The All-About Books thread

Planet-man said:
Dawkins is something of a hero but the only book of his I'm all that interested in reading is The Greatest Show On Earth. I've been into evolutionary biology lately and I want to get a more permanent understanding of it, rather than just sort of glimpses when it "clicks"(the tiny, technical, sciencey parts, not the concepts and stuff).

I think Contact is an excellent science fiction book that I'd highly recommend but.... the film is just better. I'd definitely see it first, if you haven't done either.

And of course, Dick.
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The Selfish Gene entirely introduces Dawkins' ideas about gene-centric evolution (that is to say, evolution in general). It is more of a sweeping, conceptual novel that deals in very broad strokes, though. There are multiple books that elaborate on elements of it in finer detail, however. I could compose a list if you'd like. And I read 'The Greatest Show on Earth' when it came out, and it's...a popular science book. Interesting and educational, but not particularly 'technical'...so to speak. I'd avoid his work in religion altogether, though. In addition to just knocking over strawmen and dealing in caricatures, he shows a blatant misunderstanding of the environmental/social and psychological mechanisms that cause and sustain religion and spirituality.

Phillip K. Dick is another I'm meaning to read. I hear he deals with extropian themes and transhumanism better than most others (Neuromancer being a notable exception), but there's something inherently cool about Cyberpunk. And a brief consultation of Wikipedia makes 'Contact' look interesting enough to warrant a look. I tend to like books more than movies, but if you recommend the film over the novel, I'll take both into consideration.
 
As anyone read anything by the author Patricia Briggs, shes writes the Mercy Thompson Novels? wondering if the series is worth reading or not

edit: what really got my attention was the fact that the main character wasn't white, she was a female 1/2 blood Native American. not your typical cookie cut character.
 
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I am reading the complete Sherlock Holmes canon.

Watson is a great character.
 
nigma said:
As anyone read anything by the author Patricia Briggs, shes writes the Mercy Thompson Novels? wondering if the series is worth reading or not

edit: what really got my attention was the fact that the main character wasn't white, she was a female 1/2 blood Native American. not your typical cookie cut character.
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The first three establish a good series, the fourth turns it into a supernatural romance novel series, so I dropped it. But give the first three a look.
 
Anyone read either Dune or the Song of Ice and Fire?

I'm on Children of Dune right now, never read the Dune books before. DENSE, but I like it. I read the Dark Tower series before this, so it was a bit of a jolt going from King to Herbert. I'm way into it now though.
 
I read the first four books in the original Dune series, and thought Dune was the best of the lot. Plots and characters seemed to get steadily less coherent as the series progressed. I also picked up the first in "new" series that was co-authored by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. It wasn't bad, but I had a kazillion other books on my "to-read" list, so I never went any further with the series. I think a couple other folks here have read the books as well.

You can find more discussion on it here.

And welcome to the forums, Kal-Ill. :)
 
I just started reading Perdido Street Station by China Mieville. It's more overtly fantasy than I thought it would be.




I want Guillermo Del Toro to make a TV series out of it.
 
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Harry Potter has been my guilty pleasure for the past decade. I recently finished reading the complete works of Neil Gaiman (Love the man) and a friend recommended the Artemis Fowl series by Eoin Colfer. I had never heard of it, but I'm halfway through the second book now. Altough the writing is nothing too special it is filling the void left by Harry Potter at least for a little while. I'd only recommend it to people who (like me) miss the harry potter glory days however.
 
I used to read Artemis Fowl but lost interest after the terrible fourth book.
 
ProjectX2 said:
I used to read Artemis Fowl but lost interest after the terrible fourth book.
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That's good to know. I borrowed the complete series from my friend, and she had the second book in Dutch (the rest are in the original english). Much of its charm is lost in translation (I actually suspect that the translation is really poor) and I'm really struggling with the second book because of it. But I dont want to start with the third before finishing the second, so I force myself to keep reading.
 
If I remember correctly, the third one was the best (especially the ending).

Shame the author doesn't know when to stop though.
 
When I was 13 I could not put the first Artemis Fowl book down, from the brilliant set-up right through the extremely exciting climax with Butler fighting the troll and all, until the ending which I thought was ludicrous and left me with no interest in continuing with the series.
 
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