Whatcha readin now? (book, books, reading, read) (5 Viewers)

[krista4]

Finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. This guy can write. About 50 pages in I told Mr. krista that nothing had happened but an ambassador to Germany having been appointed in 1933, yet I was enthralled. Learned a lot that I didn't know previously about Hitler's early years as chancellor and some of the American sentiment in the early to mid-30s. Unfortunately, I felt like Larson suddenly realized at about page 370 that he wanted to wrap it up, and he had only covered one year in time, so he just tore through several more years with little explanation. Was an unfortunate end to an otherwise compelling book, worth reading in any case.

 

[facook]

Recently finished Koko by Peter Straub. Now continuing my Straub kick with Mr. X.

Full Dark, No Stars by King, and then it'll be Game of Thrones based on the furor over the HBO series.

 

[igbomb]

Some recent reads:

Books 3 and 4 of the Wheel of Time. These books are slow. 500 pages of nothing, 300 pages of slow buildup, 200 pages of resolution. I'm not sure if I can handle ten more of these.

World War Z - Good, but a little overrated. I love the framework, but this is a rare book that would have been better if he had added a couple hundred pages and fleshed out each character/story a little better.

Currently reading Mystic River by Lehane. Phenomenal like everything else the guy writes.

 

[PizzaDeliveryGuy]

Reading Crime and Punishment right now.

While it was an interesting read from a different perspective of a murder and the psychology that was associated with it, I would recommend The Brothers Karamazov over Crime and Punishment by far if you are going to read Dostoevsky. On to some quick reading in Animal Farm as I continue my way through the classics.

Animal Farm was an awesome, quick read. Cracking open David Copperfield next.

Really enjoyed David Copperfield. The character development by Dickens is just amazing. The despair, joy, love, and hate that he can make you feel for fictional beings is astounding. Next up, Lord Jim.

 

[Eephus]

Just finished Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides. It deals with the MLK assassination and the enusing manhunt for James Earl Ray. It was a good summer book written in a popular non-fiction style with a lot of quick cuts between Ray, King, the authorities and contemporary events. Ray was a surprisingly interesting central figure for a guy with no redeeming qualities. Even though you know the outcome, the FBI's pursuit of Ray through four countries was pretty tense.

 

[ren hoek]

Currently on page 13 of Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. I hope I'm not the only one that has to read paragraphs over and over again before I understand them. I've read a lot of internet posts but not much in the way of actual literature.

 

[Instinctive]

Beatrice and Virgil, by Yann Martel

It was...interesting. I think I just confirmed my belief that Martel is not for me. But as I was reading, I didn't want to put it down so...

Pretty quick read too. No chapters though. Lots of odd parts to it.

 

[uwillbsoon]

Finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. This guy can write. About 50 pages in I told Mr. krista that nothing had happened but an ambassador to Germany having been appointed in 1933, yet I was enthralled. Learned a lot that I didn't know previously about Hitler's early years as chancellor and some of the American sentiment in the early to mid-30s. Unfortunately, I felt like Larson suddenly realized at about page 370 that he wanted to wrap it up, and he had only covered one year in time, so he just tore through several more years with little explanation. Was an unfortunate end to an otherwise compelling book, worth reading in any case.

I thought this was by far his weakest book. It was pretty boring, I thought, and like you said, it plodded through one year and then suddenly raced to the end.Good info and subject for a story, but seemed a little haphazard to me.

 

[Reginald Cornsilks]

Finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. This guy can write. About 50 pages in I told Mr. krista that nothing had happened but an ambassador to Germany having been appointed in 1933, yet I was enthralled. Learned a lot that I didn't know previously about Hitler's early years as chancellor and some of the American sentiment in the early to mid-30s. Unfortunately, I felt like Larson suddenly realized at about page 370 that he wanted to wrap it up, and he had only covered one year in time, so he just tore through several more years with little explanation. Was an unfortunate end to an otherwise compelling book, worth reading in any case.

Damn - this was next on my list.

 

[Aaron Rudnicki]

Finished In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson. This guy can write. About 50 pages in I told Mr. krista that nothing had happened but an ambassador to Germany having been appointed in 1933, yet I was enthralled. Learned a lot that I didn't know previously about Hitler's early years as chancellor and some of the American sentiment in the early to mid-30s. Unfortunately, I felt like Larson suddenly realized at about page 370 that he wanted to wrap it up, and he had only covered one year in time, so he just tore through several more years with little explanation. Was an unfortunate end to an otherwise compelling book, worth reading in any case.

just finished up this one tonight too.he really did rush the ending, but it was good up until that point I thought. maybe a bit more about Martha than I really cared about, but still all really interesting.

 

[Daywalker]

Read the Huger Games in one sitting and the 2nd book as well.

Can't wait for the movies. Hot outfits. The first book is terrific.

 

[Daywalker]

Reading Crime and Punishment right now.

While it was an interesting read from a different perspective of a murder and the psychology that was associated with it, I would recommend The Brothers Karamazov over Crime and Punishment by far if you are going to read Dostoevsky. On to some quick reading in Animal Farm as I continue my way through the classics.

Animal Farm was an awesome, quick read. Cracking open David Copperfield next.

Really enjoyed David Copperfield. The character development by Dickens is just amazing. The despair, joy, love, and hate that he can make you feel for fictional beings is astounding. Next up, Lord Jim.

My favorite book. Read it twice and will keep on reading it every few years.

 

[bostonfred]

My paranoid schizophrenic brother is having troubles again and I'd like to send him some books. He likes fantasy, science fiction, and role playing games. I don't want to send him anything that might make his symptoms worse - so nothing with demons, angels/devils, or graphic violence. The ideal types of books for him would be things like Hitchhiker's Guide or maybe the Belgariad (even though there's some God talk in there, it's pretty low key). I'd prefer nothing too new because I don't know if I can send him hardcovers. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

 

[El Floppo]

I haven't read a book for pure enjoyments sake in years, but seeing as I should have some down time over the next while I'm thinking of changing that. I'm kind of looking for a book on the smaller size that'll make me laugh, with bonus points given if it makes me think some too. One book I'm looking at is comedian David Cross' I Drink For a Reason; you guys have any other recommendations of something maybe in the same vein as that?

Have you read any David Sedaris? They're all personal memoir style short-stories/articles compilations and uniformly hilarious. I seem to recall liking Barrel Fever the most, but that might be because that was the first of his I read- they're all pretty much the same thing with the same humor. However- if things that are literally gay bother you, I'd say to not read.

 

[El Floppo]

Just finished Heat by Bill Buford. The stuff in the Batali kitchen was more interesting to me than the author's travels to Tuscany in search of the history of pasta.

Just starting Hellhound on His Trail by Hampton Sides about the MLK assassination and James Earl Ray manhunt.

Agree about Heat. I found myself zoning out during the pasta parts.Finished Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi and had to wonder why it was so well-reviewed. From the NY Times: "The hero of this haunting and fearless novel moves from self-indulgence to the dissolution of self." I guess from that perspective, it's an interesting book, but I don't think it was particularly well-written. Enjoyable enough, but not great.

At Drifter's recommendation I'm reading A Trip to the Beach: Living on Island Time in the Caribbean, which was written by a couple who chucked their Vermont life and moved to Anguilla to open a restaurant. Very interesting and a good read, particularly if you're thinking of doing something similar.

Plus, their food is pretty ####### good.

 

[El Floppo]

I am currently reading:

The Happiest Baby on the Block: The New Way to Calm Crying and Help Your Newborn Baby Sleep Longer (Dr. Harvey Karp) - We are expecting and we heard good things about this book. My wife and I are sharing it, so it is taking me a little longer to get through it.

That's the book I always recommend- those 5 S's got us through kid #1 (it was helpful for those middle of the night moments when the brain wasn't working to just cycle through the Ss instead of have to think about coming up with another solution. Stupid Jr, of course, always only was satisfied after the 5th S.)Happiest Toddler was decent too, if even more of a one liner with it's intent.

Similar vein...

I'm reading:

Siblings without Rivalries- pretty self explanatory book about helping the kids get along (we have a newborn to go with Sr Jr)

Protecting the Gift- as much as I'd rather not, but the wife is insisting and that Brooklyn murder/mutilation lit a fire under my butt. About keeping your kids safe, in what appears to be a very way... but I guess better safe than dead and mutilated.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

I recently finished A Dance With Dragons by George RR Martin and posted my thoughts in the dedicated thread.

I then moved on to The Ridge by Michael Kortya who also wrote So Cold The River and Cypress House (he's also written a bunch of detective novels that I haven't read). The Ridge is in the vein of the other two - a supernatural element that the plot hinges on, but doesn't overwhelm. I thought this was Kortya's tightest writing of the three and enjoyed the story. But, like the others, there seems to be something missing that I can't put my finger on. If you liked Cypress and So Cold, you'll like this one.

I'm getting ready to start The Five by Robert McCammon. McCammon has written in just about every niche fiction style known to man - straight horror, sci-fi, historical fiction (the recent Matthew Corbett series), apocalypse (Swan Song), coming-of-age (Boy's Life), and damned near everything in between.

I'm really looking forward to The Five, as it looks to be different than anything else he's done. Besides liking most all of McCammon's work, I'm a music geek so this should be right up my alley.

From the Amazon description:

Subterranean Press is proud to present Robert McCammon's first contemporary novel in nearly two decades, a tale of the hunt and unlikely survival, of the life and soul, set against a supernatural backbeat. Robert McCammon, author of the popular Matthew Corbett historical thrillers (Speaks the Nightbird, Mister Slaughter), now gives us something new and completely unexpected: The Five, a contemporary novel as vivid, timely, and compelling as anything he has written to date.

The Five tells the story of an eponymous rock band struggling to survive on the margins of the music business. As they move through the American Southwest on what might be their final tour together, the band members come to the attention of a damaged Iraq war veteran, and their lives are changed forever.

The narrative that follows is a riveting account of violence, terror, and pursuit set against a credible, immensely detailed rock and roll backdrop. It is also a moving meditation on loyalty and friendship, on the nature and importance of families those we are born into and those we create for ourselves and on the redemptive power of the creative spirit. Written with wit, elegance, and passionate conviction, The Five lays claim to new imaginative territory, and reaffirms McCammon's position as one of the finest, most unpredictable storytellers of our time.

 

[PizzaDeliveryGuy]

Just finished Great Expectations and I'm almost through Brave New World. Once again, Dickens didn't disappoint. His ability to develop characters is second to none and the story was great.

 

[johnadams]

Rapidly closing on the end of Budding Prospects by TC Boyle about a bunch of degenerate and incompetent pot farmers in the early eighties. Literate and funny, it took awhile to get rolling, but Boyle's writing if you are not familiar with him is outstanding.

 

[shuke]

I'm getting ready to start The Five by Robert McCammon. McCammon has written in just about every niche fiction style known to man - straight horror, sci-fi, historical fiction (the recent Matthew Corbett series), apocalypse (Swan Song), coming-of-age (Boy's Life), and damned near everything in between.

I'm really looking forward to The Five, as it looks to be different than anything else he's done. Besides liking most all of McCammon's work, I'm a music geek so this should be right up my alley.

 

[dharmapunk]

I'm just finishing up Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao with a class. This one got a lot of press (won the Pulitzer) so I'm sure many of you have read it. For those that haven't: it's out-f!@king-standing. A must read, IMO. Hella funny, hella sad, extremely well written and informative.

 

[roadkill1292]

Working through Thomas Friedman's Hot, Flat and Crowded, his 2008 book about the need for energy innovation. Reasonable people can debate some of Friedman's solutions (he believes in more government intervention than most) and his strong opinions about climate change but he makes some excellent points about things we could be doing to make things better. And by better he doesn't mean cutting our standard of living. In general, I like his advocacy for change.

 

[PizzaDeliveryGuy]

Just finished Great Expectations and I'm almost through Brave New World. Once again, Dickens didn't disappoint. His ability to develop characters is second to none and the story was great.

Finished up Brave New World. Solid book but if I were going to pick between Utopian Novels, I would prefer 1984. On to Invisible Man.

 

[johnadams]

Currently on page 13 of Pattern Recognition by William Gibson. I hope I'm not the only one that has to read paragraphs over and over again before I understand them. I've read a lot of internet posts but not much in the way of actual literature.

Gibson is tough way to jump into reading if you're not accostomed to sci-fi in general or his unique brand of cyberpunk, which can be a bit jarring in the first couple of chapters. Try something from Philip K. **** to start with, who is one of the gold standards in sci-fi and not as intentionally confusing at the outset.I recently started a book called "Light" that is making my head swim. I got through four chapters and feel like I need to start it again as stuff that was happening in the first chapter is finally making some sense. It can be tough when a sci fi book just plops you into some almost totally alien world. I like it, but it can still be tough sledding early on.

 

[johnadams]

Read the Huger Games in one sitting and the 2nd book as well.Can't wait for the movies. Hot outfits. The first book is terrific.

Check out Battle Royale. I still can't believe that Collins didn't mention this one, which covers eerily similar ground, but is worlds better and predates hunger games by at least five years.

 

[oukurt]

I finally took the time to read I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. Some great stuff. 7/10

 

[Idiot Boxer]

Keep trying to read Christ The Lord by Anne Rice. Keep ending up wishing it was Lamb by Christopher Moore.

 

[facook]

150 pages into Game of Thrones. Love it. I'm an idiot for not reading this series before now.

 

[Uruk-Hai]

I'm getting ready to start The Five by Robert McCammon. McCammon has written in just about every niche fiction style known to man - straight horror, sci-fi, historical fiction (the recent Matthew Corbett series), apocalypse (Swan Song), coming-of-age (Boy's Life), and damned near everything in between.

I'm really looking forward to The Five, as it looks to be different than anything else he's done. Besides liking most all of McCammon's work, I'm a music geek so this should be right up my alley.

I'm only about 50 pages in. He's trying a little too hard to make the charcters unique (sometimes people in a group are like another in the group though that doesn't always make for good reading, I guess), but it's not a big deal. There's a lot of humor (though it seems storm clouds are on the horizon) and lots of half-buried rock references scattered throughout (which I'm really enjoying). I might be jumping the gun, but I don't see how he can screw this up. Updates to follow.

No Kindle version available, more's the pity, so you'll have to buy the hardback if you want to read it soon.

 

[njherdfan]

I'm just finishing up Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao with a class. This one got a lot of press (won the Pulitzer) so I'm sure many of you have read it. For those that haven't: it's out-f!@king-standing. A must read, IMO. Hella funny, hella sad, extremely well written and informative.

Awesome, awesome book.

 

[shuke]

No Kindle version available, more's the pity, so you'll have to buy the hardback if you want to read it soon.

I'm in no hurry. And I still ready books the old fashioned way.

 

[D_House]

A while back I read Jonathan Lethem's first novel, Gun, With Occasional Music. It's described as a blend of Chandleresque noir with Philip ****'s sci-fi. Lethem definitely has the hardboiled part down, and his setting is a dystopian future with a drug-addicted populace, but the novel doesn't have the mind####s that **** is known for, nor his fascination with exploring the big topic of identity. It is basically a 40's P.I. caper plopped down in a sci-fi setting. So there is the snappy dialogue, the gunplay, the mysterious dames, and the intricate plot, but you also have talking kangaroos and 'evolved' babies.

Worth a read if you are into detective novels, but not as good as his Motherless Brooklyn or Jedediah Berry's more recent genre mishmash The Manual of Detection, both of which I loved.

 

[The_Man]

Just about halfway through War & Peace and loving it. I use vacation each year to get a jump on reading a big book I've always wanted to tackle but never had - past ones include Moby ****, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow. W&P starts off a little slow. It's full of the usual stifling drawing room scenes that authors of that era seemingly had to start their books with to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocratic ruling class. But once that's out of the way, it really takes off. There were are a couple of battle scenes that were so action-packed they read like something out of a boys young adult adventure story (though with more gore). And it's really funny too. Good stuff.

 

[njherdfan]

Just about halfway through War & Peace and loving it. I use vacation each year to get a jump on reading a big book I've always wanted to tackle but never had - past ones include Moby ****, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow. W&P starts off a little slow. It's full of the usual stifling drawing room scenes that authors of that era seemingly had to start their books with to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocratic ruling class. But once that's out of the way, it really takes off. There were are a couple of battle scenes that were so action-packed they read like something out of a boys young adult adventure story (though with more gore). And it's really funny too. Good stuff.

Good to know. I'm finishing up Anna Karenina now, and W&P is next on the list.

 

[Jutz]

Currently reading Friday Night Lights the original documentary that started the movie / tv show. Just started, good so far but very early.

Next in queue, Those Guys Have All The Fun, a book about ESPN. I think it is kind of like 'the history of'. I would imagine it just tells a bunch of funny stories about working there.

 

[Tough As Nails]

Finished up Brave New World. Solid book but if I were going to pick between Utopian Novels, I would prefer 1984.

Crazy talk. Brave New World >> 1984

Though it's probably nit-picking because 1984 is really good. I'd put Fahrenheit 451 and We ahead of 1984. All of them are definitely, definitely worth the read though. Some fantastic writing comes out from this subject matter.

 

[PizzaDeliveryGuy]

Finished up Brave New World. Solid book but if I were going to pick between Utopian Novels, I would prefer 1984.

Crazy talk. Brave New World >> 1984

Though it's probably nit-picking because 1984 is really good. I'd put Fahrenheit 451 and We ahead of 1984. All of them are definitely, definitely worth the read though. Some fantastic writing comes out from this subject matter.

I don't know, I guess I preferred what felt more like a dark, dirty setting of society in 1984 compared to brighter, happier Utopia that BNW was set in. I did enjoy the more scientific aspect of BNW however. Both books were very very good.

 

[FUBAR]

Making Our Democracy Work, Justice Breyer

good read on how judges make decisions and the role of the Supreme Court.

 

[Don Quixote]

Just about halfway through War & Peace and loving it. I use vacation each year to get a jump on reading a big book I've always wanted to tackle but never had - past ones include Moby ****, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow. W&P starts off a little slow. It's full of the usual stifling drawing room scenes that authors of that era seemingly had to start their books with to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocratic ruling class. But once that's out of the way, it really takes off. There were are a couple of battle scenes that were so action-packed they read like something out of a boys young adult adventure story (though with more gore). And it's really funny too. Good stuff.

I usually tell people that it is a book that everyone should read before they die. It's long and you need a chart to keep track of all the characters, but it's worth it. Pierre's assassination attempt on Napoleon is probably my favorite scene in all of literature.

 

[Sand]

Finished up Caesar: Life of a Colossus. A tome of a book, but I learned a huge amount about the man and times. Big thumbs up. BTW, Caesar was a badass.

Also finished the first Hunger Games. Very light read, but a good story that sucked me in.

 

[The_Man]

Just about halfway through War & Peace and loving it. I use vacation each year to get a jump on reading a big book I've always wanted to tackle but never had - past ones include Moby ****, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow. W&P starts off a little slow. It's full of the usual stifling drawing room scenes that authors of that era seemingly had to start their books with to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocratic ruling class. But once that's out of the way, it really takes off. There were are a couple of battle scenes that were so action-packed they read like something out of a boys young adult adventure story (though with more gore). And it's really funny too. Good stuff.

I usually tell people that it is a book that everyone should read before they die. It's long and you need a chart to keep track of all the characters, but it's worth it. Pierre's assassination attempt on Napoleon is probably my favorite scene in all of literature.

Hey, I know it's an almost 200-year-old classic read by millions, but can't we get a little spoiler alert up in here? That kind of just sapped some of my enthusiasm for the 500+ pages still ahead.

 

[Don Quixote]

Just about halfway through War & Peace and loving it. I use vacation each year to get a jump on reading a big book I've always wanted to tackle but never had - past ones include Moby ****, Infinite Jest and Gravity's Rainbow. W&P starts off a little slow. It's full of the usual stifling drawing room scenes that authors of that era seemingly had to start their books with to demonstrate the hypocrisy and selfishness of the aristocratic ruling class. But once that's out of the way, it really takes off. There were are a couple of battle scenes that were so action-packed they read like something out of a boys young adult adventure story (though with more gore). And it's really funny too. Good stuff.

I usually tell people that it is a book that everyone should read before they die. It's long and you need a chart to keep track of all the characters, but it's worth it. Pierre's assassination attempt on Napoleon is probably my favorite scene in all of literature.

Hey, I know it's an almost 200-year-old classic read by millions, but can't we get a little spoiler alert up in here? That kind of just sapped some of my enthusiasm for the 500+ pages still ahead.

Oops. Only now saw that you said that you were only halfway through.

 

[shuke]

Jedediah Berry's more recent genre mishmash The Manual of Detection, both of which I loved.

What's this about?

 

[Uruk-Hai]

I'm getting ready to start The Five by Robert McCammon. McCammon has written in just about every niche fiction style known to man - straight horror, sci-fi, historical fiction (the recent Matthew Corbett series), apocalypse (Swan Song), coming-of-age (Boy's Life), and damned near everything in between.

I'm really looking forward to The Five, as it looks to be different than anything else he's done. Besides liking most all of McCammon's work, I'm a music geek so this should be right up my alley.

I'm only about 50 pages in. He's trying a little too hard to make the charcters unique (sometimes people in a group are like another in the group though that doesn't always make for good reading, I guess), but it's not a big deal. There's a lot of humor (though it seems storm clouds are on the horizon) and lots of half-buried rock references scattered throughout (which I'm really enjoying). I might be jumping the gun, but I don't see how he can screw this up. Updates to follow.

No Kindle version available, more's the pity, so you'll have to buy the hardback if you want to read it soon.

Finished this over the weekend. The reviews on Amazon are all over the place and I think I know why. Reading the summary would - naturally enough - lead one to think it's a thriller/suspense novel with rock and roll trappings. Read in that light, I can see why some readers felt disappointed or a little at sea. The book is actually the opposite - McCammon's ode to rock music with suspense trappings. It took me a while to figure out what he was doing. There are parts of the book that feel out of place or don't seem to go anywhere (sort of like when Dan Simmons crams everything damned thing he knows in a book whether it moves the story or not), but once you realize the novel is structured more like a song (some of the out-of-place episodes are like the bridge on a record) it all locks in.In any case, I really liked it. The characters were fleshed out pretty well and all of the music stuff rang true. And McCammon's writing is top-shelf. If you're looking for a standard serial-killer-on-the-loose novel, this book may not do it for you.

Speaking of Simmons, his Flashback is up next. From the Amazon blurb:

The United States is near total collapse. But 87% of the population doesn't care: they're addicted to flashback, a drug that allows its users to re-experience the best moments of their lives. After ex-detective Nick Bottom's wife died in a car accident, he went under the flash to be with her; he's lost his job, his teenage son, and his livelihood as a result.

Nick may be a lost soul but he's still a good cop, so he is hired to investigate the murder of a top governmental advisor's son. This flashback-addict becomes the one man who may be able to change the course of an entire nation turning away from the future to live in the past.

A provocative novel set in a future that seems scarily possible, FLASHBACK proves why Dan Simmons is one of our most exciting and versatile writers.

 

[PizzaDeliveryGuy]

Just finished Great Expectations and I'm almost through Brave New World. Once again, Dickens didn't disappoint. His ability to develop characters is second to none and the story was great.

Finished up Brave New World. Solid book but if I were going to pick between Utopian Novels, I would prefer 1984. On to Invisible Man.

Invisible Man was pretty good. I thought it shined a light on individual responsibility more than the racially charged subjects it showcased. I moved on to Catch-22 after IM, I really can't recommend this book enough. I think I laughed out loud on almost every page. The meshing of comedy and horror by Heller makes for some interesting and surprisingly easy reading for such a satirical novel. It gets

 

[Cliff Clavin]

Two good recommendations. You could also try Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King and Ghosts of Cape Sabine by Leonard Guttridge. Both compare well with the Shackleton story.

Just finished up Ghost of Cape Sabine. Thanks for the recommendation. Very good story. I wasn't a big fan of the writing style. It seemed choppy and I had to reread quite a few sentences because they just didn't seem right. The political back-story was pretty dull but I guess it was necessary to tell the whole story. Very interesting how differently the two commanders, Greely and Shackleton, were viewed by their men. Shackleton could do wrong and had the complete trust of his men while Greely was being constantly questioned and was rather hated. One would think it would have been opposite considering that Greely had soldiers while Shackleton did not.

Skeletons on the Zahara will be included in the next order.

Finished up Skeletons on The Zahara. Two great recommendations from Born to Run.

 

[Cowboys#1]

Reading "Marching Powder" about the San Pedro prison in La Paz, Bolivia. I spent July in Bolivia and went to the prison, it is pretty incredible, it is essentially an inmate run prison with stalls selling all sorts of goods, lots of rampant drug use (and manufacture) as well as having the distinction of having exclusive rights with Coca Cola who provides the prison with a lot of necessities in exchange for exclusive soft drink use.

Next us is the ESPN book "These guys have all the fun"

 

[Trey]

Really enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy..

 

[Usual21]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline. Here's a snippet from the NYT review:

I dare you not to fall in love with Ready Player One. And I mean head over heels in love--the way you fall for someone who is smart, feisty, and who can effortlessly finish your favorite movie lines, music lyrics, or literature quotes before they come out of your mouth.

Ready Player One expertly mines a copious vein of 1980s pop culture, catapulting the reader on a light-speed adventure in an advanced but backward-looking future.

The story is set in a near-term future in which the new, new form of the Internet is a realistic virtual multi-verse called the OASIS. Most human interaction takes place via goggles and gloves in millions of unique worlds, including the boring (and free) “public education” world from which our teenage protagonist must escape.

Our unlikely hero is an overweight trailer park kid who goes by Wade Watts in real life, and “Parzival” to his best friends and mortal enemies--all of whom he interacts with virtually. Just like the Arthurian knight that is his namesake, young Wade is on a quest for an incredible treasure guarded by mythical creatures. Specifically, the creator of the OASIS and richest man on the planet, James Halliday, stipulated in his will that his fortune be given to the first person who can find an “Easter egg” hidden somewhere in the OASIS. The catch? Every devilishly complex clue on this treasure hunt is rooted in an intimate knowledge of 1980s pop culture.

This leaves the people of the future hilariously obsessed with every aspect of the 1980s. The setup is particularly brilliant, because Ernie Cline seems to have a laser-beam knowledge of (and warm, fuzzy love for) every pop song, arcade game, and giant robot produced in the last thirty years. Seriously, this is a guy who owns and regularly drives a 1982 DeLorean that has been mocked up to look exactly like the time-traveling car in Back to the Future, complete with a glowing flux capacitor.

But Ready Player One isn’t just a fanboy’s wet dream. Real villains are lurking, threatening our hero with death in their ruthless hunt for the treasure. Worse, these corporate baddies are posers with no love for the game – they have movie dialogue piped in via radio earpieces, use bots to cheat at arcade games like JOUST, and don’t hesitate to terrorize or murder people in the real world to achieve their aims inside the OASIS.

As the book climaxes, a mega-battle unfolds with sobering life-or-death stakes, yet soldiered entirely by exciting and downright fun pop-culture icons. The bad guys are piloting a ferocious Mechagodzilla. Our good guy has to leave his X-Wing fighter aboard his private flotilla so that he can pilot an authentic Ultraman recreation. And how do you not grin when someone dons a pair of virtual Chuck Taylor All Stars that bestow the power of flight?

Cline is fearless and he lets his imagination soar, yet this pop scenery could easily come off as so much fluff. Instead, Cline keeps the stakes high throughout, and the epic treasure hunt structure (complete with an evolving high-score list) keeps the action intense. The plot unfolds with constant acceleration, never slowing down or sagging in the middle, to create a thrilling ride with a fulfilling ending.

Best of all, the book captures the aura of the manifold worlds it depicts. If Ready Player One were a living room, it would be wood-panelled. If it were shoes, it would be high-tops. And if it were a song, well, it would have to be Eye of the Tiger.

I really, really loved it.

Also just read The Walking Dead from issue 1-88 (gotta love torrents) in about a week. Highly Recommended. Michonne is a f'n BADASS.

 

[prosopis]

Really enjoyed The Hunger Games trilogy..

No necessary, that was a very good trilogy. I was very entertained and what more do you want?