Sorry, don't know how to play this video :(
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyIHOTx7zxM
Tell us what you're currently reading & what you've recently read.

• 'C++ Primer Plus', Prata, Stephen
• 'French for Dummies', Various
• 'Guns, Germs & Steel: The Fates of Human Societies', Diamond, Jared
• 'Gordon Ramsay's Ultimate Cookery Course', Ramsay, Gordon
• 'A Clockwork Orange', Burgess, Anthony
• 'The Signal & The Noise: Why Most Predictions Fail But Some Don't', Silver, Nate
• 'Second Foundation', Asimov, Isaac
• 'Setting the Table: The Transforming Power of Hospitality in Business', Meyer, Danny
• 'The Better Angels of Our Nature: Why Violence Has Declined', Pinker, Steven
• 'Foundation & Empire', Asimov, Isaac
• 'Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media', Chomsky, Noam & Herman, Edward
• 'Fahrenheit 451', Bradbury, Ray
• 'Outliers: The Story of Success', Gladwell, Malcolm
• 'Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions', Abbott, Edwin Abbott
• 'Mortality', Hitchens, Christopher
• '1492: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus', Mann, Charles C.
• 'The God Argument', Grayling, A.C.
• 'Letters to A Young Contrarian', Hitchens, Christopher
• 'Lying', Harris, Sam
• 'Free Will', Harris, Sam
• 'End This Depression Now!', Krugman, Paul
• 'Foundation', Asimov, Isaac
• 'A Universe from Nothing: Why There is Something Rather than Nothing', Krauss, Lawrence M.
• 'How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, & the Hidden Power of Character', Tough, Paul

Note: I often rotate back & forth between fiction & non-fiction.

The Bride Stripped Bare, Nikki Gemmell.
The Gentleman in the Parlour: A Record of a Journey From Rangoon to Haiphong, W. Somerset Maugham.

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This Is How You Die: Stories of the Inscrutable, Infallible, Inescapable Machine of Death

Finished up Ender's Game again a month or two ago, read the second book of the prequel trilogy thats been/being released, Earth Afire, and just random other Battletech books.

I'm reading The Big U right now. Just finished Old Man's War and Caliban's War. Up next I've got Abbadon's Gate, Code of the Lifemaker and The Long Earth. Yeah, I read a lot of scifi.

Old Man's War is probably my favorite Scalzi book.

And I just got my copy of This is How You Die in the mail last week. Excitement, since I loved the first one hard.

Currently actually just finished The Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbarts which is probably the most vulgar book I've ever read. Not that I didn't enjoy it.
Also just finished (again), the Gormenghast trilogy.

Reading now:
A Universe From Nothing
Shriek: An Afterward
Charles Jessold: Considered as a Murderer
The Tell-Tale Brain: A Neuroscientist's Quest for What Makes Us Human
Queen and Country volume 2

I'm enjoying it as much as one can given the depressing nature of the subject matter. It's honestly a bit less dry than I had imagined. I would recommend getting a recent copy in order to take advantage of the relatively new introduction by the authors.

I read this recently as well & really enjoyed it. It was quite accessible to those of us that have little understanding of physics.

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There was a new introduction in 2002 (by Chomsky & Herman) & a new afterword in 2008 (by Herman alone). I haven't read the afterword yet so I can't comment on its quality.

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Reading this article on Amazon's acquisition of Goodreads, I was shocked to see that almost half of Americans don't read a single book in a year. So, my goal has been to read 16 books this year and I'm on track:

http://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/951951

I'm currently reading "The New Digital Age" by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen.

Next on my list:
- The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon (I like nonfiction adventure tales)
- Changing How The World Does Business: FedEx's Incredible Journey to Success -- The Inside Story (I was intrigued when I read on Quora that, when FedEx was almost bankrupt as a startup, the founder literally went to Vegas with the remaining cash and won big time jut to make payroll)

I'm currently reading A Feast for Crows by George R.R. Martin.

This summer, I have read:

Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess

Trying to read Catch-22, and I'm enjoying it, but for some reason I'm having difficulties sitting down and actually committing to this book.

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After ~15ish years we're all still here. we must have similar interests.

Yikes. Guys, I just talked with my cousin, a teacher, and she says she averages two books a *week* during the summer and 60-70 a year! I don't feel as good about my 16 book goal...

I'm currently reading "The Wolf's Tooth: Keystone Predators, Trophic Cascades and Biodiversity" by Cristina Eisenberg. So far it's mainly a recap of work done in the 50s on the impacts of predator removal interspersed with anecdotes from surveying in wolf country. She's got a nature writer's style while first and foremost being a scientist - I quite like it.

My goodreads is here: http://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/622620


I started tracking my reading a few years ago in order to make a habit out of it. Before I was probably reading half a dozen books a year and I've slowly crawled up since then. I managed 37 last year and I'm on track for about 40 books this year. As you make time for it more often you end up reading a lot more. Also, a lot of the people I know reading >52 books a year read quite a lot of pulpy short novels - Star Wars novels, YA stuff, erotic lit, Discworld, Dresden Files etc.

Uh, no. Why the hell would it be odd that a bunch of nerds who congregated on a website due to a similar interest would read and have similar interests?

This thread prompted me to think about books as a medium, and how with the same content, consuming the content via reading would seem to be more worthy than playing via a game or watching as a video. I understand, of course, that the unspoken assumption is that the material read is something that provokes thought, if for no other reason than it takes more effort to interpret (reading as a skill and the necessary faculties for imagination).

With that said, the last book I read was Ender's Game a few months ago, and I have a few I should pick up on and haven't yet, including one I admit I picked up solely for the title: Apocalypse Cow.

I've got this on my long list of things to read as well. I believe that I first learned about it via Bill Gates' recommended book list.


I was introduced to 'A Song of Ice & Fire' years ago by Massassians & still think it's one of my favorite fantasy series'.


I really enjoyed 'Brave New World' & have all of those other books on my long list. I've included Modern Library's '100 best novels' & have made some decent headway. 'Ulysses' (#1) is probably going to be last because it's a damn difficult read (tried once for a week on my metro commute & kept falling asleep).


I can't speak for anyone else & at the risk of appearing a bit impressionable, some of what I've read over the years was actually very much "shaped" by Massassi. This is how I became interested in atheism, biology, physics, etc. Sadly, these weren't things that were introduced to me in the cult-like atmoshphere that I was raised in.


My sister-in-law averages a book every 1-2 days, year-round. When I first met her, she was working customer service for a national furniture chain & apparently it wasn't so busy that she couldn't spend her entire days reading.

I'm currently reading 150-200 pages per day (leisure) & at least a chapter a day of my flavor-of-the-month programming book (currently: 'Beginning C++ Game Programming', Dawson, Michael) & French book ('French for Dummies', misc.). However, I tend to go through a few months each year where I won't read anything at all & will knock out seasons of a television show (e.g. I knocked out every generation/season of Star Trek last year).

I'm actually starting to think that GRRM is kind of like George Lucas in the fact that he has a really great idea for an overall world, and has the concept of a great story and what needs to happen in it, but is pretty awful at the actual writing aspect of anything other than the "badass" moments. A lot of the more personal scenes in the series, and the sex scenes in particular, are really cringeworthy.

EDIT: Having said that, I still love the series.

(Re)reading the Full Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Doyle really was a brilliant writer.

Need to read more. All I have time for these days is WSJ, The Economist, and the HBR. I keep "The Back of the Napkin" in my laptop bag but haven't really gone into it yet.

g2k you're throwing yourself head-first into the echo chamber

I am currently reading the most difficult, boring, and intellectual book, written by an author who we all pass off as being a controversial or obscure academic but is actually very popular among ordinary people.

I think that might be on my wishlist actually...

How dare you. That indian is sacred around these parts.

I recently finished reading Orange is the New Black and re-read a bunch of Michael Crichton books (A Case of Need, Timeline, Sphere, The Great Train Robbery.) I'm now re-reading the Dragonlance Chronicles Trilogy. The writing in the Dragonlance books can be painful at times, but I love them nonetheless.

Have you read the Chaos Gate series by Hickman and Weis? They're one of my embarrassing vices. I read them back in high school for the first time and picked up a set from ebay last year on a whim. They've aged surprisingly well.

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I never strayed beyond their Dragonlance books but I might have to check them out. I love their characters, but there is only so much "resplendent armor" and "sardonic smiles" I can take!

Is it any good? I've been looking for a new beginner book to recommend.

It's not as thorough as something like 'The C Programming Language' but it's quite good so far. As a relative beginner, I'd certainly recommend it. I've read other C/C++ books in the past & while I grasp the basic concepts & am already familiar with much of the syntax, it's the first book that didn't make me facepalm when reading about various topics.

I grabbed it because I wanted to review the very little that I learned in college (with the hope of expanding upon that) & based my decision on the following list.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list

I've read there & other places that 'Accelerated C++' is also quite good if the person you're recommending it to is in a hurry.

Finished "This is how you die" on vacation last week and, while there were some stories that really stood out, I think I preferred "Machine of Death" more overall.

Cyberabad Days: Ian McDonald (collection of shorts set in the same period as River of Gods)
Myths of Origin: Four Short Novels, Catharine M Valente.

I started attempting to read Lancelot and the Wolf but the writing is kind of terribad so I took a break.