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Whatcha readin now? (book, books, reading, read) (4 Viewers)

kupcho1 said:
Diamond Age is just not as good as Cryptonomicon or the Baroque Cycle.  Contends maybe for 3rd best.  Maybe.
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I have struggled to finish Crypto.  Haven't read the other.  I'll give it a shot.

Currently reading Dark Matter by Crouch.  Really good book so far.

 
Recently finished Digging Up Mother: A Love Story by Doug Stanhope

It was different. While I enjoy polluting with my body with alcohol and what ever from time to time I do try to take care of myself with exercise and eating right. I just can't imagine feeling the way this guys body must feel like with all he is doing to it. I am guessing he does not know what a healthy body feels like.  In some ways I am envious and in some ways I am disgusted. Pretty sure this guy would be the neighbor from hell but probably some fun to visit. :shrug:

The story about his mothers death/assisted suicide was interesting and touching. I did like the book but I would hesitate to recommend it to anyone.

I do enjoy his stand up.

 
Sand said:
I have struggled to finish Crypto.  Haven't read the other.  I'll give it a shot.

Currently reading Dark Matter by Crouch.  Really good book so far.
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If you don't love Crypto, I'll be surprised if you enjoy the Baroque Cycle.  It was a significant gap between the two for me, as I felt like the rabbit trails into stuff that was less than interesting to me were pretty frequent in BC.  Crypto is among my 10 favorite novels I've read.

 
kupcho1 said:
fixed ;)
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:finger:   :P

facook said:
If you don't love Crypto, I'll be surprised if you enjoy the Baroque Cycle.  It was a significant gap between the two for me, as I felt like the rabbit trails into stuff that was less than interesting to me were pretty frequent in BC.  Crypto is among my 10 favorite novels I've read.
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I have read into Crypto twice and dropped it for whatever reason.  I have since gotten it on audio and it's on the list.  I'll give it another go.

 
GregR said:
My Wheel of Time re-read stalled for several months as I got busy with other things.  Have been cruising through this month though, up to book 9 now.
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Finished last weekend.

It had been long enough since I read the final 3 books that I forgot most of what happened. Even to the point of deaths of a few major characters. So it was almost like getting to read it for the first time.

Wow, blew me away again. The final book especially, when they got into the war there are so many schemes, twists, turns, betrayals, sacrifices, and salvations.  It hit the pinnacles that most good books reach, except that went on for like 500 pages non-stop.

 
Don Quixote said:
I guess I was the last post in here....

"Circe" was great.  Pretty well-written book with a compelling story.  I think it is likely to end up on my favorite of the year list.  I'm going to go with Fatima Farheen Mirza's A Place for Us as my next fiction read. Another one getting pretty good reviews.

I stayed about the same opinion on Dean's Harding book (he makes mention to the forthcoming release of the letters, but says it is doubtful that we will learn anything new from them -- oops).

I read Amity Shlaes' biography on Calvin Coolidge when it came out, so I decided that I was okay on Coolidge.  I also read Herbert Hoover in the White House last year, so I decided I was good on Hoover.

I've read a few things on FDR, such as Jean Edward Smith's bio and Arthur Schlesinger's three volume The Age of Roosevelt series.  I had never read Doris Kearns Goodwin's No Ordinary Time, so I gave that one a read.  That one was great -- a bit more on Eleanor than the other FDR books that I had read, so it felt fresh.

For Truman, I listened to David McCullough's book on audio book over a decade ago.  May see if I can get the dust off that and listen to it again instead of my usual podcasts.
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Almost done with Circe. Very good. Was seriously into Greek mythology as a yute and this ties in nicely. Really well written; especially like how she fleshed out Odysseus. 

 
Don Quixote said:
I'm going to go with Fatima Farheen Mirza's A Place for Us as my next fiction read. Another one getting pretty good reviews.
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"A Place for Us" was a pretty good read.  It probably won't sell as much as it should because it is about an immigrant Muslim family from India now living in California, and it may not be the type of book that a lot of people pick up.  But most of the themes that it deals with cut across those lines (family relationships, communication/miscommunications, grievances, regrets, etc.).  The characters are pretty deeply drawn and the reader can feel the emotion in the prose.  Impressive book for a debut novel.

On the Presidential biographies side, I finished up Robert Dallek's "An Unfinished Life" on JFK.  I've read all of Caro's 4 brilliant volumes on LBJ.  Caro still has another volume to go, but I figure I'll wait for Volume 5 versus picking something else up (sorry, not sorry).  For Nixon, I'm going with John Farrell's Richard Nixon: The Life.  I read Farrell's biography on Clarence Darrow a few years ago and thought that was pretty good. 

I also recently started up Matthew Desmond's Evicted.  It won the Putlizer for non-fiction last year, focusing on several families dealing with poverty in Milwaukee.

 
Thanks to this thread I listened to 'Ballad of the Whiskey Robber...' last week.  It was excellent.

Now I'm working on 'Wool' (Omnibus Edition).  I used someone's link above to start it on Audible for like $2, but ended up buying the book to read as well.  This book is a 'Kindle in Motion' book.  There's like pictures and stuff that moves around occasionally.  I'm undecided if I like that feature.  Digging the book(s) tho.

 
Thoughts on the Audible Versions of Blood Meridian and Survivor by Chuck P?

Audible has a 2 for 1 sale and trying to find a few options.

 
I needed some fiction to balance out the nonfiction. Reading Nico Walker’s Cherry. This book is wild, as is the author’s story. 

The author is in prison serving time for bank robberies, and wrote it in prison. This NYT profile is pretty good. It seems a bit of a semi-autobiographical novel. Someone who comes back from Iraq with PTSD, becomes addicted to drugs and starts robbing banks.

The book just came out this week. I think it is going take off.

 
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Don Quixote said:
I needed some fiction to balance out the nonfiction. Reading Nico Walker’s Cherry. This book is wild, as is the author’s story. 

The author is in prison serving time for bank robberies, and wrote it in prison. This NYT profile is pretty good. It seems a bit of a semi-autobiographical novel. Someone who comes back from Iraq with PTSD, becomes addicted to drugs and starts robbing banks.

The book just came out this week. I think it is going take off.
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"Cherry" was pretty good.  Thought the book lost of its momentum towards the end, but still a pretty crazy story.  The movie rights have reportedly been acquired by the Russo brothers; it could make for an interesting one.

Currently reading There There by Tommy Orange.  It tells the stories of various Native Americans living in Oakland, CA.  Getting rave reviews, and the writing is pretty solid so far.  Interested in where this one takes me.

On the nonfiction side, read Bob Woodward's Fear, and finished John Farrell's Nixon. Going to continue on my Presidential bio reading with a book on Ford, but still need to make a trip to the library.

 
I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book and still waiting for Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell to get interesting.

 
Recently finished A People's History of the Vampire Uprising.  I suppose it was sort of supposed to be like World War Z, with different perspectives and newspaper excerpts, etc.  And the actual premise of how the vampires interacted with society was pretty interesting, but overall I'd give it a solid "meh."  2.5 stars.

Finishing Mississippi Blood, the last book of Greg Iles Natchez Burning trilogy featuring Penn Cage.  A trilogy within a series, I guess.  Iles is a very good writer and the characters are strong, but man, how much tragedy can one really rich, popular, heroic protagonist go through?  Maybe he's supposed to be like a modern day Job.  Still, I really like it. 

 
I have become a huge Audible junkie and blow through 2-3 a month it seems. 

Loved The Boys in the Boat.  Tells about the 1936 gold medalist crew team from Washington.

Hard to say no to a Jack Reacher book.  I have blown through tons of those and the amount of righteous judgment you get in eahc one to the bad guys is very satisfying.

Started the Memory Man series by Baldacci and really liked the first 2.

Redshirts by Scalzi is a lot of fun.

The Red Sparrow series was very enjoyable as well.

 
Flight or Fright has been good.

Its an anthology of stories that all take place on a plane. Some old and new stuff. Fun creepy scary tales.

 
Don Quixote said:
Currently reading There There by Tommy Orange.  It tells the stories of various Native Americans living in Oakland, CA.  Getting rave reviews, and the writing is pretty solid so far.  Interested in where this one takes me.

On the nonfiction side, read Bob Woodward's Fear, and finished John Farrell's Nixon. Going to continue on my Presidential bio reading with a book on Ford, but still need to make a trip to the library.
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Finished There There.  My style of tending to read two books at once worked against me at first because there are a lot of characters and different storylines to follow, that all converge at a powwow at the end.  So, I felt a bit more of a need to refresh myself on who each of the characters were after a night or two of reading something else.  I ended up just focusing on "There There" which worked a bit better.  Impressive effort for a debut novel.  I wouldn't say that I loved it, but it was a pretty good read.  The prologue is an interesting tour through Native American history (and will ruin any maudlin view of Thanksgiving).

Next up on the fiction side is The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai.  Set in Chicago during the height of the AIDS crisis in the 1980s.  Another one getting great reviews.

On the Presidential bio front, started Douglas Brinkley's bio on Gerald Ford from the American President Series.  The series lacks the depth that I usually like in the bios that I've read, but there were not a lot of options out there on Ford.  I read Brinkley's The Wilderness Warrior on Teddy Roosevelt and the national parks back when that came out, and enjoyed that one.  So, at least it is from an author that I like.

 
Finished Handmaid’s Tale.  Thought it was really good, but maybe because it took so long for me to read, I kept wondering “is anything going to happen?”  

Not sure how I feel about the prologue spelling everything out.  

Next up: The Outsider by Stephen King. 

 
Currently reading Courting Greta.  I thought I found it here, but either I was wrong or I can't work the search function :confused: .

Very enjoyable book about two very unique people falling in love.  Not quite a romance, but definitely not in my normal vein either.  Writing is excellent.

 
For any Harry Dresden fans out there (Jim Butcher is the author), there are a couple books out there Butcher did that are not full-length novels but just a number of short stories featuring Dresden. 

“Side Jobs” and “Brief Cases”

HIGHLY recommended. 

 
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Evidently for my book club I need to read War and Peace on the Plains, i.e. Lonesome Dove.  Any opinions on this tome?  Good read?

 
I'm reading 1947: Where Now Begins by Swedish journalist Elisabeth Asbrink.  It's a chronological accounting of the year's events (each chapter is one month) but rather than a straightforward presentation of names, dates and facts, Asbrink takes an eclectic personal view of 1947.  She talks about the big world events like the Cold War, the India/Pakistan and Palestine partitions but also smaller details like her families' history, Orwell writing 1948 in a Scottish cabin and Simone de Beauvoir's affair with Nelson Algren.

It's fascinating how she makes the all pieces fit together into a whole that looks forward as well as backwards into the past.  It's the best thing I've read recently.

 
One last plug for Greg Iles Natchez Burning trilogy which I just finished (Mississippi Blood is the most recent book).  Modern Southern gothic, maybe that's appropriate.  Excellent writing, excellent characters, intriguing storyline.  Really liked it.

Now reading A Gathering of Ghosts by John Connolly, part of the Charlie Parker series.  I can't recommend this series enough if you like PI, mystery, thriller, creepy, horror stuff.  One of my favorite series.

 
"Thrills and Chills" Sale over at Audible with over 200 books marked down to $6.95, any recommendations?

From the sale list I already own:

The Twelve: A Novel - The Passage Trilogy, Book 2 - By: Justin Cronin

Odd that the second book in the trilogy is on sale, they usually try to hook you with the first.

The whole trilogy is 93 hours long so can kill alot of time on the road and I enjoyed it.

Lovecraft Country - A Novel - By: Matt Ruff

Shorter commitment, 12 hours but I also enjoyed this one.

Hell House - By: Richard Matheson

Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories - By: H. P. Lovecraft

Bought both in another same but haven't gotten around to them yet.

 
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Lehigh98 said:
"Thrills and Chills" Sale over at Audible with over 200 books marked down to $6.95, any recommendations?

From the sale list I already own:

The Twelve: A Novel - The Passage Trilogy, Book 2 - By: Justin Cronin

Odd that the second book in the trilogy is on sale, they usually try to hook you with the first.

The whole trilogy is 93 hours long so can kill alot of time on the road and I enjoyed it.

Lovecraft Country - A Novel - By: Matt Ruff

Shorter commitment, 12 hours but I also enjoyed this one.

Hell House - By: Richard Matheson

Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories - By: H. P. Lovecraft

Bought both in another same but haven't gotten around to them yet.
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Fantasticland looks interesting, sounds like events are revealed interview style similar to World War Z which I enjoyed...

Since the 1970s, FantasticLand has been the theme park where "Fun is Guaranteed!" But when a hurricane ravages the Florida coast and isolates the park, the employees find it anything but fun. Five weeks later, the authorities who rescue the survivors encounter a scene of horror. Photos soon emerge online of heads on spikes outside of rides and viscera and human bones littering the gift shops, breaking records for hits, views, likes, clicks, and shares. How could a group of survivors, mostly teenagers, commit such terrible acts?

Presented as a fact-finding investigation and a series of first-person interviews, FantasticLand pieces together the grisly series of events. Park policy was that the mostly college-aged employees surrender their electronic devices to preserve the authenticity of the FantasticLand experience. Cut off from the world and left on their own, the teenagers soon form rival tribes who viciously compete for food, medicine, social dominance, and even human flesh. This new social network divides the ravaged dreamland into territories ruled by the Pirates, the ShopGirls, the Freaks, and the Mole People. If meticulously curated online personas can replace private identities, what takes over when those constructs are lost?

Stephen King's The Talisman is also in there and I think alot of people are fans?

 
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Lehigh98 said:
"Thrills and Chills" Sale over at Audible with over 200 books marked down to $6.95, any recommendations?

From the sale list I already own:

The Twelve: A Novel - The Passage Trilogy, Book 2 - By: Justin Cronin

Odd that the second book in the trilogy is on sale, they usually try to hook you with the first.

The whole trilogy is 93 hours long so can kill alot of time on the road and I enjoyed it.

Lovecraft Country - A Novel - By: Matt Ruff

Shorter commitment, 12 hours but I also enjoyed this one.

Hell House - By: Richard Matheson

Call of Cthulhu and Other Stories - By: H. P. Lovecraft

Bought both in another same but haven't gotten around to them yet.
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Talisman and Swan Song are great.  I also liked Summer of Night.  These are probably good audiobooks.

Burnt Offerings and Psycho are great too, but they, along with a lot of these other ones, are probably better suited for reading at night in your bed under the covers, not listening to while driving. 

 
I'm bouncing around in the Jack Ryan universe. Finished Hunt for Red October and Commander in Chief and I am halfway through Threat Vector. I think I like the Mark Greaney written ones better than Tom Clancy although I am just scratching the surface- there are a lot of books in this series. I have also read all of Greaney's Gray Man series which are great.

Just notified by the library that they have my reserved Anne Rice Blood Communion: A Tale of Prince Lestat . It's been awhile since I've read any Anne Rice and I liked the Vampire Chronicles better than the Mayfair Witches so I'm looking forward to this.

 
Trying to slowly get back into reading.  Finished Station Eleven a couple days ago, and really liked that one.  Overall I wished it was a little longer, as I felt that some of the threads got wrapped up oddly - ie The Prophet, but it's right in my wheelhouse of dystopian novels.  There are some brilliant ideas and images in the book, and would recommend this one to the masses.  

Started A Visit From the Goon Squad yesterday.  

 
Just finished “Under the Dome” by Stephen King.  Sometimes i wish he didn’t try to explain why something happens, and the book was just about the human interaction because of what happened. Great journey with the characters and human emotions though. 

On to “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr. I’m sure theres discussion somewhere in this thread about it, but I’m a bit too lazy to dig around for it.

 
MindCrime said:
Just finished “Under the Dome” by Stephen King.  Sometimes i wish he didn’t try to explain why something happens, and the book was just about the human interaction because of what happened. Great journey with the characters and human emotions though. 
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It's all about the journey, not the destination.  Once you embrace this, you'll enjoy King much more.

On to “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr. I’m sure theres discussion somewhere in this thread about it, but I’m a bit too lazy to dig around for it.
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:thumbup:  It's been years since I read it, but I remember it being pretty good.

 
been years since I saw the Bourne identity so I decided to read the book hoping it would be somewhat fresh. It was and I don't think the movie was very similar to the book. I'm going to finish the trilogy. real good stuff.

 
Anyone here still use Goodreads?  I logged in for the first time in 2 years.  I am going to start keeping my list there again.  There is a FBGs group.

 
ragincajun said:
Anyone here still use Goodreads?  I logged in for the first time in 2 years.  I am going to start keeping my list there again.  There is a FBGs group.
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I use it and in the group. Look for the DQ avi.

 
MindCrime said:
Just finished “Under the Dome” by Stephen King.  Sometimes i wish he didn’t try to explain why something happens, and the book was just about the human interaction because of what happened. Great journey with the characters and human emotions though. 

On to “The Alienist” by Caleb Carr. I’m sure theres discussion somewhere in this thread about it, but I’m a bit too lazy to dig around for it.
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The Alienist is a pretty good read, I’d give a hard pass on the sequel Angel of Darkness, though. 

 
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