What are you reading now?

Finished Leviathan Wakes.  Not a difficult read, and entertaining.  I liked the writing and the characters as well, even if it wasn't particularly deep...

...but I don't know if I'm going to tackle the rest of the series.  I find the 3-way politics and tensions very interesting, but the stuff much less so.  It made for some great visuals of course, and probably helped sell the screen rights, but to me it was kind of just a huge blob stuck on the side of the real story.

After that I read Burning Chrome, a collection of early William Gibson short stories from the Sprawl era, plus a few others that were outside that continuum.  Good stuff if you like Gibson's cyberpunk.

Currently reading H G Wells's Invisible Man, after I realized that I had never actually read any original Wells.  That's the only one I had in the house.  Surprisingly comic in places.

I've got about 14 books from the library right now but "The End of the World is Just the Beginning" by Zeihan just arrived and I'm really enjoying "Who Can Hold the Sea" by Hornfischer.  

More later.

Pretty much everybody knows about Amelia Earhart's failed around the world trip, however at least I didn't know that on the 30th anniversary of Earhart's flight, another female pilot actually circumnavigated the globe following (most) of the original route. In an Electra that the owner literally rescued from being scrapped, no less.

It's a pretty rare book that I learned about on one of the GA blogs that Google occasionally recommends to me, and an interesting read. It was a pretty "grassroots" (as these things go) endeavour and even though navigation technology and especially the mapping of the Pacific had improved a lot in the thirty years, it's still a far cry from where we are today. Interestingly enough, they also had issues finding Howland Island. Anyway, it made me wonder if a trip following either route is even doable anymore - they couldnt' quite follow the original route through Africa, and went via Southern Europe and then Iran, which is probably not going to, err, fly today.

Anyway, recommended if you can find a copy and have an interest in general aviation.

Found another cheap (this time it was 3 bucks) Carolla book called Im Your Emotional Support Animal.

It's rude, it's crude, he doesnt mince words on the problems he sees in our society. No punches pulled, even in our current PC climate, he doesnt care.

And a lot of it makes sense, really. He calls out things like how soft our society has gotten, one thing being the 'emotional support animals' that have become a thing fairly recently and how out of control it is. You really need a miniature horse on the plane with you????? He calls out these 'doctors' online who just write all these things off instead of, you know, trying to actually help these people with their anxiety.

He calls out commercials/media in our current world. How unrealistic so much of it is. It's a brutally honest book that I agree with many bits of, I understand where he's coming from, basic things.

Just finished Robert Crais - A Dangerous Man. Easy reading with a decent plot. It reads like a one hour detective show; and, then I looked him up and found that he was a screenwriter for Miami vice, Cagney and Lacey etc... so; I guess I was right.

The Monster from Jekyll Island by G. Edward Griffin. 

Building Embedded Systems by  Changyi Gu

 Just got done with Gaiman's American Gods. Very fun and well written; not to the highs that Pratchett was capable of (I reserve 5/5 ratings for books that actually changed how I see the world, like Witches Abroad and Men at Arms) but still an easy 4/5 with a great ending. 

Turbo_Rev said:

Building Embedded Systems by  Changyi Gu

I've heard good things about this. Isn't it all about building "good", robust systems from governance to corporation?

just going through the three newest additions to my cookbook collection

Just finished "Old Man's War" by John Scalzi.  It was a good, but quick read.  I think I enjoyed "Redshirts" more, though. 

Just finished the first book of Douglas Phillips Quantum series. Burned through almost 400 pages in about 3 hours.

Holy. E36 M3. I hope the rest of the series reads the same. Good hard science fiction, boring romance, quantum dimensional "travel", but a damn fast read that was hard to put down. 

I don't know why it took me so long but I finally got a library card from my local library system, and have discovered e-books.  I still much prefer holding an actual book in my hands, but it's hard to beat the convenience factor of being able to download books and read them on my phone. 

I've become a big fan of Becky Chambers and just polished off her latest book: A Prayer for the Crown-Shy  Definitely a feel-good book and sad that I'm finished it now.  

Horrible Idea 

A true story of a couple of guys that built a $200 1969 Opel GT into a LeMons car and then said "berkeley it, we're in CA but let's go to New York City for a bagel." So they drove across country, ate a bagel, then drove straight back to CA and had seafood in Redondo Beach. 6000 miles in a LeMons car. They continued to run 30 more races and did a bunch of other stuff.

Littlevette:

In reply to preach (dudeist priest) :

I just saw the Lemon's World video on that car; I like the look of the Opels.

Trying to finish Streetfight: Handbook for an Urban Revolution by Sadik-Khan & Solomonow. Kind of hard to read if only because the entire book is just one big "Look at HOW GOOD of an idea I had!" the book gets.

Just finished "Woke, Inc." by Vivek Ramaswamy.  We are in deep E36M3 if half of what he describes is going on...  

Spy, another Clive Cussler.  I shouldn't do this, but if I read a book and like it, I go all in on everything the guy wrote.  Granted he doesn't have the diversity of Leon Uris or James Michener, but entertaining.

Recently finished Paradise Falls by Keith O'Brien.

True story of the Love Canal debacle near Niagara Falls, and the beginning of the EPA superfund.  It's astounding how much stonewalling the government did, let alone the chemical company that was actually responsible.  Absolutely written from the residents' side, but not completely unbalanced.  I remember this story in the national news from when I was about 12-13, but I didn't really know the whole story.  It was an eye-opening read.

Before that, I read This Tender Land by William Kent Kreuger.  I was given this book by one of our local librarians because it was used in their reading group.  A latter-day Huck Finn / Tom Sawyer story written for late-middle-age simps who like public library reading groups.  Packed so full of tropes I could hardly finish it.  This guy has written something like 30 books and based on this experience I will avoid each and every one of them.

I'm almost halfway into Richard Flanagan's The Narrow Road to the Deep North, inspired by his father's experience as a slave laborer on the Burma railway while held by Japan as a POW in WWII. Beautiful writing even when it's describing the ugliest things. It's taken awhile to really get rolling, but now I'm having trouble putting it down.

Margie

Can't get enough Stephen Hunter.

https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Targeted/Stephen-Hunter/Bob-Lee-Swagger-Novel/9781982169794

I finished 2001 and 2010 and am now into 2061. (No spoilers.)

I love Terry Pratchett. Finally got around to reading the Tiffany Aching line of Discworld stories. I put them off because they're young adult. But... they're thoroughly Terry Pratchett, and some of the most delightful stories he's written.

Starting with 'The Wee Free Men'. These books are such a delight, even amongst other Discworld novels. Gleeful and heartwarming, but with Pratchett's serious eye for the world, how it works, and what people are like. His signature sort of moral that, "Yes. The world is hard and careless and people can be stupid and venal and petty. But *you* have power to do small everyday things to make it all a just a bit kinder." Like the best young adult fiction, it's good no matter your age and absolutely does not talk down to the audience.

I especially recommend giving these novels to young women. Tiffany Aching is a fantastic heroine. She ages over the course of the series from 9 years old in 'The Wee Free Men' to her late teens in the final book. But really, everyone should read them.

Smithology

I am reading the Eragon series of books. Dragons, elves, and magic in a coming of age of a newly found hero story.

Its been fun, midway through the second out of 4(?) books.

Last night, I finished the third in Arthur C. Clark's Space Odyssey series.

3001 arrives today. We'll see if it answers some questions that I have.

David S. Wallens said:

Last night, I finished the third in Arthur C. Clark's Space Odyssey series.

3001 arrives today. We'll see if it answers some questions that I have.

It's been many years since I read the first 3 - I need to go back and read them again.  I have 3001, but I don't think I've read it yet (I have so many books in my "need to read" pile/list).

Currently, I'm reading Ghost Train to New Orleans (The Shambling Guides, 2) by Mur Lafferty. It's a fun read.