Whatcha reading?

[lemonlime 5503]

Really enjoying this one.

[Continental Op 3934]

About halfway through Weimar Germany: Promise and Tragedy by Eric Weitz.  Weitz is a very engaging writer and he does a good job of organizing everything and giving the political climate/economic climate/architecture/art/mass culture of the time a thorough treatment.  Worth reading.

[wd40 1976]

Against the Odds, by McKee.  loved it.  dude has no use for Winston Churchill.  John Paul Jones was a bit of a redass.

https://www.amazon.com/Against-Odds-Battles-Sea-1591-1949/dp/1557500258

[CycleTex87 2967]

Currently reading “Winds of War”, Herman Wouk.  Fantastic. Just finished:

Very interesting for a non art world person.  Gave me some perspective on the subject. 

[Carl Spackler 3481]

Norco '80.  It's about a bank heist in San Bernardino County back in 1980 that turned into a big running gun battle -- kinda the forerunner of the big North Hollywood shootout that happened 17 years later.  I haven't really gotten started on it, but I'm encouraged by the reviews and the subject matter is of interest.  

[demos 3002]

Short read but interesting stuff.

[Continental Op 3934]

Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Stripe Nurses - Roger Corman: The King of the B Movie.  An oral history of Corman and his way of doing things featuring people like Jack Nicholson, Francis Ford Coppola, Scorsese, and other big names whose careers he launched with a few essays mixed in.  A light and entertaining read so far.  

[demos 3002]

A little Thanksgiving reading

[LABEVO 928]

Great book on the study of innate ability vs training. Very accessible reading and can apply to life generally.

 

[shakahorn 1645]

On 5/15/2019 at 11:51 AM, Damor said:

I can't find the post to give rep, but someone recommended Hernan Diaz's In the Distance.

Just finished it this morning -- that was a fantastic read, one of the best books I've read in a while, and thanks to this thread, I've read a lot of good ones lately.  I really do appreciate all the great recommendations in here.

Up next, going on a WWI tangent with Goodbye to All That, then rereading All Quiet on the Western Front.

Loved this one.  Quick read, knocked out 90% of it in one cross-country flight.

[Post Oak 20210]

Finishing up.  It's thorough and obviously, the subject is a fascinating and brilliant man but it's a real slog IMO.  I learned a ton but not sure how much I enjoyed it.

Edited January 5, 2020 by Post Oak

[demos 3002]

Finished before the end of the year:

 

[LABEVO 928]

[demos 3002]

Finished this one last night:



A taste: these fuckers gave an elephant 300k micrograms of LSD to see what would happen. Elephant fell over, shit itself, had a seizure, and died.

[High Plains Drifter 11035]

On 2/25/2019 at 4:21 PM, SimonBolivar said:

 

Because I've never read it.

 

Finished it  a few weeks back. Excellent, but lots of names to keep track of.

 

 

 

 

 

On 3/30/2019 at 11:15 PM, MillerEP said:

Book 8 of the Expanse dropped last week. I stopped everything and am about a quarter of the way through it. Great as always so far:

 

I'm off work for most of Jan, so I'm thinking about starting these. I enjoyed the TV series.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I just finished:

 

Weird hybrid of speculative historical fiction with some supernatural stuff thrown in. Starts off really really good, but ending is meh. Much like some other of Simmons work. TV series is based on it, but I haven't watched any of it.

 

Also recently finished

 

Good hardcore sci fi, with some Chinese Cultural Revolution history thrown in.

[ScottS 1062]

SIAP somewhere else, but Lee Child is stepping back from the Jack Reacher series and handing it over to his younger brother.

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2020/jan/18/jack-reacher-series-author-lee-child-quits-and-lets-brother-step-in

Quote

The author of the Jack Reacher series of novels is retiring and handing over the writing duties to his brother, according to a report.

Lee Child said he has been searching for a way to kill off the title character, portrayed on film by Tom Cruise, for years but has ultimately decided his fans deserve to see him live on in books which will now be written by Andrew Grant.

But Child, who was born James Grant, has reportedly set out a condition for his brother: he too must change his surname to Child.

“For years I thought about different ways of killing Reacher off. First of all, I thought he would go out in a blaze of bullets, something like the end of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. It would take an army to bring him down [but] Reacher had to have an afterlife after I was done,” Child told the Times.

Grant is an established author in his own right. “It’s not as if I twisted his arm into doing it. And he didn’t twist mine either. It just happened. It feels like a natural development. My brother is a good writer. Now he has a hero,” Child said.

He added: “Readers don’t need to know about me or whoever writes the books. They only really care about Reacher. And I know he’s now in safe hands.”

Child has sold more than 100m books since embarking on a career as a novelist relatively late in life at 40. Jack Reacher has been turned into a film and is also reportedly being made into a series for Amazon’s Prime service.

According to the Times’ report, the cover of the next Reacher novel – in a series which is published by an imprint of Random Penguin House – will read: “Lee Child with Andrew Child”, in what has been interpreted as a possible sign of the publishing company’s nerves.

 

[Continental Op 3934]

Getting started on the doorstop that is The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. 

[Rougarou 594]

Just read All The Pretty Horses. It’s really good and you can really start to see what makes him special emerge here (obviously not a unique opinion).

[Rimbo 25921]

I just started The Spiral Wars series with this book:

It's pretty great Sci-Fi. This book alone had more action in it than any 3 books of The Expanse series, with just as much intrigue and character development. The beginning of Renegade seems like it's going to be another one of those standard "We're just introducing the universe in this book" slow starters... and then BAM, all kinds of crazy shit start happening and nobody has a chance to get a break until... well, I'm in Book 4 now, I'll let you know when that breather happens.

Definitely recommended.

(Also, I've been reading The Hobbit on and off to my 6-year-old daughter. She digs it.)

Edited January 21, 2020 by Rimbo

[Deej 76759]

Just started this one. 

[Fudge Nuggets 19190]

Read these two over the last few weeks, both were quite good:

 

[Fudge Nuggets 19190]

This is the current one I'm reading.  Just getting past the character development to the part where all hell is breaking loose.  So far, pretty good:

[midtown 3345]

Just finished Gladwell. Just started Lethem.

[futureman 22453]

SIAP but just got into this and felt compelled to share. 

if you’re at all interested in the troubles I encourage you to give it a shot, this will hook you big time.  I can’t put it down.  

a review: https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/582811/

 

and some propaganda of the time that inspired the name of the book:

[demos 3002]

After reading Kinzer's book about Gottlieb, finally decided to read this one:

[CycleTex87 2967]

honestly, one of the best books I’ve ever read.  So good. 

[Bogeywon 2519]

This was a really good book. No matter how much I read on the subject I’m always in shock of what went on in these camps


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[WBT 20561]

Meh.  The governess's reactions were just odd.  Instead of having the reaction of "holy shit, there's ghosts here," she's more obsessed with whether or not the children can see and are talking to them.  And yet she's afraid to ask the children or their uncle about the ghosts.  Just strange.

Edited February 9, 2020 by WBT

[NorthLoop 14191]

Dunk and Egg has been sitting on my shelf for like 3 years and I finally picked it up this week. Nearly done. Not sure why I waited this long. It is weird to read a GRRM book that tells 3 stories in 300 pages instead of reading 140 straight pages about boiled leather tunics in a 1000 page monster. 

[Chad Fuck 17671]

This is a great book covering the entire arc of America's relations with the Middle East.  It's long, but worth it.  Puts the our current post-WWII middle eastern posture in a grander context.

[Delta Charlie 150]

Just started "The Force" by Don Winslow.  I recently completed his cartel triolgy that was incredible.  

[NoName 16351]

1 hour ago, Delta Charlie said:

Just started "The Force" by Don Winslow.  I recently completed his cartel triolgy that was incredible.  

it is a very, very, very good book - movie got picked up and is set to be directed by James Mangold (Ford vs Ferrari, Logan, The Wolverine, 3:10 to Yuma) and starring Matt Damon

Fox bought the movie rights for 7 figures before the book was released. 

https://deadline.com/2020/01/matt-damon-james-mangold-don-winslow-the-force-ford-v-ferrari-scott-frank-1202838201/

[BearSchlong 8084]

I gotta admit that due to the pandemic I'm tempted to go re-read Stephen King's THE STAND.

[demos 3002]

This is a great book covering the entire arc of America's relations with the Middle East.  It's long, but worth it.  Puts the our current post-WWII middle eastern posture in a grander context.

This one is on my list to get to this year but my reading habits have been shit so far, did just finish The Israel Lobby though.

[Post Oak 20210]

Really interesting.  

FYI, did you know that they used the genetic code of lice to determine when humans starting wearing clothes.  

 

[NorthLoop 14191]

So far so good. I've enjoyed all the Peter Heller books that I've read so far. 

[Bash Riprock 1695]

Started Lonesome Dove for the first time today. I normally don't like fiction but I needed a change. 

[fellside 1113]

Read War and Peace for the first time.  The quarantine will get me cultured.

[demos 3002]

A little quarantine reading

[4th&Five 41525]

[wild_turkey 3159]

On 3/25/2020 at 3:06 PM, NorthLoop said:

So far so good. I've enjoyed all the Peter Heller books that I've read so far. 

Came here to post this. I finished it last night and thought it was really good. I'm going to start The Painter next.

[wild_turkey 3159]

I also read these two recently.

The Boys in the Boat was a little boring for me. I think it just got repetitive and could've been told in 50% fewer pages. There's only so many ways to write about people paddling a boat, so when that's described over and over for multiple races spanning several pages each, I start to lose interest.

A Long Petal of the Sea was enjoyable. It's an epic novel about people who originate in Spain during the Spanish Civil War and seek exile in Chile. It's historical fiction but it made me curious about certain events and I ended up learning a lot from side reading on those subjects. 

[NorthLoop 14191]

4 hours ago, wild_turkey said:

I also read these two recently.

The Boys in the Boat was a little boring for me. I think it just got repetitive and could've been told in 50% fewer pages. There's only so many ways to write about people paddling a boat, so when that's described over and over for multiple races spanning several pages each, I start to lose interest.

 

It took me forever to finish that one. It's a slog. 

[PilotsError 2287]

White Plague, from the author Dune.  It's about a scientist whose family is murdered, so he creates a virus that kills all the women of the world.  Very...timely.  Great read.

https://www.amazon.com/White-Plague-Frank-Herbert-ebook/dp/B004M8SZZI/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=white+plague&qid=1586044124&sr=8-2

[LABEVO 928]

Very long but well written. Industrial family who was tied to the rise of Germany

[LongestHorn 759]

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[LongestHorn 759]

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[LongestHorn 759]

Cool rare book


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[4th&Five 41525]

[The University 851]

just finished this

 

overall, it was a nice trip back in time when dial-up bulletin boards were the shit. always enjoyed many of the cDc members for their sense of humor. the title is a bit sensationalist, but i suppose that mirrors some of the member's egos.