[color=#004040]Moderator’s Note: For the 2006-2012 discussion, please click here.[/color]
Finally read a battered copy of The Caine Mutiny I picked up somewhere along the line. Quite impressed. Will be looking for more from Mr. Wouk.
I just finished ‘Blindness’ by Saramago. That was a good book.
Recently finished “World War Z” by Max Brooks and started The Hunger Games.
“Ready Player One” by Ernest Cline is a great read.
I just finished Where’d You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple. I was all set to hate it but damned if it didn’t win me over right quick. Turns out it was one of the best reads I’ve read in a while, and I read a far amount. It’s not going to win any awards but damned it it wasn’t the funniest novel I’ve read in a dog’s age. Maria Semple is a former writer for Arrested Development and a lot of the stuff in the book reminded me of why I have chosen to live permanently in Taiwan vs. moving back to North America. If you are still unconvinced, you can sad my extended play review on my blog: http://www.taiwaneastcoaster.blogspot.tw/2013/07/whered-you-go-bernadette.html
The Siege of Krishnapur (J. G. Farrell). Took me a while to get into it, but the siege itself evolved pretty well.
Won the Booker Prize in 73.
How to Win Friends and Influence People (The Digital Age Ver) - Dale Carnegie. Fantastic
Finally finished the Wheel of Time Series by Robert Jordan (Brandon Sanderson). Loved it…until the ending heh.
Picked up Thoughts by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (yes, the Gladiator guy). Its free from Amazon if you have a Kindle (or Kindle app)!
I am finally reading “Subtle is the Lord”, biography of Albert Einstein by Adam Pais. Inspiring.
Just finished The King of Torts from John Grisham. The usual from this author. Always a good story. I’d somehow missed this one along the way but had read everything else by Grisham. I am now reading I Am Number Four which seems a little Twilight-ish so far but I’ve gone too far to stop.
I am reading ‘Blindness’ by Saramago. It is a fantastic story.
Just finished Embassy Town by China Melville. Seems like he’s created a new genre - sci-fi/linguistics. It’s a sci-fi novel, possibly set in the far future. The story centres around attempts to communicate with sentient aliens. We can understand their language, but when it’s spoken back to them, they don’t seem to understand a word of it. Brilliant ideas, but a bit unfinished, perhaps. Also reading Forbidden Nation, A History of Taiwan. It’s informative, but dry.
Might I request that everyone gives a really brief, one sentence summary of the book? I’m just seeing a bitch of titles here and am unable to tell which of these would interest me.
EDIT so I actually contribute something to the thread:
I just finished the four books of the Hyperion Saga (Hyperon, Fall of Hyperion, Endymion, Rise of Endymion) and raced through each of them faster than any book I’ve ever read in the past. I’m a notoriously slow reader but got through each of those in a matter of days. In terms of background and setting they’re not wildly different from your average sci-fi fare, but the author gives it an epic scope by putting a lot of thought into the world he’s creating, the technology that runs it, and the history of the future. 
Added a sentence to one of them. Didn’t want to give too much away. The one about Taiwan is probably self-evident, it’s about Taiwan’s history. I was fed up of not knowing all that much about Taiwan’s past.
Right now I’m reading A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R.R. Martin, and which I suppose that doesn’t need a summary, having being adapted to TV and everything.
Before this, I had finished a couple of novels and short stories by Philip K. Dick (including, but not limited to: Minority Report, Ubik, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep…)
After Martin’s books, I’ll probably re-read “The Neverending Story” and “Momo”, by Michael Ende, two of my favourite books when I was in my early teens, and that I’m planning to share with my daughter in the future, when she’s old enough.
If anyone is into sci-fi and hasn’t read Ender’s Game yet, now is the time to do it. It’s often rated in the top 10 best sci-fi novels to date, and will soon be made into a movie.
I read that (1st page of thread): everyone goes blind, hokwongkwie.
Starting Harry Turtledove’s US alternate history again. Best thing I ever read about the Holocaust or Canada.
Our Ancestors by Italo Calvino. He’s one of the few authors I set out to read everything from. It takes some effort, though, but totally worth it to get into his world. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is one of my ever favorite books - a must for any book lover.