NOW READING

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The Flash said:
I haven't read anything in ages, probably in a year. I used to be a keen reader and it just disappeared for some reason. I'm not at all comfortable with it, I'll probably pick up some of my favorite books to get my appetite for reading going again.
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Have had periods of 15 books a month, down to zero reading for half a year. It varies. Life is better while reading though.

Read Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.

Excellent space opera with a more literary twist, for those interested in that side of things. The latter is exceptionally good.
 
Night Prowler said:
All fiction. Heard of most of those :D I prefer stuff that starts from the beginning of the thing that causes the apocalypse (say, (Fear) The Walking Dead), rather than far future like in Mad Max for example. Earth Abides and I Am Legend are cool. The Road... I understand people who like it and I know it's really popular but it's too much of a downer. I know the whole genre is kind of a downer, but this was too much for me...
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There is a book called Virus: Day of Resurrection that starts just before the Apocalypse then goes through it up to about 10 years after the event.
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Maturin said:
Have had periods of 15 books a month, down to zero reading for half a year. It varies. Life is better while reading though.

Read Consider Phlebas and Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks.

Excellent space opera with a more literary twist, for those interested in that side of things. The latter is exceptionally good.
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Anything by Banks is exceptionally good imo, and not just The Culture
 
Night Prowler said:
I haven't read anything in months. Is it possible to have a kind of a "reader's block"? That's what I have. Nothing can hold my attention for too long apart from books I've already read and enjoy. Not even the sequels to long running book series can hold my attention nowadays. What's funny is that when I discovered the ebook world about 3 years ago, I've started reading books at a breakneck pace (on my phone) and started saving money for a Kindle, and when I finally got a Kindle about a year ago, I got this reader's block and it's been gathering dust for months :(
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I sometimes go through phases like that too; want to read, but just can't seem to get going when I pick a book up. To mitigate this, I tend to have different types of books to hand, depending on how I'm feeling (my reading mindset); so, novel-length fiction, short stories (single author), short stories (mixed authors), non-fiction (of all kinds), etc. And because of this, I sometimes have two or three books going at the same time. Recently I have become intensely interested in Scottish history & have no stamina for fiction at all.
Night Prowler said:
I also have to do a big purge of my digital library. Most of it consists of sci-fi and post-apocalyptic books written by Americans that I get from Amazon... Mostly independent authors.
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Why do you need to get rid of them?
 
That's why you don't want to continue reading them, surely? Why do you need to "purge" your collection though. You've read them; you can't undo that now. I'm a book hoarder, so don't really understand! :p
 
I'm actually really starting to get back into reading again. I'm currently going through Stephen King's Dark Tower series for the first time, and I just finished Wizard and Glass. I've read a few King books before (The Stand being my absolute favorite), and I'm aware of the fact that many of his books tie in to The Dark Tower. I want to read a few more books before I move on to book V. I currently have Hearts in Atlantis, Desperation, and The Talisman in my possession. Anyone have any suggestions on which one I should read next?
 
I'm still trying to finish A Dance with Dragons. I have started with ASOIAF more or less exactly a year ago, I believe, but the pace of the books 4 & 5 combined with the fact most of my time this year was spent by preparing for the excruciating final exams puts me somewhere on page 820 in ADWD, as for the time being. In January, I have also begun with Michel Faber's The Carmine Petal and the White, which was very popular here in the Czech Republic last year, but I got stuck on page 100 or so as I tried to finish the ADWD and as a result, I have read nothing.

Next in queue are probably Tolkien (need to re-read Hobbit and LotR and finally read the rest), Malazan Book of the Fallen (which everybody says is beyond astonishing, my wife included) and Sapkowski's The Witcher series, I don't know the exact order of these yet.

I have tried The Dark Tower once already, but gave up halfway through the first book. I will probably try it again, but that first book really put me off. I know people say it gets better somewhere around The Drawing of the Three/The Waste Lands, but I just wasn't patient enough.
That said, my patience is really not that strong - I absolutely loved Herbert's Dune, after reading the first three books I've thought I'd never read anything better... but then I stopped halfway through the fourth book, I still don't even know why. :D
 
I love ASOIF. That's what actually got me back into reading. I noticed my roommate reading it constantly, so I decided to check it out myself. My only complaint is the fact that the show is now caught up to the books, so it looks like the upcoming books in the series are going to be spoiled by the tv show.

I was never able to get into Tolkien personally, it always just seemed to daunting. I do plan on trying out again one day, but it will probably be in a couple years after I finish reading everything else I have on my to-do list. (Dark Tower series, possibly Wheel of Time afterwards, the rest of ASOIF, with other books thrown in here and there.)

I personally decided to go with Hearts in Atlantis, but The Talisman will be up next, likely followed by Black House.
 
Personally I think A Song of Ice and Fire is a sad turn for modern fantasy. I'm all for pushing for something else than the narrow Tolkien-school of writers, but if the alternative is poorly written, repetitive and dull episodic soap-opera I'd rather have Tolkien. That guy could at least tell a story.

Examples of great modern fantasy is China Miéville's Perdido Street Station, The Scar and Iron Council or Stephen King's The Dark Tower-series.

Lampwick 43 said:
I'm actually really starting to get back into reading again. I'm currently going through Stephen King's Dark Tower series for the first time, and I just finished Wizard and Glass. I've read a few King books before (The Stand being my absolute favorite), and I'm aware of the fact that many of his books tie in to The Dark Tower. I want to read a few more books before I move on to book V. I currently have Hearts in Atlantis, Desperation, and The Talisman in my possession. Anyone have any suggestions on which one I should read next?
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If you want the backstory before tackling more of the series, 'Salem's Lot definitely should be read before Wolves of the Calla as there is a major connection between the works. Hearts in Atlantis and Insomnia before VII. I read them afterwards, as The Dark Tower-series was the first I read by King.
 
Compared to Emmerdale: Fantasy Edition by GRRM, he was freakin' Shakespeare.

But what I don't like is that after Tolkien fantasy has seemingly become two major schools - one of imitators of varying success where Terry Brooks is a big name, and that other one where Moorcock is God and you're not true if you don't take every chance at shitting on Tolkien's "comforting escapism" as he did in "Epic Pooh". I'm so tired of these books showing up, fantasy described as "gritty realism" (I believe I saw that one on the blurb of one by Joe Abercombie), clearly marketed as being the anti-Tolkien, the new wave of fantasy, despite that stories like that has existed since at least the 70's...
 
Maturin said:
Compared to Emmerdale: Fantasy Edition by GRRM, he was freakin' Shakespeare.

But what I don't like is that after Tolkien fantasy has seemingly become two major schools - one of imitators of varying success where Terry Brooks is a big name, and that other one where Moorcock is God and you're not true if you don't take every chance at shitting on Tolkien's "comforting escapism" as he did in "Epic Pooh". I'm so tired of these books showing up, fantasy described as "gritty realism" (I believe I saw that one on the blurb of one by Joe Abercombie), clearly marketed as being the anti-Tolkien, the new wave of fantasy, despite that stories like that has existed since at least the 70's...
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Indeed; altho' that's not Tolkien's fault.

I'm not personally a massive Fantasy fan; read a bit when I was young, but haven't read anything in the Fantasy genre in years.
 
The best (relatively) recent fantasy I've read is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, about the revival of magic in England during the Napoleonic wars and the resulting conflicts between the human and fairy worlds. It's a long and idiosyncratic book, but give it a try if you're looking for less predictable fantasy. Very funny too.
 
Shadow said:
The best (relatively) recent fantasy I've read is Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, about the revival of magic in England during the Napoleonic wars and the resulting conflicts between the human and fairy worlds. It's a long and idiosyncratic book, but give it a try if you're looking for less predictable fantasy. Very funny too.
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This was just made into a TV series and shown on BBC earlier this year. I didn't watch it myself, but it was mostly filmed in this area.
 
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