Has anyone described here the Amazon phenomenon of* Wool*? I’m trying to piece together the story from Hugh Howey’s blog, but its success is a truly amazing story in itself.
I tried in the post two up from you. Sadly I failed.
I’ve got it now. It’s a harrowing tale of NaNoWriMo, caffeine, and miraculous success.
The Story of My Middling Success, by Hugh C. Howey
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
I read Midnight’s Children about 12 years ago, and loved it. I’ve avoided The Satanic Verses just because I didn’t think I’d get all the subtleties of his take on Islamic tradition. Do you think I’d be missing half the story without first reading up on the background?
I bought and read The Satanic Verses when it first came out, just to push back against the fatwa. The book wasn’t bad, but I can’t say it left me eager to read more of Salman Rushdie’s work.
There are no subtleties. 
It’s very obvious that Mahound is based on Muhammad and that the Imam is based on the Ayatollah, but even if it wasn’t obvious, it’d be background information. That’s only one part of the novel anyway. And I also loved Midnight’s Children.
I just finished of Zombies! Zombies! Zombies!, a compendium of zombie-based short stories by various noteworthy authors (King, Lovecraft) and some I’d never heard of. Its really good and a fun book too. I am surprised given the level of attention zombies get on this board that nobody has mentioned it yet.
Link: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/book-review-zombies-zombies-zombies-the/
I am about to read Super Mario, a book apparently about how Nintendo took over the gaming world, another WEB Griffin book and a book called* Vlad: The Last Confession* by CC Humphrey.
I’ll second the goodreads suggestion for those who want to keep track of what you’re reading and (even more important to me) what you want to read.
OK, finished that, it’s unsurprisingly good.
Now reading: Absolute Monarchs: A History of the Papacy by John Julius Norwich.
I was only ever a theoretical Catholic, didn’t actually have much Catholicism in my childhood at all, and spent a long time being agnostic before coming to the conclusion that I’m an atheist.
So I don’t hate the Catholic Church, though I do object to the various evils it has contributed to. Which means the book suits me; it’s just a history, neither pro nor anti the Catholic Church.
What I’m currently working on:
Library read: Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut by Mike Mullane - referenced in Mary Roach’s Packing for Mars - a very entertaining (and humorous!) autobiography - I’d love to sit down & have some drinks with this guy!
Audiobook: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. Very atmospheric - enjoying the character interactions and the description of Le Cirque des Rêves! - Keeping track of the timeline is a little trickier when you can’t easily page back to the previous chapter, tho. Jim Dale (perhaps better known as the narrator for the Harry Potter series) does a lovely job; tho I’m having a bit of trouble keeping some of his characters straight.
Re-read: The Wizards of Odd: Comic Tales of Fantasy - an intriguing mix of contemporary and classic authors - from Lord Dunsany and H.G. Wells to Terry Pratchett and Larry Niven. The commentary on each author & story is nicely done as well.
Ebook: I just finished the third in Rick Riordan’s *Percy Jackson and the Olympians *series: The Titan’s Curse. I listened to the first 2 in audiobook form, which I enjoyed; this time around took advantage of the library’s Kindle offering. They’re fun books, with a nice pace and decent characterizations, and I enjoy seeing how Riordan brings in the Greek mythology elements - especially the “bad guys”. They are a bit lightweight; but then again, they’re YA books.
I’ve finished John Grant’s Discarded Science and am now reading his Bogus Science. Last year I read his Corrupted Science. He has a new one out – Denying Science, but it’s from a different publisher, and I don’t have it yet. Great books, well-researched and compellingly written.
I finished re-reading Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Jungle Tales of Tarzan on audio. Easily the best of his Tarzan books (after the original). I also listened to Dave Barry’s the Shepherd, the Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog
next up on my non-audio list is Theo Gray’s Mad Science: Experiments you can do at Home, but probably Shouldn’t by Theo Gray (of course). I picked this book up because it has one of the experiments I’ve wanted to do ever since, as a kid, I saw it at the DuPont pavilion at the World’s Fair – making nylon in a martini glass. I eventually made several different plastics as a kid (and others since), but I never did the nylon-in-a-glass trick. This book tells you how. The title is also a bit of a lie, because many of the experiments are insanely dangerous, out beyond Mythbusters level, if you can imahgine. He starts with Making Sodium Chloride the Hard Way – by mixing sodium metal and chlorine gas. The reaction involves an incredibly flammable and reacive alkali metal and a seriously dangerous gas, and it generates lots of heat and highly toxic vapor, and produces flying pieces of flaming metal that can’t be extinguished by water. And the book goes on from there. Great nerd fun.
Just read Julie and Julia: : 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen, by Julie Powell. Really fun, quick read with some heart (and some livers and some gizzards and some brains).
Reading Glass Houses, by Rachel Caine. It’s breezy so far.
Also Smokescreen, by Dick Francis. A re-read for me and a good one.
Finished The Ginger Man, and am now about 20% into Rudyard Kipling’s ***Kim ***(something my Dad tried to get me to read when I was 9 or so).
Ooh…J.P. Donleavy. A wonderfully irreverent writer, I’ve read all his books. Thanks for the reminder, it’s been years and about time for a re-read.
I just finished The Kite Runner. Beautifully written and a ripping yarn, although I disliked the main protagonist, Amir, for much of the book.
Yesterday Terry Gross interviewed Shalom Auslander (*Foreskin’s Lament *author) and I’m ordering his latest book Hope:A Tragedy: A Noveltoday.
That’s what I’m reading right now as well. They’re quick reads, and they’re all right I suppose, but in my opinion they’re not as strong as similar series, like the Skullduggery Pleasant books I just finished. I’ll keep going, because they seem to be getting better and because my 12 year old nephew loves them.
Audio book: nearly finished with Ready Player One, read by Wil Wheaton. I don’t know how he didn’t crack up when his own name came up in the book as a pop-culture reference. Great book, recommended for any gamer or child of the 80s.
I finished Ready Player One and thoroughly enjoyed it. I clearly didn’t play anywhere near enough video games in the 80s, though. Or watch the right kind of movie. At one point, I said to my husband that I’d never heard of the movie they were talking about - Ladyhawke - and he was aghast at my lack of knowledge. I think our Netflix queue for the next few months is going to be 80s-heavy. Sad thing is, he lived overseas for most of his childhood.
Not sure what’s up next. There has been a lot of SciFi/Fantasy/YA in my life recently. I think I need a change of pace.
I thought Darkness at Noon was great, so I hope you find it and get back to it soon. I’ve been meaning to read more of his work.
I haven’t seen Ladyhawke, but I love the Alan Parson’s Project, so as soon as I got done with Ready Player One, we got it from Netflix. Now I just have to get someone to sit and watch it with me sometime!
I adore Ladyhawke! I’ve loved it since I was a kid, though, so I can’t tell if it’s actually any good or not. I even like the weird soundtrack. I must check out this Ready Player One book.
Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I couldn’t find an intro thread, so I thought I’d just jump right in.
I just finished reading The Rules of Civility by Amor Towles. It’s best described as a comedy of manners. The main character is a woman in her early twenties who finds herself on the periphery of Manhattan society in 1937/8; enough to observe and analyse without getting caught up in it all. It’s not laugh out loud funny, but the dialogue is really dry and witty. I nearly put it down a couple of times because I found it a bit slow, but ultimately I thought it was worth getting through.