What are you reading?
- Thread starter RedBlooded
- Start date
Yeah I enjoyed that one too. I just read his book about taking a flatboat down the Mississippi. Very engaging. Wish I could persuade my kids to do that with me. Sounds like a great family project.
I got my hands on a copy a couple months ago. I thought the Oregon Trail book was better, but I really enjoyed that one in audio form and I read this new book in physical book format, so it's not exactly apples-to-apples. I also thought the stretch of the book from when they actually hit the Mississippi to the completion of the trip felt rushed compared to the rest of the book. But it was good, and well worth reading.
Literally just looked this up and ordered it! Southern Iowa Homies unite!
Centerville:: A Mid-American Saga - Enfys McMurry: 9781609496647 - AbeBooks
From the moment that the surveyor set down his tools in 1846 to the instant that the Flying Farmers crossed the sky at the centennial celebration, the history of Centerville, Iowa, has gifted us with a unique insight into the mid-American experience. Though the population never exceeded 8,600, ...
www.abebooks.com
Finished "Guns, Germs, and Steel" this weekend. It's compared to "Sapiens" often but IMO they're quite different, and two completely different writing styles. GGS is a bit drier, more straight-forward, more detailed. Wish there was a more recent edition/update - published in 1998, I think.
I read most of King’s books 5-10 years ago but finally got around to 11/22/63 this year. Great concept and story.
Reading the Invisible Library fantasy series, multi dimensional book thieves and dragons and steampunk.
My opinion on King is that he was a better terror writer when he was writing with a pile of coke next to the typewriter.
Malcolm Gladwell's "Talking to Strangers" which explores the reasons why human beings are so easily duped, using specific case studies, such as the story of Ana Montes, a Cuban spy who worked for the U.S. State Department for decades without anyone suspecting, and how Bernie Madoff was able to dupe so many people, all of whom should have known better.
Gladwell is a great writer, not at all stuffy or florid. He tells a great story, and it's all true...or is it?
Gladwell is a great writer, not at all stuffy or florid. He tells a great story, and it's all true...or is it?
I think he also wrote The Lost Boys which is not science fiction. I loved that story. I need to get back to the Stephen King books I haven’t read - the most recent ones.
I also like the Ed McBain books - 87th precinct- and those by James Patterson.
"Between 1898 and 1912, families across the country were bludgeoned in their sleep with the blunt side of an axe. Jewelry and valuables were left in plain sight, bodies were piled together, faces covered with cloth. Some of these cases, like the infamous Villasca, Iowa, murders, received national attention. But few people believed the crimes were related. And fewer still would realize that all of these families lived within walking distance to a train station.
When celebrated baseball statistician and true crime expert Bill James first learned about these horrors, he began to investigate others that might fit the same pattern. Applying the same know-how he brings to his legendary baseball analysis, he empirically determined which crimes were committed by the same person. Then after sifting through thousands of local newspapers, court transcripts, and public records, he and his daughter Rachel made an astonishing discovery: they learned the true identity of this monstrous criminal. In turn, they uncovered one of the deadliest serial killers in America.
Riveting and immersive, with writing as sharp as the cold side of an axe, The Man from the Train paints a vivid, psychologically perceptive portrait of America at the dawn of the twentieth century, when crime was regarded as a local problem, and opportunistic private detectives exploited a dysfunctional judicial system. James shows how these cultural factors enabled such an unspeakable series of crimes to occur, and his groundbreaking approach to true crime will convince skeptics, amaze aficionados, and change the way we view criminal history."
I really enjoyed Ender's Game. I'm currently reading the sequel, Speaker for the Dead. Kind of interesting that Speaker for the Dead was what he considered the "real" book, not Ender's Game which didn't start off as a novel.
I enjoyed Grant’s memoirs. Twain helped him with the publishing end of things.
I grabbed a copy of Edmund Morris' Edison biography before we headed off to vacation but it got passed over for a couple mass market paperbacks I also picked up. (Latest Jack Reacher novel and one by Nelson DeMille.) Looking forward to getting started on it, Morris is a good biographer and his 3 books on Teddy Roosevelt were legendary in scope and detail.
Yeah I would prefer Enders Game 3:1 over Speaker for the Dead. And I don't usually care for books with gimmicky plot twists. It's got something to do with the rollicking happy go lucky flavor of the thing I guess
I usually take a long time reading long books, but The Stand really is a good one to stick with. Others of his I like - The Green Mile, Bag of Bones, Hearts in Atlantis. You probably want to try The Shining next.
I read the whole thing and I wanted to love it but I never really did. It was good enough to finish and I’ve seen it recommended many times but honestly it just didn’t do it for me.