What book are you reading?

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I've been reading it for a while because I've been too lazy to get into it properly. It lies untouched on the coffee table for weeks at a time.

Not that I don't freaking love the book (Steinbeck owns my heart), it's just.. well, Mario Kart.

I'm also still technically reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but I've sort of put my reading of it on an indefinite hiatus because I'm too freaking busy. Love it so far, though (About halfway through).

I just started re-reading the American classic the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I'm so glad I forgot half the story, cause it has a freshness to it like I just started it for the first time (I've read it twice before, last time was about 3 years ago).

God dammit I adore that book. I picked it up in the library a few days ago and re-read a few chapters.

Change of Heart by that Jodi Picoult. I've been (trying to) read this book for the past 3 months now and within the last two days I've really gotten into it. It's not that much like her other books because with this one just as you think you're understanding everyone's background and story something changes or someone confesses to a lie they had been holding for years.

Oh, and Catcher in the Rye for my English class. I like it enough, but find it semi-annoying at the same time.

I'm readin' Harry Potter 4 for the five millionth time.... I need suggestions on new books to read.....

I've been reading a book called Catch-22 lately. It's really good.

I'm currently reading The Godfathers Revenge

which is a sequel to The Godfather Returns. Both books fill in the blank on why the Corleones move to Reno, Nevada (Godfather Returns) and the one I'm reading now talks about what happens after GR and before Godfather Part III

I'm reading Pandora's Star for the third time.

I'm also reading The Dreaming Void.

... And The Reality Dysfunction.

That's the thing with me: once I start reading a book I never stop, even if I lose it and end up reading another one. If I find the original I must read them both simultaneously

And it's a huge coincidence this time because they're all by Peter F. Hamilton.

And they're all about a thousand pages... BAAAAWWW.

An open book.

Fahrenheit 451. Just around 35 more pages to go.

I love it. It's really great and Bradbury is a very detailed writer. I love it.

I just read the first book in the Eartsea series by Ursula Le Guin, I enjoyed it very much^^ On friday, I'm going to look for more books in the series

And about Harry Potter: The books are way better. I always get a feeling that you're jumping through the movies. (I haven't really heard of anyone that thinks otherwise after reading the books, so it isn't that much of a surprise.)

I'm working on Dragons of Dwarven Depths, part of the Dragonlance Chronicles. It's written by Margeret Weise and Tracy Hickman (I think that's their names). This thread reminded me to pick it up again, because I haven't read anything since school let out, which was about a week ago. O_o

Originally Posted by Dragginwings

I'm working on Dragons of Dwarven Depths, part of the Dragonlance Chronicles. It's written by Margeret Weise and Tracy Hickman (I think that's their names). This thread reminded me to pick it up again, because I haven't read anything since school let out, which was about a week ago. O_o

I think I heard about that, is it a good book?

I love it! It seems well thought out.

Originally Posted by Saber

Oh, and Catcher in the Rye for my English class. I like it enough, but find it semi-annoying at the same time.

Yeah, I've spoken to a lot of people who found Holden annoying. He always made perfect sense to me though. My favorite thing about the novel was that it was really intimate. I felt like Holden was a close friend, by the end of it.

I just finished re-reading The Great Gatsby in my spare lessons, and god damn, that book gets me every time. I've started reading The Day of the Triffids, by... some guy, I forget. I just picked it up off the shelves and thought it sounded interesting, and so far it is.

The last book I read was The Conquest of Bread by Peter Kropotkin. I'm currently reading The Anti-Christ and Ecce Homo by Friedrich Nietzsche.

John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. I've been reading it for a while because I've been too lazy to get into it properly. It lies untouched on the coffee table for weeks at a time.

Not that I don't freaking love the book (Steinbeck owns my heart), it's just.. well, Mario Kart.

I'm also still technically reading Tolstoy's Anna Karenina, but I've sort of put my reading of it on an indefinite hiatus because I'm too freaking busy. Love it so far, though (About halfway through).

Ugh, I hate John Steinbeck. I tried to get into his books, but he just has a terrible writing style, and things start off incredibly slow, always. I think The Moon Is Down is pretty good, though.

Anna Karenina was a great book, you wouldn't think the lifestyles of russian aristocrats in the 19th century would sound particularly exciting.

And just for fun, here's a catalog of books I'm fixing to order soon:

War And Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Mutual Aid: A Factor In Evolution - Peter Kropotkin
The Ego and His Own: The Case of the Individual Against Authority - Max Stirner
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals - Immanuel Kant
Utilitarianism - John Stuart Mill
Notes From Underground - Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Revolution Betrayed - Leon Trotsky

I'm reading "God of Mischief" again. It really is an intereseting story. I like it more then the first book "The Printer's Devil."

Mistakes were made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson

It's non-fiction, but still an amazing book.


It's all about how/why we justify foolish beliefs, bad ideas, prejudice, hatred, etc.

Essentially: Most people think that they are good people, right? Well, if you are a good person then you won't do evil things, will you? So, if you do evil things then you must have had a good reason for them, right?

As soon as your subconcious makes that leap (and it does it quite often) you immediately rationalize anything you've done.


So, let's say you don't like black people (Either due to being brought up that way, or just having an inherent dislike, or anything like that). Well, you're a good person, and good people aren't prejudiced for no reason, so you must have a reason to hate black people. Obviously they steal jobs, or are amoral sociopaths, or whatever.

This same thing applies to any decision you make, the more the decision costs you the stronger your need to justify it.

So, if you buy a house then you won't notice the things that are wrong with it. Why not? Because you've just spend $200 000 on it. You're a smart (or at least reasonable) person, and a reasonable person wouldn't spend $200 000 on a bad house, would they? So your house is really amazing, and that missing wall isn't really a problem.

In addition, it explains why it's so hard to get people to change their minds: they've invested time and effort into their opinions, the more time and effort the more they've justified it to themselves. So if you show that their opinion is wrong then they have to decide: Either they, a reasonable person, wasted all that time and effort on something that is wrong, or you are wrong.

Guess what they tend to decide?


It even goes into how this applies to the practises of law enforcement agencies and such. (Which is actually a rather disturbing set of chapters.)



The whole book is really disconcerting, but I highly, highly, highly recommend it to everyone. It's written in a really accessible style, so no PhD required to understand it.

I'm reading "Little House in the Big Woods"

It sucks.

I got my copy of Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals in the mail an hour or so ago. I'll start reading it tonight.

I'm going through Douglas Adams' The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy omnibus collection of five novels (and a short story). I've plowed through them all and am now in the early chapters of the final novel, Mostly Harmless. It's...interesting reading, to say the least. And in case you think the Zelda timeline is bad, you can essentially throw continuity out the window when reading these Adams books!

I just finished Simon Kernick's Relentless around midday and I'm now about 1/3 into Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.