My apologies! I totally forgot the new thread in all the hubbub of discovering a couple new Youtube channels. I am such a teenaged sexagenarian
So Whatcha all readin?
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi. I either love or hate his characters although I am currently a bit meh with our scientist.
I tossed Come and Get It by Kiley Reid because I just can’t relate to a bunch of college aged kids and their issues? And honestly, nothing had happened and we were in the second flash back in the first third of the book…
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.
I finished a reread (re-listen?) of The Institute by Stephen King. It was as I remembered: An interesting plot with interesting characters, then became too weird as well as too long. Twice is once too many.
Just started Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Crichton died in 2008, but his widow discovered the unfinished manuscript after his death, and she asked Patterson to finish the novel. It was released last year.
Finished Fancies and Goodnights, a story collection by John Collier, of which the best story was the classic “The Chaser” and Curtain Going Up! The Story of Katharine Cornell, by Gladys Malvern, meh. Also read No Less Strange or Wonderful: Essays in Curiosity, by A. Kendra Greene, which had some good pieces but was uneven in quality, and Gmorning, Gnight! by Lin-Manuel Miranda, which was okay.
Next up: Patently Absurd: The Files of the Retropolis Registry of Patents, by Bradley W. Schenck, Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence, by Roderick Sewell II, and The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross.
Started today on A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry. It’s based on A Tale of Two Cities, but with faeries. I’m not familiar with the Dickens book, but the story is interesting and this author is really skilled.
I just got back from a two week business trip to Germany. It was intensely busy, but I still found time to read several books:
I finished Conan the Avenger by Bjorn Nyberg, abetted by L. Sprague de Camp. This bit of fanfic was the very first Conan pastiche (if you ignore de Camp’s rewrites of some Howard stories), published originally by Gnome Press as The Return of Conan back in 1957 before Lancer published it in paperback as part of their Conan series. It’s better than it has a right to be, although Nyberg was pretty clearly copying Howard’s Hour of the Dragon, which, in turn, was Howard copying his earlier Conan stories.
The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. Although I’m a huge fan of Twain, I’d never read this one before.
Hammer of God by Arthur C. Clarke. Although a big Clarke fan, I hadn’t read this one before, either. I think I feared it would be too much like Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle’s Lucifer’s Hammer. I needn’t have feared – it’s not. It’s prime Clarke, and worth the reading.
Duma Key by Stephen King. Another one I never got to before. I was wondering what Maine-based King would do with a Florida Keys setting. Worth the reading.
The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. I’d started this one ages ago, in a copy that was a movie tie-in to Lawrence of Arabia. Not as much of a slog this time, although it’s a helluva long book. The title is impressive, but has not a thing to do with the book. Lawrence originally used the title for a book he never finished (and for which it was more appropriate), and repurposed it here. You can say that this is the book that Lawrence of Arabia was based on, but that gives you a false impression. There’s much more here than that. I’m still reading this one.
Finished Eruption by Michael Crichton and James Patterson. Mostly meh, unless you want to learn about the inner workings of a volcano. Which I did not. Would not recommend.
Rogue Heroes by Ben Macintyre. Macintyre is a journalist turned non-fiction author and I really like his work. But this was one of his I hadn’t read and I saw it in a thrift store a couple of weeks ago. It’s a history of the SAS (Special Air Service) in World War II.
On audio I’m listening to Christopher Moore’s Sacre Bleu, a book I read when it came out, but which I’ve forgotten much of. It’s only the second Moore audio book I’ve read, after Fool.
My bedside reading is Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’ An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States, which is extremely interesting. Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the US took the tack of looking at events from perspectives other than the Old White Guy in Charge, with interesting and informative results. Ibram X. Kendi’s Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America looked at US History with documentation of racism uppermost in mind, also producing interesting insights (I find that I don’t agree with all his conclusions, and I don’t think it’s all due to considerations of my race, but the bulk of his findings are revealing.)
Now Dunbar-Ortiz’ book does a radical re-interpretation of the background and motivations in colonization, settlement, and policies that are very different from what I had been taught. And she drags in random bits of history that are new to me (there was an international – including English – quasi-settlement in Newfoundland in the 16th century predating the English settlements in New England, Virginia, and even Roanoke.)
Finished Patently Absurd: The Files of the Retropolis Registry of Patents, by Bradley W. Schenck. Enjoyed the humor, plot, and worldbuilding. Iron Will: An Amputee’s Journey to Athletic Excellence, by Roderick Sewell II, which was okay, and The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, which also included a shorter work in the same universe, “The Concrete Jungle”, which I thought was better. Good humor and worldbuilding in both.
Next up: The Living Mountain, by Nan Shepherd, which is nature writing about Scotland, and My Name Is Lucy Barton, a novel by Elizabeth Strout.
Finished A Far Better Thing, and H.G. Parry has become one of my must-read authors. This book was so immersive that even when the plot got a little complicated and I started to lose some threads, there was never a moment I wasn’t pining to get back into it. Five stars.
I threw The Library at Mount Char by Scott Hawkins back to Audible. In one hour of listening, I encountered: gratuitous animal killing, child exploitation, casual violence against a “slower” member of the “family”, corpse disinterment and other nasty stuff that needed a bottle of Listerine to assuage, threats against innocent people and a severed head. I am told there is a rape or attempted rape coming… nope I’m done. Oh and a really bad narrator who sounds almost bored to death at having to read this.
I have moved on to Death at a Highland Wedding by Kelley Armstrong. I really like the narrator, I bought the audiobook, and the characters, I really don’t care about the mystery as long as I can spend time with Mallory and Duncan again.
In print, I am almost finshed with All of Us Murderers by K.J. Charles. Ms. Charles decided to try her hand at a Gothic romance (m/m): old country house, squabbling family, a fortune for the getting . As always Love her characters and her way with words, I barely broke off to eat the day I started it.
Yes, there was some thing said I think.. but by that point I was wndred what I had wandered into… No, I decided enough after they dug up Margaret and David gave her a severed Japanes head with blue(?) eyes?!
Loved the title but thought the book was meh when I read it awhile back; I think the title actually got my hopes up more than they should have been. It was somewhat interesting to learn more about what Lawrence was actually up to during WWI, though, including his capture and ill-treatment by Ottoman soldiers (including, quite likely it seems, being raped).
I finished Jim Bishop’s 1955 short history, The Day Lincoln Was Shot. He has a dry, journalistic tone that works well as he describes, hour by hour, what happened on April 14-15, 1865; even knowing how it turns out, I still found it a tense and very engaging account. A Lincoln expert I know says it’s somewhat dated now, given more recent scholarship, but agreed that it’s still worth a read.
I’ve just begun The Shattering Peace by John Scalzi, the seventh novel in his military sf Old Man’s War series. The book is set ten years after the sixth novel, The End of All Things, which, not so coincidentally, came out ten years ago. The protagonist is Gretchen Trujillo, who was a teenager and a relatively minor character in some of the earlier books. So far, so good.
Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson. A typically humorous account of a trip he took around 1990 to various European cities. He does carp a bit, but from my own experiences in some of those same cities, he’s on point. It’s a good bedtime read.
From my post in the Whatcha Reading thread this past March:
Also just finished Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia,” his short memoir of his experiences in the Middle East during World War I. Elegant prose and several interesting stories (some of which, later scholarship suggests, were exaggerated). Lawrence’s admiration for his Arab friends and allies comes through clearly.
My bedside reading is now Daniel Immelwahr’s How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, about the United States territories and how the US coped with being an in-effect empire, and trying to square that with ideology and practicality. Fascinating book.
Currently reading The Unseen by Ania Ahlborn. It’s about a family who takes in a strange boy who turns up on their property, and the odd things that begin to happen afterward. The story is told from the viewpoints of all the family members in turn, which helps to keep it interesting.
I’m not familiar with the Dickens book, but the story is interesting and this author is really skilled.
