What book is on your nightstand? Readers!

[betarhoalphadelta]

As a counterpoint, you've got something like Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. She's a terrible writer. Wooden two-dimensional characters that are typically either wholly heroic or wholly villains. Stilted interactions. Spending 30 or so pages on a monologue.

But I actually found myself eager to turn the page and find out what happens next. For as terrible as her writing is, at least the plot was engaging.

 

[estricklin]

As a counterpoint, you've got something like Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. She's a terrible writer. Wooden two-dimensional characters that are typically either wholly heroic or wholly villains. Stilted interactions. Spending 30 or so pages on a monologue.

But I actually found myself eager to turn the page and find out what happens next. For as terrible as her writing is, at least the plot was engaging.

I really hate to quit reading a book, but since I read so many, (around 50/year) I have started allowing myself to quit reading one or two per year, instead of slugging through it and being miserable. I think you mentioned Children of Time in this thread? I actually gave up on it 1/3rd through. Last year I gave up on a fantasy book, that I completely have forgotten the name of. I think the solution is to be more picky about the books I start. I now download a sample ALWAYS and screen it first.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

I really hate to quit reading a book, but since I read so many, (around 50/year) I have started allowing myself to quit reading one or two per year, instead of slugging through it and being miserable. I think you mentioned Children of Time in this thread? I actually gave up on it 1/3rd through. Last year I gave up on a fantasy book, that I completely have forgotten the name of. I think the solution is to be more picky about the books I start. I now download a sample ALWAYS and screen it first.

Hmm... I actually really enjoyed Children of Time. Just not your genre?

 

[wstumper]

Current book:
The Fire in the Stone: Prehistoric Fiction From Charles Darwin to Jean M. Auel by Nicholas Ruddick

Upcoming:
The Benedict Option by Rod Dreher

Recent books:
Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick
Solar Lottery by Philip K. Dick
Tolkien and the Critics: Essays on J. R. R. Tolkien's the Lord of the Rings edited Isaacs & Zimbardo
Crashing Suns by Edmond Hamilton
The Colors of Space by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Blackcollar by Timothy Zahn
A Call to Duty by David Weber and Timothy Zahn
The Exile of Time by Ray Cummings

These are just some of the titles I've read in the past 4-5 months...

 

[Andrew Hodgson]

Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk.

A friend has been chastising me for not reading the Game of Thrones books so those will be next up.

Also American Sour Beers for brewing fare.

 

[estricklin]

Hmm... I actually really enjoyed Children of Time. Just not your genre?

No excuse really, I love Sci-Fi, and especially anything to do with time travel. I think the thing with the spiders was what annoyed me the most.

 

[passedpawn]

No excuse really, I love Sci-Fi, and especially anything to do with time travel. I think the thing with the spiders was what annoyed me the most.

Did you read Vonnugut's TimeQuake?

 

[passedpawn]

No excuse really, I love Sci-Fi, and especially anything to do with time travel. I think the thing with the spiders was what annoyed me the most.

Or better, Dark Matter? Oh yea, that is a time travel that will bend yer mind. Haha, loved this one.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0180T0IUY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[deadwolfbones]

Reading The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Scott Dickinson. Excellent fantasy about the perils of empire, told from the perspective of a colonized girl as she climbs her way up the imperial ladder aiming to take it down from within.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0765380730/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

No excuse really, I love Sci-Fi, and especially anything to do with time travel. I think the thing with the spiders was what annoyed me the most.

Ahh. I can see how that would be the case, especially early in the book. It all ties together as you progress, though.

 

[estricklin]

Or better, Dark Matter? Oh yea, that is a time travel that will bend yer mind. Haha, loved this one.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0180T0IUY/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

I got the sample, it looks up my alley.


Lately I've read:
Great Expectations
Rouge Lawyer by John Grisham
Get Well Soon: A History of the World's Worst Plagues and the Heroes That Cured Them by Jennifer Wright
The Great Gatsby
All the Pretty Horses by C. McCarthy

The stand out for me the past few months is this one, the description does not do it justice, but it had me after the first few paragraphs!

I have been thinking more seriously about starting The Wheel of Time this year, it's been on my bucket list forever. I've seen a lot of people mention it in this thread.

 

[FatDragon]

I have been thinking more seriously about starting The Wheel of Time this year, it's been on my bucket list forever. I've seen a lot of people mention it in this thread.

I was skeptical. I just finished the tenth book and I've really enjoyed them so far. The biggest issue is that by the seventh book or so there are so many different threads going on that you end up going through an entire book without a whole lot happening in any of them - a crisis that would normally be introduced and resolved in a single book may take three or four volumes to finally resolve. Jordan's really good at getting the reader back up to speed whenever he switches to another thread, but it can be a bit frustrating to get invested in one of the threads only for it to go back into hibernation a couple chapters later without making much progress and not return for another 250 pages.

 

[passedpawn]

Lately I've read:
Great Expectations

I read Great Expectations in 1981. Checked it out from the Los Angeles Public Library. It's sitting on the shelf next to me right now I've given all of my books away, or in garbage / garage sale, but a few remain, including this one, for reason of guilt. One day I'll return it, I swear. It was a great book with the unexpected ending of course. Pip and Tom and Mrs Haversham. I read most everything Dickens wrote. Tale of Two Cities was his masterpiece for sure.

 

[user 246304]

As a counterpoint, you've got something like Ayn Rand and Atlas Shrugged. She's a terrible writer. Wooden two-dimensional characters that are typically either wholly heroic or wholly villains. Stilted interactions. Spending 30 or so pages on a monologue.

But I actually found myself eager to turn the page and find out what happens next. For as terrible as her writing is, at least the plot was engaging.

Nope, you're right, and these are good points. Most immediately for me is that it's the same when I watch an actor - because I was one, for a long time; Shakespearean, classically trained, Chicago theater, Los Angeles stuff you'd never seen me in (lol). And so I cannot help it - when I watch a performance, I'm not only taken by the performance, by the character, but also by the work of it, the choices I can see, the truth of what the actor is doing, etc. And to some extent it's the same for me when it comes to writing. Character (and I think you're right here), yes. I'd also say character can include things like land, or mood....Tolstoy's harvest and cider or ale or whatever it was, and peasants....I can't say I cared all that much about these bit players against the leads of the novel. I didn't really even see them, from my recollection, as individuals. They were "peasants," though I'm visual in the extreme and I did see bits and pieces of "Russian peasant." The vortex for me was the absolutely beautiful mood he evoked, and in that mood I felt the centuries of Russian existence, and the beauty of that history. And I felt the beauty and incredible torture of a traditional hay harvest. Hardy does the same for me, across all his novels.

More than character, I have to feel the writing is living, that the writer is playing with me as I read. I enjoy metafiction a lot. I fell hard for John Fowles, read everything by him (sorry if I say this earlier....I probably have). I love the seamlessness between the fiction, the writer letting me know he or she is writing it, the character of the book itself. Something like Day of the Dead or Samhain - the gossamer thinness between worlds and the potential to reach across. Good metafiction does this for me.

Finally, E.M. Forster, "round" and "flat" characters. Both vital. I don't really care so much about the flat characters, or even know what they're doing, but their presence is vital if I'm to hang with the round characters.

I don't know. Great points, both your posts. I cannot do Ayn Rand, but I hear you on wanting to know what happens next. I don't always need it. I'm reminded of Daniel Martin by Fowles. Many considered that a terrible book, a failure. A few, like me, and as far as I know, the late writing teacher and author John Gardner (Grendel, host of others), and...maybe another one, one of those, lol, have thought Martin is maybe his finest. And it's absolutely atmospheric. Fowles described it as "being about Englishness."

I appreciate your posts, bwarbiany. I don't read fiction anymore, almost entirely history. But you made me think on these things, always a good thing.

 

[user 246304]

I read Great Expectations in 1981. Checked it out from the Los Angeles Public Library. It's sitting on the shelf next to me right now I've given all of my books away, or in garbage / garage sale, but a few remain, including this one, for reason of guilt. One day I'll return it, I swear. It was a great book with the unexpected ending of course. Pip and Tom and Mrs Haversham. I read most everything Dickens wrote. Tale of Two Cities was his masterpiece for sure.

That's awesome. Expectations was the one book in my son's education that I thought was going to kill him. The one and only time we did this - and this is our guilt!, lol - his "cliff notes" were a series, I think it was, on PBS. Terrible. Amazing and cool how we all have our tastes. Now you know of course I have to pick them up.

 

[Kent88]

Am in the middle of Matthew Hockenos Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemoller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis. It's an interesting book about a German man who was an officer on a U-Boat in WWI, became a pastor, and seemed ok with the rise of Hitler in Hitler's early days before he realized what Nazism was going to do to the country and the church. He was eventually arrested for speaking against the Nazis from the pulpit and after being sentenced to time served he was thrown in a camp until the end of WWII.

Certainly not a blameless man, but a good case can be made that he would become a repentant man. I think there are lessons that can be learned from his life.

I'd recommend it.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Nope, you're right, and these are good points. Most immediately for me is that it's the same when I watch an actor - because I was one, for a long time; Shakespearean, classically trained, Chicago theater, Los Angeles stuff you'd never seen me in (lol). And so I cannot help it - when I watch a performance, I'm not only taken by the performance, by the character, but also by the work of it, the choices I can see, the truth of what the actor is doing, etc. And to some extent it's the same for me when it comes to writing.

To pivot to a different topic, this to me is somewhat like my disdain for baseball. I never played it [except one little-league season], so the delicate chess match between pitcher and batter just doesn't grab my attention. Thus I simply can't watch it. It's barely tolerable to watch one meaningless game out of 162 where the difference between winning and losing is only 1/162nd of the equation of whether you reach the postseason. The individual games to me aren't interesting, and thus with nothing really riding on the outcome, watching an individual game is unbearable. I *might* get into it around playoff / World Series time, but that's it.

Contrast that to motorcycle racing, which most people barely even know exists. I love it, because having ridden, I completely understand the battles that two riders are going into in each corner. Trying to figure out where to line up a potential passing opportunity, when and how the lead rider blocks his pursuer, etc, even how riding strategies completely change between the 250cc bikes and the MotoGP premier class monsters, and how different the riding styles are between MotoGP riders who came up through the 125cc/250cc international circuits vs those who came over from American or British Superbike classes.

To each their own...

 

[bleme]

I have been thinking more seriously about starting The Wheel of Time this year, it's been on my bucket list forever. I've seen a lot of people mention it in this thread.

I was always amazed at how much Jordan could say with so few words. I loved the way he would have so many threads going, and weave them together. Often there were characters in one thread having a profound affect on characters in another, without either group knowing that the other was involved.

I'm glad someone picked up the torch to finish the story, but Sanderson's writing style is very different. What Jordan had planned for 1 book took Sanderson 2 massive tomes to tell. I got about halfway through the final book before I put it down and walked away for over a year. 500 pages on a single battle was just too much.

 

[estricklin]

I read Great Expectations in 1981. Checked it out from the Los Angeles Public Library. It's sitting on the shelf next to me right now I've given all of my books away, or in garbage / garage sale, but a few remain, including this one, for reason of guilt. One day I'll return it, I swear. It was a great book with the unexpected ending of course. Pip and Tom and Mrs Haversham. I read most everything Dickens wrote. Tale of Two Cities was his masterpiece for sure.

I read Oliver Twist when I was 10 years old maybe, and it was definitely above my reading level, but I was so took with the characters, I regret waiting so many years to read another Dickens book now. I was thinking when I finished Great Expectations, "Wow!", written over 150 years ago, and still a valid story with big characters. Leave it to Dickens to make convicts heroes and to tell such a powerful story of love, heartbreak and adventure with crazy plot twists in the same book.

The late fees are going to break you by the way.

I was always amazed at how much Jordan could say with so few words. I loved the way he would have so many threads going, and weave them together. Often there were characters in one thread having a profound affect on characters in another, without either group knowing that the other was involved.

I'm glad someone picked up the torch to finish the story, but Sanderson's writing style is very different. What Jordan had planned for 1 book took Sanderson 2 massive tomes to tell. I got about halfway through the final book before I put it down and walked away for over a year. 500 pages on a single battle was just too much.

My intention at this time, is to only read the ones written by the original author, as that seems to be the advice I get a lot. The weaving of many stories reminds me of Game of Thrones, which I'm currently on the last book of, I like that style of writing.

 

[user 246304]

Am in the middle of Matthew Hockenos Then They Came for Me: Martin Niemoller, the Pastor Who Defied the Nazis. It's an interesting book about a German man who was an officer on a U-Boat in WWI, became a pastor, and seemed ok with the rise of Hitler in Hitler's early days before he realized what Nazism was going to do to the country and the church. He was eventually arrested for speaking against the Nazis from the pulpit and after being sentenced to time served he was thrown in a camp until the end of WWII.

Certainly not a blameless man, but a good case can be made that he would become a repentant man. I think there are lessons that can be learned from his life.

I'd recommend it.

I'd not heard of Niemoller, thanks, Kent. When I saw the title I first thought you were talking about Dietrich Boenhoffer, another theologian, Lutheran Pastor, anti-Nazi ultimately suffering death along with others of the July 20 plot against Hitler. Can't recall how I came to his story but there's at least one documentary out on him.

 

[Kent88]

Niemoller was apparently pretty popular in his time. And everyone knows his quote, of course:

"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me."

My highschool English teacher had a poster with that quote up in his room. I've heard other people tweak it for their own purposes, too (which I wasn't a fan of and I'm even less enthused now). It was good to put it into some context.

 

[gratus fermentatio]

"Steak: One Man's Search For The World's Tastiest Piece Of Beef" By Mark Schatzker
I'm about 1/2 way through & it's fairly interesting, informative & has a bit of humor.
I'm enjoying it so far.
Regards, GF.

 

[estricklin]

Currently reading this, and enjoying it immensely.

 

[Big Monk]

1.) After finishing a heavily expanded read though of The Dark Tower series (I included The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, The Talisman, Salem’s Lot, The Black House, Everything’s Eventual, The Little Sisters of Eluria, and Hearts in Atlantis), I am re-reading The Gunslinger.

2.) Fahrenheit 451 and The Stories of Ray Bradbury are on deck.

3.) A Brave New World and A Brave New Revisited are after that.

4.) At some point I’m going to revisit Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu in particular.

Recently finished: Skydog: The Duane Allman Story, Tree of Smoke, and the Hagakure.

 

[shoengine]

Nice list @RPIScotty .

I've been intaking some industry reading lately. "Read" through Brewing in Seattle, which is heavily focused on Rainier, but showcases a lot of fun history in photos, including a plane crash that barely missed clipping the brewery complex at the North end of Boeing Field.

Next up was a very, very detailed history of breweries in Washington state from before prohibition to the 21st century. Amazing how many Germans came here to brew. Very dry reading though as it details acquisitions, brew lengths and a surprisingly large amount of fires that seem to always be ready to claim breweries.

Currently reading Brew Like a Monk which is an excellent book, and is starting to ignite a passion to visit Belgium.

 

[passedpawn]

1.) After finishing a heavily expanded read though of The Dark Tower series (I included The Stand, Eyes of the Dragon, Insomnia, The Talisman, Salem’s Lot, The Black House, Everything’s Eventual, The Little Sisters of Eluria, and Hearts in Atlantis), I am re-reading The Gunslinger.

2.) Fahrenheit 451 and The Stories of Ray Bradbury are on deck.

3.) A Brave New World and A Brave New Revisited are after that.

4.) At some point I’m going to revisit Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu in particular.

Recently finished: Skydog: The Duane Allman Story, Tree of Smoke, and the Hagakure.

If you like King, you might also try Peter Straub. His Shadowland was one of the spookiest books I ever read.

 

[Big Monk]

If you like King, you might also try Peter Straub. His Shadowland was one of the spookiest books I ever read.

Yup. Love Straub. Talisman and Black House are incredible and of course Julia, Ghost Story, etc. are awesome as well.

I’ve come to really appreciate King as I get older.

 

[passedpawn]

Yup. Love Straub. Talisman and Black House are incredible and of course Julia, Ghost Story, etc. are awesome as well.

I’ve come to really appreciate King as I get older.

I've read Talisman and Ghost Story. I might add one of the others soon. I'm kinda wanting something like that next.

 

[Big Monk]

I've read Talisman and Ghost Story. I might add one of the others soon. I'm kinda wanting something like that next.

I’d recommend Black House. It’s the sequel to the Talisman.

 

[SteveH aka shetc]