What are You Reading Right now?

Unpublished work called "into the abyss" written by a friend when he was 17. A friend i met on sw forums. Good work.

 

I read it when I was a teenager, which was a long time ago ('98 or '99 maybe) and really enjoyed it. But I never read any of the other books. Although I'm a child of the 80's I've never seen the movie all the way through, just bits and pieces over the years but I did watch that Sci-Fi Channel mini-series. I can't remember if it was any good though.

As for me, even though I hated the ending of The Dark Tower, I was still in a Stephen King mood somehow after reading all those books and related works. I read 1/22/63 (which was fantastic) and The Long Walk. Which was less fantastic, in fact it's easily my least favorite King book.

Edit: And on the morning of July 4th I read King's hilarious short story "Drunken Fireworks". If you like to laugh and enjoyed the film Close Encounters Of The Third Kind you have to read it. I laughed so hard I actually had tears streaming from my eyes, which hasn't happened to me in so long that I'd started to think it was just as a figure of speech used by writers. And it's the only time I recall it happening to me sober.

 

Just finished Dune. What a fantastic novel! I have zero idea how are they going to adapt it into a film, but I definitely wish Denis Villeneuve and Eric Roth good luck, because it deserves a film that can at match Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings.

 

how is everyone getting this already?
did i miss the release date?
why haven't i finished Battlefront?
do i need to?

i am totally failing at Star Wars right now. : o (

 

thanks! clearly i need to hit the bookstore on the way home ~ hahahaha

 

Re-reading my all-time favorite novel

 

I started reading Star Wars: A New Dawn again. Very mediocre. And I'm reading the illustrated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to my daughter. Although she's only seven months old so she slaps at the pages a lot and gets easily distracted by everything else.

 

I've actually never read a Harry Potter book or even seen one of the movies. I have been somewhat tempted because Stephen King makes a lot of references to them but it doesn't really seem like my type of thing. It doesn't have any Death Stars, Predators or Red Octobers in it. It does have Hans Gruber but he's not Hans Grubering.

 

Frankenstein is one of my favorite books of all times. But I never read Dracula. I have a copy but the book is in english. My reading just flows well in portuguese or spanish. I need to buy another copy.

 

I'm rereading Star Wars Crosscurrent.

 

I've been putting it off because it's been 22 years since I read "The Shining" and I didn't feel like re-reading it. It's not that I don't enjoy it, but I've already read it once and I've seen the movie and mini-series countless times and didn't really feel like reading a novel whose story I pretty much know by heart. But I was told (and they were right) that it wasn't enough to just know the story, you need to have the actual novel pretty fresh in your mind to get everything that's being dished out. Anyway, I read The Shining again (which I enjoyed a lot even though I knew what would happen at every turn) and I'm about 150 pages into Doctor Sleep and so far it's really good. It's pretty weird reading about a grown-up Danny (though he goes by Dan now) and seeing how he turned out. Turns out he partied harder than Jack Torrance, he partied more like Jack Nicholson.

Edit: Not sure what to make of that book. At times it was cool but I have no clue why King wrote this "sequel" which feels like it came from an entirely different franchise/genre than its predecessor. It doesn't really add anything to the original story, I kept having to remind myself that it WAS a sequel (even though King tried reminding me constantly with forced references), and the story just wasn't that great. Instead of having the Shine it's more like the characters have the Force, only not as interesting as the Shine is now basically just Magic the characters over-use and basically does whatever the plot requires. I had other problems with it that I can't really get into without spoilers. I'm glad I read it and the book had its moments but it would have been a LOT better (but still not great) if he hadn't tried tying this story into The Shining and just made a stand-alone novel.

 

Halfway through the Chronicles of Dune. So far, so great. Can't wait to read the last three books (the non-Frank Herbert books don't count.)

 

Just started reading "Leia Princess of Alderaan" by Claudia Gray.

 

Nothing offensive or a basic soap opera, but a great literature.

 

Found an old copy of Peter Benchley's "Jaws" in a used bookstore today, I've been meaning to read it for probably 20 years but never got around to it. Guess I'll start it tomorrow but I have a feeling I'm going to prefer the movie. Everything I've heard about the books, such as Hooper having an affair with Brody's wife and a subplot about the mayor and the mafia, doesn't sound all that great.

Edit: Wasn't that great of a book. Opening scene was good, like in the movie. And the fishing trip with Quint/Brody/Hooper was cool, but everything in between was horrible. There's about a 50 page stretch (a pretty big chunk in a book that's only about 300 pages) that might be the 50 worst pages of written word that I have ever read. I thought Spielberg was joking around or just being overly critical when he said that the characters in the novel were so unlikable that he was rooting for the shark. They really are that horrible, I almost cheered when Hooper died.

 

Finally just started the Aftermath trilogy. Audiobook style.