What book(s) are you reading right now?

[blankslate]

Can anyone recommend some good children/teen books?

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker. Who would've thought eh?


Right now I'm reading "A Song of Shadows" by John Connolly.

13th in a series that begins with "Every Dead Thing"

I read my first book in this detective / crime thriller series by specifically looking for something outside of my normal sci-fi or fantasy reads. Turns out the series has elements of the supernatural peppered throughout in various degrees. It's a good series, though.


....

 

[SlitheryDee]

"The Gripping Hand" by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. Second book in the mote series. The first one is "The Mote in God's Eye", which I read last month.

I've listened to the audiobook form of this series before, but I was pretty dissatisfied with the actor's performance and had the urge to read the print edition. I'm glad I did, because I'm picking up on a lot of stuff I missed the first time around.

I didn't always feel this way, but I'm gradually coming to the conclusion that most Science Fiction authors aren't very good writers. That's not to say that the books themselves aren't fascinating or that sci fi isn't by far my favorite genre. They just seems poorly executed in terms of character development and the simple eloquence of prose. Characters are either shameless caricatures of common archetypes, or unfeeling mouthpieces for whatever information the author needed to convey at the time. I don't really care about any of them and have no sense of who most of them are aside from the few who fit into a stereotypical character model, which amounts to little more than "brash ladies' man #1, or "independent strong female #3".

Furthermore the descriptions of commonplace environments and events are just plain cold feeling. I never have a real sense of the places things are happening in. Unimportant details and massive, world changing historical events are sometimes described in the same inflection as though one has no greater importance than the other. I find myself rereading passages because something was said that completely rocked me, but neither the author nor the characters in the story seemed to give it the appropriate amount of consideration.

The authors make up for all this in the only way they can, by regaling you with interesting concepts and well developed technical ideas. That generally turns out to be enough for me because the big ideas were what drew me to sci fi in the first place. It's interesting to me to suddenly have this new perspective on the genre though.

 

[Muse]

Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer here is very up front concerning his self-image, thoughts concerning his role in all this. I'm less than 100 pages into this ~385 pager. Krakauer is extremely eloquent, on top of being economical with words. He stretches my vocabulary (nice to have a touch Kindle for this one).

The Martian

Finished a week ago or so, bought the Kindle version but read most of it off the hardcover. It has really inspired me to be more adventurous especially with my equipment issues. I'm a DIY kind of guy, but the protagonist here sets a new standard for that!!! A couple weeks ago I bought a "for parts or repair" item off ebay and fixed it to be AFAIK as new.

BTW, I read around 1/2 of a very luke warm review for the movie in the S.F. Chronicle from the last few days. If you've seen it and read the book, what do you think of the movie?

 

[dainthomas]

Into Thin Air

Jon Krakauer here is very up front concerning his self-image, thoughts concerning his role in all this. I'm less than 100 pages into this ~385 pager. Krakauer is extremely eloquent, on top of being economical with words. He stretches my vocabulary (nice to have a touch Kindle for this one).

Loved that book, I could barely put it down. I've been meaning to pick up some of his other ones.

 

[Kaido]

Loved that book, I could barely put it down. I've been meaning to pick up some of his other ones.

Yeah, I read the whole thing on an airplane. Makes me want to see that new Everest movie!

 

[cbrunny]

Just finished The Martian and Seveneves. Now onto Old Man's War and RedShirts.

Yes, I listen to Tested.com podcasts.

 

[IronWing]

I started on The Genesis of Science: How the Christian Middle Ages Launched the Scientific Revolution by James Hannam based on recommendations in another thread. The book was originally published as God's Philosophers. So far it's okay but the author is rather strident in his arguments.

I finally finished the book. Given that modern science did first develop in Christian Europe it would seem to be a slam dunk that the roots of science might be found in medieval Christian philosophy. Yet the author came up with what I can only describe as a "science of the gaps" where scientific thought is conjectured to exist in the nooks and crannies of philosophies not specifically censured. The author gets lost in Catholic apologetics and is unconvincing in his arguments concerning the origins of scientific thought.

A minor gripe: In the preface the author takes Charles Freeman to task for his writings on early Christianity and the death of the Greek intellectual tradition but then skips the whole period about which Freeman had written, offering no refutation of Freeman's work. The jab seems pointless.

 

[thedarkwolf]

Clovenhoof by Heide Goody and Ian Grant
Just finished it last night and really enjoyed it. Basic plot is Satan is fired for not doing an efficient enough job running Hell and is forcibly retired to a flat in England without any of his powers. Fun fish out of water book. Went a head and bought the second book in the series.

 

[norseamd]

I finally finished the book. Given that modern science did first develop in Christian Europe it would seem to be a slam dunk that the roots of science might be found in medieval Christian philosophy. Yet the author came up with what I can only describe as a "science of the gaps" where scientific thought is conjectured to exist in the nooks and crannies of philosophies not specifically censured. The author gets lost in Catholic apologetics and is unconvincing in his arguments concerning the origins of scientific thought.

A minor gripe: In the preface the author takes Charles Freeman to task for his writings on early Christianity and the death of the Greek intellectual tradition but then skips the whole period about which Freeman had written, offering no refutation of Freeman's work. The jab seems pointless.

"Modern Science" originates in Medieval Europe because we are a European civilization and thus naturally we are adhering to beliefs and philosophies that were from previous Europeans. Not to mention the fact that this "Medieval European science" was actually originating in Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian philosophy. Or also not mentioning the huge contributions to Medieval and Renaissance European philosophy from Arabic and Indian philosophy.

Are they supposing that Indian and Chinese sciences and philosophies are fundamentally originating in European civilization?

 

[John Connor]

Spy Secrets That Can Save Your Life by Jason Hanson.

 

[clamum]

I've read it once before, but I just re-read JUMP COMMANDER: In Combat with the 505th and 508th Parachute Infantry Regiments, 82nd Airborne Division in World War II by Mark Alexander and John Sparry. Pretty good memoir of a paratroop battalion commander during North Africa, Sicily, Italy, and Normandy.

 

[pyonir]

A few days ago finished an indie trilogy called "The Northern Star" by Mike Gullickson. I think a lot of guys here would like it. It's a military/cyberpunk/dystopian story. It's kind of like an action movie really. Fun read.

Right now reading an ARC copy of "To Hell and Back: Europe 1914-1949" by Ian Kershaw. Only about a quarter of the way into it, but it's really just an overview of the history of Europe during this time. A lot of content, but not much depth. Which is actually fine with me.

 

[IronWing]

The Last Legends of Earth - A.A. Attanasio

I liked the author's Arthurian series. This book is straight sci-fi, so far, so good.

Just finished In Other Worlds by the same author. This is a short sci-fi novel set in the same universe but with all different characters. Pretty good pulp sci-fi. I seem to be reading the series in reverse order as I find the books in used book stores.

 

[Black Octagon]

The Demon Cycle by Peter Brett (fantasy, good)

 

[JujuFish]

I've been reading The Martian by Andy Weir, and Seveneves by Neal Stephenson. I'm almost through both of them. I'll probably finish them tomorrow.

Definitely enjoying The Martian.

Can't say the same for Seveneves. There's a lot that I do like about it, but every once in a while something happens that makes me roll my eyes, and it gets particularly bad about 2/3rds into the book.

There are also several passages that are utterly pointless to the plot development and are just boring and unnecessarily long descriptions of irrelevant things. I don't know if this is Stephenson being defensive about his ideas (and trying to explain why they work or don't work), or he's just showing off the research he did for the novel. I also don't know if this is a signature of his, because this is my first Stephenson book. Regardless, it's really annoying. Plenty of good ideas ruined by execution.

 

[Spacehead]

Felt like i needed to start reading again. I used to read a lot when i worked 2nd shift years ago.
Anyway, i'm on "The Book of Skulls" by Robert Silverberg. I've read it before but i liked it so i'm starting there & it's not too long.

 

[Muse]

Definitely enjoying The Martian.

I finished it a few weeks ago. It inspired me to be more adventurous in my tech life. Hey, I can fix it is my attitude. Of course, The Martian is fiction, but for scifi it comes off as very grounded in real modern science. Thus, it's true to the mission of scifi to extend what we now know into the foreseeable future. The book was to me humbling. I've had aspirations to write scifi but I know I am utterly incapable of writing anything like The Martian.

I finished "Into Thin Air" a week or so ago. My subscription ran out yesterday morning. I was actually reading it (I was somewhat obsessed by it) at 5:30AM when a message popped up saying my library loan had expired! Into Thin Air! What irony!

Krakauer really impresses sometimes. Some of his sentences are exemplary in being simple, straightforward, concise and yet say so much! IOW, even for a professional writer he's exceptionally eloquent.

I'm starting to read "Attitude is Everything" by Jeff Keller.

Read an article in the paper yesterday about American Pharoah who will be running in the Breeder's Cup Classic soon. If you haven't read it, Seabiscuit is really good. I couldn't put it down, and I'm a guy who rarely has trouble putting down a book! It's that good. It's also about a highly exceptional horse who won the triple crown. In that day, horse racing was huge in America.

 

[clamum]

Currently reading "The Rise of Germany, 1939-1941: The War in the West Vol. 1." Not quite halfway through the book and it's quite good so far.

On Audible, in my car sometimes, I'm listening to "33 Strategies of War." It's actually kind of a set of principles that are more intended to be applied to real life (i.e. in the business world) but taken from historical or military examples and people. I was assuming it would be more historical-military focused but I'm liking it enough so far.

 

[clamum]

Finished "Rise of Germany, 1939-1941." It was good. It ends just as Barbarossa launches; I need to see if there's a second volume.

I'm now reading Beasts of No Nation after watching it on Netflix. It'll be good if it's even half as good as the movie. In my mind I'm reading the book in the main character's voice from the movie, lol, due to seeing the movie and the writing style in the book.

 

[IronWing]

Just finished Relativity by Einstein. I thought I had read it years ago but Einstein must have written another book for the popular market as this one was less involved. Maybe the other book was The Meaning of Relativity.

 

[K7SN]

The End of Doom; Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century by Ronald Bailey. An insightful look at the Gloom and Doom of the environmental message from the Neo-Malthusians of 1970s; the running out of everything of the 80s, the reality of the precautionary principle; better safe than sorry becomes sorry we were so safe; examines and challenges the cancer epidemic; discusses genetically modified food and unwarranted fears; looks objectively at Climate Change and addresses the resilience of nature in the light of real resource and not the gloom of mass extinction of species, The author leans heavy on man's ingenuity and ability to overcome with science; sustain with simple economics of capitalism and points out those zealots that play fast and loose with the reality of actuals facts. It is a book which should be read by the left and right; It should be read by anyone who makes decisions, if nothing else than to reenergize one's cognitive abilities. The book makes you think and perhaps reevaluate "sky is falling" mentality of the last 50 years.

Not that individuals will abandon their treasured paranoia(s); the book will have its detractors but this well-referenced book will make denial more difficult.

 

[clamum]

The End of Doom; Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century by Ronald Bailey. An insightful look at the Gloom and Doom of the environmental message from the Neo-Malthusians of 1970s; the running out of everything of the 80s, the reality of the precautionary principle; better safe than sorry becomes sorry we were so safe; examines and challenges the cancer epidemic; discusses genetically modified food and unwarranted fears; looks objectively at Climate Change and addresses the resilience of nature in the light of real resource and not the gloom of mass extinction of species, The author leans heavy on man's ingenuity and ability to overcome with science; sustain with simple economics of capitalism and points out those zealots that play fast and loose with the reality of actuals facts. It is a book which should be read by the left and right; It should be read by anyone who makes decisions, if nothing else than to reenergize one's cognitive abilities. The book makes you think and perhaps reevaluate "sky is falling" mentality of the last 50 years.

Not that individuals will abandon their treasured paranoia(s); the book will have its detractors but this well-referenced book will make denial more difficult.

Hmm, sounds interesting. I think I'll make it my next read. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Muse]

Clothes, Clothes, Clothes. Music, Music, Music. Boys, Boys, Boys.: A Memoir by Viv Albertine

I'm almost 1/2 way on library checkout. If you are into the modern pop music scene, well, since 1975, even 1963. Her family moved from Australia to London when she was 4. She knew (still knows!) all the punk pioneers and many other famous musicians and artists personally, was (and in many ways, still is) at the center of the scene. I'm not into clothes like she was, but I can dig everything else. The clothes, well, you can think of that as a defense mechanism. It was a wild scene.

Edit 11/9/15: I'm ~80% done now. I can hardly over-recommend this. There are surprises along the way, it has not stagnated. Viv Albertine uses a compact means of expression that I think is uniquely British but I have never seen it done nearly as well. Again and again I see terms (or words used in contexts) I've never seen before but the meaning is always clear to me and the effect is splendid. My sense of it is that the British (as represented by the author here, anyway) are very well grounded and economical in their means of expression in English. As well, I marvel again and again at the quaint names for geographical features, street names, towns, or anything, really.

 

[clamum]

Finished Beasts of No Nation by Uzodinma Iweala. As expected, it was excellent. I think I liked it better than the movie, actually. What a great piece of work.

Now I'm on to The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty First Century, as mentioned by K7SN above.

 

[werepossum]

Just finished Charles B. MacDonald's "A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge". It's pretty damned good, although having just re-read Hugh Cole's excellent "The Ardennes - Battle of the Bulge" there wasn't actually anything left to be told. Now I'm reading "The Very Best of Charles de Lint", which is excellent although not quite up to "Someplace to be Flying". From brutal military history to contemporary social conscience urban fantasy is an excellent transition though. The similarities of juxtaposing the very best of humanity against the very worst of humanity are amazing.