What book are you reading now? and Fav. Author(s)?

[fungchen3]

Just picked up "Bench Bosses: The NHL's Coaching Elite" by Matthew DiBiase. Started it over the weekend; nice read so far!

[lucafen4]

Great list. I love McCarthy -- read several of his. Most recently, All The Pretty Horses.
Huge Vonnegut fan -- working on getting all of them in hardcover (and it's getting tougher to find them).
If you like his quirkiness, try Canadian Douglas Coupland. Start with Microserfs.

And seeing as I like your list a lot, give these two a try:
Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried
David James Duncan's The Brothers K.

Those are two of my faves.
You won't be disappointed.

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Vonnegut is tons of fun, "Slaughterhouse Five" was amazing, I followed it up with Heller's "Catch 22" - check 2 from the top 100 books of all time (bucket list)

I've read a couple Coupland books - "Microserfs" & "All Families Are Psychotic"

I've added the suggestions to my long-long list of authors to hunt for when I make my weekly trip to the bookstore. I find DeWitt shares a similar writing style to Vonnegut - namely his innate ability to write something gruesome or disturbing in very mild light language. I find myself, often going back and re-reading saying, 'wait, did I just read? yup!"

this thread has settled it though... I need to start in on Star Wars novels.

Is there any studies done on hockey pool performance & the number of Star Wars books that person has read?

[newfcollins]

I read pretty much everything. My latest book is "Tiger, Meet My Sister... And other things I probably shouldn't have said." It's a collection of columns by Rick Reilly that he has written for ESPN in the past couple of years. It's not bad, but not that great. Taken one at a time, the column is fine. But you can only read so many of them in a row before it starts to grate on your nerves. Although the postscripts are kind of nice.

My favourite author is Earl Emerson. I always love his stuff. He's a firefighter who writes a lot of stories about firefighting. He's also written a series of Thomas Black novels, which is a detective series. Loads of fun to read.

[Doug Glatt]

Luca, you mentioned you were reading Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas by the Good Doctor, HST. I love everything Dr. Gonzo wrote, have probably read his entire catalog of work. Would definitely recommend that you read Hells Angels and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. They wont knock you on your ass quite as hard as F&L in LV does but they are still very worthy reads. Since his death there have been some volumes of his prolific personal correspondence published, and these are good for some interesting insights and loads of laughs.

I read an awful lot of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I would recommend some of the stuff I have read lately. Matt Taibbi of Rolling Stone has inherited the politics mantle from HST and has really run with it. His last three books--The Great Derangement, Griftopia and The Divide--were especially enjoyable.

I have dug into some of the recent offerings by Michael Lewis of Moneyball fame lately. Great stuff. Boomerang, and The Big Short were especially enlightening.

Two fascinating non-fiction books I enjoyed this year were Strategy: A History by Lawrence Freedman, and The Prize by Daniel Yergin.

On the fiction end of things, I would plug a couple of titles: The Religion, by Tim Willocks is a solid historical fiction offering set during the Siege of Malta in the 16th century. Matterhorn, by Karl Marlantes is an outstanding novel of the Vietnam War.

Some classic fiction that I recommend: Catch-22 by Joseph Heller and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley.

My favorite fiction book of all time is The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. My favorite non-fiction book is A People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn.

[The Bottlenecker]

Yay! Books. I haven't read as much this year or the last as I've been working on my writing when I have time and then some video games.

Currently reading Brent Week's second book of the Night Angel Trilogy.
Thinking about reading a few different things next: Snow Crash, Ready Player One, Neuromancer, Tom Clancy (jack Ryan series), or Re-continue the Malazan Books of the Fallen.

I'm like Dobber, as I've read a ton of Starwars since I was a kid. I'm over 50 and that's a pretty low estimate. Love that universe. Still hoping for Grand Admiral Thrawn movies.

Mostly read Fantasy or Sci-fi. If you need some suggestions or find Goodreads.com to be convoluted; let me know. I enjoy talking books and making suggestions.

Authors

Rowling
Sanderson
GRRM
Tolkien
Rothfuss
and I know I'm forgetting someone.

PS feel free to give me a vote on what next to read.

I cast a vote for Stephenson's "Snow Crash". My favorite book of his so far, and a great cyberpunk read.

[Instant Karma]

Started Cervantes' Don Quixote last week, so I'll be tied up in that for awhile.

I'm also reading Neil Young's autobiography Waging Heavy Peace from time to time.

Very stream-of-consciousness, almost no narrative whatsoever. Each chapter he writes about whatever happens to be on his mind at the time. It's like being able to have a brief conversation with him every day. A must for Young fans, but if not you'd likely find it frustrating.

[lucafen4]

I have some quirks about reading too...

1. I can't buy a book with multiple novels within. Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy is available at the used book store, but I got the sweats walking around with it because it was 3 volumes in one binding. I'm still searching for book 1 - Regeneration & the Trilogy is where I left it.
2. I MUST read book 1 of anything. Any author with multiple books with the same character - regardless of how independent the storylines are. I gotta start at the beginning.

for example.. as I hunt for my 1st Star Wars novel - I need to find the very 1st one, where it all began. I'm convinced my fantasy sports play will improve based on reading Star Wars novels.

3. bookmarks MUST USE BOOKMARKS. Do not Dog Ear my damn book. My wife is not allowed to read my novels anymore... for this reason. Unless she is supervised.
4. if you do dog ear my book, or damage it, I will ask you replace it. I may have bought it used, but I inspected it heavily before doing so. It's my book, I'm allowed a double standard if I damn well please.
5. I cannot borrow books. I will not return it. Once I read it, I own it. I provide this disclaimer before taking a book from anyone. And for that reason, I do not own a library membership anywhere.

[2014olympicgold]

Boy on Ice: The Life and Death of Derek Boogaard

Very chilling insight to his life.

[theIceWookie]

Red Rising by Pierce Brown.

My interest was peaked when I saw that it had been picked up for development into a movie so I decided to check it out.

It was very good. It's Sci-Fi, set a few hundred years in the future where humans have colonized the solar system and a class system has been set in place essentially. Main character is placed in a higher class as a potential revolution leader in the future (I'm butchering the description). It's a three part series (though I believe the 3rd one hasn't even come out yet). The first book is kind of like a grown-ups version of Hunger Games, though it does it disservice to say that IMO. It was written well and the author really does a good job of evoking your emotions when you read it. There were more than a few twists I didn't see coming.

Definitely would recommend it to anyone who likes Sci-Fi

[finnys_fanatsy]

5. I cannot borrow books. I will not return it. Once I read it, I own it. I provide this disclaimer before taking a book from anyone. And for that reason, I do not own a library membership anywhere.

..same here. i refuse to borrow a book from teh library. my wife hates this fact. if i take the time to pick out a book and read it, i want to OWN that book..not just USE it.

[horrorfan]

Good thread. Not surprisingly, my username applies to books as well as films.

1. I'm currently reading the third of Mira Grant's Parasitology trilogy (Parasite, Symbiont, Chimera). Not sure what is on deck yet as I've gone through my recent collection and will be getting a few more soon.

2. All time favourite author - Stephen King. Also quite enjoyed the UK's classic horror writer, James Herbert (RIP).

A selection of authors I've read and enjoyed over the last few years:

Mira Grant (Parasitology, Newsflesh trilogy)
David Moody (Autumn series, Hater trilogy)
John Ajvide Lindqvist (Let the Right One In)
Scott Sigler (Infected trilogy)
Daniel H. Wilson (Robopocalypse trilogy - the third to come)
Joseph d'Lacey (Meat, Garbage Man)
Justin Cronin (The Passage trilogy - the third to come)

Funny I've been reading a lot of trilogies recently.

Just finished the Parasitology trilogy - was pretty good and I recommend it.

I'm about to start a recent one from Daniel H. Wilson called Amped.

[Instant Karma]

..same here. i refuse to borrow a book from teh library. my wife hates this fact. if i take the time to pick out a book and read it, i want to OWN that book..not just USE it.

Yeah, I've found this out the hard way. Now I don't loan out books unless I consider the copy to be expendable.

[iwinthings]

Got The Way of Kings (Brandon sanderson) from the library on audiobook and have been listening to it. It's really great and I have been moving away from fantasy books over the years.

[Eskimo Brother]

The 20 odd fiction adventure books by James Rollins are what I am currently working my way through. Feels as fast paced as a movie if anyone is looking for a real page turner.

[tgraveline]

Got The Way of Kings (Brandon sanderson) from the library on audiobook and have been listening to it. It's really great and I have been moving away from fantasy books over the years.

Nice! Words of Radiance is very good too. Have you read his Mistborn series? That's pretty good too.