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

[Rumpelteazer]

I'm currently reading the latest Vera Stanhope book by Ann Cleeves. I love the tv series and I love the books even more. Trying to read slowly to make it last longer.

[WT Sharpe]

I'm currently reading Executive Lunch by Maria Schneider. This is the first book in the Sedona O'Hala series, and the one that really should be read first. I started with Executive Dirt, which is the fourth book in the series, and as a result came into this one already knowing something majorly spoilly concerning one of the book's chief characters. If Jon (JSWolf) reads this post, he'll probably tell me I got what I deserved, but I'm still enjoying it.

[Hampshire Nanny]

Originally Posted by Hampshire Nanny

Yesterday, I started reading Molly Fyde and the Parsona Rescue by Hugh Howey. I'm loving it.

Excellent. Looking forward to reading the next book, but I have to wait until next month as I'm borrowing these through the Kindle Lending Library. Darn that 1 book per month limit!

Now I'm reading Delusion in Death by J. D. Robb. Since I really like the series, I'm enjoying this book. It won't take me long to finish.

[Dngrsone]

Supervillians Anonymous was very enjoyable. Dngrswife wants me to read Miss Peregrin's School for Peculiar Children in dead-tree format next, but I am also going to have to load something up in the tablet... perhaps Skinbrain by Stephen Euin Cobb.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Enjoyed part 2 and since it ended on a cliffhanger, I'll go right into part 3 Constantinople.

Finished part 3 and moved into part 4 of Christian Cameron's St George series (Rome).

[ReneAZ]

Just finished a couple of great Sci-Fi books (not my usual choice) and highly recommend them. Both great stories and characters -- didn't want to stop reading either one!
LOVED them!

(in this order)
"14" -- Peter Clines
"The Fold" -- Peter Clines

Also, before that I read "The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August" by Claire North -- also Sci/Fi -- and loved that too! Glad I branched out from my usual Mysteries/Thrillers books (next up, new Vince Flynn/Kyle Mills and Lee Child books).

Rene

[DrNefario]

I finished Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky last night, the first VI Warshawski book. I enjoyed it. Very much in the Private Eye tradition, and good fun.

This completes my ABC Murders challenge, after 3 years. I've now read books featuring series detectives for every letter of the alphabet: Appleby, Beck, Cockrill, Dalgliesh, Elder, Fell, Grist, Heat, Innes, January, Knight, Langdon, Millhone, Neary, O'Dell, Poirot, Quirke, Rhyme, Shugak, Thorne, Unwin, Vik, Warshawski, de Xavia, Yeats and Zukas. In the course of this, I've discovered quite a lot of series I'd like to continue with, including this last one.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: Asimov's SF Magazine, double issue for October/November 2015.

Which I enjoyed.

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Also reading The Long Mars by Baxter & Pratchett. It seems a bit more disjoint that the earlier books. Or perhaps it's me.

It seems to be getting more coherent. I'm sure there's a point to the departure from a sequential narrative, but I don't know what it is yet.

[Rumpelteazer]

I've just started The Eight by Katherine Neville, it's the first book in The Eight duology.

It is a reread, I've read it about 20 years ago and for years after I kept checking if the sequel was released. Eventually I forgot all about it until I recently came across the book again on Amazon and discovered a sequel has been released.

However, I had completely forgotten what the book was about so I decided to read The Eight first. After reading about 100 pages, it still isn't familiar. Luckily, however, I find the story to be very good and very hard to put down (I'm secretly hoping for a quiet afternoon in the store so I can read more).

[orlok]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I finished Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky last night, the first VI Warshawski book. I enjoyed it. Very much in the Private Eye tradition, and good fun.

This completes my ABC Murders challenge, after 3 years. I've now read books featuring series detectives for every letter of the alphabet: Appleby, Beck, Cockrill, Dalgliesh, Elder, Fell, Grist, Heat, Innes, January, Knight, Langdon, Millhone, Neary, O'Dell, Poirot, Quirke, Rhyme, Shugak, Thorne, Unwin, Vik, Warshawski, de Xavia, Yeats and Zukas. In the course of this, I've discovered quite a lot of series I'd like to continue with, including this last one.

Count me impressed! Just identifying a detective for every letter of the alphabet is a challenge, let alone reading each book. Nice one.

Now reading the latest Felix Francis, Front Runner. It's the second book with the undercover racing investigator character, Jefferson Hinkley, and so far so good

[HomeInMyShoes]

Originally Posted by DrNefario

I finished Indemnity Only by Sara Paretsky last night, the first VI Warshawski book. I enjoyed it. Very much in the Private Eye tradition, and good fun.

This completes my ABC Murders challenge, after 3 years. I've now read books featuring series detectives for every letter of the alphabet: Appleby, Beck, Cockrill, Dalgliesh, Elder, Fell, Grist, Heat, Innes, January, Knight, Langdon, Millhone, Neary, O'Dell, Poirot, Quirke, Rhyme, Shugak, Thorne, Unwin, Vik, Warshawski, de Xavia, Yeats and Zukas. In the course of this, I've discovered quite a lot of series I'd like to continue with, including this last one.

That is indeed impressive. I remember having a hard enough time doing ABCs for author last names across any genre.

[DrNefario]

It was a little easier with the help of http://stopyourekillingme.com/

Honestly, the only really tricky one was X, which I think is also true for the authors' names, and probably most other alphabet challenges. I'm still occasionally tempted to create a detective whose surname begins with X for one of my Nanowrimo projects.

[HomeInMyShoes]

^China was most helpful for X.

[Dazrin]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

In the mean time I received Jenny Lawson's new book, Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things, and just today received Brandon Sanderson's new Mistborn book, Shadows of Self, both from my library after recommending them prior to publication.

Furiously Happy was wonderful. It does have crude language and topics but it is surely one of a very few books that can talk about severe depression and other mental and physical illnesses in an approachable and often hilarious way. I certainly have a better understanding of those fighting these battles and hopefully that will translate into more compassion as well. Check out her blog if you want a preview of her writing style, I am sure it isn't for everyone. The book trailer has a couple familiar faces as well.

Shadows of Self is next then (or maybe concurrently) Kidnapped for the October book club, possibly as an audio book since I have a long car trip scheduled for next week.

[HarryT]

Just finished "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. I've been intending to read this SF masterpiece for years, but somehow never got around to it. Big mistake to have delayed so long - this is a simply outstanding novel. Not an easy read, but it more than repays the effort it takes.

I can do no better than to quote this excellent Amazon review of the book:

This classic work has so much to recommend it that it’s difficult to know where to start. Its overall reference to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales – in that seven pilgrims each tell their tale as they journey toward their goal – is only one facet of a novel rich with literary reference and wryly judged future historical perspective.
At one point, Martin Silenus the poet tells of his great work ‘The Dying Earth’ the title of which, he points out, was taken from an old earth novel. In the same section his literary agent tells of the realities of book-marketing in the Twenty-Ninth Century. Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’ she tells him, is permanently in print, although no-one actually reads it. The poet blithely asks who Hitler was.
No doubt Jack Vance, and many other readers who picked up on the reference to his Nineteen Fifties novel, will be amused at the idea of Vance novels being remembered in an age where Hitler is a name known only to those in the rarefied strata of academia.
The pilgrims have been chosen by the Church of the Shrike to make the pilgrimage to the Time Tombs of Hyperion and petition the Shrike, an alien godlike creature bristling with metal horns and claws.
Each pilgrim tells his tale of why they think they were chosen to take the pilgrimage and in doing so, slowly fill in the backstory of this Hegemony of Worlds, of Hyperion itself and the mysterious Shrike.
Each tale fills in a piece of the jigsaw puzzle depicting complex galactic politics in which it is difficult to judge who are the players and who are the pawns.
A cabal of AIs form the Technocore which seceded from human control centuries ago, although they still manage the web of farcaster portals which link the worlds of the Hegemony, and the Allthing which is, in essence, a futuristic internet. The AIs have their own reasons for being very interested in Hyperion, its network of alien labyrinths and the Time Tombs, to which they believe something is travelling back in time from the future.
Structurally, thematically, stylistically this book is a marvel. Each tale has a distinct voice and its own magic, and each is tied into a seamless whole.

Highly, highly recommended!