Okay folks, let's get this party started.
What book(s) are you reading right now, and what do you think of it?
Instant Review: Kafka on the Shore
slightly disappointing
Quick Review: Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions
This should actually be called sci-fi in today's terminology, although it is simple, straightforward fiction written in an era when sci-fi meant outrageous space opera. Borges writes about totally fascinating "what if"s that bring philosophy down to earth. Themes in this book are repeated in everything else he writes, but he does it here first and best. Here's a story from Fictions, worth your time:
http://jubal.westnet.com/hyperdiscordia/library_of_babel.html
I'm reading Good Omens, so far it's pretty good, but I'm only a few chapters in...
Reading Iron & Silk, about 1/3 through it. Good stuff - an American in his 20s, traveling through 1980s China.
Very amusing anecdotes that still describe China today - EVERY driver on the road honking ALL the time, day and night; regulations against everything, waivers for said regulations, new regulations created on the spot to invalidate what those waivers are permitting, etc.
I just read The Futurological Congress by Stanislaw Lem. Someone said his fiction was a lot like Philip K. Dick's sometimes... they were right.
It's basically about someone attending a convention at a hotel where all sorts of other weird societies and groups have congressed, and soon the place is sacked by the rioting local populace. The narrator hides and then undergoes a series of hallucinatory realities.
I haven't read much of his work, but I love Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius to death, even though it does take quite an effort to get through it, as short as it is. The whole text is available on the net, for those curious:
http://aegis.ateneo.net/fted/tlontext.htm
And on the subject of the thread, last thing I read was Iain M. Banks' The Algebraist, which was highly entertaining. It did feel a bit like he took all his earlier books and melted them down and poured them into a cast for this book, but I am not sure if this is a good or bad thing.
Stanisław Lem - Solaris
Been reading this for a while. Not a lot of text, but seriously creepy. Refreshingly different, and I'm looking forward to reading other Lem stuff (several people have recommended him).
Jorma Ojaharju - Valkoinen kaupunki ('(the) White City')
Book about my hometown of Vasa (Vaasa). I doubt anyone is interested. ; )