Red Inferno: 1945 by Robert Conroy. Alternate history about the Americans and Soviets fighting over Berlin in 1945. I can’t recommend it too much. Conroy’s plots have always been far-fetched and his characterizations weak but this time he doesn’t even do well on his history.
I have bookmarked it for later review. It looks like something I may enjoy.
I seem to have given up on Winter’s Tale – at 400-some pages in (and another 200 pages to go), it’s been sitting next to my bed untouched for over a week, and I have no particular interest in picking it up again. I’m currently looking at a book on sketching for my pre-sleep read (been doing some drawing recently … that’s a different Cafe Society thread, though :D), and Winter’s Tale, a hardback, is way too heavy for a commuting book. For the latter, I’m currently rereading Left Hand of Darkness, which I first read close to 40 years ago. It holds up surprisingly well, though of course sexual politics have progressed somewhat in the intervening years, I’m happy to report, rendering the Envoy’s dismay and disorientation a wee bit overstated.
I’ve read it. Fascinating in its way, though Abbott is not exactly one of the great literary stylists. Robert Service wrote one of his worst poems on a similar subject. It starts out “There once was a Square, such a square little Square, and he loved a trim Triangle…”
Currently I’m indulging my hobby of antique juvenile fiction by re-reading one of the original Hardy Boys from the 1940s, The Clue of the Broken Blade. This one has so many disparate episodes and adventures thrown in that you expect at any moment to find the next chapter titled The Kitchen Sink.
Well, its focus is on a pair of Mormon serial killers, and its subtitle is something like “a history of a violent faith” so its not exactly a stretch to call it “against Mormonism” even if its not a polemic against the beliefs of Mormons. Its certainly not focused on the most flattering aspects of the faiths history, anyways. Good book, though.
I bought “Name of the Wind” by Patrick Rothfuss on a lark after the guys who write Penny-Arcade recommended it. I haven’t read a pulp fantasy novel since I was in High School, and now I remember why. Its not terrible, but I feel like its just minor variations on a mis-mash of elements from every other fantasy novel.
Also, the cover of the book could make clear that its part of a trilogy, as I bought it thinking it would be a self-contained stroy. Now I have to decide whether I want to get the next book when it comes out.
Finished Missing Abby and thought it was pretty good. I will keep an eye out for more by this author.
Started on The Ask and the Answer, second in a YA series by Patrick Ness.
I actually enjoyed it way more than you have - but I am frustrated with the amount of time it is taking for books two and three to come out. Book two was due out almost a full year ago. I am now beginning to believe he will never finish.
I just read Lord of the Flies for the first time ever. Don’t know how I had ever missed reading it before. What powerful imagery. I’m trying to decide whether to have my 10 year old read it now or not. I think he would enjoy it, without it being too depressing.
On a much lighter note, I also just finished Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith who also wrote Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. It was a quick read, as I read most of it while traveling for work.
I plan on reading Fool by Christopher Moore in the very near future.
I bought a copy of the Rothfuss book, based on great reviews, and because I could have sworn that I had read that he’d already written the entire trilogy and they were just spacing out the release dates. I never started it, though, and now I refuse to read it until the next two books are published, if they ever are.
Simplicio, I recently read Joe Abercrombie’s (completed) The First Law trilogy and enjoyed it very much. It has a lot of your standard fantasy elements, but it’s one of that new class of darker, grittier fantasies with more realism and less magic (like George R. R. Martin’s work) to which I have become partial. The fight scenes in it are fantastic, and the ending is anything but conventional.
I enjoyed The First Law very much as well, and recommended it to others - all of whom promptly hated it. 
To my mind, The First Law is great for those who like a twisted take on all of the usual fantasy tropes - they are all there, only subverted in various ways. Also, I thought the writing very much superior to the usual run of fantasy fiction.
Definitely an author to watch.
It took me a long time to get through Flicker, which I know some Dopers love. I liked the whole set-up, and I’m a big snooty film history person, so it hooked me in right away … but the second half was a little too WTF? for me. All I could picture was some old guy ranting about “Kids today! Their music is too loud!”
I think it’s been a while since we had a goodreads thread – is there a SDMB group?
Yep. Right here.
I’ve gotten a good start on the Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant. I’ve been hearing about it for a long time, and I picked it up last year at the half price book store. It’s been sitting here for a while and I started it late last week. It’s better than I expected. And one of the best parts is that the style of the writing and the tone reminds me a lot of my dad. Who would have thought General Grant would be so honest and humble? Not to mention the bits of dry humor that pop up every once in a while. It’s turning out to be quite a bit of fun.
Grant’s always been acknowleged as being a good writer. So good in fact that when his memoirs were published some people claimed they must have been ghost-written (Samuel Clemens was often suspected). But colleagues who’d known him for years said that Grant had always written well but most people didn’t know that because he hadn’t written for publication before.
You should be aware that Grant is not without his critics, who think he excused or downplayed in his memoirs all of the mistakes made by his buddy William T. Sherman, and was unduly critical of Gen. George H. Thomas, an excellent officer Grant whom seemed to dislike. Grant’s writing about his own handling of the Battle of Shiloh (which one historian wryly described as “He explained that he expected to be surprised”) is also not a model of historical accuracy.
I’m now reading an abridged version of Twain’s The Prince and the Pauper with my 10-year-old son, and we’re enjoying it.
I’ve started Stephen Breyer’s Active Liberty, but have been reminded all over again (through no fault of Justice Breyer) that I don’t like legal theory much, even in small doses.
I’m also reading John Grisham’s new short-story collection, Ford County. I just read the first story, “Blood Drive,” about three good ol’ boys’ misadventures late one night in Memphis, which was sort of fun.
Shark, did you enjoy Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter?
Finished Blue and now am nearing the end of the third book, The Fleet Street Murders. That’s all he’s written, so I guess I’m done with him for a while.
I just loooooove me some Agent Pendergast*. I wonder if there’s a Facebook fan page for him . . . *except I hated The Wheel of Darkness. Oh, please. But Cemetery Dance was better, and there’s a new book in May! Fever Dream!
I am on Disc 1 of this. Spencer’s voice is all I’ve heard so far, and I think she’s great. She imitates all the bridge club ladies’ voices, and the way her voice softens when she talks about the baby is just lovely. She’s a fine actress.
Finished* The Book Thief* and I loved it. It’s very sad in parts, but isn’t necessarily melancholy. I had a hard time convincing my SO that just because I was crying didn’t mean I wasn’t enjoying the book immensely.
I did indeed enjoy it. I wouldn’t call it a literary Tour de Force, but for a quick, light-hearted read, it was fun. I don’t think this is giving too much away, but I’ll spoiler it anyway.
Did you know that,
The Civil War was really about vampires wanting to enslave all people as tasty treats!!!
You go Abe.
thanks!
I just finished two Charles Portis books: Dog of the South, and Masters of Atlantis. Full of quirky characters!