What are you reading? (August 2015)

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Bought, thanks. I don't know why I bother checking the daily deals page through Kindle, none of the good titles are ever on it.




Could you expand on that "Classic Dahl" bit? It's a name I've heard mentioned before.

He's best known for his children's books: Charlie and the chocolate factory, James and the giant peach, The Witches. They all contain a mixture of whimsy and twisted humour to them. It translates over to his adult short fiction. When I read them I remember his style, which is very accessible with well wrought and easy language. The stories contain a macabre or grotesque element that feels natural. They seem to be working for me.
 
Finished As I Lay Dying. Best book I've read all year. Really liked it. Going to continue reading Faulkner as this is the first I've read by him. The American south is really interesting. The stark contrast with civilisation and the strong grip on religion is fascinating as it makes for a very interesting subject matter. It's really odd how all these stream of conscience books find their way into my reading diet. When I have the time I should go back and re-read Ulyssues.

Started Utan personligt ansvar [Without Personal Liability] by Lena Andersson as the second novel in the "I'm in love with someone who isn't avaible"-what-I-believe-will-be-a-trilogy-at-some-point. Really odd couple of books that my girlfriend enjoyed. They feature some fun stuff but it's mostly just emotions that me as a 30-something male have little-to-no real experience of.
 
I've seen plenty of people expressing dislike here, what's up with that? (I've never read it)

The first quarter or so of the book feels like you're just reading lists of things the Author liked growing up. I personally found it incredibly dull. I've heard it gets better later on but I didn't read further.
 
I got pretty hyped about The Strain tv show, then noticed all 3 books on iTunes for £9.99 and it was pretty much a no-brainer. Halfway through the first book and really loving it. Definitely worth reading if you like Guillermo del Toro :)
 
I'm reading "La sombra del caudillo" by Martín Luis Guzman. It's the quintessential novel about the Mexican Revolution of 1910, 100 years after Mexico got its independence from the Spanish Empire.

Delving into the atmosphere of conflict because of the newly acquired democracy, it's a political novel that details the struggle between the urge to consolidate the democracy that people want and need and those who want to convert it into a hidden dictatorship.

I'm liking it a lot, but it may be hard to read to some people because it delves into the political and historical setting of an early independent Mexico, therefore requiring the reader to know about political figures and events.

Add to my To-Read list. Just what I was looking for
 
I'm about 20% through The Luminaries so far. This is going to take me a long while to get through but I'm really enjoying it so far. The mystery is nice and I really like the conversational style of story telling.
 
I'm noticing a bunch of Amazon kindle deals all of a sudden. Station Eleven is $2.99. Dead Wake, Erik Larson's (The Devil in the White City) new book is $1.99. The Martian is $1.99. And there are a few other notables as well.
 
More Amazon $1.99 ebook deals

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The Shining - Stephen King
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
1984 - George Orwell
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
The Stranger - Albert Camus


Amazon's ability to search out deals is absolutely horrible. Most of these came from Reddit, or searching through the "also bought" lists of other books.

EDIT:

I don't really read young adult books outside of a few exceptions from authors I like, but it looks like the Maze Runner and A Fault in Our Stars are also $1.99 for those who like that sort of thing.
 
More Amazon $1.99 ebook deals

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The Shining - Stephen King
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
1984 - George Orwell
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
The Stranger - Albert Camus


Amazon's ability to search out deals is absolutely horrible. Most of these came from Reddit, or searching through the "also bought" lists of other books.

seriously? Why aren't these on the damn deals page?!?
 
seriously? Why aren't these on the damn deals page?!?

I feel like I saw an answer to this at some point that the deal pages are deals put out there by Amazon and the ones that go down in price randomly are more controlled by the publisher and are sort of random. I think this came about recently when an author blamed Amazon for one of his books going on sale without him knowing about it or something along those lines.
 
I feel like I saw an answer to this at some point that the deal pages are deals put out there by Amazon and the ones that go down in price randomly are more controlled by the publisher and are sort of random. I think this came about recently when an author blamed Amazon for one of his books going on sale without him knowing about it or something along those lines.

I have a Kindle wish list setup on Amazon with about 80 books on it. I browse it every day to see what's on sale. It's very rare when something from my list pops up in BookBub, Book Gorilla or on Amazon's own Daily Deals email.

In general Amazon does a horrible job of highlighting deep sales. To be fair, some of these Kindle things change price by pennies every day. That being said, how hard would it be to collect up a set of books that have deals at clip levels that customers could sign up. Want to see 25% off deals in [name your genre], click here. 50% only? 75% only?
 
I have a Kindle wish list setup on Amazon with about 80 books on it. I browse it every day to see what's on sale. It's very rare when something from my list pops up in BookBub, Book Gorilla or on Amazon's own Daily Deals email.

In general Amazon does a horrible job of highlighting deep sales. To be fair, some of these Kindle things change price by pennies every day. That being said, how hard would it be to collect up a set of books that have deals at clip levels that customers could sign up. Want to see 25% off deals in [name your genre], click here. 50% only? 75% only?

I agree to an extent, though the Kindle store is getting so big that it'd be hard to parse even a fraction of those sales.

I do the wish list thing as well. I wish they sent emails when your wish list items drop in price.
 
I agree to an extent, though the Kindle store is getting so big that it'd be hard to parse even a fraction of those sales.

I do the wish list thing as well. I wish they sent emails when your wish list items drop in price.

Agreed. On the wish list thing, I'd like to basically be able to say "yes, I added this book and it currently costs $9.99. Please send me an email if it goes to $4.99 or lower."
 
While I love Brothers Karamozov, I can only read it in small doses because it's so thought provoking and heavy.

Starting The Sparrow by Mary Russell now.
 
Enjoyed Jar City by Arnaldur Indriðason and now going on to read about the cut throat ice cream business with The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman.

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Great little book that summarizing important historical lessons by the prolific husband and wife team of Will and Ariel Durant

51CU-45T3aL._SX309_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
Finished The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch yesterday and my head almost exploded. It was a near thing, really, makes Ubik seem tame by comparison. Talking about it in any substantial way would be spoiling it so I'll only say that if it wasn't for PKD's infatuation with those recursive loops of reality(think Inception but so much more insidious) it would have been an even more brilliant book. But then, wasn't it necessary to do that? I don't know, I feel like this deserves a second reading. So many layers, so much subtext. Especially with the religious overtones, revelations were coming hard and fast and as I said, I was trying to keep my head from exploding. Five stars and all that:

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Around 10%,
big shocking death just happened
. Caught me by surprise. Absolutely loving the book, much faster pace than WoK. I loved WoK but even I admit it had some really slow parts, this one has not let up since it began. I'm so engrossed and into this world it's not funny.
 
Finished As I Lay Dying. Best book I've read all year. Really liked it. Going to continue reading Faulkner as this is the first I've read by him. The American south is really interesting. The stark contrast with civilisation and the strong grip on religion is fascinating as it makes for a very interesting subject matter. It's really odd how all these stream of conscience books find their way into my reading diet. When I have the time I should go back and re-read Ulyssues.

The Sound and the Fury is probably my favourite book, love Faulkner.
 
More Amazon $1.99 ebook deals

A Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The Shining - Stephen King
Into the Wild - Jon Krakauer
1984 - George Orwell
Jurassic Park - Michael Crichton
The Stranger - Albert Camus


Amazon's ability to search out deals is absolutely horrible. Most of these came from Reddit, or searching through the "also bought" lists of other books.

Thanks for this. I've wanted to reread Jurassic Park for a few years now.

First I'm going to finish So You've Been Publicly Shamed. Fantastic book, I'm about 30% through and I just started a day ago. It's a great examination of internet gang ups.
 
Around 10%,
big shocking death just happened
. Caught me by surprise. Absolutely loving the book, much faster pace than WoK. I loved WoK but even I admit it had some really slow parts, this one has not let up since it began. I'm so engrossed and into this world it's not funny.
I'm about at the same page as you,
I was expecting some more teacher/student adventure, oh well
.
 
Finished Foundation and Empire earlier in the month.

FoudationEmpireTWMflat.jpg


Not as "omg this is amazing" mind blowing as the first one. It seemed like a filler story to lead up to the conclusion of the trilogy, rather than an awesome book in its own right. It did that well however, because I'm kinda amped to see what happens in the third book, Second Foundation.

Haven't moved onto it yet because I felt compelled to read Dune for a second time. I really liked this cover so I picked it up.


Loving the second read through. It's way better than I remember.
 
that 50th anniversary dune cover is pretty cool. wish more current sci-fi/fantasy novels would put in a little effort and have decent covers.
 
that 50th anniversary dune cover is pretty cool. wish more current sci-fi/fantasy novels would put in a little effort and have decent covers.

I think it's less about effort level and more about a rigid adherence from the big five (Tor, Orbit, etc.) to "what sells".
 
I am a third of the way through The Assassin's Apprentice and finished the first chapter of The Girl on the Train. I typically don't start two books at a time, but I felt like switching things up a bit yesterday.

I feel like I am experiencing a bit of reading burnout after an prolific August by my standards (I think I have read about 2700 pages this month).
 
reading robogenesis, the sequel to the pretty excellent robopocolypse. just started it seems cool so far
 

I am a little over halfway though this book and it is simply fantastic. It is beautifully written, and the structure of the novel is really interesting and works very well. It makes it feel as if history is coming alive, that through these letters that you get a real sense of what happened during Augustus' life and all the fascinating and various people around him. It is a odd, but fascinating feeling, you feel like you are there, sucked into Augustus' time, but the letters and official documents also keep you in the present - like you are a watcher, an observer, etc.

I might not be describing it very well, but did anyone else get this feeling?
 
Doh! I figured because you read In Cold Blood and Mocking Bird back-to-back... but, yes, Lee and Capote were childhood best friends.

Nope just coincidence haha. That's really cool though, I saw the movie Capote a long time ago so I'm sure it was mentioned in there that they were close, but I certainly forgot it.
 
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Waily, Waily, Waily!

After I finished this book reading the Afterword I actually teared up a bit
(the book itself definitely softened me up a bit)
, Think it was that that hit home that Discworld as we know it has ended and the world has lost a very special individual.
 
I was already a mess reading I Shall Wear Midnight. Don't know how I'll get through this one.
And I still can't get over Roland damn it.

Started the Red Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson. Really, really liking it. It's exactly what I look for in my sci-fi: thought experiments on both the science and society of the future. Going in, I was particularly worried that it was going to be an all male cast and was pleasantly surprised.

 
i suppose you're right. but those covers are just embarrassing. not too far ahead of crap romance novel covers.

I always look at Romance cover and thing about hot cliche and awful they are. Then I remember how bad so many Fantasy/Sci Fi covers are. Like those terrible Bujold novels.
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/29/opinion/why-parrot-beijings-line.html

This is a pretty interesting article on how China teaches history and how it shapes and influences individual thinking.

If anyone remembers my long posts on The Opium Wars by Julia Lovell, this article confirms quite a bit of it, but I think she takes it one step further. I don't remember Lovell ever making the claim that it this sort of history education is influencing Chinese sub-consciously (sort of), even for people who found Chinese history in high school incredibly dull and boring. the author of the article does though:

As a result, while many students would readily admit the political motivations behind Chinese history education, when challenged by unfamiliar viewpoints, they instinctively fall back onto the statements we chanted as mantras since childhood. The tendency can be heightened by a sense of national pride when the perceived challenge comes from foreigners.

Recently, over lunch with a friend who has chosen to study in Hong Kong and Taiwan in order to get, as he explained, “a fresh understanding of China,” he confessed that the experience only hardened his attitude toward these societies. The protesters in the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong were likely instigated by “foreign forces,” he argued. Otherwise, how could they “not see for themselves the benefit of China’s stable and efficient political system?”
 
I am a little over halfway though this book and it is simply fantastic. It is beautifully written, and the structure of the novel is really interesting and works very well. It makes it feel as if history is coming alive, that through these letters that you get a real sense of what happened during Augustus' life and all the fascinating and various people around him. It is a odd, but fascinating feeling, you feel like you are there, sucked into Augustus' time, but the letters and official documents also keep you in the present - like you are a watcher, an observer, etc.

I might not be describing it very well, but did anyone else get this feeling?

I did! It's really beautiful. I know some people were frustrated or at least disappointed by the shift in the second section, but I found it just as interesting as the first. Of course, the third section is the highlight of the book, so hurry up. <3

I feel like I am experiencing a bit of reading burnout after an prolific August by my standards (I think I have read about 2700 pages this month).

This comment made me curious, so I went and checked my page totals at the end of each month:

January: 6792
February: 5334
March: 1725
April: 2065
May: 2939
June: 1442
July: 2549

It doesn't account for books that I started in one month and finished in another, but... eh. I'm too lazy to figure it out to that degree of precision.

[If anyone remembers my long posts on The Opium Wars by Julia Lovell, this article confirms quite a bit of it, but I think she takes it one step further. I don't remember Lovell ever making the claim that it this sort of history education is influencing Chinese sub-consciously (sort of), even for people who found Chinese history in high school incredibly dull and boring. the author of the article does though:

Honestly, comments like that seem completely familiar. Isn't it always "outside agitators" who are the problem?
 
I did! It's really beautiful. I know some people were frustrated or at least disappointed by the shift in the second section, but I found it just as interesting as the first. Of course, the third section is the highlight of the book, so hurry up. <3

I'll try! Though I am still deep into my Make it Stick American history and Chinese language Anki-athon. I have a rather obsessive personality with a number of things, and this seems to be one of those things.

I am actually really liking the second part so far. I especially thought the two letters about the party with Mevius and Horace was simply fantastic. The speech by Horace was fantastic, and then Mevius' reaction to the whole event was just spot on. I was like yes! That is how a vain, sycophantic suck up would totally act afterwards when he is being 'honest'

Honestly, comments like that seem completely familiar. Isn't it always "outside agitators" who are the problem?

I think some people have a hard time wrapping their head around the fact that people they include in their group can have very different opinions, reactions, and viewpoints. The only real explanation then is outside agitators duping those poor souls. I imagine this sort of phenomenon is made worse by an educational system that basically puts the entire blame on outside agitators for its century of humiliation. That sort of thinking habit is likely difficult to break.
 
This comment made me curious, so I went and checked my page totals at the end of each month:

January: 6792
February: 5334
March: 1725
April: 2065
May: 2939
June: 1442
July: 2549

I don't see a way to break down numbers by month on my Goodreads, are you using something else? Anyway, I'm at 2375 a month this year apparently. It's been a spotty year, I've been struggling for weeks at a time to find something I like and obviously I don't add books I did not finish. Round it up to 2500 a month? 80ish pages a day sounds right considering the off time. These days I look for 2000 "locations"(Kindle's unit of measure) a session which translates to just below 150 conventional pages I think.
 
I don't see a way to break down numbers by month on my Goodreads, are you using something else? Anyway, I'm at 2375 a month this year apparently. It's been a spotty year, I've been struggling for weeks at a time to find something I like and obviously I don't add books I did not finish. Round it up to 2500 a month? 80ish pages a day sounds right considering the off time. These days I look for 2000 "locations"(Kindle's unit of measure) a session which translates to just below 150 conventional pages I think.

Yeah, I'm just using my running totals here, and checking my monthly updates.
 
Finsished Augustus sometime yesterday afternoon. I only read two books written by John Williams so far but he's already one of my favourite authors.
 
So I just finished reading Stardust not too long ago and found it to be quite lovely. The funny thing about the version I was reading was that it had the epilogue placed after the portion of the book that contained excerpts of The Ocean at the End of the Lane. I almost missed the epilogue until I randomly decided to look at the table of contents.

Anyone have any opinions on the movie version? Apparently it has a more "hollywood-esque" ending.
 
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