Blew through half of I Heard You Paint Houses last night.

momadance wrote:

CalvinBall wrote:Been really enjoying 1776 the past few days

Excellent book.

It really is, after I read that I picked up Washington's Crossing, also really enjoyed that one. I lived close by there and saw a lot of the monuments and knew the basics of the history of it, but I really enjoyed reading such an in depth history of the event and what it really meant to the revolution. Very cool

slugsrbad wrote:

RichmondPhilsFan wrote:I'd forgotten until I got an email yesterday that book three of Stormlight comes out in mid-November. Time to start that re-read.

I just finished The Final Empire. It was excellent (as you obviously know).

Richmond: first 3 chapters and prologue are on Tor. So excited.

Alugs: I've done the first 3 Mistborn books. Haven't felt the need to read more.

Just finished up The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie. Pretty fucking awesome and a def recommend.

would anyone recommend Lincoln in the Bardo? I generally think Saunders is pretty cool but this novel is intimidating.

I hate bailing on something after such a long time investment, but I think "The Circle" may end up in the 'never finished' pile. It's not very good.

I started Ready Player One on Friday and got halfway through over the weekend.

Really, really good. Lots of explanation, though that is to be expected. If it continues to hold up it will go onto the list of top 10 Sci-Fi books that I have read.

Bucky wrote:I hate bailing on something after such a long time investment, but I think "The Circle" may end up in the 'never finished' pile. It's not very good.

Wouldn't say it pays off, either

Re-reading Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. Do they make any physicists like they used to?

Anyone plan on reading Hilldawg's book? I just placed a hold at the local library.

slugsrbad wrote:Anyone plan on reading Hilldawg's book? I just placed a hold at the local library.

Nope.

I don't read books like that ever, so no, but Chris Hayes says it's not bad. The clips that have come out and the interviews that she's done certainly don't endear her to me.

The Stand held my interest but didn't really live up to its reputation, imo. Felt more like three books stitched together, and fell off a cliff in the last 100 pages

Can't remember why I stopped Lolita after the first half but am picking that back up

"Children of Time" by Adrian Tchaikovsky just moved into my top 5 all time sci-fi. Loved the ending.

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was like a good Julia Roberts movie. It's a love story, but it's also a story about a Nigerian learning who she is, learning what it means to be black in America. It was hard to tell where Adichie stopped and the protagonist began, which was a good thing in many cases bc it seemed like the story lines offered opportunities for Adichie to critique herself, the people in her life & even the reader. I dug it, glad I read it.

Kazuo Ishiguro awarded Nobel Prize for literature

He's no Dylan, but good stuff

Just read Dune and Replay. I'm pretty intrigued by this sub-genre of sci-fi, where the focus is less on technology/robots/etc and more with people. Anybody have any recommendations for similarly themed books?

Have you read Neal Stephenson's work? He has a knack for extrapolating the effects of a technology to reshape a culture and illustrates it through his characters. Snow Crash is great and was recently optioned by Amazon to make a series based off it (along with Ringworld for any Larry Niven fans). It is a fresher take on cyberpunk than the 80's built around the internet and megacorporations. I also really liked Diamond Age's portrayal of nanotech not leading to a post-scarcity but further sharpening the divide of inequality.

China Mieville sticks out in my head as well from reading The Scar several years back. It shifts more towards fantasy than sci-fi, but not in a Tolkien/D&D way, more like how the Myst video games were.

I have not read any of those... thanks for the recs. Snow Crash is available at my local library (actually all there are available), so I'm going to start there.

Werthless wrote:Just read Dune and Replay. I'm pretty intrigued by this sub-genre of sci-fi, where the focus is less on technology/robots/etc and more with people. Anybody have any recommendations for similarly themed books?

If you want to go really old school, some of Ursula Leguin's sci fi stuff might fit. I think Lathe of Heaven is a near genius work. Her other sci-fi books (The Dispossessed, Left Hand of Darkness) might be along the lines of what you're looking for. Curiously, though most of her work takes a left-wing view of things, one of her short stories ("The Ones who Walk Away from Omelas") is often cited by libertarians as an argument against utilitarianism, which it is, but LeGuin should not be considered a libertarian. (She does however sometimes considers herself an anarchist.)

I've had three books on hold for about three weeks, people need to read quicker.

For the curious:
1. The Hero of Ages
2. What Happened?
3. The Internationalists: How a Radical Plan to Outlaw War Remade the World