Autumn is nearly here… for us Northern Hemispherians. Crisp evenings, falling leaves and God Almighty, pumpkin everything! I’m looking forward to spending quality time with my hoodie collection again. And maybe acquiring a skeleton for my front porch…
So Watcha all readin?
I recently finished Rogue Protocol by Martha Wells. The third Murderbot book wasn’t quite as good as the first two, I think it was the lack of quirky side characters. Miki was just annoying to me.
I am currently reading:
Library of the Unwritten by AJ Hackwith
Dark Tide: The Great Molasses Flood of 1919 by Stephen Puleo, he writes much like Erik Larson, writing a story not just a recitation of the facts.
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.
Finished the history of Trump’s last year, I Alone Can Fix It. Well-researched, and with some items I had not previously known of. I like the way people have denied saying theings others have reported them to have said. The authors duly report each of these, but I suspect most if not all of these are after-the-fact attempts at coverup.
Started reading Inside Straight, the George R.R. Martin/Carrie Snodgrass “Wild Cards” anthology from 2008. I got a free copy. I’d never read any of the Wild Cards series before, because I never saw them at any bookstores or even at conventions. For some reason, about the only George R. R. Martin books I’ve seen have been his Game of Thrones novels – which are ubiquitous. I had to order Tuf Voyaging over the internet, because I never saw it anywhere. I wouldn’t even have known of it, if not for the SDMB. (Actually, I also have a copy of the anthology Nightflyers that I picked up when the movie came out, the only other Martin book I’ve seen)
I’m still re-reading James Loewen’s Sundown Towns as bedside reading. Appropriate, seeing that he just died last week. A book I strongly recommend.
I’m the host for our book club tomorrow (on Zoom) and we just read my selection:
As England prepares to fight the Nazis, three very different women answer the call to mysterious country estate Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes. Vivacious debutante Osla is the girl who has everything—beauty, wealth, and the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses—but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, and puts her fluent German to use as a translator of decoded enemy secrets. Imperious self-made Mab, product of east-end London poverty, works the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and looks for a socially advantageous husband. Both Osla and Mab are quick to see the potential in local village spinster Beth, whose shyness conceals a brilliant facility with puzzles, and soon Beth spreads her wings as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts. But war, loss, and the impossible pressure of secrecy will tear the three apart.
It’s 650 pages, and I usually don’t choose such a long book for my book club, but I blew through it in two days. Especially near the end, it was so intense that I had to stop and put the book (kindle) down and go do something else for a while.
I love all the Bletchley Park material, and Kate Quinn did a boatload of research for this book and it shows (detailed in the appendix). How these codes were broken pretty much (in the earliest days, when this book begins) with pencils, paper, and human brainpower is mind-boggling.
I’ve started three of those anthologies and finished two. Inside Straight was really good, IIRC. Deuces Wild or whatever what awful IMO. The quality is all over the place, depending on the collaborators.
Finished Grady Hendrix’s latest, The Final Girl Support Group. It was a fine way to pass the time, especially if you have basic knowledge of 80’s/90’s slasher movies, but I can’t say I really liked it. It suffered from the same problem as The Southern Book Club’s Guide to Slaying Vampires, namely: no likeable characters. They don’t even like each other. You want these people to band together and fight the monster, but what you get is just the story of a bunch of assholes, plus a monster.
Next up, Wendy, Darling by A.C. Wise. Although I’m not particularly a fan of the original Peter Pan, I’ve read several good books that were inspired by it, so I have high hopes for this one.
I finished listening to Billy Summers by Stephen King. As usual, King again proves that he is a master storyteller, although I thought that the plot in this book took a couple of turns too many. But all in all, an enjoyable read, I mean, listen.
Next up, based on the recommendation by @ThelmaLou, I am waiting for The Rose Code to become available via my Libby app.
Recently finished Charles Affron’s huge 2002 biography LILLIAN GISH: HER LEGEND, HER LIFE, which was the first bio not tightly controlled by Gish. I just KNEW she didn’t go 99 years without having sex!
Palate cleanser: Sarah Andersen’s handsome little hardcover FANGS, which collects her webcomic about a love affair between Elsie and Jimmy, a 300 year old vampire and a werewolf. Very funny, very sweet, very highly recommended.
Now 200 pages into Joyce’s ULYSSES, which I was supposed to read for a class forty years ago. What twisted fucking professor would put that into the hands of a 17 year old? I’m surprised at how much I’m enjoying it, now that I’ve accumulated enough knowledge to understand about 70% of it.
I’ve read quite a few books in the last month, some better than others. From best to worst:
The Tyranny of Merit by Michael J. Sandel is a philosophy book on the current state of American politics (though it touches upon other European countries as well, primarily the UK and Brexit). It talks about the downside of globalization and attempts to create a meritocratic society. I found it to be more insightful about the current disquiet in U.S. politics than anything else I’ve read/seen.
If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny by Zach Anner. A memoir by a comedian and YouTuber with cerebral palsy. A light-hearted read, but enjoyable.
The Guest List by Lucy Foley. An interesting twist on your standard murder mystery, because the book has you guessing not only who the murderer is, but also who the person murdered is.
The Wicked Sister by Karen Dionne. A young woman who has spent 15 years in a psychiatric facility, distressed because she thought she had accidentally killed her parents, begins to suspect that she’s not the killer after all. A decent read, but if you haven’t read any Dionne, I definitely recommend you start with The Marsh King’s Daughter. TWS was all right, but The Marsh King’s Daughter was something special.
Angels by Marian Keyes. This one was incredibly disappointing. I think I’ve read six other books by Keyes, and in general she’s a terrific writer: she manages to write in a humorous, easy-to-read style, and yet her books feel very true to the human condition as the characters cope with some difficult situations. But this book lacked the richness of her other novels, and I gave up on it.
Untamed by Glennon Doyle. A memoir on listening to your heart, essentially. There were three parts, and the first part was quite good, but then the second part was (in my opinion) awful. The author was acting as if she had all the answers on how to succeed in life, and the answers were essentially to completely disregard other people and do whatever you want to. When I got to part 3 and she started dissing the entire concept of friendship, I was done.
Books I’m still in the process of reading:
Julia’s Chocolates by Cathy Lamb. A wonderful book. Woman leaves her abusive fiancee on the day of their wedding, and retreats to a small town to live with her aunt. There’s a strong sense of community as characters in the book struggle to help abused, neglected, and otherwise unhappy women and children escape or resolve their bad situations and live more fulfilling lives.
What Makes Love Last? How to Build Trust and Avoid Betrayal by John Gottman and Nan Silver. I’ve only read the first chapter so far, so I haven’t formed much of an opinion on the book one way or the other yet.
Tuf Voyaging is far and away my favorite sf novel ever. Nightflyers is very good, but very different, I understand, from both the movie and TV adaptations of it. I’d also highly recommend Martin’s Fevre Dream, a scary and very well-written vampire novel set along the Mississippi River before the Civil War (I like to say it’s the kind of book that Mark Twain and Bram Stoker might have written together). His multi-award-winning novella Sandkings is also a must-read - totally awesome. His novel Dying of the Light, set in the same universe as Tuf and Sandkings, is bleak but pretty good.
Just finished an audiobook of Kate Atkinson’s Case Histories, about a jaded, knocked-around British private eye looking into three apparently-unrelated cases. As I posted in last month’s thread, the reader, Susan Jameson, is terrific. She can do all sorts of voices very well. The book itself was hard to follow, though - lots of characters and tangents, spanning decades - and not entirely satisfying. I don’t insist on everything being tied up neatly with a bow at the end, but the author left just too many unanswered questions for my liking. Her reincarnation/alternative timeline novel Life After Life is much better IMHO.
I’m also skimming Gen. Sir John Hackett’s The Third World War: The Untold Story (1982), which I first read in prep school, about a what-if near-future (at the time) war between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Some interesting stuff. Wouldn’t surprise me if Tom Clancy was a fan.
Next up: Amor Towles’s first novel, The Rules of Civility, about a young woman in high society in Depression-era NYC. I liked his A Gentleman in Moscow very much, and will be interested to see how this measures up.
This is also a 3-season TV series available on Amazon Prime (and somewhere else, too, but I can’t remember where). Quite good. I’ve read the books and also have watched the series a couple of times.
Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life is one of my favorite books. Someone gave it to me years ago and I was put off when I read the jacket and it said it had to do with reincarnation. One year our book club picked it and I was dazzled. This is not at all what you think it’s going to be when you hear the word “reincarnation.” I listened to the audiobook and I had an easier time of it than some who read it. A good reader can make all the difference.
Finished Why a Painting is Like a Pizza: A Guide to Understanding and Enjoying Modern Art , by Nancy G. Heller. I thought it was interesting. I enjoyed Art History in college, but we didn’t cover much twentieth century art. (It was a survey course, so there wasn’t time.) My favorite work of art depicted in the book was Chihuly: Inside and Out, a sculpture made of glass. Think of a volcano erupting with balloons, confetti, and streamers, instead of lava. https://www.pinterest.com/pin/59180182591446628/
Now I’m reading Say No to Murder, by Nancy Pickard. It’s a cozy mystery.
It’s not clear from what you’ve written if you’re aware that the book is actually a sequel to Hackett’s earlier book, The Third World War (1980). If you haven’t read (or skimmed) that work, you might want to look it up.
Yes, thanks, I had read both back in the day, but was particularly interested this time in seeing what Hackett had to say about Ireland and Sweden during the war.
I’ve reached the equivalent of 50 pages with my audiobook of Amor Towles’s The Rules of Civility and don’t know if I’ll keep going. Just meh so far.