So how is everyone’s 2021 going? SSND pretty much here, though the change in White House occupancy is an improvement, I mean, isn’t Major the CUTEST dog ever?! And Champ brings some much needed dignty back to the Oval Office.
So Whacha all readin?
Khadaji was one of the earlier members of SDMB, and he was well-known as a kindly person who always had something encouraging to say, particularly in the self-improvement threads. He was also a voracious, omnivorous reader, who started these threads 'way back in the Stone Age of 2005. Consequently, when he suddenly and quite unexpectedly passed away in January 2013, we decided to rename this thread in his honor and to keep his memory, if not his ghost, alive.
Currently working my way through two books which I intend to finish by the weekend.
Space Exploration: Past, Present, Future by Carolyn Collins Petersen.
The Couple Next Door by Shari Lapena.
I am halfway through the first book and third of the way through the second. I have read another book by Lapena called An Unwanted Guest which I posted about a couple of months ago as being a great modern twist of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. I really enjoyed it so quickly moved to get hold of another of her books and it just happened to be the book I am now reading is considered her signature work (so far).
I am a big space enthusiast so any book covering exploration whether it is heavy in technical writing or storytelling piques my interest. Petersen’s book is a nice balance.
Oh my gosh this book disappointed me tremendously! I like thrillers, and The Couple Next Door was so popular that I thought for sure I’d enjoy it. And then the author’s writing style (short, abrupt sentences that are purely action-oriented) just didn’t work for me, so I gave up after 50 pages. But clearly if you’re 1/3 of the way through the book you’re enjoying it more than I did, because I’m pretty sure that book is more than 150 pages.
Finished Little Heathens: Hard Times and High Spirits on an Iowa Farm During the Great Depression , by Mildred Armstrong Kalish. It was very good.
Now I’m reading Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies, by Laura Esquivel, translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen.
The book is almost 350 pages long so you’re correct that I’m beyond the first 50 pages!
I guess the old saying of different strokes for different folks applies well here. I understand what you mean about her writing style being short and abrupt but for me I like that. The other book of hers I mentioned was the same. She has a wide net of characters and the reader is able to take a glimpse into the minds of each of them at various times but never long enough at any given moment to make solid judgements of character. This allows her to throw red herrings in and gives everyone a plausible reason of being a villain and yet equally plausible of being innocent.
Finished Before the Ruins this morning. This book purports to be a mystery novel, but after reading it, I’m not quite sure I would call it that. There are events you’ll have questions about, and they will be answered in due time, but the focus is frequently on the relationships of the characters. If you’re a Brit or an Anglophile, you’ll enjoy this more. I was a little hesitant picking this up because it’s a debut novel, but the writing was excellent. I really liked it and was excited to pick it up every day.
Next up, a YA book by T. Kingfisher, Minor Mage. It’s about a young wizard and his familiar (an armadillo) who go on a quest to bring rain to their village.
I’m on the homestretch of Stephen King’s Firestarter, and the four key characters are now all gathered together in one place, with fiery mayhem looming. Good stuff.
My teenage son and I have been intermittently reading Thomas Berger’s novel Arthur Rex aloud. It’s a very entertaining take on Arthurian legend with Berger’s tongue planted firmly in cheek, but not without due respect for the source material and even, now and then, a sad underlying note of regret for lost chivalry.
Finished Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies, by Laura Esquivel, translated by Carol Christensen and Thomas Christensen. Meh.
Now I’m reading Starborn & Godsons, by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. (In Barnes’ foreward, he mentions that Jerry Pournelle, who died during the writing of this novel, used to say things like, “Barnes, was your mother frightened by a gerund?”)
Just finished The City We Became by N.K.Jemisin. I struggled through the first third or so, but then I just read it faster and faster. I’ve had that experience with Jemisin before, so I toughed it out.
And then I started on Arsene Lupin - Gentleman-Burglar by Maurice Leblanc, inspired by having just watched the French made series Lupin on Netflix.
Finished Starborn & Godsons , by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Steven Barnes. It was enjoyable, but it’s the third in a series, and I wish I’d read the others first. (Not because I couldn’t follow the plot, but because various storylines are referenced that honestly sound more interesting than what happens in this book.) I read the third book first because my book club is discussing it.
Now I’m reading The Book of Eels, by Patrik Svensson.
Finished Stephen King’s Firestarter, which I last read decades ago, and enjoyed it all over again. A great sf thriller steeped in post-Watergate paranoia, about a pyrokinetic little girl and her dad on the run from ruthless government agents. I had entirely forgotten big chunks of the book, so it was almost like new.
Just began an audiobook of This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, about a pair of operatives, each on a different side of a time-traveling war, who become attracted to, and start leaving letters for, each other across the eons. I like it so far. The authors have a dreamy, lyrical writing style that is unusual to sf (at least the sf I tend to read).
I’m also slowly working my way through the Star Trek: The Next Generation short story collection The Sky’s the Limit, edited by Marco Palmieri. None of the stories has wowed me yet, unfortunately.
Finished The Red Ten, an indie comic miniseries with the basic concept of a superhero team killed off in the style of And Then There Were None. It’s probably a good thing I discovered it after all ten issues came out; waiting a few years must have been annoying for the original readers.
I’m currently reading How Not to Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking, which is pretty much what the title suggests – a basic run-down of mathematical concepts useful for separating reality from bullshit.
I, too, am reading This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone for my book club… I am not sure I am the target demographic for this tweeness.
Someone here has been reading the Elvis Cole and Joe Pike novels, so I’m wondering, have you read The Forgotten Man? Is it good? Should I start with another book?
I’m about an hour into the audiobook and so far, at least, I wouldn’t describe it as twee (hard for me to use that word in referring to eon-spanning genocidal conflicts). Perhaps I just haven’t reached the twee parts yet, or perhaps twee is simply in the eye of the beholder.
It’s already kind of scary too!