posted
I have just finished three excellent books Parallel Universes by Michio Kaku, Lord Valentines Castle by Silverberg and Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer.
I liked Parallel Universes so much that it has motivated me to start Quantum Physics for dummies.
Yesterday my copy of Jack Vance's Alastor omnibus has arrived so I am tempted to read it in parallel.
Before that I tried for the third time to read the Song of fire and ice saga, but I seem not to get it or love it so I stopped.
posted
I want to start reading Brandon Sanderson's Words of Radiance, but it's been so long since I've read Way of Kings that I'm currently working my way through the Tor.com reread of that one to refamiliarize myself with it.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just finished Smallcreep's Day by Peter Currell Brown. Pretty relevant considering the political climate.
Before that I read The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Also very relevant, but in a very different way from Smallcreep's Day.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
after this last ever so lovely election season i'm real big into cormac mccarthy again. i'm imagining The Road as retitled "2020"
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm listing my recent three books because I I am still working on finishing them.
Emotional Intelligence 2.0 - impulse buy at airport What Every Body Is Saying - book on reading body language Darth Plagueis - a SW novel
Fun Fact: I have over an hour commute now, so I listen to a lot of TED Talks and YouTube videos about SW lore.
Posts: 813 | Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm rereading Game of Thrones. I glossed over a bunch of stuff the first read, and I'm really enjoying it, especially because I care about more of the minor characters.
Posts: 1757 | Registered: Oct 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
I have finished reading the book, The Tailor of Panama. The publishers did a great job publishing this kind of book. It's a book about Spy that's why I really enjoyed reading it.
Posts: 4 | Registered: Sep 2016
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: I'm rereading Game of Thrones. I glossed over a bunch of stuff the first read, and I'm really enjoying it, especially because I care about more of the minor characters.
I can see that. I read the first four books, but I bet if I went back and started again it would be a much different experience.
Posts: 813 | Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I read Stories of Your Life and Others, by Ted Chiang, mainly because everyone seemed to love that movie made from one of them. They were good. Worth reading, and had interesting ideas. But not good enough that I will seek out all his books and read the others.
Posts: 6246 | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Margaret Atwood. I find it terryfing, as the future she conjures sounds more probable than most science fiction stories I've ever read.
Posts: 723 | Registered: Dec 2004
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by theamazeeaz: I'm rereading Game of Thrones. I glossed over a bunch of stuff the first read, and I'm really enjoying it, especially because I care about more of the minor characters.
I can see that. I read the first four books, but I bet if I went back and started again it would be a much different experience.
I'm rereading also (in hopes of a 2017 release date on Winds of Winter) and am realizing that I missed a ton of stuff the first time through. It's a blast reread! I'm also reading this blog ( A Read of Ice and Fire) along with my own reread and have just loved seeing someone else's reactions to the events on her first read.
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Fun. I blogged my way through a read of the series but I didn't start until Clash of Kings. If you're curious, I think you can still read along here: The Westeros Files
I just started reading Hillbilly Elegy last night and I want to get to the new Expanse book after that.
Then I finally need to finish reading Shutter Island so I can tell my room mate I finished it. She's been on me to read it for awhile but I couldn't get past the first 30 pages.
Hillbilly Elegy is very good so far. It's been talked about a lot in the wake of Trump winning and I can see why. It talks a lot about a large group of Americans I really can't claim to understand very well.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
| IP: Logged |
posted
Just finished a biography of John Brown by David Reynolds. Enjoyable and informative. It's fascinating to me how disturbing and very favorable a man Brown is to me, now that I know more about him.
About to start Welcome to the Monkey House by Vonnegut, whom I haven't read much.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: Fun. I blogged my way through a read of the series but I didn't start until Clash of Kings. If you're curious, I think you can still read along here: The Westeros Files
Awesome! I'll definitely check it out!
Posts: 340 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I liked Hillbilly Elegy, Lyrhawn. I wanted it to be more sociology than memoir, but I liked it as memoir, too.
My husband is the son of a man who grew up in a holler. Berea College helped my father-in-law (and mother-in-law) to become a successful professional. (So did the Baptist Church, with its emphasis on avoiding alcohol altogether.)
My mom's family is also from Appalachia, but from Webster Valley, TN, which is not too far from what became I-81. That makes a HUGE difference. My mom has said, though, that she doesn't really know how her parents knew that they should give her piano lessons and encourage her to be a majorette. They were able to pay for her to go to college, where she met my dad--also from the south, but from a very different culture...a long line of preachers & educators, where even the women went to college.
I wonder if anything has been published or studied about the difference it makes to be distant from a major interstate.
Well--on topic...I am currently reading
Time Salvager by Wesley Chu: I'm kind of struggling through it. It's ok, but Chu is best in big-picture plotting. He is not super good at writing women. I'm in a slow part now where he's doing some close 3rd person with his female character, and I'm doing some eye-rolling.
Everything Everything by Nicola Yoon: I haven't started it yet, but book club is Monday so I need to get a move on.
An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir: I read part of it this summer & put it down, but picked it up tonight because I left my book at work but found this one in my car. (Near tragedy--my son has swim practice for an hour and my phone was low on batteries, too.) It's decent YA fantasy. Far from terrible...so far it hasn't really broken free from the current cliches/ trends in YA fantasy, but it is fast-paced, with some believable risk and danger for the protagonists.
I have decided not to read any more of ASoIaF until he finishes the thing. I read 1-4 almost 10 years ago before I realized that he was just. not. making. progress. And I realize that GRRM is not my *ahem* (insert something less obviously sexist and problematic), but I also am UNINTERESTED in continuing until I know there's an end in sight. (#4 really irritated me.)
Posts: 834 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: I'm currently reading the Worm web serial and holy-shit-it's-so-good.
Somewhat bizarrely I was just thinking about Worm. I don't think I've ever read anything before or since that really compares to it, it really is a world in and of itself.
Where are you at in the series?
Posts: 2222 | Registered: Dec 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Two months later, I'm still working my way through the reread of The Way of Kings, but I've also just begun The Name of the Wind, of which I've heard nothing but tons of praise.
Posts: 1080 | Registered: Apr 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Heisenberg: I'm currently reading the Worm web serial and holy-shit-it's-so-good.
Somewhat bizarrely I was just thinking about Worm. I don't think I've ever read anything before or since that really compares to it, it really is a world in and of itself.
Where are you at in the series?
In the middle of the fight against Echidna.
Posts: 572 | Registered: Jun 2013
| IP: Logged |
posted
I just started with "Twice as Far" by Thomas C. Juby. It is a true story of Swiss Air Flight 111 airplane crash investigation.
Posts: 16 | Registered: Nov 2014
| IP: Logged |
posted
The Glass Universe by Dava Sobel. The title has a double meaning: the Harvard Observatory pioneered astro photography, and created a library of photographs preserved on glass plates. But the book is about female astronomers, who were treated as cheap labor, for the most part, even as they were recognized for identifying spectral signatures that could be used to classify stars, creating a system of categorization based on spectral analysis, identifying and characterizing variable stars, and developing the means by which the distance to stars could be measured. While still classified as "assistants" or "computers" (predating "Hidden Figures" by more than half a century) these women did work that was worthy of Nobel prizes, but were held back by the "glass ceiling" of the times.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
This would be a good thread for comments about how 1984, the Handmaid's Tale, Fahrenheit 451, Brave New World are seeing a resurgence since Trump got elected.
I'm planning on reading Herman Melville's "The Confidence Man" next.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Reading "Pact", wildbow's next work. Unfortunately I don't think it's as good as "Worm"; less interesting powers, less interesting characters. The immense voluminousness of the writing is more noticeable.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
