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

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

... I am now heading for the book Ashoka, The Search for India's Lost Emperor by Charles Allen, bought today from Amazon.

Finished today Ashoka: The Search for India's Lost Emperor by Charles R. Allen. My, and that was a book! Over 1000 pages (must be!) packed with intriguing facts and figures of hard archaeology and history unraveling the story of once nearly forgotten for almost two thousand years, Emperor Ashoka, ruling a vast empire before two and half century BC. Through his third century BCE quest to govern the Indian subcontinent by moral force alone, Ashoka transformed Buddhism from a minor sect into a major world religion. The untiring efforts of various archaeologists discovering various rock inscriptions, coinage, relics and ruins to obtain the truth, from 1700CE onwards. Written in a very comforting and truly unbiased manner, historian Charles Allen tells the incredible story of how a few enterprising archaeologists deciphered the mysterious lettering on keystones and recovered India’'s ancient past. Drawing from rich sources, Allen crafts a clearer picture of this enigmatic figure than ever before. Highly recommended for lovers and students of history and archaeology.

This books is encouraging me to read Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, ie., Inscriptions of Asoka, written (prepared) by Alexander Cunningham, published in 1877, as next book.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I've been meaning to read this series for some time, but never got around to it. The new book club read has prompted me to start now.

Ah, good. Glad to have you, and I hope you enjoy these books as much as I do.

[Dngrsone]

Finished Three Men in a Boat (to Say Nothing of the Dog) by Jerome K. Jerome.

It was... amusing? In a nineteenth century kind of way.

Frankly, the narration voice in my head was the stereotypical caricature of an old British gentleman lounging in a chair reminiscing about eras gone by in that rambling-about sort of fashion they do when they are portrayed on television; interrupting their story with an barely-related anecdote to the point that one almost needs a corkboard with 3x5 cards, thumbtacks and string in order to keep track of what's going on.

Almost, I say. You do need those things when reading Stephen King's It, but I digress.

The story itself is first-person about a stereotypical caricature of a Victorian dandy and his friends going on an outing up the Thames, doing as those sort of "gentlemen" are wont to do, and in a very ironical, hypocritical fashion, one might add. Though there are little historical tidbits, anecdotes, if you will, about each of the stops along the way, I seriously doubt they are much in the way of accurate.

So... that book dispensed of, I am looking at the one freebee of the month I did pick up, ATLAS by Isaac Hooke, which apparently involves mecha of some sort, judging from its cover; and I got a dead-tree version of a book about nothing: Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous Idea by Charles Seife. This is a reread, but it was a library loan last time I read it; and with math books, paper is usually better than ebook form (not to mention the dead-tree versions can usually be got for dirt cheap compared to the digital media)

[JordonGreene]

I'm currently reading David Baldacci's Absolute Power and I'm listening to Dean Koontz's The Taking on Audible. So far both are great!

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

Next up: The Cardinal of the Kremlin by Tom Clancy. An old favorite re-read. After that will be Something New (also called Something Fresh) for the book club.

I always enjoy the Jack Ryan books that Clancy himself wrote.

Next up: Something New by P.G. Wodehouse.

[MickeyC]

Just finished The Einstein Prophecy by Robert Masello. Pretty good as fantasies go. Next up One for the Money by Janet Evanovich because I need a light read.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by JordonGreene

I'm currently reading David Baldacci's Absolute Power and I'm listening to Dean Koontz's The Taking on Audible. So far both are great!

That's me; I'm always listening to at least one audiobook and at least one ebook. I used to juggle about 10 ebooks at a time, but I've pretty well broken myself of that habit.

FWIW, you may want to check out the What are we listening to? (audiobooks) thread in the Audiobook Discussions subforum.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian. I've been meaning to read this series for some time, but never got around to it. The new book club read has prompted me to start now.

And an excellent book it is too. I shall certainly read some more of this series. Although I think that the ebook of M&C must have lost some scene breaks in the Kindle version.

Next up:
Search for the Star Stones by Andre Norton

[orlok]

Just finished My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. A collection of short stories, including a few about Reggie Peppers, a Bertie Wooster like character with a man in waiting (but not Jeeves), which was a surprise given the title of the book. A fun read.

[drjd]

Originally Posted by drjd

This books is encouraging me to read Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, ie., Inscriptions of Asoka, written (prepared) by Alexander Cunningham, published in 1877, as next book.

Finished Inscriptions of Asoka, by Alexander Cunningham. A mighty load of information on history and archaeology of Indian sub-continent, and a great document to be preserved. Thanks to Google Books for digitizing and publishing it for free.

I have not decided yet as to what should be my next read, but after spending more than a week in serious reading, I will go for some light fiction for a while.

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

And an excellent book it is too. I shall certainly read some more of this series. Although I think that the ebook of M&C must have lost some scene breaks in the Kindle version.

Yeah, I think it might have. It has the same issues as the original darkside copy I had from before they were available. I'd swear they used the same source to do theirs!

Interestingly, I find that Patrick Tull usually does a better job of inserting those scene breaks that the eBook does. Though even in his version there are a couple of awkward ones. I need to pull out my old printed versions to see how they were handled there. (I have legal copies of at least four different versions of M&C. )

[HudsonSpike]

Just started Amerika by Paul Lally and it looks like a good summer read made for the currrent heatwave we're in. From the blurb:

It’s December 8, 1941… The day after Pearl Harbor… The Nazis have the A-bomb… We don’t. Washington D.C. and Manhattan disappear beneath nuclear mushroom clouds. Stripped of its congress, judicial and executive branches, the United States is a fractured, frantic shell of its former self; each state, a world unto its own. Germany threatens further attacks on major American cities like Chicago, Miami and Pittsburgh. To save countless innocent civilian lives, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, sole survivor of FDR's cabinet and America's first woman president, bends to Adolf Hitler’s neutrality demand. Powerless and impotent, America watches from the sidelines while Europe and Asia go up in flames...

Think 1940s. All the people I met from that era swear WW-2 wasn't as cut and dry as we've been told so that word picture gives me the shivers. I HAD to read this one.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25094523-amerika

[HarryT]

A bit behind on updating my reading progress, because I've been away. Books read recently are:

"Break No Bones", by Kathy Reichs. The 9th book in the Temperance Brennan Series about a forensic anthropologist. In this one, Temperance undercovers a series of murders in South Carolina while filling in for a sick colleague. Very good.

"Hell's Faire", by John Ringo. The 4th book in the "Posleen War" series, completing the main story arc. Good military SF. Recommended.

"City of the Horizon", by Anton Gill. The first book in a detective series set in Ancient Egypt. The scribe Huy is banned from practising his profession following the turmoil that results from the death of the "heretic" king Akhenaten, whose administration Huy had worked for, so, as a favour for an old friend, he investigates some mysterious happening that have befallen the friend. Very enjoyable and (I'm happy to say) the author has done his research well about the time period. Both accurate and enjoyable. Again recommended, and I look forward to reading additional books in the series.

"E.Godz", by Robert Asprin and Esther Friesner. Fun fantasy from Baen, bought in 2003. Edwina Godz, owner of a successful magic business, sets her two recalcitrant children a challenge to decide which one of them should inherit the family business. Not very taxing, but an enjoyable light-hearted read.

"Bones to Ashes", by Kathy Reichs. The 10th book in the Temperance Brennan series. In this one, the discovery of a girl's skeleton in Canada reawakens the memory of a childhood friend who disappeared. Could the two events possibly be connected? A good read, but to my mind slightly below the standard of the rest of this excellent series that I've read thus far.

"Future Imperfect", by Keith Laumer. The next instalment of the complete works of Keith Laumer, edited as always be Eric Flint. This volume contains his dystopian stories and novels. Excellent - I always enjoy Keith Laumer's books and this one is no exception.

[Dngrsone]

Finished ATLAS by Isaac Hooke. This is one of the freebies of the month; not sure off the top of my head whether it's the Kindles Select or the Samsung Select, but you get the idea. The premise of the program is to get you hooked on a series so you buy the following books (or for Amazon to have some reviews before the book goes for public sale).

This one is not terrible. The author may have gone through basic training, but I'm leaning more toward the idea that he just did some fairly thorough research (the use of 'sir' is a bit off in places).

At any rate, it is a first-person science-fiction about a man who joins an elite group of commandos who happen to have 'mecha' as one of their tools in trade. The story follows the young man from his humble beginnings as an illegal immigrant to a country who drafts said illegals into their military, and he goes through (space) Navy boot camp, and then through the future equivalent of SEAL training. Finally, about two-thirds of the way through the book, they actually go on a mission into space and things go into the toilet. Being former military myself, and having known people who have gone through BUD/S, this was acceptable reading, though it did take up the majority of the novel.

The ending was good, I and will consider reading one of the other books.

TL;DR: if you don't care to read about going through boot camp and special forces training, then don't read this book.

Next up: Saint Odd by Dean Koontz. Also, I am reading a dead-tree A History of Pi by Petr Beckmann. Originally published in 1970, this is a 1993 reprinting of the 1974 third edition.

[drjd]

Finished two books by Christopher C. Doyle, The Mini Sequel to the Alexander Secret: A Secret Revealed and The Secret Of The Druids. His typical style of interweaving historical facts and places and artifacts with fantastic ideas of mystery and myths. Race against time to find some secrets which could turn drastic and devastating in the wrong hands of evil people who are also searching for them. Good and engaging page turners all the way.

Next up, Diamonds in the Sky a collection of SF stories edited by Mike Brotherton.