What are you reading?

[Atria35]

The Princes in The Tower- a look at the evidence for and against King Richard III having killed his nephews, Edward V and his younger brother. Intriguing, as it peices together contemporary evidence and politics, and also looks at the evidence for King Henry VII having ordered the murders. Overall, the evidence of what was happening politically around the princes at that time, I've come to think King Richard was the one that did it. But this was definately an interesting read.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Finished Sybil. They made a movie out of it?! *reminds self to never pick it up EVER*

Nearing 200 pages in...book 6 >_> (Man, really need to learn the title.) And I think I'm going to pick up a book about how to listen to classical music intelligently.

[rocklobster]

you won't find it, Wolf. They were made for TV movies, which rarely wind up on DVD or VHS. Sorry.
Currently reading Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card, book 2 in his Ender series.

[Atria35]

you won't find it, Wolf. They were made for TV movies, which rarely wind up on DVD or VHS. Sorry.

As a person who owns the 1970's version and has the 2006 movie in her local library, I can say that yes, you can find them for sale on DVD. Your best best is Amazon.

Shakespeare's Wife- a piecing together of what Shakespeare's wife would really have been like, and her life both before and after her marriage. Very cool.

[KagayakiWashi]

"Stuff Christians Like" by Jonathan Acuff. Excellent book. Recommended to all Christians. Everytime I read a paragraph I laugh and say, "That is so true!"
Hilarious!
http://www.stuffchristianslike.net

[airichan623]

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan
and Arch Enemy by Frank Beddore

[Wolf-man]

I have been reading "A Study In Scarlet" and am close to finishing it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the best authors I have ever read. This is the first time I have read a Sherlock Holmes novel and I absolutely love it. Sherlock Holmes is a freaking genius! His deduction methods are way ahead the time. It's amazing to think that Doyle was able to devise these methods to write about. I mean the forensic methods are purely genius. I love Sherlock Holmes. He is awesome!

[rocklobster]

The Vision of the Children by Janice T. Connell. It's about Medjugorge (which I'm no doubt spelling incorrectly.)

[Atria35]

I have been reading "A Study In Scarlet" and am close to finishing it. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is one of the best authors I have ever read. This is the first time I have read a Sherlock Holmes novel and I absolutely love it. Sherlock Holmes is a freaking genius! His deduction methods are way ahead the time. It's amazing to think that Doyle was able to devise these methods to write about. I mean the forensic methods are purely genius. I love Sherlock Holmes. He is awesome!

Sherlock Holes/ Doyle is amazing. It's just so depressing to know that when he got to be incredibly popular, Doyle ended up getting sick of him- actually killed of Sherlock! But then... brought him back due to popular demand. Sad, really.

The Six Wives of Henry the VIII - misplaced my book about Shakespeare's wife But started this- intriguing! I'm learning so much more than I knew...

[the_wolfs_howl]

Am now 300 pages into...wait for it...Lord of Chaos!! Yes, I finally remembered what WoT book 6's title is! Predictably, there's [ii]still[/i] very little going on. One big thing, though, which had me just staring at the page for how nonchalantly it came across.

And I just got past all the introductory stuff in What to Listen for in Music or something like that, by Aaron Copeland.

[uc pseudonym]

My reading has suffered lately, partly due to busyness, partly because some of my leisure time was consumed trying to finish video games in a very short time. I’m hoping to get back to normal with a new book (featuring NT Wright and John Dominic Crossan), but I haven’t read enough to have an opinion.

On the Colbert interviews.... From what I can tell there are two main types of debates. The first is when you try to convince your opponent that your view is correct (a Socratic dialog for instance). These involve friendly dialog, mutual willingness to put aside emotions and focus on facts, logic, etc. The other type is where you try to convince your audience that your view is correct. You know that your opponent will never believe you, so you do your best to make him look dumb and logic gives way to mudslinging. If you can't actually convince any of your opponent's followers, at least you can make your own feel better about themselves. I am sure I don't have to tell you which type of debate is more lively and frequently televised. Part of the reason why I found those Colbert interviews so humorous is that they acknowledge that the debate is for show and even makes fun of the fact that this debate is of the second category (Colbert tells Ehrman, "I believe that the Bible is the totally inerrant word of God. Now, let's have a reasonable discussion."). Also, even taking out the celebrities, that is a lot of Colbert interviews.

It’]this clip[/URL]. Not for the debate itself, which has no real information or exchange of ideas. But here more than ever, Colbert is actively making things worse, parodying how shallow the exchange of talking points generally is. I wasn’t sure if he was mocking this or just going for general laughs until the point where he actually puts his feet up on the desk.

[bigsleepj]

After a few weeks of crazy I'm finally reading again. Currently, I'm on top of two books. Ringworld by Larry Niven and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The former is, off course, a forty-year old science fiction classic, but the latter is a new book and possibly on the way to becoming one of my favourites.

For those who like the sift things into neat, complacent categories, Hugo Cabret would be part of a genre called 'clockpunk', though it is pretty much set in the real world of early 1930's France and is not really part of that subgenre. A young orphan named Hugo is alone and living in the walls of a railway station in Paris where he steals food to survive, but also steals small clockwork animals from a bitter toymaker. He has to complete a clockwork man his father discovered in an old museum, but is caught by the toymaker. And, in terms of plot, I would not spoil the rest because the book is best left explored by itself.

One of the best things about the book is that the author is also an acclaimed illustrator. Unlike some illustrations that add nothing to the story Selznick sometimes substitutes pictures for paragraphs; the first 45 pages of the story is nothing but illustrations before the actual text come. While with most authors this might seem like a cop-out Selznick actually uses this to tell the story, especially in the way he catches the life in the faces of the characters. Reading this book is overall an interesting, fascinating experience.




Edit: Oh yeah, Martin Scorcese bought the rights and is going to release a movie of this book next year starring Ben Kingsley and, erm, Sacha Baron Cohen.

[ich1990]

[b]“The Twelfth Nightâ€

[rocklobster]

I will be starting Lord Sunday, the final book in Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.

[Esoteric]

Even though I might disagree with the authors about some kinds of effectiveness, I will admit they are completely right about the way books need to be today. That's mildly depressing.

Would it be possible for you to summarize their position on contemporary book format, or is it too involved?

[uc pseudonym]

The Resurrection of Jesus: John Dominic Crossan and NT Wright in Dialogue edited by Robert Stewart

The title is false advertising, which was a disappointment. Instead of a book-length exchange of ideas, it's a transcription of an hour long discussion followed by a bunch of essays on the subject. These are decent works from well-known scholars and even literary critics (notable names include William Lane Craig, R Douglas Geivett, Gary Habermas, Ted Peters, and Alan Segal), but the book lacks some depth of discussion. The dialogue itself feels the same way, because the two parties have been over the same ground before and seem a little tired of the arguments. Still, I think the conversational format is great: both men are free to speak with as much sophistication as necessary, but with simplicity when anything more would only obfuscate meaning.

I should also note that the essays are significantly weighted toward people on Wright's side. I don't think there's any intention to be one-sided, however, given the seriousness of some of the other arguments (essentially, that any consensus of biblical historians is only a small faction of marginal historians). Though there are some very solid textual explorations, I think the book would have benefited more from longer and more direct disagreements.

Would it be possible for you to summarize their position on contemporary book format, or is it too involved?

Their entire position would be a bit more than I want to attempt, but I can explain the general things they said that inspired my comment. Let me be clear that I don't want to make it seem like it isn't a very good book on self-editing. Still, a lot of the book has the subtle implication that modern readers are impatient, self-absorbed, and want melodramatic dialogue instead of challenging ideas. Also included in my opinion are some pet peeves, like the fact that majority opinion seems to be that "said" is invisible, whereas the word has always struck me as painfully sticking out of narratives.

[Esoteric]

Their entire position would be a bit more than I want to attempt, but I can explain the general things they said that inspired my comment. Let me be clear that I don't want to make it seem like it isn't a very good book on self-editing. Still, a lot of the book has the subtle implication that modern readers are impatient, self-absorbed, and want melodramatic dialogue instead of challenging ideas.

I see. I haven't read the book, but I would guess that this impression most likely came from their stressing the importance of including a 'hook' and using good pacing. Still, I agree that's a slight over-generalization. The nature of the audience is largely effected by the genre that interests them. Someone who likes thrillers generally wants to see quick clear cut developments to stay interested. Someone reading romance novels more than likely wants melodrama by the bucket-full. But science fiction is a genre that strongly focuses on ideas and contemplation, and it has a very large audience. I'm tempted to say that in modern western society, it's the people who don't read books who are usually more impatient, self-absorbed and melodramatic, but that's an overgeneralization too.

Also included in my opinion are some pet peeves, like the fact that majority opinion seems to be that "said" is invisible, whereas the word has always struck me as painfully sticking out of narratives.

That's very interesting, and quite ironic considering that fact that I just recently started paying attention to how dialog is tagged. Someone recently said that using descriptive tags like 'he hissed' or 'she grumbled' is generally not considered good writing. So I looked back at the last few short stories I'd read and sure enough, they all pretty much only used 'said' when tagging. It hadn't bothered me, I hadn't even noticed the repetition, so for me it really was 'invisible'.

[the_wolfs_howl]

Just started reading Frankenstein by Mary Shelley for school for the third stinkin' time. You'd think I liked this story, judging from the amount of times I've read it, but I really don't. I appreciate the literary value of the tale, but it's soooo dull.... -_-

[jim_wijit]

I will be starting Lord Sunday, the final book in Garth Nix's Keys to the Kingdom series.

Didn't know that was out yet. I'ma have to reread the other six in preparation. Currently rereading 'The Shadow at Evening'. Christian Sci-Fi!

[rocklobster]

Will start the first book in the Artemis Fowl series soon.

[Atria35]

Will start the first book in the Artemis Fowl series soon.

WooT! Awesome!... and reminded me that I need to reread the series since the next (and very last) book in the series is coming out this summer.

Still on The Six Wives of Henry VIII but have moved from Katherine of Aragon and onto one of the most controvertial of his wives, Anne Bolyne.

[ich1990]

“A Princess of Mars” by Edgar Rice Burroughs

While the Harlequin styled cover did much to put me off, I ended up reading the book anyways, for a class. As it turns out, the old axiom of not judging a book by its cover still holds true; “A Princess of Mars” is actually an adventure novel, with leanings in the science fiction and fantasy directions.

That is to say it spends a few pages trying to confuse the reader with scientific sounding phrases and then proceeds to dispense with all known rules of reality while the protagonist runs around punching Martians. It is not a bad setup, really. 7/10

[MightiMidget]

So Many Steps to Death - Agatha Christie
Dealing with Dragons -Patricia C. Wrede

[Kaori]

Recently finished reading (and teaching) The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom. Well-written and contains a lot of spiritual insight.

Right now, I am reading John Grisham's The Testament, also for a class I am teaching; it's required as a part of the curriculum, and I am less than thrilled.

[Wolf-man]

I finished A Study in Scarlet. Such a great book. I don't how anyone can who has read the books and watched that terrible new movie and think it any way honors Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's masterpiece.
Now on to The Sign of the Four!

[uc pseudonym]

The Language of God by Francis Collins

I like Francis Collins, so I'm surprised that I hadn't ever read his book before. My feelings after reading it are strangely nuanced: people well read in genetics or theology probably won't get a great deal out of it, but 90% of the people debating these subjects in the public square really need to read the book.

The tone of the book overall is narrative, though it addresses issues of philosophy and science. Perhaps the most interesting parts are the chapters covering current science and the appendix on bioethics (also, the summary of the Human Genome Project is pretty good for anyone that doesn't want to look at a book-length history of it). Otherwise, he's not really presenting arguments for theism so much as sketching out a general framework of faith and reason together. The book is marketed as if it's all arguments against science without faith, but at least half of it is devoted to arguing against faith without science, which is refreshing.

[Atria35]

The Language of God by Francis Collins

I like Francis Collins, so I'm surprised that I hadn't ever read his book before. My feelings after reading it are strangely nuanced: people well read in genetics or theology probably won't get a great deal out of it, but 90% of the people debating these subjects in the public square really need to read the book.

This summary has me interested- I'm well read in genetics and biotech stuff (with my major I have to be ), and I think that the ideas that are presented in the book would still give me something to chew on. Especially since I've ended up in more than my fair share of debates over this kind of subject. Definitely putting it on my to-read list.

[bigsleepj]

Currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Very good, but very dark and X-rated. REALLY not for the feint of heart.

[That Dude]

Worship By The Book -by- D.A. Carson.

It looked interesting, so I borrowed it from my pastor, who says it's more like an academic thesis on how the bible dictates worship. It's interesting so far, though I'm not very far in.

[Hohenheim]

[quote="uc pseudonym"]The Language of God by Francis Collins

I like Francis Collins, so I'm surprised that I hadn't ever read his book before. My feelings after reading it are strangely nuanced: people well read in genetics or theology probably won't get a great deal out of it, but 90%]

I've never read the book myself, but I know Collins' position on these matters since I regularly visit the Biologos Foundation website. If you liked the book, you'd definitely like their site.