Whatcha readin' gang?

Cafe Society
41

Right now I’m reading Conan of Venarium by Harry Turtledove. The idea of a Conan novel by Turtledove fascinates me, because he’s so good at historical detail. He’s constructed a plausible boyhood for Howard’s barbarian, and it reads convincingly. It’s not the kind of story Howard would have written, but it’s consistent with Howard’s world and character. I recommend it.

Dancing Naked by William Tenn. I’ve read Tenn’s fiction, but this is the first I’ve read of his non-fiction. Tenn is the pen name of SF writer Philip Klass (not to be confused with the AvWeek editor/UFO debunker of the same name), who I was suirprised to find was still alive. I listened to him on several panels at NorEasCon last week in Boston. This book contains some excellent criticism of SF and a lot of dirt about SF writers. An irresistable combination.

A Cordwainer Smith Concordance and Quest of the Three Worlds by Cordwainer Smith. Smith (Paul Linebarger) was one of SFs great quirky writers. Exactly how quirky I didn’t realize until I picked up a used copy of the Best of Cordwainer Smith about six years ago. You really need the concordance to explain the weird references and in-jokes. If you haven’t read Smith, look up his stuff. NESFA has published all his short fiction in one volume about a decade ago.
In my queue I have:

– The last two Harry Potter books, in the British editions.

– Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons, which comes highly recommended

– Four Novels by Cornell Woolrich – including the story Rear Window, which Hitchcock used for his movie. Also with three others that were subsequently filmed, including The Bride Wore Black, which Francois Truffaut filmed as a homage to Hitchcock.

42

Reality Chuck - you got an Advanced Reading Copy of the Stephenson book? Can you tell us how? More importantly, please let us know what you think of the series as a whole; I have put off jumping into Quicksilver (hah) until all the books were available for me to move through, and I had heard whether the full series delivers - please share your thoughts - I guess in a new thread - when you have them fully formed. Thanks!

Fighting Ignorant - thanks for the second on Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs - I am a few years older than you, but it still works for me big time. I assume you have read Fargo Rock City - even if you weren’t a hair metal guy (I wasn’t) it still works as a social commentary. And pokey - thanks for the nod in my direction; glad to hear that the description clicked and you’re enjoying the book…

tygerbryght - a few points:

  1. I will pick up the next two Renault books if FfH works for me. I am one of the those people who doesn’t have to finish books/series if they aren’t working (you know this if you had seen me fling “The Shipping News” across the room about 1/2-way thru, never to be read again! :slight_smile: ). I am hopeful, but don’t want to waste money on books I may not read…

  2. The Masters of Rome series is brilliant, IMHO. Harimad-sol is certainly entitled to his/her opinion and they are 6 long books, but I found them engaging and addictive - her prose provides just enough narrative glue to keep the historical facts compelling and the momentum up. Knowing that - for the most part - this stuff really happened really made the books that much more interesting to me (AFAIK, her scholarship is highly regarded for these books, and there is minimal fictional characters and situations). If you like historical fiction that is epic in scope, you aren’t going to get much better. (the first book, by the way, is the First Man in Rome…)

  3. Lindsay Davis writes those crime fiction novels set back in Rome, right? They are fun, but not nearly as layered as Masters of Rome.

  4. If you haven’t read Robert Graves’ “I, Claudius”, you don’t know what you’re missing. AFAIK, it is generally considered one of the best historical novels ever. I loved it - it takes place after the events in the Masters of Rome series, so if you like MoR, read them, then read I, Claudius. It is not nearly as grand/epic in scope as MoR - I, Claudius is a smaller time period, fewer characters and is much more focused on the politics and skullduggery of a few prominant aristos and royalty. Very different feel and wonderful.

43

I didn’t know there were others. Thanks, I will definitely do that.

I started A Fine Balance last night – funny that you mentioned Mistry.

Isn’t Thomas King a Canadian writer? I’m liking all the Canadians I’ve read – Robertson Davies, W. O. Mitchell, Andrew Pyper, Giles Blunt, Margaret Atwood.

44

I started reading Pres. Jimmy Carter’s novel The Hornet’s Nest. And ummm… Well, you see… The thing is…

It’s not all that good. Deep trudging prose about the Revolutionary War interspersed with characters and dialog, like he remembers ever so often that it’s a *novel * and not a textbook. And I’ve never (NEVER) not finished a book once I started, even **Dianetics ** (which was just weird). So I’ll finish Carter’s novel… just not right now.

So I’m reading bubble gum. :smiley: The Stephanie Plum series - I’m up to book 5. When I run out of paperbacks it’s back to The Novel.

45

I’m a 30ish American female, and I thought Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs was a great read; not bewildering or pointless at all. Not as great as Fargo Rock City, which was hysteria-inducing in parts, but some good solid pop culture analysis nonetheless. Klosterman has a nice, easygoing conversational style and voice that I really enjoyed reading.

As for right now, I’m reading Crackpot: The Obsessions of John Waters, a collection of short pieces he wrote for a variety of publications in the 80s and the early 00s. Who else can you trust to do an interview with Pia Zadora? I’m also reading Riven Rock by T.C. Boyle, about Stanley McCormick, a schizophrenic residing in a hospital.

In the queue–well, the pile in my bed and on the coffee table, are Cash by Johnny Cash; The Dirt: Confessions of the World’s Most Notorious Rock Band about the excess that was Motley Crue back in the day; and like another person upthread, The Fortress of Solitude by Jonathan Lethem.

46

I just finished Reading Lolita in Tehran, by Azar Nafisi, which was very good. And I think I’m going to go back and reread Ursula LeGuin’s {b}Earthsea Trilogy** - A frined told me the SciFi channel was making a movie, and it’s been over thirty years since I origianlly read it.

StG

47

Germaine, you and I are of the same mind. I picked up The Tombs of Atuan the other day and was reading it on the subway. Can’t wait for the miniseries to come out. Did you see the second trailer for it on Sci Fi? Look fantastic.

Also reading Something in the Blood, about vampirism in today’s society. Its interesting but it could also be called “crazy goths and the shit they do.”

48

Understandable. There was a time when I had to finish any book I started. Of course, there was also a time when I felt I had to eat everything on my plate, too. Frankly, I’m glad that both things belong to the past. :slight_smile: You should be able to get them from a library, even if it must be ILL. However, you can usually find cheap copies on eBay, eBay-Half, or Amazon. I shop those plus ABEbooks, because You never can tell where the cheapest copy will be. :dubious: So I look; my budget demands it just as surely as my brain demands books. One thing I just discovered: some Half.com sellers now have a $2.79 shipping rate (previously the standard rate was $3.25). :cool:

One of the problems I’ve found I have since going on disability is that I have serious difficulty reading fiction with a pessimistic tone (which immediately eliminates a number of otherwise good authors, sadly enough). Cecilia Holland is borderline; one thing that helps is that her protagonists usually have sufficient self-confidence and optimism that I can deal with the occasional set of trying circumstances, and even some unpleasant conclusions, e.g., Rakossy, which I do recommend, if you can find it.

I enjoy all Renault’s historical fiction. I use present tense because I do reread those books. She makes the mores of a time alien to us acceptable in context. I’ll admit I’ve shied away from her contemporary fiction. I’ve had no trouble being friends with people Practicing Other Lifestyles[sup]TM[/sup], but some fiction (e.g., some of Samuel Delany’s books or Lackey’s) squicks me. I even loaned Renault’s The Praise Singer to a church friend who home-schools (former certified elementary teacher) and was looking to understand more about the ancient Greek era, with the understanding that she could borrow others (guaranteed non-squicky) with gay protagonists (Praise Singer’s isn’t, and I found it a wonderfully entertaining story).

Noted, and thanks. I’m always looking for new stuff. I have too many hours to fill, and I can’t spend very many of them on the computer (too hard on my eyes). I will begin looking for it today. :wink:

Also noted, and we’ll see how it goes with McCullough.

For those reading Durant’s Caesar and Christ, I recommend Stewart Perowne’s Caesars & Saints: The Rise of the Christian State, A.D. 180-313, particularly for Christians. :wink: My copy is the Barns & Cows edition, sadly, which lacks the generous dollop of photos and other illos that appeared in UK editions of his books. I hope one day to have all his books in UK editions. Not that he was a great writer, merely a competent one. Nor was he an historian by trade, but I believe that was his major “at university”, as the Brits say, but he read and made use of the work of scholars, and wrote entertainingly.

AuntiePam, other Canadian authors are Robert Sawyer (if you like SF; he’s had Hugo nominations) and Charles De Lint, who is popular for his fantasy. I don’t read very much fantasy (I have a list of fantasy authors I read, to which I rarely add), and the one book of his I read didn’t make me start searching for more. However, that’s true of most fantasy I read. :stuck_out_tongue: OTOH, I have a number of Sawyer’s books, if that’s any recommendation. And both writers are prolific.

49

I just finished Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill’s The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Vol. II on Friday. (I’m still reading the extra stuff at the back) I really enjoyed it.

The Living Ocean by Boyce Thorne-Miller is still in progress.

Next in the queue is a book about the influenza epidemic of 1918. It’s so exciting to be me! :wink:

50

I was terribly entertained by this image. I had planned on a clever fake new story telling about a roving band of readers disrupting the city, lead by a mysterious figure known only as “The Librarian.” Unfortunately, that was all the cleverness that I had in me. So I figured I would wait until today when I was feeling more clever. Imagine my disappointment when I discovered that I’m no more clever today than I was yesterday. :frowning: Oh well, it was the thought, I suppose.

51

You’ll be glad you did - not only are they great, but there are 6 books and each is about 1,000 freakin’ pages! I don’t know how, but I found myself flippin’ through them - I just dug ‘em…talk about fillin’ up your hours…

Cool - again, a very different style of book, but fun to read in historical order, if you will…

52

I’m reading Distant Mirror – The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. Technically, I’ve been reading it much of the summer as it’s been my keep-in-the-car-and-read-while-in-line-or-at-a-restaurant-by-myself book. Very readable and gives some interesting perspective on a century that was even more disasterous than the 20th Century.

On deck, I’ve got the new Hiaasen book, ** Skinny Dip * which I’m expecting to be good fun, but not wildly different than his last few books. And ** A Monstrous Regiment of Women** which I picked up because I liked the Beekeeper’s Apprentice well enough, and because I suspect that it’s where Terry Pratchett got the title for “Monstrous Regiment”.

On the injured/disabled list, I have “Lords of the Horizon”, a history of the Ottoman empire that I was really looking forward to, but which turned out to be less well-written than I had hoped. Not bad – but it didn’t really help me understand how a group of illiterate nomads established an empire that lasted for 600 years and came close to taking over all of Europe.

53

Thanks. I recently traded for some DeLint and am looking forward to it. Robert Sawyer goes on the list. :slight_smile:

54

dangermom, thanks for reminding me about The Bookman’s Promise. I love the other 2 Janeway books and am extremely excited that there’s a new book after such a long hiatus.

AuntiePam, the Susanna Clarke book is definitely on my “to read” list, though I haven’t bought it yet. Have you read Robertson Davies’ Murther and Walking Spirits? That’s my favorite of his works.

Right now, I’m working on The World: Travels 1950-2000 by Jan Morris. Great travel writing, though some of the excerpts seem a bit abrupt…I need to dig up some of her other work and read the longer versions.

This morning on the bus I started reading an advance copy of So Yesterday by Scott Westerfield, and I’m enjoying it although it doesn’t seem like the type of thing I’d normally read.

I also just finished up Johanna Sinisalo’s Troll, which I recommend to anyone who’s looking for a quick, light fantasy read (Finnish guy rescues/falls in love with troll being beaten up by teenagers).

55

Well actually, she took the title from a historical document:

from here: Monstrous Rigiment

In this case, Rigiment is used in the same context as regime.

56

Besides texts for classes, I’m reading Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. It’s my first Western, and I must say that I’ve found it enjoyable and compelling!

57

I’m reading The Allelulia Files by Sharon Shinn and I’m peeing my chinos in anticipation of The Dark Tower VII: The Dark Tower.

I’m also working on a roleplaying campaign, so just the one book for now.

58

I nominate Khadaji to be the leader of the Whatcha Readin’ Gang!

(I know how you feel; I’m not clever enough to take it any farther, either.)

59

I nominate Khadaji to be the leader of the Whatcha Readin’ Gang!

(I know how you feel; I’m not clever enough to take it any farther, either.)

60

Right now I am reading Randy Shilts’ book “Conduct Unbecoming” for the second time. Usually I alternate between fiction and non-fiction when I can. Last week it was a Stephen King/Richard Bachman double feature, “Desperation” and “The Regulators”. This week, something more substantial and heartbreaking.