What books are you reading?

toasty said:
Books that I think a large %View attachment 1016830 of sherbros would love. true war reportage on a minute to minute level, a guy who joined in with soccer hooligans to understand their world, fantasy warfare with some of the absolutely best written characters, and a crazed psychedelic drug trip done by the creator of Gonzo journalism.
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Among the Thugs sounds intriguing. He must have put himself at risk at least of one of those travel bans which would suck.
Went on a Thompson spree for years. You may also like Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll (way better than the movie which was watered down imo).
 
Daveb said:
My brother's latest novel Pure Cosmos Club just got named the number 1 book of the year by the Independent Book Review
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Daveb said:
My brother's latest novel Pure Cosmos Club just got named the number 1 book of the year by the Independent Boo
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PurpleStorm said:
Among the Thugs sounds intriguing. He must have put himself at risk at least of one of those travel bans which would suck.
Went on a Thompson spree for years. You may also like Basketball Diaries by Jim Carroll (way better than the movie which was watered down imo).
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The other similar book that would have replaced Thugs on a non-sherdog-centric list is

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He petitioned the correctional officers union for access and they denied him, so he just became a prison guard and wrote about what it was like from training to on the job to leaving the life....

I just thought people here would be able to relate to thugs a little better.

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Jon Ronson's Them is also great if you like people putting themselves among extremists and trying to understand them as people first and belief systems second. He is more famous for the Men who stare at goats, but I liked this much better

loved the basketball diaries when I was about 20, not sure where I'd be on it as an old man......H S Thompson is sort of the same way but to me he was more ground breaking in his use of language and mixing reality and drug addled perception and straight fiction in his work, so I hold his works in higher regard.
 
GergreG said:
Tad Williams? It's been a very long time but I enjoyed it.
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Yup, its the first book in a trilogy he wrote inteh 90s I thinnk, and he put out books 4-6 to continue the series over the last few years with the last book scheduled for next year so I have a year to read 6000 pages.
 
Currently reading Britney’s book. I kinda like it so far not gonna lie. Just a chill recollection of her life and feelings. Can’t be mad about that.
 
SammyPops said:
Yup, its the first book in a trilogy he wrote inteh 90s I thinnk, and he put out books 4-6 to continue the series over the last few years with the last book scheduled for next year so I have a year to read 6000 pages.
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I read the first three or four (?) When they came out. Trilogy yeah, but they spread the third book over two books? Does that sound right? All my books are in storage otherwise I'd check.

Such a long time ago I don't remember much of it, but do remember enjoying it. I was reading a tonne of fantasy back then.
 
GergreG said:
I read the first three or four (?) When they came out. Trilogy yeah, but they spread the third book over two books? Does that sound right? All my books are in storage otherwise I'd check.

Such a long time ago I don't remember much of it, but do remember enjoying it. I was reading a tonne of fantasy back then.
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lol I dont know as I am legit on chapter 3 of the first book. Not even sure whats its about yet lol
 
About 70% through “Before they are Hanged” by Joe Abercrombie. Like most second books of a trilogy, it’s fast moving. Or at least faster than the first. Not as dark as I thought they would be, but I like the intimacy of it. There are empires at war and such, but most scenes are just a few people, and the scale of it all seems smaller than other fantasy books I’ve read in the past. Definitely getting the third so I can finish the story.
 
Always have the Orthodox Study Bible on repeat and I've been revisiting old favorites from my 20s the past year or so. Just finished No Country For Old Men and have been jumping around between
Harold Bloom: Genius
Northrup Frye: Anatomy of Criticism
Macbeth
The Gulag Archipelago Vol. 2
Gonna go back to my teens next and devour some Stephen King, LOTR, and Philip K. Dick.
 
Just finished Defiant, book 4 in Brandon Sanderson's Skyward series. Definitely a YA series, but was reading to my 10yo daughter. Trying to get her into my love of scifi and fantasy.

Book 4 capped off the series, and while it was fun to read with my daughter, glad it's done. I've read other YA series with my son that I've thoroughly enjoyed, this was tad too juvenile at points and just couldn't connect. Daughter loved it though, so that's a win.
 
About halfway through this. Pretty interesting book, well worth the read and info imho.

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Couldn't wait for a 5 week hold, so used a credit, and got the audiobook for "Last Argument of Kings" to finish up the series.

Been going through Sartre's bibliography, and on "Nausea" right now. Very great book and it has my brain working to understand what he is trying to put out. Thought provoking for me at least.
 
I'm reading Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, former Roman Emperor and Stoic philosopher. It is basically a series of notes he made about lessons he learnt from his influences and experiences, lessons that guided his morality and behavior. I get a kick out of how universal the lessons are, that the same kind of people and values and teachings existed back then and still translate into modern life. I wanted to be more confident in myself and less influenced by the opinions of others and I saw a few quotes from Meditations that spoke to that, so I decided to read the entire book and I don't regret it so far
 
Spam On Rye said:
Gonna go back to my teens next and devour some Stephen King, LOTR, and Philip K. Dick.
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I have some PKD (And Stephen King) lined up. I really want to re-read The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch by PKD as I find that's the book of his that I read back in my teens that really stuck in my head
 
Yeah Stigmata is awesome and all of his religious/gnostic themed books are great in general. The Valis trilogy and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer in particular I enjoy the most. Not his easiest reads but an interesting look inside the head of a gnostic schizo.
 
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In the middle of reading this. Very good imho. I especially recommend it for people interested in AI beyond the nonsense in the news.

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ObsoleteSoul said:
Couldn't wait for a 5 week hold, so used a credit, and got the audiobook for "Last Argument of Kings" to finish up the series.

Been going through Sartre's bibliography, and on "Nausea" right now. Very great book and it has my brain working to understand what he is trying to put out. Thought provoking for me at least.
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The First Law trilogy finishes so damn strong. I thought you mentioned you had a hard time getting into The Blade Itself, but right out of the gates the first book ended with no resolution and was felt like it was meant to be a part of a bigger picture. A lot of book series start off somewhat open ended with room for a sequel, and if they do well more books follow. This one straight up was intended to be a trilogy so they introduced a ton on elements with lots open in the end. Everything just fits together so well in the end.

As much as I loved the The First Law trilogy, the follow up Age of Madness trilogy is just as good, if not better. It jumps like 30 years, and the kids of the main characters are the new generation. There are 3 stand alone books in between that are top notch.

As you finished book 2 and start The Last Arguments of Kings, keep Shivers on your radar. He's a periphery character in the first books, but is a major character through the series.
 
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This one was recommended to me by one of my friends who fought in the Yugoslav wars in the 90s. It's sobering, and shatters the myth of US military supremacy along with how the Russians are supposedly backwards incompetent hacks who rely on sheer numbers to will themselves to victory. One of the key points is that US strategy is based on quick strike operations using overwhelming force a la Desert Storm with little regard to sustainment, attrition, and production whereas the Russians take all that stuff into account.

The US for example will build high tech high performance weapons which will kill the shit out of everything in the hands of a highly trained soldier. However, if the war drags on and the highly trained soldiers are lost and replaced by newbies the capabilities of the weapons goes down drastically. Russian weapons may not have the same initial performance, but since they're designed to be simple & easy to use they remain far more effective when used by inexperienced soldiers. Then there's the production side, as we found out in the last couple years, the US procurement & production system is just straight up broken and unable to ramp up production whereas the state owned Russian arms industry can quickly crank things up and mass produce boatloads of everything.

There's a lot of stuff to think about, the doctrine & strategy of the US and Russian militaries are a product of their environment. The US fights wars of its choosing thanks to the oceans around it whereas the Russians get invaded every 50-100 years by other Continental powers, and this shapes the way their armed forces have evolved.
 
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