General / Off-Topic What are you reading currently?

As some of you may know I'm a bit of a computer history buff. Yet, despite owning the book for a number of years, I never quite got around to reading 'Where Wizards Stay Up Late' (Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon). It's essentially a history of how the Internet came to be and it turns out it's superb.

I'm also re-reading Steven Levy's "Hackers" (nothing to do with the film), which is more to do with the hacker mindset from its early days of TX-0 and PDP-1 hacking (and even more before that, with model railway enthusiasts at MIT).

And I'm also starting to read 'Fumbling The Future: How Xerox Invented, Then Ignored, The First Personal Computer', which is a part of computer history I've always been intrigued by.


I've also read and finished the new Lee Child, 'The Midnight Line' which is another of his Jack Reacher novels and a damn good one too. Slightly different to his previous ones.
 
As some of you may know I'm a bit of a computer history buff. Yet, despite owning the book for a number of years, I never quite got around to reading 'Where Wizards Stay Up Late' (Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon). It's essentially a history of how the Internet came to be and it turns out it's superb.

Agreed, read it many years ago (about time I read it again). I can recommend A Brief History of the Future by John Naughton. Whereas Wizards is more about the people this one is more a technical history.

Along similar lines, you may also like The Victorian Internet by Tom Standage, which tells the history of the telegraph (I've worked in telecomms my whole life and I find the history of it even more fascinating than that of computers but YMMV).

Might have to pick up that Xerox book (they did drop a clanger there!).
 
"The collapsing Empire". By John Scalzi.
awesome- best served beside a nice dish of Elite Dangerous.

It relates.
 
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Just finished rereading book 2 of the Dune series. I'll read all of them every couple of years. Probably my favorite series. That, along with original Starship Troopers. Good classic scifi.
 
The chronicals of Conan, a huge leatherback collection of all the stories.

He's just cleft someone in twain, and I'm expecting some mighty cimmerian thews any second now.
Mine's a paperback version. :)
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What are you reading currently?

I am reading several books at the same time:

an enlightening book about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by Bennis.

"Consider Phlebas" by Ian M Banks, because so many people recommended it. To be honest I am very disappointed, because I think it is not well written at all and very cliche.

"God the failed hypothesis" by Victor Stenger. Superb book.

I am also rereading the wonderful "The Infinity Concerto" by Greg Bear.
 
I am reading several books at the same time:

an enlightening book about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict by Bennis.

"Consider Phlebas" by Ian M Banks, because so many people recommended it. To be honest I am very disappointed, because I think it is not well written at all and very cliche.

"God the failed hypothesis" by Victor Stenger. Superb book.

I am also rereading the wonderful "The Infinity Concerto" by Greg Bear.

Consider Phlebas was written in 1987 so could have started a lot of those cliches.
 
Do audiobooks count???

Currently, "The Legends of Luke Skywalker."

An interesting assortment of short tales told by various poeple/creatures around the galaxy who witnessed Luke in some way on his travels while searching for Jedi relics.

Pretty good so far in the diversity of tales, hopefully it wraps up nicely like the old Tales of Jabbas Palace book did.
 
Currently I spend way more time flying spaceships than reading. Last books I've been reading:

Leonardo and the Last Supper - Ross King

The Prince - Niccolò Machiavelli

Moscow 1812: Napoleon's Fatal March - Adam Zamoyski

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 - Christopher M. Clark

The Way of the Knife: The CIA, a Secret Army, and a War at the Ends of the Earth - Mark Mazzetti

Command and Control - Eric Schlosser

Tuf Voyaging - George R. R. Martin

The Second Coming - John Niven

Kill Your Friends - John Niven

I wouldn't exactly call it a good 'read', but I find it highly recommendable:

100 Suns - Michael Light
 
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Currently I read a lot on the internet

But I would like to take the time to reread "The Lucifer principle" (Howard Bloom), the two volumes. I read them a few years ago and as Elite after FE2, they stayed in a corner of my brain. One day I will open them again
 
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"Consider Phlebas" by Iain M Banks, because so many people recommended it. To be honest I am very disappointed, because I think it is not well written at all and very cliche.

'Consider' is an odd one in many ways. It's probably the least typical of his Culture novels, and may be better once (if) you've read a few of the others. I'd recommend 'The Player of Games' as a good 'typical' Culture novel.
 
'Consider' is an odd one in many ways. It's probably the least typical of his Culture novels, and may be better once (if) you've read a few of the others. I'd recommend 'The Player of Games' as a good 'typical' Culture novel.

Yes! I was lucky enough to read TPoG first on advice from a friend!
 

JessicaSonnet

Volunteer Moderator
I adore reading....so much so i dont read 1 book a go....

I'm currently re-reading Proxima - Stephan Baxter
Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
and
Code Girls - Liza Mundy


:D
 
Yes! I was lucky enough to read TPoG first on advice from a friend!

'Use Of Weapons' would be the other slightly non-typical one. It's awesome but not a good introduction to the Culture. The twist a few pages before the end is astonishing, and makes you see the book differently when next you read it.
 
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