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

[Camellia]

Originally Posted by issybird

That’s on my library hold list, but it’ll be a while. Do you like it?

So far, it's excellent. It's very strange, nothing at all like Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and a bit reminiscent of Mieville and Danielewski.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Uncle Robin

That's why it's a Germanic language in (~40%) French clothing

I thought the primary cause of the high French content was the Norman Conquest.

[Fbone]

Next I tried Swarm by B.V. Larson. Abandoned after 75 pages. I couldn't go any further. Poor quality.

Now, it's another freebie, Robot Proletariat: Season One by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant. I couldn't finish two other books by these authors but I'll give this one a try.

[Uncle Robin]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

I thought the primary cause of the high French content was the Norman Conquest.

Absolutely. Like the quote it referenced my post was not entirely serious.

[Uncle Robin]

Just starting The Conjurer's Bird because Joseph Banks sounds like a fascinating person, and making him central to a story appeals.

[Dr. Drib]

OK, I've finished "My Name is Red," a wonderful novel by Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Now I need something with grit, muscle, blood, bone, and guts - preferably all at the same time. No interest whatsoever in 'kissy-kissy' romance stories or long-skirted 1920s who-done-it novels. Say 'chao-chao-chao' to Sci-Fi novels with cigar-shaped space ships that just happen to resemble a specific body part. Can you say 'BOR-ING-GGG'? I knew you could.

What have I turned to? Why, 'Slob', of course! What's not to like about a fat 500-pound killer who stinks to high-heaven? Who knows what's growing in those dank places where hair usually grows?

Rex Miller is the author.

You HAVE been warned.

[poohbear_nc]

Susanna Clarke's Piranesi - inside this slim, shallow, and fast moving 243 page novel is a 1500 page melancholy, atmospheric, philosophic novel that occasionally reaches the page. Boasting one of literature's most unreliably reliable narrators, this novel could have been a romp exploring the nature of reality, a mystery, a bildungsroman, a fantasy ... all of the above. But instead Clarke packed a spiral mystery inside a linear mystery plot, an infinite memory palace within Battersea.

It had its lyrical moments, but I finished it wanting so much more ....

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by Fbone

Now, it's another freebie, Robot Proletariat: Season One by Sean Platt & Johnny B. Truant. I couldn't finish two other books by these authors but I'll give this one a try.

I made it to page 60 before giving up. Boring. I didn't know robots used such foul language

Next is another freebie, What Fate Portends by Clara Coulson.

[Luffy]

My 5 star review of the best book I've read this year : The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro:-

Spoiler:

Robert A. Caro is the best biographer in the history of the world. That's not hyperbole, that's using GPS to locate the author's credentials. This book is an intellectual tour de force by a tireless researcher who has enough flair to magisterially concoct a view into his subject in astounding details.

This book was written in 4k and beyond. I'm grateful that I had the ripening wherewithal to know about the project that was this biography. The topic was so fascinating that the historical figures look airbrushed in their narration. Such is the color imprinted and injected into the life of greats and lesser participants in this nonfiction book.

I won't urge you to read this. You'll count your blessings if you do. But this is not a romance, not a cozy, not a thriller, not a horror, not a historical mystery. This is what unites us non scholar readers and reading this book makes one an intellectual for the duration of the book. Whether you stay so is up to the life that you lead. I myself, frankly my dear, am not one.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Luffy

My 5 star review of the best book I've read this year : The Path to Power by Robert A. Caro:-

Spoiler:

Robert A. Caro is the best biographer in the history of the world. That's not hyperbole, that's using GPS to locate the author's credentials. This book is an intellectual tour de force by a tireless researcher who has enough flair to magisterially concoct a view into his subject in astounding details.

This book was written in 4k and beyond. I'm grateful that I had the ripening wherewithal to know about the project that was this biography. The topic was so fascinating that the historical figures look airbrushed in their narration. Such is the color imprinted and injected into the life of greats and lesser participants in this nonfiction book.

I won't urge you to read this. You'll count your blessings if you do. But this is not a romance, not a cozy, not a thriller, not a horror, not a historical mystery. This is what unites us non scholar readers and reading this book makes one an intellectual for the duration of the book. Whether you stay so is up to the life that you lead. I myself, frankly my dear, am not one.

I loved his wonderful biography of Robert Moses, but I thought even that long. Are you up for four more LBJ tomes? I look at the opus and I just can’t commit.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by issybird

I loved his wonderful biography of Robert Moses, but I thought even that long. Are you up for four more LBJ tomes? I look at the opus and I just can’t commit.

At the time of writing, three sequels remain. It will take me one year to read each book, what with me moonlighting as a college student in my early 40s. The third one (Master of the Senate) I think, is the only one above 1000 pages. To be honest, I have high expectations from that one particularly.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Luffy

At the time of writing, three sequels remain. It will take me one year to read each book, what with me moonlighting as a college student in my early 40s. The third one (Master of the Senate) I think, is the only one above 1000 pages. To be honest, I have high expectations from that one particularly.

Apparently he’s working on the fifth book, writing almost every day, but there’s no estimated finish date. In January of this year he said he had 600 odd manuscript pages done. However, he’s had to cancel research trips to Vietnam and Texas because of the virus, so no time soon.

I must say you’ve convinced me to give the first one a try; I think my mindset has to be that I’m not committed to the rest of them.

[Luffy]

Originally Posted by issybird

Apparently he’s working on the fifth book, writing almost every day, but there’s no estimated finish date. In January of this year he said he had 600 odd manuscript pages done. However, he’s had to cancel research trips to Vietnam and Texas because of the virus, so no time soon.

I must say you’ve convinced me to give the first one a try; I think my mindset has to be that I’m not committed to the rest of them.

Good call. My handicap is that I've never read the Power Broker, because I couldn't get it for a lower price as an e-book. But my instincts tell me you won't reject book 1.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Luffy

Good call. My handicap is that I've never read the Power Broker, because I couldn't get it for a lower price as an e-book. But my instincts tell me you won't reject book 1.

I ended up listening to Power Broker as an audiobook as it never did become available as an ebook, at least up until that time.*

*Heh. I wanted to verify this and it seems that The Power Broker was released as an ebook one week ago today. Highly recommended.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by issybird

I ended up listening to Power Broker as an audiobook as it never did become available as an ebook, at least up until that time.*

*Heh. I wanted to verify this and it seems that The Power Broker was released as an ebook one week ago today. Highly recommended.

I was so excited to see this title that I didn’t do due diligence. In fact, the book that was released a week ago appears to be a bootleg edition.