What mainstream book are you reading now?

[alohadave]

Genre fiction: "Stinger" by Robert McCammon. On deck, either Peter F. Hamilton's "Exodus" or Michael Swanwick's "The Dragons of Babel."

To prove I'm clinically insane: "The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New York" by Robert Caro. If you don't know who Robert Moses was, he was a 'planner' in New York City who initially created parks and very useful infrastructure (the Triborough Bridge, for one.) But who eventually revealed a hatred of public transit and championed roads. Anyway, I've always been curious about how various things ended up the way they are when I'd lived in the area, and the answer had always been "Robert Moses." BTW. It's about 1200 pages . Caro is also the biographer who is four books into a planned five of a biography series about Lyndon Johnson. It's already passed 1,000,000 words in total. I've not read it.

The Robert Moses book is in my TBR list. I didn't realize it was so long, but it is an important subject.

Imagine if his cross Manhattan freeway had been built!

 

[StillStunned]

The fool comes full-circle in the Tawny Man trilogy. If you haven't, you should, if only for the closure for Fitz.

Tawny Man is what turned me off. Then again, I was a lot younger when I read them. Maybe my taste has changed.

 

[Bramblethorn]

Love Murderbot. I'm curious what you think its gender skews as? It's a genderless construct, but everyone seems to have a different opinion about it. My feeling is that it skewed very slightly feminine.

In my head, book-MB's gender is just "null" or perhaps "murderbot".

Since watching the TV series I have occasionally slipped into "he" which I think might be leaking through from the actor.

The series on Apple+ is a good adaptation, though there are differences for the medium.

Yeah, I know some book fans very much dislike the choices made in the adaptation. I thought some of those changes were necessary for the medium, some were okay, a couple were good (the way they use Sanctuary Moon as part of MB's story) and some were choices I wouldn't have made, but they didn't ruin it for me. Still felt more faithful to the source material than most adaptations I've seen.

I wasn't familiar with any of the actors before watching (seen some of them in various things, nothing that stuck in my memory). But Skarsgård, Dumezweni and Dastmalchian were all great. Skarsgård clearly gets the source material and made some good choices e.g. cutting back the dialogue in MB's last scene with Gurathin. It's the kind of choice that requires having faith in what the show has done up to that point, so that audiences can hear "I need to check the perimeter" and not need the significance explained to them.

I'm curious to see how season 2 deals with the storylines from the books. I think we'll probably see some reworking to combine the Preservation stories with the ART stories, and/or intercut them so the series can introduce ART without having to put the Preservation cast on ice.

And then there's the cliffhanger with Captain Hossein and Hordööp-Sklanch...

 

[SimonDoom]

Not read that series by Atkinson yet, but if you like his work and are interested in the subject, I highly recommend his "Liberation Trilogy," about the US Army in the ETO during WWII. First book is "An Army at Dawn: The War in North Africa, 1942-1943."

I did read it! It was wonderful. He is an excellent writer. His eye for detail is uncanny. I especially enjoyed the first of those three books. Something he captures well is how messy war is and how it never goes as expected. Everybody is fucking up all the time.

 

[PennameWombat]

The Robert Moses book is in my TBR list. I didn't realize it was so long, but it is an important subject.

Imagine if his cross Manhattan freeway had been built!

That specific project is the one that put the book into my queue. I once lived in New Jersey and on rare occasions needed to travel by auto across Manhattan to Long Island. Knowing that project was never built always stuck hard, but I was unaware of the biography, it having been written in 1974, had fallen a bit off the radar. I'm surprised no one had ever mentioned it when I asked about the subject when I lived in the area not that many years after that.

On the couple of different occasions I lived that part of the world, people who knew at least some of the history spoke the name 'Robert Moses' either with reverent awe or spat it out before literally spitting on the ground.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Skarsgård clearly gets the source material and made some good choices e.g. cutting back the dialogue in MB's last scene with Gurathin. It's the kind of choice that requires having faith in what the show has done up to that point, so that audiences can hear "I need to check the perimeter" and not need the significance explained to them.

I'm curious to see how season 2 deals with the storylines from the books. I think we'll probably see some reworking to combine the Preservation stories with the ART stories, and/or intercut them so the series can introduce ART without having to put the Preservation cast on ice.

And then there's the cliffhanger with Captain Hossein and Hordööp-Sklanch...

I've not read the books, but loved the series on TV, partly because it was a strong ensemble cast, the show didn't talk down to the audience, it had wit but wasn't too in awe of itself, and the episodes were no longer than they needed to be - every shot counted, as I noticed when I watched most of it a second time so the boyfriend could catch up and then the husband. Boyfriend went and signed up to AppleTV to watch the last couple episodes! He had read all the books but thought it was a good adaptation, with some understandable changes. I'll be interested to see if the cast switch to 'they' for Murderbot rather than the traditionally-dehumanising 'it'.

It's been nice having some telly to look forward to each week - Friday night, end of work, Murderbot and Taskmaster. Sadly both have just finished a series, but at least Only Connect starts next week.

Re books, I've started reading the first of The Expanse books, having previously watched the whole TV series. Hoping it doesn't dwell on the grim aspects too much. I've got a stash of Georgette Heyer novels to read if I really want escapism.

 

[StillStunned]

I've got a stash of Georgette Heyer novels to read if I really want escapism.

I often find myself rereading The Toll Gate, The Unknown Ajax, The Masqueraders, Farao's Daughter, The Quiet Gentleman, The Grand Sophy and several others. The literary equivalent of high-quality comfort food.

 

[HordHolm]

The Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek, a satire based on the everyman Švejk and his adventures in World War 1. It's like an early version of Catch 22.

It's a shame Hasek died before he could finish it.

 

[HordHolm]

Something non-fiction. The Embers of the Hands, by Eleanor Barraclough, a history of the Vikings based on the everyday objects they left behind and focussing on the normal elements of life rather than anything grand. (Embers of the hands is a 'kenning' - Norse poetic metaphor - for gold.)

 

[AG31]

I just finished White Crow by Michael Robotham. It's a true page turner with very engaging characters.

I've just startedThe Death of Us by Abigail Dean. I don't remember where I saw this mentioned, or why I thought I might like it, so I refrained from reading the synopsis on the cover I'm on page 7 and have decided that she's a good enough writer to stick with it, and she's got me hooked enough to keep going. We'll see..

 

[yowser]

I'm on a Bloomsbury jag (a common pattern for me as a reader is to follow some thread that grabbed me: one author's work leads to another, or some topic that I think needs reading from multiple disciplines/perspectives.)

A Lytton Strachey biography (Holroyd's second edition) and discussion of the Cambridge circle that turned into Bloomsbury drove me to read his Eminent Victorians, which was wonderful, especially when reflecting on the stir it caused at the time.

So then I had to read Virginia Wolf's Mrs. Dalloway but I had to put it down about forty pages in (uncharacteristic for me.) I don't mind the early 1900s style generally, but the ruminations of the specific London characters I found vapid and elliptic.

I may give it a go again (I had similar difficulties with Middlemarch, but the second try revealed its excellence, and I am glad I got back to it. Timing is everything, etc.)

Not so sure about Dalloway.

 

[Bramblethorn]

I've not read the books, but loved the series on TV, partly because it was a strong ensemble cast, the show didn't talk down to the audience, it had wit but wasn't too in awe of itself, and the episodes were no longer than they needed to be - every shot counted, as I noticed when I watched most of it a second time so the boyfriend could catch up and then the husband. Boyfriend went and signed up to AppleTV to watch the last couple episodes! He had read all the books but thought it was a good adaptation, with some understandable changes. I'll be interested to see if the cast switch to 'they' for Murderbot rather than the traditionally-dehumanising 'it'.

Last I saw, they've stuck with "it", and that's what Skarsgård consistently uses in interviews. I think this is explored more in later books (TV season 1 corresponds to book 1) but in brief: MB does not want to be human, and while it sometimes has to pass as human and adopt a more typical human gender that makes it dysphoric.

I've seen complaints that the adaptation makes academics and polyamorous people look ridiculous, but frankly when I think of some of the behaviour I've seen from both demographics IRL, I'd say at worst there was some mild ribbing going on.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

Last I saw, they've stuck with "it", and that's what Skarsgård consistently uses in interviews. I think this is explored more in later books (TV season 1 corresponds to book 1) but in brief: MB does not want to be human, and while it sometimes has to pass as human and adopt a more typical human gender that makes it dysphoric.

I've seen complaints that the adaptation makes academics and polyamorous people look ridiculous, but frankly when I think of some of the behaviour I've seen from both demographics IRL, I'd say at worst there was some mild ribbing going on.

As a polyamorous ex-academic, I found the crew hilarious and horribly plausible!

I'm torn as to whether to read the books or wait for the new series. I think I like watching with no idea what will happen (even if the intro sequence was a Blatant Clue!), and anyway, my to-read pile is enormous...

 

[Nynah]

I'm torn as to whether to read the books or wait for the new series.

The first four in the series are novellas and they're very quick reads, so definitely an option if you want to just find out what's on deck, since it might be a little while before we get S2 of the show.

 

[WaxPhilosophic]

Fiction: re-reading Martha Wells' Murderbot Diaries series, currently on #3 (Rogue Protocol)

Got the first one on hold at the library. Must be popular, I think I'm like 38th in the queue.

In the meantime, it's Love and Rockets (graphic novel) by the Hernandez brothers.

 

[redgarters]

I just finished Midnight Black, the 14th Gray Man book by Mark Greaney. They are thinning a bit, but still good brainless vacation reading.
Also finished Silver Elite by Dani Francis. I like Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing series better if you're looking for 'young girl goes enemies to lovers with dangerous looking hunk during war school'.
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey is a lromising start to their new series (although it's no Expanse yet).
I've got V.S. Scwab on my 'to read' list, Addie LaRue was a great one and I'm hoping the new one is as good.

 

[Nynah]

I just finished Midnight Black, the 14th Gray Man book by Mark Greaney. They are thinning a bit, but still good brainless vacation reading.
Also finished Silver Elite by Dani Francis. I like Rebecca Yarros' Fourth Wing series better if you're looking for 'young girl goes enemies to lovers with dangerous looking hunk during war school'.
The Mercy of Gods by James S.A. Corey is a lromising start to their new series (although it's no Expanse yet).
I've got V.S. Scwab on my 'to read' list, Addie LaRue was a great one and I'm hoping the new one is as good.

I loved The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue; the immortal living through various time periods is one of my favorite tropes. I think you'll like Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil for sure.

Oddly enough the thing I like the most about the Fourth Wing series are the dragons; the humans are honestly kind of annoying.

 

[TarnishedPenny]

Just finished rereading Timothy Snyder’s On Tyranny. Most impressive!

 

[Bramblethorn]

As a polyamorous ex-academic, I found the crew hilarious and horribly plausible!

I'm torn as to whether to read the books or wait for the new series. I think I like watching with no idea what will happen (even if the intro sequence was a Blatant Clue!), and anyway, my to-read pile is enormous...

Those of us who've read the books are still unsure what's going to happen in season 2. The Preservation characters don't rejoin the story until the fourth book, and sidelining a bunch of important characters for that long is impractical for TV. But books 2-3 introduce a major character who's a fan favourite, and skipping that character's introduction would be an unpopular choice. So I'm guessing there will be some sort of reworking of the material to bring those two threads together into one story.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I did read it! It was wonderful. He is an excellent writer. His eye for detail is uncanny. I especially enjoyed the first of those three books. Something he captures well is how messy war is and how it never goes as expected. Everybody is fucking up all the time.

You should read Antony Beevor's books on Stalingrad, Berlin, Arnhem, Ardennes. He is superb at capturing the big picture, the high command, as well as the heat and terror of the frontline. Hands down the best military historian I've ever read. The first two, in particular, highly recommended.

 

[SimonDoom]

You should read Antony Beevor's books on Stalingrad, Berlin, Arnhem, Ardennes. He is superb at capturing the big picture, the high command, as well as the heat and terror of the frontline. Hands down the best military historian I've ever read. The first two, in particular, highly recommended.

I will look into those. I enjoy history.

 

[TheNovelist2000]

I am currently reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It’s about time travel and is a good read.

 

[ElectricBlue]

I am currently reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It’s about time travel and is a good read.

How far in are you? I found it like many Stephen King novels, they start out strong but lose their way about half way through. It was a "didn't finish" for me.

 

[redgarters]

Oddly enough the thing I like the most about the Fourth Wing series are the dragons; the humans are honestly kind of annoying.

It's honestly a wonder the dragons tolerate the humans at all.
I like the series, but then I'm a sucker for 'young underdog girl fights the overwhelming odds and wins'. And its fun to read mainstream books that read like YA a lot of the time but then suddenly a full fledged porny sex scene is on out of the blue. The first one was so unexpectedly explicit I looked around at the cafe where I was sitting quietly with my (I thought) regular fantasy book thinking "is this allowed?!"

 

[alohadave]

I am currently reading 11/22/63 by Stephen King. It’s about time travel and is a good read.

I'm not a King fan, but this is one of my all time favorite books.