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hopping around between the following

John Dies at the End
I Have no Mouth and I Must Scream
The Belgariad series. Book 1: Pawn of Prophecy

Just started Jakob von Gunten by Walser. I then plan to read The Castle by Kafka and then Invitation to a Beheading by Nabokov.

(can you tell how they're all related?)

I finished In Youth Is Pleasure by Denton Welch earlier today. I need to read Amulet by Bolano too. Too many books.

Dragon Avenger by E. E. Knight: Dragon Avenger is the second book of the Age of Fire series, a sort of Watership Down for dragons. The series is told from the viewpoint of three dragons, all siblings. The first three books are each coming of age stories that chart the early life of one of these dragons. You don't have to read the first three in order. I read the first one, then the third one, and now I'm on the second one.

This particular book is about Wistala, the younger sister of AuRon(protagonist of book 1) and RuGaard(protagonist of book 3). The introduction is quite similar to the first book, telling basically the same story right up until AuRon splits up with Wistala at about 30 pages in(page 40 in the first book). I regard the first book as my favorite book of all time, and the third book is maybe my second or third because although the penmanship of E. E. Knight isn't on par with writers like H. P. Lovecraft, Tolkien, or George Orwell along with many other great writers, the characters are very interesting and I find that I never get bored reading these books. I can never quite summarise the books without being too excessive, so I'll transcribe the summary of the book here:
"I am Wistala. Wistala the great dragon huntress, a silent green avenger, dropping from the clouds..."

Such is the mettle of young Wistala, one of four dragons born high in the mountains, as she breaks free of her shell. The last of a dying breed, the siblings learn of their legacy from their devoted mother and protective father--until the fateful day when their dark sanctuary is invaded by a group of slave-trading dwarves.

Pushed to freedom by their mother as she battles for their lives, Wistala and her scaleless gray brother, Auron, find themselves alone in the Upper World. And when Auron sacrifices himself so that she may live, Wistala must overcome her grief and fear to find others of her kind--and bring her wrath to bear on those who would destroy them.

Dragon Outcast by E. E. Knight: Well, I just finished the book, but I thought I might talk about it as well. Heres is my summarization of the first 40-50 pages. The back of the book summarizes the same portion of the book, but in less detail.

It's told from the point of view of the Copper( he is nameless at first and only referred to by the narrator by his skin color, but he is later christened Rugaard/RuGaard by his adoptive family). The Copper, like all males, immediately begins to fight to the death with his male siblings. The winner of this competition(usually the only male hatchling left alive). Auron(protagonist of the first book) pushes him off a ledge and for the rest of the Copper's life, he is limp in one foreleg. Out of kindness, his parents let him live, but he has to fend and learn on his own. So he inhabits the very back of the large cave in which the family lives. While exploring, he finds a group of dwarf warriors. They subsequently capture and beat him. But then he offers to lead them to his estranged family in exchange for his freedom. His only request is that they spare one of the sisters, Jizara, the only one that has ever shown him kindness. They accept and he leads them to the cave. The father is off hunting, so the mother stays to defend her young. She pushes Auron and Wistala into a secret exit out of the cave, but Jizara hesitates, not wanting to leave her mother. The dwarves kill Jizara and the mother as the Copper stands there horrified. He tries to avenge her death, but a companion of the dwarves the Human dragon slayer Drakossozh critically wounds the Copper and cripples his still dormant wing.

Grieving over the loss his sister, the Copper tries to kill himself by jumping down a chasm. Instead, he falls into and underwater river. He meets a family of vampire bats(almost every animal in the series is sentient or semi-sentient) who tell him of a great underground dragon city downriver and offer to take him there in exchange for nourishment, and the Copper decides to go and try to find acceptance among them.

Dragon Outcast is different from the first two books because rather than being an adventure, the Copper stays in one place for much of the book. The book deals with politics, but it's not a hard read at all. He recieves more crippling injuries(he is blinded in one eye, his fire bladder is ravished so he cannot breath fire, and a toe is bit off. When his wings uncase, the right one is broken from the injury he sustains early on so he cannot fly at first.) And despite this, he manages to do many great things and surprises his peers. I really, really loved this book, but as it wasn't as exciting as the first, the first beats this one IMO.

Metro 2033 by Dmitry Glukhovsky: I don't want to get into describing it too much as I have already done so once or twice in this thread because I've been reading it for some time. But basically, it's a book about the survivors of a nuclear holocaust that happened in 2013. They live underground in the Moscow Metro system. From what I've read so far, the book is very good. It has 7 sequels over in Russia. It is one of the few books to ever recieve a video game(not counting movie adaptations turned into games). A game trailer: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xc2hhef-Nzo[/youtube]

Manta's Gift by Timothy Zahn: Timothy Zahn revived Star Wars with Heir To The Empire back in 1991. He's a legend among Star Wars geeks, his Thrawn trilogy is often considered the very best of the Expanded Universe. So when I saw this book at the library book sale, I was tempted to buy it. I'm not very far into it, so I'll transcribe the summary.
When Matt Raimey had his accident, he thought his life was over. He never dreamed, in his wildest fantasies, that he'd end up in a spot like this. In the toxic atmosphere of Jupiter, born into the body of an enormous creature that looked like a cross between a manta ray and a dolphin, he is living a new life unlike any humankind has previously.
An unbelievable turn of events has given him a reason to live, to survive, no matter what happens... but every second chance comes with conditions and responsibilities. And as those who brought him to this strange destiny have their authority stripped from them and he discovers the truth that only he can know about the giant alien creatures he now calls family, this man reborn as the one they now call Manta suddenly isn't sure if he wasn't better off before....

I know it sounds similar to Avatar, but this book was published 7 years before Avatar was released. The reviews on Amazon are very positive.

Last night I watched The Picture of Dorean Gray http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9h9a3Sx6220







The Film was good but not as good as it could of been.

Today I have been reading the book again. Oscar Wild was pure Genius. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Picture-Dorian- ... =8-3-spell

I'm currently reading this book for, it's quite interesting indeed as, I've been a fan of H.P. Lovecraft's works..

City by Clifford D. Simak
Thought I would give it a re-read, the mutant Joe in the story is very aspie like.

http://www.amazon.ca/City-Clifford-D-Si ... 188296828X

The Women by T.C. Boyle- about Frank Lloyd Wright and the women he drove crazy.

about Frank Lloyd Wright , I remember reading about him for, was not he a interesting architect, if I recall correctly?