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[Nuke Soda]

Finished this about a week ago, which was amazing. I'll have to read some more Stephen King as only read 3 of his books so far:

Currently close to finishing the following, which I didn't realize was coming out as a movie until a few days ago:

It definitely lost a lot of steam halfway through as some other posters mentioned earlier in this thread.

Kind of funny when you realize Joe Hill is Stephen Kings son.

 

[Cade]

I finished it! I finished it. I finished it. Holy fuck I can get back to reading now. I finished 1Q84. It did not end the way I expected it to and I am glad. I would have happily cut out all of book 2 and most of book 3 to have a good enough novel. Up next, I think:

because it's short and looks like an easy read

 

[Diatribe1974]

Nagash, The Sorcerer by Mike Lee.

 

[Maklershed]

On the hard copy side I finished State of Fear (only took 2 years!) and started The Witch of Hebron


The Witch of Hebron by James Howard Kunstler

 

[Mackenzie 92]

Just about done with Swan Song. Overall, pretty great from start to finish. Not sure if I'd rate it above The Stand, but it's definitely close.

Next up,


Tunnel in the Sky by Robert A. Heinlein

 

[Rest]

Knife Skills by Bill Collins
I was reading this book and came to the point where the author says that boning knives sound like they are for cutting through bones. I thought about this, and thought, no, boning knives do not sound like they are for cutting through bones. Cleavers, which cleave, or leave things cloven, sound like they are for cutting through bones. Bone saws sound like they are for cutting through bones.

I thought about all the ways one might rend bones: chopping, smashing, crushing, snapping, maybe even slicing, and boning knives don't sound like they are for any of those things. Boning knives sound like they are for cleanly removing bones from flesh, (or, you know, boning, as it is called) and that is exactly what they are used for. I wouldn't have given it this much thought, but the author dedicates nearly an entire page to this nonsensical linguistically ignorant thought, and then later comes back to it.

Later, he also said you don't filet birds or bovine animal flesh with a filet knife, that the only thing you filet are fish. He seemed to believe that the sidelong cut of fish meat is what a filet is, and that this is what the filet knife is named after. He seems to have no clue that filleting is a reference to a technique of slicing, and that any slice of food resulting from the use of this technique, whether it's fish, bird, land animal or a fruit or vegetable, is there after called a filet.

This Bill Collins guy calls himself a chef, and says he graduated from culinary school, but I do have to wonder how he could have made it through culinary school if he doesn't understand basic vocabulary like this.

 

[Ashes]

This Bill Collins guy calls himself a chef, and says he graduated from culinary school, but I do have to wonder how he could have made it through culinary school if he doesn't understand basic vocabulary like this.

Maybe he just cooks well?

I think I agree with your assessment though.


----


I'm about 2/3rds into O Pioneers! Will Carther's novel. On my shelf lies, The Girl Who played with Fire, by Stieg Larsson. By chance, I'm drawn to comparisons few people are ever inclined to make. Apart from strong female leads, & Nordic characters, they have nothing to do with one another.

I keep thinking about how times have changed. Carther catches the old world sentiment. How it's romances are kindled and extinguished. I repeat this is not what the book is about. That old world sentiment lies on the modern part of the continuum between the propriety of Jane Austen's years, and Stieg Larsson's "Men who hate women"* years.

Alexandra Bergson (O Pioneers!) and Lisbeth Salander (the Girl Who played with Fire) play characters that have careers traditionally [for lack of a better word] been trodden on by male leads. Alexandra is an agricultural businesswomen [farmland, real estate, farming] and Lisbeth is a hacker/detective [and too some extent a revolutionist against the state]. The two books cover to some degree how it is be a pioneering woman in the turn of last century, and the turn of this century.

I doubt anybody else will compare these two books. But I thought I'd share that, seeing as I seem to be into my 2/3rds in reviews these days. And speak almost nothing about the novels themselves.

I will add that this a novel to be enjoyed. It is short but, were I to have a print copy, it would be pencil marked all over.

*(The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo's original Swedish title, Män som hatar kvinnor, literally "Men who hate women" in English)

 

[Nappuccino]

I finished Colorless Tsukuru. Besides some incredibly interesting passages-- the end section on trains and stations was incredibly-- it did not float my boat. The "mystery" never really grabbed me. Once he started tracking down his friends it lost me a bit.

This isn't good news for me. I'm about 80 pages in and kinda fed up with how he's relaying the information i.e. nearly all telling, sometimes saying nearly the same line multiple times on one page. It's incredibly repetitious and telling. Which is the worst kind of telling.

I want to like it because every so often a really great passage leaps out . . . but then there are all these others to contend with. Did anyone else feel like it got better as it went on?

 

[Gordon0Freeman]

I finished it! I finished it. I finished it. Holy fuck I can get back to reading now. I finished 1Q84. It did not end the way I expected it to and I am glad. I would have happily cut out all of book 2 and most of book 3 to have a good enough novel. Up next, I think:

because it's short and looks like an easy read

This sounds really cool. How are you liking it?

 

[kswiston]

Audible is having another $5.95 audiobook sale, this time focusing on the first two books in over 100 series.

I picked up the following:

Hopefully these end up being decent choices. The sale also features the first two Dresden Files books, the first two entries in Neil Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, and Illium and Olympos by Dan Simmons for those interested. There are also a bunch of Mystery and Romance books that I am not really interested in.

 

[Cade]

This sounds really cool. How are you liking it?

So far it's pretty much fluff and these characters are all incredibly perfect. I'm only a fifth through so far, though. The science stuff so far is interesting at least.

 

[Marauder Shields]

Just started reading Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey. Have heard good things about the series.

 

[TheCrazyGuru]

Might I suggest The Long Walk? I was like you a short while ago, but I've demolished a lot of Stephen King in the last 8 months or so, and The Long Walk was my favorite after 11/22/63, followed by Needful Things and The Shining.

Thanks for the suggestion. I've definitely had my eye on that one as well. I believe he made that originally as his RIchard Bachman pseudonym, right?

Just started this last night to get in the mood for Halloween:

 

[BodySystem Lars]

The Martian by Andy Weir

Very good! I couldn't put it down!

 

[Ashes]

Falling Free and Shards as the first two in the Vorkosigan series? :/ Whoever put that together had no clue what they were doing. Shards and Barrayar makes way more sense. Or Warrior's Apprentice and Vor Game.

Falling Free and Shards, psssshhhhh.

You should read Shards of Honor btw, Bujold is amazing and the Vorkosigan series is one of the best scifi series ever.

Isn't that what the author recommends?

 

[Ashes]

https://www.goodreads.com/story/sho...saga-reading-order-debate-the-chef-recommends

POW!

She favours Internal chronological order with caveats. I see. Forgot the caveats part. I concede. As a mark of my concession, I'll bump up Shards to my list to read. I've got it from the last time somebody recommended it. Might even have been you. ha ha.

 

[duckroll]

Finch

This was a lot of fun. It's a much faster paced and more dynamic novel than the previous Ambergris books, and much more pulp. Not in a bad way either. It's just filled with crazy ideas, and unifies the backstory of the previous books into something much more active and obvious. Part of me was sad to see a lot of the mystery wiped away, but there are still enough unknowns to make the setting alien and unknowable, so it's not too bad.

Out of all of VanderMeer's stuff I've read so far, this one is probably the most mainstream. Action packed, moving forward all the time, lots of set pieces, big reveals, fun stuff. It also reminded me a ton of Bioshock Infinite in several ways, so I wonder if this was something that directly influenced Levine at the time, or if they all just happened to draw from the same pulp scifi tales from previous eras. There are some things which feel a bit more than coincidence though.

Shriek remains the more thoughtful and reflective novel in the Ambergris cycle, but I think Finch is much more re-readable, and is just easier to digest. Would make a pretty good movie too.

 

[Bazza]

Just started reading Leviathan Wakes by James S A Corey. Have heard good things about the series.

Just started on the series last week, thought the 1st book was really good. Im about halfway into book 2 now.

 

[Ratrat]

I read Falling Free recently as my first Vorksigan book and enjoyed it...


Now reading: The Man With a Thousand Names by A.E. Van Vogt.

 

[thomaser]

Finished The Collected Stories of Alexander Pushkin. Good stuff, especially the two longer texts about Pugachev.

Now, started "Inside the Mind of the Shopper - The Science of Retailing" by Herb Sorensen. Interesting if you're a retailer. Shows how shoppers move around in stores, what they spend time on, what makes them pay attention, and which factors make them actually pick up something and buy it. It's been researched by fitting thousands of shoppers with special glasses that show what they do, and exactly what their eyes look at and focus on.

Some interesting and sometimes counter-intuitive findings, for example that having discounts on popular/necessary things has no impact at all on how much people buy of those particular things. Factor that have a lot of impact, however, are where things are placed in the store, the store's general layout (having a snaking path through the store is most effective), and the selection (a smaller, focused selection generally leads to higher sales than a large selection).

 

[Jintor]

oo-er. That's interesting, but maybe not $18 interesting right at this moment. I'll wishlist it

 

[Meteorain]

Started reading the first book of Revelation Space a few days ago. Really enjoying the detail of the science, at least the author gets to show off his astronomy knowledge!

 

[Empty]

i read royal flash by george mcdonald fraser. i'd read the first book in the series earlier this year and enjoyed it as a fun comic adventure following a vile coward narrating his way wittily through the history of the victorian british empire. i liked this sequel a fair bit less. focusing on an absurd political plot for flashman to disguise himself as a danish prince, it was much less rooted in historical fact so i didn't feel i learned as much from it as the first book taught me about british policy in afghanistan. i also felt like flashman as a character was toned down too much, he's really unbeleivably horrible in the first book, actually raping a woman at one point, so you really feel conflicted laughing with him and seeing him fortunately escape in the pulp tradition, where he's more of a slightly rude everyman here and roped into the plot in a way where he's a victim which makes it more of a conventional pulp adventure. still a good page turner with some fun lines, though.

i also read the old man and the sea by hemmingway which was perfection.

Neat. I'll check that book out. The summary you gave makes it sound excellent.

hope you like it!

 

[Keen]

Finished Half a World by Joe Abercrombie, which I liked fine.

Now The Dark Defiles by Richard K. Morgan. Really good so far, big fan of Morgan's.

 

[ShaneB]

In a different funk now where it's that sense of feeling like nothing I read next will be as good as The Child Thief was, it's definitely going in my favourites this year. Another book of his sounds really great, Red Winter, so I'd like to read that sometime too.

I thought I might read The Bottoms, and maybe I will, also The Painter by Peter Heller is looking possible. Just need a few days maybe to let The Child Thief settle down in my head a bit more perhaps.

Here's a question maybe to spark some discussion. Does anyone else have a strong preference for first person or third person? For me it's most certainly first person that draws me in. I always will skim the first few pages to see the perspective, and if it's first person, that's a big selling point. It's just the sort of appeal that I'm being told a story by hopefully a fascinating narrator. I wonder what others here think.

 

[kaskade]

School makes it a little difficult to read stuff I really want to read but I have this week off so I might start The Martian. Heard some amazing things from the Tested.com crew.

 

[BTM]

For anyone who has read the Abhorsen Trilogy by Garth Nix all those years ago, he has just released a prequel titled Clariel.

 

[Haly]

Finished this just last night. It was... alright. It suffered from the typical middle-of-a-trilogy problem that afflicts so many sci fi works. There was a regurgitating of themes from the first novel, as well as a lack of advancement on the main plot because real progression is being saved for the third book. Ancillary Sword was mostly about worldbuilding and exploring Breq's character in further detail.

Unfortunately, it wasn't compelling enough to carry an entire book and I felt dissatisfied with the ending. Still, I'm looking forward to how Leckie rounds everything out in Ancillary Mercy. I'm inclined to compare it to the Temeraire series, where every novel is like a travelogue exploring one facet of the author's fictional universe. Unlike Temeraire, however, Imperial Radch is meant to be a trilogy so I'm guessing the third book is going to be really exciting if she could afford to "waste" so much time here.

My biggest problem with this book was that Breq is just so morally superior to everyone around her that she is quickly approaching Sue territory. Out of all the characters, she is the only one who really knows what's going on and consistently acts in a way that, to our eyes, would be considered "fair". Combine this with her superhuman abilities and access to the universe' sole unstoppable gun... well, it's not a good portrait for a character to have.

And as far as prose goes, the way she strings together actions with nothing but commas got on my nerves. Example:

Back in my room, I removed my brown and black shirt, handed it to Kalr Five. Had bent to loosen my boots when a knock sounded at the door. I looked up. Kalr Five gave me a single, expressionless glance and went to answer it. She had seen Raughd’s behavior these past few days, knew what this was likely to be, though I admit I was surprised she had chosen to make this blatant a move so soon.

Something like this is fine on occasion, but this seems to be her default mode of narration and it's grating.

 

[Zona]

Hello again BookGAF. Yesterday I started Foucault's Pendulum

I'm currently about fifty pages in and... I like it? It seems superb so far but I'm not sure if I should put it down and take a class on Kabbalah mysticism before coming back to it, or if I just started one. I'm also getting an Illuminatus! vibe so far but that may be superficial.

 

[Mumei]

i read royal flash by george mcdonald fraser. i'd read the first book in the series earlier this year and enjoyed it as a fun comic adventure following a vile coward narrating his way wittily through the history of the victorian british empire. i liked this sequel a fair bit less. focusing on an absurd political plot for flashman to disguise himself as a danish prince, it was much less rooted in historical fact so i didn't feel i learned as much from it as the first book taught me about british policy in afghanistan. i also felt like flashman as a character was toned down too much, he's really unbeleivably horrible in the first book, actually raping a woman at one point, so you really feel conflicted laughing with him and seeing him fortunately escape in the pulp tradition, where he's more of a slightly rude everyman here and roped into the plot in a way where he's a victim which makes it more of a conventional pulp adventure. still a good page turner with some fun lines, though.

i also read the old man and the sea by hemmingway which was perfection

Empty, you should read another book by a George M[a]cDonald:

 

[SwampFox]

Halfway through this book, and hoping to finish it up by the end of the week:

 

[thomaser]

I'm currently about fifty pages in and... I like it? It seems superb so far but I'm not sure if I should put it down and take a class on Kabbalah mysticism before coming back to it, or if I just started one. I'm also getting an Illuminatus! vibe so far but that may be superficial.

The first 50-100 pages of that book are notorious for being extremely difficult, so I'm impressed that you like it! There's a story going that Eco made the beginning difficult on purpose, in order to cull out readers who don't have the required patience or smarts. Might be true, might not.

One of my favourite books, and the one book that actually made me start to love literature. I didn't care much about books before, but when I randomly pulled this one out from my mother's bookshelf (she never read it) and forced myself through the first part, something clicked and I knew that this was my thing.

Good luck with the rest of the book! Very fascinating and many-layered. You'll probably pick up what you need to know about kabbalism as you go, but it wouldn't hurt to read a wiki or two first. You won't understand half of the book anyway - that's for the second or third read-through!

 

[BTM]

Halfway through this book, and hoping to finish it up by the end of the week:

She has a sequel titled The Silkworm that came out this past summer. Great read as well.

 

[besada]

Finch

...snip...

I've really enjoyed reading your responses to the Ambergris triology. And I totally agree that while Finch is the fastest-moving and easiest to understand of the three, in the end he almost gives too much away. Things become almost too clear.

I thought he handled the ending of the Southern Reach triology better, telling us enough that it felt like a reveal, but leaving so much in the gloomy darkness of Area X.

 

[Biochet]

Great book.

Spoiler

The aunt is such a fucking bitch.

 

[SwampFox]

She has a sequel titled The Silkworm that came out this past summer. Great read as well.

Nice. I'll add it to my "to-read list" on Goodreads. Thank you for letting me know.

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

Finch

This was a lot of fun. It's a much faster paced and more dynamic novel than the previous Ambergris books, and much more pulp. Not in a bad way either. It's just filled with crazy ideas, and unifies the backstory of the previous books into something much more active and obvious. Part of me was sad to see a lot of the mystery wiped away, but there are still enough unknowns to make the setting alien and unknowable, so it's not too bad.

Out of all of VanderMeer's stuff I've read so far, this one is probably the most mainstream. Action packed, moving forward all the time, lots of set pieces, big reveals, fun stuff. It also reminded me a ton of Bioshock Infinite in several ways, so I wonder if this was something that directly influenced Levine at the time, or if they all just happened to draw from the same pulp scifi tales from previous eras. There are some things which feel a bit more than coincidence though.

Shriek remains the more thoughtful and reflective novel in the Ambergris cycle, but I think Finch is much more re-readable, and is just easier to digest. Would make a pretty good movie too.

I'm glad I read this before I read the book, I didn't know it was part of a series and I just picked the one that was 'in' at the library.

Speaking of library, I found William Shakespeare's Star Wars yesterday and had to grab the trilogy.

I laughed at the absurdity of it all and will get further into it after finishing "The Supernatural Enhancements" (based on a recommendation from this thread).

So far? It's really creepy. I like the different ways the story is moved along. It almost feels like reading a jr. version of House of Leaves in that the footnotes are an actual part of the story instead of tiny footnotes that you don't have to read. I'm blowing the analogy but it's in there somewhere. What can I say, I'm not a writer.

 

[studyguy]

I enjoy fantasy titles that throw in odd magic systems.
So far this is okay, not amazing not bad. Enjoyable. I'll probably finish the series if it keeps up.
Oh hell, literally just read some crazy twist I did not expect. Well shit that's interesting.

 

[SniperHunter]

Currently reading the fall - second novel of the strain series


The red queen - biology of sex - really liking it

Why isnt my brain working - great advice in this book

 

[Ashes]

Here's a question maybe to spark some discussion. Does anyone else have a strong preference for first person or third person? For me it's most certainly first person that draws me in. I always will skim the first few pages to see the perspective, and if it's first person, that's a big selling point. It's just the sort of appeal that I'm being told a story by hopefully a fascinating narrator. I wonder what others here think.

I think you make a good point, but there are great examples of all kinds of writing. I like getting into the minds of characters. Tolstoy had a brilliant way of pipping in an out his characters thoughts, motives and psyche.


___

Finished 'O Pioneer'. A good tight cast of characters. There doesn't seem to be much character development, as if each has their nature transfixed, as they go through the motions of life.
I don't always agree with the characters in the book, both the approved and disapproved, but the narration and prose hold such beauty sometimes and yeild nuggets of truth on so many different occasions, that I can't help but see [and agree] why this book is beloved.
Alexandra, for me joins, Anna Karenina, amongst the best female leads in literature - her entry is more subtle, and not at all like another of my suggestions, Lisbeth Salander. I think I hold a minority opinion here, and am quite happy do so.
I repeat what I said earlier in the thread. This is a book *not* to be read fast, like I have done, but to be read slowly, & cherished: it mighn't belong to the pantheon of great literature, but boy, did I chance upon a very good novel.

 

[old]

Mark Twain's Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc

Fascinating read.

 

[Christoff Yurievich]

I enjoy fantasy titles that throw in odd magic systems.
So far this is okay, not amazing not bad. Enjoyable. I'll probably finish the series if it keeps up.
Oh hell, literally just read some crazy twist I did not expect. Well shit that's interesting.

A book I read last summer - "Fade to Black" - sorta falls into that.

From the depths of a valley rises the city of Mahala

It's a city built upwards, not across - where streets are built upon streets, buildings upon buildings. A city that the Ministry rules from the sunlit summit, and where the forsaken lurk in the darkness of Under.

Rojan Dizon doesn't mind staying in the shadows, because he's got things to hide. Things like being a pain-mage, with the forbidden power to draw magic from pain. But he can't hide for ever.

Because when Rojan stumbles upon the secrets lurking in the depths of the Pit, the fate of Mahala will depend on him using his magic. And unlucky for Rojan - this is going to hurt.

It doesn't explain it very well but the world is interesting.

 

[Clegg]

Just finished The Magicians Land by Lev Grossman.

I have to say that I'm disappointed by it. The plot wasn't very strong and didn't involve much of the cast that has been developed over the previous two books. It's like Grossman knew he had to wrap up Quentin's story but didn't have enough material to do so. There was a story to be told but he'd already wrapped up so much of it in the second book. There are also a few plot threads from the secon book which are woefully underused in this one.The book is 400 pages long when it probably could've done with another 100, but he only really had 300 pages of actual good stuff. Does that make sense?

Quentin's story itself was fine. It just wasn't enough to carry the book by itself. It isn't a terrible book. It's just disappointing compared to the books that came before it.

 

[ShaneB]

I think you make a good point, but there are great examples of all kinds of writing. I like getting into the minds of characters. Tolstoy had a brilliant way of pipping in an out his characters thoughts, motives and psyche.

Thanks for the reply, and no doubt different writers make different perspectives work in all sorts of ways, but I'm just curious to see if others had a preference that tended to pull them in more easily. My easiest draw like I said is that sort of feeling I'm being told a story, a narrator retelling past experiences, etc etc.

 

[studyguy]

A book I read last summer - "Fade to Black" - sorta falls into that.It doesn't explain it very well but the world is interesting.

Awesome, thanks will look into it.

 

[Steto96]

Fineshed Inkheart, beginning Messenger , by Lois Lowry.
So far the other books (The Giver and Gathering Blue) were ok, the first one being the better one, don't know what to expect from this one. I was a bit surprised that

Spoiler

the second book didn't reconnect to the first one, or, if it did, I didn't notice. It's ok being separate stories, it just surprised me

 

[Ashes]

Shards of Honour certainly runs at a ferocious pace.

 

[Mr.Swag]

Anyone read anything from Michael Chabon? I dream of living in Pittsburgh, so I heard about him and his books. Any specific recommendations?

 

[sparky2112]

Anyone read anything from Michael Chabon? I dream of living in Pittsburgh, so I heard about him and his books. Any specific recommendations?

Everyone is going to chime in with Kavalier and Klay (Clay?). I will too. Won the Pulitzer, even.

 

[Mumei]

Shards of Honour certainly runs at a ferocious pace.

You'll never accuse Vorkosigan Saga of being slow.

Spoiler

Shards of Honor is one of the faster-paced entries, I think, though.