Currently re-reading:

This topic was created by jake .

[jake]

Currently re-reading:

James Blish's "Citys in Flight".

[saundby]

Re: Currently re-reading:

I love this one. Hobo cities riding the rails of space. A great read, and a great period piece.

[Lotaresco]

Re: Currently re-reading:

"James Blish's "Citys in Flight"."

It's also worth reading James Blish's "The Seedling Stars". Written in 1957 Blish had the foresight to predict GMOs and the way that human beings could be engineered to live in new environments, or rather that their children would be adapted to new environments.

[Drewc]

Time Out Guide to Lisbon

Need to buy a ceramic cockerel

[dogged]

Anno Dracula is back in print!

Awesome.

[jake]

Re: Anno Dracula is back in print!

Why "awesome"? Serious question.

If you find it all that important, used book stores have plenty of copies. Why purchase a reprint paperback when you can get a good condition first edition hardback for next to nothing?

[dogged]

because I just wandering around a bookshop on my lunch break and saw it. It's a great book but seeing was the only thing that reminded me of that. I wouldn't have thought of it otherwise.

[dogged]

And actually, also because this way the author gets a royalty. Which is a good thing. He's not Dan Brown, doesn't sell what in Dan's Brown case I will just barely dignify with the term "book" by the hundred million and could probably use the revenue.

[TeeCee]

Hmm, I quite agree about Dan Brown.

I remember that when the hype was getting really breathless over "The Da Vinci Code" I went out and bought a copy to see what everyone was on about.

The fact that my previous read had been Iain M. Banks' lastest oeuvre only served to enhance the feeling that I was reading a "Janet and John" book. The only thing missing was the "New word" footnote on each page.

When the court case over blatant plagiarism of "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail" came up, my only reaction was "Funny, that's exactly what I was thinking after the first couple of chapters.".

So it's someone else's plot with a hero, villain and dolly bird dropped in, rewritten to appeal to the terminally thick.

[Tony Smith, Ed, Reg Hardware]

Iain M Banks? Strewth, can that guy waffle for his country.

Read Asimov or some such: twice as much plot in ten per cent of the pages.

[Lotaresco]

Dracula

"And actually, also because this way the author gets a royalty."

And how do you think Bram Stoker (b. 8 November 1847 – d. 20 April 1912) will be spending the royalties from "Dracula" a work which went out of copyright in 1987?

[jake]

I just ran across "Lancelot Biggs, Spaceman" again ...

It's been in my collection since Mom bought it back in 1950 (before I was born ...). Not exactly literature, but readable & fun for my teen nieces & nephews :-)

[jukejoint]

Manuscript Found in Saragossa.

Re-reading the part I already read so I can continue. Reader, interrupted.

[Tony Smith, Ed, Reg Hardware]

Ed McBain's 87th Precinct novels, in sequence at long last.

[jake]

That should keep you occupied for a week or three :-)

I first ran across the series at San Francisco International Airport ... I read "Heat", "Ice" and "Lightning" on a non-stop to Heathrow in roughly 1988 ... I haven't read all of 'em yet, but I might try the sequential thing, now that you've reminded me of the books.

[raybabyray]

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell and Everything is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer. The former has like 6 different narratives going on and the latter has 3. They're both great reads though.

[raybabyray]

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera. I always feel so depressed reading this but it's the good depression. Kinda life-affirming actually.

[Brian W. Smith]

Re: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

This book is one of my favorites.

If you find interesting stories of Daniel Keyes, try to read The Minds of Billy Milligan.

[Lotaresco]

Re: Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

If you find Flowers for Algernon touching, I recommend Robert Silverberg's "Dying Inside". It has been overlooked by mainstream literature because it is "SciFi" but it's a masterpiece that stands in its own right irrespective of any "genre" tags. Its main themes are human sorrow, wasted youth, wasted talent and the recognition of mortality.

It is better, in my opinion that Woolf's "Orlando" - why isn't that regarded as SciFi? It's also better than Rushdie's "Midnight's Children" (ditto).

[robbie208]

1984. Excellent book