What Are You Currently Reading? Showing 751-800 of 5,689

[Jason]

Are you allowed to use artificial sweeteners, Mike? I started using them to help cut down on sugar, and after a while, I got so used to the taste that I prefer it now.

[Jason]

MrsJoseph wrote: "I also get really PO'd about spine cracking, dog ears, etc."

I hate spine cracking! I have friends, most of them really, who bend books nearly backwards just so that they'll stay open when placed on the table. That really makes me freak out! They're breaking the friggin spine! The book's bloody pages will now fall out...

[Aloha]

Mike, I have a friend who was overweight and had a stroke in his 40s. He was a talented artist. He was paralyzed on one side of his body. He sent me a painting he made that was of only a couple of brush strokes. It was devastating. It's better to do what you can to be healthy. You wouldn't want to live with only parts of your brain functioning. Boy, I'm no better than your doctor.

[Aloha]

I will be precious with a hard back or collector's. Not so much with paperbacks.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Jason...lets be clear. According to my doctor, no. But I will still at least lightly sweeten my tea and such. Mostly I'm going on the NEW medicine he wants me on (a statin) and I'm cutting out starches, as in bread and deserts (though I may have cake on my birthday...let's not get crazy). Assuming I don't keel over I'll give it a couple of months and see how my weight goes and then adjust again if I need to.

I lost a lot of weight a few years ago on the Atkin's diet. When I went off work and then when my wife got very ill, my actual physical activity dropped precipitously... I'm hoping I can reverse that to some extent.

[Christine]

I just finished Food Rules: An Eater's Manual and its not a diet, its just a sensible way to look at food and what to eat. Its a small book and can be read in an afternoon. The author wants all of us to eat from the outside of the grocery store, only the fresh and unprocessed and he believes that treats should remain treats, eaten once in a while. Nothing hard about it.

Mike, I'm glad you are exercising! You are already on your way to a healthier you! I'm pre-diabetic so I understand!

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Hi Aloha. That's how my wife died. She had a series of strokes and was bed fast the last 2 years. I'm borderline and my doctor has been phobic about blood pressure for a while (I always told him i could come in with a sucking chest wound and he'd still check my blood pressure first). As I said, I've already begun exercise hoping to get more use back into my joints (tendon damage) and lose some weight...

I plan to give it a few weeks and then adjust. God willing I won't have an episode before. I haven't put on any weight (and we just went through Christmas) and had lost 5 pounds before that so, hopefully it's not "too" late. :)

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Not ignoring you Christine, you posted as I was posting and hadn't seen your....uhh, post, till after I had already..well, posted. (over use of word there I'm afraid) :)

[Christine]

No worries.....You have spoken of your wife's illness many times and I can tell that it took its toll on you. You spent a lot of time taking care of her. Now your doc wants you to take care of yourself. I'm sure there are plenty of people who want to have you around for a while and that includes your friends here at GR.

[Aloha]

Mike, you're being very conscientious about it. You're on your way to a healthier you. Gawd, now I sound like a health commercial. Can I ever get it right?

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Thanks all.

And Aloha, I know, you're just hoping I'll make a better grade ground meat for your chili. That and if I have to cut back I won't be making any Aloha burgers.

I felt it was time to move away from serious topics...

[Aloha]

Mistreatment of books is a very sad and serious topic. We need stop talking about that. It's making me depressed.

[Jason]

I hope you get better and back into tip top shape soon, Mike!

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Thanks.

Back in the dark ages (when I was in high school) I almost alienated my girl friend because she dogeared a book. I think it set the tone for my life.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

@Mike - LOL!!! That's too funny! When I was in college I refused to date guys who didn't read. :-)

[Aloha]

I still won't date guys who aren't well-read, but I will make allowances for dyslexia. I recently discovered that there is a dyslexia where you can read but you have difficulty writing.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

There was a young man in our church who had dyslexia (not sure what type). I tried to introduce him to audio books. I don't know how well it took.

[Aloha]

The man that I know who has this form of dyslexia loves to read non-fiction. He proudly displays hardback non-fiction books stacked beautifully against one side of the wall, a wall full of stack. He's a valuable source of knowledge, mainly of history and politics. That's why I'm sympathetic when people write into Goodreads who can't seem to spell. I understand that it's not necessarily that they're uneducated or dumb, but that they may have a form of writing dyslexia.

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

My husband is dyslexic. They discovered it when he was much older. He struggled so much reading before he received help that he never developed a love or joy in reading. He trends towards periodicals and financial magazines.

Because he loves me, he's started reading regular books every now and again. :-) It feels strange to him sometimes, but I really love the fact that he has learned to enjoy reading a little more. He'll never be the bibliophile that I am but he understands my love of books a lot more.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

MrsJoseph, (I mentioned this before) has he tried audio books? It might depend on if he has a period of time when they'd work well (a long commute, or a job that keeps him on the road, etc.) My wife became unable to read without great difficulty (mostly diabetes). I found audio books at our library for her and after that she had one going almost all the time.

[Sonja]

I just picked up, and breezed through, Frank Miller's The Hard Goodbye which is the first graphic-novel of the Sin City collection. It was pretty decent, interesting artwork, and I'll probably pick up the rest at some point...

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

Mike (the Paladin) wrote: "MrsJoseph, (I mentioned this before) has he tried audio books? It might depend on if he has a period of time when they'd work well (a long commute, or a job that keeps him on the road, etc.) My wif..."

He has, Mike. He's only read a few via audio but he likes that much more than fighting with words on paper. He recently read The Lion via audio book - bad book, good experience. :-)

Maybe I should get him a subscription to Audible.com?

[Aloha]

I've been with Audible.com since it first started. That's one store that I intend to stay a member of for life. They still have not increased my membership cost, probably some technicality they forgot to put into my membership contract.

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Don't complain, :0. I got the one credit a month plan and have 3 banked because I read other books and get audios from elsewhere (library etc.)

MrsJoseph, find a type book you think he'd like and then find a good reader. If you can suggest a type book there are probably people here who can suggest books with good readers.

[Aloha]

I make my own recording using my Mac's Alex voice. He's grown on me. I now prefer him over some of the narrators. It's a way to be able to keep on reading when I don't have time to sit still and read.

[Aloha]

Definitely not complaining, Mike. I'm happy that my membership cost has not increased. $16 for 2 audio books every month is a great deal!

[Mike (the Paladin)]

Ya, I pay $13 for one.

[Kevin]

Reading Rhapsody, I did not care even if this won or not in the poll, had this book sitting on the shelf, bord pick it up, it is pretty good to began with.

[Jason]

I love Audible. I've been a member for close to a year now. I pay something like $16 a month for one credit. I'm a little behind on my listening, though, so I'll probably be banking my credits soon. I think I'll get A Storm of Swords, seeing as I have the first two in the series.

[Katie]

I've never been able to get into audio books. I think it has something to do with the fact that I am a *very* visual learner. I need to see things before me in order to understand them. I tried audio books and I would find myself zoning out on my car ride and missing whole chapters lol. I guess they're just not for everyone.

I just started reading The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox for my book club. I'm really enjoying it so far.

[Sonja]

I like audiobooks when I'm doing something else, like crocheting or cooking, that doesn't involve words. I think I've got a pretty good deal on emusic.com, I get 1 credit - good for most audiobooks on the site - for $10 a month.

I went to the library this morning... and came back with 14 books. I just couldn't help myself. :)

[Aloha]

I'm like that when I go to the library, too. In fact, I bring several bags with me. They're usually of audios.

[Christine]

I loved the The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox.

Its a great book for book group discussion,

[Aloha]

What genre would that book be under?

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

I browsed around fictonwise today. I could hardly find anything worth buying. I wonder why their catalog is so poor.

[Kevin]

Speaking of Audible, I love how Brandon Sanderson's podcast, Writing Excuses he alsays gives out on book on audio always from Audible, giving a plug for the site on the same time.

[[deleted user]]

I've been just ridiculously sick and the only upside was I got to do some hardcore reading. I reread The Eye of the World and The Great Hunt. Finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War which I thought far superior to The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection From the Living Dead. Also finished The Legend of Deathwalker (Drenai Tales, #7), Winter Warriors (Drenai Tales, #8), and Side Jobs: Stories From the Dresden Files.

Sonya I've never read any of Miller's Sin City stuff but I was a big fan when he took over the Batman franchise for a time. I may look up the Sin City graphic novels before long ;)

[mark]

grant, i think you should write a review of World War Z. i just finished it recently so it is still in my mind and i've been enjoying going through all the GR reviews.

[[deleted user]]

I'll give it a shot Mark. Lol...I've written a whopping one review but I really enjoyed the process. Might as well take another leap and get to work on a second one ;)

[mark]

do it, it is addictive!

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

Wow Grant! It's like you uploaded matrix style.

[[deleted user]]

Lol...all I did was lay in bed and cough all day for a week solid. Watching tv hurt my eyes as I was sensitive to light half the time, so I just stuck to reading good ole fashioned dead tree novels. Like I said, the only upside to being sick ;)

[Katie]

Christine - I'm really enjoying it so far. My book club is interesting bc every month a different person picks a book, so we never have to come to a consensus (which I think is a good thing). The format lends itself to a lot of variety and interesting discussions. For February we had a non-fiction book that was very good. I'm looking forward to talking about this book in March. I'm about halfway through.

Aloha - I'm not sure how to classify it. It would probably fit into historical fiction bc a lot of the novel is flashbacks to India and Scotland in the early 20th century. It's a family drama with a little bit of a mystery novel thrown in. I like taking breaks from all the fantasy that I read and I've found that my book club is an excellent way to do that. There have been some real duds that people have picked but for the most part I usually enjoy the books every month.

[Aloha]

Thanks, Katie. My mind stubbornly would not stick to a genre. It drifts off on a book that was somewhat of a repetition of the last one. I find that in order for me to keep on reading, I have to mix genres from book to book. I'm a person with too many interests, so it is easy for me to distract myself with something. If I don't make reading interesting for me, I would be focusing on how to make fabric flowers for a while. Maybe that's a type of ADD, LOL. You know how some people are risk takers because of a chemical imbalance?

[Amanda]

I've been caught up in editing and so haven't gotten to read too much. Now that I've got a bit of a gap I've actually gotten to make more of a dent in Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. It's a pretty interesting blend of action and science horror :). Once I get done with it I'm not sure what I'll be reading. I plan to dig something off the at home tbr stack though seeing as I have tons to work on! Also feeling the urge to get to work writing the other half of my apocalypse novel though so we'll see what happens.

[mark]

i'm looking forward to reading what you think about The Passage. i loved that one.

[TinaNoir]

Nicki wrote: "In the last few days I've finished Servant of the Empire and Mistress of the Empire. They were both superb reads -- Servant a 5-star, and Mistress only narrowly missing a ..."

Ahh. The Empire series totally rocks! I would also recommend Jennifer Fallon's Wolfblade series. Lots of similarities between Mara of the Acoma and Marla in Fallon's series.

[Sonja]

Grant, I look forward to your commentary on the Sin City books. I'm sorry you were so horribly sick and glad you're feeling better. As for reading... earlier this month I spent my week o' illness (I had the shingles and was contagious, aka quarantined) reading Middlemarch. It was probably the only way I was going to get through 800 pages without long pauses. Yay for power reading!

[MrsJoseph *grouchy*, *good karma*]

I'm working on LoLL, Geist, and Sabazel.

Geist is really good so far! I'm reading slowly but each section gets better and better. This is turning out to be a very original book and I'm loving it! The magic is very different and the characters are engaging so far. I can’t think of any book to compare it to right now. The only thing that the author has done so far to annoy me is to be a little heavy handed with the foreshadowing.

Sabazel is…different, too. Sabazel started off pretty slow and it has gotten more interesting as time has gone past…but… I guess that the problem is that it is very religious based. Not Earth based religions, it is certainly an alternative land, but religious none the less. The majority of the conflict is based upon religious differences – between a male “father” god and a female “mother” god – who don’t seem to be at odds with themselves, strangely enough. It also has the feeling of the ancient Mediterranean. The male protagonist could be Alexander the Great or any of those famed conquerors and the female is certainly the Queen of the Amazons.

The only other book I’m reading is actually about my new puppy, Barron’s Dog Bible: Shih Tzus. It’s a pretty good book that goes into great detail the things you need to know about particular breeds. Barron’s creates a different book for each pure breed dog – I think I would recommend this to anyone.

[Christine]

Katie wrote: "Christine - I'm really enjoying it so far. My book club is interesting bc every month a different person picks a book, so we never have to come to a consensus (which I think is a good thing). The..."

The beauty of being in a book club is that you read books you normally would not read. I am in 3 book clubs so I have a lot of variety in what I read. I just wish I could get one of my bcs would read fantasy or science fiction.