Finished Johannes Cabal the Detective, and liked it. I’m looking forward to the further adventures of this character. Next up: Supernatural Noir, an anthology.
Finished No Werewolves Allowed the second in the Night Trackers series. More ookie sex and more predictable plots and I’m glad that I only purchased one more of this series.
I finally started *Carter Beats the Devil *by Glen David Gold. So far so good, but I’m only through the prologue and 1st chapter.
About halfway through Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks, about the first Native American to graduate from Harvard, in 1665.
The first couple of tales were good. The third story (Mortal Bait) I gave myself permission to give up on. The fourth story (Little Shit by Melanie Tem) was little more than an excuse to write a lesbian pedophile porn scene. I can read just about anything if there’s a reason to, but dang. That time there wasn’t.
That’s as far as I’ve gotten, and I’m about to give myself permission to ditch the whole thing. It’s overdue at the library.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: If a book hasn’t hooked me after 50 pages, it never will. That’s three-plus decades of reading experience talkin’.
Of Human Bondage. Somerset Maugham.
Read the latest Captain Alatriste book by Perez-Reverte (in translation): Pirates of the Levant. I’m very satisfied. 
Plenty of swash and not lacking in buckle, all with the same grim noirish realism we have come to know and love from this series.
[For those who have not checked this series out yet, it’s historical fiction about the days of the decline of the Spanish Empire (originally written in Spanish - it is amusing seeing the English portrayed from the Spanish POV!). It’s about a middle-aged down-on-his-luck Spanish solder-mercenary-cut-throat with a paradoxical sense of honour, and his relationship with his protige (the narrator, at the start a young boy) who falls in love with a sadistic aristocratic girl who delights in tormenting and manipulating him … needless to say they get involved in all sorts of trouble, as the Spanish empire they are sworn to defend rots from without and within around them.
About to finish up Bradbury’s *Fahrenheit 451 *
I finished What Would You Do With A Chocolate Jesus which was entertaining when the author wasn’t grinding his axe. I’d recommend picking it up for learning a bit about the history of Christianity.
After that, I braved the craptastic NYTimes Bestseller * Heaven Is For Real* which started off in the third paragraph with “Now, as a pastor, I’m not a believer in superstitition”. :rolleyes:
Then, Zombie Spaceship Wasteland by Patton Oswalt. Inconsistent random short stories. Some non-fiction, some fiction, no underlying theme or point. There were a couple chuckles but not really worth the time to sludge through them.
TIME’s 100 best nonfiction books: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/0,28757,2088856,00.html
Right. I ditched Supernatural Noir (after cherry-picking the Lansdale story, also a waste of time). Now I’m on to Joe R. Lansdale’s Hyenas, for which I think I have appropriately low expectations and after that, it’ll be back to the Flashman series.
Oh, I’m such a sucker for Lansdale - the last couple of Hap and Leonard books have sorely dissapointed, but still I’m all excited that there are some I haven’t read! 
Now if only there was more Flashman (sigh).
Malthus, I actually thought of you this morning when I opened Hyenas. There was a quote at the beginning from H. Rider Haggard, and I think you were the one who recommended his books to me a couple of years ago. Good stuff.
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman was more enjoyable, but less interesting than The Magicians by Austin’s brother Lev.
I’m now a fan of Henry Petroski after finishing The Evolution of Useful Things. I’ll have to read some of his other stuff. Instead if writing popscience books, he writes popengineering.
Next up, What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, a biography of Edna St. Vincent Milay, one if my favorite poets.
Woah, now I’m definitely getting it - a Lansdale book with a Haggard quote? Combo of awesome.
Yeah, it was probably me who recommended Haggard - I’m a big fan. I love lost-world type adventures, and he’s the great-grandaddy of that genre.
Also, I find his particular slant on imperial race relations that comes through in his works fascinating - though he’s obviously a product of his times, in some ways he’s a century ahead of them (the archetype is his analysis of what constitutes a “gentleman” in the intro to King Solomon’s Mines, where he concludes that Blacks from Africa could indeed be “gentlemen” just as much as Whites, and for that reason one ought never to use racist epithets - pretty obvious truism nowadays, but one suspects a more startling notion at the time of writing).
I had never heard of Haggard until I read the Amelia Peabody books, which are in part a parody of adventure novels like Haggard’s. I bought a copy of King Solomon’s Mines, but I haven’t read it yet.
The problem with Haggard is that his works have been copied and parodied so relentlessly over the years that modern audiences may find them unoriginal - even thought they are the original. 
Just picked up Martin Olson’s Encyclopedia of Hell, An invasion manual for Demons.
Pretty good so far, but wondering how long the joke can go.
You might like this book, a pretty interesting novel about a rebellion in Hell by demons who want to be restored to the presence of God: http://www.amazon.com/Gods-Demon-Wayne-Barlowe/dp/0765348659/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1314817327&sr=1-1