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What'cha Reading?

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Just bought two Onion books. One, the very first, that I lost ten years ago, and another one, "The Onion Book of Known Knowledge: A Definitive Encyclopaedia Of Existing Information"

I had to stop eating while I was reading them because I almost choked to death from laughter several times.



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011235813

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Just finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. I thought it was fantastic ... and completely depressing. :boohoo:
 

Tellenbach

in dreamland
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Dirty Minds by Kayt Sukel. This book explores the neurochemistry behind love. It examines why women fall for bad boys, why marriages suffer after the birth of a child, how early neglect may lead to promiscuity, etc. Truly fascinating stuff.
 

Hive

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I bought Runaway Horses by Yukio Mishima a couple of years ago. When I found out it was the second book of a tetralogy, I bought the first, Spring Snow, and decided to read it before I jumped at Runaway Horses.

About three years later, I'm finally almost finished with Spring Snow. The prose is good but... The story's halting at times. Runaway Horses seems to promise more fire and blood. /7w8

Also read Sun and Steel by the same guy. Really fascinating writer.
 

Noll

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In Search of Lost Time Volume One: Swann's Way
 
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A window to the soul

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My dog is so sweet. Rumor has it, I read a book about how to train a dog to politely beg and do cute tricks. Since I haven't read the rumored book, I am obviously a natural dog whisperer and must begin writing my own book. I feel it is my duty to share this special gift.
 
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Stansmith

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I'm about 10 pages away from finishing Malone Dies by Samuel Beckett. It was kind of a difficult read for me, so I had to drag myself through the first 70 pages or so. It was worth it though--it get's pretty intense towards the end, which is cliche, but yeah. I'll probably have to give it another run-through.
 

Flâneuse

don't ask me
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Heavier Than Heaven, a Kurt Cobain biography. I'll come back and give it a 3-4 sentence review when I'm done. So far it seems really good.
 

Noll

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Doktor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg. It's a Swedish book, a classic really. I've already read it, but that was a long time ago. Rereading as I feel I'm now much more suited to read such a difficult book.
 

King sns

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I'm reading "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. I'm so excited about this book as I got sucked in within 2 pages and it's so rare that a book draws me in like that... I had to exclaim this somewhere.
 

small.wonder

So she did.
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Revisiting a childhood favorite that my Mom read to me growing up, "A Girl of The Limberlost" by Gene Stratton-Porter.
 

Kullervo

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"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud" by Wordsworth.

I just rediscovered this poem, but really like it and may try to set it.
 

citizen cane

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I don't know what I want to read next. Any number of Carl Sagan books, a collection of Andy Rooney essays and observations, or Love in the Time of Cholera. Finally finished Ray Bradbury's a Medicine for Melancholy.
 

Tellenbach

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I'm a third through Christine Montross' "Falling Into the Fire". A psychiatrist presents half a dozen of the more interesting case studies of mental illness.
 

Mal12345

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Review of Newton's Cannon

Newton's Cannon by Gregory Keyes.

I finished Newton's Cannon last night. It was entertaining enough to keep me reading, and even hard to put down through the last third of the novel.

The book's hero is a 14-year-old Ben Franklin - which indicates that the novel was set in the year 1720, although the year in which the book's events take place is never stated. Newton's Cannon is a work of historical science fiction. Imagine what the world would have been like if Isaac Newton, during his alchemical experiments, had found a way to communicate with the aether. Newton called his creation "philosopher's mercury," not to be confused with the element mercury. This invention is effectively the same as using magic, although with a scientific basis. Thusly, Newton becomes the greatest sorcerer of his time.

Of course, where there is one sorcerer there are bound to be others. And poor Ben, who is apprenticed to his brother in the printing business, finds himself unwittingly caught in the middle of some international intrigue involving disputes between France and Great Britain. Of course, in the presence of this new-found magic, the Franklin brothers are not merely in the possession of a printing press, they have a machine which communicates over vast distances instantaneously. These machines, called aetherschreibers, aren't terribly uncommon. Such miracles are in fact fairly commonplace, and the Franklins merely use one to print up news stories "broadcast" to them from Europe. It is somewhat like our wireless transmissions, only they occur instantaneously via the aether.

Ben Franklin, being a very intellectually-minded and curious young man, begins to experiment with his brother's aetherschreiber and finds a way to "tune" the device to any "frequency," a feat that magicians had either been working on and failed at, or considered very dangerous because it makes it possible to spy on the communications of others. The latter were correct in their fears, and after Ben's innocent discovery, all hell busts loose in the novel.

The plot of Newton's Cannon is not straight-forward, but has many twists and unexpected turns of event. It was enough to keep my interest going, and that's saying quite a lot.
 
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