What are you reading at the moment?

[BelleCanzuto]

Just finished "The Forever War" by Jon Haldeman.
Started "And I Do Not Forgive You" by Amber Sparks.

 

[trysail]

Fuck, Not only can I not keep up with 'em all, I can't even remember all of them.

A partial list:​

Jon Krakauer, Classic Kraukauer, 2019.

Marcus Luttrell, Lone Survivor, 2013.
(I'm particularly proud of myself for finding this one. I spied it in the dark corner of a used book store in the islands. At $8.50 (EC), that's ~$3.20 (USD) and I'd been meaning to read it since its 2007 publication).

Sam Johnson & Jan Winebrenner, Captive Warriors: A Vietnam POW's Story, 2019.

George F. Will, Bunts: Curt Flood, Camden Yards, Pete Rose and Other Reflections On Baseball, 1998.

Amy Gary, In The Great Green Room: The Brilliant and Bold Life of Margaret Wise Brown, 2016

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[KeithD]

A Dangerous Mourning by Anne Perry

and

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir

 

[litfan10]

Finished Gideon the Ninth - very unique and impressive. Looking forward to Harrow the Ninth this June. No idea where Muir is going to take the story.

Reading Clive Cussler's Final Option Typical adrenaline filled adventure. Love it.

At work I'm reading Katherine Applegate's The One and Only Ivan as I've just received an ARC of the sequel, The One and Only Bob, and I'm refreshing my memory.

 

[trysail]

...

"...As a measure of dietary intake, the calorie has a number of failings. For one thing, it gives no indication of whether a food is actually good for you or not. The concept of 'empty' calories was quite unknown in the early twentieth century. Nor does conventional calorie measurement account for how foods are absorbed as they pass through the body. A great many nuts, for instance, are less completely digested than other foods, which means they leave behind fewer calories than are consumed. You may eat 170 calories worth of almonds, but keep only 130 of them. The other 40 sluice through without, as it were, touching the sides..."​

-Bill Bryson.
The Body: A Guide For Occupants
New York, NY 2019.​

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Years ago, whilst wandering through a bookstore, I spied a book titled A Walk In The Woods: Rediscovering America On The Appalachian Trail. I'd never heard of the author before.

Having hiked major portions of the AT at one time or another, I was intrigued. On a lark, being flush with cash at the time, I bought the book, read it, and thoroughly enjoyed it. As it turned out, the book sold well and ended up as a best-seller (it was Bryson's breakthrough work). While an enjoyable read, it did not strike me as the work of a particularly gifted writer and I consigned the author to the category of "One Hit Wonders."

(Obviously) I did not imagine that Bryson would go on to write a long string of best-selling books on an impressively wide range of topics from the truly magnificent, incredibly erudite A Short History of Nearly Everything to Shakespeare: The World As Stage to Bryson's Dictionary For Writers and Editors.

Almost needless to say, as I continued to read his books, my opinion of him changed dramatically. I now accord him near-genius status and, without hesitation, read nearly everything he publishes.

With this book, Bryson has penned yet one more highly-readable and informative work. The Body is written in plain English and is chock full of fascinating material and insights.


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[Lori_the_Hoosier]

'Schott's Original Miscellany', an eclectic compendium of assorted, bizarre, amusing, and odd facts I found in my husband's study, listing things as diverse as the strange deaths of some Burmese Kings, the different types of murder one can commit (did you know the killing of a prophet is 'vaticide'? I didn't, but I do now...), a comprehensive Polari (gay/theater slang from London) vocabulary, excerpts from Ambrose Bierce's 'Demon's Dictionary' (Coward def: one who, in an emergency, thinks with his legs...), the Degrees of Freemasonry, the Victorian language of flowers, English country Magpie rhymes, and the Christian interpretation of 'The 12 Days of Christmas'. Fascinating little gem of a book.

 

[KeithD]

Still this:

Jane Seymour: The Haunted Queen by Alison Weir

but now this as well:

The Other End of the Line by Andrea Camilleri

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Just started "Wolf Hall" by Hilary Mantle

(I watched the series based on the book and enjoyed it. But there are three in the series, and only the first one got made into the TV show)

 

[Reshbod]

The Comedians: Drunks, Thieves, Scoundrels and the History of American Comedy by Kliph Nesteroff

 

[BillandKate]

Just finished rereading Camus' 'The Plague". Eerie, considering what's happening with Covid-19.

 

[Misshotndeep]

The Leira Chronicles

 

[eroticstoryspinner]

Just started Neal Stephenson's Anathem. As in, three pages into it. I imagine, as with most Stephenson books, it will take a little while to engage me completely, and then I'll be hooked.

Great book. It takes forever, but I actually think the audio is better than the print.

 

[MetaBob]

Lucifer's Hammer - Larry Niven & Jerry Pournelle
The Postman - David Brin (just the original novella)
Into The Wild - Jon Krakauer
Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs - Wallace Stegner

All re-reads, and all for a current writing project.

The result of re-reading this list is the inspiration for my newest fiction.

On another subject:

Just finished "The Forever War" by Jon Haldeman
...

Joe Haldeman, not Jon.

 

[litfan10]

Starting Clive Cussler's latest (and hopefully not the last) Isaac Bell adventure The Titanic Secret.

For many years now Cussler has worked with coauthors on all five of his series, so potentially they could continue the stories.

Cussler was a notorious control freak, so I don't know if he would want them to continue without his supervision. All of us Cussler fans will have to wait and see.

At least we should have three or four completed novels that are in the printing queues for release later this year.

 

[Ian_Snow]

Been on a Robert McCammon reread kick lately. Just finishing up Swan Song which I haven't read for twenty years. It still holds up pretty well.

 

[Maeven_quinn]

A New Yorker article about Fiona Apple.

 

[flytime]

The Outsider By Stephen King

 

[J_R_Ashunwhy]

Over the summer, one of the local-ish libraries held a huge book sale to clear out some of their older inventory, and of course I filled a box of cheesy looking horror stories I had never read before that I am now just starting to get to.

I just finished up Spook Night by David Robbins, which despite its interesting preface, was just a poor-man's version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. The characters even reference Washington Irving and his story in the story as if the author was telling the reader, "Yes, that is exactly where I borrowed this idea from, but as you can see by the shit characters, huge plot holes, and grammatical errors including switching the names of the characters mid paragraph, it's totally original."

It did make me rather susceptible to naps though, so as far as reading vs. nap ratios go, great book.

 

[KeithD]

Maeve Binchy, Firefly Summer

and

Martin Walker, Bruno Chief of Police

 

[Lori_the_Hoosier]

The Phoenix And The Carpet ~ E. Nesbit

 

[CoffeeWithMonkeys]

I ordered four books that I read in my teens-early twenties off eBay, just got them yesterday and started on two of them. One is called They'll Never Make A Movie Starring me. This one I read in 8th or 9th grade. Super short paperback I almost finished last night but kind of want to savor it. It's as fun now as when I read it many many years ago.

The other is called Baby Love. Only read the first chapter and it too is as fun as I remember.

 

[Handley_Page]

I like this story:-
That Bloody Woman!
byAndrogynousother©

 

[litfan10]

Mermaid Moon by Susann Cokal physically and The Ledbury Lamplighters (book three in the Ravenscroft mysteries series) by Kerry Tombs on my tablet.

 

[Kumquatqueen]

The Bull From The Sea by Mary Renault.

Theseus returns home after killing the Minotaur, bringing dodgy Cretan habits home with him, and has to deal with becoming king. Very dense and wordy but I'm getting into it.

 

[BelleCanzuto]

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel.
And I'm not sure I like it..