Books What Are You Reading or Listening To?

[gamer.tv]

On 4/2/2019 at 2:18 AM, thewhyteboar said:

I just finished Circe by Madeline Miller and it was absolutely fantastic. One of the best books I've read in years.

 

Im reading it now and it’s pretty much everything I love. Will pick up get first novel too.

 

I've also realised for someone both in education and soon (security checks pending) to train to be a teacher, I haven’t read any children’s literature in about 18 years. Do to remedy that, I’m going to try and read 1-2 books a week for Under 11’s .

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished East of Eden tonight. I really liked this one, despite having some struggles with Grape of Wrath. The Cain and Able retelling was heavy in this one. I can see why he called his his magnum opus. I'd recommend it, @Nokra

 

Now I'm gonna start on American Prison by Shane Bauer. I read his article in Mother Jones a while back, so I wanted the book when it came out.

[rc0101]

Finished Stalingrad which was amazing. Going to start the Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch. This isn't the type of book I'm normally into but figured I'll give it a go. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Now switching to a novel, The Tuscan Child by Rhys Bowen. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Haven't been reading as much late with stuff going on in my life and getting back into video games, but I am currently working my way through Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania by Erik Larson and Mere Morality by Dan Barker. 

[Bloodporne]

I've somehow never read The Catcher In The Rye and started last night.

 

40 pages in and I honestly have to admit to forcing myself to continue reading. Something about its whole style rubs me the wrong way and so far I have zero interest in anything being said unfortunately. I'll keep giving it a fair shot of course, we'll see. 

 

Last week I read The Stranger by Camus which I enjoyed greatly. I'll check out The Plague by him next. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Just now, Bloodporne said:

I've somehow never read The Catcher In The Rye and started last night.

 

40 pages in and I honestly have to admit to forcing myself to continue reading. Something about its whole style rubs me the wrong way and so far I have zero interest in anything being said unfortunately. I'll keep giving it a fair shot of course, we'll see. 

 

Last week I read The Stranger by Camus which I enjoyed greatly. I'll check out The Plague by him next. 

I really liked Catcher in the Rye, but I can see how it's not for a lot of people.

 

I have The Stranger, it was given to me some time back, I need to read it. It's short enough.

[gamer.tv]

The Outsider. Thriller's are such a guilty pleasure and Stephen King equally.  Due to work (and being a bit hungover) I've only read about 50 pages, but I can see myself losing a lot of my Sunday to this. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I finished Dead Wake last night, that was a good read. 

 

I've also started reading IT by Stephen King. King has always been hit or miss for me, but I'm liking this so far. All the talk about Chapter 2 made me finally want to start this one. 

[Nokra]

I'm reading a few books simultaneously. 

 

1. A History of the World in 100 Objects (Neil MacGregor) - This is a book put out by the British Museum and it details 100 objects from their collection that give a history of the world. So they'll have, for example, old coins from the Byzantine era or maybe a bronze hand sculpture from Yemen from 100 AD, as well as a drum from Sudan from 1850 or a modern credit card. Each object gets maybe 3-4 pages and they just give an overview of the object and talk about how it fits into world history. It's really interesting because they show how the items are connected to other objects in the collection or how they are illustrative of some larger principle (e.g. the importance of developing currency for the coins, etc.). 

 

2. Peter Camenzind (Hermann Hesse) - Hermann Hesse's first novel. A youth, Peter Camenzind, leaves his village with the intention to experience the world and learn what life is all about. He becomes friends with several interesting characters who teach him different things about life. A classic Bildungsroman. I'm reading it in German.

 

3. Paradise Lost  (John Milton) - This one I bought on a whim and I kind of regret it.  It's famous, of course, and is frequently quoted and cited in other works so I thought I would give it a try. I can't really get into it though. The old style and (for me) uninteresting subject matter (the biblical Fall of Man) hasn't really drawn me in yet but I haven't given it a fair shake quite yet (I'm only about 30 pages in).

 

4. The Better Angels of Our Nature (Steven Pinker) - Steven Pinker argues that violence in the world has declined and he gives several reasons why. I'm only about 15 pages in to this one so I won't say much about it.  

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Started reading Midnight in Chernobyl, by Adam Higginbotham, in part because if HBO's miniseries. Goddamn, it's gripping. I almost couldn't put it down this morning to go to bed. 

[Mercury33]

Finished the Warlord Chronicles-10/10 

 

Perfection. I really don’t know what else to say. The way the 3 books escalated the stakes. The way there wasn’t magic and yet by the 3rd book there sort of was. The way it was a historical fiction and yet the character traits of all the Arthurian characters still reminded true. I absolutely LOVED these books and I would absolutely die to see them realized in show form. The books are so densely packed and I think each book could easily be 2 eight episode seasons apiece. Amazing amazing amazing. 

[Nokt]

13 minutes ago, Mercury33 said:

Finished the Warlord Chronicles-10/10 

 

Perfection. I really don’t know what else to say. The way the 3 books escalated the stakes. The way there wasn’t magic and yet by the 3rd book there sort of was. The way it was a historical fiction and yet the character traits of all the Arthurian characters still reminded true. I absolutely LOVED these books and I would absolutely die to see them realized in show form. The books are so densely packed and I think each book could easily be 2 eight episode seasons apiece. Amazing amazing amazing. 

I actually bought the first book of this series so guess I'll move it up my list a little bit to read it. 

[EternallDarkness]

Recently finished a bunch of stuff, though at the moment the only that I can recall is Cabin at the End of the World by Paul Trembley. Still not sure how I feel about it. Definitely had some twisted stuff in it.

 

And with the weather being so nice and me hanging out by the pool, I've really got started on a mass reading kick and started a whole mess of other books: 

Food: a love story by Jim Gaffigan. 

Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Trembley

The Born Again Runner by Pete Magill

also decided to go back and read some well known mystery writers that I've always meant to read and starting with their early stuff. So far I've started

Sanibel Flats by Randy Wayne White

Dead Cert by Dick Francis

 

and have picked  and will likely add into the rotation this weekend

 

The Deep Blue Goody-by by John D. MacDonald

The Cat Who Could Read Backwards by Lilian Jackson Braun

Fletch by Gregory McDonald 

 

 

and yes when I say rotation, that's exactly what I mean. I will literally have a stack of books (or just a bunch of books on my kindle) and read a chapter, switch books, read a chapter, switch books, rinse and repeat, lol. 

[elbobo]

The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin

 

This is part 1 of a 3 part series. Supposedly this is THE Chinese scifi novel, it had some good stuff but nothing life changing. I can't get into all the concepts without going deep into spoiler territory but there are some interesting concepts and some way out there ones which is fine for scifi, somethings get quite hard into the science and math and get dry if that isn't your thing. The prose isn't great which I think is due to both the original writing and the translation. Characters are mostly paper thin. 

 

I'll read the other 2 books and see how it all turns out. 

[Nokra]

I just finished The Hidden Life of Trees, which is a popular science (i.e. somewhat superficial ) description of how trees communicate, what their life-cycle is like, how they interact with their environment, etc. I gave it 4 stars on Goodreads just because I thought it was pretty interesting, though I also realize that it's fairly basic information. I would have appreciated him going in to more depth sometimes, but, on the other hand, it got me more interested in the subject, which I think is the hallmark of a good book.  

[rc0101]

On 5/27/2019 at 4:43 PM, Mercury33 said:

Finished the Warlord Chronicles-10/10 

 

Perfection. I really don’t know what else to say. The way the 3 books escalated the stakes. The way there wasn’t magic and yet by the 3rd book there sort of was. The way it was a historical fiction and yet the character traits of all the Arthurian characters still reminded true. I absolutely LOVED these books and I would absolutely die to see them realized in show form. The books are so densely packed and I think each book could easily be 2 eight episode seasons apiece. Amazing amazing amazing. 

Check out the Grail Quest by Cornwell if you haven't. Not quite as good as the Warlord Chronicles but really good. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

I finished Midnight in Chernobyl yesterday. Last night, I decided to start Missoula: Rape and the Justice System in a College Town by Jon Krakauer. I really like his work.

 

I'm still reading IT, but it's kinda slow and will likely take me some time.

[Dre801]

Book Two of the "Extinction" series by Nicholas Sansbury Smith.  I loved his "Trackers" series, so decided to check this out.

[gamer.tv]

I'm doing my best to read children's literature along with regular reading material, so I went with Northern Lights and it's great. Really enjoying it (and will read the series, so long as I can polish them off by the 10th of July so I can borrow from our school's library). 

[Mercury33]

Wanted to read something more light hearted after finishing the Warlord Trilogy so I’m “reading” The Graveyard Book. Lot of fun and the full cast audiobook is phenomenal. Still waiting to read something from Gaiman that isn’t superb. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished Missoula the other night, now my current nonfiction is Ghost Soldiers: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides. 

[EternallDarkness]

been on a Jeremy Robinson kick this past week. Burned through Flux and The Others and am now part way through Infinite and am loving it. 

[EternallDarkness]

Finished up Infinite and dang was it awesome. Now trying to decide if I want to jump into another Robinson novel or taken a break from him and get back to all the other books I was reading before that I've been neglecting for the last week or so. 

[Dre801]

Extinction Age - The  Extinction Cycle Book 3.  If you're into post-apocalyptic stuff, this is turning out to be damn good.

[EternallDarkness]

29 minutes ago, Dre801 said:

Extinction Age - The  Extinction Cycle Book 3.  If you're into post-apocalyptic stuff, this is turning out to be damn good.

 

I've actually got a bunch of Smith's books on my kindle, but I haven't started any of them. I'll have to move him up on the list. 

[gamer.tv]

Northern Light finished, genuinely very interesting (though with the potential for politics, it would be nice if it was an adult targeted fantasy book at times) and I've borrowed the Subtle Knife. 

 

My partner also bought me Good Omens over the weekend, so I'm reading that first - so far it's been funny, though I've been so tired lately it's hard to concentrate on reading.

[thewhyteboar]

If you're ever looking for something to read, check out this website:

https://twitter.com/five_books?s=09

It's interviews with authors who recommend 5 books on a certain topic.

[elbobo]

The Dark Forrest 

 

Sequel to the Three Body Problem and much better than it. First book is just a setup and this is the more the meat and potatoes of the story spanning hundreds of years with very carry over characters from the first book. The author definitely grew in ability between these novels. Hope the last book continues this trend. 

[TheGreatGamble]

Doug Bock Clark’s “The Last Whalers”. Probably the best book on a hunter/gatherer tribe (Lamalera Tribe in Indionesia). Absolutely worth the read if you are into those kinda things.

[gamer.tv]

On 6/28/2019 at 12:01 AM, TheGreatGamble said:

Doug Bock Clark’s “The Last Whalers”. Probably the best book on a hunter/gatherer tribe (Lamalera Tribe in Indionesia). Absolutely worth the read if you are into those kinda things.

'

That sounds very cool, will keep a look out. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Finished ghost Soldiers last night, today I'm starting Tomorrow Will Be Different: Love, Loss, and the Fight for Trans Equality by Sarah McBride. 

[Dre801]

Extinction Aftermath  - Extinction Cycle Book 6.  If you’re into post-apocalyptic stories, this is highly recommended.

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Another book down, I'm at 28 on the year. I actually don't know if I'll make it to my goal of 50 this year, but we'll see. 

 

A coworker gave me six new novels to read, mostly thrillers and mysteries, but sometimes I like a quick, easy read. I've started Pieces of Her by Karin Slaughter. 

[CastlevaniaNut18]

Got through Pieces of Her pretty quickly. Pretty fun read, though I'm gonna pass it along to another coworker instead of putting it on my shelf. I typically keep books, but other people showed an interest in it and I have so many books, I'm gonna do a good deed.  

 

Now starting The Stranger by Albert Camus. Another coworker gave it to me a while back but I'm just now getting around to it. It'll be a quick read. 

 

I swear, I will finish IT at some point.