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

[CRussel]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

"Invitation to Die" by Helen Smith, picked up relatively cheaply on Amazon recently, but... well, at least I didn't pay a fortune for it, because not only do I have a hard time getting into it, I just don't feel it's particularly well written.

I'm over 50% and still feel a vague curiosity about the "whodunnit" part, so I expect I'll struggle onwards with it and finish it, but it's feeling a lot like a chore - especially as I picked up the hardback of Jonathan Stroud's latest book, Lockwood & Co: The Screaming Staircase, at the post office yesterday and now it's sitting here, taunting me.

Life's too short, and the world has way too many good books to waste time on poorly written books. Every genre has some crappy books, and in these days when every barely literate person can self-publish, I strongly recommend just putting down the bad book. And even going so far as to ask Amazon for your money back. (And they'll generally do it if you've bought the book recently.)

[gmw]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

I'm reading The City in the Autumn Stars by Michael Moorcock and really enjoying it so far.

Definitely one of his better books IMO. Apparently it's the third book in the "Von Bek Family" series, but I've never found the first two: The Warhound and the World's Pain and The Brothel in Rosenstrasse. I've often wondered if they are as good. (My reactions to Moorcock's books vary widely.)

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by JoelArnold

Totally agree with you. I thoroughly enjoyed "The Historian."

I'm looking forward to reading her new novel, just as soon as I finish 4 or 5 other titles.



Don

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by gmw

Definitely one of his better books IMO. Apparently it's the third book in the "Von Bek Family" series, but I've never found the first two: The Warhound and the World's Pain and The Brothel in Rosenstrasse. I've often wondered if they are as good. (My reactions to Moorcock's books vary widely.)

I think I recall trying to read a Moorcock when I was a teenager but, other than that, I haven't read him. The third in a series, eh? It is a used, old paperback that I picked up for free at a Laundromat when I was on vacation. It is definitely a good read so far.

[Yapyap]

Originally Posted by CRussel

Life's too short, and the world has way too many good books to waste time on poorly written books. Every genre has some crappy books, and in these days when every barely literate person can self-publish, I strongly recommend just putting down the bad book. And even going so far as to ask Amazon for your money back. (And they'll generally do it if you've bought the book recently.)

Nah, I don't believe in asking my money back for something that is just a crappily written book - it's the risk I take when I buy a book without sampling it first (and if I wouldn't go to a brick-and-mortar bookshop to ask for my money back just because I don't think it's well written, I wouldn't do that with ebooks either - I'd only do that for serious formatting issues or if I'd bought it accidentally, I suppose).

I can see why others would, though, in a similar case. (I think this was an Amazon imprint published book, Thomas and Mercer perhaps? so... self-published and then picked up by Amazon, I think?)

I am considering just leaving it though and maybe returning to it later, just to find out who killed the person who got killed and why...

[CRussel]

I agree, sampling is a good option here, rather than impulse buying. And personally, I've only returned two books. One for formatting, and one for being NOT as Amazon had described it. (Was described as a mystery, and was little more than a right wing religious tract. And even free was too much for it!)

[Yapyap]

Done with Invitation to Die. Not a writer I plan to read more by. Pity, as the idea seemed clever enough for a moderately entertaining mystery at least.

Originally Posted by CRussel

I agree, sampling is a good option here, rather than impulse buying. And personally, I've only returned two books. One for formatting, and one for being NOT as Amazon had described it. (Was described as a mystery, and was little more than a right wing religious tract. And even free was too much for it!)

Both of those instances sound quite justified to me! I've fallen for the "religious tract disguised as a free mystery" thing myself, but I took it as an interesting new experience (being both a non-American and a non-religious person, I'd had no idea such entire genre existed) and decided to be more careful in the future.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

Done with Invitation to Die. Not a writer I plan to read more by. Pity, as the idea seemed clever enough for a moderately entertaining mystery at least.



Both of those instances sound quite justified to me! I've fallen for the "religious tract disguised as a free mystery" thing myself, but I took it as an interesting new experience (being both a non-American and a non-religious person, I'd had no idea such entire genre existed) and decided to be more careful in the future.

Yes. This is exactly what prompted me to post in the "vent and rant" thread about the meet-up/author-signing at B&N I ended up shying away from, though that was more a legal thriller genre than a cozy or something. It took me about 2 minutes of looking at the book and a few words from the author for me to realize what was up. I remained pleasant, of course, complimented her on the cover, and went on my way.

[CRussel]

What annoyed me was that the "mystery" had NO WAY to tell that it was, in fact, a religious tract from the description and genre designations. You had to actually start reading it. And even though it was free, I didn't want the author to get any credit whatsoever for a sale. So I returned it, after having a lengthy discussion with Amazon CS. (At the time, it was virtually impossible to return a free book. That has, thankfully, been changed. And I like to think that my efforts contributed to that.)

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by CRussel

What annoyed me was that the "mystery" had NO WAY to tell that it was, in fact, a religious tract from the description and genre designations. You had to actually start reading it. And even though it was free, I didn't want the author to get any credit whatsoever for a sale. So I returned it, after having a lengthy discussion with Amazon CS. (At the time, it was virtually impossible to return a free book. That has, thankfully, been changed. And I like to think that my efforts contributed to that.)

Ugh. Good for you for sticking to your guns on that.

[dreams]

Originally Posted by fantasyfan

The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary by Simon Winchester may not sound like the most exciting book ever written. In fact, it is much more enjoyable than one would expect. The OED is one of the greatest academic works ever compiled and by common consent the greatest English Dictionary of all. It took seventy years to complete and it's first four editors did not live to see that completion.

Winchester is not an academic and he presents the story mainly through interesting anecdotes, and by focussing on the various personalities and their often bitter clashes and varied motivations throughout the enormous project--the progress of which was by no means smooth. In fact there were several times when the possibility of ever finishing the work seemed very bleak indeed.

Most of the book is about James Murray the third principal editor whose vision informed the entire idea--and indeed which continues to this day in the second edition and the concept of a third electronic version. This breathtakingly brilliant Scotsman who could speak and/or read over thirty languages and whose formal education ended at the age of 14 is considered the greatest lexicographer since Samuel Johnson.

His story alone is worth knowing and it is bound up intimately with the great Oxford English Dictionary.

I read The Professor and the Madman (P.S.) (aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne) by Simon Winchester

Spoiler:

From Wikipedia
The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words is a book by Simon Winchester that was first published in England in 1998. It was retitled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary in the United States and Canada.

It tells the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, Dr. W. C. Minor, a retired United States Army surgeon. Minor was, at the time, imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. The 'professor' of the American title is the chief editor of the OED during most of the project, Sir James Murray. Murray was a talented linguist and had other scholarly interests, and he had taught in schools and worked in banking. Faced with enormous task of producing a comprehensive dictionary, with a quotation illustrating the uses of each meaning of each word, and with evidence for the earliest use of each, Murray had turned to an early form of crowdsourcing (a word not coined until the 21st century)— enlisting the help of dozens of amateur philologists as volunteer researchers.

and found the whole story extraordinary. I had never even thought about how a dictionary was actually made or even how it was done. The "madman's" knowledge and the vast amount of information he provided was amazing.

[fantasyfan]

Originally Posted by dreams

I read The Professor and the Madman (P.S.) (aka The Surgeon of Crowthorne) by Simon Winchester

Spoiler:

From Wikipedia
The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words is a book by Simon Winchester that was first published in England in 1998. It was retitled The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary in the United States and Canada.

It tells the story of the making of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) and one of its most prolific early contributors, Dr. W. C. Minor, a retired United States Army surgeon. Minor was, at the time, imprisoned in the Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum, near the village of Crowthorne in Berkshire, England. The 'professor' of the American title is the chief editor of the OED during most of the project, Sir James Murray. Murray was a talented linguist and had other scholarly interests, and he had taught in schools and worked in banking. Faced with enormous task of producing a comprehensive dictionary, with a quotation illustrating the uses of each meaning of each word, and with evidence for the earliest use of each, Murray had turned to an early form of crowdsourcing (a word not coined until the 21st century)— enlisting the help of dozens of amateur philologists as volunteer researchers.

and found the whole story extraordinary. I had never even thought about how a dictionary was actually made or even how it was done. The "madman's" knowledge and the vast amount of information he provided was amazing.

Yes, he gets coverage in The Meaning of Everything. In fact, I'm very tempted now to read The Professor and the Madman.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Under a Graveyard Sky by John Ringo. The Zombie Apolcalypse arrives....

That was fun. Not that I'd like to watch a movie of it. I find visual gore much harder to take than verbal gore.

Then I read The Exotic Enchanter by Christopher Stasheff, an ebook reissue of the 1995 Baen volume. It was interesting, but being four novellas it didn't have much (any?) overall plot.

Next up: The Undead Hordes of Kan-Gul by Jon F. Merz. The last of September's Baen Bundle that I've never read before. I'm planning on re-reading the Heinlein at some point too.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Yapyap

"Invitation to Die" by Helen Smith, picked up relatively cheaply on Amazon recently, but... well, at least I didn't pay a fortune for it, because not only do I have a hard time getting into it, I just don't feel it's particularly well written.

I'm over 50% and still feel a vague curiosity about the "whodunnit" part, so I expect I'll struggle onwards with it and finish it, but it's feeling a lot like a chore

Since I know that you have a large TBR pile, I'd recommend reading the last few pages for the whodunnit, and abandoning it. There's no point wasting your leisure time on something you're not enjoying.

[Yapyap]

I'm finally reading The Screaming Staircase, the first in Jonathan Stroud's new YA paranormal/ghost series Lockwood & Co, which has been one of my most anticipated new releases of 2013.

And... well, I am enjoying it, but I'm not 100% convinced by the pacing. It had some excitement to start with but then there's a long bit of "what happened before" and I'm now nearly halfway into it and only now am I starting to get the sense of "we're finally moving towards the real meat of this story". I think it might be a first-book-in-series thing, though; it's got to build up the world and make it understandable enough, and while I'm not blown away by either the plot or the characters (so far anyway), the protagonists are likeable and interesting enough to keep me relatively happy, and Stroud does know how to do some really nice turns of phrase.

I'm hoping it'll get more exciting in the second half of the book (although I suspect it aims more towards "atmospheric spooky" than "exciting action and showy magic"), but I'll be surprised if I'll end up loving this anywhere close to the Bartimaeus books. Still, even as it is, it's shaping up to be one of the better YA paranormal books I've read (it seems to be straddling the fence between middle grade and YA, but I think it's clearly leaning more towards YA in themes and tone), it's just that so far it's not quite measuring up to the absolute best in the genre.