I’ve picked this up a couple times over the years, but checked it out of the library recently and have recently made an actual, concerted effort to read it. The (mis)adventures of a Hungarian basketball team during and after World War II as Communism took hold in the country. Looks interesting …

Plan on picking this book up tonight, if Barnes & Noble has it that is.

Next up on my reading list – sort of.

Just started.

The writing may be too smart-arsed and full of itself for its own good. I’m getting a creepy “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” vibe here, and I’m not sure I like it.

Mad scientists, sentient robots, ugly-@ss moths, half-nekid chicks with insects for heads that build sculptures out of their own fecal matter. Literature, the way Dickens intended it!!!

Neal Stephenson’s ‘Cryptonomicon’ is one of my favorite books of the past five years. I’ve given it out as Christmas, birthday presents, etc., more times than I can count. What I loved about that book is that, to me, it really described how math-oriented people THINK, and I have so seldom seen that represented in literature anywhere. That and the pure chaotic frenzy of some of the World War II stuff …

Neal Stephenon doesn’t write short, but he does write good. I mean, well. I mean, I likee his writing.

I dug Stephenson’s ‘Snow Crash,’ but it was his 70-odd page story in an old ‘Wired’ magazine about the laying of undersea fiber-optic cables and its historical precedents that first truly impressed me with this guy’s writing (and reporting) prowess. He hasn’t let me down since.

Update to my last update: Okay. I’m almost finished with this’n, and I can say that as junk food literature goes, this ain’t bad. Keeps you entertained during the time you’re reading it, but doesn’t resonate or stick with you at all like a good book should. If you’ve got some hours to kill, there are worse ways to do it (like, say, watching “Beverly Hills Ninja.” What a stinkin’ load of crap that was. I still broil over it, many years later.)

Update: Still moves along at a good clip, though some passages are groan-worthy and some … okay, most … characters don’t really feel or read like they think like real people. If that makes sense.

Moves along at a good clip and keeps my interest so far. Nice, light reading.

I hear good things about this Repairman Jack fella, though. (Mostly from the back cover of this paperback.)

Picked this up at Half-Price Books a short while ago and am looking forward to reading it. (And NOT just because ‘Embracing Defeat’ could be the title of my own autobiography. Not at all.)

Read the first couple stories in this collection. I’m intrigued. Not quite living up to the reviews, jacket blurb or introduction’s hype, but I’m still interested enough that I’‘ll read another story or two.

This book contains the best ending of any book I have ever read. Everything leads up to the final paragraph. A masterpiece.