What are you reading at the moment?

[Mandy57]

I just finished "Wicked" by Gregory Maguire (where has he been all my life) and about half way through "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter" by Seth Grahame-Smith.

I seem to have jumped on the boat late with both of these but better late than never!

 

[sr71plt]

How are you finding the read of the Grahame-Smith book? I was subjected to the movie on a transatlantic flight and thought it was dreadful.

 

[Safe_Bet]

I'm in a well-written YA post-apocalyptic story phase. Just read Divergent and Insurgence, City of Bones (the first in a series I'm rereading) and I'm about to pick up Shadows, which is the second in the Ashes trilogy. All really good, strong female protagonists. An antidote to Bella Swan and what's her name from 50 shades ...

::Nods:: "City of Bones" and it's sequel "City of Ashes" were both pretty good.

I haven't read any of the "Ashes Trilogy" yet because I HATE to read incomplete trilogies and the third book isn't suppose to be out till next fall.

 

[PennLady]

I'm reading "A Sudden, Fearful Death," by Anne Perry. It's one of her William Monk mysteries, which I'm finding I like more than the Thomas Pitt series I was reading before.

I also got a bunch of freebies from Amazon, many by an sf writer named David Drake that I'm curious about. So I guess those are next, although I've gotten PennBoy some books from the library -- he's loving the Eragon books -- and I may check those out to see what I'm giving him.

 

[trysail]

One person with clearly thought-through ideas about what to do was Vagit Alekperov. Born in Baku, he had worked in the offshore Azerbaijani oil industry until transferring at age twenty-nine to the new heartland of Soviet oil, West Siberia. There he came to the attention of Valery Graifer, then leading West Siberia to its maximum performance. Recognizing Alekperov's capabilities, Graifer promoted him to run one of the most important frontier regions in West Siberia. In 1990, Alekperov leapfrogged to Moscow, where he became deputy oil minister.

On trips to the West, Alekperov visited a number of petroleum companies. He saw dramatically different ways of operating an oil business. "It was a revelation," he said. "Here was a type of organization that was flexible and capable, a company that was tackling all the issues at the same time— exploration, production, and engineering— and everybody pursuing the common goal, and not each branch operating separately." He came back to Moscow convinced that the typical organization found in the rest of the world— vertically integrated companies with exploration and production, refining and marketing all in one company— was the way to organize a modern oil industry...

This restructuring would have been hard to do under any circumstances. It was very hard to do in the early and mid-1990s, when the state was very weak and law and order was in short supply. There was violence at every level, as Russian mafyias— gangs, scarily tattooed veterans of prison camps and petty criminals— ran protection rackets, stole crude oil and refined products, and sought to steal assets from local distribution terminals...

Meanwhile, following on Yeltsin's privatization decree, the Russian oil majors were beginning to take shape.

The most visible was LUKoil. Vagit Alekperov, equipped with a clear vision of an integrated oil company, set about building it as quickly as possible. The first thing was to pull together a host of disparate oil production organizations and refineries that had heretofore had no connection. He barnstormed around the country trying to persuade the managements of each organization to join this unfamilar entity called LUKoil. In order for LUKoil to come into existence, every single entity had to sign on. "The hardest thing was to convince the managers to unite their interests," said Alekperov. "There was chaos in the country, and we all had to survive, we had to pay wages, and keep the entities together. Without uniting, we would not be able to survive." They heard the message, all signed on, and LUKoil became a real company...

****​

At the military academy, he imbibed the careers of other ambitious young officers from modest circumstances— Ghaddaffi in Libya, Juan Velasco Alcarado in Peru— who had gone on to seize power.

It was in 1992... that Chavez and his co-conspirators launched their failed coup. In the subsequent two years that followed his arrest, Chavez spent his time in prison reading, writing, debating, imagining his victory, receiving a continuing stream of visitors who would be important to his cause— and basking in his new glory as a national celebrity...

​

-Daniel Yergin
The Quest: Energy, Security and The Remaking of The Modern World
New York, N.Y. 2011.





It's fascinating stuff. From its earliest days, the energy business has been a global activity full of bigger-than-life characters.

In a sequel to his 1991 Pulitzer Prize-winning, best-seller The Prize, Yergin details events of the last twenty years and describes some of the more recent heroes and villains.

 

[litfan10]

The Chase by Clive Cussler. Cussler is my guilty pleasure. This is the first of his Isaac Bell adventures which I have all four but haven't read yet, so I thought it was time.

 

[someoneyouknow]

The Chase by Clive Cussler. Cussler is my guilty pleasure. This is the first of his Isaac Bell adventures which I have all four but haven't read yet, so I thought it was time.

Eh, wasn't bad. A bit better than his original series which doesn't seem to have any heart in it any longer. The Oregon Files series is also okay, though the last one I read, The Jungle, had that dues ex machina going for it.

Reading The Divine Invasion by Philip K. Dick. Hoping it is not indicative of the rest of his work because it doesn't bode well for me if it is.

Also started reading With Rommel in the Desert by Heinz Werner Schmidt. This just adds to my collection of Rommel books.

 

[Saxon_Hart]

Pipe mill S O P's. Awesome intriguing tale.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Downloaded some of Victor Hugo's obscure novels.

 

[jomar]

The Chase by Clive Cussler. Cussler is my guilty pleasure. This is the first of his Isaac Bell adventures which I have all four but haven't read yet, so I thought it was time.

Yeah, he's pretty over the top fun.

I'm reading Angel's Gate...a p. g. sturges Shortcut Man novel. Author looks like a fucking hipster in a pork pie hat, but he can write.

 

[PennLady]

Currently on "A Journey to the Center of the Earth," by Jules Verne. Also started a Van Johnson biography but I left it upstairs.

 

[sr71plt]

Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. I picked up P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley and discovered that it doesn't start off making much sense if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice.

 

[D_Lynn]

Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice. I picked up P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley and discovered that it doesn't start off making much sense if you haven't read Pride and Prejudice.

*sigh*

 

[litfan10]

Yeah, he's pretty over the top fun.

Yea, I absolutely love reading Cussler, but readily admit he is basically Ian Fleming for the brainless. (which is probably why I love him so much! )

 

[litfan10]

Finished the first Isaac Bell adventure by Clive Cussler and now on to the second one The Wrecker

 

[ImpishSeraph]

The short stories of Doms of Dark Haven

 

[trysail]

...In the beginning there were three different colonial groups in Massachusetts. One group was aligned with those who eventually became revolutionaries. For lack of a better word, I will call these people "patriots." Another group remained faithful to the crown, and they appear herein as "loyalists." Those in the third and perhaps largest group were not sure where they stood. Part of what makes a revolution such a fascinating subject to study is the arrival of the moment when neutrality is no longer an option. Like it or not, a person has to choose.

It is not a simple case of picking right from wrong. Hindsight has shown that, contrary to what the patriots insisted, Britain had not launched a preconceived effort to enslave her colonies. Compared with other outposts of empire, the American colonists were exceedingly well off. It's been estimated that they were some of the most prosperous, least-taxed people in the Western world. And yet there was more to the patriot's overheated claims about oppression than the eighteenth century equivalent of a conspiracy theory. The hyperbole and hysteria that so mystified the loyalists had wellsprings that were both ancient and strikingly immediate. For patriots and loyalists, this was personal.

Because revolution gave birth to our nation, Americans have a tendency to exalt the concept of a popular uprising...

​

-Nathaniel Philbrick
Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution
New York, N.Y. 2013.




It's been said that history is written by the winners. That's probably the case for the American Revolution. There's little doubt in my mind that the original fomenters and agitators such as James Otis, Joseph Warren and Samuel Adams were probably implacable and unreasonable people, if not a little bit downright crazy.


Revolutions and civil wars are nasty shit. Many of these people were actually assholes. It's likely that two thirds of the colonists spent many days cursing the jerks who fucked up their lives and made life miserable.


The subsequent glorification and hagiography is as much fiction as the works of Stephen King.

 

[sr71plt]

Alexander McCall Smith's The Miracle at Speedy Motors and Donna Leon's About Face.

 

[PennLady]

Love the AMS books about Mma Ramotswe. I should check, I might be behind in that series.

I'm reading "Death Comes to Pemberley" by PD James (print) and "Hurricane Season" by Michaela Thompson (Kindle).

 

[sr71plt]

Love the AMS books about Mma Ramotswe. I should check, I might be behind in that series.

I'm reading "Death Comes to Pemberley" by PD James (print) and "Hurricane Season" by Michaela Thompson (Kindle).

I don't know where The Miracle of Speedy Motors fits in the series, but I recently found it at the bottom of the four stacks of books on my nightstand I sifted through to get rid of ones that have been on at least three continents without having been read. (Managed to weed out a dozen of them.)

I read Death Comes to Pemberley recently. I'll be glad when she goes back to writing from her own creativity and in her own style rather than someone elses.

 

[PennLady]

I don't know where The Miracle of Speedy Motors fits in the series, but I recently found it at the bottom of the four stacks of books on my nightstand I sifted through to get rid of ones that have been on at least three continents without having been read. (Managed to weed out a dozen of them.)

I read Death Comes to Pemberley recently. I'll be glad when she goes back to writing from her own creativity and in her own style rather than someone elses.

I am indeed at least two books behind on the Ladies' Detective Agency series. FYI, Miracle is eighth in the series. I imagine they would stand on their own, but I've read them all in order so I can't say.

DCP isn't bad. I think James did a good job of capturing Austen's style. I guess this gets into the fan fiction question a bit, but I don't think this is particularly any less creative than anything else she's done. I haven't read a lot of hers but I've liked the ones I did read.

 

[sr71plt]

I'm much more a fan of P.D. James than Austin, so Jane just sort of got in the way.

 

[PennLady]

I'm much more a fan of P.D. James than Austin, so Jane just sort of got in the way.

Maybe it was just a bit of a lark for James.

I forgot I'm also rereading Michael Moorcock's Elric Saga. I was reading it and trying to decide what PennBoy would think. I'm still not sure.

 

[ishtat]

I read Death Comes to Pemberley recently. I'll be glad when she goes back to writing from her own creativity and in her own style rather than someone elses.

I agree with your view of PD James, but I suspect we all envy the fact that she can still publish a top seller at the age of 91.

 

[litfan10]

Just started Jon Steele's first book in his Angelus Trilogy The Watchers, Very nice, smooth flowing writing style. A very intriguing book - I'm curious to see where he is taking me.