BOOKS! - what are you reading?

[Ilyanna]

After years and years of murder mysteries, I've switched over to what's often referred to as "urban fantasy". I prefer series (because I never want my books to end). I enjoyed the Jim Butcher Dresden File series (for example). The book I'm reading now isn't worth mentioning. It's just okay but I'm beginning to scrape the bottom of the barrel in urban fantasy books. I need to find a new genre.

Oh I absolutely love the Dresden Files, they're awesome. I tried Hamilton's books, too, but threw them away once they became more porn than anything else. I like the Sookie Stackhouse novels by Charlaine Harris (HBO's True Blood, anybody?), but I am losing more and more interest with every installment. It's just a bit too naive and self-centered for my liking.

Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels, though, I can wholeheartedly recommend. Not sure if they count as urban fantasy since they are set in a parallel world, but it's a real treat for anyone who likes classic literature, wordplay, and intelligent story-telling.

Blurb from goodreads.com:
"Welcome to a surreal version of Great Britain, circa 1985, where time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. England is a virtual police state where an aunt can get lost (literally) in a Wordsworth poem, militant Baconians heckle performances of Hamlet, and forging Byronic verse is a punishable offense. All this is business as usual for Thursday Next, renowned Special Operative in literary detection, until someone begins kidnapping characters from works of literature. When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë's novel, Thursday must track down the villain and enter the novel herself to avert a heinous act of literary homicide"

BTW, I am almost through reading the three-book series by Stieg Larsson. (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) So far I like the second one the best.

If you like to watch movies, try to catch the Swedish version of the trilogy on DVD. It is intense, very close to the books, and the actress playing Lisbeth Salander gives a really gripping performance.

Given the characters on Mock, I'm surprised that nobody has yet mentioned "The Pessimist's Guide to History" by Flexner and Flexner.

Pretty much self explanatory.

You'llll bust a gut laughing, even at the tragedies.

that's going on my reading list.

Yep, on mine, as well.

I've just finished Bill Bryson's At Home: A short history of private life, which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I'm in the mood to get another tongue-in cheek history book.

From wiki:
"The book [At home] covers topics of the commerce, architecture, technology and geography that have shaped homes into what they are today, told through a series of "tours" through Bryson's Norfolk rectory that quickly digress into the history of each particular room."

It's basically a collection of historical anecdotes regarding those things that marked important steps in our social evolution, such as mortar, water closets, spices, corsets, food in general, etc. It mainly concentrates on the region of the US and Great Britain. Not always 100% historically correct, but very entertaining and humorous to read.


At the same time, I've started Terence McKenna's The Invisible Landscape, a book on hallucinogenic states of consciousness and shamanism. Very tough read, especially since I am not reading it in my first language, but very informative when you're into that kind of philosophy/mind-expanding stuff.