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

[MickeyC]

Just finished Secrets to the Grave by Tami Hoag. Great who-done-it and definitely not a cozy mystery. Just about every chapter had an ending I did not see coming.

And have started Stone Cold by CJ Box

[BelleZora]

I'm about half way through The Pot Thief Who Studied Pythagoras by J. Michael Orenduff. I chose this book because it is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico where I am visiting at the moment. If you like Lawrence Block's burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr, you will feel a strong sense of deja vu reading this. Hubert Schuze, the pot thief, has a clever and attractive young female best buddy and sidekick, a somewhat corrupt policeman who keeps coming around, and conversations full of humorous banter and erudite trivia. Hubert and Susannah (the sidekick) even talk about Bernie over margaritas.

Orenduff captures the flavor of Albuquerque wonderfully... as successfully as James Lee Burke's Louisiana and Michael Connelly's Los Angeles. I'm happy to be reading this here with access to the exceptional food, the Old Town shops, the Rio Grande River, and the Sandia Mountains. The food: this book will make you salivate. I don't agree with and am annoyed by the pot thief's justifications for removing archaeological treasures from public land, but I'm trying very hard to ignore that and enjoy the spirit of fun.

[bfisher]

Currently reading "The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF", a collection of short stories edited by Mike Ashley. Some of the stories are quite short, the first one, by Gregory Benford is only 4 pages long, and a 5 page story by Lawrence Watt Evans. Most of the remainder are 15-20 pages long. So far I haven't encountered a story that I want to skip over. This anthology reminds me of how pleasureable short fiction can be.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Currently reading "The Mammoth Book of Time Travel SF", a collection of short stories edited by Mike Ashley. Some of the stories are quite short, the first one, by Gregory Benford is only 4 pages long, and a 5 page story by Lawrence Watt Evans. Most of the remainder are 15-20 pages long. So far I haven't encountered a story that I want to skip over. This anthology reminds me of how pleasureable short fiction can be.

I've got about a dozen of the "Mammoth Book" anthologies, and they are all excellent.

[benham]

For those that like westerns and free in the same sentence, Murder For Greenhorns by Robert Kresge, is both today on Kindle. Normally $16.

[BelleZora]

Originally Posted by benham

For those that like westerns and free in the same sentence, Murder For Greenhorns by Robert Kresge, is both today on Kindle. Normally $16.

Thanks! This looks good and I'll always like westerns. Here's the US link:

http://www.amazon.com/Murder-Greenho.../dp/B004AM5OZU

[Gazella]

Originally Posted by benham

For those that like westerns and free in the same sentence, Murder For Greenhorns by Robert Kresge, is both today on Kindle. Normally $16.

Ya I saw the deal and posted it in one of the threads in the 'Deals' sub forum an hour ago but it's originally $2.99 not $16

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've got about a dozen of the "Mammoth Book" anthologies, and they are all excellent.

Thanks for the tip. This is my first encounter with them. I'll certainly be looking at some of the others - amazng variety, and quite reasonable ricing.

[alansplace]

Originally Posted by alansplace

Enjoyed The Martian a lot, it really should be adapted for a movie. Now next, in response to all the folks who've been highly favorably commenting on to Crocodile on the Sandbank (Amelia Peabody #1) by Elizabeth Peters, I'll give it a look-see.

I completed Crocodile on the Sandbank. It was really an enjoyable read and I suspect I'll be reading others in this series in the future. Now on to Urn Burial (Phryne Fisher #8) by Kerry Greenwood.

[rollei]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I've got about a dozen of the "Mammoth Book" anthologies, and they are all excellent.

Enjoyed the Mammoth Series, last read "The Mammoth Book of Special Ops".

Now reading "The Looming Tower" by Lawrence Wright. Pulitzer Prize winner 2007.

[Lady Stardust]

Originally Posted by bfisher

I just finished reading "The Sleepwalkers" by Christopher Clark. It took me a long time to read it. It was substantial - 562 pages not including notes, and Clark is an academic (Professor in Modern European History at Cambridge). However, his style was quite readable. What made it such a long read for me was that it was challenging views and assumptions about the origins of World War 1 that I have held all my life, so I had to break frequently to think about what I was reading. Barbara Tuchman's "The Guns of August" made a deep impression on me when I read it as a young adult, and in many ways it accorded with the accepted wisdom of the mellieu I grew up in - when I was in high school, there were still many active WW1 veterans in my community, and I absorbed the prevailing wisdom of the place and time.

I don't think that I will be throwing overboard all of my previous viewpoint on the origins of World War 1, but "The Sleepwalkers" did suggest to me a more nuanced view. This summer is the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1, arguably the most transformative event in modern history since the French Revolution. if you are interested in the origins of World War 1, you might have a look at "The Sleepwalkers", but balance it by reading "The Guns of August". For me, "The Sleepwalkers" is one of the most interesting books that I have read in years.

JFK was supposed to have been impressed by "The Guns of August", and reportedly told Robert Kennedy that he did not want a future book to be titled "The Missiles of October". I wonder what he would have made of "The Sleepwalkers"?

The last sentence in "The Sleepwalkers":
"... the protagonists of 1914 were sleepwalkers, watchful but unseeing, haunted by dreams, yet blind to the reality of the horror they were about to bring into the world."

If you haven't read it, you might be interested in The War That Ended Peace -How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War by Margaret MacMillan

The century since the end of the Napoleonic wars had been the most peaceful era Europe had known since the fall of the Roman Empire. In the first years of the twentieth century, Europe believed it was marching to a golden, happy, and prosperous future. But instead, complex personalities and rivalries, colonialism and ethnic nationalisms, and shifting alliances helped to bring about the failure of the long peace and the outbreak of a war that transformed Europe and the world.

The War That Ended Peace brings vividly to life the military leaders, politicians, diplomats, bankers, and the extended, interrelated family of crowned heads across Europe who failed to stop the descent into war: in Germany, the mercurial Kaiser Wilhelm II and the chief of the German general staff, Von Moltke the Younger; in Austria-Hungary, Emperor Franz Joseph, a man who tried, through sheer hard work, to stave off the coming chaos in his empire; in Russia, Tsar Nicholas II and his wife; in Britain, King Edward VII, Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, and British admiral Jacky Fisher, the fierce advocate of naval reform who entered into the arms race with Germany that pushed the continent toward confrontation on land and sea.

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...at-ended-peace

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by bfisher

Thanks for the tip. This is my first encounter with them. I'll certainly be looking at some of the others - amazng variety, and quite reasonable ricing.

They frequently get included in Amazon's monthly deals. I've bought all mine for around £1 each, which is great value.

[bfisher]

Originally Posted by Lady Stardust

If you haven't read it, you might be interested in The War That Ended Peace -How Europe Abandoned Peace for the First World War by Margaret MacMillan


http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...at-ended-peace

Thanks. I have her "Paris 1919" book about the peace conference on my TBR. (The peace that ended war )., as well as The Uses and Abuses of History. I shall look at "The War That Ended Peace" too.

[CharredScribe]

Reading Ghost in the Machine, by Ed James. Free via Kobo. Half-way - pretty good crime thriller set in Scotland. I don't usually enjoy police procedurals unless they have something more to offer (such as the DCI Banks series by Peter Robinson), but enjoying it so far.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Reboots by Mercedes Lackey and Cody Martin. This month's freebie from Phoenix Pick, although I'm counting it as $0.99, as I bought it in a bundle with the sequel.

And that was an entertaining 'supernaturals in space' romp. I'll get to the sequel shortly.

But next up is Much Fall of Blood by Mercedes Lackey, Eric Flint & Dave Freer, the third in their "Heirs of Alexandria" series about a magical Venice in the 1500s.