What are you reading?/Book discussion/etc.

Just yesterday I was looking for something to do after work and found my copy of "Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-Earth." This is a collection of works by J.R.R. Tolkien about his created world before the era of the more well known Lord of the Rings. I was shocked to see, after several years of courses devoted to analyzing English literature, how great these stories are, finished or no. I can't even explain how much I have enjoyed this book. Just today I finished the "Children of Hurin" (another book in itself) section, an amazingly well written tragedy on par (or better!) than many Shakespearean works of the same genre.

I started this thread to see what the rest of AGC forum community is reading, has read, or intends to read. Feel free to discuss your favorite books or whatever.

P.S. Hopefully this doesn't offend anyone. I noticed that some of the other threads not necessarily pertaining to music were met with some harsh words. I did my best and put this in general chat.

Boinne nuit mes amis.

I got really into the drizzt o'durden books a while back (couple years) there are something like 16 books. Good read and hard to put down.

I red John Grisom's Innocence man very powerful and based on a true story.

I recently (last 6 months) I read some political books. I was in iowa in the heart of the cacus crap. so read mike huckabee's autobiorophy, "the broken branch" (politics stuff written by a democrat and republican both agreed stuff is f$&&ed up), some book of socilized health care (can't remember it), "If democrats had any brains they would be republicans" (I could not finish it that woman is nuts), John Addams biography, and started "the world is flat".

now it's Ciscos CCNA certificaiton book, and outlook 2007 inside and out. I have a new job, one is for work the other is for the future.

I just finished Beowulf, which is awesome. If you dig J.R.R. Tolkien. It was one of his primary inspirations for the Lord of the Rings.

Right now I'm reading some of Joseph Conrad's short stories, including his novella, Heart of Darkness.

After that I'm reading John Milton's Paradise Lost.

If you haven't figured out yet that I read lots of classical literature, my favorite book is The Inferno, by Dante.

crime fiction mostly
harlen coben,micheal connley, many more authors i just cant rember right now. hell i read many from the same genre so they start to run together.

non-fiction: not often the last one i got into was called "bar tender" i think. it was the bio of some journalist its pretty funny shit though.

and some guitar lesson books of course :)


@ telecrater: i trade books with people alot and i got that john grisham book innocent man. i just couldnt get into it, but it was a good story. just the way a true story has to be told is slower than a fiction one.

@foogered: you read johnathon swift(gulliver's travels) yet? and its a bit of a different era and country(as in not old school british lit) than the ones you listed but To kill a mockingbird is still considered a great book. i was suppose to read it in school but that was when you couldnt get me to read anything. those two "real" books that i have enjoyed.

@telecrater. i just read innocent man as well, very good book.

ive been reading a lot of john grisham and jeffrey deaver lately, both great writers.

also had to read lord of the flies and the mayor of casterbridge for gcse english and those are very very good books.

yeah I could agree that innocent man started out slow. There is a lot of building up but you really get to know the characters the background. but it was worth it.

reading....hmmm...reading...reading? o ye..u mean those big things with all those words in them, with not enough pictures? o ye i read....ummm....uhhhh...i dont read, well i read magazines, and my friend reads the back of ceral boxes to see if hes alergic to it! lol i did read (sorta) lord of the rings, i got bored, tryed reading harry potter....same thing. i dont like books.

When I read books, I usually turn to fantasy novels like Dragonlance (If only I had a change, I could marry Margaret weiss or Tracy Hickmann :D). I also like Robert Ludlum and Dean Koonz.

@tele
I loved those Drizzt books and its dark athmosphere..

My favorite book alls the time are:
Stephen W. Hawkings - Theory of everything
Stephen W. Hawkings - The Nature of Space and time.

i only have time to read the morning paper,if i set aside time to read
i wouldn't have time to practice guitar..lol i can't have that now : )

There's a book called the Elegant Universe, Empirism. Seems like something you might enjoy. Its supposed to be really good, and I own it but haven't gotten around to reading it yet.

I've read to kill a mockingbird, goodtunes, but not Gullivers Travels. I definitely prefer European lit.

Brian Greene? Thanks for the tip m8, def Ill check it out.

I haven't read Gulliver's Travels either, foogered, kind of on my to-read list. I've read Beowulf around the time the movie came out, which I never went to see, go figure. I would have read it earlier if I had stumbled upon a copy (knowing how much Tolkien loved it), but I only found it after a little searching in the library.

It has been forever since I read a book but I think I'm gonna start one tonight, a Stephen King book in fact

u noe wat gud... the series "His dark materials" phillip pullman...it begins with that movie that recently came out (not so recently for u) the golden compass...yeh well the books are way better then the movie.

but yer its like a mix of theoretical physics, religion, war,science all diff shiz :D

I read quite a few band biographies... read about three on the Clash. I remember reading a good one on Black Sabbath. At the moment I'm a few pages into 'The History of Jazz' by Ted Gioia. It's quite lengthy and intimidating to look at over here by my laptop.

I've read a good few of Tolkiens books (The Silmarillion, the Hobbit, the three Lord of the Rings books). I read quite a lot of Beowulf back when I was at school.

Yeah, I read those books when I was a kid, the Golden Compass ones that is. They're pretty good, like Harry Potter, but controversial for much better reasons (instead of "Oh, Witches, those are the devils servants").

My Grandparents gave me a copy of Beowulf when I was much younger. I tossed it aside cause it sounded lame, now I really wish I had read it much earlier. It's a masterpiece of early english literature (WAY early english).

latest book i've read is 'the world according to clarkson', it's possibly the funniest thing i've ever read. most favourite book, where's wally. and Emp nice one i read the nature of space and time too. really good book and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Right now reading "Paradise Lost And Regained" by John Milton. Anyone into H.P. Lovecraft???

Ooooooooo, definately. The Call of Cthulhu and At The Mountains of Madness are probably my two favorites.

the song "RAMBLE ON" - led zeppelin...is about LORD OF THE RINGS, theres lyrics directly related to golem and mordor

Several Zeppelin songs refer to Tolkien's "legendarium," Pager. Misty Mountain Hop, (presumably) Over the Hills and Far Away, and (again, presumably) Stairway to Heaven. Plant (I don't know about Page) is a big Tolkien fan, so there's your reasoning.

Anyway, I was at my sister's in Kansas City this weekend and she recommended "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time" by Mark Haddon to me. It was fantastic, I finished it there in about half a day. It's a first person account of a dog's murder from the point of view of an autistic teenager who's very good with math and logic and it kind of turns into a big deal about his life. Really cool, easy read.

na not stairway, plant said in these exact words "a cynical aside about a woman getting everything she wanted all the time without giing back any thought or consideration." as david frick mentions in his introduction to the mothership album. :Dan yeh plant was a big tolkien fan i know that, lol.

Stairway, as a whole, isn't a treatise on the any of Tolkien's work. However, several lines do seem to fit in with the Lord of the Rings idea or what-have-you.

"There's a feelin' I get when I look to the west and my spirit is crying for leaving. In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees and the voices of those who stand looking."-The part about looking to the west is what really convinces me here. The elves in Tolkien lore all have, to some extent, a longing for the western sea. Smoke rings are often discussed as well, and the people who stand looking could be thought of as elves.

"And a new day will dawn for those who stand long and the forests will echo with laughter."-Again, this is probably a reference to elves, who often live and forests and are immortal(stand long-long time?).

regonal building codes

regional building codes......HUH

hahahaahahhahaa
VERY WELL CRUNCH

well i guess only the big man noes, no not god plant, and page, jones,bonham, the big MEN :D

well bonham prolly told god already?? unless he went to hell...he was a bit of a rebel??

All of the interesting people go to hell, assuming it exists, so he may have.

Anyway, I'm not really sure what I should read next. I'm about 3/4 through a book called "The Golden Ratio" which is a little mathy. In other words, boring. I should probably finish it, but can't find the strength to read more than a few pages at a time. Alternatively, I might start "When You are Engulfed in Flames" by David Sedaris. I saw him read some excerpts on Letterman and it sounded pretty darn funny.

hehe DA VINCI CODE woop woop

I don't know what amount of relevance there is in your reference to The Da Vinci Code, but ok.

OR EVEN BETTER, ANGELS AND DEMONS (prequel of da vinci code)

Im reading the Iliad of Homer for the 435346th time.

after that i'll probally read the Odyssey.

Oh and @Crunch you failed the mention the most obvious Zeppelin song.
"Battle of Evermore".

^^I read the Odyssey for school.

In the poem form, it confused me at first, but I got used to it.