Recent Reading?

I recently read;

Dreams and Nightmares: Terry Gilliam, 'The Brothers Grimm' and Other Cautionary Tales of Hollywood

Gilliam on Gilliam

Both proved very interesting reading. Beyond that I've been rereading my Terry Pratchett and Robert Rankin books.

The One Minute Manager

I recently re-read Don Norman's The Design of Everyday Things, required reading for any programmer who ever makes user interfaces.

I'm reading Brass Man now. I don't think it's as good as his previous books, but maybe it'll get better in the next few hundred pages.

I've heard the initial couple of pages of flashbacks are confusing, and the rest of the book just drops it and lets it rock, which is admittedly what Asher is best at -- unrelenting action.

I recently read my lady-frien''s copy of The Eye of the World. It was good fun, but I can't help feeling it's like a 2nd tier Lord of the Rings, especially with the warrior-king whose throne is unoccupied.

Before that, I read Gaiman's American Gods, which was fan-freaking-tastic.

Right now, I'm reading Pratchett's Equal Rites, and off-and-on I'm reading Eberly's 3d Engine Architecture. I respect Eberly, but my opinion on the book is wavering. Can anyone tell me a good reason to finish it?

I'm currently reading Dan Simmons' Ilium. It's a wonderful Science Fiction novel. Dan Simmons is the king of SciFi.

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Original post by parasight I'm currently reading Dan Simmons' Ilium. It's a wonderful Science Fiction novel. Dan Simmons is the king of SciFi.

I just finished the sequel to that, without having read Ilium first. Excellent writer.

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Original post by templewulf Before that, I read Gaiman's American Gods, which was fan-freaking-tastic.

Haven't read that, but I'll see if I can pick it up and B&Nobles later. I definately suggest you pick up 'Neverwhere' by Gaimen, as that is an excellant read.

Currently, I am rerereading the LotR trilogy and a 'C++ for Dummmies' book. I just read CS Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet and will start on the Screwtape Letters soon.

Sadly, I haven't had the chance to read Illium, but Simmons' Hyperion-Endimion series are among the best books I've ever read (their greatest contender for the throne is David Brin's Uplift series).

I just finished reading the books Emma and Sense and Sensibility.

Right now I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov and I plan on reading Anne Karenina.

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Original post by Samith Right now I'm reading The Brothers Karamazov and I plan on reading Anne Karenina.

My advice: Read the former, skip the latter. What a painfully, oppressively banal book Anna Karenina was.

Sloughing through African Folktales. Despite all the praise it receives, I find it tedious, uninspired and racist - more effort is expended on capturing the "cadence" of the storytellers, while the readability and meaning suffer, in my opinion.

Blazed through The Animation Book. Some good info in there; a lot more stuff that I already knew.

The Long Tail. Interesting, but more the beginning of a reevaluation of a lot of popular wisdom than the definitive last word.

I don't read that much fiction, unfortunately.

Edit: Oh, yeah. I read Africa is in style. What garbage. It suffers the common French predilection of thinking only of Francophone West Africa, then hurriedly shoving some references to other parts of the continent in to make it seem more balanced. Le sigh.

I recently picked up "AD&D 2E- The Castle Guide" (0-88038-837-4) which is a very helpful book with tons of suggestions on setting a game in fuedal Europe. It doesn't starkly contrast anything else I've read, but it does have minor discrepencies that were obviously made for playability.

In the same run, I found "News and Society in the Greek Polis" (0-7156-2689-2) and "A Brief History of Chineese and Japanese Civilizations" (0-15-505570-4), both of which are quite interesting books about other cultures/societies/civilizations/etc.

The last two books I bought, "Service Etiquette"(0-87021-620-1) and "Strategy and Force Planning, 3rd Edition" (0-75671239-4), provide an interesting insight into the military.

I'm currently working my way through Code Complete and finding it very interesting. So far all its been doing is expanding upon what I already knew, but then I'm still only around the data structures part of it.

I also recently finished Art Spiegelman's Maus, which was great. In The Shadow of No Towers was somewhat disappointing compared to it, but then its somewhat differen in style.

Oh yeah. I'm also reading the Watchmen trade paperback and Game Coding Complete.

I've just finished The Negotiator by Frederick Forsyth. I still can't make my mind up about Forsyth. I always enjoy and finish his books but I sometimes find his characters a bit two dimensional.

I'm now re-reading The Spy Who Came In From The Cold by John Le'Carre. I make it my mission to mention John Le'Carre anytime a book thread comes up in the lounge.

I suppose I ought to state my opinion on the books I listed!

How to Shoot a Feature Film for Under $10,000 (And Not Go to Jail) - A lot of fun, actually. The author provides a lot of practical tips and advice. One of his pieces of advice is that when doing electrical work that involves working with the main box in a house or builder, you should have someone standing nearby with a 2x4 who is ready to smack the guy doing the wiring if he gets shocked.

$30 Film School - Considering the high rating on Amazon, I thought that it would be better. The author doesn't really talk about how to make films so much as he talks about how awesome his own film is and just talks about staying motivated. He gives some lame "intro to" tutorials on lots of different cheap software, though, which is kinda cool.

Digital Lighting and Rendering - Well, this is pretty much a straight up technical book. The author is a Director of Lighting at Pixar, so he obviously knows his stuff. He does a good job of laying down lots of information about light, shadows, color, shaders and materials, and that fun jazz.

Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year Old Filmmaker With $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player - I like it a lot. The majority of the book is Robert Rodriguez's diary from when he was making El Mariachi up through all of the postproduction and the American release. He certainly has a sense of humor and literally bleeds for his films. A fun read.

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Original post by Oluseyi Sloughing through African Folktales. Despite all the praise it receives, I find it tedious, uninspired and racist - more effort is expended on capturing the "cadence" of the storytellers, while the readability and meaning suffer, in my opinion.

Racist in what way? I'm not questioning your evaluation, as I haven't read the book, I'm just interested in knowing what direction a book of the title "Afican Folktales" could take that would lead someone to think it racist.

I recently finished JPod, by Douglas Copeland. I read it straight through in one sitting, a little odd for me, especially considering that I didn't find the book as good as others had described it. The best way I can describe it is "arrogant," on behalf of the author, as it simultaneously complains about certain practices and aspects of pop culture and the media industry and adopts those practices and aspects for itself, as if we were to think the author were so incredibly clever because of this. And to top it off, I can't even get away with calling him out on it, because he does it for himself in the pages of *his own book*, as if that made it all right to include 20 pages of a printout of the digits of Pi, for no other reason than to expand the total page count of the book.

I've also been reading and re-reading "Night Watch," a play by Lucille Fletcher, probably because I'm in it.

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Original post by benryves I've been rereading my Terry Pratchett ... books.

same, I've started The Discworld books from the beginning again.. I probably won't get any more books which are non-technical pre-Xmas (despite Pratchett having another one out soon/now).

Aside from that I've been reading a pdf book on O'Caml and I plan to read Algorithms in C++; Part 5 - Graphs at some point.