What book is on your nightstand? Readers!

[ancientmariner52]

All I've read is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. What is a good one to pick up by him?

Of his later work, I like Friday best. Stranger in a Strange Land. The Cat Who Walked Through Walls is a sort of sequel to Mistress. Any or all of the Future History short stories. Any of the juveniles. The target market was teen age boys, but the themes are pretty universal. Heinlein hated authors who wrote 'down' to young people.

 

[Griffin495]

"The Brewer's Tale: A History of the World According to Beer" by William Bostwick. Picked it up at the local library while I was there with my kiddo getting him some books.

 

[mongoose33]

All I've read is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. What is a good one to pick up by him?

Starship Troopers.

Glory Road.

 

[fourfarthing]

Thoughts on books/series for an 11 year old? He just completed the entire Harry Potter series, if you want to base his "reading level" on that for comparison...

We're debating letting him start the Hunger Games series, but I'm not sure if that's too advanced/violent. Reviews on "The Secret Series" are pretty good, but understanding the reading level it's targeted at gives a wide range of age ranges that liked the series, so I don't know what to think.

The Hobbit, then Lord of the Rings. I started in sixth grade and have never stopped reading them.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I'm paraphrasing a book reviewer here: 'When I read The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, I was sorry I never got to meet Ayn Rand. After reading her biography, I wanted to dig her up and drive a stake through her heart to make SURE!' She was an awful person, with some appalling behavior. That doesn't negate the value of some of her ideas. Others are quite demented. Each of us has to evaluate for ourselves. Which is kinda the key message of all of her books. Judge, and expect to be judged.

Her ideas are polarizing, to be sure. I personally found The Fountainhead to be a much better literary work than Atlas, though. Mainly because the ideological stuff was there, but it was part of the story rather than the story being part of the ideology. But also because she managed to wrap it up in a reasonable length. Atlas didn't need to be anywhere near as long as it was.

But again, my criticism of Atlas isn't the ideology, it's the literary quality. She wanted the book to be her masterpiece, her opus, her tome. And she ended up trying too hard to make it the ideological screed it was, but neglected making it a good story.

 

[ancientmariner52]

Thoughts on books/series for an 11 year old? He just completed the entire Harry Potter series, if you want to base his "reading level" on that for comparison...

We're debating letting him start the Hunger Games series, but I'm not sure if that's too advanced/violent. Reviews on "The Secret Series" are pretty good, but understanding the reading level it's targeted at gives a wide range of age ranges that liked the series, so I don't know what to think.

Here's another: Terry Pratchet's Discworld books. They started as a satire on the whole sword and sorcery genre, but took on a life of their own. Sir Terry is no longer with us, but he left 40 plus books for us to enjoy. They weren't written specifically for young readers, but I wouldn't hesitate to give them to kid.

Edit: be prepared for truly outrageous puns. And meeting gods like Anoia, the goddess of things that get stuck in drawers. Or Bilious, the oh god of hangovers.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

All I've read is The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress. What is a good one to pick up by him?

Starship Troopers is a really good read. It explores some much different themes than a lot of his later work, particularly as it relates to duty to one's country, to ones fellow enlisted men/women, etc. It's actually on a USMC reading list. The movie [as they often do] completely missed almost all of the philosophical point of the book and was just about killing bugs.

Agreed with Stranger in a Strange Land. This is also one of Heinlein's more seminal works, in my opinion. Moon, Troopers, and Stranger are where he really hits on some of his most interesting ideas about the nature of humanity and how we interact.

Then Methuselah's Children. It's the first in a whole arc of stories involving Lazarus Long and then his family, and a lot of future books in that series incorporate portions of books, characters, etc, from other work. Whether you continue down that path through all the books is up to you, but it's a good one to see if you want to follow that arc.

I do think that Heinlein, in some of those later arcs, got too involved in a world as myth and multiverse / time-travel story. Most were fun to read, though.

 

[shoengine]

The Hobbit, then Lord of the Rings. I started in sixth grade and have never stopped reading them.

My tutor gave me a copy of The Sword of Shannara, and my teacher read us the Hobbit, and those started my life long love of reading.

 

[passedpawn]

My tutor gave me a copy of The Sword of Shannara, and my teacher read us the Hobbit, and those started my life long love of reading.

I started with Hardy Boys and Tom Swift.

 

[hezagenius]

I'm about 2/3 the way through Stephen King's The Outsider. Not bad. Typical King if you're into him. The first third reads super fast. Lots of storylines weaving together building up to a big event. Then he slows the pace down a bit, presumably to build up to the finale. He brings in a character from the Mr. Mercedes trilogy and there are minor spoilers about that series in this book. I read the first Mr. Mercedes book and really liked that one. I may swing back to them after I finish The Outsider.

I'm also periodically reading Leviathan Wakes by Corey and the first Game of Thrones book by GRRM.

 

[davidabcd]

"The Best of Brew Your Own: 250 Classic Clone Recipes"

 

[JonM]

Saw Stephen Ambrose’s book about D-Day on my Dad’s shelf and borrowed it. Should be a great read.

 

[passedpawn]

Ooh, this one was very good - just finished it. Smart physics guy unravels the nature of the multiverse, then attempts to change the past. Mayhem ensues. Two thumbs up! I thought it was very suspenseful and a real page-turner.

Dark Matter: A Novel

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

HA! Just finished that about 2 hours ago. Really good! Have you read anything else by him? And as a side note I just started Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow

 

[diS]

Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen.

Just finished it and now I understand why he is really the Boss.
Great book.

 

[passedpawn]

HA! Just finished that about 2 hours ago. Really good! Have you read anything else by him? And as a side note I just started Wild Brews by Jeff Sparrow

Nope, but I did look at them and consider. Maybe one day. I started Pincher Martin (William Golding) last night. Very interesting start to a book!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Ooh, this one was very good - just finished it. Smart physics guy unravels the nature of the multiverse, then attempts to change the past. Mayhem ensues. Two thumbs up! I thought it was very suspenseful and a real page-turner.

That sounds up my alley. Thanks!

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

The true story of the bilderberg group by Daniel estulin. Don't pick this one up unless you want to be sad about our world and put on someone's watchlist.

 

[passedpawn]

Reading Brilliance right now. It's very cool. Been busy at nights so haven't made much headway, but I hope to crush it this weekend.

It's a little in the future and human variant has evolved - the Brilliants. They are VERY smart. The world has tried to adapt. Some of them are bad So far, good writing style, good pace. Will report back when I finish it.

http://a.co/d/d5sfAMi

 

[ApolloSimcoe]

Just finished One Second After and started One Year After. Good premise for a book, just not a fan of the execution. Just not big on his writing style but i will read the third novel

 

[PMcGuen]

Let’s see..
I just finished “Radium Girls” by Kate Moore. Story of how women worked painting dials and watch faces during WW1 and 2 not knowing it was giving them radiation poisoning. Very dark story of greed and corruption
Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. Follows a family’s lives through the years.
Both of those were so I dense I started looking for some lighter fare and found “The gentleman bastards series. It is a fantasy series about a group of thieves. A very fun read. I think the bastards series was recommended by someone on this thread a few months ago. So whoever introduced me... thanks!

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Don't know if it has been mentioned here [could have been where I heard of it], but I recently read Children of Time:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00SN93AHU/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

Pretty good sci-fi. Interesting ending too.

 

[fourfarthing]

Nerd crack

 

[JonM]

An Army at Dawn.

I know nothing about WWII in North Africa and this is a Pulitzer winning history of just that.

And it’s part one of a three-part series. Should keep me busy for a while.

 

[passedpawn]

Reading Brilliance right now. It's very cool. Been busy at nights so haven't made much headway, but I hope to crush it this weekend.

It's a little in the future and human variant has evolved - the Brilliants. They are VERY smart. The world has tried to adapt. Some of them are bad So far, good writing style, good pace. Will report back when I finish it.

http://a.co/d/d5sfAMi

View attachment 589960

This was pretty good. Solid B on my grading scale. Concept gets an A, but execution a C - plot and pace keep it exciting, but writing style is not fulfilling if you're looking for literature in your pulp fiction as I am.

Reading this now. Love the first few chapters. I kinda like these period dramas, read a lot of them. We'll see.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Starship Troopers is a really good read. It explores some much different themes than a lot of his later work, particularly as it relates to duty to one's country, to ones fellow enlisted men/women, etc. It's actually on a USMC reading list. The movie [as they often do] completely missed almost all of the philosophical point of the book and was just about killing bugs.

Hard disagree. The movie is a great piece of satire.

 

[deadwolfbones]

Let’s see..
I just finished “Radium Girls” by Kate Moore. Story of how women worked painting dials and watch faces during WW1 and 2 not knowing it was giving them radiation poisoning. Very dark story of greed and corruption

Check out The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander. It's a magical realist/sci-fi take on the same subject, but also about elephants.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

Working my way through this one. It's an anthology, but some stories aren't really short stories, just excerpts from other books, I'm not too happy about that. I start reading a story, I like to finish it. Aside from those entries, most of which, I've already read the other book, I'm liking it. I've always enjoyed the "Lost world" type stories. Regards, GF.

 

[PMcGuen]

Check out The Only Harmless Great Thing by Brooke Bolander. It's a magical realist/sci-fi take on the same subject, but also about elephants.

I thought that was a joke! Crazy subject matter. If you’ve never watched the video of that elephant being electrocuted, it’s worth a google. It’s not a video for sensitive people though. It’s a silent video, but you watch the elephant die. People were bat **** crazy back in the day. I’m sure in 100 years, they will say the same about us...
Thanks for the tip. I’ll check it out.

 

[MaxStout]

Reading Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James Loewen. It's not a screed against educators, so the title is somewhat a misnomer. The book deals with history textbooks and how they miss much historical information, and often get it flat-out wrong.