Gone Girl, I at first found the parts with Amy incredibly dull, but I'm hooked now. Hoping to finish soon, I got a huge list.
Gone Girl, I at first found the parts with Amy incredibly dull, but I'm hooked now. Hoping to finish soon, I got a huge list.
I finished the new Daniel Silva thriller The Heist today.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
Bob Paisley Biography. Interesting read so far.
Academic Exercises by K.J. Parker, a collection of her short fiction through about 2012, including two World Fantasy Award-winning novellas (the excellent "Let Maps to Others" and "A Small Price to Pay for Birdsong"). Even though it's nominally fantasy, most of the stories feature few to no fantasy elements. The ones with magic are actually the weakest of the bunch. Parker is one of my favorite authors, and her short fiction is really where she shines. She's still incredibly cynical, but she doesn't get quite as nihilistic as in some of her longer pieces.
Magician's Land by Lev Grossman, the third book in his Magicians series. It's all about wrapping up loose ends, and maybe takes that a little too far with the cameos from previous books. Also, there's a line between showing that characters have matured and making them saintly, and I think Magician's Land runs up against it a few times. Still, if you liked the first two, there's a lot to like in the final installment and some previously under-served characters do finally get their little bits of the spotlight.
In the bought-but-haven't-read-yet pile, I have The Causal Angel by Hannu Rajaniemi and Assail by Ian Esslemont.
Still on a bit of a nonfiction kick.
End of illness by David Agus has some interesting ideas on what is wrong with modern medicine but loses a lot of points for not offering many solutions. Plus his naïve claim that medical records should be made public loses him a lot of credibility.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! by Richard P. Feynman is wonderful and surprisingly funny.
Think Like a Freak by the Freakonomics guys is just as good as the other two books and pushed me into their podcast too.
How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker bounces between boring and interesting so often that I just don’t know what to make of it.
Maybe I’ll read something with wizards in it next.
I found in a charity shop a copy of the 1998 "video game and pinball world records" book by Twin Galaxies Arcade score-keeper Walter Day. The best part of the book was the second half which was actually made up of his memoirs, giving hilarious stories about all the people who he has known on the high scorer scene, such as Billy Mitchell and a Japanese boy who kept on playing PacMan while his girlfriend and family were crying and pulling on his legs wanting him to quit. The funniest thing about the book is his Asperger type humour and lack of irony, such as when he gets a record on the game Centipede he says "beautiful women were flocking around me, to speak to me with respect in their voice for the first time"very deadpan.
Also a book called "Planet Narnia and the Seven Heavens" about CS Lewis. The Author believes that CS Lewis wrote each of the Narnia books to fit with one of the seven planets in medieval astrology. For example, Magician's Nephew is a book of Venus being all about life and the birth of
Narnia. And this is shown in clues such as "by Jove" being swearing by Jupiter making Peter (who says that a lot) a Jupiter figure. Very interesting book.
Last edited by tombo; 08-14-2014 at 10:21 AM.
Just finished re-reading...
The Left Hand of Darkness
by Ursula K. Le Guin
To say this book was progressive or ahead of its time does it little justice. Le Guin gives us a fascinating look at an alien culture that examines what makes us human. An envoy from an interplanetary collective called the the Ekumen is sent to a frozen planet populated by a race of ambisexual humans. Through his eyes we get to know this alien race, learning about their customs, their psychology and their unique physiology. While mixed up in the politics of two rival countries his life is threatened and he must journey over the deadly frozen tundra with the only person on this world he has come to trust.
"It is wrong to assume that art needs the spectator in order to be. The film runs on without any eyes. The spectator cannot exist without it. It ensures his existence." -- James Douglas Morrison
I don't usually read short stories but a review convinced me to try Spoilt Brats by Simon Rich. Excellent and I laughed out loud several times. This hardly ever happens.
Currently reading a couple of books in the 33 1/3 series published by Bloomsbury.
Each book is about a famous album (which I like because its not about the Artist / Band like any other biography etc - its just the album really).
My Bloody Valentine's Loveless
Slint's Spiderland
Highly recommend both
Read the Biography of John NAthan Turner over the weekend, not bad but spent too much time on all the bad things about him and the biographer really hates JNTs boyfriend, then moved on to Stories From The Twilight zone by Rod Serling, which oddly includes Fever which has almost no Twilight Zoniness to it at all, now reading Before I go to Sleep before I decide whether or not to see the movie.
Finished the Louise Millar novel The Hidden Girl.
Beth Hart - Fire On The Floor CD Review
Beth Hart February 23rd, 2017 Boston, MA Concert Review
"I can't complain. I got to be Jim Morrison for the first half of my life, and Ward Cleaver for the second half." - Warren Zevon.
Just dipping my feet in the Lee Child Jack Reacher series with The Affair.
i'm currently reading Don Quixote.
So it has been a while.
Book 21 Dorthy Must Die a YA Novel (I read a lot of these) Dorthy comes back to Oz and basicly becomes hitler and reigns supreme till a new girl comes to oz via tornado. The new girl is also from Kanazas and is trained to taking on dorthye and her minions by the order of the wicked.
Book 22 Monument 14 another YA novel about a group of kids ranging from 5 to 18 who are trapped in a walmart esq super store during a most un natural disaster. Warning this has what one might call triggering tendancies as it features a 13 year old girl who is assaulted by an adult male.
Book 23 The Maze Runner. Kids stuck in a Maze try to get out.
I've been reading Game of Thrones for a while, but I'm a really slow reader, and then with school starting back up, I haven't been able to keep up with it.
I'm also reading a thrilling textbook on Constitutional Law and Politics...
Harley Quinn, New Suicide Squad, Grayson, Batgirl, Red Sonja, The Mighty Thor, Catwoman, Bitch Planet, Secret Six, Silk, Descender, Sabrina, Archie, JLA, DC Bombshells, Black Magick, Paper Girls, Tokyo Ghost, Vampirella, Scarlet Witch, A-Force, Extraordinary X-Men, X-Men '92, The Legend of Wonder Woman, All-New Wolverine, Power Rangers, Hellcat, Monstress, Descender