I’m halfway through “Orange is the New Black” by Piper Kerman, which the Netflix series by the same name is (loosely) based upon. It’s decent but not nearly as dramatic or racy as the series. However, it is holding my interest and I’ll finish it, and these days that alone says something positive about a book. I don’t force myself to finish boring books anymore.
I mentioned that in the OP. Can’t say it’s grabbed me yet.
SpazCat & DZedNConfused – Just returning the favor, folks - I know I’ve gotten reccos from you both over the years that have contributed to my personal Mount ToBeRead list. 
I’m about 2/3 of the way thru Nick Harkaway’s The Gone-Away World and am really enjoying it.
Our main character is a mercenary of sorts, living in a world where reality exists most clearly in close proximity to the Jorgmund Pipe. We get plenty of backstory on him and his pals before returning to what may be their greatest adventure of all.
Harkaway has got a knack for writing situations both mundane and surreal with fantastic (in both senses of the world) world-building and then populates them with blokes that you come to know inside and out. Lots of shades of grey - it can be difficult to tell who is on the Side of Right, and that fits Harkaway’s writing just fine.
Just finished Edvard Munch Behind The Scream by Sue Prideaux which I really enjoyed
I’m reading the new Stephen King, Mr. Mercedes. Some of the writing is a little clichéd so far, but I’m enjoying the plot.
I finally bailed on ** How Chance & Stupidity Altered the Course of Military History **by Erik Durschmied. I just couldn’t get into it. Two stars is being generous in all honesty, the book is written very amateurishly and as another reviewer, on Goodreads, pointed out, big sections feel like a high school theme paper. The version I purchased left off “Military” in the title so I was distressed to ffind that the author focuses only on battles and goes ad nauseum into detail on the movements of troops. The world of science, for which chance is an everyday occurence, is completely ignored.
The end of chapter “What If”, and “Hinge Factors” serve no purpose and are actually rather insulting in their obviousness as if the author assumes the reader is too stupid to see it for him/herself.
Just started re-reading The Dying Earth by Jack Vance. Holy crap I forgot how awesome it was. I can appreciate it a lot more now than I did when I was younger. And I’m getting a chuckle at how much D&D poached from him.
Also reading Measurement by Paul Lockhart. It’s a pretty good pop math book. The math is very basic, but I like his talks about first principles and what math is. Lots of problems to think about, though it would be nice if he gave answers at the back of the book.
I just finished End Game, 1945, by David Stafford. It covers the last month of the war in Europe and the first months of the, well, not peace exactly, as the war did not have a tidy, neat ending. Not every Nazi took the defeat of the Reich with equanimity, and partisans saw no reason to curtail their activities. Reprisals and paybacks were abundant, and the roads were thronged with civilians looking to get back to their homes. There were differing opinions about the future forms of government of liberated countries as Communists were beginning their seizure of power in the Eastern European countries. People were starving and winter was not far away, and the Yugoslavian army was working to seize Trieste from Italy and the US Army was ready to use force to keep them from doing so. In short, the place was a total mess, and British, Canadian and American soldiers knew the war was far from over in the far east.
Just popped in to note that I read Octavia Butler’s Kindred last night. I’m really late to the table on this, but what an amazing book! Butler’s account of Dana, a woman who gets pulled back into time to save slave-owning ancestor Rufus every time his life is in danger, kept me absorbed all evening. The period details of an antebellum 1814 (and forward) Maryland plantation seemed authentic and carefully written, cringe-inducing though they often were in their depictions of the horrors of slavery. And the central plot is interesting too, concerning Dana’s enforced returns to the past and the choices she makes there that impact the period characters and her life in the ‘present’ (it’s set in 1976). I thought Butler did a great job with Rufus, rendering him a man of his time and place with all the ugliness that implies. He makes truly awful choices, but Butler shows how those actions reflected the combined influences of his family and culture - yet were equally inexcusable in any time.
Wow. An evening well spent.
You might also like Noah Andre Trudeau’s Out of the Storm, a great overview of the last days of the American Civil War and its immediate aftermath. Highly recommended.
I started that book after reading and liking A Mathematician’s Lament. But Measurement didn’t quite work for me. I felt like the author could be a good math teacher, if he were dropping hints when I was stuck and encouraging me when I made an important connection. But absent that interaction, I just didn’t feel the same sense of joy that I did reading his first offering, so I abandoned Measurement partway through. Hope you enjoy it more than I did!
I recently read* Savage Continent*, which you may find interesting. I thought it was a great, if very depressing, read about the chaos of post-WW2 Europe.
I just tossed Globish: How the English Language Became the World’s Language back at the library’s return bin. First of all, the title is a lie. I was halfway through it and wondered when the author, ADD McAnectoderepeater, would ever get to the damn point. According to various Goodreads reviewers, he doesn’t do that until the last sixty pages of a 287-page book. Secondly, he kept on wandering from one anecdote to another without really tying anything together or putting it in some kind of cohesive order. And thirdly because I read this sentence which is real and appears upon a printed page:
“The significance of 1759 is perhaps reinforced, for the superstitious, by the reappearance of Halley’s comet in March 1759.”
I finished Raising Steam by Terry Pratchett and I know several of you here didn’t like it much, I enjoyed it a lot. I’ve flown through it snickering and grinning as usual. 
I read the first part of Jeff Vandermeer’s Southern Reach trilogy, Annihilation. It’s the story of the 12th expedition into a strange zone (Area X) which is somewhat like the Zone in the Strugatski’s Roadside Picnic. Reminded me a bit of Lovecraft or Hodgson as well.
He’s due to be at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August so I’ll probably go see him if I can. I may even have read volume 2 by then as well…
Unwrapped Sky by Rjurik Davidson was a good first novel. It’s an interesting blend of myth (it’s got minotaurs!) and steampunk, with other fantasy tropes as well. Very enjoyable.
Defenders was a bit of a page-turner from Will McIntosh. What do you do when you’re about to be destroyed by alien invaders? Why, hurridly create a race of giant three-legged fighters from human DNA. What could possibly go wrong!
Good fun but I probably preferred his earlier books, Soft Apocalypse and Hitchers.
And now I’m 100 pages into the latest Expanse book (v4) Cibola Burn by James S. A. Corey. It’s shaping up to be as good as the earlier books…
This should make it six novels in a row without a dud. 
Am working on Games Creatures Play, a collection of short stories edited by Charlaine Harris & Toni L.P. Kelner. According to GoodReads, it’s part of the InCryptid series, but I don’t think it matters much. Spotted it on the New Books shelf at the local library & both the title and list of authors on the cover caught my attention. The hook (as you might guess from the title) is supernatural-type fiction with a game or sport as an element of the story.
I’ve only gotten thru 4 stories so far - but thought I’d share:
“In the Blue Hereafter” - Charlaine Harris. My first encounter with Sookie Stackhouse, tho she’s not the main character - Manfred Bernardo is. Set at a softball game, so there’s the game/sport connection. Felt a bit like filler between novels, but still enjoyable enough. Wondering if it’s worth pursuing Harris/Sookie further…
“Hide and Seek” - William Kent Krueger. Darker than the first story by quite a bit; nicely creepy, in fact. The event of the title is the game/sport connection & while it’s been done before (“The Most Dangerous Game”) it’s a decent read.
“Stepping into the Dead Zone” - Jan Burke. Only tangentially related to the sports/game portion of the theme (kids playing dodgeball as a pivot in the story) ; however, the story itself was worth reading - I may look for more by Burke.
“Dead on the Bones” - Joe R. Lansdale. I’m a Lansdale fan & this story is definitely typical of his work; brutal and not for the squeamish. The sporting event is fairly integral to the story and includes a minor callback to his novella “The Big Blow”.
A friend of mine, who isn’t on Straight Dope, enjoys the Sookie Stackhouse books, though she has had some sharp criticisms of various portions of the books. I guess see if the library has one and take a peek?
I just started*** A Judgement in Stone ***by Ruth Rendell.
Exactly right- in the world Bradbury describes, it’s hardly even necessary to burn books, because almost nobody WOULD read them even if they were freely and widely available.
Finished John Grisham’s first novel, A Time to Kill. Very good.
Next up is another Grisham: The Associate.
EDIT: Say, not that this matters, but I noticed that “Whatcha” in the thread title has changed to “What’cha” these past couple of months.