Started today on Uprooted as recommended by jsgoddess. Really good so far. I’m kicking myself for starting it on a Friday, as chances are good I won’t be able to pick it up again until Monday!
I’m eager to hear what you think of it.
Oh, and I know this because there’s a Polish tennis player with the name, but Agnieszka is pronounced close to ag-NYESH-ka. I always like to have a pronunciation in my head for names I’m not familiar with.
Me too, fortunately I had a former co-worker with the name. 
There’s a new Bernie Gunther mystery just out, Prussian Blue. So far, as awesome as the others - this series has not suffered from series decay.
For those that are unfamiliar, this is a blacker-than-noir detective fiction (based on meticulous research) set before, during, and after the advent of Nazi Germany - where a decent police detective, who personally detests the Nazis, survives by compromising his morality …
Anyone who loves historical fiction, and anyone who loves noir, should I think love this series.
I finished reading The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane. A young Union soldier runs away from his first firefight and then spends the rest of the battle alternately berating himself, rationalizing his actions, or trying to prove he’s not a coward. I quite liked it; I thought it was an interesting psychological study of a soldier (even though it was not written from personal experience).
I wasn’t too impressed by The Red Badge of Courage, I have to say. My three favorite Civil War novels are The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier, and Coal Black Horse by Robert Olmstead.
Finished Hidden Figures. I thought it was very interesting, even better than the movie. Just started Cartoons for Victory, edited by Warren Bernard. It’s about comic strips during World War II.
The Red Badge of Courage is one of the few books I was assigned to read in school that I reread on my own.
I just now finished My Life As An Indian, by James Willard Schultz. I have not been this emotionally affected by a book in more years than I can count.
Written in 1907 by a white man who lived among the Blackfeet and married one of their women, this is a very well-written account of the last years of the plains Indians’ traditional lifestyle. Written with passion, pathos and joy, Schultz captures the day-to-day activities, hardships, and triumphs of a people doomed to a tragic end. By the end, I was feeling weepy. I can’t recommend this highly enough.
Finishing up a re-read of Erik Larsen’s In The Garden Of Beasts, a factual recollection of Ambassador Dodd’s assignment to pre-WWII Berlin during the rise of the Hitler regime and the subsequent ominous changes in German policy towards Jews, racial purity, the buildup of their war machine in defiance of the Versailles Treaty, etc.
It’s one of those books that’s essentially a documentary that reads a bit like fiction because of the thinly veiled monstrousness permeating the German government in the early to mid 1930’s. Quite a good read.
Been also reading the Omega Days series of books, yes, a cheap quick read, zombie apocalypse, etc but still entertaining.
Up next is Tolkien’s grandson Simon’s book No Man’s Land. Never read him before.
Interesting! Never heard of the book before: https://www.amazon.com/No-Mans-Land-Simon-Tolkien/dp/038554197X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1491751871&sr=1-1&keywords=simon+tolkien+no+man’s+land. I’d be interested to know if his writing style is at all like his grandfather’s.
I’m quite looking forward to it.
As a literary trivia question, what are good examples of family members that are fellow writers where the apple does/doesn’t fall far from the tree?
We had to read it in high school, which was a lot closer to Civil War days the today is, heh. I remember liking the book okay, but what was really neat is our teacher also had us watch a videotape of the dramatic version, starring Richard Thomas, aka John-Boy Walton. That was pretty good.
On a side note, I’m seeing a lot of mentions of Erik Larsen on the Board and a lot of his books in the store. Is he really any good?
He is! Definitely reccomend his books.
Thanks. I’m immersed in Hamilton right now but will look for him on my next book run.
Michael Shaara, who I mentioned earlier, won the Pulitzer for The Killer Angels, an excellent novel about the Battle of Gettysburg. His son Jeff also writes historical fiction; he’s perhaps best known for Gods and Generals, IMHO a good but not great novel also about the Civil War, and has more recently been writing novels about the American Revolution and World War II, I believe.
Finished “reading” Michael Moore’s Here Comes Trouble on audio. Intersting stuff.
Besides Alternate Presidents, I’m reading The Unfinished Stories of Mark Twain, which I got mainly because I wanted to read Tom Sawyer and the Indians again, but which has much other Twain that I haven’t read.
My bedside reading is a book I got Pepper Mill for Christmas, but that she’s finished – Nelson Johnson’s Boardwalk Empire, the basis for the HBO series.
Mentioned in the Hugo nominations thread, I just finished A Closed and Common Orbit, the Hugo-nominated sequel to A Long Way to a Small and Angry Planet. The first book is a debut novel and is a picaresque space opera, in which the crew of a small, multispecies ship go on a voyage and have adventures.
I expected the second to be much the same, but it’s not. Mostly different characters, entirely different structure, much more serious in tone. It owes a small debt to Ann Leckie’s excellent Ancillary series in its ideas. I enjoyed the hell out of it, stayed up late reading, finished it in one day (incidentally yay spring break). Strongly recommended!
DZedNConfused, I got the book you sent me! I’ll read that next.
Finished Venomous, very-slightly-too-quirky dissertation on venom-bearing critters. Now about three quarters of the way thru Manalive, sort of philosophical detective fiction, sort of. It took quite a while to get going, and I am not sure the pay off will be worth it, but it’s G. K. Chesterton. I listened to Ju-Ju by Murray Leinster, who I usually enjoy, but the audio recording cut off the last chapter or two. It was standard issue African suspense voodoo fiction, and I have a pretty good idea of where it was going.
I think I will tackle The Railway Children, a children’s book I never read but have had recommended. Either that, or City at the World’s End by Ed Hamilton, an early sci-fi writer I also had recommended.
Regards,
Shodan
YAY!!!
I forgot I sent it :smack: