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

[Phebe]

I read he was releasing the kindle book "early" and that he might pull it after a couple of weeks to submit to the publisher (could be a publicity stunt, but he said he was selling a few early copies before submission.) I thought the first book was decent.

Originally Posted by JSWolf

In which case I say.. DO NOT BUY ANY MORE OF HIS BOOKS IF HE'S GOING TO PULL A STUNT LIKE THIS.

Wait ------ let them play freely in this wild-west environment. We're in a hurricane of an exploding new industry. Creative ideas like this shouldn't be stopped now; let them play out without prejudice, because if we let a thousand flowers bloom, there are going to be some incredible bouquets made out of them. For us, the readers.

[DiapDealer]

because if we let a thousand flowers bloom, there are going to be some incredible bouquets made out of them. For us, the readers.

Either that or there's going to be a lot of dead wilted flower petals to dispose of.

And don't forget allergies.

And weeding. Weeding sucks in a garden that big.

[SeaBookGuy]

Originally Posted by Phebe

Curious Story of the Dog in the Nighttime?

I LOVED it ---- read it twice, at once. Mean to read it again.

But I really like autism fiction. Most of it is excellent and very, very thought-provoking, about the nature of mind. One of the absolute best is Elizabeth Moon's "The Speed of Dark."

One of the absolute worst is "Rules of the House," out recently. You hate the kid, you can easily see where this murder mystery is going and what its solution is, and you REALLY hate the mother, a whiner, over-protective and weird generally who blames vaccines for everything and makes the kid eat strange diets to "improve" him; he hardly will eat anything voluntarily anyway.

I found Christopher violent and (potentially) dangerous.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card. "An Ender Story". Looks good so far (but not to be read if you haven't read Ender's Game, IMO).

A fun quick read — more a novella than a novel.

War for the Oaks by Emma Bull

This was a freebie from TOR in 2008. It's no longer available as a freebie, but it doesn't seem to be available anywhere at all as an ebook either.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Phebe

Nope, didn't happen, Drake.

Well, yeah, the "real" Leopold of Belgium turns out to be a power-hungry money-grubbing cheapskate who wouldn't financially support his own sister but still tried to cultivate her daughter the future queen, at a time when it was customary for widows to rely on their own families and he was receiving some £30,000-50,000 a year in pension from the British government just for being Princess Charlotte's widower. Not to mention a crashing bore who drove a mistress to run away from his total lack of dinner-time conversation and his obsession with "drizzling", something which involves using a machine to recycle old epaulettes into new gold and silver thread.

But the past and present consensus seems to be that the Belgian Congo was a very bad place to live for a number of reasons that did indeed include needlessly amputated appendages (apologies for forgetting exactly which ones or exactly what the rationale for them being lopped off was) and apparently got even worse under that particular colonial administration.

And that's what Leopold gets associated with, even if he didn't do the lopping himself or directly order anybody else to do so.

Kings are figureheads that get blamed for the excesses of their countrymen, and if he hadn't been so eager to be the ruler of the third country that offered him a royal title (after bemoaning the fact that the second one wouldn't let him rule through his wife), his name would not now have this reputation.

So the British lucked out. Especially as it turns out that it was actually Leopold II that was directly responsible for the creation of the Congo Free State, and Charlotte died while giving birth to the original Leopold's other son. Nature or nurture, who knows which way it would have gone?

Originally Posted by Phebe

This story is simply the usual determination of lefters to blame everything bad that Africans do on whites, somehow.

Originally Posted by Phebe

... the sloppiness of all this misattribution is incredible, in my opinion. I think we are all too easily fooled and have to be careful what we believe.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems rather ironic to make these two statements in the same post.

But seriously, if you truly want to argue that the perception of Belgian-ruled Congo as a very crappy place to live that got extra-crappy once bonus racism and outside economic pressures got added in by essentially invading European forces during the 19th century is all due to some vast "liberal media conspiracy" or however the US pundit phrasing goes, you're welcome to post it in the Politics & Religion forum.

As for what I'm reading now, I'm working on finishing two paper books due at the library soon: Snake by Drake Stutesman, and Oyster by Rebecca Stott, which are both part of the non-fiction "Animal" series by Reaktion Books which are joint scientific and cultural examinations of the title animals written by a mix of academically and culturally prominent people (a university professor & an editor of an artsy magazine for the ones I've got).

It's got stuff about how they evolved, how they behave, and how humans interact with and view them in artistic and folkloric portrayals around the world throughout time and such, with plenty of illustrative photos and quotes.

Very nicely done and interesting volumes and I'll be picking up the others from the library, especially since it turn out that both Oyster and Snake have recipes in the back and now I'm morbidly curious as to whether, say, Rat and Cockroach, and Wolf etc. do the same.

[Crusader]

Originally Posted by Iridal

I really enjoyed War of the Flowers. I've reread it a couple of times. I remember it took me a long time to get into the story too, but once it gets going I couldn't put it down anymore.

Just finished it. For me it was a struggle to get through and I normally like thick tomes. I only really got drawn into the story in the last 150 pages or so and the ending was very good.

I think the pace of the book is the largest drawback. There's pages and pages of nothing much happening and things are described in a very verbose style (often repeated descriptions multiple times).

There was one point during the dialogue between Theo and the Remover of Inconvenient Obstacles where I wanted to shout at them to get to the point already. It also seemed that Theo wanted the Remover to get to the point, but the redeemer actually says something to the effect that he's going to tell his story in HIS way... and resorts to a very long drawn-out tale. Which could have been done in a quarter of the length of text without missing any of the impact.

[Iridal]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Well, yeah, the "real" Leopold of Belgium turns out to be a power-hungry money-grubbing cheapskate who wouldn't financially support his own sister but still tried to cultivate her daughter the future queen, at a time when it was customary for widows to rely on their own families and he was receiving some £30,000-50,000 a year in pension from the British government just for being Princess Charlotte's widower. Not to mention a crashing bore who drove a mistress to run away from his total lack of dinner-time conversation and his obsession with "drizzling", something which involves using a machine to recycle old epaulettes into new gold and silver thread.

But the past and present consensus seems to be that the Belgian Congo was a very bad place to live for a number of reasons that did indeed include needlessly amputated appendages (apologies for forgetting exactly which ones or exactly what the rationale for them being lopped off was) and apparently got even worse under that particular colonial administration.

And that's what Leopold gets associated with, even if he didn't do the lopping himself or directly order anybody else to do so.

Actually, it was Leopold II who is associated with Belgian Kongo and chopping of hands. Leopold I was our first king, and he was a fairly decent guy if what they thought me in school is true.

[ATDrake]

Originally Posted by Iridal

Actually, it was Leopold II who is associated with Belgian Kongo and chopping of hands. Leopold I was our first king, and he was a fairly decent guy if what they thought me in school is true.

Yes, I noted that in the paragraph immediately below the stuff you quoted.

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Especially as it turns out that it was actually Leopold II that was directly responsible for the creation of the Congo Free State, and Charlotte died while giving birth to the original Leopold's other son.

Sorry about getting your monarchs mixed up and inadvertently slandering the non-hand-chopping king.

Always found numbered rulers a bit hard to keep track of. I'm especially bad with French Louises and English Edwards and Henries (excepting Henry the VIIIth, of course).

[maianhvk]

I just finished the Golden Compass and didn't find the parts about Church irritating at all. maybe it's because I'm not religious and also since I've read things far more... er, I'll use the word 'shocking'.

I have many options now I'm done with Golden Compass, one, to move on with the 2nd book in the series, two, to try another genre with Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love or Marc Levy's Les enfants de la liberté (yes I'm gonna read all books of his this spring), and three, to get back to the books I've not done with yet, which are Wuthering Heights and Tolbie Lolness.

or should I take a break from books and go shopping instead

[Iridal]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Yes, I noted that in the paragraph immediately below the stuff you quoted.

Sorry about getting your monarchs mixed up and inadvertently slandering the non-hand-chopping king.

Always found numbered rulers a bit hard to keep track of. I'm especially bad with French Louises and English Edwards and Henries (excepting Henry the VIIIth, of course).

Oops, hadn't noticed that. I should have read your post more thoroughly It doesn't matter anyway, I always mix up French and British kings too. I didn't comment because you were 'slandering' one of our kings, but because I wanted to set the facts straight

I'm reading Grave Peril at the moment, third Dresden book. I've also just bought The Emerald Storm, fourth Riyria book by Michael J. Sullivan so that's next.

[jgaiser]

I've been reading David Drake's "Hammer's Slammers" off and on for a while and when there was a mention of the David's RCN series in the Space Opera thread, I thought I give it a go.

Picked up With The Lightnings from the Baen Free Library and started reading. A slow start with all the introductions and story building, but by the time the second half of the book got started, I was fully involved. There was something faintly familiar but I put the thought aside, as I read a lot of space opera. Then I discovered that David was a big fan of Patrick O'Brian and his Aubrey-Maturin series of which I've read a couple books. The genesis of the RCN series was from those books. Aha! Not copies by any means, but if you've read any of the O'Brian series you'll catch the common themes.

Finished "With The Lightnings" last night and already picked up the next two in the series, also available from the Baen Free Library.

[kennyc]

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex was written by Mary Roach in 2008.

Sounds very interesting....

From Publishers Weekly
Roach is not like other science writers. She doesn't write about genes or black holes or Schrödinger's cat. Instead, she ventures out to the fringes of science, where the oddballs ponder how cadavers decay (in her debut, Stiff) and whether you can weigh a person's soul (in Spook). Now she explores the sexiest subject of all: sex, and such questions as, what is an orgasm? How is it possible for paraplegics to have them? What does woman want, and can a man give it to her if her clitoris is too far from her vagina? At times the narrative feels insubstantial and digressive (how much do you need to know about inseminating sows?), but Roach's ever-present eye and ear for the absurd and her loopy sense of humor make her a delectable guide through this unesteemed scientific outback. The payoff comes with subjects like female orgasm (yes, it's complicated), and characters like Ahmed Shafik, who defies Cairo's religious repressiveness to conduct his sex research. Roach's forays offer fascinating evidence of the full range of human weirdness, the nonsense that has often passed for medical science and, more poignantly, the extreme lengths to which people will go to find sexual satisfaction. (Apr.)



http://www.amazon.com/Bonk-Curious-C.../dp/0393064646

and a TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/ma...ut_orgasm.html

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex was written by Mary Roach in 2008.

A fun and funny book, as are all of Ms. Roach's books. I think I've read and enjoyed them all. Even "Stiffs", where she manages to find humor in death.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

A fun and funny book, as are all of Ms. Roach's books. I think I've read and enjoyed them all. Even "Stiffs", where she manages to find humor in death.

Thanks Jerry. I've read some of her articles, but not her books. She is this year's editor for The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 which is why I ran across the above...

That TED Talk is hilarious!

[Ste_95]

Just finished Harry Potter 4
One word: Awesome!!