em basically. I can't wait until Battle for the Abyss comes out in August and Mechanicum in November.

Finished The House by the Mosque. A pretty good book, although I feel that the praise that it has been getting is a bit exaggerated. The first half lacks a clear sense of direction, and Abdolah sometimes doesn't seem to know if he wants to write about the major events of the revolution in Iran, or about the life of a traditional family that has to deal with those events. The writing could also use some work, he manages to pull of some really nice chapters, but at other points you can clearly see that he's not a native speaker.

Started with Invisible Monsters, by Chuck Palahniuk, and am still working my way through the Genji Monogatari. I knew Palahniuk from Fight Club of course, but I only recently started discovering his books. I liked Choke and Survivor, but Invisible Monsters doesn't seem to have the same appeal. Only read the first 100 pages though, so maybe it'll change for the better?

For some reason I've been re-reading William S. Burroughs' Naked Lunch recently. Started re-reading it, what, two weeks after I first finished reading it? Not sure myself.

I like the book very, very much. <3

Still haven't got around to finishing Aniruddha Bahal's Bunker 13, though. In the closing stages of the novel now, but I haven't really felt like picking it up and finishing it.

I read kids' books. Seriously. I have Asperger's, is that an excuse? I'm a nerd.

Okay, but anyway, Grey Griffins is a guilty pleasure of mine. The characters are cartoonishly exaggerated, the situations almost random, and interesting ideas get introduced and later forgotten in the rush to make cool things happen. Yet, it's pretty fun, probably because it takes itself just seriously enough to be fun instead of annoying.

I reviewed it at my list of Amazon reviews here. I haven't gotten into the third yet.

I've also enjoyed a graphic novel called Amulet. It's rather, well, formulaic, and it has a mixture of original ideas and not-so-original ones. But it's also fun. Like Grey Griffins, it feels like it has arbitrary elements in there to make for a diverse "who knows what will happen next" kind of story, but done well enough to be enjoyable.

No you fucking don't. No one does. Complete horse shit. Being a socially awkward prat isn't a disorder. Get out of your house. Interact with people. Asperger's. Please. Fucking internet disorder.



I've gotten into THE END OF FAITH, by Sam Harris. Fantastic book about the clash between organised religion and rational thought. A little simplified at times, but the man makes no end of good points. Tolerance of religion is encouragement of idiocy, basically. Can't argue with him on that. Definitely something anyone with half a brain should give a read.

Asperger's is high functioning autism. I didn't speak my first word until I was 3, and was eventually mainstreamed into kindergarten. Yes, I always was socially awkward, and always a little behind the times socially, unable to understand the norms. Does that sound like an internet disorder to you?

It's real, though I'm sure idiots have overused the term "Asperger's" and thrown it around until it lost all meaning, much like how words such as "satire" have lost all meaning due to overuse by people who don't know what it means.

I get out of the house to go on many walks and get into shape, and that's all I care to do outdoors.

Anyway, is this going to turn into a fucking flame war about autism/Asperger's and whether or not it's real? Anyway, I read and sometimes review kids' books, and that's the truth.

EDIT: Okay, I just looked up "Asperger's" on Encyclopedia Dramatica. It looks like the term is somehow a fucking internet fad, which is why apparently many people believe it doesn't exist for real. Apparently I should just say "I was diagnosed autistic as an infant and said my first word at age 3", which at least means something. Well, the condition exists, even if people who don't have it claim to, or if, much like ADHD, it's over-diagnosed. Stupid internet fads and attention whores (and believe me, I do NOT like attention whores), taking something legit and stripping it of its meaning.

Look, regardless of that whole mess it's just tactless to march into a thread with "I HAVE ASPERGER'S". It looks like attention-whoring. Everyone has their own tics, but we don't need to announce them.

You don't need to provide an excuse for reading children's books anyway, even if you have one — half the people on this board don't read anything other than Harry Potter unless it's assigned to them.

On-topic, I'm working through Empire Express a history of the Trans-Continental Railroad. Mainstream history teaching basically boils down this decades-long undertaking to a photograph of two tycoons shaking hands, so there's a lot to learn here.

Point taken. You're right. I don't like attention whores, and I don't want to be one either. I've seen some especially annoying ones in my time, believe me, and I don't want to join their ranks. Thanks for the hint - I'll take it to heart.

Lol, probably true about the Harry Potter comment! Although people who read it have an "excuse" as well - the author herself said that Harry Potter was originally intended specifically for adults.

Then again, so was Donkey Kong.

J.K. Rowling also considers herself a fantastic author.

Protip: This isn't true.