What are you reading now?

So late last week I finished Hunting the SS by Bill OReilly - good book on the hunting down of Nazis post-war. Some really neat facts I learned through it all. It was a Christmas gift from my now fiance. Her parents got me Killing Patton, and I'll do it next...after I finish what I started a couple days ago

Last week I found a random book at the used book store for 75c, Easter Rising. A south Boston kid discovers punk rock, leads a tragic life, and then, it seems, goes back to the old world - Ireland. 

I havent gotten to that part yet. 

It's an autobiography and while I love punk rock, Im not hooked on this one yet. I like hearing the story of seeing The Clash...but it's mostly heartbreak and sadness. We'll see how it goes as I hit the second half. 

Hmmm, many copies of the race book post, but mine seems to have disappeared.

I just finished Andy Weir's Project Hail Mary.  It was excellent, though I am admittedly a bit of a hard-science sf fan.  A lot of folks are saying it's better than The Martian, but my personal jury is still out on that.  I will say that I read the last third of it in more or less one sitting yesterday - it really becomes a page-turner as it progresses.  It's definitely better than Weir's Artemis, which wasn't really bad, but not really great.

DW is going to the library today, so hopefully I'll be starting on Neal Stephenson's SEVENEVES, well, this evening.

Marjorie Suddard said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

I'm reading "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman as a pallet cleanser between two books of another series.  I'm two chapters in and absolutely LOVE IT.  It is so well written, I just get lost in my imagination... 




Would strongly recommend.

Love love love Neil Gaiman. Try "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" next. His writing is so fluid and descriptive, it makes for a good reset to clear your brain of bad prose.

I've been doing lots of reading, but can't recall any real highlights... which reminds me: Anyone else here use Goodreads? I don't keep it totally up to date, but do try to log the good ones.

Margie

Half way through "The Ocean at the End of the Lane" and I love it!!

Just finished "Leviathan Falls", the last of the Expanse series.  It left me kind of "meh" but I think that's my fault.  I had so much anticipation I couldn't give the authors and the story the freedom to tell their story and not the one I wanted.  

A after finishing a 700 page history of WCW Nitro, I took on the near thousand page Titan Sinking trilogy about the WWF being on its deathbed in the early 90s and coming back to win the Monday Night Wars. 

If you are into wrestling at all, I highly recommend all 4 books. Lot of history, lot of explanation behind storylines, very very interesting to see how personally McMahon took things against Ted Turner, with Ted seeming to not give a berkeley or even notice. 

I've moved back to sci-fi with the start of the Extinction Islands series. Which is basically "Jurassic Park, but the dinosaurs are on an island and we send death row inmates there". This is the second sci-fi series I'm reading in short order written by a woman. 

I mention the female writer because there are some pretty stark differences in style. While I don't care for the extra romances shoved into the storylines, descriptions, character building, "revisioning" of more classical sci-fi technology provides for a fresher point of view. I'm still not sure I like it, particularly this newer author Janice something or other, but it is an interesting change up from the Stephen Baxter style hard sci-fi might as all be a text book style of writing. 

In reply to hybridmomentspass :

I read "Faster", too. It is an interesting read. Not a page-turner, but has some really fascinating information about a very specific time in racing history. I enjoyed it.

In reply to Duke :

I thought Project Hail Mary was great, too. At points it was VERY hard to put down. I found it as enjoyable, if not possibly more, than The Martian. Artemis was on my to read list. I may skip it now.

I just ripped through Emily St John Mandel's Station Eleven as we wanted to watch the miniseries. No spoilers here.

Also currently in play on my Kindle.
Whore of New York Lara Rioux
Out There - The Wildest from Outside
Ace Angela Chen
The Best of Outside - The first 20 years

Recent completions
One Train Later Andy Summers
Lock In John Scalzi

1493, uncovering the new world Columbus created, by Charles C. Mann. It's the follow up to his best seller 1491. Fascinating book, as was 1491. 
 

COPO Camaro, the Chevrolet performance team unleashes a legend, by Jeffrey K. Leestma and the editors of Automobile Quarterly.

It came in my NYG box, I'm going to pass it along to my friend and hopefully future Challenge teammate. He's actively shopping for a Chevrolet muscle car for Pure Stock or Stock Appearing class drag racing. I'm already lobbying to drive it in CAM T autocross. 

I just finished Titan by Robert Kroese. It's kinda likeother books of his I've read, interesting idea but it falls flat about 3/4 of the way thru the book. He had an interesting book about time travelers from the near future traveling to the viking era, more of the same happened although it took 2 books to become unreadable. It always seems like he sets up the story, falls absolutely in love with the characters and the whole thing falls apart.

Titans story is basically a sci-fi story about a company trying to capture an asteroid to mine for lots of money. It reads a loooottt like rich guys pron with a bunch of focus on the financial side of things specifically cryptocurrency but it's still cool til you reach a scene where a 17 year old kid holds court in a packed diner extolling the virtues of cryptocurrency over everything else, then the story kinda falls apart. You literally have hillbillies in the mountains that are antigovt that have sworn off cash because "crypto is safer". It's a WTF moment that's pretty laughable. Also laughable is calling Seagrams 7 a high dollar whiskey.

Kindle Unlimited is pretty cool because there's a lot of authors on there that probably never would have been published otherwise but for every good one, there's 10 bad ones. I've enjoyed a few authors quite a lot A.G Riddles Solar War books are fantastic but......Titan definitely wasn't on the side of good here

Just finished "The Overstory" by Richard Powers. 

Fiction isn't my thing but this one was worth it. After a week I'm still running it through my mind and making connections that I missed when I read them. 

Also helping my toddler son gather lots of seeds from the trees in our southern town. Next week we'll plant a bunch of them.

hobiercr said:

In reply to Duke :

Artemis was on my to read list. I may skip it now.

Nah, go ahead and read it.  It's not bad and it's not long; it's just not up to the standard of either of his other novels.  It's a bit of a sophomore slump.

I got a stack of Discworld books from the Hogfather. It only seemed appropriate to start here.

In reply to slefain :

I read Feet of Clay a couple of weeks ago. You can't go wrong with a Terry Pratchett book.

I just finished HG Wells' War of the Worlds. When I read it 40-ish years ago in high school, it was just a cool alien invasion story. It was interesting to look at it at age 58. It's a good glimpse into Victorian-era society and thinking.

hobiercr said:

In reply to Duke :

I thought Project Hail Mary was great, too. At points it was VERY hard to put down. I found it as enjoyable, if not possibly more, than The Martian. Artemis was on my to read list. I may skip it now.

Artemis is not PHM or Martian level, but I really enjoyed it.  I would definitely recommend it.

Ever read Harry Potter in a Canoe?

Ironically, and completely true, there are about 8 books on my bedside table right now. 2 of them are Harry Potter, one is Path of the Paddle by Bill Mason, and another is Paddle Your Own Canoe by Nick Offerman. So I have combined Harry Potter and Canoeing!

My 12 y.o. daughter saw the "1984" DVD on the table and asked me what it was about.  I'm thinking I should get both the book and DVD of "Animal Farm" for her to see and read.  Any thoughts on that, before dumping "1984" on her?

In reply to stroker :

Start with Animal Farm.  It's definitely at a level a 12-year-old can completely grasp.  If that goes well, move her on to 1984.

Gary said:

Non-fiction

Just finished this, tried to read it and couldn't get into it but listened to it and it was pretty good.

I'm finishing up "The Iron Druid Chronicles" series for the third or fourth time...

Tom Clancy's Op-Center, "the Black Order".

Redemption Song - a biography of Joe Strummer of The Clash

I just finished a historical non-fiction read that was hard to put down. "Stick a Flag in it." by Aaran Lomas. Its about the British Iles and their history from about 1000 AD to modern day and their affect on the world stage. I highly recommend it.

Re-reading(listening) the Cormoran Strike novels by JK Rowling in preparation for a new one soon. Libby said I listened or read 247 books last year, yikes.

In reply to chandler :

?!