Bucky wrote:finishing up the blackwater saga. Reminds me of Dark Shadows, genre wise.

I'm left fairly unsatisfied from the conclusion. Maybe it's a side effect from listening, but I don't think so.

picked this one up on a lark on the audible black friday sale because of its weird title. turns out it's pretty good. you guys should check it out. it's called 'slaughterhouse five'.

Speaking of old books, I just reread Watership Down for the first time in 20 or so years. Man that's a great book.

Whelp, with no sports, this thread might see a bit more action. Reading some Thomas Mann right now. Might move on to the last two books of the Wolf Hall trilogy after.

I'm about a third of the way through Chernow's 1000 page biography of Ulysses S Grant. He does a great job of making these interesting due to his incredibly detailed research.

If there's ever been a time to start Infinite Jest..

TenuredVulture wrote:Reading some Thomas Mann right now.

mom is tan

there's this 823 page stephen king book that many have put off reading

I'm a third of the way through War and Peace and gave myself until May to finish. I think I can push that up significantly now.

TV, how did you keep up with all of the characters? I'm just focusing on 10-12 of them.

I commute by train mostly so I devour a book every week or two. This year I've read:

Ian McEwan - Machines Like Me; my first of his and it was a mistake to start there. Not great.
Atwood's The Testaments and The Blind Assassin. The former was kind of a heavy beach read. A page turner but didn't hit deeply for me. The Blind Assassin is not about a Blind Assassin really but once you get into it, it's a slow burn that was masterfully executed.
Julia Phillips - The Disappearing Earth; from the start I thought it would he a mystery but it's more of a broad look at life in rural Russia. I liked it well enough.
Ben Lerner - The Topeka School; I thought this was a pretty good quick take on how much things change but also stay the same.
Ted Chiang - Exhalation; a collection of short stories by the Arrival guy and I loved it and I typically don't really like short stories
Kazuo Ishiguro - The Remains of the Day; excellently written, fairly funny, and a bit tragic
Oscar Vuong - On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous - a (first?) novel by a poet, so quite...poetically written. fairly poignant, obviously autobiographical and quite touching.

Currently going through Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. Still love Mitchell.

PrattRules wrote:I'm a third of the way through War and Peace and gave myself until May to finish. I think I can push that up significantly now.

TV, how did you keep up with all of the characters? I'm just focusing on 10-12 of them.

Well, those are the most important ones. I found myself often consulting the "cast of characters" list my edition helpfully included.

two-thirds of a way through a 25 hour book Last listened this morning 9AM or so.

Audible just sent me a tickler encouraging me to 'pick up where i left off' and reminding me i could exchange it if i don't like it

weird

anyhow, this non-fiction is really, really good. About a pivotal moment in US history that I'd never heard of before, even though it happened locally, with the planning done in germantown and the 'burglary' occuring at the FBI office in Media.

Really really good stuff. A nonviolent opposition group stole FBI files and sent them to the media (small m). What happened after that changed the course of the government. Can't imagine what it'd be like if this hadn't happened. Trumpism would probably be the norm.

https://smile.amazon.com/Burglary-Disco ... 144&sr=8-1

PrattRules wrote:I'm a third of the way through War and Peace and gave myself until May to finish. I think I can push that up significantly now.

TV, how did you keep up with all of the characters? I'm just focusing on 10-12 of them.

Finished this well ahead of schedule, because what else are you gonna do. My ultimate takeaway is that Natasha really got around.

PrattRules wrote:

PrattRules wrote:I'm a third of the way through War and Peace and gave myself until May to finish. I think I can push that up significantly now.

TV, how did you keep up with all of the characters? I'm just focusing on 10-12 of them.

Finished this well ahead of schedule, because what else are you gonna do. My ultimate takeaway is that Natasha really got around.

I found Natasha intriguing and tragic. She's young and silly at the beginning, does some dumb things, pays a heavy price, and manages to get through it. More interesting than Anna Karenina.

Have been reading before bed every other night or so. This has definitely pushed me back to a good rythym with books. Once I finish my back log a lot of the ones just mentioned sounds really interesting.

I read all of John Scalzi‘s books last month.

Old Man’s War series had an interesting premise, I’d skip Zoe’s Tale if you are binging through though since it’s basically the story of The Last Colony (the previous book in the series) just told by the teenage daughter of the protagonist.

The Collapsing Empire series is pretty good as well, waiting for the last book of the trilogy to be released to see how it ends.

Enjoyed Lock In, might be a little to close to home right now the the pandemic angle, but it’s more of a futuristic police procedural in the post pandemic state.

Ever wanted to work your way through James Joyce's Ulysses? The Rosenbach is hosting Ulysses Every Day on Facedbook with portions read live each day to help you get to the end by Bloomsday.

You can access the readings on youtube or the webpage as well, if you aren't on Facebook.

you just wanted to make us look up 'bloomsday'

Bucky wrote:you just wanted to make us look up 'bloomsday'

It's like Doomsday, but more heavily annotated.

I'm about 1/3rd through Zolecki's Halladay book. Anybody else started it? Very interesting, alot of early Roy tidbits I either didn't know or had completely forgotten. The opening chapter is just about the playoff no-hitter.