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What are you reading? — Page 16

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^Hey, I'm reading the same book(s), albeit very slowly.  I'm on Revenge right now.  It does feel like it takes a while to get anywhere.  I actually enjoyed Star's End quite a bit.  I really like Bollux and Blue Max: a droid duo, but very different characters from R2 and 3PO.

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I just finished "These Are The Voyages: TOS Season 1", the closest thing Trek fans will get to Rinzler's Making Of's. The author (who I've talked to a few times) got access to every draft of every script, every note, every memo, everything that they saved, which they saved everything just for a book like this to be made. Roddenberry actually asked Cushman to write the book years ago, he was just now able to get it done. Cushman also got the Nielson ratings for every episode, proving without a doubt that TOS was popular and was the highest rated NBC show on Thursday nights, but it cost more money than they wanted and Roddenberry wasn't the easiest guy to get along with. I'm really looking forward to starting the second book covering Season 2.

Star Wars Revisited Wordpress

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darth_ender said:

I really like Bollux and Blue Max: a droid duo, but very different characters from R2 and 3PO.

I think they're the best part of the Daley books. I only wish they'd been more prominent in Revenge than they were.

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DuracellEnergizer said:

darth_ender said:

I really like Bollux and Blue Max: a droid duo, but very different characters from R2 and 3PO.

I think they're the best part of the Daley books. I only wish they'd been more prominent in Revenge than they were.

 It was another instance of a Star Wars character name having altogether other meaning outside the US.

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Just started "Ringworld" by Larry Niven.

HOW DID I MISS THIS! Rightfully called a classic, and I'm only 1/3 in.

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darth_ender said:

^Hey, I'm reading the same book(s), albeit very slowly.  I'm on Revenge right now.  It does feel like it takes a while to get anywhere.  I actually enjoyed Star's End quite a bit.  I really like Bollux and Blue Max: a droid duo, but very different characters from R2 and 3PO.

 I totally dug those guys too. As a kid I had lots of drawing of them on my wall. 

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The King in Yellow by R.W. Chambers

Decided I needed to read this book after I caught wind of it not that long ago. A highly regarded paranormal novel from the late 1890's that inspired Lovecraft, Heinlein, Howard etc.? Okay cool, let's do this.

It starts off very strong and I really dug the first half of the book. It's really strange and mysterious. Then I don't know what happened. The last few stories are basically just little romances set in Paris. I don't get it.

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

and

The Adventures of King Arthur and his Knights

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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The Persian Wars

by Herodotus

I've started reading more of the ancient classical authors (Tacitus, the Church Fathers, Aristotle, etc.), and this is one of the ones I'm reading now. Ancient histories like these are interesting to read. I prefer the style in which they're written over many more recent (19th-20th century) histories, which are often very dry or too filled with dates to allow a person to absorb the information easily, especially when one has limited background information on that period of history. Anyway, it's a pretty good read. I'm still on book one (of four, I think), and have been for some time, but that's because I read way too many books at once. It's become more difficult now that I have less free time than before and it gets harder and harder to keep track of all the different story lines as time goes on. :P

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Dune Messiah (1969)

I'm digging this writing style! It's compelling, eloquent, and surprisingly easy to follow.

I’m just here because I’m driving tonight.

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I've been trawling through The Ethics of Star Trek by Judith Barad (and The Physics of Star Trek by Lawrence Krauss) in prep for my Star Trek class this summer. I figure it's something I ought to have read, seeing as I'll be teaching the class, lol

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Tack said:

Dune Messiah (1969)

I'm digging this writing style! It's compelling, eloquent, and surprisingly easy to follow.

 So far I've only read Dune. It's been a while, so I'll probably read it again when I'm able to read the rest of the series.... They're good books though.

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I'm onto the 2nd instalment of my "Walter Murch trilogy"

“Logic is the battlefield of adulthood.”

  • Howard Berk
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I started reading Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, but after three chapters I gave up; the dialogue is a tedious chore to read through, and I'm just not enjoying it.

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I have no idea how that became a classic. It's entirely nonsensical (in a bad way--Stephen Leacock has some very funny nonsense writing) and not very enjoyable.

...

Among numerous other things, I'm reading The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come by John Fox, Jr. I've read better books, but it's interesting in the way it portrays certain aspects of early American society. It takes place before the Civil War, in the South, and having been published less than fifty years after the war, I consider it a more reliable account of life back then than some other books which portray nearly all slave masters as evil, ruthless tyrants. I can't say I'd recommend it though, as there are probably many better books set in that time period.

One of the histories I'm reading is A History of Europe by H.A.L. Fisher. Unfortunately, I only have the first volume (which goes up to the early 1700s). It's a good read, though it can be biased against "Mohammedanism" and Catholicism at times. It isn't overly so, however, and I don't find that it takes away from the enjoyability of the book.

One of the classics I'm reading is Tom Brown's School Days, by Thomas Hughes. I thoroughly enjoyed what I've read so far (which is all but the last chapter) and it gave me a bit more insight into the culture of Britain in the 1800s. The characters all seemed very human and realistic, the author's style is easy to read, but not dull, and the book is about life, something that I find very interesting when presented by a good author. Life, without any extraordinary events, can be a fascinating subject, with wide variation, and many possibilities. I enjoy seeing a character develop over a long period of time, rather than just reading about a week-, month-, or year-long adventure in the same length of book. I find that books like that connect with me emotionally in a way that few other books do. I don't mean that I burst out in tears when something bad happens to the protagonist, but I become genuinely interested in what happens to the main character and the choices they make.

Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, whom I highly recommend, also writes good books that explore life, and the realities of life. I like books that show the hard side of life a bit, with people dying and whatnot. Rawlings' books have bittersweet endings, which is far preferable to a happy or sad ending, in my opinion.

I'm reading ecumenical council documents, beginning with the earliest ones and continuing all the way through. So far I'm on the Fourth Council of Constantinople, which is the eighth ecumenical council of the Catholic Church. It's interesting to see the development of the Church over time, where and when certain practices and rules originated, and for what reasons various things came about.

I've also been reading ancient Sumerian poetry on <a href="http://gatewaystobabylon.com/">this site</a>. Unfortunately, there is so much text missing in most of them that they are almost impossible to follow.

I'm always in the middle of some parts or others of my Bible, or my other Bible, or an online Bible, and have started reading different versions to get a better grasp of what certain parts are actually saying and also to broaden my knowledge of it overall.

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I'm reading St. Thomas Aquinas' Summa Theologia. This is a very heavy read, originally written in Latin by the scholarly Thomas Aquinas who was a Dominican monk living in the 11th century. I've been taking it slowly, which allows me to absorb the content, since it's almost as hard as reading Shakespeare. I enjoy it though, and have learned a fair bit from what I have read so far. It's a huge work, and will likely take me years to finish, but I figured I should read it sometime, since it's so well known and frequently referenced in Catholic writings/Catechisms, etc. There are some things in it that are inaccurate, but considering Aquinas was writing a thousand years ago, I give him a fair bit of slack in those areas.

I don't recommend this to people who aren't heavily interested in Catholic theology, but for those who are...well, you might enjoy it if you have the time to work through it, but his "Shorter Summa" (I'm not sure, but I believe it is called just that) may be a more preferable option.

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As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare is difficult to get through without ever having seen one of his plays, and needing to use Dictionary.com every couple of minutes. It also doesn't help that I read his plays over a period of several months, and am reading over fifty other things at the same time. What I can understand is interesting, and I enjoyed Julius Caesar, since I already knew the basic story.

Abominable Snowmen: Legend Come to Life by Ivan T. Sanderson

This is very interesting, and I had no idea just how many reports of these things (called "ABSMs" in the book) there were. The book was written in the sixties, back when the world was more full of unknowns, and I could probably be convinced of the existence of ABSMs were it not for the fact that we still haven't proved the existence of any of them.

Alfred the Great by Jacob Abott

The author is good at presenting history in an interesting way, without getting too detailed and boring me. With next to no background information on someone, it can be nice to have an easy-to-read book on them. It doesn't feel juvenile, though, which would be no good. I've read his biography of Alexander the Great as well, and plan to tackle the next several if I have time.

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I'm making my way through The Book of Mormon and am on The Second Book of Nephi right now. There are many phrases and ideas from the New Testament in that book, which is interesting, since Nephi supposedly wrote first. I plan to become much more familiar with The Book of Mormon over time, so that I can understand Mormonism better, as well as being better prepared to debate with regards to Mormon theology and scripture. The same goes for most religious texts. I am of the opinion that knowledge (real knowledge, that is, not an incorrect understanding of the text) of another person's scriptures is the best way to understand their religion and allows for better discussion related to religion.

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I'm still reading The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie. Christie is an excellent mystery author. I like how she gives several characters motives so that it is very difficult to determine who the culprit is. I have yet to find out how well she plays out the end, but from some Poirot shows I've seen (for those who don't know, Poirot is one of her best known characters), she seems to do a good job, assuming the TV episodes are similar to the books.

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Nineteen Eighty-four by George Orwell

This is a great book and I highly recommend it. I may have mentioned it before in this thread, but I'm still reading it. It's fascinating how some of the things that the government does in that novel are being done, to a lesser degree, today, and nobody seems concerned. For instance, certain governments are monitoring their country's citizens, one-sided history is being taught to children in public schools, etc.

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The Qur'an is interesting to read, and I won't judge it too quickly before knowing more about Muslims' beliefs and reading more of it. Allah is similar to the way God is portrayed in the Old Testament, so I don't know why some Christians accuse Islam of being such a violent religion with an evil God. I think the Islamic take on God is a bit more so than the Jewish one, but only slightly so. That being said, I think it comes down to the way the Hebrews/Israelites/Jews thought God was.

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks is proving to be an awful book. Brooks employs deus ex machina far too often. The protagonist has some elfstones which have magical properties. They seem to be able to do anything they are needed to do, yet the characters don't use them that often and tend to think of them only at the last minute. I am also left wondering why the characters don't just ask the elfstones to show them the way to where they're going, since they don't know the way. Handily, they are found by someone and brought to their destination (not their final destination, as I haven't gotten that far yet), presumably just to speed up the story. The characters appear incredibly stupid, but it's a good thing they seem to have fantastically (literally) good luck. I advise that you stay away from these books if you appreciate quality literature. Read a book that has the characters solve their own problems, and doesn't employ a magical plot device that pushes the plot forward when the author runs into a corner. I definitely do not plan to read any more books in the series, but I'll stick with this one until I'm finished, just to see if it improves.