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[CortJstr]

Dammit, you people have been holding out on me. I know you've been reading. I bet you even got books for Christmas. So start talkin'!

[Nabubrush]

I just finished Clive Barker's "Sacrament" - It ain't no damn Foucalt's Pendulum.

[andalucia]

I'm halfway through Infinite Jest, which I am finding to be pretty much the greatest book I've ever read and just started a biography of Nick Drake.  My Christmas books included one on Francis Bacon, the McSweeney's humour collection, and that book Bob Dylan wrote.
Also, today was my first day back at school, and I've got two literature courses... one French hermeneutics course, and one on Tolstoy and Dostoeyevsky.
So you'd better believe I'll be reading.

[CortJstr]

I'm glad to hear that. Amazon recommended Infinite Jest to me but I like to hear from a real person.

This weekend I finished Quicksilver (after 900 pages I'm still hazy on the plot but it was still a good read), Snow Crash (good, but I doubt I'd read it again), and Neverwhere (there's no good way to end a story like that).

I just started The Confusion which should help fill in that whole plot-thingy. Whatever I'm reading will be abandoned for Deadhouse Gates when it's released next month. If it's anywhere near as good as Gardens of the Moon then I'll already have my BotY.

[Nabubrush]

one French hermeneutics course,

I'm guessing you aren't one for hats - what with needing them custom made at size 47 or whatever.

[AugustWest]

I just finished Clive Barker's "Sacrament" - It ain't no damn Foucalt's Pendulum.

Well what is?

Best thing I've been reading lately is Bob Dylan's new autobiography, Chronicles.  It's very good.  Dylan is a surprisingly good prose writer, although he's still capable of striking imagery.  The Dylanness still comes through in his prose.  Also, I'm struck by how much of a regular guy Dylan is, how normal his childhood seems to be.

[Bozack]

God, I picked up "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," which, being a book about magicians in 19th century London, is basically finely attuned to my geeky qualities. It's pretty good for what it is. I'm also pounding through John Dos Passos's 'U.S.A. Trilogy," entering into the second book, "1919."
Andalucia has to keep her excess brain mass in a bell jar on a tiny push-cart she carries with her. When she thinks real hard, you can see it pulse and glow.

[Nabubrush]

Andalucia has to keep her excess brain mass in a bell jar on a tiny push-cart she carries with her. When she thinks real hard, you can see it pulse and glow.

I'm pretty sure that when that happens, anyone within 100 feet loses control of their own brain and starts to make little jerky dancing motions - due to the thought-interference.

[V-Adore]

Speaking of stray brain matter, I recently came into a copy of Driving Mr. Albert, a memoir about driving various in-jar bits of Albert Einstein's brain (and the scientist who scavenged it in the first place) across the country. It's a slightly melancholy book, written as it is about the wreckages of several lives, but the fact that it is at least purported to be true makes it very, very strange. Much page time thus far has been dedicated to "so why did the guy steal Einstein's brain in the first place?", with no answers.

Also on the subject of no clear answers, I just got back from purchasing my textbooks for our winter interterm, and one of them (which I need to read for tomorrow) is Nabokov's The Defense. More updates as I throw myself at Nabokov, over and over, with no relief.

[CortJstr]

God, I picked up "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell," which, being a book about magicians in 19th century London, is basically finely attuned to my geeky qualities. It's pretty good for what it is.

I wanted to pick that up when it first came out but decided to save it for Xmas. Right now the SO is reading it. So far her only comment is that it's interesting that Strange has only appeared via footnotes thus far.

[Bozack]

Yeah, the footnoting is really cool. She basically invented an entire bibliography; i.e. she continually footnotes references to books that exist within the fictional universe; not only that, she'll often refer to the same book several times, in differing capacities. For a 800-page first novel, I think it's a good one; however, given that it took her 10 years to write, I guess we can expect her sophomore effort in 2014.

[CortJstr]

I must admit that in fiction I love footnotes. I immensely enjoy it in books like hg2g and Good Omens so I'm looking forward to Strange & Norrell

[andalucia]

I must admit that in fiction I love footnotes.

Well, then, you really should pick up Infinite Jest.  It's got, let's see, 388 endnotes, some of which have their own endnotes.

[CortJstr]

I must admit that in fiction I love footnotes.

Well, then, you really should pick up Infinite Jest.  It's got, let's see, 388 endnotes, some of which have their own endnotes.

Nested endnotes, blaaaarrghhh </Homer drool>

Actually now that I think about Ghost in the Shell was like that.

[sjlimmer]

I don't think my post x-mas reading list has been as intellectual as some mentioned here.  I've already read my way through Alton Brown's I'm Just Here for the Food (well, one of the two copies I received, anyway).  Right now I'm about half way through Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything, which is thoroughly enjoyable so far.  And his scientific explanations are often better than Alton Brown's (not to bad-mouth A.B., but science isn’t always his strong point).