What Book Are You Currently Reading ?

[Batman]

The last few books I've read

Shocking and controversial when it was first published in 1939, Steinbeck's Pulitzer prize-winning epic remains his undisputed masterpiece. Set against the background of dust bowl Oklahoma and Californian migrant life, it tells of the Joad family, who, like thousands of others, are forced to travel West in search of the promised land. Their story is one of false hopes, thwarted desires and broken dreams, yet out of their suffering Steinbeck created a drama that is intensely human, yet majestic in its scale and moral vision; an eloquent tribute to the endurance and dignity of the human spirit.

Not a lot needs to be said about this one, its a classic for a reason, its fucking fantastic, it isn't the fastest paced book, the characters just tend to trudge along with a reluctant acceptance of their situation and the pace reflects that, it isn't the most uplifting of books and whilst the characters are faced with constant upheaval and problems the book doesn't become a drag to read, all of the characters were fantastic and it was easy to warm to them all.

If times were really that difficult back then, I'm glad that I missed them.

A decade ago, teacher Nathan Brookes saw four of his students walk up a hill and vanish. Only one returned: Olivia, starved, terrified, and with no memory of where she'd been. Questioned by the police but released for lack of evidence, Nathan spent the years trying to forget.

When a body is found in the same ancient woodland where they disappeared, it is first believed to be one of the missing children, but is soon identified as a Bronze Age warrior, nothing more than an archaeological curiosity. Yet Nathan starts to have horrific visions of the students, alive but trapped. Then Olivia reappears, desperate that the warrior's body be returned to the earth. For he is the only thing keeping a terrible evil at bay.

this was just batshit crazy from the very fucking start, 3 kids go missing in Sutton Park (which is 5 minutes away from where I live) and from there on in ensues alternate dimensions, multiverses, time travel, time shifting, primitive tribes, monsters, warriors, you name it, its there somewhere.

A decent quick read this was, I quite enjoyed it although I won't be in a rush to re-read it.

The Lottery, one of the most terrifying stories written in this century, created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker. "Power and haunting," and "nights of unrest" were typical reader responses. This collection, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson's lifetime, unites "The Lottery:" with twenty-four equally unusual stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson's remarkable range--from the hilarious to the truly horrible--and power as a storyteller.

fantastic collection of short stories, some are basically people living their lives and nothing truly exceptional happens in them whereas others are pretty sinister, as much as I enjoyed this I think I'm done with Shirley Jackson for a while.

A score of centuries has passed since the First Apocalypse and the thoughts of men have turned, inevitably, to more worldly concerns...

A veteran sorcerer and spy seeks news of an ancient enemy. A military genius plots to conquer the known world for his Emperor but dreams of the throne for himself. The spiritual leader of the Thousand Temples seeks a Holy War to cleanse the land of the infidel. An exiled barbarian chieftain seeks vengeance against the man who disgraced him. And into this world steps a man like no other, seeking to bind all - man and woman, emperor and slave - to his own mysterious ends.

But the fate of men - even great men - means little when the world itself may soon be torn asunder. Behind the politics, beneath the religious fervour, a dark and ancient evil is reawakening. After two thousand years, the No-God is returning. The Second Apocalypse is nigh. And one cannot raise walls against what has been forgotten...

Well this just throws you in and doesn't really explain a helluva lot at all, I found that I really had to concentrate in order to try and put the pieces together, the characters were pretty strong and the writing style is good but for me it doesn't stand up to the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie, I'll read the next in the series but I've got a few books to get through before I get to that point.

[Batman]

The next books that I have to pick from are

From Mark Z Danielewski, author of the cult bestseller House of Leaves, comes the astonishing Only Revolutions, a shoot-from-the-hip American road novel about Sam and Hailey - two wayward and wild kids who magically career across the American mainland and from the Civil Rights Movement to the Iraq War and beyond.

Powered by an ever-evolving fleet of cars, these two teenagers never age and never stop. They crash parties in New Orleans, barrel up the Mississippi, and blast through the Badlands, cutting a nation in half as they try to outrace History itself.

And where this journey takes them is what sets the pages, even the actual book, turning. Alternating between Hailey and Sam, this kaleidoscopic novel spins the strangest, most gripping and lyrical love story published in more than a generation.

House of Leaves was a fucking mind bending book and this one looks just as bizarre, the book starts from either side so you have to keep switching it back and forth to get each perspective, the only problem is that it doesn't tell you when to flip the book around, from what I have read you are best to read about 8 pages then turn it over and read the same 8 pages from the other side.

Rolf Rudolph Deutsch is going to die. But when Deutsch, a wealthy magazine and newpaper publisher, starts thinking seriously about his impending death, he offers to pay a physicist and two mediums, one physical and one mental, $100,000 each to establish the facts of life after death.

Dr. Lionel Barrett, the physicist, accompanied by the mediums, travel to the Belasco House in Maine, which has been abandoned and sealed since 1949 after a decade of drug addiction, alcoholism, and debauchery. For one night, Barrett and his colleagues investigate the Belasco House and learn exactly why the townfolks refer to it as the Hell House.

a nice bog standard horror for me to get my teeth into, I think I'll probably get stuck into this one next.

A race for survival among the stars... Humanity's last survivors escaped earth's ruins to find a new home. But when they find it, can their desperation overcome its dangers?

WHO WILL INHERIT THIS NEW EARTH?

The last remnants of the human race left a dying Earth, desperate to find a new home among the stars. Following in the footsteps of their ancestors, they discover the greatest treasure of the past age - a world terraformed and prepared for human life.

But all is not right in this new Eden. In the long years since the planet was abandoned, the work of its architects has borne disastrous fruit. The planet is not waiting for them, pristine and unoccupied. New masters have turned it from a refuge into mankind's worst nightmare.

Now two civilizations are on a collision course, both testing the boundaries of what they will do to survive. As the fate of humanity hangs in the balance, who are the true heirs of this new Earth?

I'm gunna buy this when I'm back at work next week, I don't know anything about it but I haven't read anything like this for absolutely ages so I'm going to take a punt on it.

[Batman]

Haven't been reading as much just lately, I'm always more of a winter reader but I have really took my foot of the pedal over the last few months

Anyways the here's what I've been reading



I bought this and I was expecting it to be quite an understated story of a haunted house...I was wrong.

Understated is certainly not the way to describe this, yeah its a tired story in that an old rich bloke gets a few people to stay in a 'haunted' house to investigate the chances that there is life after death.

Of course you have the unbending sceptic, the unbending sceptic who refuses to believe in anything other than science, you have the strong hearted head strong spiritualist who's belief is unwavering, the third member of the party is one of the world’s greatest mediums, though he is tired and hasn't practised in years, he visited Hell House before and it damn near killed him, finally you have the sceptics insecure wife who tags along because she can't bear to be on her own whilst her husband is off chasing (or disproving) ghoulies.

As for the actual 'haunting' there is a little of everything and it doesn't take long until things escalate massively, it starts off with rocking chairs moving on their own, bed sheets being thrown over nothing only to unveil the shape of an invisible presence, not too long after that you get all the twisted demonic horrors that you can imagine, it certainly doesn't pull any punches and is a lot more in your face than I expected (I thought I was going to get something more in line with The Haunting of Hill House)

A fantastic read and one that I would highly recommend if you want a good straight up horror story.

We follow Esther Greenwood's personal life from her summer job in New York with Ladies' Day magazine, back through her days at New England's largest school for women, and forward through her attempted suicide, her bad treatment at one asylum and her good treatment at another, to her final re-entry into the world like a used tyre: "patched, retreaded, and approved for the road" ... Esther Greenwood's account of her year in the bell jar is as clear and readable as it is witty and disturbing.

Esther Greenwood is a young girl who seems to have the world at her feet, she is whisked off to New York on an internship and is really living the high life, she aligns herself with two other girls, one called Doreen who is off the wall and always ready to break the rules and the other is Betsy who is a straight up book worm who gets everything done as it needs to be done on time without fail.

The problem is that Esther doesn't feel enthused by the high life, she feels intimidated by it, to say that she disliked it would be wrong, it is quite clear that she just feels completely neutral to it.

I have read some people saying that her descent happens all to quickly but if you read the book you will see that her depression didn't suddenly come on over night, there were little clues all over the place, I really appreciated this, it wasn't too in your face but once you have spotted it you can feel it growing slowly.

Once it really has her in its grips Esther is constantly thinking of suicide, the thing about this section is that it is handled in an almost light hearted way I thought, Esther didn't seem as if she actually wanted to go through with it, this was a fantastic piece of writing because you can feel Esther's confusion at this point.

A really good book, very similar to Hangsaman by Shirley Jackson but this is actually a kind of thinly disguised autobiography by Sylvia Plath



A great book well worth a read.

I don't really tend to go towards the sci-fi genre.

This is an all out sci-fi thrill though, from time space travel, terraforming planets, biologically altering life forms via a virus, war, gods, technology and giant spiders, it really does have it all.

Best thing about it is that all the way through the book you don't know who to route for, the ending was fantastic and really well done.

[Batman]

God Is Not Great is the ultimate case against religion. In a series of acute readings of the major religious texts, Christopher Hitchens demonstrates the ways in which religion is man-made, dangerously sexually repressive and distorts the very origins of the cosmos. Above all, Hitchens argues that the concept of an omniscient God has profoundly damaged humanity, and proposes that the world might be a great deal better off without 'him'.

I love Christopher Hitchens, I've watched countless hours of him on You Tube and he always provides witty, intelligent debate and his grasp of language is superb.

I do think that this book suffers from the lack of counter arguments that get thrown at him during his debates though, these are what usually brings out the best in The Hitch.

To say that it was an interesting read would be an understatement however at times it did get a little tedious some arguments are repeated over and over and there were one or two chapters that I couldn't help but skim read, if you are a fan of The Hitch then you should read this (the entire audiobook is on youtube as well if you are too lazy to read the actual book)

Meet Quentin P., the most believably terrifying sexual psychopath and killer ever brought to life in fiction. The author deftly puts you inside the mind of a serial killer--succeeding not in writing about madness, but in writing with the logic of madness.

I reckon that I must be completely desensitised to all things disgusting.

I have read some of the reviews most people seem to either hate the book because they were disgusted by it or loved the book because they were disgusted by it.

I just felt kind of numb to it, the book started off strongly and I was intrigued but Q____ P____ (as the narrator refers to himself throughout the book) just didn't seem to go anywhere, yeah it was interesting to see things from inside the killers mind but it just seemed extremely bland. I suppose that is what things are like in a serial killers mind though, lack of empathy, compassion, almost robotic with well practised human emotions but I just found it all a little boring.

Talk of erections, orgasms, and the like doesn't offend me, as I say maybe I have just been desensitised over the years with horror films and books....and the daily news....

It is quite obviously based on old Jeff Dahmer but just isn't anywhere near as interesting or disturbing, I wouldn't really recommend this one



When I first heard about this book I was truly excited after reading House of Leaves a few years back, when I read about the kookiness of this book my excitement grew even more.

I loved the premise of the book, two stories running together alongside each other, the constant switching ends of the book was a nice little gimmick as well, this however is actually where things start to go downhill a little.

It seems as though there was too much emphasis on the 'gimmick' aspect of the book and not enough on the actual story telling side, each page has exactly 180 characters (per rotation) which makes 360 characters per page which makes a revolution, now in order to get to the magic 180 characters you get random whishwooble floobling words thrown in just to help Danielewski hit his magic quota, another thing that happens is that some words are needlessly extended e.g. looooooooong.

I like the idea of having two unreliable narrators both telling the same story at the same time from opposite sides of the coin but I think it would have worked a lot better if it was told as an actual story rather than a poem and without the author having to work within the self imposed constraints of 180 characters per page, also I think it would have been better if there was a build up of the two main characters before they meet so you actually had a bit of a pay off from constantly flipping the book after 8 pages, so it would be as though they crossed paths and things melded together.

Its a shame because it could have been a fantastic book but unfortunately I found it to be a bit of a mess.

[Batman]

Guy Montag is a fireman. His job is to burn books, which are forbidden, being the source of all discord and unhappiness. Even so, Montag is unhappy; there is discord in his marriage. Are books hidden in his house? The Mechanical Hound of the Fire Department, armed with a lethal hypodermic, escorted by helicopters, is ready to track down those dissidents who defy society to preserve and read books.

The classic novel of a post-literate future, ‘Fahrenheit 451’ stands alongside Orwell’s ‘1984’ and Huxley’s ‘Brave New World’ as a prophetic account of Western civilization’s enslavement by the media, drugs and conformity.

Bradbury’s powerful and poetic prose combines with uncanny insight into the potential of technology to create a novel which over fifty years from first publication, still has the power to dazzle and shock.

It is quite unnerving to read this book today, Ray Bradbury was spot on with his vision of the future, from the visual aspect it isn't quite as accurate as Orwells 1984 but from a social aspect he couldn't have been more right.

Books have been banned and firemen these days are actually deployed to start the fires in order to burn the outlawed books, Guy Montag runs across a curious young girl named Clarisse McClellan, Clarisse has a queer way of looking at the world...this is because she actually looks at the world, she sees the plants, the stars, the trees and the people whilst everyone else these days just tends to walk around in a haze.

Montags wife lives in such a way that she is almost at the point of social retardation, all she is interested in is watching 'the wall' (basically a big ass TV) and whatever program it is showing, she has no interests in anything else and whilst she seems to have a carefree attitude towards life this is blown out of the water when she takes an overdose, it could be that she was just so vacant that it was accidental but I got the impression that despite outward appearances she was deeply unhappy.

Montag starts questioning his job of burning books and reveals that he has been secretly stashing them away rather than burning them, it doesn't take long before Montags own home has been burned down and he is on the run himself, he discovers an unlikely ally who aids his escape and he winds up meeting up with other like minded people who keep their books in their heads for such a time as society needs them, that time is coming sooner than they could imagine.

In a world where social media has taken over I think the parallels between people of today and Mildred (Montags wife) are uncanny, the thing is that it isn't just social media, it is the news outlets, people form certain ideas and opinions on things (whether it be anything from celebrities to politics) just because an online article tells them to, people blindly follow these days and seem to have lost the ability to form their own opinions or even ask simple questions, that to me is where this book got it so right.

oh a final note Clarisse McClellan was the absolute highlight of this book, I wish that she was in it more.

[Batman]

Next up I'm going to be reading this

Frank Hammond explains the practical application of the ministry of deliverance, patterned after the ministry of Jesus Christ. He presents information on such topics as: How demons enter When deliverance is needed Seven steps in receiving & ministering deliverance Seven steps in maintaining deliverance Self deliverance Demon manifestations Binding and loosing Practical advice for the deliverance minister Answers to commonly asked questions, and more. The Hammonds also present a categorized list of 53 Demonic Groupings, including various behavior patterns and addictions. And they include testimonies of deliverance throughout the book including Pride, Witchcraft, Nervousness, Stubborness, Defiance, Mental Illness and more. With over 1.5 million copies in print worldwide, and translated into more than a dozen languages, Pigs in the Parlor remains the authoritative book on the subject of deliverance."

And I think that is just about everything I have read since I last posted in here, I don't think I've missed any out anyway

[Freedom]

I'm nearly finished reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett.