What are you reading now?

Gary said:

That's one of the few conspiracy theories I buy.  I have heard too many accounts from people that all saw pretty much the same thing. 

Unrelated TWA story this post brought back.  My Dad helped run a Royal Ranger troop, like Christian boy scouts, and was always looking for cheap supplies for camping trips.  We were at a flea market and someone had a ton of TWA flatware cheap.  We picked up pretty much a lifetime supply of silverware stamped with the TWA logo.  A little while after Flight 800 crashed, probably 5 miles from where they're camping, I'm helping him set up a campsite and one of the dads asks him where he got all the forks.  Without missing a beat my dad says "It's been washing up on the beach for months"

Currently reading Bowl Of Heaven by Greg Benford and Larry Niven.

Kind of a retake on Niven's retake on Dyson's idea of a Ringworld.

Not bad so far (about 50% in) but it is more Benford than Niven. I'm struggling to really care about any of the characters.

Currently half way through "An Immense World" by Ed Young.  Amazing book about how animals experience the world.  Every page is fascinating.  Young makes complex biological science understandable to laymen.

Unix: A History and a Memoir by Brian Kernighan.

I'm finding the Bell Labs history very interesting. An institution with a long view on research.

I saw bits of a trailer for a movie coming out called "Operation Napoleon", so I borrowed it from the library and read it. 

That's a few hours I'll never get back...

But I did re-read "Operation Hail Mary" again.  That was good.

<jazz hands>

I’m still reading my Arthur C. Clarke collection of short stories. Last night I read Hate, which is rather timely. 

It's an old book, but the topic and the writer are phenomenal. Great nostalgia. This is easily one of the best novels I've read. I'll read it again some day. And I'll read more by this author. (In fact, I've already bought "Once an Eagle" ... all 1200 pages).

Read these two recently, the Mickey Thompson book is really good but I can't tell if it's full of over sensationalism or if he really was larger than life.

And this one I found at a library book sale in Iowa twenty years ago

Currently reading JSA Corey's Nemesis Games, book 5 (?) in the Expanse series.

Comfortable, quality filler.  Straightforward enough for light reading; nuanced enough to stay interesting.

Just started the last of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels after having started with the first one and worked my way through the series...  I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish it.  :(

stroker said:

Just started the last of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels after having started with the first one and worked my way through the series...  I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish it.  :(

 

Start over from the top? I've done it a few times lol

chandler said:

stroker said:

Just started the last of the Elvis Cole/Joe Pike novels after having started with the first one and worked my way through the series...  I don't know what I'm going to do when I finish it.  :(

 

Start over from the top? I've done it a few times lol

I'd like to find something comparable and do that instead.  Perhaps the "Reacher" novels...  I'm open to suggestions.

In reply to stroker :

I've read half a dozen of the Reacher novels, mostly early ones.  They're solidly entertaining if you don't pay too much attention to the technical details that Childs doesn't quite get right but can't resist putting in.  But generally decent reads - no real complaints.

On an only tangentially-related note, Tom Cruise did a surprisingly decent job with the character, given how different physically he is from the book character.

I finished my thousand-page tome of Arthur C. Clarke short stories. I enjoyed it, especially since they’re presented in chronological order. A few stories kept me up, so I should go back and reread them. 

And I think Alex Skolnick’s autobiography will be next as it’s been on the shelf for a few. 

I guess I did this when I got the book–left myself the perfect bookmark for this one. 

I'm currently reading Buddhism Without Beliefs after having recently finished 10% Happier. Meditation is tough but so worth it.

I'm currently absorbing and applying Musashi's Book of Five Rings.

Night Angel Nemesis, Brent Weeks. Can't start with this without reading the previous books. Pretty good so far.

The Percy Jackson books with my 8 yo son. Harry Potter-esque series of books for kids.

And "JFK and The Unspeakable"...RFK Jr mentioned it was the most accurate account of his uncle's assassination. I am giving the accounts a bit of healthy skepticism but if half of it is accurate, its makes the CIA look really bad in terms of acting independently with no checks or balances whatsoever. Also a bit of a history lesson.

chandler said:

Can't start with this without reading the previous books.

And that, in a nutshell, is a lot of the problem with modern fiction - particularly in the sf / fantasy arena.

I understand that series are moneymakers, but they can also stifle creativity in authors and limit accessibility for readers.

I want to be able to walk into my library and pick a random interesting book to read out of the genre section.  If I do that nowadays, I find out it is #5 in whatever series.  I'm not really interested in starting another series every time I pick up a book to try.

Duke said:

chandler said:

Can't start with this without reading the previous books.

And that, in a nutshell, is a lot of the problem with modern fiction - particularly in the sf / fantasy arena.

I understand that series are moneymakers, but they can also stifle creativity in authors and limit accessibility for readers.

I want to be able to walk into my library and pick a random interesting book to read out of the genre section.  If I do that nowadays, I find out it is #5 in whatever series.  I'm not really interested in starting another series every time I pick up a book to try.

 

It's been years since I read the others and I've been lost quite a bit. So, truth.

I'm timesharing between Patrick Rothfuss

and the Oppenheimer biography "American Prometheus". Eclectic choices I know but a couple of Oppenheimer chapters at a time is enough.

Just started one of Richard Stark's "Parker"  novels.  Apparently there are a LOT of them over the decades. 

Torpedo Eight was the unfortunate squadron that made the first "FUBAR" sortie on the Japanese fleet in the Battle of Midway. It was nearly a total wipeout due to confusion and human error. But Torpedo Eight went on to much better results at Guadalcanal a couple months later. This is a superb account of US Navy airmen during the early months of WWII.