What are you reading now?

i started reading "In the lives of Puppets" by T.J. Klune

Inspired by Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio, and like Swiss Family Robinson meets Wall-E, In the Lives of Puppets is a masterful stand-alone fantasy adventure from the beloved author who brought you The House in the Cerulean Sea and Under the Whispering Door.

https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/60784549

so far I am really enjoying it, the characters are amazing and while the story up to this point has been somewhat predictable, the interactions of the characters is entertaining and makes up for it.  

In reply to NOHOME :

Enjoy!! It was a fun read. 

Raymond Carver short stories.

I am rereading "Atlas Shrugged" 

As a Canadian I find it very prescient, and actually pretty entertaining as well. But so wordy.....I have been reading it for weeks and I am ready to move on

Recently resubscribed to Scientific American magazine and just got my first issue in the mail yesterday, so I've been enjoying that new nugget of content.

In reply to Nicole Suddard :

Is the print version worthwhile? I (obviously) love print magazines but have had reservations; many of my favorite subscriptions have evaporated to go online-only (Automobile, Pop Sci, all general-interest motorcycle magazines), gone to reduced-content models (R&T), or have become garbage (Wired, Smithsonian, National Geographic). I'd not mind subscribing to SA if it's truly decent, but that's hard to find these days. 

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

I am rereading "Atlas Shrugged" 

As a Canadian I find it very prescient, and actually pretty entertaining as well. But so wordy.....I have been reading it for weeks and I am ready to move on

Be careful mentioning anything positive about Ayn Rand around here.

Duke said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

I am rereading "Atlas Shrugged" 

As a Canadian I find it very prescient, and actually pretty entertaining as well. But so wordy.....I have been reading it for weeks and I am ready to move on

Be careful mentioning anything positive about Ayn Rand around here.

 

It is just a book I'm reading. For enjoyment. That's the focus of this thread so far as I know. No need to go down any rabbit holes.

Duke said:

bearmtnmartin (Forum Supporter) said:

I am rereading "Atlas Shrugged" 

As a Canadian I find it very prescient, and actually pretty entertaining as well. But so wordy.....I have been reading it for weeks and I am ready to move on

Be careful mentioning anything positive about Ayn Rand around here.

 

It is just a book I'm reading. For enjoyment. That's the focus of this thread so far as I know. No need to go down any rabbit holes.

Nicole Suddard said:

Recently resubscribed to Scientific American magazine and just got my first issue in the mail yesterday, so I've been enjoying that new nugget of content.

I had a subscription to Smithsonian for a few years and I really enjoyed it. Those magazines passed through four or five people before they were recycled.

In reply to brandonsmash :

Paper quality has definitely gone down (paper quality is a struggle for everyone in the magazine industry), but I find it worthwhile to subscribe to print if only because I know I am too easily distracted to read my money's worth of content in a mobile app.
They seem to have moved most of their ad sales away from the print magazine and into the digital arena, judging by the maybe 4 total ads (all full-page) in the print edition. Pros: a mostly ad-free experience. Cons: this means they probably aren't looking to maintain the print product much longer.

Finished an audiobook called "Double Whammy" by Carl Hiassen. It was zany. I can see why Dave Barry likes the guy. It's strange and interesting, but the good guy usually ends up OK. A really complicated plot with fun, well-developed characters.

Recently finished “Party Out of Bounds.” It’s the story of the early days of the Athens music scene, so B-52’s, R.E.M., Pylon, Love Tractor, Oh-OK, etc.

This all went down in like 1979-’81. While that’s a little before my time, neat reading about people and places that I know. Like, the first B-52’s performance took place at a house down the street from where I used to live. The people parked across the street at Taco Stand. We used to eat there all the time (bean burrito deluxe, extra hot, please). After playing, they all walked down the street to an all-night laundry, meaning they walked past our old place. The book also mentions my old dorm. 

The ending kinda disses what what came next. I’d disagree. 

And coming up next, more sci-fi: “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells. First published in 1895.

In reply to David S. Wallens :

Recently read Wells's Invisible Man.

What a jerk!

My local library has a pretty good collection of Elmore Leonard books, so I've been working my way through them over the last few months.  

I use their e-library (yes, I prefer reading a real book but e-books do have their conveniences).  An interesting feature is when you do a search for books by a particular author, it will also suggest books by other authors that it thinks will be similar.  Although not all of them are winners, I have found some good books that way.

In reply to Duke :

I should get that next? 

26

Recently finished a book called "synthesis". I forget the author. 

Started out very sci-fi action movie. Not my typical cup of tea, but I figured I'd give it a shot. Well it devolved into anime style harem lit, with ogres, and generically (and genetically) modified human furries, and just a bunch of pointless boring sex scenes. Because every woman in outer space has perfect breasts and ridiculously unnatural proportions apparently. 

My guess is the author has never left his mom's basement, never seen or touched an actual woman, and never made the beast with two backs. Probably has an anime body pillow bride as well. 

I highly recommend avoiding it on Kindle unlimited. 

Currently reading "the factory of God, dark space book one".

Much better. Extremely hard science fiction. Multiple storylines going on, a disgraced astronomer making an insane discovery and trying to clear her name from when she was caught using false data in college. While also a bit of a space "cleaner" trying to get his ship and crew to stay together through any means necessary. I suspect they'll get together and go to her discovery but I'm not that far into it yet. 

Reminds me a lot of Stephen Baxter, which is a net positive a far as I'm concerned. Harder to get through at night because it is pretty deep in the details, but I'm enjoying it way more than the previous book. 

APEowner said:

I just read QuasiMofo's book.

I still chuckle that someone admits this. Thank you so much!

David S. Wallens said:

In reply to Duke :

I should get that next? 

It's a pretty quick read, and maybe not as insightful as The Time Machine.  But entertaining.

I finished this a couple weeks ago and meant to share it.  She was an investigator for the NYC Medical Examiner's Office and has some really interesting stories. She started in the 80s at probably the city's lowest point as far as crime and murder and worked until fairly recently.  They go into a bit of the dysfunction of the era and the work that had to be done to modernize the system into what it is now. I learned a lot more than I expected, her early stories were basically the time that the original Law and Order episodes were set in and I remember growing up.  The sections on 9/11 were good too. It's a little weird reading history that I was involved in. She goes into the temporary morgue that was set up, which I visited a few times. As a bus operator I worked some of my days off shuttling federal MEs there from the LaGuardia Marriott. 

Finished "where is Janice Gantry" by John D MacDonald. It was splendid. Just wonderful in the character development, plot, and intrigue. 

Finished the audiobook "the wrecking crew" by Donald Hamilton. 

This one was interesting. Good plot development and interesting character development, but it was way too off to be believable. It's like mission impossible rewound 30 years but turned up to 150%. Every one in every story (there were a few others in the Matt helm series I listened to but I can't remember the names) is in on it, everyone is in on the intrigue, everyone is either secretly on your side or secretly working against you, everyone's some sort of double or triple agent with some super secret training. It's like 007 wet dream. I'm not a huge fan of the storyline, but the writing is pretty good.

started listening to "starter villian" by John Scalzi.  The audio book is narrated by Will Wheaton and its been great so far.  Best I can think to explain it is, a down on your luck out of work journalist inherits despicable me.  

Just picked back up on a book I read half of and then took a break from back in 2017-ish: The Great Mortality: An Intimate History of the Black Death, the Most Devastating Plague of All Time by John Kelly.

As you might expect, it's very dense and a bit of a downer. Right up my alley.