Then Everything Changed: Stunning Alternate Histories of American Politics: JFK, RFK, Carter, Ford, Reagan by Jeff Greenfield and Griftopia: Bubble Machines, Vampire Squids, and the Long Con That Is Breaking America by Matt Taibbi.
I’ve never read Banks before, but I just got a copy of Consider Phlebas on my Kindle because it was on sale for $0.99. I’m about 10% into the book, and so far I don’t like it very much. I was really craving some good space opera, too. 
I finished A Clash of Kings - it was a great re-read, but I was disappointed again in Daenerys’s story. I’m going to try to wait a few weeks before reading the next one.
I’m a sucker for political novels, and for alt-history. Tell us more about this, please.
It’s good if you like alt-history but it’s not written as a novel. It’s written in a non-fiction style except of course that the events being written about are fictional. There are three separate sections: all based on genuine historical events.
The first one was the attempted assassination of President-elect John Kennedy succeeding in 1960 and Lyndon Johnson becoming President three years earlier. The second was the 1968 assassination of Robert Kennedy failing. And the third was Gerald Ford recovering from his gaffe about Eastern Europe during the 1976 debate with Jimmy Carter and getting elected to a second term.
St Thomas More’s Utopia.
I’m reading Wise Man’s Fear right now. Its alright, but it kinda feels like the author had two books worth of plot ideas and decided to write a trilogy anyways. 300+ pages in and nothing has really happened yet that isn’t a slight variation on something that happened in the second half of the first book.
I am about to read:
I Want to Take You Higher: The Life and Times of Sly and the Family Stone
Finished Firebird by Mercedes Lackey. Based on a Russian fairytale, Firebird tells the story of Ilya Ivanovitch, the middle son of a self-proclaimed tsar. His father and brothers are all brutish men and Ilya, is the outcast. One night a magical creature begins to steal cherry from tsar.
Ilya ends up chasing down the creature, battling a wizard and a dragon and falling in love.
It had its moments, but the ending felt rather hurried.
After a year of it sitting on my kitchen table (the whole idea of reading in Swedish fills me with dread, but it is good fo rmy language skills so I force myself), I finally started ‘Låt den rätte komma in’ about a week ago. And mighty fine it is too.
That’s exactly how I felt up to last weekend, don’t worry about it. 
Finished The Cypress House, by Michael Koryta, and reaffirmed my plan to pick up whatever he may write in future. There is a touch of the supernatural here, but lightly and believably done. In fact, the only thing that raised my eyebrows in this book was the scene where someone was able to find something that had been thrown into the ocean by “marking the spot where it fell with his eyes”. Also, nearly all the women in the book are superlatively beautiful. So okay, a few little eye-rolls, but the story was great.
This morning I started another Hap & Leonard novel, Vanilla Ride.
Thanks! I’ll check it out.
Would I be too far off comparing him to Dean Koontz? (I haven’t read him, I’m trying to get a handle on whether I should.)
A little action, a little mystery, a little supernatural… (OK, Koontz sometimes has a lot of supernatural)
They probably are comparable, although I much prefer the two books I’ve read by Koryta to the two I’ve read by Koontz.
I like some of Koontz. I find his plots redundant (usually) but for mind candy I enjoy him. I’m going to give this one a try (or would you recommend the other first?)
Between The Cypress House and So Cold the River, I liked Cypress House more, maybe because it’s set in my state. Mind candy is a fair description…I hope you like whichever you choose!
I really liked So Cold the River – glad to hear you liked both.
I wasn’t nuts about Vanilla Ride – it read like Lansdale was auditioning a character for a new series.
My daughter just finished the newest Lansdale (forgot the title, “Red” something) and said it wasn’t nearly as good as the others. Not as funny, not much action.
Sadly, I agree. Lansdale is just phoning it in the last couple. They lack the manaic hilarity and energy of his earlier novels.
Well, that’s too bad, but other than the Hap & Leonards, Lansdale’s written plenty of other stuff I haven’t gotten to yet. I’m hoping there are still some gems among them (or at least some fool’s gold). 
He’s done some more ‘serious’ stuff which is, in fact, very very good. I particularly liked The Bottoms and Sunset and Sawdust.
But I do miss me some over-the-top Hap & Leonard, like when Leonard opens a book by pissing on some dude’s head and claiming it was a good professional bouncer move - ‘cause some shit at the Kit Kat Bar, a gay Black dude will piss on your head’. 