What are you reading?

[the_wolfs_howl]

I just finished reading Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, a really interesting dystopian future where at the age of 16, everyone goes through an operation to make them stunningly beautiful. But of course, when everyone is beautiful, normal appearances are seen as ugly.... It's a fascinating scenario, wrapped up in a gripping, exciting adventure story. The scenario Westerfeld begins with allows him to comment on a lot of things about the way life is for us, seen through the eyes of people in this future he's envisioned. I also sped through the sequel, Pretties, which was possibly even more exciting than the first one. Because these are YA books, they're a fast read, but they do a great job of talking about issues that are relevant for that age group in a completely new way that I think anyone would find compelling.

[the_wolfs_howl]

^Forgot to mention that I finished the series with Specials and Extras. An excellent series.

I've also recently read Night Watch by Terry Pratchett. A very fun read; I loved the kind of humor he writes. This was my first Discworld book, and I think I may have to hunt down the bajillion other books in the series now.

[GeneD]

High five the_wolfs_howl, for Night Watch.

I'm currently reading Mistborn 2 The Well of Ascension, extremely slowly, though I did pick up the pace a little today. I'm still not sure what I think of most of the characters.

[Animeniac]

I'm currently reading The Circle by Tedd Dekker it's absolutely amazing!!

[Sheenar]

Currently listening to an audiobook --Mort(e) by Robert Repino.

Am 1/4 of the way through.

This book is seriously weird. Really weird. Like, in a "what the heck am I reading and why am I still reading it?" way. O.o

[ClaecElric4God]

I keep trying to pick up Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. I really enjoy it, but I'm just so preoccupied lately.

[the_wolfs_howl]

The Man Who Was Thursday by G.K. Chesterton

I've been meaning to read this for a long time, but only got a chance to read it now. Obviously it's well-written, but I was impressed by how fast-paced and interesting the plot was, and how many good plot twists there were that actually made me gasp aloud. Definitely a good read.

The Riddle-Master of Hed by Patricia McKillip

Not quite such a rewarding read. It tells the story of a prince from a small island kingdom who goes on an epic quest to discover his destiny and why he was born with three stars on his forehead. My problem wasn't really that it was a typical plot; I was more annoyed by how far removed everything was from the characters' emotions. I never felt like I really knew what they were thinking, nor that I could relate to them at all. Also, it was just kind of weird because each chapter seemed like a separate adventure, like it would normally be the plot of an entire novel.

Among Thieves by Douglas Hulick

An engaging story about a criminal in a fantasy city based on Byzantium, who gets in way over his head with a fight for the entire criminal underworld. It was fast-paced and kept things interesting, and kept you guessing as to everyone's motives and plans. It was a worthwhile read, but I was a little confused as to why Hulick decided to write it all in first-person. Drothe, the main character, didn't have that interesting of a voice, so it didn't add anything to the narration, and it just meant that Hulick had to tell a lot more than show. I think it would have been smoother if he'd just stuck to the default third-person.

[Animeniac]

I'm read Manga Messiah yesterday. It's an awesome Manga version of the life of Jesus done by Japanese Baptists!!!!!!

[Zeldafan2]

Riryia Revelations, book 1, by Micheal J. Sullivan. It's a well-thought out high fantasy series with quite an interesting world.

[Zeldafan2]

Riryia Revelations, book 1, by Micheal J. Sullivan. It's a well-thought out high fantasy series with quite an interesting world. (oops, accidentally double posted )

[Panda4christ:3]

Started Jonathan Strange & Mr.Norrel but due to sickness and stuff I couldn't finish it within the library deadline.
So instead I picked up Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, which I've never actually read XD. So far it's cute and fun to read.
I also just realized I haven't talked about all the other things I've read, so here goes.
Finished:
Coraline - Cute. Really started me on a Neil Gaiman kick.
Stardust - Words can't express how much I loved this one
The Graveyard Book - So he's one of my favorite author's now...
Ms. Peregrine's home for peculiar children & hollow city - Super good, can't wait for the final installment~
Splintered - Not half bad, better than thought it would be, not sure if I'll pick up the series though.

[TsubasaKamen]

Codename: Sailor V - Spin Off Manga to the Sailor Moon Manga.

[Kaori]

Read several books since I last posted in here.

Great Lent by Fr. Alexander Schmemann is a short but excellent book about Eastern Orthodox Lent. It referred to the Orthodox services frequently, so it was very beneficial to read it after having experinced those services (so that I knew what he was talking about). Conversely, I'm not sure how much value a non-Orthodox reader would be able to get out of it, since the author would be referring to a bunch of things unfamiliar to the reader, but I'm sure there would still be some value.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church is also an excellent read. It has that very Catholic precise, analytical approach, often to the point of seeming cut-and-dried because everything is so specifically delineated, but there is also a lot of very good and solid teaching. Should be the first choice for anyone who wants to understand the Catholic faith.

Marriage in Translation: Foreign Wife, Japanese Husband by Wendy Nelson Tokugawa is pretty decent. It's a collection of interviews of Western women who married Japanese men. Reasonably interesting read if you are interested in this kind of thing, and there are of course a lot of cultural things that came up in the interviews, like one wife who for the first year of marriage had not yet realized that in Japanese "hai" doesn't always mean "yes I agree" but can sometimes just mean "I understand what you are saying" or even just "I'm listening."

Something I Want to Tell You: True Stories of Mixed Dating in Japan by Yuta Aoki. Compared to the above, this book looks much more at the seedy side of dating in Japan (though not entirely so); most of the interviews and dating stories are with people whose dating strategy is to pick people up at bars. There's also more demographic variety, with some of the stories being Japanese women with foreign partners and some being foreign women with Japanese partners. Also among the interviewees are a homosexual man and a bisexual woman. Although some of the author's comments on the couples' cultural misunderstandings were helpful, the book was not as clean as I would have liked (profanity and sexuality), used a number of colloqualisms in the narrative voice which are not really at a good level for a published book, and had an interviewer who self-inserted to an extent that I thought did not come across as professional. So, overall the book was not very professionally-written and I can't particularly recommend it.

Time of the Ghost by Diana Wynne Jones. Although I generally like Diana Wynne Jones, I didn't enjoy this book. The supernatural element was not clearly-fantasy-magic like Harry Potter or Kiki's Delivery service but more real-world occult (e.g. seances, characters in an otherwise-realisitic setting offering sacrifices to an evil spirit they were worshipping as a goddess while thinking that it was a made-up game), which made me uncomfortable. Also, the characters are all part of a miserable family with neglectful parents and the children as a result making horribly bad life decisions, so that atmosphere of filth, squalor, and unpleasant personalities was oppressive to read about. Of course it was not at all badly-written, but due to personal tastes I was unable to enjoy it.

Currently reading:

Fluent in 3 Months by Benny Lewis

The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, The World: Creation and Deification by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae

日本人の心がわかる日本語[Japanese Words to Understand the Japanese Mind] by 森田六朗 [Morita Rokurou]

Might comment on these when I finish reading them.

[Banana Lobster]

I am currently reading (almost finished with, actually) The Fellowship of the Ring, and hope to read the next three (sequel+prequel) books quickly in the coming week(s). A very enjoyable read so far, but I'm glad I didn't try and read them sooner, as they are a lot more detail-heavy than what I normally read, and I would probably have struggled to finish.

[Sheenar]

I LOVE the LOTR trilogy! I usually recommend starting with The Hobbit as that's the book Tolkien wrote before the others and is an easier, lighter read. Keep going! The series is so good! I read through it once a year.


I'm currently reading "The Princess and the Goblin" by George Macdonald. Recently finished "The Abolition of Man" and "The Problem of Pain" by C.S. Lewis.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Basically, Jane Austen with magic :3 It's exactly what it says on the tin, and exactly what I expected it to be. It's well written, so if you like both Jane Austen and fantasy, I'd definitely recommend this.

Elantris by Brandon Sanderson

Since I'm a huge Brandon Sanderson fan, I was interested in reading his debut novel. It's a little bit lower quality than some of his later stuff I've read, but still very very good. The climax was as gripping as his climaxes always are, and the three main characters were all fascinating to follow. It's about a world where ordinary people can undergo a magical transformation that practically turns them into gods. But at some point, the transformation went wrong and now those people turn into the undead. They don't need to eat, sleep, or even breathe, but every bit of pain they feel will never go away. Even small injuries like a stubbed toe will pile up on top of each other until the person goes mad. Elantris is centered around what happens when the crown prince is transformed and begins working to fix the problem. Cue the expected political machinations and complex magic system and interesting discussions about religion

[Sundown]

Hard Times by Charles Dickens. An enjoyable read that provides some interesting food for thought.

Also just finished a book of Celtic fairy tales, which I adored.

[artisticDreamer]

I'm trying to read Reapers by Bryan Davis, but I don't like anyone in it...

[Banana Lobster]

Finished all of the Lord of the Rings books! \^^/ Gonna read some of the Gryphon Chronicles by E. G. Foley now.

[Hopechick]

Re-reading the Zion Chronicles for the fifth or sixth time. My favourite christian author is definitely Bodie Thoene. :-)

[Sheenar]

Just started "Out of the Silent Planet" by C.S. Lewis

[artisticDreamer]

I'm trying to read Reapers by Bryan Davis, but I don't like anyone in it...

Finished the book. I still don't like anyone.
Also read Tom Sawyer for school.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Misery by Stephen King

This was my first Stephen King novel (I'd read some of his novellas and shorter works before), and I really liked it. It certainly makes sense why he became the bestselling author he is! Misery is about a popular author who gets in a bad car accident and is taken in by his number-one fan. In exchange for nursing him back to health, she demands that he write the next book of a series he'd discontinued. And...this lady is utterly insane, so it was a riveting story for sure! This ends up being a really fast read; it's quite a page-turner, and was also very interesting to me personally, since I'm a writer as well. It also has the plus of not including the graphic sexual content I've seen in other things he's written.

[Panda4christ:3]

Currently reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince ^-^

[ClaecElric4God]

I'm trying to read Reapers by Bryan Davis, but I don't like anyone in it...

Finished the book. I still don't like anyone.

These are the worst. Especially when you stick it out to the end like that. Kudos for surviving.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Is God Anti-Gay? by Sam Allberry

What it says on the tin. A really good little volume about what the Bible says about homosexuality and what that means for those who experience same-sex attraction. I found this very helpful to solidify my own beliefs about the issue, and would recommend it to anyone who isn't sure what they believe about it, or who isn't sure how to respond to those who experience same-sex attraction.

[Panda4christ:3]

Ocean At the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman.

[Animeniac]

Outlaw by Ted Dekker

The story of how I, Julian Carter, and my precious two-year old son, Stephen, left Atlanta Georgia and found ourselves on a white sailboat, tossed about like a cork on a raging sea off of Australia's northern tip in 1963, is harrowing.

But it pales in comparison to what happened deep in the jungle where I was taken as a slave by a savage tribe unknown to the world. Some places dwell in darkness so deep that even God seems to stay away.

There, my mind was torn in two by the gods of the earth. There, one life ended so another could begin.

Some will say I was a fool for making the choices I made. But they would have done the same. They, too, would have embraced death if they knew what I knew, and saw through my eyes.

My name is Julian and this is my story. But more, it is the story of my son who was born to change the world.

From deep in the impenetrable jungles where New York Times bestselling author Ted Dekker was born and raised, comes OUTLAW, an epic adventure of two worlds that perhaps only he could write. Full of harrowing twists, sweeping violence, and wild love, Outlaw takes us beyond the skin of this world to another unseen

[Kaori]

Fluent in 3 Months by Benny Lewis. This book was okay. The author gives a lot of techniques for language learning with a fairly strong emphasis on quickly being able to speak and hold conversations when first starting to learn a language. He shares good advice, but many of the techniques he talks about, e.g. use of an SRS system and use of mnemonics to memorize words, are well-known techniques that anyone who has read very much about language learning will already be familiar with, and also he didn't have very much to say about higher stages of language learning, e.g. moving from the intermediate level to an advanced level. I will also mention that although he has a website and mentions it frequently, this book is not an attempt to sell more of his products to the reader, so I appreciated it that those mentions were not actually sales-pitches (although they naturally sounded a little bit like it).

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison. Steampunk fantasy about a half-goblin (dark-skinned character) who suddenly becomes emperor despite not being brought up in court and having absolutely no preparation or knowledge of statecraft, and how he tries to deal with the absolutely overwhelming court politics and administrative duties that are suddenly all falling upon him. I tried hard to like this book because it was recommended to me highly by a friend. It was pretty engaging and kept me turning pages, but I wasn't very impressed by the world- and culture-building aspects. The cultural aspects tended to not ring true to me, and the book as a whole also struck me as being excessively sunny in its outlook on human (or rather, elvish/goblin) personalities, the title character's ability to form positive relationships with people at court, his not being more negatively affected by his harsh upbringing, and so on.

Not quite sure "reading" is the right word, but since it is certainly a book: 日本語能力試験問題集：Ｎ１文法：スピードマスター published by Ｊリサーチ出版

^This is a workbook for JLPT N1 grammar. I haven't had any experience with the other major workbooks for JLPT tests (the So-Matome series and the Kanzen Master series seem to be the most common, with Kanzen Master being the one I have seen recommended over the other), so I can't compare this to them and have no idea how it stacks up to them. Also, I do have to give a caveat and note that there were a few errors here and there, from "grammar" being spelled as "grammer" on the front cover to the furigana for one kanji compound having an incorrect character in it, to a term being used in a drill a few pages prior to when it was introduced in the book (the drills are supposed to cover only the terms on the preceding couple of pages).

However, overall I found this book incredibly helpful. Previously I had been looking at a website that had a complete list of all the grammar terms for each test level (available for free), but that website only had one example sentence and an English translation for each term. This workbook, on the other hand, has a Japanese explanation of the meaning of each grammar term, plus information about how it is used (e.g. what grammatically has to come before it), occasional notes about what situations it can be used in (positive or negative connotations, generally used only in writing, that sort of thing), and always at least three or four example sentences so that you can really get a sense for how it is used. At the end of each two-or-three page spread there is a drill over only the expressions that you just learned, and then after every few of these there are a couple of pages of actual JLPT-style questions. So it provided quite a bit of practice and reinforcement, and I am much better with these grammar expressions after going through the workbook than before. In particular, I went from having no idea what the correct answer was for the infamous sentence scramble questions (because if you don't know the grammar expressions they are testing then it's useless trying to figure them out) to being more confident about those than anything else in the whole 文字･語彙･読解 section.

Still have not finished:

The Experience of God: Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, vol. 2, The World: Creation and Deification by Fr. Dumitru Staniloae

日本人の心がわかる日本語[Japanese Words to Understand the Japanese Mind] by 森田六朗 [Morita Rokurou]

Mainly because of setting them aside in order to focus on JLPT study.

[the_wolfs_howl]

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

A really fascinating book about the history of Dracula - not just Bram Stoker's version, but the real man, Vlad Tepes. This is actually a novel, following a string of historians trying to track down the truth about Dracula because they have reason to believe that he's actually, really a vampire. It was a long, rich, exciting story, and I highly recommend it to anyone else fascinated by the Dracula legend.

I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zusak

A surprisingly inspiring book about an ordinary guy who is suddenly given a playing card with three addresses on it, and no other explanation is given. I really enjoyed it, because not only is it thrilling and reads very quickly and easily, it was a great example of a story showing a completely unremarkable person being transformed into a hero.