Books are good for you.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

To the library!

Seriously, check out your library's online catalogue, and see if they have anything.

[Lumi]

I suppose I could set foot in a library some year. There's one just up the street that I've never been to.... but it's kind of tiny.

Anyway, Furies of Calderon is pretty good so far, yay! And lately I've gotten a strange urge to reread Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, of all things...

[Gamemusicfreak]

I recommend Animal Farm by George Orwell. Awesome Book.

[Del Stimpson]

Lumi I suggest if you start reading Lord Dunsany then try and start with "The King of Elfland's Daughter" it's one of the best books I've ever read.

[SkyeWelse]

Lately I've been reading Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, Eragon, Collapse, some Gargoyles comics and a bit of Ender's Shadow. Also I'd like to pick up the Chronicles of Amber again one of these days.

-SkyeWelse

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

I've heard of World War Z, and some sharply divided opinions about.

Can you give a summary, Deuce?

[Tuca]

Just starting up the Song of Fire and Ice series, and loving AGOT (about half-way through). I've heard to leave expectations low for further books in the series, but a vrey enjoyable series so far.

[Ranzor]

This series is by far the best fantasy I've read in a long while! And don't believe those rumours, the next books are even better than the first, althought the fourth is not so good. The best one for me is the third, A Storm of Swords, specially the part about Jon and the people by the wall. Believe me, you won't be disapointed if you're liking AGOT.

[Tuca]

A small update - I'm done with AGOT, and it was fantastic. I'm not a huge fantasy or sci-fi fan as far as books go (I only really enjoyed Dune and LOTR) but I love the series so far. I already bought ACOK, and will start it when I'm on vacation next week.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

You bitches need to be gettin' your read on!

Man it's been ages since I posted in this. Okay, so what have I been reading lately?

Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami: The novel, mind you, not the manga. Alright, I didn't go into this with high hopes, and goddamn if this didn't exceed all my expectations by like 5000%. In short, this is a book about a class in an alternate future fascist Japan that gets put into what is known as The Game. The Game is a military exercise in which a class of children are forced to kill each other, with the winner being given some accolades and a modest pension. Ostensibly, this is done and tolerated because of the military value of the data that they collect; and due to the fact that fascist Japan don't tolerate no backtalk from the Proles.

In particular, this covers a class of 42 students forced to go through this and it's beautifully done. The characters are mostly well fleshed out and believable (with one exception), and their reactions to the situation are all very well written and portrayed. While there are clearly main characters and side characters, both are done pretty well. There are quite a few I ended up feeling legitimately sorry for, as one of the things that is particularly well written is how much these people simply don't deserve to be in the situation they are in, and how it messes with their heads in various ways.

The writing itself is also very very good, and this is with translation, which was masterfully done. The setting itself is pretty well thought out, one of the major themes is how people quietly sneak in forbidden things from outside of the nation. Also, there is a body count at the beginning of each chapter, which is grimly amusing in an Ullillillia sense.

The only disappointment I found was that one of the characters is pretty hard to buy. And while it makes for some nice action scenes and tenseness, when compared to how real and believable the other characters are, he falls pretty short. But even within that, there are a few little amusing traits with this character that stand out if you pay attention.

Overall, I recommend this book highly. No idea how hard it would be to find, though. I got it as a gift from a friend.

NEXT UP: PERCY JACKSON AND THE OLYMPIANS, BECAUSE IF I DON'T TALK ABOUT IT GMF WILL CRY. AND THAT WOULD BE LIKE MAKING A PUPPY CRY.

[Incog Neato]

Lordy, I haven't read a book in, uh, over a year? Hell, I didn't even read all of Maddox's Alphabet of Manliness.

Aside from the crap ton of manga scanlations I eat up, I think the last time I seriously read any novel was during my trip to Utah in 2005 where I downed Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince during a weekend.

(Wow, looks like it's been 3 years since I last sat down and went through a book without pictures and speech balloons!)

Oddly enough, I haven't even touched the final book of the series. In fact, I just downloaded the last few chapters of an audio book and listened to that instead. Then I went off to read spoilers so I could understand what the hell happened.

So yeah, I'm just a super lazy bum that hasn't cracked open a good book in a very very long time and opt to watch downloaded TV shows, read fan-translated manga, and play video games instead.

[Yakra]

It's been almost a month since I've been able to touch any book! Bah! (I have been reading manga scanlations though! X'D)

Battle Royale sounds nice! I doubt I'll find it here though. Unless if some kind stranger decided to part with a copy and sold it to an old book shop! (I shall add it to my search list though!)

[...which reminds me... the latest Terry Pratchett book still hasn't arrived in the old book shop! X(((((]

The book I was happily making my way through before I was forced to set it aside was The Adventures of Amir Hamza? The English translation. -____-' (Because I totally fail at everything and can't even read (or rather read and enjoy) the original version even though its there in me native language). And it was quite, quite nice. Different from my usual intake of fantasy trash (for this be literary fantasy trash! XD). Its a collection of short stories of the adventurer Amir Hamza and his sorcerer/trickster friend Amar Ayyar, about their travels, solving random kings' problems and ridding kingdoms of foul demons, etc, etc. I guess that's what made it different from my usual readings - I'm not too fond of short stories, but these are very nicely told!

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

That sounds interesting. When was it written? How long is it? Are the stories connected or stand alone?

[Yakra]

The original book is pretty old. Its one of the king's epics written... well, the hero Amir Hamza is supposed to be an uncle of the Holy Prophet Mohammad, so basically the original stories date back to the early Islamic times, told and retold orally? I think it got written down in book form in the time of early Sassanid dynasty? Around the time of Emperor Khusraw I?

There's this really really famous retelling of it though called the Hamza-nama here though. That was when the Emperor Hamza got it reillustrated, and retold for himself. And this version is based on that. (Though its without the illustrations). So that makes this one's original... dating back to somewhere in the 1500s?

And they're sort of connected. Same person, different tales. Sometimes same countries even. Think of it like someone writing down all the epic tales of Adol in one volume.

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

Now I'm very interested; can you give me an author and translator, and the like, so I can see if it is floating around our library system?

[Yakra]

Lets see... just grabbed it from the shelf... its translated by Musharraf Ali Farooqi. Original 'writers' were Ghalib Laknavi (ah... this means this one is NOT based off the original Emperor Hamza's version!) and Abdullah Bilgrami.

There is a nicer, much more gorgeous version of this out there, as compared to the copy in my hands, so if you find that, grab that one to read. Its one of those gigantic coffee table books though (with original illustrations), so I guess... this might be more easier to read. X'D

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

I've found a version via inter-library loans; no idea when it'll get here, though.

But I'll be all over this like shareware, believe me. Thanks for the heads up. =]

[clement]

By 1812, Pierre DuPont was claiming that barely four in a thousand Americans were unable to read well and that the young had skill in argumentation thanks to daily debates at the common breakfast table. By 1820, there was even more evidence of Americans’ avid reading habits, when 5 million copies of James Fenimore Cooper’s complex and allusive novels were sold, along with an equal number of Noah Webster’s didactic Speller—to a population of dirt farmers under 20 million in size.

In 1835, Richard Cobden announced there was six times as much newspaper reading in the United States as in England, and the census figures of 1840 gave fairly exact evidence that a sensational reading revolution had taken place without any exhortation on the part of public moralists and social workers, but because common people had the initiative and freedom to learn. In North Carolina, the worst situation of any state surveyed, eight out of nine could still read and write.

In 1853, Per Siljestromm, a Swedish visitor, wrote, "In no country in the world is the taste for reading so diffuse as among the common people in America." The American Almanac observed grandly, "Periodical publications, especially newspapers, disseminate knowledge throughout all classes of society and exert an amazing influence in forming and giving effect to public opinion."

How times have changed!

[Falcom Director of Fanservice]

What I am reading presently: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, by Rick Riordan. It's GMF's fault I'm reading this, so damn his eyes.

This is a series of young adult literature that, essentially, is about Greek Mythology existing in modern times. The protagonists are Half-Bloods, essentially one of the many many spawn between deities and mortals. Greek Mythology, one may recall, is littered with such peoples. The problem with being a half-blood is that monsters tend to be attracted to you, which lead to the deities deciding to establish a place for their numerous bastard spawn to go and be fairly safe from attack, and learn the things that someone of their lineage ought to know. They made a summer camp (though it runs year-round).

The books follow one Percy Jackson, who discovers he is a half-blood when his math teacher turns out to be a particularly nasty monster and tries to run him through on a field trip. The stories follow him as he is taken to Camp Half-Blood, and then invested with a quest to deal with problems that have come up, hailing back to the age of the Titanomachy.

For the most part, the mythology behind these books are pretty good, dabbling from time to time into some pleasingly obscure stuff. The only truly bothersome snag is that is suggest Athena has mortal offspring, when virginity was a part of her portfolio. That aside, the books do a pretty good job of integrating things into a modern setting. My personal favorite part is that the gods are mostly jerks to some degree, which is entirely accurate to the mythology, and it does emphasize the fact that they barely seem to care about the child they've sired.

A quick way to define this would be Harry Potter with Greek Mythology; it's clear Riordan took a lot of inspiration from it. But that aside, it does manage to be its own thing. The writing style is simplistic, which is fitting for young adult literature, and for the most part isn't bad. They are written in first person view, and Riordan does a good job with characterization within this; in particular when Percy's dyslexia messes with his attempts to read. There are times, though, when the descriptions are kinda lame; he doesn't give enough love to his scenes and events sometimes. This could be passed off as Percy being a lousy narrator, but I'd prefer he be a good one.

Even with that flaw the books are entertaining, especially if you come in with foreknowledge of Greek Mythology. For the young'uns, they aren't a bad educational aid. And as mentioned, they're fun to read. It got me to snag a rom of Battle of Olympus, and download it's soundtrack, so that I can revisit what got me interested in Greek Mythology to begin with.

[Kimimi]

I love reading old classics so the last few books I've read were Beowulf, The Dhammapada and Bhagavadgita. I'm currently half way through Journey to the West and I keep dipping into something a little more modern - Doctor Who: The Writer's Tale, which is a deeply awesome book.