PixlBit

Maybe this is a synergistic post by a staff member since PixlBit posted its first book review this last week, or maybe I just like books and want to find some good ones. Either way, let's post what books we're reading at the moment and what we think so far or our final thoughts.

Try to keep the spoilers out of here, just in case.

To start things off, I've started The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I'm not too far into it, and it's taking a while to get into the groove of the lingo he's using, but I'm getting the hang of it. So far, the story seems to focus a lot on nanotechnology and another weird political/corporate government set up similar to Snow Crash. I'll let you know how it goes, but I've yet to be really disappointed by a Stephenson book -- although I wasn't totally thrilled with Quicksilver.

'Cloud Atlas' by David Mitchell

I saw the  movie last year and really enjoyed it. I was aware that it was a popular book at the time but I usually seperate books and films, and the readers seem to enjoy the book a whole lot. In particular, I like how the story covers a large span of time with different characters. I think years of gaming has allowed for me to enjoy a structure like this in literature, so I was eager to try it out. It's six nested stories spanning past present and future, like a comic book epic, X-Men. I just started it, and it is a bit like cheating since I already saw the movie, but there were changes made to the film adaptation, and critics seem to still enjoy the book as a stand alone literature not related to a film. 

I'm only in the first story, which has to do with slavery in the South Pacific and it's kind of sad and brutal.  

I'm curious @Travis, are you taking notes as you are reading? I think I might jot a few notes down for reference. I think it makes reading more fun anyway. Yeah for books!

I am in between books at the moment.  I want to try to get back into the Dresden Files, otherwise I want to go through the Kingkiller Chronicles by Pat Rothfuss.

Cloud Atlas sounds pretty interesting, even though I haven't seen the movie yet. You'll have to let us know.

I don't think I ever take notes on books anymore. I used to be pretty good at keeping a log with a few ending thoughts in it, but I haven't updated that thing in quite a while. I should get back to that at least. Hopefully, me writing little things in this thread will replace note taking! I buy a lot of books used, and I always like finding other peoples' notes in books. Sometimes they aren't even relevant, but can still be interesting...

I keep hearing about Kingkiller Chronicles, but I don't know if I can start another series after finally getting caught up on A Song of Ice and Fire in the last year. It's probably worth it, though.

The nice thing is that the Kingkiller Chronicles will be exactly three books.  Two of them are out and you have to wait patiently for the third one, but then the story should be done.

Right now I'm reading Doctor Sleep, Stephen King's new sequel to The Shining.  It's decent.  I was hesistant to start it, because I was kind of expecting it to be very dissapointing, but I'm actually enjoying it.  It's not great, but it's far from terrible.

I also just started reading Light in August yesterday.  Faulkner is one of my favorite authors and it's one of the few that I haven't read yet.  I just started it yesterday and not far enough in it to form an opinion, but since I like all of his other work I'm guessing I'm going to like it too.

Oh, that would be nice! Maybe I'll wait for the final one to come out and then start.

I'm a big Faulkner fan, but I definitely haven't read most of his stuff. I did read Light in August in high school, and I liked it back then, but should probably re-read it. As I recall, it's very much a character study and differs a lot from his other works. I should pick another one of his and give it a go soon. Been reading too much sci-fi and fantasy and need some Southern decay,

I finished reading A Feast for Crows and haven't started on my other books yet, I have a small pile of novels to pick from. I think I might read through a sci-fi book I bought recently called Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey.

I'm still on A Clash of Kings. I have those Tom Clancy Audiobooks I mentioned in my blogs, but they're going to be pushed back for a bit, and if I don't finish off the Game of Thrones books before the new Adam Crolla book is released, they'll join the Clancy books.

Hmm... never heard of Leviathan Wakes. You'll have to let us know. You are better off taking your time with Ice & Fire... it's much more pleasant knowing there's another book ready for you to read when you finish the one you're one. I am dying!

I must have missed your blog about Clancy books. Which ones? It's been a while since I read any of his stuff. 

Also, I will mention that I am sort of taking a break from The Diamond Age to read another book for review on PixlBit. Hopefully I can get a review (or some other form of content) up next week.

I need to read my Greek mythology book. Saw the same one in my professor's office the other day.

Almost finished Halo: Mortal Dictata. Then I can read Travis' review of it. Also reading the Okami art book and I'm waiting for several audio books to arrive from the library. While I wait for those, I'm listening to a teaching company lecture series on the history of England.

I picked up Executive Orders and Rainbox Six. I thought they were a really good price at Costco ($12.49). I still need to add them to iTunes so I can listen to them when I'm playing a game.

Well, I haven't read either of those, so you'll have to report back if they are worth tackling. Not sure I'm up for Clancy any time soon, but I buy them ever few years for a buck at the used book store, so it's good to know which ones are good.

Will do.

Just finished Musicophilia by Oliver Sacks, a book about stories of neurological problems that have to do with music, and started The Aviators: Eddie Rickenbacker, Jimmy Doolittle, Charles Lindberg and the Epic Age of Flight by Winston Groom, a book about Aviation around the same time period as the movie The Wind Rises, basically the World Wars period - 1910s to 1940s. I always like bi-planes like those in the movie Blue Max and in the video game Sky Shark. I'm also interested in the harrowing experience of being in the air during WWII.

Working on The Story of the Human Body by Daniel Lieberman about human evolution and The Monkey's Voyage by Alan de Queiroz about how plants and animals manage to spread from continent to continent even over hundreds of miles of ocean - "biogeography" they call it. My backlog of comics is beginning to pile up. I got the other two Harley Quinn trades but haven't had time to read them yet.

Do you ever watch Dogfights on the History Channel? The episodes about WWII fighters are the best. Those pilots were some macho mofos. Doing things like turning off the engines to evade enemies... It's amazing.

I'm actually in-between books and unsure of what to read.  

I really don't want to try to get into any kind of high fantasy books or the like, as the Ice and Fire books have spoiled me on it.  I don't really have any one genre I'd read over another...I just enjoy reading a book that flows.

Suggestions?

Last book I read from cover to cover though, was Airframe by Michael Crichton.  Decent read, and can be had at nearly any thrift store.

@Travis Hawks: Never seen that History Channel show but I just started another WWII book about aviation called Vanished: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War II by Wil S. Hylton. The descriptions of the air battles are amazing. I didn't know planes would drop phosphorescent bombs near other planes. It would create a rain of super heated plasma that other planes would fly through and catch fire. Weird. I never saw that in any movie. 

I'm also doing a Teaching Company lecture series called The Secret Life of Words by Anne Curzan. Fascinating talk of how we create new words like "googledanger", the creation of dictionaries, and a load of word etymology to come I'm sure. I'm only six lectures in on a 36 lecture course.

I'm also reading a little paperback called The Existention Imagination which collects a bunch of short stories and novel exerpts demonstrating the rather bleak philosophy of the mostly European writers from the World War period. It's understandable. They lived through a hellish time. Who wouldn't think life was ultimately meaningless and full of deluded fantasies when dictatorships were at large and people were being killed everywhere. I read my first Proust story there too.

I have others I'm reading too, but these are the main three at the moment. I usually am reading two at once, one audio, one text, but this month I have a lecture series on DVD, so I have to "read" three at once.

I finished A Clash of Kings earlier this morning, and now I'm starting on A Storm of Swords

I'm trying to read two books, and having success with the first one, "Opera 101: Learning and Loving the Opera" (or something). 

Also trying to get back into reading Les Miserables, which I've been struggling through for like five years.  About halfway done. 

I just finished the Hobbit, and I'm starting Fellowship of the Ring (because I'm late to the LotR party)