Something called The Outback Stars by some young lady whose name has made no impression on me. Picked it up on Saturday with about five other books at the library sale and am half-way done with it already. Not bad.
Starstrikeabout Marines on Mars. Haven’t opened it yet, but it looks like a pointless fun read. Also The Fox on the Rhine about Patton and Rommel joining forces to beat the hell out of the Russians. And Arc Light, the story of the impeachment proceedings against the President after a nuclear exchange.
Two Jimmy Buffet books, to be saved for warmer weather.
Pretty much a light set of books. My taste in entertainment reading tends towards violent crap.
I bought a new copy of Angela’s Ashes because I loaned my well-worn copy to someone who has never given it back. I want that book as part of my Irish heritage section in my personal library, so since it was a replacement for a book I have already read, I guess I cannot say I have read this copy. But I will one day, because I always re-read my fav books every few years.
I watched the movie, and liked it, but felt there was a lot of story missing. It moved too fast and brushed over important points that would have made me empathise with the characters. Like any story should.
So I read the book to try and find those missing elements. Or rather, I have gotten through a third of the book, and can’t be bothered with reading any further. Very very slow, with nothing interesting really going on, and a lot of miserable introspection with nobody giving any answers.
And, worst of all, I know nothing of the kid’s Mother, just like the movie doesn’t tell me anything about her, and yet surely she’s the sole motivation for the entire plot!
I wonder if something got lost in the translation from German, or if it is just a badly written story.
I felt mightily tricked when I got a third of the way through and the book dropped this little horror from my past:
S = k Log W
That got a proper FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU
Deeply ironic that the field I had the most trouble with getting my degree (thermodynamics) I am now reading for “fun”.
Still, the book is fairly enjoyable. Good sense of humor, some new insights (to me) on the nature of time. Plenty of tasty physics (with the odd foray into metaphysics) written in a mostly casual style.
I did smile when shortly after dropping that abomination of an equation the author playfully noted that his colleagues had warned him, “Every equation in your book drops the sales by half” or something to that effect.
Probably wouldn’t give it the A the Onion did, but it’s a solid B. I’m about halfway through.
Picked up two used books a week ago, neither of which has been touched yet: John McPhee, The Survival of the Bark Canoe and Kim Todd, Tinkering with Eden: A Natural History of Exotics in America.
Last week, I was at a book sale at one of the malls sponsored by Children’s Hospital. There I picked up Iris Chang’s The Rape of Nanking. Haven’t read it yet, because I have a book on Jack the Ripper on the go as well as one called Killer Twins by Michael Benson, a true crime about a pair of brothers from Rochester, NY. When I am done these two, I’ll get to the Nanking one.
The last nine books (all used) I bought were Kingsley Amis’s “One Fat Englishman”, Saul Bellow’s “Mr. Sammler’s Planet”, something by Edna O’Brien, some short stories by Liam O’Flaherty, Three plays by Ben Jonson inclusing “Sejanus” and “Every Man in His Humour”, some history of famous practical jokes, something about the Oscars, some other film book, and some word use/misuse thing by Richard Lederer.
I have not read any nor am I likely to, as I left the bag on the subway. I only spent five dollars on the lot but I’m sure I’d have to spend a lot more to replace them, even if I remembered their titles.
I was in Hannibal, Missouri on Saturday, and bought A Tramp Abroad, which I’ve never read. I will read it as soon as I finish the library books due this Saturday.
The last book I bought was White’s Asymptotic Theory for Econometricians, which I’m about a third of the way through. I suppose that’s not very interesting.
The last book of fiction I actually bought, with the intention of reading myself? Good question, as I tend to do most of my reading in the public domain using my phone or computer (through which I last read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland). Pride and Prejudice, maybe? Which I finished on my phone.
If magazines count, I picked up an Asimov’s a few weeks ago but haven’t made my way through it yet.