Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[caleb72]

Just completed Persuasion by Jane Austen. It really was slow going for the first half of the book and I was worried that I was going to have a pretty poor perception of it on completion.

Luckily, all started to flow nicely for me in the second half of the book and I came to enjoy it quite a bit by the end. I'm certainly not done with Austen.

Now, to an indie read/review, I'll be reading The Followers by Evan Bollinger. It's a supernatural novella that seemed to me to be quite artistic in the telling. So I'll see how it goes.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by ucfgrad93

I am currently reading The Sundered (Star Trek Lost Era I) on my Kindle.

I've read this. Very good book.

[ucfgrad93]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I've read this. Very good book.

So far, it seems pretty good. I'm still early in the book, but I just know those Tholians are up to no good.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

I completed reading Dana Stabenow's Whisper to the Blood. It was, as all the Kate Shugak books seem to be, a great, suspenseful, and exciting read.

Right now I'm starting to read Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey an author I've never read before.

Originally Posted by caleb72

Interested to know what you think about it - and given your reading pace I probably won't have to wait very long.

Leviathan Wakes proved to be a really good read! I became really invested in the characters and the ending was a real surprise and not at all what I expected. I'm gonna' invest in the sequel, Caliban's War. Oh, and I loved the ship the protagonists flew.

Also I read a Nancy Drew mystery, The Bungalow Mystery, between chapters (revisiting my youth) and will probably continue doing that with another one while I'm reading Kim Harrisons new release, Ever After, the 11th in The Hollows series.

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Now, to an indie read/review, I'll be reading The Followers by Evan Bollinger. It's a supernatural novella that seemed to me to be quite artistic in the telling. So I'll see how it goes.

OK - I finished this. It combines some multiverse ideas with pure escapism in crisis. It looks at this from two different angles and is somewhat clever about it. However, it's also a bit "all over the place", with dream imagery clashing with alternate possibilities and a second narrative not immediately connected.

Basically, for 3/4 of the story I felt adrift, suspecting the reason for it but not particularly enjoying it. As this disjointed narrative starts to drop greater hints as to what's going on it became much more interesting and I could better appreciate the author's efforts.

However, it was a bit "too little too late" for me and I was left feeling like there could have been a better way to execute what was an interesting study.

Now, next cab off the rank is another indie effort. This time it's Taking the Highway by M. H. Mead. I've already read two novels from this writing duo and enjoyed them both. This one is set in the same future world so it should feel quite familiar and hopefully will be at least as enjoyable as those I have read before.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next will be a new author for me The Bone Collector by Jeffery Deaver.

The last 30 pages saved this otherwise mediocre book. A lot of coincidences and "yeah right" moments. My favorite was the call to Con Ed where after 10 seconds a supervisor was contacted who knew the entire schematics of a century-old steam pipeline. But that's the type of police procedural this title is ... everything neatly done. Rated C- [3 stars].

Next is Shards of Honor by Lois McCaster Bujold. My first with this author also.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by HarryT

On now to "The Wench is Dead" - the 8th "Inspector Morse" novel, by Colin Dexter.

An absolutely excellent book, and one which I thoroughly recommend. Morse is in hospital, suffering from a stomach ulcer. While there, he reads a book about a murder which occurred on an Oxford canal in 1860, where a woman passenger on a canal boat was found drowned, and the boatmen hanged for her murder. Convinced that a miscarriage of justice took place, he sets out to try and find out what really happened on that long-ago day.

A very unusual detective story, and one which thoroughly merits the awards it received. Highly recommended.

Now on to the Douglas Preston thriller, "Blasphemy", the 2nd book in the "Wyman Ford" series.

[Dr. Drib]

I'm reading "Call Me Killer," by Harry Whittington, an entertaining pulp fiction novel republished by Prologue Books.

He also published under these pseudonyms:


Ashley Carter
Curt Colman
John Dexter
Tabor Evans
Whit Harrison
Robert Hart-Davis
Kel Holland
Harriet Kathryn Myers
Suzanne Stephens
Blaine Stevens
Clay Stuart
Hondo Wells
Harry White
Hallam Whitney
Henri Whittier
J. X. Williams


Here's a great site for more information:

http://www.pulporiginals.com/Content...ton-intro.html




Don

[orlok]

Originally Posted by HarryT

An absolutely excellent book, and one which I thoroughly recommend. Morse is in hospital, suffering from a stomach ulcer. While there, he reads a book about a murder which occurred on an Oxford canal in 1860, where a woman passenger on a canal boat was found drowned, and the boatmen hanged for her murder. Convinced that a miscarriage of justice took place, he sets out to try and find out what really happened on that long-ago day.

A very unusual detective story, and one which thoroughly merits the awards it received. Highly recommended.

Sounds very much like a the sort of thing Robert Goddard would write. And I'm a big Goddard fan, so I think I'll give the Wench a go. Thanks for the recommendation.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next: Dragon Ship by Lee and Miller. Not actually from my TBR pile. This one I've borrowed.

An excellent continuation of the storyline started in Fledgling.

So I went straight onto Necessity's Child by Lee and Miller

Also excellent, but not a continuation from Dragon Ship, but a look at some of the other characters and introduction of some new characters and events on Korval's new planet.

And now only my other recent purchase: How Firm a Foundation by David Weber. Continuing his Safehold series, and I hope this one moves a bit faster than the previous one!

[PurpleStar]

I finished Notorious Nineteen the other day. I liked it, but not as much as some others in the series. It was just missing something. I don't know!! Probably because the series is just dragging out too long and nothing ever changes in it. Still a fun read, though.

Oh well, I'm on to The First Confessor by Terry Goodkind. I always look forward to his books.

[NickyWithNook]

I've started Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (I have not seen the movie), but I might have to set it aside for Third Shift from Hugh Howey. That'll be a quick read though.

I'm in the mood to read older books. I read Brideshead Revisited recently and liked that, and I thought I might read some Jane Austen. Or something. Something old anyway.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And now only my other recent purchase: How Firm a Foundation by David Weber. Continuing his Safehold series, and I hope this one moves a bit faster than the previous one!

hmm.. so far most of the book (I'm 6% in) has been mind-numbing detail about a sailing ship in a storm. It would be excessive in a story explicitly about war ships in the 1700s. Sigh. He really needs and editor to tell him to cut these chapters down to just three paragraphs or so.....

[fantasyfan]

I\ve come across a remarkable and largely forgotten wrier in Stella Benson {1892-1933}. Her neglect is probably in part owing to her early death at the height of her powers from pneumonia. My introduction is through an early work, I Pose (1011) centering around two un-named characters--a Gardiner and a militant Suffragette. (Both Stella and her mother were active in women's rights.}

I thought I Pose was very interesting and iconoclastic mixing a dead serious commitment to its basic theme and a mordant humour that leaps out at nearly every paragraph. The title refers to the fact that people tend to empower themselves and find self-esteem through ideological "poses' they adopt rather than through true self-understanding and interfacing with reality. I gather that she did better in later novels, but this one is by no means insignificant. You won't soon forget her description of the Suffragette March not the ending--with its disturbing modern relevance.

The one down side to the novel is the use of language by her characters describing the natives of the Trinity Islands which nowadays would be considered highly objectionable but which in 1911 would cause less controversy.

All her works are in the public domain. I Pose is available for a low price from Amazon but it can be downloaded it free from Internet Archive.

There's a great deal about her here:

http://mairangibay.blogspot.ie/2008/...la-benson.html

[Synamon]

I was sunning on a beach in Cuba the past week, so I read a bit. Some of these were paper, some were ebooks, some were audiobooks.

I tackled the classic Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. Very atmospheric and I liked the outsider perspective, great way to hook the reader into the story.

Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan was just average. I felt it was trying too hard to be hip and the story was secondary. Google was practically a character in the book, more focus on the actual characters would have helped.

The Giver by Lois Lowry. Great YA book I snagged for a quarter last year. When I finished I wanted more, but unfortunately I didn't have the second in the trilogy, it's on hold now at the library (and the third).

Seabiscuit by Lauren Hillenbrand was good, but much of the story was known to me, so the book wasn't as engrossing as Unbroken (which I could not put down at the start of the year).

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood mixed a science fiction story with a family drama. At the beginning it peaked my curiosity, but I found my interest waning as it devolved into a predictable drama.

The Mysterious Mr. Quin by Agatha Christie is a collection of short stories with her non-detective spook. A treat from a master.

To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey. One of the Alan Grant mysteries, set in a country house with a likeable cast of characters. I'll be sad when I read the last of her books, I only discovered her last year and have been enjoying the Alan Grant series.

The Blackhouse by Peter May was on my wishlist for a while, since I enjoyed his Enzo MacLeod mysteries, and I'm almost finished listening to the audiobook. Terriffic setting on an island off Scotland with a homegrown policeman, I'll certainly be carrying on with this trilogy.