Books: What have you been reading?

[Old Man Ollie 1962]

The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander

[Deathstroke]

Is that any good? Just that I've ordered it for my wife as a surprise.

It was OK. But it wasn't my favorite of the series.

[John Ossie]

It was OK. But it wasn't my favorite of the series.

Fair enough. My wife loves mystery books so hopefully she'll enjoy this one.

[Ragdoll]

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice.
That feel when I'll never form a vampire harem and have century spanning romances.
I never liked vampire stuff before, it's usually corny, but Rice has such a poetry to her words that this book blew me away.

[JediMindTrick]

Listening to Stephen King's It. I read it decades ago and its amazing how much I'd forgotten beyond the pre teen sewer gangbang which I found so repulsive that I never read it again despite liking it up to that point. I'm slowly doing a re-listen to the entirety of King's works so I decided to give It another shot. By slowly I'm saying over the course of several years and not completely back to back.

[Ragdoll]

Almost done with Gravity's Rainbow. This book is probably the toughest, most complex, high level book I've ever undertaken. It makes my brain hurt, but I've been using a few readers guides to get through it and I am almost there, after a year + of working on it.

the pre teen sewer gangbang which I found so repulsive that I never read it again despite liking it up to that point

hahaha when I first read that book, I had already seen the movie and was completely caught off guard by that part. Like wtf? King is a god damned pervert. Funny how nothing like that has happened in his books since then. People must have unanimously called him a pedophile after that and he got the hint to drop the kid sex scenes.

I'm slowly doing a re-listen to the entirety of King's works

Nice. I am almost finished giving all his books my first read through, I only have like 3 or 4 books of his left, like Gerald's Game and Desperation. I've been taking my time incase he dies suddenly so I still have one left to save for a rainy day.

[Deathstroke]

I finished the Linda Castillo thriller Breaking Silence.

[JediMindTrick]

Nice. I am almost finished giving all his books my first read through, I only have like 3 or 4 books of his left, like Gerald's Game and Desperation. I've been taking my time incase he dies suddenly so I still have one left to save for a rainy day.

You have to do Desperation and The Regulators back to back (he wrote one of them as Richard Bachmann). They are extremely interconnected in ways that you'll understand once you read them. Its all the same characters but different. If you've read The Regulators then Desperation is sort of an alt world story of what happened in Nevada and how TAK came to be but many of the characters who appeared in The Regulators appear in Nevada as different versions of themselves. So I suppose its probably best to read The Regulators first. That obviously makes no sense to you if haven't gotten to the Regulators yet.

The cool thing about a re-read through is all the connections you pick up that meant nothing to you the first time. Probably 3/4's of his books connect to the Dark Tower in some way, even if very minor. In others, a certain minor character will show up in another book . . . for instance a character in both Desperation and The Regulators (one version of her anyway) appears as a major supporting character in Rose Madder even though Rose Madder is a much different type book than the former two.

[JediMindTrick]

So out of curiosity, who is everyone's favorite authors. My top 5 all are modern era authors as I just struggle to get into most stuff before the 20th century. I also definitely favor genre stuff over real life stuff.

In no order:

Robert Jordan - I'm a Wheel of Time fanatic having either read or listened to the entire series at least five times now except the last few books since some of my re-reads / listens came before they were done.

Brandon Sanderson - Had never heard of him til he got the gig to finish the Wheel of Time but I started reading him to see if the WoT was in good hands and was very impressed. He's starting to become somewhat formulaic in terms of characters in that all his female characters feel like the same character but I love his imagination and the fact he's the anti George RR Martin in terms of writing speed.

Harlan Coben - My job enables me to listen to audio books while working and I've passed many a shift with his books and he's pretty much the only author who makes me wish my shift wasn't ending because I don't want to stop listening. He is the epitome of a page turner author who just begs you to read one more chapter over and over and over. His biggest triumph though is taking a concept that shouldn't work, a sports agent who solves crimes, and makes it work fabulously throughout his Myron Bolitar books.

Stephen King - My first ever King story was a short story about a monster in the closet who killed people. I think I was 10 and it scared me to death and gave me nightmares. I was an extremely prolific reader as a child and by age 10 I'd long moved past typical stuff for my age. Though his short story had scared the hell out of me I moved on to books like The Stand, The Shining, and other stuff he'd written by the early 80's.

Dan Simmons - He's obviously the least known on my list though he did write the Hugo winning book Hyperion about 25 years ago which is probably his best known work. He is an amazing writer who has hamstrung himself in terms of popularity by refusing to stick to a particular genre. Sometimes he writes horror where he's won major awards, then he writes sci fi where he wins awards, then he writes noir crime fiction where he's won awards, then he writes historical fiction, then regular drama, then back to sci fi.

[Ragdoll]

Top 5 writers?
1. HP Lovecraft: The man is a mad prophet. I know he's a racist a-hole, don't even care.
2. Stephen King: The only thing keeping him from reaching #1 like Lovecraft is that King doesn't actually believe what he is writing. I don;t actually believe in Lovecraft demons either, but the fact that Lovecraft actually did believe in it all makes his writing so much more passionate. King is who Lovecraft would have been if he had some tethers to reality besides his mom.
3. Ray Bradbury: Dude is more poet than novelist, and his stories just melt in your mouth.
4. Orson Scott Card: I feel bad that this is the second bigot on my list LOL. Not a racist like Lovecraft, but very homophobic. But damn, he can write. If being super religious and a Mitt Romney level Mormon is a mental illness, he has the same insanity plea as Lovecraft to excuse his offensive beliefs. For the Brandon Sanderson fans, Brand Sand is also Mormon and buddies with OSC, but if Sanderson shares Card's beliefs, he keeps it to himself. In some Sanderson books, I think I've seen him subtly mock Card for being homophobic actually, and chuckled.
5. The guy who write Confederacy Of Dunces and then killed himself.

If you've read The Regulators then Desperation is sort of an alt world story of what happened in Nevada and how TAK came to be but many of the characters who appeared in The Regulators appear in Nevada as different versions of themselves.
The cool thing about a re-read through is all the connections you pick up that meant nothing to you the first time. Probably 3/4's of his books connect to the Dark Tower in some way, even if very minor.

Yeah, I read Regulators back in the day, and always knew it was connected to Desperation, just not the specifics of how.
I do love the Stephen King universe being so connected. I see you're a Brand Sand fan, have you been trying to follow his greater Cosmere? I've been trying to get into it, and it is so damn confusing the way each series relates to the others. I'm hoping it will make sense soon, but I think I need to read literally everything Sanderson has ever written to finally wrap my head around it.

[JediMindTrick]

I see you're a Brand Sand fan, have you been trying to follow his greater Cosmere? I've been trying to get into it, and it is so damn confusing the way each series relates to the others. I'm hoping it will make sense soon, but I think I need to read literally everything Sanderson has ever written to finally wrap my head around it.

Right now the connections are fairly minor and about half of his books don't connect at all. There is one character, Hoid, who has appeared in some fashion in many of his books.

We are so early in his Cosmere that its not really supposed to make sense. His Way of Kings series is the main Cosmere series and there are only two books out of a planned ten done so far.

[Squirrelfart]

Plato: Metaphysics

[t hedge coke]

Rereading Camilla Chafer's Armed and Fabulous as a favor to a friend. The name of the series' protagonist, Lexi Graves, will never cease to amuse me.

[Hiromi]

Just finished The Last Mortal Bond, by Brian Staveley, last in the Unhewn Throne trilogy.

Loved it, but it can be a chore to listen to or read, author can go on tangents during tense scenes to the point where you're like God in Monty Python and the Holy Grail in yelling GET ON WITH IT

That said awesome world building, great overarching storylines(there's up to 3-4 simultaneous threads going at any given time), great characters, and dear God is it long, the trilogy is 82 hours long sooo it's a good bang for the buck investment

[Ragdoll]

The Wheel Of Time #2: The Great Hunt
This book is a lot of fun. I have meant to read this series for a long time now, and it is living up to the hype. I'm spending the weekend smoking weed and getting insanely immersed in this magically weaved world. I feel like a kid reading Lord Of The Rings for the first time, going off on a magic quest and becoming best friends with wizards and trolls and elves. Luckily there are way more than 3 books.

I also listened to the audiobook of Joe Ledger: Patient Zero by Jonathan Maberry. It was alright. The guy is a pretty hacky writer but he keeps me entertained while working. Coincidentally, my friend got out of jail the day after I finished it and one of the first things he said was, "Have you ever read any Joe Ledger? They had a bunch of books about him in jail". LOL this dude pretty much only reads books when he goes to jail, which seems to happen for short spurts once a year. Last year, he read all 5 Game Of Thrones books in jail haha, it's good that jail promotes literacy.