I actually haven’t bought any books in awhile, so yes I’m a bit ashamed of that.
I did start reading David Quammen’s Monster of God recently (‘The man-eating predator in the jungles of history and the mind’), as well as Blood of Victory by Alan Furst.
— Alan
Has it been a month already? Time flies.
Almost done with: A Brief History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
Wow, what a great book! If I had read this book as a high school student, I’d probably have been a physicist. Probably a POOR physicist given my thoroughly average mathematical aptitude, but it makes the topic just that much fun. And Bryson actually tackles much, much more than physics in this book. It’s kind of the history of all the “hard” sciences and many of their subdisciplines --physics, astrophysics, quantum mechanics, biology, microbiology, geology, meteorology, chemistry, and probably a few others I’m forgetting. It’s the kind of stuff that you’d be expected to learn in an introductory course if majoring in any of these topics in college, but Bryson makes it so easy to read, so breezy that I just soaked it up and didn’t want to put the book down. He has a marvelous style that makes all these topics approachable and lets you take something away from each of them without resorting to nasty formulas or tedious memorization. One of the other things I particularly like is that this book is equal parts history of science and history of scientists. Bryson injects every chapter with lively descriptions of the men and women behind the science, giving us amusing exposures to their foibles, eccentricities, and character. I highly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in …well, ANYTHING. I’d also love to see a sequel or similar treatment for the social sciences like psychology, sociology, anthropology, etc.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by JK Rowling
Like just about every other non-illiterate out there, I snatched up the latest Harry Potter book. Not surprising, since I think I read somewhere that enough copies of this book were sold in one day to fill a football stadium with cream corn for a whole week.
The book was pretty fun --fast paced, imaginative in places and charming everywhere else. My only complaints are that there’ snot much of a narrative thread tying this one together so that it’s just a kind of jumble of events prefaced with mysteries and with a big event at the end. It also retread on a lot of the same themes that have been pretty thoroughly covered in past books: friendship, loyalty, trusting authority, distrusting authority, honesty, puppy love, and general teenage angst. At least there’s only one more book in the series so those can’t get driven much deeper into the ground. (BTW, there’s a great thread going on about this book here: http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=20266)
Nothing’s Sacred by Lewis Black
Like a lot of people, I enjoy Lewis Black’s comedy on The Daily Show to the point where I told TiVo to keep an eye out for his standup routine. Having seen the latter, I can say that most of this book is essentially “Lewis Black’s Standup Comedy: The Book.” Black often goes off on random invectives against whatever comes to mind, like the chapters he spent complaining about candy corn or cell phones.
Non sequiturs like those aside, though, there’s this kind of loose narrative running through most of the book talking about growing up in the 60s and how Black developed his short-tempered views on authority in general. These parts are more like “Lewis Black’s Standup Comedy: The Blog” in that they’re pretty disjointed and hop around in time and space with pretty much complete impunity.
Black’s comedy here is pretty raunchy at times (e.g., he describes deficating on the television when it told him that Nixon had won re-election), but every now again he’ll inject it with some witty, more cerebral remark that makes you think for a second. For example, he quips that “if the United States Postal Service hadn’t already existed, Kafka would have created it.” The book doesn’t have as many laughs per minute as his “Back in Black” segments on The Daily Show, but I did get quite a few good gufaws out of it overall.
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
There is, of course, a new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie just out, but I’ve actually been meaning to read this book for years. I absolutely adored the 1971 movie based on the same book, and it was fun to see all the same characters and scenes.
I think, however, that this is one of those cases where the movie (the 1971 one, anyway; I haven’t seen the new one) is better than the source material. The book lacks several key devices that I thought gave the Charlie Bucket character a lot more depth. In the book, for example, Charlie is not tempted to steal Wonka’s secrets by a spy from other chocolate factory. Thus he’s never faced with the ethical dilemmas around feeding his starving family by stealing the Everlasting Gobstopper and selling it to the competition, the result of which earns him ownership of the factory. In fact, the book’s Charlie earns Wonka’s largess just by being the last man standing in a game of “Just Stand There and Don’t Do Anything Mind-Blowingly Stupid.”
Already?
See Thrrrpptt!'s list? That’s mine that is. (apart from the lewis black title)
oh, and Lion Boy by Zizou Corder
Another Kids book about a boy who can speak to cats. Set in the future when oil has all but run out, though this doesn’t seem to be especially relevant to the story. Mum and Dad are Kidnapped, kid escapes and joins a circus, liberates some Lions from circus and goes off to rescue the folks.
It’s a bit brown rice and lentils (everyone’s got asthma because of pollution, isn’t it great that petrol’s run out etc) at times but in some respects the author is a pen name for a woman and her (child)daughter who co-wrote the book, so perhaps it is a bit more understandable in that context.
First part of trilogy apparently. Wouldn’t have bought it myself, but it came free with HP. Not a bad read at all and probably of most interest to kids around 10 both in terms of content and outlook.
I forget the author, but I’m working my through “Deadlines”
In Other Words by Anthony DeCurtis - Pretty great so far. Book of interviews with music and movie legends. Pretty great because he includes stuff he left out of Rolling Stone.
Still reading a few others that I was reading last time.
I’m reading The Wallet of Kai Lung, a book of framed stories about ancient China written under the pseudonym “Ernest Bramah” and published in 1900. It’s full of wandering con men duping and insulting each other in incredibly ornate courtly language — certainly an ancestor to Jack Vance’s Cugel books, and quite possibly to James Branch Cabell before him.
Ah… I have one of the Kai Lung collections on my shelf somewhere. I’ll have to dig it out.
I’m currently reading Ursus of Ultima Thule, by Avram Davidson. A good read which I’m glad I decided to pick up. The unspeakably awful “man in loin cloth” cover had put me off, but it’s definitely good Davidson. Recommended if you liked the Vergil Magus books as it’s another sort of looking-glass reinterpretation of mythical archetypes.
Getting Things Done - David Allen
brought you by Jason McCullough and the helpful folk at Qt3
http://www.quartertothree.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=19072
Next up is a Bujold - Vor novella or Orwell’s Animal Farm…
I just got Hanson’s Who Killed Homer? book, which I hope to start soon. Right now, I am reading Roebuck’s Ancient History textbook (which is old, but still one of the best…out of print though). I’m also reading Hucker’s book on Imperial Chinese history, which is fairly introductory, but that’s what I need. Guess I am on a history kick right now.
I’ve recently finished “Låt den rätte komma in” (Let The Right One Slip In) by John Ajvide Lindqvist, which apparently got picked up by an American publisher, so I recommend it for when it’s translated. A very Swedish vampire book.
I’m currently reading his second book, “Hanteringen av odöda” (The treatment of the undead), which puts an interesting spin on the zombie concept.
Also read V for Vendetta for the first time. I think I like it better than Watchmen.
Even though I liked Gardens of The Moon, I had avoided Deadhouse Gates, as I was waiting for a normal size PB, but I gave in…
Good enough so far, that I amazoned the next 3 in the series.:)
Deadhouse gates was torture.
Currently reading Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond, the same guy who brought us the also excellent Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies.
I’m also reading A Brief History Of Nearly Everything and enjoying it just as much as Thrrrpptt! for all the same reasons.
I just finished A Confederacy of Dunces whihc I liked just as much as everyone has always told me I would. A very funny book that also manages to bring a level of authenticity to its characters that elevates it beyond pure schtick.
Next up is Mark Helprin’s Freddy and Fredericka. The NYT book review panned it but their review actually made me want to read it. Essentially, the reviewer said that any book over 500 pages is supposed to be serious and this book is whimsical and so Helprin broke some arbitrary rule that exists only in the reviewer’s damaged mind. A Soldier of The Great War is one of my favorite books, as is the first half of Winter’s Tale, (the second half was disappointing). Refiner’s Fire was fun and Memoirs From Antproof Case sucked donkey balls so I have no idea what to expect here.
I’m also reading A Brief History Of Nearly Everything and enjoying it just as much as Thrrrpptt! for all the same reasons.
I just finished A Confederacy of Dunces whihc I liked just as much as everyone has always told me I would. A very funny book that also manages to bring a level of authenticity to its characters that elevates it beyond pure schtick.
Next up is Mark Helprin’s Freddy and Fredericka. The NYT book review panned it but their review actually made me want to read it. Essentially, the reviewer said that any book over 500 pages is supposed to be serious and this book is whimsical and so Helprin broke some arbitrary rule that exists only in the reviewer’s damaged mind. A Soldier of The Great War is one of my favorite books, as is the first half of Winter’s Tale, (the second half was disappointing). Refiner’s Fire was fun and Memoirs From Antproof Case sucked donkey balls so I have no idea what to expect here.
The Count of Monte Cristo (unabridged of course.)
Man, I love this book. Haven’t read it since my teens, but I’m on a Dumas kick after finally reading The Three Musketeers for the first time, and I’m realizing this must be one of my favorite books of all time.
Someone at work saw me in line for coffee with it and commented, “Do you know how pretentious you look holding that book?” But my response was that Dumas was more like the 19th-century French Stephen King. Just a freakin’ great storyteller with an awesome sense of pacing and suspense.
I’m 150 pages in and enjoying it.
But I’m curious,do you dislike the series or just this one??
I’m 150 pages in and enjoying it.
But I’m curious,do you dislike the series or just this one??[/quote]
I thought the first one was okay, but I liked the ending the best, where the characters stop screwing around and start acting like people.
The second one is a slog. Everyone is a victim, constantly being attacked by bugs, and the historian constantly whines (in long soliliquies) about how things can’t possibly get worse than they already are, and then the inevitably do.
Not my cup of tea at all.
was recommended a site called abebooks.com where you can search tons of used book sellers. i a few at a good price. two came in the mail, star hunt and asimov’s mysteries.
asimov’s mysteries are nice in that they are short and hold your interest throughout. some are overtaken by discoveries made past the 1960s. hey look, in a distant future with common interplanetary space travel, this guy has a small computer that you can ask questions and have it answer stuff for you. amazing! or how one solution depends on a planet facing the sun, but in real life was discovered that it rotates.
star hunt (1995 version) was a sci-fi novel where this one ship is chasing another. the enemy ship never gets a scene but the mind games being played paralyze the chasing ship. in one instance the commander appears to be going crazy as he ponders how he is in a paradox: the enemy ship will attack when he least expects it, he is heading home and will arrive in ten days, so it can’t be the last day that he gets attacked since he will expect that. so scratch that. follwing that logic, the second to last day can’t be the day he’s attacked, so scratch that day off. going backwards that removes all the days…
in the introduction the author explains how in space battles, you won’t see the enemy or talk with him, all you’ll see is a blip on a screen at most. with all the tension and mindgames, with no enemy to hate, you’ll wind up turning your anger at your shipmates and he shows that well. fairly dark through most of the novel, he extended the story so as to get a more satisfying ending.
I’m far too lazy right now to worry about Amazon links.
I’m currently reading “History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Donald Kagan (as recommended in this very forum!) as well as Ron Chernow’s biography of Alexander Hamilton titled, curiously enough, Hamilton.
Of course I’m also working my way through Small Stakes Hold 'Em for like the fifth time. But that’s basically a permanent situation with me.
JD