Unofficial What are you Reading Thread?

[Suu]

http://www.amazon.com/Year-1000-First-Millennium-Englishmans/dp/0316511579/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290444870&sr=8-1

The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium, An Englishman's World.


Dirty dirty middle ages!

[Disco Pickle]

Just finished Darwin and the Barnacle - Rebecca Scott. Excellent biographical account of Darwin's early interest in marine invertebrates and the 10 years before publication of On the Origin of Species, which he spent writing four books on all barnacles, fossil and extant, just so he could place one strange species he found on a beach in Chile. His works on barnacles would be in use still today, even if hadn't gone on to publish his research on transmutation/descent with modification.

I'm /still/ in the process of reading Iliad for the second time. I read little bits and pieces here and there, mostly out loud. That story was designed to be spoken, and it's really epic listening to myself read it. Once I'm done with that I'll go back and read Odyssey again, then on to the TaNaKh, which I've been both anticipating and dreading simultaneously. And if I actually ever get through that, it's on to Aeschylus's plays, which are already sitting on my shelf, gathering dust.

On my bedside, I've got The Best American Science Writing 2009, the first volume/half of On the Descent of Man, the aformentioned Darwin and the Barnacle, the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (which makes for much more interesting reading than I thought, albeit slow), and multiple books on speciation, insect wing morphology and mult-level selection theory.

I read Illiad and liked some of it, but it felt a bit repetitious for personal reading.

Currently reading the Oddessy though, and love it. It's very funny in places too.

Iliad at this point is definitely one of my favorite books of all time. Odyssey is shorter, but I don't think quite as excellent reading. Both demand being read out loud, though.

I went to a party last night and in addition to aquiring a beautiful cognac glass, the host was giving away part of her library. So I now have Godel Escher Bach and Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions added to the stack.

damn, that's an awesome party favor.  I lent out my hard bound copy of Godel Escher Bach and the girl moved to Gainesville with it two weeks later.  I'll probably never see it again.  >=/

[Kai]

Just finished the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. This is like the constitution for zoologists; it works as a set of rules and guidelines about primary taxonomy of animals (including protozoans). It's a pretty important document, and it isn't that long, about 100 pages including the glossary. But since it reads like a legal document, with articles and sections, very few biologists actually go through the trouble of reading it.

So, after a couple days of working through it, and actually understanding it, I feel quite satisfied. I now understand, for example, why the International Commission of Zoological Nomenclature recently denied the change of type of the genus Drosophila from D. funibries to D. (Sopophora) melanogaster. It violates the Principle of Typification, in MULTIPLE ways. Not to mention all the hassle that would occur with a change of subgenera containing hundreds of species. The Code wasn't written for the comfort of molecular biologists, as much as they would like to think so. So they have to teach their students to search both Sopophora melanogaster and Drosophila melanogaster when the revision finally comes...IS THAT REALLY THAT HARD? REALLY?!? It's like those people who got upset about Pluto being "demoted". I bet the ICZN and IAU are on good terms for the shit they both deal with, shit like this.

[Disco Pickle]

finished Anansi Boys last week.  not my favorite Gaiman book, but a really funny book.

diving into Clive Barker's Sacrament this week.

[Triple Zero]

I got myself the new sequel to THHGTTG written by the other not-Adams guy.

Except my gf took it from me and hid it somewhere to gift-wrap and give it back to me on Sinterklaas this Saturday.

[dontblameyoko]

finished Anansi Boys last week.  not my favorite Gaiman book, but a really funny book.

diving into Clive Barker's Sacrament this week.

what's Sacrament about?




i'm now reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[Cain]

A Simple Act of Violence by RJ Ellory

Looks like crime thriller at first, but looks are deceptive.  Especially when the "serial killer" being hunted may be nothing of the sort...

[Disco Pickle]

finished Anansi Boys last week.  not my favorite Gaiman book, but a really funny book.

diving into Clive Barker's Sacrament this week.

what's Sacrament about?

It's been sitting on my coffee table for weeks and I finally got past page ten last night.

Starts out normal enough, about a nature photographer, one of the best apparently.  Shooting Polar Bears up close.  Ends up getting mauled and then cuts to memory for back story, with the photographer meeting two main characters who seem to be spirits or gods of some sort.

Then the obligatory Barker extremely descriptive sex scene between the earthbound spirits that also seem to be brother and sister in a way. 

I fell asleep after that.

It's never taken me this long to get into a Barker book.  I'm hoping the story picks up a bit.

[Cain]

Finished The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.  Highly approve of it.  Gonna read the next two after I finished Ian C. Esslemont's Stonewielder.  Seems like Mallick Rel is every bit as cunning as his predecessor, but whether or not he can make it stick once the events of The Crippled God are revealed remain to be seen.  Hints have been dropped throughout the book that Kellanved has ended up biting off more than he can chew with his scheming, and with everything else going on, the whole thing is likely to go to hell very soon...

[Lenin McCarthy]

Ringdrotten, the Lord of the Rings translated into rural Norwegian dialects. 

[Telarus]

Ringdrotten, the Lord of the Rings translated into rural Norwegian dialects. 

Whoa, that must be literally epic.

[Jasper]

I went to Powell's today!  Muahaha. 

Singularity Sky - Stross
The Life and Times of HST
The User Illusion - Norretranders

[Epimetheus]

Angel Tech.

Really have to get off my ass, figuratively speaking, and finish Illuminatus!, which I am mostly through with. But to be honest it's kinda boring me.

[Placid Dingo]

Just finished Atlas Shrugged.

Working through Wealth of Nations.

[BadBeast]

"To Kill a Mockingbird" (For the first time)

Thanks, Rog.