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Ready Player One is really fun to read and the audiobook is great.

I thought Red Rising 1 was better than Red Rising 2, but I haven't read past that point.

Currently reading this:

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It's a deep dive into Turkish Culture and I'm sure I'm missing references left and right, but it's very good even in translation.

 

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Homicide:  A Year On The Killing Streets by David Simon.  While also doing my second run through The Wire.

It's ok.  Some amusing stories and you can see characters from The Wire in it.  But there's something about the way it's written that rubs me wrong.  It's not the writing per se, I think it's the organization.  It cuts back and forth between stories and characters in a way that's distracting and hard to follow.

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Currently:  Why We Sleep
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Pretty fascinating explanation of what we do and don't know about sleep.  It'll make you take it much more seriously, particularly if you have kids.

Recently finished: The Self-Driven Child
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I'm usually not much for pop science (despite the two books I've listed), but I have a newly minted teenager I'm trying not to murder.  Very interesting discussion of the physiologic basis of adolescent stupidity and how to not let it stress you out.  Getting the wife to read it now so that we can team up, as some of the recommendations here require some guts to institute in the face of the way things are 'supposed to be' these days.  It serendipitously dovetails nicely with the sleep book, particularly with regard to anxiety.

Up Next:  Caesar by Colleen McCullough
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A friend at work gave me a copy of this.  I've never read any of her stuff, but it sounds like I'm about to go down the rabbit hole.

 

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On 4/8/2018 at 9:36 PM, usmc0331horn said:

I read it when I was really young but might just have to read it again. I'm reading Ball Four for the first time now.

Give "The Road to Omaha: Hits, Hopes, and History at the College World Series" by McGee a read if you haven't yet.  I've been wanting to re-read that in light of Augie's passing.

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Dune. 

12 Rules for Life.

Both excellent reads. I originally picked up Dune and put it back down after 10 pages because it wasn't really fun enough, but after getting through 3/4 of the book recently, it is beautifully written. Very serious and interesting, but it took a podcast talking about the technology of dune to force me to actually read the book. Glad I did, it is awesome. 

Recommended SciFi:

http://www.rudyrucker.com/wares/

http://www.nealasher.co.uk/

 

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Finished it a few days ago. Really good book on the Donner party and goes into the details about the decisions they made, the advice the listened to/ignored, the arguments they had about which path to follow. Amazing how much they endured on their journey across the country and it ends in disaster because of a few bad choices at the end.

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I just started The Last Indian War: The Nez Perce Story by Elliott West.  I am on a history of the American West kick right now, and I have long wanted to know more about this chapter of it.

I just finished Jedediah Smith: No Ordinary Mountain Man by Barton H. Barbour.  I enjoyed it, and learned more about the period when trapping in the Rockies and the rest of the west was at its zenith.  Those were some hard, tough men.

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Just finished Subversives by Seth Rosenfeld. It was very interesting and tied some things together that I wasn't previously aware of. 

 

Just started The Path to Power by Robert Caro. I've been wanting to read this for a long time. I've heard only positive things about it and so far I agree.

 

 

 

 

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13 hours ago, Buzzrock said:

 


I loved that book. The sequel, not so much.

 

Started it last night.  Starts off well!  I was surprised.  Was kind of dreading all the backstory, fill in the gaps, set the stage and having that draw on for 2-8 chapters.  So far I am digging it. 

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I just read Annihilation by Vandermeer. I was very, very surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
I can't think of a book to compare, but it reminds me of the movies the Sphere and Event Horizon. Several parts make more sense after rereading, because he plants things that aren't explained until later in the book. Later you remember a detail that seemed unimportant that makes sense.

I ordered the next two in the series before I put Annihilation down. I read it in two days, lol.

I haven't seen the movie but the synopsis doesn't sound like they followed the book very closely.

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19 hours ago, Disco Missile said:

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I just read Annihilation by Vandermeer. I was very, very surprised by how much I enjoyed it.
I can't think of a book to compare, but it reminds me of the movies the Sphere and Event Horizon. Several parts make more sense after rereading, because he plants things that aren't explained until later in the book. Later you remember a detail that seemed unimportant that makes sense.

I ordered the next two in the series before I put Annihilation down. I read it in two days, lol.

I haven't seen the movie but the synopsis doesn't sound like they followed the book very closely.

I seem to have detected that you are an "adventurous" reader.  I did not care for Annhilation.  Seemed to build a fair amount of suspense to no end.

 

I will strongly recommend The Ritual, though.  I really enjoyed it.

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On 4/11/2018 at 8:15 PM, Buzzrock said:

Started rereading the Night’s Dawn trilogy by Peter F Hamilton. GoT-level epic sci-fi. Gonna take me forever because it’s over 3,000 pages all in, but damn it’s good stuff.

Really enjoyed this one.  I actually listened to it because it was too long to read during my limited down time, but I could listen on my commute.

 

Just finished All The Light We Cannot See based on the movie thread and now I'm reading 20000 Leagues Under the Sea.  Imagine that!

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On 4/18/2018 at 6:21 PM, TwiceHorn said:

I seem to have detected that you are an "adventurous" reader.  I did not care for Annhilation.  Seemed to build a fair amount of suspense to no end.

 

I will strongly recommend The Ritual, though.  I really enjoyed it.

I suppose I am. I spend about half of my time reading things I'm pretty sure I'll like. The other half is split between books I've read but still enjoy, and new stuff I'm trying out.

I liked Annihilation because it was a rare type of horror/suspense sci-fi that really works when executed well. I thought Vandermeer did a masterful job of depicting a descent into madness type narrative, where the reader could never be certain about anything and many things only made sense in retrospect. Contrast that with King's blunt presentations, and I appreciate the subtlety. Vandermeer also has a really polished prose style, and every sentence and word choice reinforces the overarching narrative. I think Annihilation left so many questions at the end that a sequel was a near certainty.

I just read Authority and now I'm reading Acceptance. Authority was slowww until the last chapter or two. The suspense wasn't there because you already knew what the characters are dealing with. It was more of wanting the main character to figure it the %$#@ out and move the story along. It had more of a Body Snatchers or The Thing vibe to it, but wasn't as well executed as Annihilation. It felt like some of the Thomas Harris books. Unsettling with tons of bureaucracy and frustrations where the protagonist is contending with multiple forces all fighting for control while the true menace lurks and escapes notice because of all the petty rivalries. I didn't enjoy it, but it added some pieces that Annihilation left out.

I'll follow up when I'm done with Acceptance. From what I've heard it answers a lot of the questions left by the first two books. Part of me hopes not, because answering those questions will kill part of what makes it work. 

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On 4/6/2018 at 4:09 PM, Hellraiser97 said:

Just finished Red Rising.  Not a bad book, but after having read the Hunger Games and a few others of that genre, it seemed kind of just more of the same.  Going to read the next book to see if it gets more interesting as I think it sets up an cool universe.

I had the same reaction while reading parts of Red Rising. I stuck with it and recently finished the series - glad I did. I thought each book was better than the last.

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Just finished this.  I found it a pretty compelling book.  People often forget that it took Hitler 16 years to get from a rabble rouser to WWII.  The Germans were the proverbial frogs in a boiling pot.  This book looks at the view of Americans there for the crucial period of transformation of the Nazis from radical fringe party to all powerful.  If you don't think it can happen here, read this.  It's the playbook.  

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Just started on this one on a friend's recommendation.  It's a collection of essays that are quite interesting.  PBB2Cover.png

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On 4/25/2018 at 12:27 PM, Chad Fuck said:

Just finished this.  I found it a pretty compelling book.  People often forget that it took Hitler 16 years to get from a rabble rouser to WWII.  The Germans were the proverbial frogs in a boiling pot.  This book looks at the view of Americans there for the crucial period of transformation of the Nazis from radical fringe party to all powerful.  If you don't think it can happen here, read this.  It's the playbook.  

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Just started on this one on a friend's recommendation.  It's a collection of essays that are quite interesting.  PBB2Cover.png

Larson never disappoints in his ability to explore and present so many little oddities in history. And yeah...soooo much going on in that one. All a bit mind-blowing. 

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On 5/2/2018 at 2:05 PM, thrillhammer said:

Just finished American Wolf, about the wolves in Yellowstone.  Exceeded my expectations.   

Started a novel called We are Not Ourselves.  Don't know anything about it, bought it on a hunch.  

I always have to mention this book when Yellowstone comes up because it is fascinating, not in a morbid or macabre way, but in a "what the fuck were they thinking" way.  A compelling study into death-by-misadventure.  Should've been titled "Yellowstone ain't Disneyland" or "This Ain't No Foolin' Around."  

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Mostly through this non-fiction history of factories. Really interesting insights into how something so prevalent today is barely 300 years old. Goes into the beginnings in England, the advances in the US and how the idea of factories made it's way to the Soviet Union and other areas.

 

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On 5/6/2018 at 7:37 PM, demos said:

Been reading this. Really interesting about the development/evolution of their assassination program, covering successes and failures and how each impacted it.

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Interesting. I'm looking for some books for my 76 year old Dad to read as he's going to be laid up with surgery and saw this one and wasn't sure if it would be up his alley or not. How does it portray Israel overall? Positive, negative, neutral? 

Here's what my mom told me about the kind of books he likes. I already have the Comey book and a couple of others picked out. Any other recs would be appreciated. "Books about politics, prob would read Comeys book, Michael Connelly type mystery adventure, world issues, historical figures biography"

 

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