Last Book That You Read- Fiction

I'm an avid reader, so I thought this would be an appropriate post.

I also thought, perhaps, we can use these threads to edit posts and keep logs of what we have been reading? Well, that is up to each user I suppose, that way at the end of the year you can have a complete list.

This is for Fiction works only!

Currently reading Atlas Shrugged for the second time. Feel free to mock me, as I am long used to it.

Currently reading Battlelines by Tony Abbott.

I grant any Laborite permission for one post of derision.

CJB wrote:

Currently reading Battlelines by Tony Abbott.

I grant any Laborite permission for one post of derision.

I'm not sure whether to laugh at you or Abbott, CJB. ;)

and please dont tell me you were one of those 20-odd people who showed up at that Rvolution Rally along with Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones? ;)

As for me, I'm still going through For Whom The Bell Tolls. Maybe if I read it more than once a fortnight, I'd get through it quicker.

colly wrote:

I'm not sure whether to laugh at you or Abbott, CJB. ;)

and please dont tell me you were one of those 20-odd people who showed up at that Rvolution Rally along with Andrew Bolt and Alan Jones? ;)

I was there in spirit.

I prefer my revolutions at the ballot box. NSW first, Canberra second. ;)

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Currently reading Atlas Shrugged for the second time. Feel free to mock me, as I am long used to it.

Still haven't got round to that one, though I read The Fountainhead and enjoyed it. Ayn Rand is much mocked, but she stood for self-reliance and that's not a bad message to put out. For one thing, it would spare me all the 'having a bad days' threads that proliferate in forums. Life ain't fair, get used to it, end of. :evil:

Just starting Jonathan Franzen's The Corrections (under orders from a friend) and also rereading Emma. Both are confirming my prejudice that there's not much fiction worth reading after about 1900.

BTW, can we have separate threads for fiction and non-fiction? I read far more non-fiction these days.

ambler wrote:

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Currently reading Atlas Shrugged for the second time. Feel free to mock me, as I am long used to it.

Still haven't got round to that one, though I read The Fountainhead and enjoyed it. Ayn Rand is much mocked, but she stood for self-reliance and that's not a bad message to put out.

Yes, but at the cost of self-sacrifice, altruism, and selflessness. Objectivism is essentially the Church of 20th Century Godlesss Selfishness. There's a reason why most of its followers are young and arrogant. They move on when they grow up.

It's also no coincidence that some of the most mean-with-their-money B******S such as Michael Caine love Ayn Rand. It's either her or Thatcher.

Sharky wrote:

It's also no coincidence that some of the most mean-with-their-money B******S such as Michael Caine love Ayn Rand. It's either her or Thatcher.

The operative word is 'their'. Many might say that the people most qualified to spend money wisely are those who earn it. Feel free to start a politics thread, oh Shark. After all, Khan will arrive shortly. And, as I recall, Salome gives good head games :twisted:

The Fountainhead is on my bookshelf with about a thousand other books to read. I'm kind of keen to get into it.

Outside of the highly riveting Torts: Cases and Commentaries 6th Ed. and Writing Guidelines for Business Students the last thing I read was The Great Gatsby.

This was my first time. It's about as subtle as a motor car smashing into you isn't it?

ambler wrote:

And, as I recall, Salome gives good head games :twisted:

I find that notion a bit hard to swallow...

Sharky wrote:

Yes, but at the cost of self-sacrifice, altruism, and selflessness.

*Shrugs* -- so?

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

Sharky wrote:

Yes, but at the cost of self-sacrifice, altruism, and selflessness.

*Shrugs* -- so?

You don't care about those human virtues?

I thought I liked you Sykes.

edit the list after the two thread thingy...

On the Road, Jack Kerouac

Changing course in this thread. This will be Fiction only novels. There will be a separate thread for non fiction works.

Cheers!

Good to know, I saw the thread and thought I had absent-mindedly posted.

All but one book mentioned in my post being fiction of course.

Right now I'm re-reading The Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan so I can read the newer books and not be lost. It's a bit of a time consumer, I must say. I'm on the 7th book, Winter's Heart.

I believe the last fiction book I finished was The Final Quest by Rick Joyner.

Last book I finished with my students was Animal Farm, and we're currently reading Hound of the Baskervilles.

Hilly wrote:

Good to know, I saw the thread and thought I had absent-mindedly posted.

All but one book mentioned in my post being fiction of course.

''

Someone suggested two seperate threads, which makes much more sense. I should probably edit my two non-fiction posts. I look like an idiot.

The last thing I read was Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. I genuinely don't understand why so many people hate it - it's about as perfect a novel as any I've ever read.

Not sure what I'll read next, or when I'll get around to reading it. Maybe Huxley's Antic Hay. Meh, we'll see.

Sackett- Louis L'Amour.


I have a bunch of his old paperbacks. I hate throwing books out. So I read one of them. Not bad. Not great. Just meh.

RIDDLEY WALKER by Russell Hoban

I can't speak of this novel highly enough. Brilliant in its CLOCKWORK ORANGE-esque use of language to convey a dystopian, post-apocalyptic culture of primitive life that treats man's technological rise as folklore.


THE GIVER by Lois Lowry

Great idea for a story, but hopelessly neutered in this "for children" form. This needed to be an adult novel, searing and brutal.


MAN OF NAZARETH by Anthony Burgess

Just a bad, bad book. I love Burgess as an author, but MAN OF NAZARETH is a bland, boring mess.

Vesper wrote:

the last thing I read was The Great Gatsby.

This was my first time. It's about as subtle as a motor car smashing into you isn't it?

My teacher last year said "it's a novel of intricate patterning" I hated that teacher. Great novel though, and Tender is the Night is even better.

read Hitler's Peace by Philip Kerr. Interesting though the ending just felt iffy almost too simple.

lalala2004 wrote:

Last book I finished with my students was Animal Farm, and we're currently reading Hound of the Baskervilles.

Finished it so I would be a few chapters ahead. Really quite a read. Perfectly eerie and the kind of mystery you hope for. I just hope it isn't his best, because now I hope to read more, and don't want to think I've hit the peak too soon. I've just read a Study in Scarlett previously.

Been rereading the two best Allan Steele novels: Lunar Descent and Orbital Decay. Guy really had a tremendous feel for working class near-future space stories. If Tom Hanks ever really wanted to do a miniseries of HOW THE SOLAR SYSTEM WAS WON (early joke title for 2001, back when the film was going to be a series of vignettes based on several Clarke stories), he could do worse than to snatch up the Steele books as a resource.

The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, LeCarre

On the Beach, Nevil Shute

it's the latter of the two that will linger in the memory for a while (though Spy was excellent). Such a chillng book where the ending is never in doubt, getting ever closer with each knocking off of towns, cities whole countries. The characters are written well as they go on with their lives, their duties but discussing their fate so...normally. Those final few pages as each character faces their end I found moving.