I've finally laid my hands on a copy of Ship of Destiny, the last book in the Liveship Trader's trilogy by Robin Hobb. Ever since I read the Farseer Trilogy I've been thoroughly hooked on her works, and this book is an absolute gem. Utterly absorbing stuff.

Finished my French book, and moved on to Jonathan Safran Foer's Everything is Illuminated. I read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close a couple of months ago, and it just blew me away. The humoristic writing style that sometimes resembles a stream of consciousness novel, the likeable main characters, the use of pictures (especially the falling man in the end), have made this one of my favorite books ever. Now that I started with Everything is Illuminated, I see that he used a lot of similar plot devices, the focus on various characters, time shifts, and a certain feeling I get from the text. I'm about half way through, and I don't get the same vibe that I had with his second book, but than again, my opinion can change (I didn't realize what an awesome novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was until the last couple of chapters).

I've just got my hands on the first two books in "The Gentleman Bastards" sequence, "The Lies of Locke Lamora" and "Red Seas Under Red Skies". I've got to admit, it was a slow start and I actually stopped reading the first book for a few weeks but my brother kept pushing me to keep reading and I'm glad he did. I really loved it. It's about this guy Locke Lamora who is a natural born con-man. He and his "family" of other such people, the Gentleman Bastards, work together to get as much money and stuff from the people of their city, Camor. I love the way this guy writes, he's very articulate and has a very colourful language which is a lot of fun to read sometimes. Good timing, lots of twists, very clever and great characters. For people who are a fan of George R.R. Martin books, he is a big fan of the series as well. That's what got a friend of mine into reading them as well.

I'm currently reading Angels & Demons by Dan Brown. It was recommended by my cousin. I just started it, so I don't know much about the book except that it's supposed to be really good.

Currently in the middle of Alan Furst's Red Gold. Jenkin's biography of Churchill and Gombrich's Story of Art are currently on the back burner, taken up every now and again.

Finished with "Everything is Illuminated", read "The New York Trilogy" (Paul Auster), and moved on to The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Murakami Haruki). I liked Everything is Illuminated, but it feels unfinished. Foer experiments with the layout of his text, but it it doesn't blend in as well as it did in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I also didn't really care for the story that Alex told, I even thought that his story was a bit forced near the end, but I did like the story about Brod and Trachimbrod.

I never read Paul Auster before, but my boss is always raving about him, so I thought I would give it a shot, and what better way to start it then with his most famous novel? I wasn't too fond of the first part, City of Glass, perhaps because I was expecting a more traditional detective story, but I have to say that the book as a whole grew on me. I really liked Ghosts and The Locked Room (perhaps because this one also added clarification to the first two stories, and because it was the closest story to a real detective novel). Question though, does anyone know if all of his books are written in this style, or does he also do other genres?

I think that it'll take a while reading Murakami, not only because it's his biggest novel (about the same length as Kafka on the Shore), but also because I decided to read it in Japanese. I already read KotS in Japanese, which took me two months, but it was a much better experience than going through the translations (Jay Rubin does an excellent job though, but the guy who did KotS missed the ball a couple of times. I haven't really tried the Dutch translations yet, although they are supposed to be good, I know the guy who did them). A lot of my classmates tell me that the Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is his best work, and since I already loved Kafka on the Shore and Norwegian Wood, I have high hopes for this one.

I picked up Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" again and started to read it, picking up from where I left off (which wasn't far, about chapter 3) last time.

It's a great book. Well-written, great characters, great story and perhaps, yes, a bit... sexy as well. I love it, I really do.

I can ruin the story for you...:)

Just kidding....

Anyway, I am currently re-reading "The Alexandria Link" by Steve Berry. I just finished his latest "Venetian Betrayal."

I originally thought the concept was incredibly cheesy, but ended up enjoying the Liveship Traders series far more than I ever expected too. Of Hobb's 3 trilogies, I'd say that one is by far the best.

I've been on a kick lately of reading some of the 'modern classics' that I never got around to. Finished Brave New World yesterday, and am starting on Catcher in the Rye today.

I just picked up Literature and Evil by Georges Bataille, which I hope is as good as it sounds.

I've also got to read This Business of Music by M. William Krasilovsky - which looks about as entertaining watching paint peel.

I'm currently re-reading Candide. I read it back in high-school and I liked it alot, never really took my time to understand it back then though, so that's why I felt interested in reading it again.

I actually read Candide a couple of weeks ago. I enjoyed it, and it's nice that it's not a particularly hard read, although I did try to read it in French originally. That kind of failed...

Right now I'm reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World by Haruki Murakami. It's definitely keeping my interest and I'm anxious to finish it, but if someone were to ask me for a description I'd have no clue what to tell them.

I am reading two books:

One is Controversary creates Cash. It's basically an autobiography of Eric Bischoff who built WCW up which almost beat WWE.

The other is The Death of WCW. This is basically another view of how WCW was built up and then went down.

They are interesting as there is quite a bit of contrasting views on them. Each book brings out points the other did not. Then there are some points when the second book brings up something dumb that WCW did only for Bischoff to explain why it happened, and why a good bit of it was out of his hands.

Hopefully, with me being non-specific, that doesn't spoil anything for ya all.

Heh.
I'm reading Networking for Dummies a All in One Desk Reference (10 books in 1).
I'm working on becoming a Networking IT so...

I just finished The Sign of Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I don't know yet what I'll read next.

I've been reading a bit of Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys, but for some reason it hasn't really grabbed me as much as some of his other books have. Which is why, I guess, I decided to pick up Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and read through it again.

I've been pushing these books on people since Lies came out. Best modern Fantasy book, and the first fantasy book I've read in ages that I didn't immediately put down and get bored of because it was Dragonlance-Tolkien-Forgotten Realms on each page.

I've been going over Milton's Paradise Lost again recently, as well as Gladwell's Tipping Point and Dead Leprechaun in a Tire Swing by T.G. Flemming. It's hilarious.

I am re-reading Hobbit, followed by RINGS. Might read Gaiman's Dream Hunters later.

I was at a book fair the other day and bought a fair few secondhand books: Jack Kerouac's Desolation Angels, George Orwell's 1984 (yes, I know), Nicholas Blincoe's The Dope Priest and Robert Sabbag's Snowblind and decided tonight to start working through the four.

Picked Snowblind first, and I'm enjoying it quite a bit. I love the way Sabbag wrote the book, very entertaining.

I just finished reading The Brief, Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. It is a bittersweet book about an Dominican weeaboo, Oscar Wao, who hopelessly pursues women while nursing a love for D&D and anime. However, it is also an immigrant saga and a strange history of the Dominican Republic in which dictators are compared to Sauron and Darkseid. I highly recommend it.

I'm currently reading Papillon by Henri Charrière. You probably all know this from the movie with Steve McQueen, but it is quite enjoyable to read as well.

I didn't realize it was autobiographic either...

Other than textbooks, I haven't read much lately, but I've started reading newspapers and weeklies lately.

But I have a job now that allows me a lot of time to sit and read, so I'm halfway through Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance which lurker gave me for Christmas. Very hard to get through, but my reading ability has dwindled since high school. Slowly getting my ability to read smoothly back, though.

Very philosophical. Maybe a little more than I would expose myself to normally, but what better to whip me back in shape?

I'm approaching the end of my exams, so i will be reading much more in the coming days. Last semester i was to read almost two novels a week, which i can't do, i can't read that fast. I'm working at finishing the ones i'm truly interested in, and first on the list is The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler. It's good so far, about halfway through. I know who did it, but i don't really know how, so i'm reading it with great interest.

I've read that book (I randomly picked it from amongst the myriad books my dad has on philosophy and stuff like that), but I never did finish it, if I recall correctly. Might be time to try and do so.

Currently about halfway through this puppy:

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/...500_AA240_.jpg

Science Fiction Hall of Fame, Volume 1 (1929-1964).

Absolutely classic Golden Age sci fi stuff. They were voted on by the same group of SciFi authors that vote on the Nebulas, and the point of the anthology was to honor short stories that would have won the Nebula, had it existed back then.

Definitely a worthy addition to your collection if you like Science Fiction.