Official Book Thread - What You're Reading & Everything Book Related (merged)

#1,252
#1,252
I wish that Brandon Sanderson was solely dedicated to completing the Stormlight Archive.

For context, I am about to embark upon a long flight in 2012. My missus pulls me into a book kiosk, urging me to buy something to read. She espies 'The Way of Kings,' likes its cover art and that it's 700-something pages long. I buy it. We make the gate in time to board. I check out the book, and it's scifi. Not having read any scifi for years, this is OK with me. Later, I finish the tome, only to discover that the story line is unresolved and will continue into another book. I find that one and read it. Same thing. I look it up on the Web and discover that I've read the first two of ~10 planned books. I'm hooked and wonder if the entire story will be published before I die... :facepalm:
 
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#1,253
#1,253
apevol said:
Anybody got a suggestion related to human suffering?
Click to expand...

If you want to torture yourself with a great book, you could try Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. The ridiculous violence in it can be overwhelming but it's such a great book (although I realize McCarthy is not everyone's cup of tea).

Speaking of McCarthy, I've been really bugged lately by a strong urge to re-read Suttree. Although it's my all-time favorite novel (and takes place in Knoxville, fwiw), I generally avoid re-reads because it's hard enough to find reading time as it is without retreading trodden ground. But I think it's gonna pull me in eventually....
 
#1,254
#1,254
More Blood Meridian-- as a sampler, I freakin love his description of the roving band of marauders (tl;dr warning):

A legion of horribles, hundreds in number, half naked or clad in costumes attic or biblical or wardrobed out of a fevered dream with the skins of animals and silk finery and pieces of uniform still tracked with the blood of prior owners, coats of slain dragoons, frogged and braided cavalry jackets, one in a stovepipe hat and one with an umbrella and one in white stockings and a bloodstained wedding veil and some in headgear or cranefeathers or rawhide helmets that bore the horns of bull or buffalo and one in a pigeontailed coat worn backwards and otherwise naked and one in the armor of a Spanish conquistador, the breastplate and pauldrons deeply dented with old blows of mace or sabre done in another country by men whose very bones were dust and many with their braids spliced up with the hair of other beasts until they trailed upon the ground and their horses' ears and tails worked with bits of brightly colored cloth and one whose horse's whole head was painted crimson red and all the horsemen's faces gaudy and grotesque with daubings like a company of mounted clowns, death hilarious, all howling in a barbarous tongue and riding down upon them like a horde from a hell more horrible yet than the brimstone land of Christian reckoning, screeching and yammering and clothed in smoke like those vaporous beings in regions beyond right knowing where the eye wanders and the lip jerks and drools.
 
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#1,255
#1,255
1st Stephen King book I'll be reading is the running man which I bought along with classic novel Treasure Island.
I never did realize until years later it was a book before it was a hollywood movie the running man.
Other books I got most recently Sandman Slim 1st in that sandman Slim series of a Antihero of the urban fantasy series so no doubt it'll be kickass.
Novice

Chicago:Unsolved crimes and Mysteries
Ghosts, unsolved murders, plus ufos spotted over the O'Hara airport it'll likely be a great non fictional book.
The Novice
1st book in the Summoner series. Fletcher has the ability to summon demons from another world. He finds save haven in a academy where gofted persons are taught the art of summoning after being chased from his village for a crime he didn't commit. There is a war against the Savage orcs, Ignatius is his demon and friend and he is a small demon. With the fate of the Empire in his hands he has a Mount Everest to climb.
Sounds like it'll be a great book, and I'll guess Ignatius will prove to be a valuable ally.


Blue Heaven by CJ Box
So far it's a great exciting book as a retired detective can't have peace until he solves a unsolved case. But mainly 2 kids have seen a group of ex cops savagely murder a guy with 2 kids witnessed the Savage murderer.
Kids need to find a save haven as the ex cops will get their hands dirty so the only 2 witnesses can't identify and testify about their savage murderer. Jess Rawlings the succesful farmer will go very far to see justice is achieved which the murders don't know so this seems like it'll be like another the last house on left, and great action of a Farmer and murderers that both will go very far to achieve their goals.

The Prince of Darkness radical evil and the power of good in history
It's focused on evil, the Devil along with other religions that have their versions of the Devil. Pretty damn interesting that according to this book there are 3 kinds of evil including natural which includes tornados, diseases, and other natural processes.
Some argue the natural processes shouldn't be called evil.
 
#1,259
#1,259
Hillbilly Elegy

Was an interesting story and he made some decent points but overall the entire premise is bogus. He grew up in Middletown Ohio. His grandparents lived in Kentucky for their teenage years and then moved to Ohio where his mom, and then he was raised. I hardly think that qualifies him to speak on behalf of "hillbillies". Which adds to the oddity that a 31 year old would be writing a memoir and based on a premise of his remarkable escape from being a hillbilly.
 
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#1,260
#1,260
Currently reading:

CANADA, by Richard Ford (Fiction)

TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS: THE PRIVILEGED LIFE AND RADICAL PRESIDENCY OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, by H.W. Brands.
 
#1,261
#1,261
Franklin Pierce said:
Currently reading:

CANADA, by Richard Ford (Fiction)

TRAITOR TO HIS CLASS: THE PRIVILEGED LIFE AND RADICAL PRESIDENCY OF FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT, by H.W. Brands.
Click to expand...

Ford's Frank Bascombe books were great. Frank's one of those characters that stay with me as though they're real, to the point that I sometimes almost wonder what's been going on with him.
 
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#1,265
#1,265
Strong Men Armed by Robert Leckie. Details the Marines Pacific campaign from Guadalcanal to Okinawa. Found this book by chance at the Maryville library sale. First edition, no dust jacket though. Former owner was a marine, he made notes about his unit and other friends he had in various battles. Reading stuff like that makes you grateful better men lived before and made things a lot easier for the rest of us.
 
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#1,266
#1,266
Just finished Heart of Darkness. I guess some people read it in High School but I never did. Was supposedly a racist book, but I didn't really see it that way. I think the white people in the book were more "grotesque" than the "savages". Anyway didn't really care for it. The infatuation w Kurtz was weird and the ended up being completely anticlimactic. The only redeeming quality was the over-the-top descriptions. For a short read it was packed with imagery.
 
#1,274
#1,274
Why Nations Fail -- clearly written history of colonialism and the persistence of extractive political institutions.
 
#1,275
#1,275
Reading through the Dark tower series once again. Read them years ago as they came out but am gonna read them in rapid succession now. Given my age and memory issues it's like reading them all for the first time again.
 
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