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On 2/29/2024 at 9:02 AM, NorthLoop said:

igured I'd read Streets of Laredo since I finished off Lonesome Dove in January. Almost done with it - but man, this book is bleak. I'm gonna need something funny and uplifting after this one.

Yep.  No country for old men.

Below is still the funniest book I've read in the last few years.  Just an incredible portrait of his mom and dad.  And as a Coen Bros fan, I loved the stuff on the Coen's early days.

Barry Sonnenfeld, Call Your Mother: Memoirs of a Neurotic Filmmaker 2020

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Going Zero - by Anthony McCarten (2023) (Audio)

Meh.  Great idea for a novel.  Starts out fine, cleverness peters out in the last 1/3.  Dialogue stilted.  Narrator on audio not great.  Technology perfunctory.  (Probably sexist, but women narrators trying to differentiate between male characters run into trouble.  You don't sound like a man in the first place, so why try to not sound like a man ten different ways.)

The movie will hopefully clean that up.

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Obama: An Intimate Portrait  (2017) was worth checking out from the library just to remember so many events from the former President's two terms. Souza took some great, great photos.

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Almost through with former congressperson (IL) Adam Kinzinger's Renegade, which was released last year. Kinzinger was one of ten Republicans that voted for former President Donald Trump's impeachment (the second one) after the events of January 6th. He was in his office in an adjacent building when the Capitol was breached. Writing is a little stilted (although he had a co-author).

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2 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

Just finished this prelude to the future of our country

That's on my list but I'm a high number on the library holds for it so I'll have to wait my turn.

About 3 chapters in on this one, At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell. I have zero background in philosophy and a post by @safe sex that mentioned Sartre intrigued me so here I am.

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15 hours ago, Mrs Whiggins said:

That's on my list but I'm a high number on the library holds for it so I'll have to wait my turn.

About 3 chapters in on this one, At The Existentialist Cafe: Freedom, Being, and Apricot Cocktails by Sarah Bakewell. I have zero background in philosophy and a post by @safe sex that mentioned Sartre intrigued me so here I am.

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It’s one of the few physical books I’ve purchased in the last few years.  It’s very disturbing and very well written.  I’m thinking about reading his other book now.

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On 12/19/2023 at 7:17 AM, FirstTimeCaller said:

Want to get it, but worry that it will be outdated. Wasn't it written like 15-20 years ago?

I started to read The Premonition but just couldn't get into it. Have read Moneyball and another ML book that I can't recall.

Fucking pig investment bankers are timeless. Fits right into the Wall Street era. You can visualize French collars, braces, slicked back hair... And cheeseburger grease running down their chins. 

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On 3/4/2024 at 7:15 PM, Coach pop a bitch said:

Loved it. I love the small mentions of San Antonio, being thats where I'm from.

Interestingly I started the book this weekend then drove all the highways described in the beginning of the book around Fredericksburg and San Angelo on Monday. 

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On 3/6/2024 at 9:46 PM, Coach pop a bitch said:

Finished this one today. Being a father, this one really hit me in the feels. 

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I couldn't make it through that one.  I had just become a dad and it was too much. I enjoyed what I read but it was way too tough. 

10 minutes ago, Mo Horn said:

Just finishing this. Really enjoyed it and should be read by everyone, IMO. 

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I liked this as well. I wouldn't mind him putting out a similar book every 5 or 10 years.

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Finished the existentialist book. It was a good read and I enjoyed learning about these philosophers. Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau Ponty in particular.

Beginning another 'list' book titled, The Book of Books (2018) this week. Hoping it will give me some ideas of what and where I wish to learn next.

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Just for @futureman and to take it off the movie thread - started Dune.  Really enjoying it and glad I am reading it after I've seen Dune 1984 and both the new ones several times.  I don't have to look at the appendix as much. 

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I read the Three Body Problem and really enjoyed it.  It was translated by Ken Liu who is a respected sci-fi writer himself and it shows in the translation.  Ken Liu did not translate the second volume and I couldn’t even finish it.  My DIL suggested I read it in Chinese like she did.

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On 3/13/2024 at 10:32 AM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Finished the existentialist book. It was a good read and I enjoyed learning about these philosophers. Heidegger, Sartre, Beauvoir, and Merleau Ponty in particular.

Beginning another 'list' book titled, The Book of Books (2018) this week. Hoping it will give me some ideas of what and where I wish to learn next.

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Surprised that as a "best loved" list that doesn't seem to bad.

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Finished this last night.  Enjoyed it.  Based on a true story of the Dreyfus Affair in France.  A Jewish French soldier accused of spying for the Germans.  

It's worth a read.  It's my 2nd Robert Harris book (Acts of Oblivion). This on is better.

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On 3/6/2024 at 9:46 PM, Coach pop a bitch said:

Finished this one today. Being a father, this one really hit me in the feels. 

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I need to revisit this. I couldn't get through the way the book was initially constructed and the dialogue like a play. I had read all this short stories (and recently read Liberation Day, his latest I believe) and generally think George Saunders is an amazing short story writer, but this one lost me initially. 

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17 hours ago, The Original Greaser Bob said:

Surprised that as a "best loved" list that doesn't seem to bad.

I've almost finished it, and I was rather surprised myself with various titles. It's given me a few titles to add to my personal 'to be read' list. I'd noticed that several of those titles were ones published at particularly busy times in my life and I tend to read more nonfiction during those periods as I find nonfiction easier to set aside and return to w/o having to reread everything (alas, the trials of a memory like a sieve). So the discovery of some new and interesting novels has been worth the read. (Each of the included titles has a blurb about the story and author along with a few notes here and there about books in general such as illustrations and jacket designs etc) I laughed when I saw 50 Shades on the list, though. I read the first book in the series but was not a fan; not for any prudish reason but because it just didn't seem all that well written. The author's story was based on her own fanfiction and I've read enough fanfiction to have discovered stories in that homegrown category with much better prose. Gary Paulson's Hatchet series was on the list as well and my children loved those stories; I think they read them at some point after reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean George (along with the sequels to that story).

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On to the next and The Shadow Docket by Stephen Vladeck was on the new book shelf at our branch so have begun that. Thus far, I like his writing style but it certainly requires my best focus as that style is densely packed with information (or maybe I'm getting old and my brain struggles when the shadows grow long). Vladeck is currently the Charles Allen Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the UT School of Law.

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Man escapes from Australian prison and starts a new life in India.  Story was great, albeit a bit too detailed, for the first 500 pages.  Last 200 pages have been far less interesting.

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I have willingness to believe a lot of what is being shared in this book.  Even then, it's a long tough read IMO.

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On 2/20/2024 at 5:56 PM, Mrs Whiggins said:

I am almost finished with this book and while it seems gimmicky from the cover, it was a good read. It's organized by numbers, beginning with lists of threes, all the way to 24 (I think the last one is the Greek alphabet). It skips a few numbers at the end, and the bulk of the lists cover the numbers you would expect: 3, 5, 7, 10, and 12 covering a wide range of topics from the Trinity, Newton's Laws of Motion, to the Furies, to types of triangles, quarks, battles, etc. Each list goes into some detail and for the ones with which I was familiar, a good refresher, and others exposed gaps in my education/knowledge. A pretty extensive bibliography/reference at the end as well. It's not a difficult read, but easy to set down and pick up again.

 

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Figured I'd take a try at this since it's only $5 on iBooks.  Find myself skipping a few just cuz IDGAF but still a lot of interesting stuff.  And yeah, easy to put down and pick back up, flip around, read different sections, doesn't need to be read in order.

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Almost finished with The Shadow Docket. It's been a solid read thus far although I wish Vladeck had provided a glossary for the legal terms. Although I believe he wrote the book for the general reader, I'm one who will look up the meanings of terms I don't know as well as pronunciations as I go.Took me forever to read certiorari over and over again before my brain finally decided on one of the *six different ways various SCOTUS judges pronounce(d) it. FTR I settled on the pronunciation ser-shee-or-RAHR-ee, (rhyming with Ferrari) because I adopted the accent of Luigi from the movie Cars. Jokes aside, it's a book worth reading. I'm considering reading The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court by Jeffery Toobin next as I never got around to reading it and although it would be somewhat out of order considering this last tome, might be a good supplement to what I've just finished. Anyone else read that? Thoughts?

Or I may switch to fiction for awhile as I've been on a long nonfiction run.

 

*Article here regarding law professor James Duane and the variances: https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/how_is_certiorari_pronounced_even_supreme_court_justices_disagree

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On 3/24/2024 at 8:02 PM, Mrs Whiggins said:

I'm considering reading The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court by Jeffery Toobin next as I never got around to reading it and although it would be somewhat out of order considering this last tome, might be a good supplement to what I've just finished. Anyone else read that? Thoughts?

I read the Nine and really enjoyed it. it's a very different book than The Shadow Docket. It's much more focused on SCOTUS history and the justices themselves. It's been a few years, but i don't recall it getting too deep into any of the technical details of the Court's work like you get in the Shadow Docket. Toobin wrote a follow up a few years later called The Oath. If you like The Nine, it's worth checking out too. 

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1 hour ago, Seasick Sailor said:

I read the Nine and really enjoyed it. it's a very different book than The Shadow Docket. It's much more focused on SCOTUS history and the justices themselves. It's been a few years, but i don't recall it getting too deep into any of the technical details of the Court's work like you get in the Shadow Docket. Toobin wrote a follow up a few years later called The Oath. If you like The Nine, it's worth checking out too. 

Thanks! I checked it out and am in the first part and I agree that it's different but I'm enjoying it as well. I will look for The Oath as this topic has been a good one.

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Finished Hymn of the Republic. I've found historical non-fiction seems to be my preferred genre. Ii was tempted to go with another Civil War era book but felt it was time to take a break from that. Have this one coming to me for my April read.

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Finished Hymn of the Republic. I've found historical non-fiction seems to be my preferred genre. Ii was tempted to go with another Civil War era book but felt it was time to take a break from that. Have this one coming to me for my April read.
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Finishing Hymn of the Republic now. Csb/ one of my closest friends great great great grandfather was Howell Cobb, in fact I knew/know 3 generations of men with his name, the oldest of whom was a WW2 fighter pilot, a UT Law grad, and later a federal judge. He married my FIL and his 2nd wife.

I had heard the story from my buddy but was understandably surprised to see it chronicled as an example of Sherman’s destruction.

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I read this biography on Montgomery Meigs a few months ago.   Meigs was an Army engineer and responsible for the aqueduct that brought clean(er) water into D.C. before the Civil War.  He then became the Quartermaster General during the Civil War.   It's not super in depth but was a fast read and fairly enjoyable.

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^^I'm a little scared to get on a Civil War reading kick; there's so many great books out there, some of which I should probably reread for a refresher.

Finished Jeffery Toobin's The Nine: Inside The Secret World Of The Supreme Court (2007) as well as a different Pete Souza book from 2018 ( Shade: A Tale Of Two Presidents) that was adjacent to the one I mentioned earlier.

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I enjoyed reading both; Souza's book is a very quick read, Toobin's was a little longer and complemented the earlier book I read about SCOTUS. I'll likely read his other book that was mentioned (The Oath) but in the meantime have started his more recent work, Homegrown: Timothy McVeigh and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism (2023). Not very far into it, but with both the Murrah building bombing as well as the more recent events of January 6th, it's been an interesting rearview exploration.

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It’s been probably 30 years since I read The Once and Future King, and the impression I had was that it was kid-friendly.  After all, Disney based The Sword and the Stone after the first part, etc.

Thought it would be great to read to my kid after The Hobbit.

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Well, the first part, The Sword in the Stone, was great.  Then we got to The Queen of Air and Darkenss and things went downhill.  Had to stop, and am looking at some other books instead.

This is the same as my cover from the 80s for those who had to read it in High School

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11 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It’s been probably 30 years since I read The Once and Future King, and the impression I had was that it was kid-friendly.  After all, Disney based The Sword and the Stone after the first part, etc.

Thought it would be great to read to my kid after The Hobbit........Well, the first part, The Sword in the Stone, was great.  Then we got to The Queen of Air and Darkenss and things went downhill.  Had to stop, and am looking at some other books instead.

Ooof, been there and so has my spouse; always an interesting night when one has to suddenly paraphrase, skip over pages...I can't recall if these were mentioned in one of the rec threads on books for children, but I know that ours enjoyed Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Wonder Book and its sequel, Tanglewood Tales. Hawthorne with his prose, re-wrote the Greek myths and tbh my spouse discovered that the language of the era in which Hawthorne wrote gave our children something beyond the story. Granted, these are of a different time period than TOAFK, but the sci-fi/fantasy genre has parallels with these durable myths. One that my youngest asked for repeatedly was the classic Tales From Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. Shakespeare w/o the adult content essentially and it suited his nature that he loved the tragedies most of all.

I also can't recall your child's age? You've already read *Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of Nimh? The Dark Is Rising?(Susan Cooper) The Chronicles Of Prydain? My husband likes(d) Robert Heinlein and I think he read a bunch of his juvenile books they picked up from our library, but then our library weeded their collection and despite my protests, got rid of a bunch of their older books for children. I realize there are space issues, but one of the positives for those older books were that the content tended to be slightly more suitable for younger precocious readers who may not yet have the life experience for today's young adult fiction. Plus the language was of benefit for their vocabulary. Call me a square, but I was a firm advocate that children don't necessarily need as much instruction in what our current language is as much as they do seeing/hearing what and how it has changed over centuries. It opens up the expansive possibilities for their own forays into writing and understanding the human experience and how to communicate that is both practical and art.

If you happen upon your local library (not during a storytime when they're swamped), I very much recommend talking to the childrens/young adult librarian as many of them love to connect patrons with the books they seek. Our librarian was fantastic for this because the feedback from our family and other families helped them form their collection beyond the basic book orders. It also inspired more than one book display which was fun. (When I volunteered for our elementary school library, that was one of my tasks and it was a delight to watch the books disappear and be in high demand--one of my faves was a spring baseball/softball display because I could go way back in time to author Matt Christopher (The Kid Who Only Hit Homers) to modern nonfiction to novels where baseball was featured but not the main theme (The Girl Who Threw Butterflies).

Good luck! I love that so many parents read to their children; it is and hopefully always will be time well spent together. Ours enjoyed it long past the age at which they could read even the harder works for themselves.

*Forgive me for not going to the other thread and checking on what y'all have already read. Another fantasy novel (and references to Norse mythology) is The Weirdstone Of Brisingamen (Alan Garner) but it comes with some caveats. The version matters as the 1960 publication is the one most often found as the author made changes for a republication that critics thought improved it so if you can find the 1963 text, it's better written. The author later disdained his own work, but many current writers have said it inspired them.

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On 4/7/2024 at 1:43 PM, Mrs Whiggins said:

Not very far into it, but with both the Murrah building bombing as well as the more recent events of January 6th, it's been an interesting rearview exploration.

I went through a period where I read this and a couple of books about Waco and the Branch Davidians over the course of a couple of months. I found Homegrown to be pretty interesting. I am old enough to remember McVeigh and the OKC bombing but was too young/indifferent at the time to really follow the story closely.

I just happened to be in downtown OKC a few years ago with sometime to kill. I started wandering around the area near the hotel I was staying in and ended up at the OKC memorial. It's pretty moving. 

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1 hour ago, Seasick Sailor said:

Started For Whom the Bell Tolls on a whim a couple of days ago. I am about half way through it and am enjoying it. So far I'd put it above The Sun Also Rises. 

I felt the opposite but did like For Whom the Bell Tolls.

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4 hours ago, Seasick Sailor said:

I went through a period where I read this and a couple of books about Waco and the Branch Davidians over the course of a couple of months. I found Homegrown to be pretty interesting. I am old enough to remember McVeigh and the OKC bombing but was too young/indifferent at the time to really follow the story closely.

I just happened to be in downtown OKC a few years ago with sometime to kill. I started wandering around the area near the hotel I was staying in and ended up at the OKC memorial. It's pretty moving. 

I'm at the beginning of the trial preparation chapters and that's been fascinating to read regarding the attorneys and the paths for defense/prosecution.

It was such a tragedy and like you, I was too young to absorb it all when it happened but the author does a solid job of recreating the timeline and background.

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Started For Whom the Bell Tolls on a whim a couple of days ago. I am about half way through it and am enjoying it. So far I'd put it above The Sun Also Rises. 

i’ve read A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea, and For Whom the Bell Tolls in the past year. I enjoyed A Farewell to Arms and The Old Man and the Sea quite a lot. For Whom the Bell Tolls was a slog for me. Will revisit The Sun Also Rises soon. Read it in HS but don’t remember much.
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9 hours ago, Delta Charlie said:

Just finished the last of Don Winslow's 3 novel set about Danny Ryan.  "City in Ruins" closes out the story and is Winslow's final book.  All his stuff is great, but this series was excellent. 

he's a damn good writer. highly recommend the Danny Ryan books, highly recommend the cartel/power of the dog series and highly recommend The Force (which was optioned to be a movie and still hasn't happened yet)

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