Read any good books lately?

[Deleted]

I'm a big non-fiction guy, I enjoyed the humor as well as the history and scientific facts from the following.

Brief Histories of Everyday Objects by Andy Warner

What If?: Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions by Randall Munroe

What are you currently reading?

[MiLB Fan]

I'm reading Bruce Springsteen's autobiography, Born to Run.

[Ultimo Gallos]

Re-reading Full Dark No Stars by Stephen King.Almost done with the first novella.

[eDemento2099]

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

[Limity (BLM)]

Feb 13, 2017 6:58:51 GMT -5 eDemento2099 said:

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein and Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers.

Yes! Starship Troopers never gets enough attention.

I'm in the middle of The Broker, by John Grisham. Along with smoking a pipe and drinking ginger beer, I have apparently become my grandfather.

[Duke Cameron]

[Bo Rida]

Brave New World. Seems I'm part of a trend as dystopian fiction has seen a surge in sales lately.

Anyway it was great, 1984 is one of favourite books and the two are fun to compare and contrast. I don't think the story was as strong but in many ways Huxley's view of where society was heading seems more accurate.

[StuntGranny®]

Funny enough, I just finished Starship Troopers. I hated almost everything about it. Parts of it seemed to be thinly veiled political rambling by Robert Heinlein and some parts felt like I was reading fascist propaganda. Maybe I just read too much into it, but yeah, I did not care for it. I had just finished Strangers in a Strange Land by Heinlein and enjoyed it. So I was really disappointed by Starship Troopers. For me, it's a rare case where the movie is much better than the book.

Now I'm reading Catalyst by James Luceno. It's pretty good so far. I think Galen and Krennic are written better/much more interesting in this story than they were in Rogue One. Without giving too much away, they have a history together that is revealed in this book. Why it wasn't mentioned in the movie, I have no idea.

[SmashTV]

I've recently finished Bryan Cranston's autobiography and the Alan Partridge 'travel diary' Nomad. Both were Christmas presents, both are recommended.

[Raskovnik]

I can't ever just stick with one book, I've got different books for different places, which is why I'm always juggling a few. One I read at school, one at home, one on the bus or train, etc.

I picked up John Darnielle's newest book Universal Harvester the day it came out after he made a fan out of me with Wolf in White Van, which I'd place somewhere in my top 15 favorites, ever. It's dirt cheap for a Kindle copy too if you guys are interested. However, Universal Harvester is kind of a depressing slog, wonderful as the prose is. To its credit, it's intentional, it just hits on some triggers for me. I wanted a horror novel, and it certainly brings that to the table, but I didn't want any of this baggage!

In addition to that, I'm reading book 2 of The Expanse series, whatever it's called. I liked the first one more than this one so far but it's still readable. Had it strongly recommended to me by a fan and I wanted a new series to read. I can do one science fiction and one fantasy series at at time. For the fantasy side, I'm about halfway done with House of Chains, the fourth book in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series. Strongly recommended for anyone who wants something with excellent world building and a truly epic scope with awesome characterization. I love how there are no main characters. Seriously, no main characters. Although, as a downside of that, I rarely get to hear from my boy Toc the Younger, and since there are dozens of POV characters who share the screen time roughly equally it can kind of be hard to get into some people and even when you're spending time with a favorite you're just touching bases with them before you're whisked away to a different part of the world. I love that overall though.


Other than those, I'm currently reading Kobo Abe's Kangaroo Notebook, as he's pretty much my favorite Japanese author and I haven't gotten around to this one yet. It's a bit too out there even for me though. Secret Rendezvous was the perfect amount of insanity, this is absurd to the point that it's almost word salad.

[Deleted]

I'm about to start Bram Stoker's Dracula, just got it!

[Red Impact]

My current favorite author is Frederik Backman, in particular A Man Called Ove and My Grandmother Asked Me To Tell You She's Sorry

[bibboid]

I am reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban with one of my sons. For myself, I am going through Isaac Asimov's Robots and Empire which I haven't read in about twenty years.

[wakko]

I need a good Stephen King style horror/thriller book to read. I love his stuff.

On topic though, the last book I read was one of the Alex Cross novels.

[celticjobber]

I finished the Tiny Tim bio "Eternal Troubadour" recently.

It's a great book, and explains a lot about how Tim was such a weird guy and it wasn't all just an act. And how he was very naive and would sign contracts with crooked managers on a whim.

But at points it seemed like the author was a bit biased against Tim's second wife. My guess is it's because she wouldn't grant any interviews like Tim's other wives.

[ayumidah]

I'm currently reading Jimmy Korderas' autobiography but before that, I read Kings of Cool and reread Savages. My God, Don Winslow's writing style is so much fun. I'm always so envious of it.

[Limity (BLM)]

Feb 13, 2017 12:38:10 GMT -5 StuntGranny® said:

Funny enough, I just finished Starship Troopers. I hated almost everything about it. Parts of it seemed to be thinly veiled political rambling by Robert Heinlein and some parts felt like I was reading fascist propaganda. Maybe I just read too much into it, but yeah, I did not care for it.

Not to derail the thread, but can you elaborate on what you hated? And what parts seemed like fascist propaganda?

[Ryback on a Pole!]

Philip Reeve's Mortal Engines series. I've read it before but I love it, it's so creative and got a great world. It's basically set in a world where cities have been built so they move around on huge-ass caterpillar tracks and wheels fighting each other.

What I like about it is that neither of the sides in the main conflict are actually "good" which is refreshing in a YA novel where things are usually black and white. The Green Storm have noble aims but are basically environmental terrorists who target civilians, use kamikaze attacks, enslave capties and experiment with resurrecting dead soldiers. The Traktionstadt are destroying the world with their cities, use slaves, break peace treaties and in many ways are just as bad as the Green Storm.

It's a really good series.

[Renslayer]

Read Ghettoside a while back & it's incredible. Making my way through Purple Hibiscus & enjoying it so far.

[Rhody Codes]

This sci-fi novel called Beyond the Red, written by Ava Jae, who's actually become a good friend of mine on Twitter.