What Are You Reading Now?

[SteelBlue]

Just finished "Slade House" by David Mitchell. He wrote the first chapter on Twitter, and the rest in a fairly short time. If you like Mitchell, you'll enjoy this one. It's a lot of fun, and for the most part it can be read stand alone, though as with all of his novels, it is interconnected with the others and especially The Bone Clocks.

[Commando]

ha- this thread reminds me: I have a cousin who posted on fb that his goal was to finish a book every week and asked for suggestions. It's hard to not be snobby watching the full array of what people suggest. You really get a stark insight to peoples' brains.

[jay santos]

ha- this thread reminds me: I have a cousin who posted on fb that his goal was to finish a book every week and asked for suggestions. It's hard to not be snobby watching the full array of what people suggest. You really get a stark insight to peoples' brains.

Such as?

[Commando]

Such as?

There were lots of good recommendations peppered with the usual embarrassing stuff. Lots of Dan Brown this and Oprah that (not that they are inherently bad, but some of the gushing that accompanied the recommendation was inappropriate). A high recommendation of a Sean Hannity product was unflinchingly offered up.

[wuapinmon]

[USUC]

I love the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). This one is a great study bible:

http://www.amazon.com/Annotated-Revi...ds=oxford+nrsv

I also recommend the YouVersion Bible app for your phone and tablet. It lets you switch between a ton of different translations for comparison.

Just got the NRSV on Saturday and have been devouring it. It's slow going due to the volume of information but the context it provides is spectacular.

[LiveCoug]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I'm enjoying it more than I expected.

[falafel]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.

I'm enjoying it more than I expected.

That book was a lot of fun

[BigPiney]

Look Who's Back - Very funny and very strange book about the return of Adolf Hitler, who inexplicably wakes to find himself lying on the ground in modern Berlin. People assume he's some kind of method comedian and he winds up with his own talk/comedy show where he spouts the same hateful rhetoric he did in the 30s and 40s and people treat him like a comic genius. The book was a huge hit in Germany, where it was also made into a movie, also a hit (though "Suk Me Shakespeer 2" -- the first Suk Me Shakespeer apparently having also been quite popular -- remains the biggest comedy of the German year: http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015...vie-box-office). The book is very funny but also discomfiting. I would recommend it.

Read this. Really enjoyed it. Great satire.

Armada- by Ernest Cline, the author of Ready Player One. This was OK. Not nearly as fun as RPO.

[SteelBlue]

Mr. Splitfoot, by Samantha Hunt. This was a strange one, but I loved it. No spoilers, but lots of ties (none flattering, but all fair) to Joseph Smith and Mormonism including an upstate New York location. I really enjoy Hunt's style, and if you've read "The Invention of Everything Else", you'll be happy to know that her ability to write a dream-like, hallucinatory narrative is on full display here. Certainty is thrown out the window and the onus is on the reader to interpret the "data".

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[SeattleUte]

I just finished Michel Houellebecq's "Submission". I've read all of his other novels except his debut and have enjoyed all of them. This one is about the election of a Muslim Brotherhood candidate to the presidency of France; coincidentally the book was released on the day of the Charlie Hebdo massacres. The protagonist is a professor at the Sorbonne (University of Paris), which, as a result of political deal-making, is given to the Muslims to turn into an Islamic university--it winds up looking very much like BYU, but more moderate (for one thing, they bend the rules on alcohol). The professors must convert and sign a kind of honor code agreement, or accept early retirement with full pension.

The prospect of polygamy with the wives inevitably selected from the now all-Muslim student body, and substantially increased pay, is what's interesting to our nihilistic protagonist. Of course Houellebecq's characters are not admirable; but in an ironic way they always make me examine what makes life and its tedium, aggravations, and inevitable horrors and ultimate oblivion worth living. There is also some excellent, highly entertaining satire. There's a lot of hilarious stuff about how religion really is winning and secularism and Western Civilization are "putrefied" and doomed. However, Houellebecq is quite indifferent to novel mechanics and artistry. So don't read him for that.

This book ought to interest Mormons because you see how similar Mormonism is to middle or upper middle class or Saudi-style Islam. The linked article from the New York Times made me think the same thing. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/ma...the-saudi.html

The LDS Church really ought to consider a merger or a coalition with this element of Islam. There is a lot in common; they are the two distinct religious movements that re most alike. It could be the only hope for the LDS movement.

[Jeff Lebowski]

The LDS Church really ought to consider a merger or a coalition with this element of Islam. There is a lot in common; they are the two distinct religious movements that re most alike. It could be the only hope for the LDS movement.

Clever idea. You should write a letter to SLC and float the idea.

[SandYFan]

Dresden Files. Waiting on the latest one from the library (seriously, who takes three weeks to read a Dresden Files book?). Not high literature, but pretty fun, and I enjoy them. Getting complicated, too.

[Maximus]

does it have a good overall story line? Not a fan of the monster of the week stories I see in other places

[SandYFan]

does it have a good overall story line? Not a fan of the monster of the week stories I see in other places

It is a slow ramp, but it definitely does. I skipped the first two books and started with three. Definitely feels kinda like a random monster hunter thing, but pretty quick you start realizing this is a full world with tons of intertwining characters.