Some fellow has a vanity ebook, “Matt Helm the War Years”, a prequel to Donald Hamilton’s Matt Helm novels.
After reading that, I began Hamilton’s “Death of a Citizen” again.
I’d read several reviews describing it as a zany faux-Biblical laff riot, and it was not that.
I finished Flashman and the Tiger. Although (or maybe because) it was split into three shorter tales, I thought it was one of the best of the series.
I’m fifty pages in to The House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni. It’s fairly painless, but so obviously trying hard to be quirky. I’m feeling no connection with any of the “zany” characters. I am sticking it out, though, because I don’t have a lot in the TBR pile right now and am going out of town in a couple of weeks! sigh It probably gets better and shit.
I finished Truth in Advertising by John Kenney. It was just a mess overall. The author was trying way to hard to be witty and kept throwing in one-liners that just didn’t work. I gave it two stars out of pity because there were a couple of nice moments and because I won it on Goodreads and didn’t want to trash it completely.
Now I can concentrate on finishing Still Alice by Lisa Genova and Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger. Both of them are excellent.
Finished up Viktor Pelevin’s Omon Ra, which is now on my short list of most WTF books ever. Our protagonist dreams of going to the moon as a boy, so he enlists in a Soviet aviation school where the first thing they do after you pass your exams is cut your legs off. Luckily, he’s going to be a cosmonaut, so he doesn’t have that problem. Instead, he is going to be sent on a one-way mission to the moon, manning an automated lunar probe. There are several other cosmonauts who train with him, who get to do things like manually release the intermediate stages and have the engines blast into their face on the way out. (Oh, by the way–the ICBMs? Those have pilots also.) All of these automated systems need to have sacrificial humans in them because… um. Because Soviet Russia? And then he goes on the mission to the moon, the pistol issued him to shoot himself in the head misfires, and…
…he discovers that the entire Soviet space program is a series of elaborate mock-ups in the Moscow metro tunnels. :dubious:
Like I said: WTF. I guess I’m just not Russian enough for this one to make sense or something–it’s generally well-received. I may give one of his werewolf novels a try later, just to see if he’s always like this or not.
I’ve now just started into Scalzi’s Red Shirts, based on a friend’s recommend plus the general buzz around it from a few years ago. Not as uproariously funny as I maybe was expecting so far, but on the other hand, I’ve got a pretty good idea of what’s going on from hearing it discussed on podcasts and the like. Seems it should be a pleasant enough read, if nothing else.
I hadn’t bothered reading any of his books for years, but I’ve enjoyed this one and the sequel more than I thought I would. It’s more a soap opera than a post-disaster thriller though! I like that so far big government has been noticible by it’s absence except for some disaster relief; nobody above a mayor or a senator has been a character, I think.
And Dung Beetle, I really enjoyed The House of Tomorrow, especially the concert! But punk and Buckminster Fuller both appeal to me!
Currently I’m slowly reading Love and Sleep by John Crowley; it’s the 2nd in his Aegypt quartet. I finally read Aegypt 5 years ago, having bought it when it came out, and now I’ve tackling the next one. It’s only been on the shelves for 19 years!
It’s a bit of a slog; the first 150 pages were of the protagonist’s childhood in the early 1950s in Appalachian poverty, then it jumped to after the events in Aegypt, and now I’m in a big section set in the late 16th C in the court of Queen Elizabeth, with John Dee and other philosophers, etc. debating Aristotle and Copernicus…
I can well imagine that it’ll be some time before I tackle the other two volumes!
Well, in that case, I’ll finish it then. Just needed some reassurance… 
I gave up on Byzantium by Michael Angold, I found myself thinking of dinner more than the book.
Apparently the book is not so much a straight forward history of the Byzantine Empire but rather a discussion of the religious issues, particularly iconoclasm, in the early church. Whoever wrote the blurb obviously had not read the book. It’s likely a far better read for someone familiar with the history of Byzantium and the issues of iconoclasm not to mention the doctrinal split between Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Roman Catholicism.
Fed Ex FINALLY released my books and so I will start “When America First Met China: An Exotic History of Tea, Drugs, and Money in the Age of Sail” as soon as I finish “An Unholy Alliance” by Susanna Gregory.
I am reading The Detroit Electric Scheme by D.E. Johnson, a murder mystery set in 1910 Detroit, at an up-and-coming manufacturer of electric automobiles. I read the third book in the series, Detroit Breakdown, and liked it well enough that I went back to the library for the first two. The second book is called Motor City Shakedown.
Oh goodness, I’m SO glad to hear I’m not the only one who does this! I have some laying around from my teens and 20s (will be 48 next month) still waiting to be read!
Well, Aegypt was on the shelf at home for over 20 years before I finished it so I’m a little bit faster off the mark with this one!
I generally keep up but some, especially trilogies, end up waiting a while before I tackle them.
I’ll be interested to hear what you think of When America… My niece is into all things Chinese, and perhaps I can make a recommendation.
I just finished Round House, by Louise Erdrich. It’s a bildungsroman about a 13 year old Ojibwe kid on the rez in South Dakota, trying to come to terms with his mom’s rape. The book had a coincidence or two that was just a tad unlikely, but otherwise I thought it was a brilliant book. So compelling that I blasted through it in two days, which is unusual for me.
I will check back when I am finished. The reviews on Goodreads all look positive, so I’m optimistic.
Leftover business from last month’s thread -
I’m reading this recommendation from last month’s thread, “Dust.”
Yup, that’s the one.
Another one for my list.
And more for my list!
Finished The Scarecrow, by Michael Connelly. Another solid work. However, I was a bit miffed at the passing reference made by an FBI agent to some “Bangkok torture films” that was allegedly found in the possession of a suspect. I have never heard of that sort of thing here. However, I have heard of such films coming out of the Philippines, but just like snuff films, they’re fake and the stuff of Urban Legends from what I can tell, although admittedly I’ve never actually seen any. (Really!) Anyway, this leaves two Michael Connelly books that I have not yet read, not counting the one that is scheduled to be published this year, and I am saving them for Japan next month.
I’ve also been doing some more work on my friend’s book, the one on Thai political motivations. It’s being published in New York this month. His 90 Word pages come in at a little over 200 book pages now that he has the actual book pages laid out.
Speaking of Japan, we’re about a month away from traveling to there, so now I’m going to spend some time going back through the pertinent sections of the Lonely Planet Japan guidebook. (The wife picked up her visa today from the Japan Visa Application Center. As an American, I don’t have to obtain a visa ahead of time, I can just show up in the country.)
Reading The Searchers by Alan LeMay. The movie is a favorite, and I’ve been told that the book is a bit different from the movie, especially the ending.
The book features an intro by Harry Carey, Jr., who played Brad Jorgenson in the movie. What a mess – lots of anecdotes about working in westerns, with nothing new about John Wayne or anyone else involved in the movie. The intro needed an editor, badly.
Does the book follow more closely the real life case of Cynthia Ann Parker?
If so, the ending would HAVE to be very different, as the real Cynthia Ann Parker had no desire to go back to her white family, and hated every second she was forced to spend away from the Commanche she had come to identify with.
I don’t know yet – just started.
That story would make a better movie. I do love The Searchers, but the movie has its problems.
I finished Iron Lake by William Kent Krueger. I really wish I’d discovered him sooner. I enjoy his writing style a lot. I had a few issues toward the end, but other than that it was close to perfect. I’m looking forward to reading more of his books.
I started 11/22/63 by Stephen King last night and also Murder in Gales: a Rose Hanged Twice, by a local author. The latter is a non-fiction piece. I’m also still reading Still Alice.