Halloween! Jack o lanterns! Ghosts! And more importantly time to break out the HOODIES! My favorite one for this year is my new Bloom County Zenguin… Opus will be so faded by spring, I fear.
In other news, I started The Paladin Caper, the 3rd Rogues of the Republic book by Patrick Weekes. It’s off to an action filled start
I also got back to Johannes Cabal, the Detective by Jonathon L Howard (another book by a different Jonathon bumped him)
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Khadaji was one of the earlier members of the 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, and he started these monthly book threads. Sadly, he passed away in January 2013, and we decided to rename these monthly threads in his honor.
Just finished Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn (best known for Gone Girl). It’s about a troubled Chicago reporter who returns to her small Missouri hometown to cover the story of a possible serial killer of little girls. Some great twists and turns - really picks up steam towards the end. Chillingly good.
Taking a break from The Jews in America by Arthur Hertzberg. Still rather dry, but I’ll finish it.
Continuing my Falklands War reading, I’m on the home stretch of Julian Thompson’s No Picnic. Thompson was the top Royal Marine commando leader in the Falklands. Disgusting factoid from the most recent chapter I read: the Argentine troops didn’t have good sanitation practices in their camps and pooped wherever they liked. One British soldier decided to have a chocolate while he was in a captured camp one dark night and thought it tasted funny. Too late he realized… well, you can probably guess.
Today I started the audiobook Legacies: Captain to Captain, a Star Trek novel about the return of Number One (the Enterprise’s First Officer in the series pilot “The Cage”) returning to to the ship to visit Spock. It’s OK but not great so far.
Straight Life, by Art and Laurie Pepper. This is the combined auto- and biographical story of one of the greatest jazz alto sax players who ever lived. It’s a brutal and unrelenting self profile of a junky, a sex addict, and musician with a tormented soul. It also contains a lot of inside information about the music industry of the 40s-70s. It’s fascinating and repellent at the same time. I’m liking it.
I’m doing a Stephen King binge right now. I’ve just finished From A Buick 8. Not bad, but a big long winded. Also finished **Gerald’s Game, Just After Sunset, The Green Mile **(never saw the movie), The Bill Hodges Trilogy, The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon (I think that’s his name), Duma Key, Full Dark No Stars, and The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. Yes, I do have a lot of time on my hands.
Which of those did you like best, Uncle Brother Walker?
I finished my Amy Schumer book and started on Ransom Riggs’ Tales of the Peculiar. It’s associated with the Miss Peregrine series, but not a part of the overall story arc, so feel free to skip. Mildly entertaining, nice illustrations.
Just finished The Mechanical Horse: How the Bicycle Changed America by Margaret Guroff. My favorite part: In 1896, the Binghamton Journal predicted in an editorial that if anyone invented a heavier-than-air flying machine, it would be a bicycle mechanic.
Tie between Finders, Keepers (the 2nd in the Bill Hodges Trilogy) and Full Dark, No Stars. The first is intriguing, the second just has some horrible scenes in it.
I’ve been in a reading rut lately, not really enjoying anything I have read. Just sort of going through the motions. So, I’ve decided a re-read of the Culture novels from Banks will hopefully get me out of this mood. Just finished Consider Phlebas and am starting up on Player of Games.
The one book I have enjoyed in the last six months or so was The Devils Detective by Simon Kurt Unsworth. There is a sequel, but I’m not sure if I’m ready to step back into that world just yet.
I received my copy of Bloom County Episode IX A New Hope today and sat right down to read it. I had read most of the strips on Facebook, but to have them all there, in my hand once again felt kind of miraculous. I won’t deny it, I cried. Bloom County was such a part of my 20s and having it back is incalculable.
In other News, I am nearly finished with The Paladin Caper and Johannes Cabal The Detective.
I finished The Paladin Caper this morning. I recommend it if you want an action adventure, fast paced, not much introspection book… and “your mother” jokes.
I just finished The Android’s Dream by John Scalzi, and hope he does more in the same vein. It is very humorous SF and, yes, it does involve a sheep. Sort of. Actually, she is a young woman whose DNA is 16 percent sheep. Long story. Scalzi gives a nod to Phillip K. Dick for the book’s title. No, I have never read** Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?**
I somehow missed the new thread, not surprising considering how busy I’ve been. So far I’ve finished seven of The Eight Curious Cases of Inspector Zhang, by Stephen Leather. Eight short stories featuring Leather’s somewhat-famous – among certain expat circles in Southeast Asia anyway – Singaporean police detective. Very good so far. I’m sure the eighth one will be up to snuff too.
Sand Sharks, by Margaret Maron. The 15th book in the Deborah Knott mystery series. These are very easy reads, and the characters are interesting and varied. The mystery in this one was a bit lame, though the personal dynamics of Deborah’s life were realistic and interesting.
I’ve been on a bit of a romance kick, and just read The Suffragette Scandal, by Courtney Milan. Definitely one of the best romances I’ve run across in a long time. Great characters. Real stakes. People being smart rather than stupid.
Just Ella, by Margaret Peterson Haddix. A Cinderella retelling. Entertaining but short and a little facile.
Now reading:
Cinder, by Marissa Meyer. Dystopian sci-fi Cinderella story (I guess I must have run across this and Just Ella at the same time!). Quite interesting, and better than it likely sounds to you.
Still reading A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan.
Also Range of Ghosts, by Elizabeth Bear, The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman, and Learned Optimism, by Martin Seligman.
They do all kind of run together…well, there’s the pre-Dwight Deborah and the post-Dwight Deborah, which does make for a neat dividing line.
I like the books well enough, and have probably read all or nearly all of them, but they definitely have the feel of potato-chip books more often than not. Part of the problem is that she’s so focused sometimes on explaining her world to the reader that things like mystery and plot, even character development, take a back seat. I remember one book–couldn’t tell you now which one it was!–where the narrative gets close to the climax, whereupon the author throws in a completely unnecessary chapter all about somebody’s traditional east-central Carolina wedding… I appreciate local color in my books, but there are limits.
Just finished John Kuhn’s short and punchy “Fear and Learning in America.” This is professional reading for me, but it moves along well and has a lot to say. Kuhn’s a school superintendent in Texas, a sharp critic of the school reform movement, and an enthusiastic advocate of the notion that genuine educational reform must go hand in hand with changes in society. There’s an election coming up for school board in my deeply troubled school district, and there are a few people pushing hard to get me to run. I’ve been saying no for all kinds of good reasons, but after reading this one I find myself beginning to wonder…
Chefguy: STRAIGHT LIFE is a GREAT book. Read it years ago, shortly afterward met Art Pepper’s widow at the booksellers’/publishers’ convention in Los Angeles.
I’m reading a biography of Erich von Stroheim, but sort of jumping around in it. Just started HITLER’S POPE: THE SECRET HISTORY OF PIUS XII by John Cornwell.
I finished reading “North and South” by Mrs Gaskell. An Anglican priest leaves the church over a doctrinal scruple and for his new job he has to move his wife and daughter from the lazy, bucolic south of England to the sooty, industrialized, busy north. Can his daughter find love when she’s forced to rub shoulders with (shudder) factory owners instead of real gentlemen?
Yes.
It was an interesting book because it was kind of like “Pride and Prejudice” meets “The Fountainhead”: the male romantic lead is an iron-jawed uber-libertarian capitalist. The ending was a little abrupt for my taste, but I think that’s pretty common with books that began as weekly serials. “Oh no, I only have two more installments to wrap everything up! Uh…they lived happily ever after, the end.”
