I'm kind of fried this morning-- it's been a long week full of after-work events associated with the end of the year-- so I'm not up to doing weighty posts about physics, so here's a lighter discussion topic:
What's the last non-Internet thing you read for fun?
Blogging and work have cut into my pleasure reading recently, but the most recent thing I read just for amusement was Vol. 7 of Bill Willingham's Fables comic book series, titled Wolves. The last regular book I read was Kenneth Oppel's Skybreaker, a sequel to Airborn, his YA novel about a quasi-Victorian world full of giant world-circling airships.
Brief comments about them below the fold:
Wolves wasn't all that great. I wan't really blown away by the first few volumes, of course, but Kate enjoyed them more than I did, and has continued getting them out of the library. Each volume takes about twnety minutes to read, so I've kept up.
This particular volume had a sort of tying-up-loose-ends quality to it, even though it's not really the end of the story. That would've kept it from being great, even if there hadn't been a somewhat unpleasant intrusion of real-world politics into the story. With that, it was, well, not all that much fun to read.
Skybreaker, on the other hand, was just about exactly as entertaining as the previous book. The overall setting continues to not make much sense, but there's enough swashbuckling fun (what is a swash, anyway, and why does one buckle it?) to overlook that. The plot centers on a bold expedition to reach a legendary lost airship, and has a little bit of everything from piracy in the upper atmosphere to good old-fashioned Mad Science.
There's maybe one reversal of fortune too many in the ending, but other than that, it's a good, entertaining read.
So what's the last book you read just for entertainment? It doesn't have to be fiction, mind.
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Rainbows End by Vernon Vinge...which, if one thinks about, is an Internet thing, just in hardcopy....
1) Isn't Wolves volume 8?
2) Mark Kurlansky's "The Big Oyster" - a nonfiction exploration of the New York oyster beds and oyster culture that once were.
Poul Anderson's To Your Scattered Bodies Go and Running for Mortals by John Binham and Jenny Hadfield. The latter is more informational than entertainment, as I am slowly ramping up my running time and distance. I wasn't very impressed with the Anderson, do the other Riverworld books get better?
I'm in the middle of "Good Omens" by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. I'm enjoying it, despite the humour being a little too jokey for my tastes.
I've been reading Shakespeare plays lately, thanks to some books I spotted in the swap shop at my town's transfer station. I'm currently working on "Twelfth Night." Other plays I've recently read for the first time are "King Lear," "Richard III," and "As You Like It."
I just finished "The Sam Gunn Omnibus" by Ben Bova. My current read is "Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians and Other Unfinished Stories" by Mark Twain.
I'm currently in the midst of Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee -- probably my favorite general nonfiction author.
Before that, I finished (and thoroughly enjoyed) The Book of Jhereg by Steven Brust. I have The Book of Taltos ready for an upcoming flight to Europe. I picked this up based on the recommendation here. So Chad, never let it be said that you don't make a difference!
Last one finished was one of the Harry Potters, which I've actually never read. One in progress is Reaper's Gale by Erikson.
Next up for true geek pleasure reading is a book on Quantum Cellular Automata waiting for me at the post office. In a more human sense, probably Glass Bead Game by Hesse.
The last nonfiction I read for a first time through was Erikson's _The Bonehunters_, as a result of which, I'm finishing up a re-read of _House of Chains_ (I know, it's traditional to do the series re-read *before* the new book comes out, but TB arrived in my mailbox right after I finished the re-read of _Memories of Ice_, so).
Apropos of which, and to Novak at #8, should he see this, is _Reaper's Gale_ worth making the UK order?
Just finished re-reading "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone". I picked it up originally in Narita Airport on a trip to Japan some years ago. I never really 'got' why the US publisher originally felt the compelling need to revise and rename it for its US edition.
I just read the first three issues of season 8 of Buffy. All BtVS fans should be reading it, or at least waiting for the collected versions to come out. It was just like old times, but different. The same humor and all, but the characters have grown and changed, becoming harder in some ways, but softer and more vulnerable, too.
Before that, John Scalzi's _The Ghost Brigates_.
Philip Jose Farmer for "To Your Scattered Bodies Go" not Poul Anderson. Never thought those Riverworld books were that good when I read them. I just didn't connect.
My last is Lindsey Davis's "See Delphi and Die" part of her Marcus Didius Falco hard boiled mystery series set in Vespasian's Rome. Falco is the best wise-ass city boy I have read since I don't know. Now reading one of these Vampire Hunter D novels by Kikuchi Hideyuki which are ridiculous in (very) many senses but still enjoyable to me - which makes them perfect guilty pleasure reading.
Trent at #9:
I enjoyed Reaper's Gale immensely, but now I'm waiting for the next one, like everyone else...wait on Reaper's Gale in the US, or wait on Toll the Hounds in the UK, it doesn't matter much.
Daniel Dennett's "Breaking the Spell" and a re-read of Neal Stephenson's "Diamond Age" are my current bedside books, which one depends on how quickly I think I'll fall asleep. Dennett is engaging and thought-provoking, but slow-paced, Stephenson is brilliant. Looking forward to his Baroque trilogy.
Dickens's Bleak House, per recommendation of the Little Professor--who I believe I originally found via this blog, as it happens.
It was really terrific.
Read and finished, or read some of and put on the stack to read more of later?
I have several stacks by the head of the bed, several stacks in my office room, several stacks in the bathroom, several stacks next to each of the computers in our home network (Windows, Linux, Mac). My wife and son have several stacks, which I sometimes look through, carefully not losing their bookmarks.
I can't remember when I was not simultaneously reading at least a dozen books. Well, okay, I've been on 3-day vacations with only the half-dozen I brought with me. Usually some Science Fiction, some Mystery, some math or Physics or Biology or Astronomy, and some random bestsellers or classics. For that matter, for the past 20+ years, I've always been in the middle of writing at least 3 books.
Books. Can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em.
I'm typing this on a PC at the main Caltech library. A grad student (?) just came to me in mid-blog, books in hand, asking where he could find the xerox machine. I told him the saga, and sent him down to the checkout desk. As I expected, they toild him that he'd have to check them out, carry them to his department, copy them there, and return them. Welcome to the "paperless office." Does that make sense? Won't some books disappear? Don't some library users not belong to any department?
Gene Wolfe's The Claw of the Conciliator, which I think I first read at least fifteen years ago. Current reading Neal Stephenson's The Confusion and re-reading Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness.
Trent, it's shaping up to be as good as House of Chains or better, but not showing the brilliance of Deadhouse Gates. Although since I'm only about a quarter through, that doesn't mean much.
Take that for what it's worth. I borrowed my copy, so I'll probably order RG along with the next one, next year.
Most recent must be "Nature Girl" by Carl Hiaasen, although it might be the "Iraq Study Group Report" (because I don't think I read the final chapter until recently when I went back to check what W and Condi are finally doing). Hiaasen's novels about bio-stitutes and other Florida not-so-wildlife make for a great beach read.
Eagerly awaiting the final Potter book. Might need to re-read the entire set to get ready ...
Actually you do not buckle a swash, you swash "aim a blow" a buckler "shield" :].
Reading Last Chance to See by Douglas Anderson and throughly enjoying it.
I'm in the middle of "Century Rain" can't remember the author's name (Alstair something?).
@Benjermin #10 - maybe the renamed the HP books for the same reason the renamed Agatha Christie's books? Appartenly, so my grandmother would think she hadn't read them and buy copies of the reprinting with the original title. It worked everytime from what I can tell.