What are you reading now?

I am trying to read The Overstory by Richard Powers. It's not bad, but it is slow going. My family recommended it to me any number of times.

I'm working on Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth right now. Seemed like a good time to pick up a nice long book.

MadScientistMatt said:

I'm working on Ken Follet's The Pillars of the Earth right now. Seemed like a good time to pick up a nice long book.

That's an astoundingly good page turner for a plot that takes place over decades if not hundreds of years.

NickD said:

Duke said:

NickD said:

The Terror by Dan Simmons. Not the first time I've read this book, but it disturbs me every time. 

Sounds good!  I'm going to need a book in a few days. 
 

Its roughly based on Sir John Franklin's failed 1846 expedition to find the North West Passage with the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus. But it is equal parts historical fiction and supernatural horror.

I just finished this last night.  That was... odd but entertaining.  I'm not sure where I expected it to end up, but not there, maybe.  It has prompted me to do a little research on the real history when I get a chance.

Any other Dan Simmons books that people recommend?  I never heard of him before this.

Just started Margaret Atwood's The Testaments, her sequel to The Handmaid's Tale.

RevRico said:

Turning the Tables: the story of Extreme Championship Wrestling.

Just came in the mail today, short, fast read, unauthorized at that. But, John Lister does provide a good behind the scenes look at one of the most influential wrestling organizations in the past half century. 

Pulling back the kayfabe and getting into details about Eastern Championship, the NWA feud and split, and how a bingo hall in Philly became a cultural mecca in the 90s really shines a new light on the promotion that could have only existed when it did.

I'm expecting Sabus' biography sometime next week, a book I've wanted since long before he ever announced he was writing one. 

Not like anyone else is a wrestling fan, but I got Sabus book last Friday, finished it Sunday.

It was surprising. I was expecting a few hundred pages of rambling bar brawls. What it was was actually a fairly well written almost diary of his career from finding out his Uncle Ed was the Sheik as a child to how he became "the king of the Indies". 

Lots of little details about wrestlers past and present, and a very good look at the amount of work and determination it takes to become the best. 

I recommend it if you were even a passing wrestling fan in the 80s-90s.

Duke said:

Any other Dan Simmons books that people recommend?  I never heard of him before this.

 

His Hyperion Cantos (three books) are excellent science fiction.   

Robert Parker.  The Jesse Stone, Spencer novels.  Found them in a storage box.  Easy, light reading and entertaining.

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I recommend if you want to read the best book about post-Apocalypse

"Dead Wake" by Erik Larson. It's about the last crossing and sinking of the Lusitania. Really well done.

Karacticus said:

Duke said:

Any other Dan Simmons books that people recommend?  I never heard of him before this.

His Hyperion Cantos (three books) are excellent science fiction.   

Thanks, I saw those titles referenced on the cover, and they sounded sf-ish.  I'll give them a try!

MichaelScott said:

I just finished The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I recommend if you want to read the best book about post-Apocalypse

I remember reading that in high school and enjoying it, maybe 40 years ago?

My sister brought me three books to read while I'm furloughed. I finished Ray Bradbury's Quicker Than The Eye. I don't know, maybe its the way my brain is wired, but I can never seem to make heads or tails of Bradbury. Just finished The Plague Journal by Michael D O'Brien as well. That was interesting, very relevant to what is going on today, but not in the "plague = Coronavirus" sense. There is no medical illness, its more an illness of society. 

In times such as these, you could do worse than to familiarize yourself with this book:

NickD said:

My sister brought me three books to read while I'm furloughed. I finished Ray Bradbury's Quicker Than The Eye. I don't know, maybe its the way my brain is wired, but I can never seem to make heads or tails of Bradbury. 

I think maybe you're a little young for Bradbury.  I was born in 1965 and I feel I'm a little young for Bradbury, but close enough to be just 1 generation away instead of 2 or more.  He writes for a particular American experience that has become much less common since.  Also, I am not a real fan of very-late-phase Bradbury despite truly loving some of his earlier stuff.

I am rereading  this. it has been  8 or 9 years since I last read it.

I'm also rereading this wonderful book. Peter grew up in Denmark and moved off to Greenland as a Young Man to open a trading post with his partner. He ended up marrying an Eskimo gal and tells the tales of living in Greenland

MonicaGreen said:

Now I'm reading many scientific books, because I need to write my dissertation. I think I need writing service to .....

Canoe books for sale!

To keep my mind off the news cycle I have been reading significantly more recently. I enjoyed the last open road by Burt Levy and plan to read more in the series. Before that, I had read Redshirts by John Scalzi. Totally enjoyable take on the red shirt crew member "issues" of Star Trek lore. Based on it I started Scalzi's Old Man's War series. I'm due to start the third in the series after I finish Faster by Neal Bascomb. 

Faster is really interesting. Here is the summary:

"They were the unlikeliest of heroes. Rene Dreyfus, a former top driver on the international racecar circuit, had been banned from the best European teams—and fastest cars—by the mid-1930s because of his Jewish heritage. Charles Weiffenbach, head of the down-on-its-luck automaker Delahaye, was desperately trying to save his company as the world teetered toward the brink. And Lucy Schell, the adventurous daughter of an American multi-millionaire, yearned to reclaim the glory of her rally-driving days.
 
As Nazi Germany launched its campaign of racial terror and pushed the world toward war, these three misfits banded together to challenge Hitler’s dominance at the apex of motorsport: the Grand Prix. Their quest for redemption culminated in a remarkable race that is still talked about in racing circles to this day—but which, soon after it ended, Hitler attempted to completely erase from history.
 
Bringing to life this glamorous era and the sport that defined it, Faster chronicles one of the most inspiring, death-defying upsets of all time: a symbolic blow against the Nazis during history’s darkest hour."

Edit: I forgot that I also read A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles which was good fun.
Edit Deux: Getting a hand-me-down Kindle from my niece has helped promote my reading. They just make it easy.

In reply to hobiercr (FS) :

Huge fan of Scalzi's.  Took me a couple times reading through the original Old Man's War trilogy to realize it was a love story.

I've been burnt out, so I've been reading fluff.  Domino Finn's Black Magic Outlaw series.  About a necromancer in Miami that wakes up one day and figures out that he hadn't been asleep but dead.

Really enjoying Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow. It is both making me want to learn a bit more Russian history, and also causing me to eat some new to me stuff. Still need to find a recipe for a Latvian stew briefly described in an early chapter... But really full of fantastic turns of phrase.

Just started reading Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind a few days ago.

As with any sensational nonfiction that makes broad speculations and assertions about the past and future of human societies (see also: any book by Jared Diamond), I'm taking it with several grains of salt, but so far I'm finding the subject matter to be right up my alley and the general voice of the author to be well-crafted.

I can see why it is so popular. It is definitely not a straightforward scholarly text, and it takes some liberties in the interpretation of historical and scientific evidence. But honestly, just the perspective of where Homo sapiens falls on the timeline of hominids offered in the first few pages (Homo erectus was around for 2 million years! We've been around for a mere fraction of that!) was enough to get me interested in reading more. That being said, I'm not that far into it yet, so we'll see if I still like it as I get past the establishing information and into more of the speculation.

Ransom (Forum Supporter) said:

Really enjoying Amor Towles' A Gentleman in Moscow. It is both making me want to learn a bit more Russian history, and also causing me to eat some new to me stuff. Still need to find a recipe for a Latvian stew briefly described in an early chapter... But really full of fantastic turns of phrase.

That was pretty well written, I read another of his that was good also called Rules of Civility. Easy reading with a good amount of depth.

In reply to chandler :

I might give Rules of Civility another shot at some point; I started to read the sample bit included at the end of A Gentleman in Moscow but the change of voice was jarring when I was associating it with the same author. I need to give it some space. I also just really enjoyed Count Rostov, so with that out the window...

This has been fun so far (as I usually feel about Christopher Moore):

Duke said:

Crichton is OK, but I find his stuff fairly inconsistent and some of it is written purely to generate visual effects for a potential movie, not because the technology inherently makes sense.  I've heard his books described a 'hardcover screenplays' which is fairly accurate.  Some I really have enjoyed, though.

Some of it, yeah.  State of Fear was kinda like that from what I can recall.  Prey was very meh.  I enjoyed Sphere and Pirate Latitudes was a bit cheesy but still very entertaining.

I figured now might be a good time to listen to Andromeda Strain :)


In other news, I just finished listening to Shogun, which is awesome and loooooong.  I may even have to watch the remastered miniseries, unless the new one FX is supposedly working on becomes a reality.

Last year I read The Meaning of Birds by Simon Barnes. I was blown away by the whole subject.  There is so much i didn't know about those dinosaurs flying in the sky.  I'm not about to take up Orinthology, nor spend all day with binoculars looking up, but the book was a great layman's explanation of the bird kingdom.

So this year when one of the best seller lists included The Bird Way by Jennifer Ackerman I decided to give it a read.  It too has proven a good read.  One issue for those of us in North America is much of Ackerman's subjects are from Australia and the tropics, so at times its hard to picture the actual bird, but the story being told is still very interesting.

On a large scale birds are still the "canary in the coal mine" telling us what we are doing to the environment.

Now when i see all the birds hanging out on the big grassy fields at Roebling Road Raceway i at least know they are Killdear and why they are in the grass and not the trees.