What is SWURP reading right now?

[Mara]

Written in my Own Heart's Blood, Diana Gabaldon
Newest book in the Outlander series.
All 800+ pages of it, lol.

[Mara]

Spider Bones by Kathy Reichs
[#13 in the Temperance Brennan series (what inspired the Bones TV series)]

[Mal]

Eyes of Prey by John Sanford.

[Mara]

The Merchant Emperor by Elizabeth Haydon.

Finally, the long-awaited seventh book in the Symphony of the Ages series.

[Mara]

Tripwire by Lee Child
(Jack Reacher series, #3)

[Mal]

Silent Prey by John Sandford.

[Moonfire]

Just finished Outlander by Diana Galdon, the first of that Outlander series.

This month I've also read Mr. Mercedes by Stephen King and The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

Mr. Mercedes was King's first Hard-boiled detective novel and was a treat. Fantastic. The Fault in Our Stars was sad but rather overrated. Entertaining though for a quick read.

[Dire Wolf]

Wild Cards - Edited by G.R.R.M

It's basically a bunch of short stories centered around the 'victims' of the wild card virus. Nine in ten affected die a horrible death. Out of those survivors, Nine out of Ten turn into grotesque monsters, anthropomorphized animals, and stuff like that. That lucky one in twenty turn into badass superheros.

Basically, it's an alternate history. Definitely worth the read if you see it at a B/N or on your reading device.

[Thaddeus]

L'Immoraliste (The Immoralist) - Andre Gide

Awesome book, follows a Parisian scholar who while on honeymoon in Tunis begins to peel away all the acquired erudition and culture that covers him, leaving only the naked and authentic self. Gide's prose is so awesome. Hit up, though be aware it does deal with some themes that may be uncomfortable to some. (But suck it up I say and read this awesome book ).

[Mal]

Winter Prey by John Sandford

[Mara]

Well, after I speed-read through William Shakespeare's The Jedi Doth Return by Ian Doescher, I read Prey by Michael Crichton.

And now I'm on Timeline by Michael Crichton, my favoritist Crichton novel.

[Thaddeus]

Just finished again The Proud Tower, & The Guns of August by Barbara Tuchman. Historical studies that are just some of the most sublimely written works in the English language. I am going to throw up a quote from each.

"So gorgeous was the spectacle on the May morning of 1910 when nine kings rode in the funeral of Edward VII of England that the crowd, waiting in hushed and black-clad awe, could not keep back gasps of admiration. In scarlet and blue and green and purple, three by three the sovereigns rode through the palace gates, with plumed helmets, gold braid, crimson sashes, and jeweled orders flashing in the sun. After them came five heirs apparent, forty more imperial or royal highnesses, seven queens - four dowager and three regnant - and a scattering of special ambassadors from uncrowned countries. Together they represented seventy nations in the greatest assemblage of royalty and rank ever gathered in one place and, of its kind, the last. The muffled tongue of Big Ben tolled nine by the clock as the cortege left the palace, but on history's clock it was sunset, and the sun of the old world was setting in a dying blaze of splendor never to be seen again." - The Guns of August

"The proud tower built up through the great age of European civilization was an edifice of grandeur and passion, of riches and beauty and dark cellars. Its inhabitants lived, as compared to a later time, with more self-reliance, more confidence, more hope; greater magnificence, extravagance and elegance; more careless ease, more gaiety, more pleasure in each other's company and conversation, more injustice and hypocrisy, more misery and want, more sentiment including false sentiment, less sufferance of mediocrity, more dignity in work, more delight in nature, more zest. The Old World had much that has since been lost, whatever may have been gained. Looking back on it from 1915, Emile Verhaeren, the Belgian Socialist poet, dedicated his pages, "With emotion, to the man I used to be."" - The Proud Tower

Seriously don't you want to just steal her style? Gah! So jealous.

So yeah hit these up

[Mara]

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

Rereading again so that I can read the next two that I got for Christmas and haven't yet gotten to.

[Thaddeus]

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner, now I am not normally a fan of modern literature (especially ones written in a stream of consciousness, frankly mentioning it gives me 'Nam flashbacks to reading to Joyce's Ulysses) but for Faulkner I made an exception. Glad I did to, the novel explores themes of existence and being, and it is just triumph of the Southern Renaissance (up there with Cat on a Hot Tin Roof); and Faulkner is just wonderful. If you have never read him give him a go, and start with this book I say - it is a short one

[Mara]

Oh, Faulkner is an unusual one... I've read The Sound and the Fury.

[Thaddeus]

Yeah he is an interesting sort, I picked him up after reading his Noble Prize speech though I vaguely remember trying him much earlier - and writing him off as modernist drivel. An unfair assessment brought on by having slogged through Joyce's, Kerouac's, and Burroughs' oeuvres back to back (not something I recommend doing, though in truth I would say never read any of the Beat generation authors but then I am an irrepressible snob).

[Mal]

Just finished reading the Paradise Prophecy by Robert Browne, and started reading Night Prey by John Sandford

[Mara]

The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum.

[Dire Wolf]

Fires of Heaven - Robert Jordan

The fifth book in the Wheel of Time series out of eleven. Pretty good so far. It's kind of the cliche high fantasy but he adds enough twists to the cliche to make it interesting.

[Thaddeus]

Technically not reading, but it was originally a book and I really want to recommend this one to the peeps.

It is the BBC radio play for Isaac Asimov's Foundation trilogy which you can pick up for free (and legally) here: archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy

If you enjoyed the books, or have never read the books, or like me just enjoy radio plays this is really a must.



Thadd