Apparently, I am a literary sheep. I am now a few chapters into The Dispossessed (fascinating so far) and I just picked up Pale Fire to send to my father for his birthday.
Finished ***All the King’s Men yesterday, and am now reading Willa Cather’s Sapphira and the Slave Girl, ***which is better than its title.
Low Town by Daniel Polansky. Fantasy noir. It’s a bit of a slog. My problem with noir (with this title anyway) is the cynicism. It’s hard to care when the main character doesn’t care. I wouldn’t bother to finish it but it’s an Amazon Vine book, and I have to review it to stay eligible for the next offering.
Finished Tangled Threads the forth in the Elemental Assassin series.I’m still liking the series, despite a few sex scenes and the author’s annoying habit of using “po-po” for police - slang that I find rather juvenile. I’ll read the next when it comes out.
Finished the Stratford book, and have moved on to the Essays of Francis Bacon, in a loverly Folio edition.
Tonight I finished Jeff Greenfield’s Then Everything Changed, which Little Nemo had suggested (thanks, man!), an intriguing collection of three what-if scenarios from 1960-80 American political history: JFK dies in a 1960 car bombing (almost happened IRL), RFK survives the Sirhan Sirhan assassination attempt in 1968, and Ford recovers from his “no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe” gaffe in the 1976 debate with Carter. Very interesting.
Just started Jon Krakauer’s Where Men Win Glory, about the friendly-fire death of Pat Tillman and subsequent coverup, and have stopped for the moment in my reading of Kathryn Stockett’s The Help. Also, Amazon just sent me George R.R. Martin’s latest, A Dance with Dragons, which is already calling to me…
My book club met tonight to discuss the first six chapters of Reinventing the Sacred: A New View of Science, Reason and Religion by Stuart Kauffman. I’d be interested to see if any of you have read it and what you thought of it.
We’ll be reading Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism next.
Meanwhile, I just finished Tigerlily’s Orchids by Ruth Rendell. Pretty good. Very Rear Window-ish, but got a little slow at the end. Now I can’t decide whether to go for another mindless murder mystery, or to start In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin. Or maybe True Grit.
Just finished my first read-through of A Dance With Dragons, now on my way to read Jim Hines’ last Princess book, The Snow Queen’s Shadow.
I finished The Poisoner’s Handbook last night, and I recommend it.
Then I started reading Rats: Observations on the History and Habitat of the City’s Most Unwanted Inhabitants by Robert Sullivan. So far it’s good, and I like Robert Sullivan’s chatty writing style. The book is specifically about the rats of New York City, but it digresses into the histories of both rats in general and NYC. Both of which are interesting topics.
Finished Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy a collection of short stories. It was very mediocre. Most of the stories felt incomplete - like they were snapshots of a larger story. Jim Butcher’s was fun, but few of the others were memorable.
Finished More than Human by Theodore Sturgeon. It’s pretty awesome. It’s a sci-fi must read, but I’d recommend it to anyone.
I’m not even 100 pages into A Dance with Dragons. I’m taking my time with it, so I’ll be staying out of that thread for a while.
I finished Skippy Dies on audiobook and completely understand how it made so many Top Ten lists in 2010.
I also finished The Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.
Sunnyside, by the guy who wrote Carter Beats the Devil. I liked that book, and I love Charlie Chaplin (who figures prominently in Sunnyside), so even though it got only so-so reviews, I’m trying this book.
Also I watched the Chaplin movie *Sunnyside *last night.
About to start Michael Koryta’s newest, The Ridge.
I finally finished Feed by Mira Grant and I’m not going to bother to pick up the sequel. That book was so repetitive that it made me irritable when the author decided to remind the reader of the facts again. And again. And again.
Charlie Huston’s The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death was a quick and enjoyable read for the first half. Then it went a bit off rails and the ending was a bit too…Well just a bit too long.
Finished this book - still well written, but I certainly found out where the plot was headed in the second half of the book ;). A bit too many plot twists for my taste but overall worth reading.
I just got my copy of my neighbor’s first novel, The Devil All The Time. His name is Donald Ray Pollock. His first book was a collection of short stories called Knockemstiff. Now I’m trying to resist the temptation to read it when I am supposed to be working.
That’s on my library hold list, Crotalus.
Hopefully, he isn’t describing your neighbourhood in his works. 
I liked his first book very much, and will order his second … thanks for bringing it to attention!
I live about 12 miles from Knockemstiff. My extended neighbors are interesting.