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

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by samhy

I'm reading Sail by James Patterson (well, Dernière escale, the French translation). I'm about 30% through it and I'm far from impressed The story is nice (not a page turner, but nice nonetheless), but the style is kind of poor. Oh and for the very first time I've stumbled on a badly formatted ebook, which doesn't help.

I've read Sail. I found it to be OK. It was kind of light fluff but a quick read though.

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

You should read the sequel, The Importance of being Ernest P. Worrell

Huh?

[dreams]

Ernest P. Worrell

is a fictional character most principally portrayed by American actor Jim Varney in a series of television commercials, and later in a television series (Hey Vern, It's Ernest!) as well as a series of feature films. Ernest was created by the Nashville advertising agency Carden and Cherry and was used in various local television ad campaigns.[3] The only national products he promoted were Coca-Cola, Sprite, TaB [4] Mello Yello, Chex, and Taco John's.[5] .... The rubber-faced Ernest, almost always dressed in a denim vest and baseball cap, appeared at the door of an unseen and unheard but seemingly unwilling neighbor named Vern. The spots were structured in a way to allow the viewer to be "Vern", as Varney looked directly in the camera whenever Vern was addressed. Ernest's seemingly pointless conversations with Vern – which were actually a soliloquy due to Vern never responding – inevitably rambled around to a favorable description of the sponsor's product, followed by his signature close, "KnowhutImean?"[6]

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

Any foreigner who think that he/she has ANYTHING resembling anonymity in Japan is deluded themselves. Within 24 hours of moving into a building, every shop keeper, street vendor, housewife, garbage man, police man, and even the taxi drivers, within a 3km+ radius know exactly where you live, where you work and what you do. There have been many times when I've been trying to get home from somewhere relatively local, by taking a different bus and looking at the route map, that some stranger will come up to me and say 'Excuse me, but if you're trying to get home, you need to take the #XYZ bus from #ABC station.' I long ago gave up being surprised...


Stitchawl

That's both weird and a bit scary, but I don't doubt it for a moment.

Meanwhile, in the middle of Crossing the Line, the 2nd book in the Wess'har Wars series from Karen Traviss. It's going well, and I'm enjoying it. Though it's been hard to focus with lots of external commitments getting in the way of reading.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by dreams

Ernest P. Worrell

This guy. He was one of my wife's favorite commedians.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by CRussel

That's both weird and a bit scary, but I don't doubt it for a moment.

It did take some getting used to. On the other hand, as this culture values a person based upon his position, i.e. the company he works for and his role in the company, being a university prof in a well-respected school got me first-class treatment in all the local stores. As in Judaism, the Japanese regard teachers and doctors at the top of the list.

Well, Deaver redeemed himself in "XO" by throwing in his classic well-developed red herring, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. Now I'm back to square one trying to figure out who dunnit!

Stitchawl

[caleb72]

Originally Posted by Stitchawl

It did take some getting used to. On the other hand, as this culture values a person based upon his position, i.e. the company he works for and his role in the company, being a university prof in a well-respected school got me first-class treatment in all the local stores. As in Judaism, the Japanese regard teachers and doctors at the top of the list.

Well at least they respect teachers. Respect for teachers isn't exactly a global attitude.

[Stitchawl]

Originally Posted by caleb72

Well at least they respect teachers. Respect for teachers isn't exactly a global attitude.

I should have qualified that to read 'they respect 'teachers other than the one currently teaching their child...' Teachers are addressed as XYZ-sensei rather than XYZ-san. Same with medical doctors and dentists. Even socially, they are addressed as such. (The one currently teaching their child is called incompetent-san.)

Stitchawl

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

That was a good read, will wait till the 20th for any discussion though.

Not sure where to go from here, maybe Honor Harrington 4...

I went ahead and read Farewell, My Lovely by Raymond Chandler, number 2 in the Philip Marlowe series. I enjoyed it just about as much as the first one, so I might continue in the series later on.

Time for something different though: The Man with Two Left Feet by PG Wodehouse. This contains the first Jeeves story which I was reminded of when I saw these mentioned in another thread. I had been intending on reading these at some point and now is as good a time as any.

[miklizro]

I am having a grand time re-reading the fantastic Thieves World anthologies edited by Robert Lynn Asprin.
http://www.thievesworld.info/

[Gazella]

If you're a fan of epic fantasy and have enjoyed novels such as The Name of the Wind, you've got to read Anthony Ryan's Blood Song. I'm only 20% in but it's a real page-turner; fast-paced and action-packed, had me hooked from the very first page.

It's the first book in the Raven's Shadow trilogy.

From “a new master storyteller” comes the beginning of an epic fantasy saga of blood, honor, and destiny…

“The Sixth Order wields the sword of justice and smites the enemies of the Faith and the Realm.”

Vaelin Al Sorna was only a child of ten when his father left him at the iron gate of the Sixth Order. The Brothers of the Sixth Order are devoted to battle, and Vaelin will be trained and hardened to the austere, celibate, and dangerous life of a Warrior of the Faith. He has no family now save the Order.

Vaelin’s father was Battle Lord to King Janus, ruler of the unified realm. Vaelin’s rage at being deprived of his birthright and dropped at the doorstep of the Sixth Order like a foundling knows no bounds. He cherishes the memory of his mother, and what he will come to learn of her at the Order will confound him. His father, too, has motives that Vaelin will come to understand. But one truth overpowers all the rest: Vaelin Al Sorna is destined for a future he has yet to comprehend. A future that will alter not only the realm, but the world.

http://www.amazon.com/Ravens-Shadow-...rds=blood+song

[SeaBookGuy]

Making my way through the Nero Wolfe canon, I'm up to And Be a Villain, which introduces a nemesis for him to oppose.

[bfisher]

I finished reading Laurence Ree's Hitler's Charisma. It was an interesting view on how Hitler was able to attain supreme power in Germany and to maintain it to the bitter end.


I'm reading Martin Limon's Jade Lady Burning - a murder mystery set in 1970's South Korea featuring two US Army CID investigators. I'm enjoying it for the sense of place and time.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Next is Angelmaker, a spy thriller by Nick Harkaway.

I'm giving up on this one at least temporarily. The author's wordy prose doesn't work for me. Every object has a story. Why say it in one sentence when two paragraphs are possible. This book tops out at 477 pages and I am commitment-phobic. The break-up was mutual.

Next is the highly rated Open Season by C.J. Box.

[DiapDealer]

I absolutely adored Harkaway's Angelmaker.

Currently "getting my Walt Longmire on."
(somewhere in #3, maybe #4 by the time you read this.)