The Books/Reading Thread

[rms]

Picked up Foner's Re-Construction book today while I stopped at Antietam. Heard great things

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

 

[Dak]

Very interesting walk through the last ~80 years or so of mostly media and consumer culture, but I found him unable to ultimately "stick the landing". I will give him points for the book not only being solipistic boomer clucking about younger generations. I wonder how the end might have been different if this was published in 2018 and not 2008.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

finished this
looks like it could easily be made into a movie that entertains the fans of the Twilight movies
although i will say that this book series is much better written than the Twilight Saga books

 

[TageRyche]

I finished reading the James Swallow thriller Nomad.

 

[CiG]

View attachment 20242

After a short break (once I had finished A Thousand Sons) I'm getting back into the Horus Heresy with book 13.

This is turning out to be one of the fastest reads of a HH book for me. It's a very classic take on the espionage and detective genres rather than the typically dense science fiction style so it's just blowing by. Good stuff too.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

It's a very classic take on the espionage and detective genres

trying to read a book like this just makes me want to watch a james bond movie
anyone here every read any Anita Blake or Drizzt Do'urden??

 

[Dak]

Powerful read; picked it up today and couldn't put it down. Hits on a lot of the themes I keep bringing up @Einherjar86.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

 

[Einherjar86]

Powerful read; picked it up today and couldn't put it down. Hits on a lot of the themes I keep bringing up @Einherjar86.

Reading some reviews. It sounds really good. The Guardian published an excerpt focusing on the centrality of McDonald's as a social hub.

Not quite on topic, but on a related note, the Boston Globe published this a few days ago: https://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2019/06/07/tony/tkGyDDbKuilzky4DNjIFRL/story.html

In recent years, state colleges and universities have been scaling back efforts to recruit students from the more remote areas of their states. Recruiters don’t have time to make the hours-long drive just to speak to a senior class of 100 students — never mind my graduating class of 26. Many believe they can reach rural kids online, but even today, one-fourth of the population in rural areas lacks access to high-speed broadband. The lack of connectivity is two-way, further isolating the web-less ruralites from the worldwide web of ideas and information while at the same time allowing recruiters to lump their high schoolers into a homogenous stack of outlanders, who probably wouldn’t be interested in college.

Another reason higher ed has abandoned rural America is because we kids simply don’t have the money to pay for an education. The opportunities I took advantage of are slipping away as the GOP, empowered by divisive rhetoric, continues to divert resources from education. In May, Trump asked Congress to redirect $1.9 billion from a Pell Grant Program surplus to other projects like NASA, in addition to $2 billion he had already sought to syphon off the subsidy fund. Kids whose parents make less than $50,000, like mine did, would be forced to get private loans and take on the crushing debt that comes with them.

In search of new revenue sources, colleges, particularly in the Midwest, have focused on recruiting international students who usually pay full freight — often more than double the tuition in-state residents pay. By 2018, that meant more than one million foreign students enrolled in US colleges and universities to the tune of $39 billion in revenue.

(The current administration’s stricter view on immigration has cut into that trend, but as these schools look to replace that tuition money, they’ll continue to target the higher incomes of urban and suburban families over that of rural households.)

 

[TageRyche]

I finished reading the R.G. Belsky thriller Below The Fold yesterday.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

Just started reading my first Elmore Leonard book, The Law at Randado. And so far all i have to say is "My God, look at their pants--".

 

[TageRyche]

My review of the Colin Conway / Frank Zafiro thriller Charlie-316 can now be seen via this Mystery Scene Magazine.com link.

 

[Blurry_Dreams]

@TageRyche
could you go and read and review some Anita Blake and Drizzt Do'Urden books?
i'd like to hear your thoughts on these 2 book-series

 

[TageRyche]

@TageRyche
could you go and read and review some Anita Blake and Drizzt Do'Urden books?
i'd like to hear your thoughts on these 2 book-series

I don't read much in the way of fantasy books anymore. I think I read a Drizzt Do'Urden book a long time ago. He's a dark elf or something right? I can't remember which book it was but I remember liking it well enough. I've never read the Anita Blake stuff.

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

I actually just started reading some fantasy(A Song of Ice and Fire) at the ripe old age of 35. Other than that i've really been into Elmore Leonard's work recently.

 

[Slammed]

I started reading Young Adult books when I was about 35. I started reading horror when I was about 12 I think I got things around the wrong way.

 

[Dak]

I actually just started reading some fantasy(A Song of Ice and Fire) at the ripe old age of 35.

The first book is the only good one. Read some David Gemmell or Raymond Feist instead. I recommend Legend, Waylander, or The King Beyond the Gate by Gemmell, or the Serpantwar Saga or the Riftwar Saga by Feist (separate trilogies).

 

[TechnicalBarbarity]

... i'm actually almost done with the first book and love how fleshed out everything is. Gotta say S1 of the HBO series was pretty damn faithful to this book. I've been asking around for some recs and so far i've narrowed it down to either the Malazan books, Glen Cooks The Black Company or Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire Trilogy(which i actually picked up a few years back). I'm also thinking of finally giving the LOtR trilogy a shot(i read The Hobbit years ago). The Prince of Nothing series sounds pretty interesting too.

edit: i was gonna ask which of their books to check out but i see you edited them in.

 

[Dak]

... i'm actually almost done with the first book and love how fleshed out everything is. Gotta say S1 of the HBO series was pretty damn faithful to this book. I've been asking around for some recs and so far i've narrowed it down to either the Malazan books, Glen Cooks The Black Company or Mark Lawrence's Broken Empire Trilogy(which i actually picked up a few years back). I'm also thinking of finally giving the LOtR trilogy a shot(i read The Hobbit years ago). The Prince of Nothing series sounds pretty interesting too.

Well if you haven't read LoTR then that's obviously tops. S1 of HBO was faithful, and frankly up through Book 3 is still interesting, but the series really has a slow before then quick downward trend after the Red Wedding. I don't know enough about the other series you listed but if you like GoT, Gemmell's books are close to similarly "gritty, low magic" feel, without being a true series. Feist is a world builder par excellence above and beyond Martin, and just after Tolkien.