Books: What have you been reading?

[Thursday]

Man In the High Castle by Phillip K. Dick.

PKD is excellent. I'm assuming you read this because of the new Amazon series based on this book. If not then check it out.

I just started AJP Taylor's Origins of the Second World War. I'm about 100 pages in and can already see why the book is so controversial.

[Ragdoll]

I'm powering through Mistborn book 2: The Well Of Ascension today. These books remind me of Avatar: The Last Airbender, with the iron burning being like different types of bending, and them using their powers to bring down a government that isn't even that oppressive. So far, book 2 is shaping up to be better than the first one.

[Ghost Rider TheHellfireDemon]

Serial Killers The Method and The madness of Monsters by Peter Vronsky
This is a true crime book. Son of Sam saying he got his orders from a black dog. No doubt faking being insane to avoid imprisonment.
Not dull at all. There are different defenitions of a serial killer.
I guess like art it is hugely unlikely all people will agree on the same defenition.
Highly disturbing to find out Mary Bell was 11 years old when on seperate occasions she murdered and murdered 2 boys.
If you believe murdering twice on seperate occasions makes a person a serial killer then she is the youngest serial killer.
Very disturbing not just her actions but also her age when she mutiliated and murdered her 2 victims.

[Expletive Deleted]

I'm reading an advance copy of Lois Bujold's latest, Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen. It's set in her usual Vorkosigan setting, three years after Cryoburn, but this brings the focus back to Cordelia and a few of Bujold's favorite themes. She's always been good at inventing a piece of speculative technology and then working out the societal impact, and this time she's taking one of her previous ideas and pushing it even further.

So far, it's more in the low key vein of A Civil Campaign than something more caper- or adventure-oriented, but I'm only a few chapters in.

[Deathstroke]

I finished reading the Janet Evanovich novel Tricky Twenty-Two.

[t hedge coke]

Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl. Freshman coming to terms with a world that doesn't entirely embrace fanfic as legit writing, and people that don't act like characters in superhero movies and YA novels. Funny, sweet, and kinda train-wreck-in-the-distance where you can see things coming, but it's impossible to warn anyone. The difference between the excerpts from her favorite series and excerpts from her fic is well done, striking a balance between being borderline satire of "the real things" and still readable and earnest.

[Kirby101]

Just finished "Joe Golum and the Drowning City" by Mignola and Golden

[Malvolio]

Just started reading Who Stole Feminism? by Christina Hoff Sommers.

[Ragdoll]

I finished the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson, that was amazing. How are the post-trilogy books? And when do they take place in relation to the original Mistborn books? Anyone know?

Then I read Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice, and it was super f-ed up and creepy. I loved it a lot. Anyone know if the sequels are just as good?

I read a new Stephen King and Joe Hill novella called In The Tall Grass, which was top notch stuff. It genuinely spooked me, and needs to be adapted into a movie ASAP.

Now reading Orson Scott Card's Gatefather, the final book in his Mithermages trilogy. The first two books were really good, so I am excited for this.

I also just read the third book of Orson Scott Card's Pathfinder trilogy, it got really complicated and less fun but still had a decent enough conclusion.

All this in the last few days. The beauty of having a job where you can listen to audiobooks all day while you work.

[Malvolio]

So Stephen King and Joe Hill wrote a novella together? Nice to see a father and son working together.

And some of the Anne Rice LeStat sequels are good. The Vampire LeStat and The Vampire Armand are the two best, I think.

[Deathstroke]

I finished reading the Lorna Barrett mystery novel Murder on the Half Shelf last night.

[Ragdoll]

So Stephen King and Joe Hill wrote a novella together? Nice to see a father and son working together.

They've done a few collabos before, on a comic book and a short story or two. Joe Hill hit the biological jackpot, most other writers would literally kill to get to work with King. King rarely works with other writers, Peter Straub previously being the one major exception to that rule.

[Photon Torme]

Just finished Watchers by Dean Koontz. Have a few stories left in SK's Bazar of Bad dreams

[t hedge coke]

Then I read Interview With A Vampire by Anne Rice, and it was super f-ed up and creepy. I loved it a lot. Anyone know if the sequels are just as good?

To varying degrees. She gets big into world-building and a mythos for the next few books, then does kind of one-off ghost stories, biographies, or theme novels. There was just a new one about a year ago.

When I was a teen/early 20s, I really loved the early books and less so the then-new ones, but now I'm the opposite to some degree. Just be prepared for everyone, including 21st Century teenage boys, to use out of date, but gothicky and romantic language.

[Ragdoll]

Thanks to everyone with the Anne Rice info, it's all good stuff to know before going forward with the franchise.
I was never into vampires before, but the show American Horror Story: Hotel motivated me to look into well done vampire tales. Are there any other classics I should check out? I've already read 'Salems Lot and watched Buffy The Vampire Slayer. I do not want to read Twilight. I'm thinking of reading the original Dracula novel by Bram Stoker.

Just finished Watchers by Dean Koontz. Have a few stories left in SK's Bazar of Bad dreams

How was Watchers? I have that on my queue of books to get to and was thinking of getting to it before 2015 ends.
Also, Bazaar Of Bad Dreams was amazing. My favorite story was The Bad Little Kid.