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I've just started Song of Ice and Fire, book 2. Trying to get through it before the show starts back up.

I'm halfway through The Algebraist by Iain M Banks. It is awesome, such a messed up book. Only Banks could come with a villain whose nob can produce a variety of drugs to apply during sex, and make it totally believable.

I read Consider Phlebas last year. Bloody hell, I found it hard work. Great universe though.

About the ending..

I found it very downbeat and lacking. I know that the point after all the riduculous stuff that Horza went thought to get to that planet to die in such a mundane fashion, but I did find it frustrating after all the effort to get there.

I've got a few of the other culture novels that I've picked up that I need to read, although now I've got a Kindle, reading real books feels so archaic..

I've read Consider Phlebas but can't remember what it was about. If you're going to embark on more of his sci-fi go straight to 'Use of Weapons' and 'The Player of Games'. As a gamer you'll definitely appreciate the latter.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Started reading Game of Thrones after enjoying the TV series so much and thought i'd at least make sure to have read the second book by the time the second season started airing.

I started Book 4 - A Feast for Crows last week, can't put these books down, they're so good!

Still got Terry Pratchett's last book, Snuff (love me some Samuel Vimes), on the back burner and i'm also itching to get back to the Dresden Files after reading the first three back to back late last year.

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Finished The Essential Tales of Chekhov which was very good indeed. Currently reading A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell which is the first of his 12 book series "A Dance to the Music of Time". Seems brilliant so far, very funny and very well written.

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Finished The Essential Tales of Chekhov which was very good indeed. Currently reading A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell which is the first of his 12 book series "A Dance to the Music of Time". Seems brilliant so far, very funny and very well written.

Finished A Question of Upbringing, excellent book. Now on to My Antonia by Willa Cather.

My Goodreads is here btw, for those of you who may be on that site:

http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/4392294-tommy-hanley

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just finished 'Heartstone' the most recent Shardlake novel by C.J. Sansom.

Highly entertaining. As ever his recreation of medieval London is fantastic.

I might pick up the first one for my girlfriend, sounds like the sort of thing she would enjoy.

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Currently listening to Ice & Fire book 2, A Clash of Kings read by Roy Dotrice at work. I've been through Ice & Fire books 1 to 3 before, but stalled at book 4 because Audible used a different narrator. Roy Dotrice was unable to record it. However, he's since re-recorded book 4 after public demand for a matching set, after recording book 5. This, and the forthcoming Game of Thrones season 2 has got me back into the story.

And actual reading, I've got Fable - The Balverine Order by Peter David on the go. And yes, its based on the Fable video game.

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I started reading a dodgy EPUB version of 'The Strange Affair of Spring-Heeled Jack' by Mark Hodder. (I have the paperback, but the Kindle fits my jacket pocket much better.

The first 3 chapters have a lot of typos and formatting errors. I had to refer to the printed version at one point to decipher a line.

Not sure if it's because I borrowed Captain Pugwash's copy, but i've seen a couple of genuine ones where there hasn't been as much care taken with them as the printed edition.

Other than that, it's a pretty good book.

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I've started reading the first Witcher book (The Last Wish), I'm only a couple of chapters in, but it's pretty good so far. It reminds me a lot of the Vampire Hunter D books, it's probably better written, but it shares the same not quite traditional fantasy, and handles the lead character in the same way (they always know a little bit more about what's going on that you and everyone else).

the first chapter was turned in to the intro to the first game if you want to look up 'Witcher intro' on youtube. From there it's bounced around a bit, not quite finishing what it was telling you before a scene change

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  • 2 months later...

I've been working my way through Death Note. I'm up to vol. 5 now, and just waiting for Cardiff libraries to get the next few volumes in. Good stuff, though I think the writer must have a split personality to be able to write such complex speech and thoughts, as the two main characters go head to head!!!

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Recap: books read in 2012:

No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy

The Path to the Spiders’ Nests - Italo Calvino

The Essential Tales of Chekhov - Anton Chekhov

A Question of Upbringing - Anthony Powell

My Ántonia - Willa Cather

Rabbit, Run - John Updike

Stoner - John Williams

Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson

Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser

Crossing to Safety - Wallace Stegner

Narziss & Goldmund - Hermann Hesse

Currently reading Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami, it's really excellent so far.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I'm re-reading 'Journey to the West' (which is more commonly called 'Monkey'), this time a more thorough translation, with nothing omitted.

The introduction has a wonderful comment about Sun Wukong's popularity:

'The humorous and knowing twinkle in Monkey's eyes is able to penetrate to the core of a tradition which has congealed over thousands of years. His power of insight comes from his straightforward and natural boyish heart, and his grasp of the reasons for things. The main theme is mockery and scorn directed at authorities and order of society, revealing man's naturally pure and childlike heart. And because this story conveys boyish delight, transcending political, religious, national and territorial boundaries, it brings joy to the whole world.'

Yeah, that's why I've got Monkey on my back, and why I urge everyone to get a copy of this book, and absorb it's many delights.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-West-Chengen-Wu/dp/7119016636

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I'm reading one of those old-fashioned paper books for the first time in ages.

The Death Instinct by Jed Rubenfeld. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/0755344022/ref=mp_s_a_1?qid=1343036703&sr=8-1

Ok, so it's bulky (the thickness of about 5 Kindles), and doesn't remember what page I'm on when I put it down, but apart from that it's very good.

It's a historical crime thriller set in post WWI America and Europe. Like the previous book 'The Interpretation of Murder' (not essential to have read first, but also very good) Freud is a character, and his theories and the development of Psychoanalysis are an interesting sub story.

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