Your reading list?

[Amicale]

I am slowly but happily working my way through each and every one of Christopher Moore's novels, again: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christopher_Moore_%28author%29

The guy's hilarious. I've read each of his books at least a couple times. I'm particularly partial to my favourite, 'The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal'. 

[Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism]

Can anyone recommend any good Sci-Fi novels?

I have read every Vlad Taltos novel by Steven Brust.  It starts out like a D&D series, but a few books in turns sci fi.  He is easily my favorite author for his style.  Anything by Terry Brooks is also great.  For anyone who doesn't know Terry Brooks he is the man who wrote the little know book adaptation for a little movie called Star Wars episode one.  He comes out with a new book every year in his Shannara series and I can't wait for September and the first book in his new Trilogy. 

[ThinkAnarchy]

I just read George Orwell's Animal Farm again today. Great, short read.

[Sandra Craft]

I bought two of Timothy Keller's books, The Prodigal God and The Reason for God,  about a month back, mostly out of curiosity -- I'm open to a good argument.  On my way out to afternoon tea, I grabbed The Prodigal God as something to read in case I had to wait for the others joining me.  It was a good thing I did -- I was three chapters in before everyone turned up (parking was worse today than usual).  I had wanted to start with the other book but The Prodigal God fit better into my purse.

The title is misleading as it isn't his god that Keller is describing as prodigal (tho that would have made for an interesting book on its own), rather this is an in-depth analysis of the story of the prodigal son, which Keller considers the central story of Xtianity.  I found his arguments that both the elder and younger sons were prodigal and "lost" to their father's/god's love interesting -- the younger son in the obvious way of running wild and not obeying the rules and the older son in the much less obvious way of obeying the rules only in order get benefits for himself.  In Keller's view, obedience must be motivated solely by love and joy to count -- if you're obeying out of fear or to get promised rewards or to use it as leverage, it not only doesn't count with his god but counts against you.  That in Keller's opinion is the true teaching of the prodigal son story.

So far, so good.  I could see that interpretation but then Keller went on into theories about how Jesus was the unmentioned 2nd older brother in the story who sacrificed himself to save the younger brother, and how the crucifiction made all things better for those who accepted Jesus as their supernatural savior and all that etc.  The point at which Keller veered from philosophy into the supernatural was where it all fell apart -- mistaking shaky premises for valid theories, and unproven (and unprovable) theories for fact backed up by evidence (that didn't need to be presented).  The last third of the book is all preaching to the choir and can be skipped without fear of missing something significant.

The Reason for God, I'm rather sorry to say, is starting out even less promising.  The subtitle is "Belief in an Age of Skepticism" and is meant to provide reasons why belief in the supernatural in general and the Xtian supernatural in particular is rational -- I just finished chapter one and all it offered was the usual "the faithless have faith too!" nonsense, accompanied by weak justifications for why Xtianity should therefore be allowed to run rampant.  Not the way Keller said it of course, but that's what it comes down to. 

I'm afraid this book starts out geared towards those who already accept the supernatural and makes assumptions from there, rather than providing any reason for accepting the supernatural and then building on the logic of specific beliefs.  He does use a pair of atheists turned Xtians as examples but gives no insight into what changed their minds.  They apparently just decided, after much reading, that "Xtianity cannot be refuted".  Tells me exactly nothing.  I'm going to finish this book -- Keller is a glib writer so it's an easy read -- but I'm fighting disappointment already.

[ThinkAnarchy]

After mentioning Ender's Game several times the last few months I decided to reread the series. Enders Game was as good as it's ever been. I hated Speaker for the Dead when I first read it in high school, but really liked it this time around. Xenocide was sluggish at times but still good. Children of the Mind I don't think I will even be able to finish...

I don't remember so much religion the first time reading this series.

Now that I reread them, I would still suggest Enders Game and the next two books, but the 4th seems to have been thrown together in a hurry. I don't think I will finish reading the 4th one for the second time.

[OldGit]

Just read George Borrow's Wild Wales all the way through for the first time.  A very interesting, though also limited, view of mid-19th century life in a primitive backwater (as Wales then was).

[Tom62]

I'm re-reading Barrington J. Bayley's "Knights of the Limits". Truly amazing and fascinating stories of which "Mutation Planet" is in my top 10 list of best short Sci-fi stories ever written.

[Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism]

I never read any Harry Potter books because I was into Lord of the Rings and liked to say that Potter was for kids and I would never even watch the movies.  Then 2 weekends ago I watched 4 of the movies while drunk and immediately picked up a copy of Deathly Hollows from the library.  I read about 200 pages in 2 hours and am almost halfway through it now.  I like the quirky comedy a little more in the movies, but I am all in now and can't wait to finish the whole thing tonight.  T.V. be damned!

[Amicale]

I found a truly awesome flowchart for people who are looking for new, interesting books to read.

Courtesy of teach.com :

[Tom62]

I found a truly awesome flowchart for people who are looking for new, interesting books to read.

Main problem however with these flowcharts is that a leaves out loads of books that are "better" than the examples mentioned, but are perhaps never "discovered" by the people who designed these flow chart.  Perhaps it is intellectual laziness to keep mentioning the same books over and over again (like 1984,Kafka, LOTR, etc.) and leave out books that are more fun and interesting to read. For each category there might be hundreds of lesser known books, that I believe need more attention, than these well known books that most teachers/students already know. To give an example, I was far more impressed and rocked of my socks by the anti-utopian book Mockingbird (Wather Tevis) than by 1984.

Nevertheless the idea is very nice and I did found some books on the flowchart that I'm interested in to read.

[Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism]

I have been reading star wars books by joe schreiber.  He puts zombies in the Star Wars universe. Awesome.

[Crow]

I have been reading star wars books by joe schreiber.  He puts zombies in the Star Wars universe. Awesome.

What do you find interesting about zombies? I don't get it myself but I am interested in why others do.

[Tom62]

I'm reading Iain M. Banks "Surface Detail" on my Kindle. It is one of his better Culture books.

[Anti-antidisestablishmentarianism]

I have been reading star wars books by joe schreiber.  He puts zombies in the Star Wars universe. Awesome.

What do you find interesting about zombies? I don't get it myself but I am interested in why others do.

I'm not really into zombie books per se. I loved playing the old resident evil games because they were very puzzle heavy and I loved the idea of a puzzle game where I also got to shoot stuff.  It also had a pretty deep storyline which also died with the puzzles.  I quit playing them when they became whores for money and made it all action.  The Resident evil movies are pretty cool because they still have a decent storyline, other than that I haven't seen many zombie movies.  Now the star wars zombie thing I really like because it helps explain what the emperor meant when he told Darth Vader about a sith lord who found a way to cheat death.  It also allowed the author to go down a really dark and bloody route that the Star Wars books and movies have never really done before.  I am only halfway through Red havest and quite a few sith acolytes have already had their eyes or faces chewed on.  It's pretty gruesome, but I have always felt that Star Wars was way too cutesy and were trying to sell toys to kids.  It's refreshing to see a star wars author go down a dark road with it.

[Crow]

I'm not really into zombie books per se. I loved playing the old resident evil games because they were very puzzle heavy and I loved the idea of a puzzle game where I also got to shoot stuff.  It also had a pretty deep storyline which also died with the puzzles.  I quit playing them when they became whores for money and made it all action.  The Resident evil movies are pretty cool because they still have a decent storyline, other than that I haven't seen many zombie movies.  Now the star wars zombie thing I really like because it helps explain what the emperor meant when he told Darth Vader about a sith lord who found a way to cheat death.  It also allowed the author to go down a really dark and bloody route that the Star Wars books and movies have never really done before.  I am only halfway through Red havest and quite a few sith acolytes have already had their eyes or faces chewed on.

I also liked the Resident Evil games (the 4th game was the last one I enjoyed). The main reason I enjoyed that game besides the puzzles was the atmosphere the game managed to convey which was unlike any other form of media, the game could have removed zombies and it would have still been good. Apart from that I just don't "get it".

It's pretty gruesome, but I have always felt that Star Wars was way too cutesy and were trying to sell toys to kids.  It's refreshing to see a star wars author go down a dark road with it.

Couldn't agree with you more the new Star Wars 1313 looks pretty damn good as that appears to take a darker more serious approach.