What is everyone reading at the moment?

I finished the manga Gunslinger Girl last night, after a suggestion on the /r/wet_shavers IRC chat. I had avoided it for a long time due to the premise, but it was a much more sophisticated and dramatic approach to a common set of tropes than I expected. Sort of the Madoka Magica of kid-secret-agent manga.

Finally finished The Martian. Great book.

Going to start Ready Player One now.

I started California Bones by Greg van Ekehout on audiobook. So far it's very interesting.

The audiobook before was a random historical romance/horror called Inamorata, which was also quite intriguing.

So on commutes I am working through the Walking Dead audiobooks focused on the Governor written by Robert Kirkman and Jay Bonansinga. In the evening working through Jim Butcher's Dresden Files: Skin Game.

I pulled out my 1951 Doubleday edition of Foundation and Empire, thanks, Mom. I grew up reading Asimov, Heinlein, Kuttner, Lovecraft, A.E. Van Vogt. Simak and on and on….

I pulled out my 1951 Doubleday edition of Foundation and Empire, thanks, Mom. I grew up reading Asimov, Heinlein, Kuttner, Lovecraft, A.E. Van Vogt. Simak and on and on….

That's a great SciFi series! I grew up reading them, and liked most of the Foundation series (though Asimov did milk the franchise a bit).

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I'm reading Thoreau's 'Walden' now. It's been a while since I read it, and it's thought-provoking.

I'm interspersing it with readings from the Fagles translation of 'The Odyssey'.

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Waking Dead comic book series, such different story lines compared to the tv show

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I am enjoying this second book in the Lewis trilogy as much as I did the first, The Black House.

I finished California Bones, despite the narrator being horrible. I liked it a lot. Very unique magic.

I think I may have previously mentioned this book but after reading through the thread about why men should get into traditional wet shaving I thought of it again in the context of men returning to the pursuit of manly things.  Anyway the book is Thirteen by Richard Morgan (in Canada its published under the title Black Man).  I also highly recommend the Takeshi Kovacs trilogy.  I think Morgan's books fall under the category of Cyber-punk scifi.

http://www.amazon.com/Thirteen-Richard-K...ard+morgan

Here is the description on amazon

The future isn’t what it used to be since Richard K. Morgan arrived on the scene. He unleashed Takeshi Kovacs–private eye, soldier of fortune, and all-purpose antihero–into the body-swapping, hard-boiled, urban jungle of tomorrow in Altered Carbon, Broken Angels, and Woken Furies, winning the Philip K. Dick Award in the process. In Market Forces, he launched corporate gladiator Chris Faulkner into the brave new business of war-for-profit. Now, in Thirteen, Morgan radically reshapes and recharges science fiction yet again, with a new and unforgettable hero in Carl Marsalis: hybrid, hired gun, and a man without a country . . . or a planet.

Marsalis is one of a new breed. Literally. Genetically engineered by the U.S. government to embody the naked aggression and primal survival skills that centuries of civilization have erased from humankind, Thirteens were intended to be the ultimate military fighting force. The project was scuttled, however, when a fearful public branded the supersoldiers dangerous mutants, dooming the Thirteens to forced exile on Earth’s distant, desolate Mars colony. But Marsalis found a way to slip back–and into a lucrative living as a bounty hunter and hit man before a police sting landed him in prison–a fate worse than Mars, and much more dangerous.

Luckily, his “enhanced” life also seems to be a charmed one. A new chance at freedom beckons, courtesy of the government. All Marsalis has to do is use his superior skills to bring in another fugitive. But this one is no common criminal. He’s another Thirteen–one who’s already shanghaied a space shuttle, butchered its crew, and left a trail of bodies in his wake on a bloody cross-country spree. And like his pursuer, he was bred to fight to the death. Still, there’s no question Marsalis will take the job. Though it will draw him deep into violence, treachery, corruption, and painful confrontation with himself, anything is better than remaining a prisoner. The real question is: can he remain sane–and alive–long enough to succeed?