I really enjoyed the book Station Eleven, so much so that I’m now reading my way through all of Emily St. John Mandel’s novels - but haven’t seen the miniseries yet.
Kindles are good for that… 
I saw a woman reading her kindle on the beach and I noticed the pages flashing very quickly. I thought she was a speed reader until I noticed the print was HUGE. She was just reading one sentence per page or so.
Finished The Order of Odd Fish by James Kennedy. Wow. Normally it’s easy for me to “grade” a book, but this one’s simultaneously awesome and terrible, often on the same page or even paragraph. The author stuffs it with brilliant ideas, but often far too much, and some of it hasn’t aged well at all. It’s a mix of fantasy and horror, with a lot of violence.
Now I’m reading Station Eternity, by Mur Lafferty.
Now that I’m over 50 I’ve had to find a balance between larger print and what feels like having to press the “next page” button too often (I have an Oasis; I vastly prefer having physical buttons). I hold my Kindle such that all I have to do is barely move my thumb to press the button, but I’ll notice/it’ll annoy me if I feel like I’m having to press it frequently. I couldn’t imagine having the print set as large as that woman on the beach!
Hey, if that was the only way I could read…
I bet audiobooks are also a godsend for some people.
Operation Vengeance: The Astonishing Aerial Ambush That Changed World War II
Dan Hampton
In 1943, it was learned through codebreakers that Japan’s Admiral Yamamoto would be near the front lines, and a group of U.S. fighter pilots set off to shoot down his plane.
Pretty good, book although only the final third of it describes the mission. Most of the rest is a recounting of the battle of Guadancanal, where the pilots took off from.
Recommended
Interesting, thanks. That mission even came up on The West Wing: We Killed Yamamoto | West Wing Wiki | Fandom
I finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy.
I recommend this book for:
- Masochists
- Post-apoc completionists
- People who are really into dark, cold environments.
I have a lot of criticisms of this work precisely because I expected so much from it. I have nothing against dark themes in books. I write dark, I read stuff like Lord of the Flies, there’s nothing wrong with dark. But when you create a world so devoid of hope, and hammer that point in again and again and again through mostly boring landscapes and occasional disturbing imagery, the book becomes not only repetitive but unbelievable. It lacked dynamism, character development, a fundamental logic, and the boy behaved in ways I found implausible.
The prose is good, and at times beautiful. Thematically, there’s something worth exploring, which is why I kept reading - the lengths you would go to protect your child, even if protecting them meant killing them to prevent a fate worse than death. Good theme. Not pleased with the execution.
2/5 stars.
I started Radium GIrls: The Dark Srory of America’s Shining Women by Kate Moore. Knowing a bit of the story already, I am certain that tears will be had before the end of the book.
Behind the Bastards did a podcast on this. He quotes from that book. Recommended listening.
Started today on The Ascent, by Adam Plantinga, despite a feeling that it might be a bit much for me. Then on page 28, the dog died. “And for that reason I’m out.”
I’ll get to it eventually. Behind the Bastards is my go to listening for yard work in the spring and autumn.
Finished Station Eternity, by Mur Lafferty. Although I was spoilered for this book, I still thought it was excellent, mostly for the plot, worldbuilding, and characterization.
Now I’m reading Chaos Terminal, Lafferty’s second book in this series–The Midsolar Murders.
Started Paladin’s Strength by T. Kingfisher. The second book in a fantasy romance series I’ve been reading. So far, so good. I like the woman protagonist, she’s pretty hardcore – especially for a nun. Though I have known some badass nuns in my day.
I need to select another book and I’m on the fence. I have Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold, but I kinda feel like I should wrap up The Vorkosigan Saga first. (I am about halfway through Cryoburn but I left it for years.) Someone else gave me Patrick Stewart’s autobiography. I have a friend with incredible speed reading abilities, she reads at least four times faster than me. I envy her so.
Started today on Good Girls Don’t Die, by Christina Henry. Premise: what if you found yourself to be a character in your favorite genre of fiction?
I’ve just started I Am Pilgrim by Terry Hayes.
The writer has had an interesting career. An Englishman who emigrated to Australia as a child, he began his career in the 70s as a journalist and radio-show host. He then transitioned to screen writing (The Road Warrior, Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome, Dead Calm and the TV mini-series Bangkok HIlton.) His last screenwriting credit was in 2001 for From Hell. Then, at age 62, he puts out his first novel, the aforementioned I Am Pilgrim. The book makes a splash and fans eagerly awaited the follow-up, Year of the Locust. Originally slated to be released in 2016 (and a few copies were circulated then) the novel finally had its official release in 2023. That’s George R.R. Martin-level maddening.
MGM bought the movie rights for I Am Pilgrim in 2014 and it has languished in Hollywood hell for the past ten years, with different directors attached. It’s supposedly in ‘pre-production’ but nobody is holding their breath.
I’ve finished Isaac Marion’s The Burning World, a sequel to his dark comedy/zombie romance Warm Bodies. R. and his girlfriend Juliet make their blood-spattered way to New York City as they confront the creepy minions of an evil corporation. Some very farfetched moments, even given the genre, and it just wasn’t as good as the first book.
Also finished USS Lexington CV-2 by Steve Wiper, part of the Warship Pictorial series. Some great rare photos of the WWII aircraft carrier, but a lot of historic info left out of the text, which was also poorly edited.
Started Dream Town by Laura Meckler, nonfiction about the very nice Cleveland suburb of Shaker Heights. Despite its conscious and largely successful efforts to remain integrated since the Sixties, and widespread community support for its excellent schools, there’s an enduring achievement gap between white and black students. Meckler tries to figure out why.
Also listening to an audiobook of Space Cadet, a 1948 novel by Robert Heinlein, one of my early sf favorites, about an academy for the Solar System’s peacekeepers. Good stuff, although the absence of women students and faculty is glaring.
That’s the problem with older sci-fi. I can rarely find myself in it.
I got 50-100 pages into a couple of books and then put them down again. I tried the Thursday Murder Club series, in particular, went into it with high hopes, but it feels like it’s intended to be character-driven and the characters just are not clearly drawn. Or at least they’re not clearly drawn, yet, in this book, but I ain’t waiting around to find out.
I did better with Angeline Boulley’s Warrior Girl Unearthed, which someone–I think @Chronos?–may have recommended here. A spunky and somewhat slackerish Ojibway teenager gets involved in the movement to repatriate Native American bones and funerary objects.
There is much intrigue, and a murder, and some pretty unpleasant people. It does have a tendency to move into Aboriginal Nancy Drew territory from time to time (I think the author might agree), and like many YA books the main character sometimes seems too old and wise for her years and sometimes comes across as way less capable and sensible than you’d think (of course this is true of YA people in general, and a whole lot of people who are no longer YA).
But on the whole it’s well-written, the characters are interesting (and well-drawn!), and the plot intriguing enough to keep me going. Plus which I learned a lot about the repatriation process or lack thereof. Overall, both thumbs up.