What are you reading at the moment?

[litfan10]

Jim Henson's Dark Crystal: The Novelization by A.C.H. Smith

What's neat about the book is Henson's notes at the end from his reading of the first draft of the novel. A lot of interesting insight into both Henson and Dark Crystal.

 

[AKentuckyLady]

Just started re-reading the Kevin Hearne series "Iron Druid Chronicles."

I love his writing style and wry humor, and the story is a new spin in fantasy/Irish mythology.

Plus it's just a damn good read.

 

[jomar]

Louise Penny, Beautiful Mystery

Huh, I like detective stuff. Thanks.

 

[beachbum1958]

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; it's a darkly humorous parody of the 'Omen' story cycle, full of Gaiman's dark style and laced with Pratchett's humour and puns. I found this after reading Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' TV series novelisation.

 

[litfan10]

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett; it's a darkly humorous parody of the 'Omen' story cycle, full of Gaiman's dark style and laced with Pratchett's humour and puns. I found this after reading Gaiman's 'Neverwhere' TV series novelisation.

I loved both Good Omens and Nevermore - great works. Nevermore and The Graveyard Book have the creepiest villains I've ever come across in literature.

I recently read Gaiman's first book - a biography on Duran Duran. Utter bubblegum fluff but incredibly well written and well foretold his future.

 

[trysail]

...There had been speculation for years about Johnson's relationship to that company [the "LBJ Company"]. Lady Bird had purchased one small radio station in 1943 for $17,500. Since then, thanks in part to a twenty-year-long string of strikingly favorable rulings by the Federal Communications Commission (which, among other aspects, had left Austin as one of the few metropolitan areas with only a single commercial television station), the company had burgeoned into a chain of immensely profitable radio and television stations the length of Texas, and by 1963 it owned as well 11,000 acres of ranchland and major shareholdings in nine Texas banks. Johnson had quieted the speculations by his unequivocal denials that there was any relationship. He had said, over and over, for twenty years, that the LBJ Company was entirely his wife's business and he had nothing to do with it; that, as he claimed in one of his many statements, "All that is owned by Mrs. Johnson....I don't have any interest in government-regulated industries and I never have had." But if Lyndon Johnson had no interest in the LBJ Company, why was it taking out insurance on his life? And, of course, his denials had omitted the salient fact. Texas was a community property state, and therefore since Lyndon Johnson had an interest— a half interest— in all the company's income, he had become rich. If Reynolds' statements became public, it would cast doubt on Johnson's claim that there was no connection between LBJ and the LBJ Company— and once that connection was established, the company's financial dealings would become a subject of journalistic inquiry. Johnson had arrived in Congress poor, and during his career had ostensibly had no source of income other than his government salary. He had been boasting to friends for years that he was a millionaire. By 1963, he, a man who had never held any job but his government positions— whose salary had never been more than $35,000 per year— was not merely a millionaire but a millionaire many times over...


..." 'Millionaire'— this was perhaps the first time that Johnson had ever been identified as such in print, at least in a national publication; he had perhaps never been identified in a national publication as a wealthy man, let alone a very wealthy man; for Life to do so, it must know something about his personal fortune that he had previously been able to keep hidden.

And, in fact, it did.

The magazine's investigative team had been working since the end of October [1963], and, during that time, say its leader, Associate Editor William Lambert, 'I began to pick up all these hints' about Lyndon Johnson, not merely about Johnson and his relationship with the newly rich Bobby Baker, but about Lyndon Johnson 'and the acquisition of his fortune.' Following up on hints, the team had found, in the words of Russell Sackett, one of its members and also an associate editor, that 'The deeper you got, the more serious they were; he was far richer than anyone had expected,' that he was, in fact, very rich indeed.

'I was very indignant,' Lambert said, and during the week of November 11 [1963], he had gone to the office of George P. Hunt, Life's managing editor, and said of Lyndon Johnson, 'This guy looks like a bandit to me.' Although 'bandit' is, of course, a synonym for 'robber' or 'thief,' Lambert didn't feel he was misusing the word. 'I felt that he had used public office to enhance his private wealth.' 'We're going to have to spend some money [to investigate]. I need some people, and a lot of time.' Johnson's entire financial picture should be looked into, he said. 'It was almost a net worth job, and you know that takes an enormous amount of time. I told Hunt, 'He's got a fortune, and he's been on the [public] payroll ever since he got out of college. And I don't know how he got it, but it's there.' By the time he went to see Hunt, Lambert was to recall, 'We knew he was a millionaire many times over."...


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-Robert A. Caro
The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Passage of Power
New York, N.Y. 2012.​

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This excerpt is from the fourth volume of Robert A. Caro's monumental biography of the 36th President of the U.S.

I have read each volume as they have emerged. With each and every volume, I have been sickened and disgusted by the unending stream of Johnson's profound dishonesty.

The inescapable fact is that Lyndon Baines Johnson was a crook, a liar, a cheat, a thief and a blackmailer.

He cheated in every single election he ever entered— beginning as a student at obscure Southwest Texas State Teachers College— and he never stopped.




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[sr71plt]

Paris Was Ours, Penelope Rowlands, ed.
Pretty Baby, Mary Kubica
The Road to Little Dribbling, Bill Bryson

 

[Salish]

The Price of Salt, or Carol by Patricia Highsmith
Barsk, the Elephant Graveyard by Lawrence Schoen

 

[ElectricBlue]

Rhodes also wrote The Dark Sun - the story of the US and Russki H bombs. David Holloway wrote Stalin and the Bomb, which is a companion piece to the Rhode's histories.

Did you find Antony Beevor's histories of Berlin and Stalingrad? He's also written about Normandy and the Ardennes - not so good, imho.

THE MAKING OF THE ATOMIC BOMB by Richard Rhodes

BERLIN DIARY by William Shriver

and a novel by Charles Willeford.

 

[trysail]

"...Pity the Presidents, for they enter the White House imagining that they have attained the height of power, only to discover a special kind of powerlessness. Lincoln famously said that events controlled him, not the other way around, but the public never believes it, which makes it even worse. Political considerations dilute each dose of policy; the need to balance priorities inhibits strong measures. The president finds himself trapped within the cabinet, his ability to act mediated by his secretaries. He loses touch with the world through the layers of bureaucracy surrounding him..."
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-T. J. Stiles
Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America
New York, N.Y. 2015.​

​

I (among many) have a lifelong fascination with George Armstrong Custer. Unlike most of the books on Custer, Stiles' work focuses on Custer's early life, his brilliant Civil War career, the meteoric ascent that resulted, his largely bumbling Machiavellian proclivities, probable promiscuity, Reconstruction activities, failed entrepreneurial gambits, the Washita massacre, his ill-advised politicking and his self-defeating, stupid attempt to get rich by beating Wall Street at its own game.


The book is meticulously researched and well-written. It won a Pulitzer Prize.


Make no mistake about it: Custer was a stone-cold killer. He was ambitious, aggressive, courageous (or colossally stupid, depending on how you look at it) and, like it or not, a very capable military commander.


There were plenty of character flaws but military talent and competence were not among them; in the end, he was beaten by a better-led, superior force— and it cost him his life. Benteen and Reno didn't do him any favors.




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[SamScribble]

I'm re-reading A Month in the Country by J L Carr. It's as good as it was the first time.

 

[sr71plt]

Elizabeth Peters, Tomb of the Golden Bird
Anne Tyler, A Spool of Blue Thread

 

[legerdemer]

M Train, by Patti Smith

The Buried Giant, by Kazuo Ishiguro

 

[SamScribble]

I'm re-reading A Month in the Country by J L Carr. It's as good as it was the first time.

I should have added: if you like stories in which nothing really happens. This is not a book for JBJ.

 

[Jose_Rick]

David Guterson's Snow Falling on Cedars

I'm halfway through and still can't quite say if I like it. The writing varies between extraordinary and "I can't believe an editor didn't fix this," and I still haven't found a character I care enough about to feel a need to learn their fate.

 

[PattiJolene]

Another thread and it was making me laugh....

 

[PennLady]

I've been reading a collection of short stories by Philip K. Dick. Good stuff.

 

[Ezpickins]

Just finished 11 22 63, (audible) Loved it.
I would rather actually read in the tradional manner but audible works ok while I'm on the road.

 

[sr71plt]

Drawing Conclusions by Donna Leon.

 

[Peach102]

Just finished 11 22 63, (audible) Loved it.
I would rather actually read in the tradional manner but audible works ok while I'm on the road.

I agree. I prefer books, but use audio books while running, it works better than music in terms of distracting me from how much time/distance I have to go.

 

[Ezpickins]

I agree. I prefer books, but use audio books while running, it works better than music in terms of distracting me from how much time/distance I have to go.

I listen daily, it's seldom I find a great story matched with a great narrator that make me wish it hadn't ended.

 

[B_B_Wolf]

Christopher Hitchens: "God is not Great - HowReligion Poisons evrything"
Finkelstein/Silberman: "The Bibel unearthed"

"Proverbs for Daily Living"

Robert Asprin and others: "Thieves World"

 

[trigudis]

"The Pacific War - 1941-1945"

I love a good book, and I'd like to know what the rest of you are reading. So please tell me, what are you reading at the moment?

To kick off, I'm reading:

• Shots from the Front, the British Soldier 1914 - 1918 by Richard Holmes
• Darkling by Yasmine Galenorn (supernatural fantasy / romance)
• The Student's Guide to VHDL by Peter Ashenden (a programming language for programmable logic chips rather than computers)

Maybe the most enjoyable book about the Pacific Theater of Operations in WW2 I've ever read.

 

[trysail]

"...So he marched his men most of the night and flung them into battle when— as a number of Indians note— they were so tired their legs shook when they dismounted. As usual, he did only minimal reconnaissance, and convinced himself on no evidence whatever that the Indians must be running away from him, not towards him. The highly experienced scouts who were with him— the half breed Mitch Bouyer and the Crows Bloody Knife and Half Yellow Face— all told Custer that they would die if they descended into the valley where the Indians were. None of them, in all their many years on the plains, had ever seen anything to match this great encampment. All the scouts knew that the valley ahead was for them the valley of death. Half Yellow Face, poetically, told Custer that they would all go home that day by a road they did not know. The fatalism of these scouts is a story in itself. Mitch Bouyer, who knew exactly what was coming, sent the young scout Curly away, but then himself rode on with Custer, to his death..."
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-Larry McMurtry
Crazy Horse
New York, N.Y. 1999.​

​

If there's anybody qualified to write about the American West, it's Larry McMurtry.

Surprisingly little is known about Crazy Horse's life and that, of course, makes him a difficult subject for any biographer. Rather than fill lots of pages with speculation, McMurtry acknowledges the paucity of solid information and wrote a comparatively brief book.




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[jaybee55]

Pat Frank: Alas Babylon (a re-re-re-read)