The "What'cha reading?" thread!

[Ash]

Had neglected it for some time, but now I am halfway through reading Higashino Keigo's Tantei Galileo (Detective Galileo), a mystery novel which was made into a quite succesful TV drama series and a movie later this season.

[cmoon]

Started rereading Lovecraft's At the mountains of madness. Wanted a break from Moby Dick, and 'mountains' reads fast, and it is my favorite story by Lovecraft.

[Princess Sapphire]

Getting back to Narnia, all Mum and I have to read now is the very final chapter of the whole collection. We'll be fully done through reading the last of three special hardback omnibus editions. This one contains the sixth and seventh Narnia books in faithful chronological order.

6. The Silver Chair
7. The Last Battle

[Ash]

Finished Tantei Galileo, my very first novel read in Japanese. Pretty interesting mystery novel, where professor Yugawa uses science to explain seemingly impossible occurences, all connected to crime. For example, in the last chapter a suspect has no alibi, but a boy claimed he had seen the suspect in his car at the time of the crime. However, the boy said he had fever at that time and that it was through a out-of-body experience that he witnessed it.

Now reading Donto koi! Choujougenshou! (C'mon! Strange Powers!), a spin-off book of the TV-drama "Trick". Halfway now. It retells the adventures of Trick 1 & Trick 2, but from the (egoistic) viewpoint of one of the protagonist, Ueda Jirou. It's a hilarious book, but you'll only get it if you've seen the drama.

[Ash]

Finished Donto Koi, Choujougenshou earlier this week. Ordered the sequel, Naze Best wo Tsukusanai no ka (Why don't you do your best?), which should tell the stories of Trick 3.

Read Nishimura Kyotaro's The Mystery Train Disappears yesterday, a somewhat disappointing police procedural. Not a big fan of the police procedural (golden age detective FTW!) and in the very, very specific type of "Japanese police procedurals concerning public transport translated to English", Matsumoto Seicho's Points and Lines was better.

And this morning I decided to translate Dazai Osamu's Hashire, Melos (Run, Melos!), a classic Japanese short story. Saw a drama yesterday that referenced it and as the story isn't that long, decided to translate it. It's about Melos, who tries to kill the evil tyrant king, fails and is sentenced to death. He wants to see his sister marry though and in exchange of leaving his best friend behind at the palace as a hostage, he gets 3 days of freedom. If he's not back in 3 days, his friend will be executed in his place. At the point where I am, it's the last day and Melos is running back to the palace, desperate to save his friend.

[Princess Sapphire]

[Ash]

Finished Hashire, Melos!. Great story, run Melos, run for friendship!

Now awaiting several Japanese detectives to arrive :3

[Rock's Sunglasses]

I started Carl Sagan's Cosmos a few days ago, and it's going faster than any non-manga book I've read in a while. All the great things I heard about it seem to be right so far.

[cmoon]

Something with this move. I've stopped playing video games and now I am mostly just reading.

After a leisurely reading of Lovecraft's Mountains of Madness (Lovecraft is meant to be savored anyway, and his writing is purposely twisted I think to ensure that you linger over every thought), I started reading B. Traven's The Bridge in the Jungle which is precisely the opposite. I've probably only dumped a couple hours into the book and find myself a third of the way through already which is good. I always have lots of books to read (both fiction and non-fiction.)

Anyway, this book seems very refreshing in its plainness. Basically it is about a small community of poor Indians in Mexico (so poor is their community it doesn't even have a name) and during a social gathering of the whole community (and neighboring ones) a boy disappears, and the story seems to be about all the people coming together to find the boy (who is probably dead.) It isn't the sort of thing that sounds like much of a plot, but that's just what makes it very refreshing since it is very plain and honest and just about a few days in a town and the way that people are. Unlike other things I read like this in college which possessed an agenda or some disguised layer of sarcasm, this is a nice little piece of fiction that neither overly romanticizes or intellectualizes its subject matter.

I'm anxious to read more by B. Traven (his book 'The Death Ship' is among one of my favorites, and he's well known for penning 'Treasure of the Sierra Madre') but will probably move back to my comfy world of non-fiction after completing this book, as I've been meaning to read Jared Diamond's 'Guns, germs and steel' at some point.

[Ash]

Reading Sayers' Murder Must Advertise, one of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective series.

I actually hate Peter Wimsey as a character. But I was able to snatch up some novels for next to nothing, so I thought I should give him another try. Getting regrets though. It's fun that Lord Peter actually has to work now (undercover at an advertisement agency), but he's still as snobbish as ever.

Having to choose who is more obnoxious, Lord Peter or Philo Vance, that would be a very, very difficult question

[cmoon]

Started reading Guns, Germs and Steel. I recognize that this has, in the last few years become a nearly orthodox model for world history and the inequality of wealth/technology possessed by different people, but the national geographic special on it turned me off as it seemed too simplistic. Having read through just the first chapter though, I think Jared Diamond is really on to something and it seems to be one of those science books that reads very well.

[Rock's Sunglasses]

Maybe I should read the book--I've only seen the special, and I had several complaints about oversimplifying. It was a while back; I forgot what they were (:oops:), but remember being a bit ticked off.

[cmoon]

I seem to remember some of the arguments not entirely working--for instance, at the end of the film I was left asking why Africans had not developed 'guns, germs and steel' and gone about conquering the rest of the world. I'm sure this was a misconception on my part, but the film did little to clarify issues like that. The book appears to be not only considerably better, but considerably more. A real attempt to address human history scientifically with infinitely more detail than the documentary allowed, and that IS something I'm looking forward to.

Plus, as I said, Diamond seems to be a good writer. Another perk!

[8)]

Started reading Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami...

One of my favourite books. I've already read it twice (or more) in french, I "love" this book... [don't know if I can say this like that in english... I could in french 8)]
I've read 150 pages, and the english translation seems to be better than the french...

One day I'll read it in Japanese 8)

[Rock's Sunglasses]