What are you reading now?

40

Finished the Castaway trilogy. 

The third book was kind of a generational summary, that lead right up to the Yunger Dryas impact, then jumped to "modern"times leaving a big question as to how an archaeologist everybody knew wound up in a 12,000 year old underwater cave. Nevermind that the first book used a bunch of astronomical math to decide it was 8000 years ago. Someone didn't even have a proofreader.

Any ways in the Amazon/Kindle store to block authors from being recommended? 

His writing style is like a banker on a coke binge, and I don't like it, but of course it's filling my recommendations now.

Back onto Brandon Morris now, reading Ganymede, and having the strangest feeling that I've read it before but don't remember.

41 

That makes sense. I forgot, Morris writes all out his books in the same universe. I've been reading them out of order apparently. But this goes for standalone stories and series alike. 

Ganymede, which is like book number 15 of his I've read, was also apparently the first. For introduced to a lot of characters I've already seen stories of, but filled in a lot of history towards a few of the series. 

Catching up

Read Zero to one, Peter Thiel. It was okay.

I just finished The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls.  I love memoirs, and this one was a great example that kept the pace throughout.  Would definitely recommend. 

I just finished Get Jiro! by Anthony Bourdain, it was a fun read with great illustrations. I am also listening to Ready Player Two on audio book, I was excited to listen to this one because I enjoyed the first book and movie but the second book so far is a big disappointment. 

Duke said:

Currently working on Virtual Light by William Gibson, first of the Bridge trilogy.  Pretty readable and the action just started heating up, a little past the halfway point.

Just finished Virtual Light.  It was very readable throughout; Gibson sometimes gets a bit opaque, but not in this one.  The two main characters were both likable, and came out well on the other side.  Gibson is good at sketching descriptions with enough detail that your mind fills in the a plausible whole, but not enough to bog down the story.  Stuff is left to the imagination, yet you can sort of trust that the backstory is there.

My only complaint about Virtual Light is that the ending seemed very rushed, and tied everything up a little too neatly.

I picked up a general history of the Vietnam conflict, 1945-1975.  Unfortunately our library system's app is down right now and I can't remember title or author.

I reserved JSA Corey's Persepolis Rising and was hoping it would take a few weeks to come in, but unfortunately it is sitting at the library waiting to be picked up.  I'll probably read this one first and table the Vietnam book, since the Expanse book will be quicker and probably more in demand.

Just finished the second book in the trilogy, the well of Ascension, by Brandon Sanderson. It's was good. The author trips over language sometimes, but the plot and character development is great.

42

The last cosmonaut 

Another Brandon Morris book down. This one, oddly, wasn't in the shared universe. Kind an of alt history take. USSR collapsed, but, Germany stayed divided. Probably a lot to be said about political implications in the book, but I don't really care about that part. Interesting read none the less. 

Onto the next one.

Duke said:

I picked up a general history of the Vietnam conflict, 1945-1975.  Unfortunately our library system's app is down right now and I can't remember title or author.

The book is Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy 1945-1975 by Max Hastings.  If you're looking at an overview of the whys and hows of Vietnam, I recommend it.  I'm about 30% in; historically, it's the 1960-62 era, with the French finally abandoning ship in disgrace and the American presence starting to ramp up significantly.

Hastings is a British journalist and historian, old enough to have actually reported on the conflict from the field.  Being British, he is more capable of giving a very balanced view of the conflict and its players.  It's very readable and strikes a good balance between historical detail and personal interpretation of motivations and actions.

The roots of the conflict stem from the last gasp of post-WWII colonialism, like so many of the conflicts that troubled the world in the second half of the 20th century (some of which are still going strong today).  Hastings describes the French as "morbidly insecure" and there is no question that their shame from WWII drove them to try to hang on to Indochina far longer than they reasonably could, let alone should.

Without getting too political, the situation has many parallels to Israel, including the current strife.  Yes, the Vietnamese communists were terrible... but they didn't appear in a vacuum, and the governing styles of the French, South Vietnamese, and Americans gave the communist revolutionaries lots of political material to work with.

As a Vietnam veteran I regret the role I played during my time in the Navy.  I had a choice to leaving the country or going in the service.  Another book that details our involvement is "The Pentagon Papers" which was a portion of an official report commissioned by Robert McNamara the Sec. of Defense and the former president of Ford.  It was leaked by Daniel Ellsberg.  The Vet Cong had to go to the communist for help because Truman refused to meet with Ho Che Minh in 1948.  

In reply to Mustang50 :

I don't think you need to regret anything.

Starting whenever the French first set foot in-country, the entire situation was completely mishandled by everyone at the highest levels, including the Vietnamese themselves when they had a chance.

I'm not playing the old "just following orders" platitude here, but policy directs action, and politicians set the policies.

In reply to Duke :

THANK YOU!!

In reply to golfduke :

We have that one and another by her and enjoyed both.

I think this is the one where they had to "skeedaddle" every so often.

The Silmarillion 

Decided it was time to slog my way through it.

I tried years ago but couldn't make it.

Way behind on keeping track of these. I finished the audiobook Misery Bay by Steve Hamilton, and it was great. He's getting better as that series goes on.

I am currently reading a book by Harry Turtledove.  The title escapes me, (I am at work, book is at home) but the book takes place during WW2.  Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan are near the height of their power.  The USA, Russia and the rest of the world are cranking up the arsenal of freedom.  And aliens invade.  

WW2 and aliens!  Count me in!

NermalSnert (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to golfduke :

We have that one and another by her and enjoyed both.

I think this is the one where they had to "skeedaddle" every so often.

Yep, Doing the skeedaddle, as she so eloquently puts it, haha.  

45

Finished the Amphitrite trilogy last night. More Morris hard science fiction, still in the shared universe. But if an origin story for Oscar, and a follow up from the saviors of the black hole fiasco. 

General bullet points

• Rogue planet
• Stranded space passengers
• shiny happy person captain
• Light reactive carbon eating dust

Was a good break after the cosmonaut series. 

Finally completed the Polyamory Trifecta. Hot take-society isn't ready for it yet, but could be soon.

Sex at Dawn-Went into it thinking it's about polyamory, but it's actually mostly about gorilla genitalia.  

The Ethical Slut-Went into it thinking it's about sluts, but it's actually about ethics.

More-Went into it  it thinking it's about sex, but its actually about love.

===================================================================

Also finished Nate Silver's On the Edge. Nate needed an editor-there is actually like one book and 2 decent magazine article, but it's still worth a read if you're into understanding how certain groups of smart people make decisions. And by "understanding" I mean "be terrified by."

===================================================================

Lastly, finished Outlive by Peter Attia. He makes a pretty coherent argument that middle age schlubs like us can extend our healthspan (distinct from lifespan!) through the most powerful medicine known to man...exercise. Yes, we're all going to die....but some of us will be doing better in our final couple of decades.

About 1/3 of the way through the Jim Hall biography and just getting to the interesting bits. Interestingly enough my copy was sent from the UK. Recommended.

If you're fascinated by Formula 1 and all the BS that seems to surround the racing this book by the former team strategist at Force India / Racing Point / Aston Martin this book is invaluable. It's a great read even if you're not quite so invested. 

Hit my 30 book for the year goal.  Latest batch

Artemis Fowl 4: More of the same. Fun listen with the kid.
Dirty Job: Funny and very different.
John Dies At The End: Starts off very interesting. Funny. Sarcastic and Crude Humor. But it just goes on, and on, and on, and then there really isn't a conclusion and things honestly just get more confusing. Turns out it was originally a serialized story, so I guess that makes some sense :shrug:
Artemis Fowl 5: Better than 4, but not anything amazing
Noir: Great book. There is a segment discussing how someone is conceived that made me laugh harder that almost any other book.
Gatekeeper: Stupid but fun. Looking forward to the next one.
In The Lives of Puppets: Great writing, great story, but a suuuuper werid man-robot love/tension thing going on. Would consider something else from this author.
Artemis Fowl 6: This one started to feel tedious.
Dungeon Crawler Carl: This is really enjoyable and very funny. If you've played a lot of RPGs, D&D, etc. its full of great references. Honestly my only complaint about it is I got to the end and realized its a whole series and they aren't really each their own story - it just goes on and on for 7 books (as of today). I want to listen to them but I'm not sure I have the endurance.
The Androids Dream: Best of this bunch I'd say. Gets into lots of political/conspiracy/etc. stuff similar to Collapsing Empire

Reading Till we are lost, one of the Bobiverse series by Dennis Taylor. Good fun, and it got me thinking of what a good fundamental scenario the series presents. If you've got an endearing protagonist, why not have a handful of replicants just like him, but diverging according to their experiences? It's perfect for maintaining multiple storylines.

In reply to TravisTheHuman :

Yeah, I read and reviewed The Gatekeeper earlier in this thread.  "Stupid fun" is accurate  Can't remember if I ever read the second one, but I wouldn't mind.

Still slogging my way through Vietnam: An Epic Tragedy.  Probably 2/3 of the way done; just got through the 1968 Tet Offensive.

This is exactly the book I was looking for to help me understand the slow-motion debacle that was the Vietnam war.  It doesn't go heavily into the tactics or individual battles, which is fine; there's enough detail to get that picture.  But it does a fantastic job of covering political forces and tidal paradigm shifts that drove the whole situation over the course of the 30 years following WWII.

If you're looking for that, I recommend this book.  It's remarkably even-handed, which is difficult to find on this topic.

I'm reading "The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History." Trying to appreciate this fleeting time on earth.

In reply to Sarah Young :

I read that a few years ago.  It was a good read.