What are you currently reading? What inspired you to read it? Do you like it so far?

What's it about (without spoilers!) Do you think you'd recommend it to a friend?

I am reading The Hunger Games...I'm a bit behind. I'm getting a bit bored with it actually. Before that I finished Sergeant Rex which is the true story of Sgt. Rex, a military working dog who served in Iraq with his handler.

Journey to the West, an ancient Chinese novel from around the 1500s. It is based on Chinese mythology, Buddhism, and Taoism, and about a priest, a monkey, a pig, and an ogre (the latter three being very powerful) who go on a quest to fetch scriptures from Buddhist heaven in the west and return them back to the Tang Empire (where they started) in the east. Monkey (Sun Wukong) is insanely powerful, the first few hundred pages are about his birth, rise to power, and the chaos he wrought in heaven, before being captured by Buddha and forced to submit and help the Tang Priest on his quest.

It is an extremely long story of about 2200 pages. The version I'm reading is split into four books or volumes, and I'm on Volume III at about page 1650. Very wacky, interesting, fun story to read.

I was inspired to read it because I kept hearing about it and its cultural impact and its impact on so many other stories. One good example being the anime/manga Dragonball. The character Goku drew heavily from Monkey with his flying cloud, tail, and extending staff weapon.

I'd recommend it to someone with the patience for a crazy, classic story.

Siren- I read only the first book and I really enjoyed it. It even caused some unexpected bawling.

I'm reading

Blue Highways by William Least-Heat Moon.

It's the story of a man's journey across the back roads of the U.S. Well, it's more about the people he comes across along the way.

It's not my typical book but I saw it in the break room and something just told me to give it a try.

A Game of Thrones. Almost finished with it actually, I have about 20 more pages left and then I'm moving onto A Clash of Kings. Really great book, and I'm sure the rest of the series will be just as good. I originally watched the TV series and while I'm waiting for Season 3 I bought the box set of A Song of Ice and Fire.

I'm sure most of you know what it is, and have probably read it, but it's quickly becoming one of my favorite fictional stories. George R.R. Martin is a great fantasy writer.

@Kev - I plan to read that soon actually, for the same reasons as you. So many stories have drawn from it in some form or another. Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is one of my favorite underrated games, I loved the story to it, and I know it borrowed heavily from Journey.

A story of myths, latent abilities and a mysterious comet.

It's been a good read. Really enjoying it.

Elite- I read the first Game of Thrones. It was good but I had to take a break between that or I'd go slay George R.R Martin

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - Jonathan Safran Foer

and

Kitchen Confidential - Anthony Bourdain

Kind of in the beginning of both so not much to say yet.

I loved The Hunger Games books. I also cried like a baby at some points through the three of them. I'M SO ******** EMOTIONAL.

The last book I finished was Shadows in Flight by Orson Scott Card. It's a sci-fi novel and the 4th installment of a parallel series to the Ender's Game novels, following the character Bean and his children in a relativistic flight. They encounter a ship and need to work together to come to a decision about how to proceed. They need to work quick as Bean ison the verge of death, but from what? If you plan on reading this, start with the book Ender's Shadow and follow from there. You won't be disappointed.

It's Right now I'm just a few pages into The House of Leaves. I'm ******. So tough to read.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. My best friend read it and never stopped talking about and still doesn't, so she wanted me to read it. I find it boring so far, but she says it gets better on chapter 10. I'm on chapter 8.

Before that I was reading 50 Shades of Grey. Christ man, that book sucks so bad. I didn't finish it.

I'm in the process of a few books at the moment. The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand, who is one of my favorite authors. I'm also reading Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. Finally, I'm in the process of rereading all of Cormac McCarthy's books. I'm currently on my favorite, The Road.

I've wanted to read the girl with the dragon tattoo, but haven't yet.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Steig Larsson. My best friend read it and never stopped talking about and still doesn't, so she wanted me to read it. I find it boring so far, but she says it gets better on chapter 10. I'm on chapter 8.

Love that series. Trust me when I say if you even remotely like the first, pick up The Girl Who Played with Fire, it's a ton better than the first, and the third is pretty great as well.

Reading A Song of Ice and Fire series at the moment. I think I'm on book four or five, but I'm not sure. I needed to take a break because they were starting to feel a bit drug out. Overall good, but just getting to be a bit much.

I've been reading Quarantine, by Greg Egan. AFAIK it's out of print so I ordered it a while back on Amazon. It's a sci-fi novel, basically kind of a weird take on quantum theory stuff. A little heavy and slow to get started, but I love the premise that humans unfortunately directly effect things just by simply observing them (and observe is a broad term) and are responsible for limiting the dimensional possibilities of the universe so these aliens put this quantum bubble around the earth (darkening the sky/stars/etc) and this detective who is working on a case eventually gets drawn into it all (don't they always?).

Pretty awesome. I've had an interest in quantum physics and it's weirdness lately. Was laughing with my father at the golf course and telling him that according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, if neither of us look at the golf ball when he hits it then he'll always get a hole in one becase the ball is everywhere and nowhere until it is observed. lol

I'm behind. I just started this last night, hopefully it isn't as dull as the first one started.

Good luck. They can be dull, but the story is interesting. Until you get to the parts that make you wonder why you needed to read the last 3 books.

Towards the end of the first one I started seeing a pattern and predictable situations

There was one point that I thought for sure something was going to happen for real. Then bam, more of what feels like filler. I can't even begin to imagine most of what I've read so far will pertain to the end. Though there are a select few characters that are being built out of it.

If anyone has a Kindle, I highly suggest grabbing some of the free ebooks they have on offer. Some are always free (older stuff, mostly history), but some are free for a limited time and many of these I've really enjoyed. Liked so much, that I'll check out other books by the same author.

Also, if you have Amazon Prime, you'll have a larger selection of free ebooks. Definitely worth it for me.

I'm on my 8th read of A Song Of Ice And Fire. I love the series a lot, obviously. I'm also re-reading The First Law Trilogy (The Blade Itself, Before They Hanged, and Last Argument Of Kings) by Joe Abercrombie. Great stuff.

Oh and I've been reading The Returners by Mikey Neumann. A few of you know who Mikey is. If not, FOR SHAME!!!

8th reread? Are you insane? The guy is a good author but damn

I just finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower. I absolutely loved it. It's definitely up there with my favorite books of all time.

At PK mentioning Kindles, I got a Kindle Touch last Christmas but still haven't been able to use the damn thing. I had already gotten a 2200+ page physical book (Journey to the West in four volumes), and someone had to go ahead and give me two more physical books for my birthday lol (The Metamorphosis and Other Stories by Franz Kafka, and White Noise by Don Delillo, never heard of either but they look decent.) When I finally get a chance to use it, I want to start reading the Lovecraft collection I got. There are a few classics I'd like to catch up on. Reading some of Phillip K. Di ck's stuff would be cool too.

EDIT: There's still a di ck filter?

lol. Just for you.