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

[bfisher]

Finished the second movement of A Dance to the Music of Time (At Lady Molly's, Casanova's Chinese Restaurant, The Kindly Ones).

Still engaging, so on to the third movement. Since this covers the war years, I may read Evelyn Waugh's Sword of Honour trilogy to compare with Powell's treatment of the same. I read Unconditional Surrender 45 years ago, so I don't recall much of the flavour.

[HomeInMyShoes]

Finished Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. Not one of the finer Vonnegut titles for me. Not even very good really. The first few pages were splendid, but it's just such a mess of pointlessness that Vonnegut's usual wit was lost for me. Just too much here's a thought, here's a thought, here's a thought randomness. It and Hocus Pocus might have put me off Vonnegut completely now even though I think there's still a few good titles I should read.

Oh well, Now it's a cheapy I grabbed from Amazon, Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls and then we'll see what comes. Only one year left on my reading challenge for this year so I'm feeling less burdened by my challenge list.

[pilotbob]

I'm now on book three:

Star Trek: The Next Generation: Cold Equations: The Body Electric

I am about 1/2 way in and this is the best book of the three so far. The other two are ok, but much less happens in them.

BOb

[HarryT]

Two books read in the last few days:

Hocas Pokas by Poul Anderson and Gordon R. Dickson. An SF collection (actually a novel with a novella and a short story tagged on) about a planet where the local inhabitants (who resemble metre-tall teddy bears) are fascinated by Earth history, and enthusiastically impersonate any historical or fictional character which appeals to them.

Very enjoyable. I originally bought this from Baen in Feb 2000, and it's a part of my ongoing "read my Baen back-catalogue" project.

Black Coffee by Agatha Christie and Charles Osbourne. This was originally a 1929 Agatha Christie stage play, featuring Hercule Poirot, which has been novelised by Christie expert and biographer Charles Osbourne, and very nicely done it is too. The plot is a little improbable (a rich industrialist who thinks a secret formula has been stolen by a member of his household locks everyone in the drawing room, and turns the lights out, to give the thief a chance to return the formula unseen. When the lights come back on, surprise surprise the man has been murdered) and I wouldn't say the writing is at all in the style of Christie, but it's well written and the case of characters is interesting. Again, recommended.

[samhy]

Originally Posted by HomeInMyShoes

Finished Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut. Not one of the finer Vonnegut titles for me. Not even very good really.

Which book would you recommend to a Vonnegut starter? I'd bought several the last few months and was thinking maybe to read Slaughterhouse-Five first. But any other is fine by me, if it makes more sense.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Currently reading the latest from Sharon Lee and Steve Miller -- Technical Details. This is a chapbook with two stories previously posted on the Baen Book site, Landed Alien, a story of Kara ven'Arith, and Eleutherios, where we have a down and out abbey being helped by a rather unlikely saviour.

I'd read both before when they were posted on the Baen site, but this is a pleasant excuse to re-read them.

Finished the Baen shorts, and switched gears completely to read Bruno, Chief of Police #5, The Devil's Cave. I must say, I'm finding that the Bruno books just keep getting better. No longer quite "cozies", there's a bit more action than that. But still delightful.

I then jumped back to Seattle to read a J. P. Beaumont short by J. A. Jance: Ring in the Dead. This was actually a look back at the earliest years of Beau in the police force, and included a teaser for the upcoming new J. P. Beaumont novel, due this fall/winter.

Now, reading In Enemy Hands, #7 in the Honor Harrington series by David Weber. This is a total immersion reading with both eBook and Audible performance. The Audible is, as usual, read by Allyson Johnson. Not at all my favourite reader, but we endure it. And the price for those who have bought the eBook from Amazon is only $1.99 USD.

[Sefiriot]

Swinging back and forth between books, as usual: currently my reading time's mostly occupied with Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose in paperback; C. J. Cherryh's Foreigner series and Hugh Aldersey-Williams' Periodic Tales on my cellphone or in dead tree format as mood or circumstance takes me.

Periodic Tales is pretty much a meandering walkthrough of the elements of the periodic table and their cultural significance. Slow going but interesting all the same. The Name of the Rose is as dense and brain stretching as the first time I went through it: now that I know what all happened I can let my brain pay attention to the details.

As for Cherryh: I'm starting on my annual reread of the Foreigner series in preparation for reading Foreigner #14: Protector, which I plan on getting soon. Currently just started rereading book 1.

In the meantime when I get bored of everything I'm currently reading, I skip to reading Snow Crash, or random fanfic I saved to disk.

[Apache]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Finished the Baen shorts, and switched gears completely to read Bruno, Chief of Police #5, The Devil's Cave. I must say, I'm finding that the Bruno books just keep getting better. No longer quite "cozies", there's a bit more action than that. But still delightful.

Have you read The Resistance Man yet? It is available on Amazon UK, but is not scheduled to be released in the US until February of 2014. I do love my Amazon UK Account.
Apache

[Apache]

I finished Wellington: The Iron Duke a few days ago and enjoyed it.
I started Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Scott Anderson. This one has grabbed me from the outset.

The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War One was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, “a sideshow of a sideshow.” Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant attention to the Middle Eastern theater. As a result, the conflict was shaped to a remarkable degree by a small handful of adventurers and low-level officers far removed from the corridors of power.

Curt Prüfer was an effete academic attached to the German embassy in Cairo, whose clandestine role was to foment Islamic jihad against British rule. Aaron Aaronsohn was a renowned agronomist and committed Zionist who gained the trust of the Ottoman governor of Syria. William Yale was the fallen scion of the American aristocracy, who traveled the Ottoman Empire on behalf of Standard Oil, dissembling to the Turks in order gain valuable oil concessions. At the center of it all was Lawrence. In early 1914 he was an archaeologist excavating ruins in the sands of Syria; by 1917 he was the most romantic figure of World War One, battling both the enemy and his own government to bring about the vision he had for the Arab people.

The intertwined paths of these four men – the schemes they put in place, the battles they fought, the betrayals they endured and committed – mirror the grandeur, intrigue and tragedy of the war in the desert. Prüfer became Germany’s grand spymaster in the Middle East. Aaronsohn constructed an elaborate Jewish spy-ring in Palestine, only to have the anti-Semitic and bureaucratically-inept British first ignore and then misuse his organization, at tragic personal cost. Yale would become the only American intelligence agent in the entire Middle East – while still secretly on the payroll of Standard Oil. And the enigmatic Lawrence rode into legend at the head of an Arab army, even as he waged secret war against his own nation’s imperial ambitions.

Based on years of intensive primary document research, LAWRENCE IN ARABIA definitively overturns received wisdom on how the modern Middle East was formed. Sweeping in its action, keen in its portraiture, acid in its condemnation of the destruction wrought by European colonial plots, this is a book that brilliantly captures the way in which the folly of the past creates the anguish of the present.

http://www.amazon.com/Lawrence-Arabi...=UTF8&sr=&qid=

Apache

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by samhy

Which book would you recommend to a Vonnegut starter? I'd bought several the last few months and was thinking maybe to read Slaughterhouse-Five first. But any other is fine by me, if it makes more sense.

Of what I've read I really liked: Cat's Cradle; Breakfast of Champions; Welcome to the Monkeyhouse; God Bless You Mr. Rosewater; Slaughterhouse Five

Lots of people really like The Sirens of Titan which I found okay. I think Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle would be the two books I would recommend to everyone. Slaughterhouse seems to be a very divisive book.

I seem to prefer early Vonnegut to late Vonnegut and according to Vonnegut's grading system you should read Cat's Cradle and Slaughterhouse Five. I can't really disagree with that. Cat's Cradle would be a good starting point.

Player Piano and Mother Night are on my to read list.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Apache

Have you read The Resistance Man yet? It is available on Amazon UK, but is not scheduled to be released in the US until February of 2014. I do love my Amazon UK Account.
Apache

No, I haven't seen it yet. I've been thinking of getting a UK account, but mostly I have so many books in my TBR that it's really hard to justify.

OTOH, I notice a nice little bundle of the first four Bruno books on Kobo at $9.99 CAD. A real bargain, even before one uses a coupon. Not available on Amazon.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by CRussel

No, I haven't seen it yet. I've been thinking of getting a UK account, but mostly I have so many books in my TBR that it's really hard to justify.

OTOH, I notice a nice little bundle of the first four Bruno books on Kobo at $9.99 CAD. A real bargain, even before one uses a coupon. Not available on Amazon.

This eBook is not currently available.

...is what I get at Kobo!

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by alansplace

This eBook is not currently available.

...is what I get at Kobo!

Apparently, you need to be signed in to see that offer. When I went to the page with a device that wasn't logged in to Kobo, and had a U.S. IP address, I got the same message. But as soon as I logged in to my Kobo account, it was active. (Disclaimer: my Kobo account is a Canadian account, but it did still show as active when I specified "en-US" in the web address.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Now on to The Last Threshold by R.A. Salvatore, book 1,234 (approximately) in the Drizzt series. I have been reading these since 1990, so no point in stopping now. Especially when free from the library.

I finished The Last Threshold today. Certainly a lot going on in this book. Felt more like a bunch of short stories than a regular Drizzt novel. Oh well, I guess that is the problem with creating books based on an RPG, need to keep up with the changes to the game.

I ended up taking a break in the middle of that and read The Martian by Andy Weir. Excellent book. I know I already talked about that in the epistolary book thread though.

Those will probably be the last books I finish in August, which has been the highest page total for me ever at over 3,200 pages. I average about 2,000 pages/month, so this is quite a departure.

Now onto The Companions, the next Drizzt book that just came out. Might as well keep going in the series. There are a lot of questions that need to be answered given the way the previous one ended. I won't say more for fear of spoilers, although it doesn't appear that many people read these books here.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

I absolutely loved my re-read of the first eleven Dresden Files books! I'd planned to go on to the end of the series with the last three books, but this point is a good place to pause as the arrival of James Potter and the Morrigan Web seems to be an omen of good fortune. So for now that pause will be filled with the new G. Norman Lippert book!

Oh, since George delivered it without a cover I cobbled one together and I've attached it to this post for anybody who wants to use it. Mouse-click it for a full-size view.

Attachment 109893

Wow! I sure loved reading James Potter and the Morrigan Web... ...and am already looking forward to some day soon (hopefully soon anyway) reading the fifth book in the series, James Potter and the Crimson Thread!

Since the author, G. Norman Lippert recommends reading C.S. Lewis and especially his Space Trilogy series I've decided to give a try to Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy #1)!

My son Matt and I worked on the Morrigan Web cover a little and here's a new version of it.


P.S. [edit] Just couldn't get started on Out of the Silent Planet so I'm going to go with Benedisct Jacka's new one, Chosen (Alex Verus #4).