the first "commandment" in action

[adelaidesean]

I've been writing a lot lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been reading as well. Here's the latest list:

• Amy Barker, Omega Park (terrific)
• Idan Ben-Barak, Small Wonders: How Microbes Rule Our World
• Ronald H. Fritze, Invented Knowledge: False History, Fake Science and Pseudo-Religions (fascinating)
• M. J. Hyland, This Is How (puzzling)
• Stephen M Irwin, The Dead Path (engrossing despite its faults)
• Cate Kennedy, The World Beneath
• Mark Mclaughlin, The Spiderweb Tree (bizarre and lovely)
• Peter McMillan, One Hundred Poets, One Poem Each (A Translation of the Oguta Hyakunin Isshu) (best book I've read for ages)
• Alan Moore, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Volume III, Part 1
• Finn Nettelbeck Monteath, The Three Little Gazelles and the Big Bad Hyena (not bad at all for a 10-yo!)
• James Stimson, Thirteen O'Clock
• Fred Watson, Why is Uranus Upside Down?

What's have you been reading?  I'm looking for suggestions.

Comments

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

ICE STATION ZEBRA!!!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

It rocks! Anything else?

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

CLOUD ATLAS!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yes, I should read that one day. One of the best titles ever. Thanks!

Did you read it on paper or by audiobook?

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

paper! A gift from a friend.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Nice. You have friends with good taste.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

yes I do. Lucky me!

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Too big! I tried to read it years ago and it hurt my wrists (I also kept dropping it on my nose while reading in bed). When I have an e-book reader I'll DL it and give it another go.

[catsparx.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I have a friend's copy and the pages keep falling out...

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

You buy Norrell and Strange in a three volume box set. I nearly broke my nose with the library copy (hardback), decided not to buy it in either format. then I found the three box set. No sore noses. Perfect size to go in bag. Problem solved.

http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?isbn=9781596911536&atch=h&ymal=pp

[fearofemeralds.livejournal.com]

What I don't understand is why you and Neil Gaiman won't *share* the cloning technology you've obviously both perfected. It's either that or some sort of time-siphoning from lesser beings.

Harumph.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

We are multidimensional icebergs: the bits you seen in bars and on blogs are just the tips of vast beings to whom words are a form of waste.

Or we don't have lives. Take your pick. :-)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

Necropolis: London and its dead by Catherine Arnold.

Did you know that there's a massive plague pit under Hyde Park?

I want to read her latest Bedlam: London and its mad (http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/reviews/bedlam-london-and-its-mad-by-catherine-arnold-926487.html) when I can get a copy.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

All news to me. Thanks! I'll look them up.

Madness, death, and London: so often mentioned in the same sentence.

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

There's some really gruesome stuff in this book. The way the dead were treated before Victorian times is, well, horrific.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Brilliant. I can tell already that I'm going to love this book. :-)

[murasaki-1966.livejournal.com]

They had to change the course of the underground line under Hyde park because the bones from the plague pit were so tightly packed they couldn't drill through them. The book has left me with a huge desire to visit Highgate Cementary....

Other great books along these lines is Permanent Londoners about the graves of famous people in the London Cementaries, and Permanent Parisians about the burial places of famous people in Paris (obviously).

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

I blurbed Pat's book when it first came out, so agree wholeheartedly that it's excellent.

The Primacy of Perception sounds very interesting. Thanks!

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

Stephanie Meyer, Twilight. For research purposes only, I swear.

John Scalzi, Zoe's Tale. For balance in the force.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yes, I really should read Twilight one day, just to see what the fuss is all about. Can't help feeling, though, that I've done it before. I'm in the mood for something really new. Maybe Scalsi, who I've yet to actually read (shame, shame, I know).

[stephbg.livejournal.com]

You should definitely read Old Man's War by John Scalzi.

Please don't read Twilight. Please.

[swordsmanscoke.livejournal.com]

Just read "World War Z" by Max Brooks and "The Strain" by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan. Both are superb reads, I highly recommend them.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Excellent! I have both on my to-read pile and will bump them up a notch or two.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting! How's it holding up? That book should have been the biggest thing on the planet when it came out. Still don't understand why it wasn't.

[dalekboy.livejournal.com]

I'm working my way through H.P. Lovercraft short stories, The Dunwich Horror and Others and enjoying them immensely. I'd read a few previously, but decided to properly work through one of the collections.

In some ways they show their age, but I actually like that.

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I love Lovecraft. Thanks for the reminder. It's been a while.

Thanks for that awesome CD, too! :-)

[(Anonymous)]

Hi Sean, I just finished Worldshaker by Richard Harland. What an absolute blast! Highly, highly recommended.

[(Anonymous)]

I should add, I'm not Richard Harland (really truly! cross my heart!). I just couldn't be bothered setting up a livejournal account. Too many passwords - make it stop!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

:-)

Worldshaker is definitely on my list!

[keithstevenson.livejournal.com]

I just finished The Dead Path. Reminded me of King - not totally - but y'know reluctant hero with unexplained power returns to childhood suburb to confront an evil that has affected his life, joins with locals to defeat monster etc. I loved his mum and sister and their dysfunctional interactions - v realistic. And I was on my own reading it in bed and the creep factor was up there. Just reading Cloud Atlas too, loved the start but I'm beginning to wonder where it's all leading and hoping it's not just one big literary wank. Cat lervs it though so I'm persevering.

K

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

The pipe full of spider webs utterly hooked me, and there were some other creepy spidery images (the pile of them trying to get in the window--shudder), but the main character was such a dick I kept rooting for the arachnids. Still, I finished it, which says a lot these days.

Amanda pinched Cloud Atlas, so I have to get it back off her before I can even start. You're feeling what everyone feels, I gather. The pay-off is supposed to be utterly worth it.

[keithstevenson.livejournal.com]

Ha! I forgot how much you 'love' spiders. Yes, that must have made it a bit creepy. Fingers crossed on Cloud Atlas - thanks!

[seanwilliams.livejournal.com]

Outrageously big spiders are never scary. The movies Arachnaphobia and Eight-Legged Freaks demonstrate that pretty well. My mind just can't accept them as real so doesn't feel any fear. (Or my fearometer blows a gasket and gives up. Either way.) It's everyday huntsmen and wolf spiders that get me, every time. And there were plenty of those in Dead Path. Brr!