The OF Blog: A Fun Little Game

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

A Fun Little Game

Although I suspect the majority of people visit this blog based on a Google search or they are reading this via a RSS feed, I want to do a fun little social activity that I think might lead to some new book reads for myself and others. While this almost certainly has been done before, doesn't mean that one more time would hurt ya, right, so here goes:

I'm going to list five books that I've recently read and one book that I haven't read yet but hope to read in the near future. If you would please, respond with five recent reads and a book you hope to read soon (and if you have a blog, feel free to post it there with a link, in case others may want to visit your blog as well).

Five Recent Reads:

Samuel Delany, Dhalgren

Fritz Leiber, Lankhmar: Tales of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser (vol. I)

Ignazio Silone, Bread and Wine

Venedikt Erofeev, Moscow to the End of the Line

Isamu Fukui, Truancy


One I Am About To Start Reading:

Adolfo Bioy Casares, Borges (edited diary accounts that mention Borges, in Spanish, published in September 2006).


OK, that's me. Your lists?

28 comments:

Si- said...

Well, when you say "post it there" I'm wondering do you mean here on your blog site or some other location. If it is the latter, my apologies.

~Travels with my aunt by Graham Greene
~Collected Stories by Katherine Mansfield
~Empire of the sun by J G Ballard
~Consider Phlebas by Iain M. Banks
~War Fever by J G Ballard

One book I've just started reading is
~Cormac McCarthy's Orchid Keeper.

I do read your blog quite often, its often interesting what you have to say. I'm not a huge blogger due to lack of time but feel free to check out my blog, via my profile.

Larry Nolen said...

Thanks for replying and those are some really, really good authors there! And I'll check your blog in a moment. What I said in the post was, if you were willing, to post a list both here and on your blog in hopes others who visit there would do the same, but it's not a requirement, as here alone is fine :D

Anonymous said...

I'll bite.

Five Recent Reads:

George Orwell, 1984

Robert Crais, the Watchman

Charlie Huston, Half the Blood of Brooklyn

Jeff & Ann VanderMeer (ed), The New Weird

William Gibson, Neuromancer

One I Am About To Start Reading:

Ian McDonald, Brasyl (already 50 pages in, I'm cheating)

Anonymous said...

Recently read...

- Brasyl by Ian McDonald (you're in for a treat Lawrence)
- Nova Swing by M John Harrison
- Country You Have Never Seen by Joanna Russ
- The Double Life of Alice Sheldon by Julie Phillips
- Heart Shaped Box by Joe Hill

about to read

- Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman

Anonymous said...

Five I've read recently:

Khaled Hosseini, The Kite Runner
Carlos Ruiz Zafon, The Shadow of the Wind
John Scalzi, Android's Dream
Anthony Burgess, The Malayan Trilogy
Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policemen's Union

One I Am About To Start Reading:

Lauren Groff, Monsters of Templeton

Btw, what did you think of Truancy?

Anonymous said...

Five recent reads

Eric Brown - Helix

Iain M Banks - Matter

Jeffrey Thomas - Deadstock

Ray Bradbury - R is for Rocket

John Scalzi - Old Man's War

Hope to read soon (far too many, got over 80 here)

Simon Spurrier - Contract

This year's ongoing list can be found at http://edash.wordpress.com/books-read-2008/

Paul Abbamondi said...

The last five books I've read are:

Clumsy by Jeffrey Brown
High Fidelity by Nick Hornby
Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
Lace and Blade edited by Deborah J. Ross
Isaac Asimov's Halloween edited by Gardner Dozois and Sheila Williams

And the one I'm looking forward to reading once it comes out in paperback is:
The High King's Tomb by Kristen Britain

Andrew Wheeler said...

Recently read:

The Learners by Chip Kidd
The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick
The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick
Rumpole Misbehaves by John Mortimer
Dead To Me by Anton Strout

And I just started reading Iain M. Banks's Matter today.

My blog is The Antick Musings of G.B.H. Hornswoggler, Gent., and it's mostly filled with reviews of books and various cranky thoughts about the publishing business. I already post plenty of lists there -- of books I just read, books I might be reading soon, books I read many years ago...I may need professional help.

Neth said...

Nice idea - I plugged it at the blog for you


Five Recent Reads:

-The Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick (currently reading)
-Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
-The Inferior by Peadar Ó Guilín
-Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
-The Traitor by Michael Cisco

One I Am About To Start Reading:

-The Martian General’s Daughter by Theodore Judson

Unknown said...

Neth, I am so excited to read that you're reading a new Theodore Judson book. Fitzpatrick's War was excellent. I will google it immediately.

Recent:

The Vandermeers: The New Weird (In progress)

John Adams: Wastelands (In progress)

Michael Swanwick: A Geography of Unknown Lands

Tim Lebbon: Dusk

Felix Gilman: Thunderer

To be read soon: Dragons of Babel by Michael Swanwick, The Wizards and the Warriors (Or something like that...) by Hugh Cook.

Anonymous said...

Things I’ve read recently:
Scott Lynch – The Lies of Locke Lamorra;
Terry Pratchett – Wintersmith;
Siergiey Lukanienko – Posliednij Dozor (Last Watch)
Jacek Dukaj – Inne Piesni (Other Songs);
Neal Asher – The Line of Polity.

Next:
Ted Chiang – Stories of Your Life or Others
or maybe Steph Swainston – The Year of Our War.

Anonymous said...

Recently Read:

- Zeroville (Steve Erickson)
- Brasyl (Ian McDonald)
- The Judgment of Paris (George Taber)
- Last Dragon (J.M. McDermott)
- The Archimedes Codex (Reviel Netz and William Noel)

Looking Forward To Reading:

- Dragons of Babel (Michael Swanwick)

Alas, for I am currently a blogless gypsy...

Martlet said...

Recently read :

- The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
- The Arrival by Shaun Tan
- Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
- Serpentine by Mélanie Fazi
- Shadow and Betrayal by Daniel Abraham

Looking Forward To :

- The Dispossessed, Ursula Le Guin

Jonathan said...

Ekaterina Sedia ~ The Secret History of Moscow
Roger Zelazny ~ Lord of Light
Gabriel Garcia Marquez ~ 100 Years of Solitude
Alastair Reynolds ~ Chasm City
Jack Vance ~ Lyonesse

And as for the future... eh.

Danielewski ~ House of Leaves

Tia Nevitt said...

Auralia's Colors by Jeffrey Overstreet
Master of Shadows by Janet Lorimer
The Outback Stars by Sandra McDonald
Across the Face of the World by Russel Kirkpatrick
The Crypt of the Moaning Diamond by Rosemary Jones

About to read:
In the Eye of Heaven by David Keck

Oops, I just put up a post on what I'm reading now, so I'll just leave this here for now.

marbelcal said...

Ngugi Wa Thiong'o -- Wizard of the Crow.
Jim Harrison -- Returning to Earth.
K. J. Parker -- The Engineer Triology (does that count as one?)
Michael Moorcock -- Mother London.
Ann & Jeff Vandermeer -- The New Weird (in progress).

And Can't wait to read

Roberto Bolano -- 2666
J. G. Ballard -- Miracles of Life

Anonymous said...

Five Recent Reads:

- Stephen King, Wolves of the Calla

- Stephen King, Song of Susannah

- Ekaterina Sedia, The Secret Hisroty of Moscow

- Joseph Conrad, The Nigger of the Narcissus and Other Stories

- John Stape, The Several Lives of Joseph Conrad


Currently Reading:

- Jeff & Ann VanderMeer (ed), The New Weird


And thanks for putting my blog on you blogroll! As I told Horia just the other day, I´m also posting in English sometimes, so it´ll be good to have you dropping by whenever you feel like.

Robert said...

I'm late as usual, but here are five of my recent recommended reads:

1) "Happy Hour of the Damned" by Mark Henry
2) "Emissaries of the Dead" by Adam-Troy Castro
3) "Whitechapel Gods" by S.M. Peters
4) "Singularity's Ring" by Paul Melko
5) "The Monsters of Templeton" by Lauren Groff

I'm currently finishing up "Reaper's Gale", but since most people have probably heard of that one, the next book I'm reading is Misty Massey's debut "Mad Kestrel"...

Larry Nolen said...

Wow, these are some really intriguing/good books here. And while I've been busy, I'll be stopping by and visiting the blogs listed. Sorry for the general tone of this, but when there are over a dozen responses here and I'm pressed for time, not much to say of a specific tone, alas.

The Bioy Casares diary entries on Borges are really revealing in places, such as Borges mocking someone by making beastiality jokes, among other things.

marbelcal said...

Larry,
Have you read Bolano's 2666 in Spanish?

Larry Nolen said...

No I haven't, although I loved his Los detectives salvajes. Problem is that it's pretty much out of print and the asking rate is $70+ at most places I've seen. If I can find it at a cheaper rate, I'll buy it, in Spanish of course (since I know the English translation will be coming out in the next year or so).

Anonymous said...

'Dhalgren' Samuel Delany
'The Dispossessed' by Ursula Le Guin
'Lolita,' Vladimir Nabokov
'Jude the Obscure,' by Thomas Hardy
'Poems of Sir Walter Scott'

Book I'm Now Reading:
'Orsinian Tales' by Ursula Le Guin

Actually I'm reading several simultaneously, which always confuses things, but c'est la vie.

--Timblynod

Kristen said...

I also played the game at my blog today.

Five recent reads:

The Book of Joby by Mark Ferrari
Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Breath and Bone by Carol Berg
Primary Inversion by Catherine Asaro

One to read in the (relatively) near future:

Melusine by Sarah Monette

Regina Dinter said...

Five recent reads:
Czeslaw Milosz - The History of Polish Literature
Samuel Beckett - Waiting for Godot
James Swain - Loaded Dice
David Hewson - The Promised Land
Jeffrey Ford - The Portrait of Mrs Charbuque

Starting today:
Hermann Broch - Der Tod des Vergil (The Death of Virgil)

Alex said...

I've been reading a lot of non-fiction recently, but here goes.

Eric D. Weitz - A Century of Genocide
Evelin Lindner - Making Enemies
Gerard Prunier - The Rwanda Crisis
Joe Abercrombie - Before They are Hanged
Richard Morgan - Black Man

Will start later today:
Robert Charles Wilson - Spin

Greyweather said...

5 Recently Read Books:

Under My Roof by Nick Mamatas
Bad Monkeys by Matt Ruff
Ice by Vladimir Sorokin
Grey by Jon Armstrong
Thirteen by Richard Morgan

About to Start:

Territory by Emma Bull

Anonymous said...

In regards to Truancy by Isamu Fukui, the author has said to us on his forum that he has written a prequel to this novel and that it will be a trilogy. To discuss this novel, freedom in education and much more come on over to this forum. I'm intellectual ammo: http://www.thetruancy.com/forum/index.php

Larry Nolen said...

I'll try to visit later this week, time/energy permitting. Thanks for the link.

 
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