May 2019: Reading Thread

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Just finished listening to Outland (To be released on May 15) by our own @Dennis E. Taylor. Will review it here and perhaps some other places as well in the near future. Short answer: I think it is another excellent book. We have a star on our hands boys and girls.

Finished The American Princess by Anja van Wijgerden. English translation. Interesting biography of a woman I hadn't known of at all. Nice historical review of the Guilded Age in America (it does cover more time than this.)

Working on Go by Kazuki Kaneshiro. Coming of age novella set in Japan. So far so good.
 
Continue to read Bill Bryson's At Home from where I stopped a long while ago, can't remember what distracted me at the time. It is an immensely interesting and well-written book.
 
Read Raising Fire by James Bennett but it wasn't my cuppa tea despite being about dragons.
 
HareBrain said:
About 40% through, I've decided Charles Williams: the Third Inkling isn't for me. I would have probably enjoyed a much shorter bio that had more focus on his novels, but I'm not a fan of his poetry, and the rest of his life just seems to have been a bit dull.
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I'm sorry about this, seeing as how I recommended it to you. But at least it's no longer lurking on your to-be-read-one-day-list.
 
Hugh said:
I'm sorry about this, seeing as how I recommended it to you. But at least it's no longer lurking on your to-be-read-one-day-list.
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Don't worry, I'm glad I gave it a go -- and it was a library loan, so it cost me nothing. Thinking back over the literary biographies I've enjoyed, they seem to have been ones where I know their work very well (e.g. Tolkien) or where the subject led a colourful life (e.g. Dennis Wheatley). Williams doesn't fall into either group for me. But I also don't think I responded well to Lindop's voice, finding it rather dry and detached, though he has some good lines.

Anyway, it's made me want to read a couple more of Williams's novels, so that's a plus.
 
Ian Fortytwo said:
I'm reading 2010 Odyssey Two, by Arthur C. Clarke. I haven't read this one before, apparently it starts where the film 2001 finishes.
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I'm reading this, because David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, was just too emotionally challenging too read, and I had read over three hundred and fifty pages. I just didn't realise how emotional Dickens is. So I will have to start looking for a classic that is less emotional. Any ideas?
 
Read Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, and wasn't that fired up about it.
 
Ian Fortytwo said:
I'm reading this, because David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens, was just too emotionally challenging too read, and I had read over three hundred and fifty pages. I just didn't realise how emotional Dickens is. So I will have to start looking for a classic that is less emotional. Any ideas?
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Possibly The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, the forerunner of the detective genre in some ways? There is melodrama but that is not uncommon for a mid 19th century novel. Or the later written Dracula by Bram Stoker which is told in quite a modern way with letters, journals etc and from more than one viewpoint character.
 
I’ve been hooked on mostly history lately. Currently reading The Classical World by Robin Lane Fox and Hiroshima: The World’s Bomb by Andrew Jon Rotter.

Last month I saw somebody on these forums mention Home by Francis Pryor, and since I’d been leant the book last year that put me in mind to check it out. I enjoyed reading about the “bottom up” (a new term in this context for me) approach towards theories of the Stone Age - Iron Age way of life in Britain, and I’ve found a new admiration for our very pragmatic pre-Roman ancestors.

Also got Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett on the go. One of the many Discworld books I missed.
 
biodroid said:
@Rodders - Does the Old Man's War series get better? I thought the first book was OK, too lighthearted and it felt generic, like John Scalzi was playing it safe.
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Excusing the fact that I'm not Rodders... I think the first three are very good and worth reading. I didn't personally feel a need for improvement from book 1, but 2 and 3 are, if anything, stronger I think.
 
biodroid said:
@Rodders - Does the Old Man's War series get better? I thought the first book was OK, too lighthearted and it felt generic, like John Scalzi was playing it safe.
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Agree with @Bick but I gave up when he began publishing in installments with The Human Division. I didn't like the installment format and found the story weak as well. So haven't gone further. I've just recently read The Collapsing Empire (first in a new series - review when I find time) where I feel he's back on form again.
 
Vertigo said:
Agree with @Bick but I gave up when he began publishing in installments with The Human Division. I didn't like the installment format and found the story weak as well. So haven't gone further. I've just recently read The Collapsing Empire (first in a new series - review when I find time) where I feel he's back on form again.
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Okay found the time quicker than I thought!!! ;)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick - a very good classic PKD story. More here.
Xenophobia by Peter Cawdron - Fairly well written with original(ish) aliens but very trope laden plot. More here.
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - For me this is a return to form after a few disappointing books from Scalzi. More here.
 
Vertigo said:
Okay found the time quicker than I thought!!! ;)

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by Philip K Dick - a very good classic PKD story. More here.
Xenophobia by Peter Cawdron - Fairly well written with original(ish) aliens but very trope laden plot. More here.
The Collapsing Empire by John Scalzi - For me this is a return to form after a few disappointing books from Scalzi. More here.
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Over the Christmas holidays I read Xenophobia, I have to agree that you got it correct in your review.
Panic as needed and fighting as needed at the required points in the plot.
Nevertheless I enjoyed it as a first contact story, I've read a lot worse at times
 
Going to attempt The Dragonbone Chair by Tad Williams. I heard it is slow especially the first 200 or so pages but the writing so far is nice and fluid.
 
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