What book is on your nightstand? Readers!

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pursuit0fhoppiness said:
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime. and just finished Ready Player One, highly recommend for nerds. Spielberg making it into a movie.
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+1 for Ready Player One. It was a good read, especially for anyone who grew up in the 80’s. I saw a trailer for the movie, however, and it seemed disappointing. Just read the book!

I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir (also wrote The Martian). It was an engaging read with a good mix of real space science and fiction. I’m a slow reader and still ended up finishing it in a day because I had trouble putting it down (and a long flight to Europe...)
 
Atlas Shrugged. I'm taking a break from it though as I have classes, and it is an involved read.

Finished For Whom The Bell Tolls by Hemingway recently. That one was a good read, though I had to read up on the Spanish Civil War halfway through for some of the stuff to make sense.
 
aggiejason said:
I just finished Artemis by Andy Weir (also wrote The Martian). It was an engaging read with a good mix of real space science and fiction. I’m a slow reader and still ended up finishing it in a day because I had trouble putting it down (and a long flight to Europe...)
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bwarbiany said:
Currently reading Artemis. About 70% of the way through. Digging it. Much different feel than The Martian, written by the same author.
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OK, you guys talked me into it. Adding to kindle now. I was much dismayed to have missed The Martian as a book. Won't make that mistake again :)
 
shoengine said:
Atlas Shrugged. I'm taking a break from it though as I have classes, and it is an involved read.
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Shrugged and Les Mis were the two books I was influenced by the most. Read both of them a couple of times.

If you get through it and want another similar, The Fountainhead is at least as good (IMO). Shorter, too :)
 
passedpawn said:
No I didn't. I've never enjoyed the british comedy shows. I don't even like Monty Python
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Have you been to the doctor to have that checked out? [emoji87] [emoji86] [emoji85] [emoji12]
I won't say you'll like it, but it's VERY different and weird and wonderful. Give it a couple of episodes and if it's not for you, cest la vie!
 
passedpawn said:
Shrugged and Les Mis were the two books I was influenced by the most. Read both of them a couple of times.

If you get through it and want another similar, The Fountainhead is at least as good (IMO). Shorter, too :)
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Atlas Shrugged is one of those books where I hate to have to tell someone "oh, the first 600 pages or so are mostly character development, but it gets better once you get through that."

The Fountainhead is definitely better in that regard.

I don't quite understand why people say that Ayn Rand is a great author, though. She seems to be a pretty terrible novelist. Her characters are wooden, two-dimensional caricatures, and that's the protagonists. The villains are laughable. And that's to say nothing of her strange rape fetish.

People read Atlas for the ideas, not for the quality of the writing.

I prefer Heinlein as an author.
 
bwarbiany said:
Atlas Shrugged is one of those books where I hate to have to tell someone "oh, the first 600 pages or so are mostly character development, but it gets better once you get through that."

The Fountainhead is definitely better in that regard.

I don't quite understand why people say that Ayn Rand is a great author, though. She seems to be a pretty terrible novelist. Her characters are wooden, two-dimensional caricatures, and that's the protagonists. The villains are laughable. And that's to say nothing of her strange rape fetish.

People read Atlas for the ideas, not for the quality of the writing.

I prefer Heinlein as an author.
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100% agreed. I do wonder about Rand. The female characters are weird, with some odd sexual stuff going on. And the male characters are either Übermensch or looters, without much in between.

Best to read something FAR left right afterwards :)
 
I mentioned it earlier but I'm really enjoying it - been on my shelf for years but it's a long read and I'm generally more interested in WWII than WWI history. Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War. Awesome read about the accession of Wilhelm II to the crown (some of the history before that, as context), the events, personalities (e.g., succession of Chancellors under Wilhelm, Premiers and their cabinets under Victoria, then Edward VII), misapprehensions that brought the whole thing exploding out. The book does fair coverage of these events, so to me, it's like little lessons from contemporary world events I knew little about but have learned some, now (e.g., The Boer War, the modernization of the British navy as the 19th century, and Victoria, grew old, etc.).
 
Gadjobrinus said:
e.g., The Boer War, the modernization of the British navy as the 19th century, and Victoria, grew old, etc.).
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Thomas Pakenham a Brit wrote a book on the Boer war. Title is the Boer war. I am a Afrikaans South African and found the book pro Boer and descriptive and after I read it I understand why my grand parents was so against people like Rodes, Milner and Kitchener.
 
Setsumi said:
Thomas Pakenham a Brit wrote a book on the Boer war. Title is the Boer war. I am a Afrikaans South African and found the book pro Boer and descriptive and after I read it I understand why my grand parents was so against people like Rodes, Milner and Kitchener.
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Thank you Setsumi. History is tough, and absolutely fluid, even though it has already taken place. I love and admire the English people, but as my favorite writer, John Fowles, said in so many words, "Small England, English, and not empire" (he was English and isn't well known, though many, like me, are devoted). I don't know enough about Victoria, though I'm trying to learn. I know there was savagery in the conflict and I'm sorry your blood suffered.

I wanted to add: (First, just added the book. Thanks). Second, as an American, I'd obviously be hypocritical in the extreme to condemn the race for empire, while not acknowledging we came late, but came furiously. We're all blooded.
 
Gadjobrinus said:
I wanted to add: (First, just added the book. Thanks). Second, as an American, I'd obviously be hypocritical in the extreme to condemn the race for empire, while not acknowledging we came late, but came furiously. We're all blooded.
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For a look at our start in empire-building, this is a good read. Just read it a few months ago.

51At4VLikyL._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg
 
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bwarbiany said:
Atlas Shrugged is one of those books where I hate to have to tell someone "oh, the first 600 pages or so are mostly character development, but it gets better once you get through that."

The Fountainhead is definitely better in that regard.

I don't quite understand why people say that Ayn Rand is a great author, though. She seems to be a pretty terrible novelist. Her characters are wooden, two-dimensional caricatures, and that's the protagonists. The villains are laughable. And that's to say nothing of her strange rape fetish.

People read Atlas for the ideas, not for the quality of the writing.

I prefer Heinlein as an author.
Click to expand...
Yes.
 
passedpawn said:
100% agreed. I do wonder about Rand. The female characters are weird, with some odd sexual stuff going on. And the male characters are either Übermensch or looters, without much in between.

Best to read something FAR left right afterwards :)
Click to expand...
To everyone, what's your favorite Heinlein book and why?
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, my favorite revolution book
 
Kharnynb said:
I think I rate lucifer's hammer just above footfall, but by the thinnest of margins.
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I would almost agree, if not for the final battle in Footfall, using space shuttles, battleship guns, and an atomic-bomb-driven mothership, with steam attitude jets, built in a greenhouse. Future steam punk?
 
I just finished the Temeraire series which was really brilliant. It's historical fiction, based on the Napoleon era. It really fleshes out all the big players like Napoleon, Nelson, and Wellington as well as the Prussians and Russians you never hear about. It goes pretty in depth into the concept of honor for the period, then throws dragons into the mix.

Now I am burning through all the Brandon Sanderson books. I finished the first 4 books of the Mistborn series, a few of his novellas and am working on Warbreaker right now. He doesn't have the gift on concise writing like Robert Jordan did but he still spins a great tale.
 
I'm about a third of the way through the latest of the Gray Man series, Agent In Place, by Mark Greaney. Great geopolitical thriller, smartly written. Greaney started out co-writing, then ghost-writing, a few Clancy novels, but his Grey Man books are so much sharper.
 
Just started the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Currently in book 3.

So far it's been really interesting, but I suspect that I'll need to get farther into it to get to the "payoff" of what it's all really about.
 
Some LotR is always near me, but our book collection has expanded such that none are on the nightstand and all are in the 'library'. Waiting for GRRM to not die and publish and for the last Rothfuss has me re-reading LotR. Wife is on a Sanderson kick again, which you can stay on forever at the rate he publishes.

Always re-reading Palmer 'How to Brew'. Currently on a PH kick.
 
The Red Rising Trilogy by Pierce Brown was pretty good too although by the 3rd book the brutality was getting to be pretty predictable.
 
bwarbiany said:
Just started the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. Currently in book 3.

So far it's been really interesting, but I suspect that I'll need to get farther into it to get to the "payoff" of what it's all really about.
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The latter parts of the series show the pitfalls of King's writing style where he rarely knows any better than the reader what's going to happen next. Don't read The Dark Tower for the ending, read it for the road that takes you there.
 

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