OT: What are you reading these days?

J

Josh Feltman

Joined
Feb 12, 2001
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I just finished rereading The Circus of Dr. Lao --great book. Every bit as good as I remember it. Very strange and haunting. Lately though I've been on a Philip K. Dick kick (again :rolleyes: ) I picked up five Dick novels I didn't have at a used bookstore a few weeks ago for $6.40: The Penultimate Truth, Dr. Futurity, Vulcan's Hammer, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Radio Free Albemuth. So far I've only read the last two, and am partway through The Penultimate Truth. Sometimes I worry that if I read too much PKD, my head will explode, but so far it's holding together ok. So, what is everybody else reading?

--Josh
 
Just finished the Incarnations of Immortality series by Piers Anthony. Started "Oath of Fealty" today, by Pournelle and Niven.
 
"Anubis Gates" by Tim Powers. SF, excellent!
"Sand Casting Manual For The Small Foundry"
 
I forgot to mention the "serious" book I'm currently (but slowly) reading: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling And The Sickness Unto Death. Painfully slow going at times.
--Josh
 
"Dark Star Safari" by Paul Theroux. A little downbeat for Theroux. He travels, alone, from north to south down the continent of Africa and compares many things he sees with the Africa that he knew in earlier travels (including a foray as a Peace Corp worker 40 years ago and later university lecturer).

He is definitely on a downer about the way many countries in Africa, and their peoples, have become depressed, tainted, poverty stricken, diseased, governmentally corrupt, economically infeasible, due to the do-gooder handouts that have done nothing to make Africans more self-reliant, but......the reverse. How it has changed them into dependent parasites waiting for the next hand outs from Western aid workers, riding around in shiny white Land Cruisers, whom he calls "agents of virtue". Kinda like the food and medical help in exchange for souls tactics that so many missionaries have used for so long. One example is the hybidized corn, bred for high production, that is given to Africans. The only problem is, they can't use seed from the crop to plant next years crop.....so they eat the crops and then wait for delivery of new seed from the "agents of virtue" before planting this years crop. Fascinatiing read from a masterful writer.

http://www.reviewsofbooks.com/dark_star_safari/
 
45-70 said:
Is that your serious or fun book.
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It's the "read at work" book... shhhhhh....

I read a reasonable amount but tend to enjoy buying books more than reading at times.
 
I had a perfectly serious post already typed in and ready to go. It was about paranoia and sharing your reading at work. Then it was gone. The muse left me.

Bruise stole it.

another sig idea.

Ever wonder if the world is an Escher drawing and we just aren't smart enough to catch it.

How about The Man that Never Missed. ? Anyone hear read that one? Older, but a great book.
 
Josh Feltman said:
I just finished rereading The Circus of Dr. Lao --great book. Every bit as good as I remember it. Very strange and haunting. Lately though I've been on a Philip K. Dick kick (again :rolleyes: ) I picked up five Dick novels I didn't have at a used bookstore a few weeks ago for $6.40: The Penultimate Truth, Dr. Futurity, Vulcan's Hammer, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, and Radio Free Albemuth. So far I've only read the last two, and am partway through The Penultimate Truth. Sometimes I worry that if I read too much PKD, my head will explode, but so far it's holding together ok. So, what is everybody else reading?

--Josh
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Just finished rereading "A Scanner Darkly" and started on "Counter-clock World" by PKD. His books tend to stay with me longer after reading more than other authors. Your use of the word haunting sums up most of Phils work nicely.
 
Smegs-- actually I was referring to Dr. Lao, which was written by Charles Finney, as haunting, but it could certainly be applied to Dick's work as well, perhaps even moreso. A Scanner Darkly is probably my favorite Dick novel. I read it first while I was still in high school, and have reread it several times since. Counter Clock World is quite good as well. What else have you read by Dick?
--Josh
 
Josh Feltman said:
Smegs-- actually I was referring to Dr. Lao, which was written by Charles Finney, as haunting, but it could certainly be applied to Dick's work as well, perhaps even moreso. A Scanner Darkly is probably my favorite Dick novel. I read it first while I was still in high school, and have reread it several times since. Counter Clock World is quite good as well. What else have you read by Dick?
--Josh
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I read most if not all of my stuff on my PocketPC. If the light burns out when I'm in the library (read crapper), I can still read. Now that's technology :) I keep a running list of already read on same. Have about 50 novels sittin on my flash card just waiting to be read. It's pretty sweet to have that much reading material in your pocket at one time along with dictionary support, bookmarking, highlighting and annotation capabilities.

* We Can Remember It For You Wholesale
· Rautavaara's Case
· The Divine Invasion
· Second Variety
· Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
· Dr. Bloodmoney, Or How We Got Along After The Bomb
· A Scanner Darkly
· Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said
· Deus Irae By Philip K. Dick & Roger Zelazny
· A Maze Of Death
· Autofac
· Service Call
· Captive Market
· The Mold Of Yancy
· The Minority Report
· Recall Mechanism
· The Unreconstructed Man
· Explorers We
· War Game
· If There Were No Benny Cemol
· Novelty Act
· Waterspider
· What The Dead Men Say
· Orpheus With Clay Feet
· The Days Of Perky Pat
· Stand-By
· What'll We Do With Ragland Park
· Oh, To Be A Blobel
· Confessions Of A Crap Artist
 
Wow, I'm a dinosaur. My books are still cellulose-based :D If you liked "The Days of Perky Pat" you should definitely check out The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Perky Pat plays an important role in it as well, though in a slightly different context. Not sure which came first--the short story or the novel.
--Josh
 
smegs said:
I read most if not all of my stuff on my PocketPC. If the light burns out when I'm in the library (read crapper), I can still read. Now that's technology :) I keep a running list of already read on same. Have about 50 novels sittin on my flash card just waiting to be read. It's pretty sweet to have that much reading material in your pocket at one time along with dictionary support, bookmarking, highlighting and annotation capabilities.
Click to expand...


I have to get one of those. How much ram does it have?

HDD?
 
45-70 said:
I have to get one of those. How much ram does it have?

HDD?
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It's a HP jornada with 32MB ROM and 64 MB RAM. I also have two 512 MB RAM cf cards. One for data and one for MP3s. I can fit about 7 hours of music at a high bitrate on one card. Right now the charger went out on me and it's almost as bad as having no knife. These things are fantastic. I have spreadsheets on pocket excel that compute my time and wages, the entire internet movie database (detailed), electrical programs, you name it. Just about everything I can do on a desktop I can do on my handheld. The caveat is a somewhat clumsy input system. Maybe not thought of as a "#1 must have gadget" but once you have one there's no goin back.
 
I've been paying a quarter a piece for library discards. Got 15 or 20 on my kitchen table. Last I read was "Zebra" about the 1973-4 half-year rampage of random killings linked to the Black Muslims/Nation of Islam.

Though it was over 30 years ago, I'm still amazed that with average response times a little under 2 minutes by the cops, out of the 19 shot down, 13 died and 6 survived. Two weapons were used, one ditched and never found, the other the same caliber and recovered and used to convict.

Only one victim tried to resist after being hit, an 81 year old street person tried to strangle the perp briefly after being shot twice ( the perp was so scared he didn't remember he had a gun in his hand until after the victim collapsed ).

What monstrous killing device was used to strike down the victims? .32 auto fmj ball.

Reread one of Peter Bowen's books, a Tom Clancy ( Patriot Games ) novel. Checked out two ( in sequence ) Raymond Feist books, and recently devoured 6 of the Darren Shan(n) Cirque du Freak young adult books. Mean to dig out Tom Sawyer and reread it.

Try to limit myself to one book a day.
 
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