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First Quarter 2019 Reading


Garett Hornwood

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Finished The End of Days by Zecharia Sitchin, the last book of his seven book 'ancient astronaut theory' series.  It was alright, but it just proved that the previous book could have been split between this and #5.

I'm currently reading The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell.

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Just finished a great history of California by Kevin Starr. Recently moved to the West Coast and thought it'd be a good way to ground the experience. Now, sticking to the Pacific theme, I'm re-reading Hawaii by James Michener. 

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I read Andrew Miller's Pure and found myself waiting for something, anything to happen. It never did. I was originally drawn to it based on the blurb, loving French history and the Revolutionary period. Set in 1785, just on the cusp of the French Revolution, I eagerly awaited events or class conflicts, but there really wasn't much at all. At times I found myself forgetting the book was even set in Paris, let alone 1780s Paris. I find the history of the Cimetiere des Innocents, the eventual disinterment  of its "residents" and the creation of the Catacombs fascinating. But this historical fiction about its destruction was a disappointment. I should just stick to non-fiction.

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Finished The Man Who Died by Antti Tuomainen, a Scandinavian noir (even if Finland isn’t really Scandinavia).  A good read.  Not a detective story, but a regular guy finds out he is about to die from some prolonged exposure to a poison or toxin. 

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Finished Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame". The English (as well as the similar German) title are quite misleading because the Hunchback is not the main character, rather one of about 4-6 almost equally important ones. The original title makes it clear that the cathedral as centre of late medieval Paris is the focus of the book. Interestingly, Hugo is not idealizing anything, to the contrary his colorful picture of the time and place explicitly includes the bizarre and fairly grimdark (only rape is excluded although we get very close).

Started the first of Donaldson's "Thomas Covenant" last night as it was only 99c for kindle and a supposed "classic" I never read.

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Finished Svetlana Alexievich's Secondhand Time. This is the first time I've come across her work, and it was a very interesting experience. I like the premise of looking at a period via several interviews of various people - mostly "normal" people. I may return to her other books at some time.

Now reading Zelazny's Lord of Light.

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Just finished Tade Thompson's The Rosewater Insurrection, a bit more linear than its predecessor but still greatly enjoyable. It is both shining a light on the structures in developing cities and touching on the horrors of war.

Can't wait to see where he takes Rosewater next.

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Finished Chariots Of The Gods by Erich Von Daniken, a non-fiction that speculates about ancient aliens seeding human civilization.  While it is interesting how many ancient civilizations referred to gods visiting from the sky in chariots of fire, the book overall veers deeply into crank paranoia as it rages against the obtuse conventional thinking and then tries to knit together everything from the paranormal into this theory.  It also shows a very thin understanding of genetics and DNA when it assumes these ancient aliens could easily indulge in inter-species cross-breeding.  

Next I finished The Tiger by Marc Alan Edelheit, #2 in his Roman military fantasy series.   Still good: a fun military campaign in a slightly magical/fantasy alternate world.  The names of the dwarf clans were laughably cliche (everything had axe or hammer in the name), but the actual characters were decently written.

Then started but abandoned The Rescue by Steve Konkoly.  Portrayed as the “new Jack Reacher”, it was just too boilerplate/cliche.   I’m sure it will sell millions of copies at airports.  (Jack Reacher stands out in that genre because they are just better written)

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I'm reading Ancestral Night by Elizabeth Bear right now. 

I'm really enjoying it so far and some the elements of the story are familiar to me from the last book of the Jacob's Ladder trilogy which I recommend wholeheartedly. 

34 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Finished Chariots Of The Gods by Erich Von Daniken, a non-fiction that speculates about ancient aliens seeding human civilization.  While it is interesting how many ancient civilizations referred to gods visiting from the sky in chariots of fire, the book overall veers deeply into crank paranoia as it rages against the obtuse conventional thinking and then tries to knit together everything from the paranormal into this theory.  It also shows a very thin understanding of genetics and DNA when it assumes these ancient aliens could easily indulge in inter-species cross-breeding.  

 Erich Von Daniken... lol I loved his books as a kid but I was really into UFO stuff at the point of my life and my uncle had a lot of his books. Only years later I discovered that it was all bullshit.

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Recently finished City of Brass and its sequel Kingdom of Copper, and boy howdy did I love these books.  

I'm about 80% through Julian Barnes' The Sense of an Ending.  I do love an unreliable narrator book.  The main character of this book is so unreliable, and the revelations of the unreliability are so subtly and cleverly done that it keeps you thinking.

I'm also reading Ronnie Spector's ghostwritten autobiography Be My Baby (very entertaining in a depressing kind of way).

Next up Ann Leckie's The Raven Tower.  I've also got The Bird King in my queue. 

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Have you read other novels by Barnes? "The Sense of Ending" is not bad but it seemed to me largely a "rehash" of themes and motives that had appeared in earlier novels. (If not quite to the extent I get that impression with about half of the books by TC Boyle who really seems to be juggling the same handful of themes in almost every book...)

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Finshed Lord of Light.

Wasn't really my cup of tea, mostly (I think) because I felt there wasn't a lot of movement in the story with the archaic language that dominated. Might just be that the book is (for me, at least) a bit dated. Still, was easy enough to get through. No major stops.

Now started Where Four Roads Meet by Tommi Kinnunen.

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On 3/19/2019 at 9:38 AM, Iskaral Pust said:

Finished Chariots Of The Gods by Erich Von Daniken, a non-fiction that speculates about ancient aliens seeding human civilization.  While it is interesting how many ancient civilizations referred to gods visiting from the sky in chariots of fire, the book overall veers deeply into crank paranoia as it rages against the obtuse conventional thinking and then tries to knit together everything from the paranormal into this theory.  It also shows a very thin understanding of genetics and DNA when it assumes these ancient aliens could easily indulge in inter-species cross-breeding.  

I think I've heard of Von Daniken via the couple episodes of Ancient Aliens I've seen.  Bolded part mine - reminds me of Graham Hancock whose pet theory is that highly advanced human civilization far predates our modern understanding of human history.  On it's face that is a theory that I find interesting and plausible, while also fully accepting that there really isn't any hard evidence for it.  I think it is an interesting concept to think about because once you get into the foggy depths of prehistory evidence for what the hell humans were actually up to seems sparse and somewhat speculative by nature.  A few years ago I read "The History of the Ancient World" by Susan Wise Bauer and the one thing that really struck me about it was when looking at the earliest known writings and histories, primarily from Sumer, there was already a lot of shit going on!  Which, of course, makes sense that a certain level of sophistication would probably need to predate writing in order to necessitate it.  But kings, armies, walled cities, warfare, etc, stuff that requires a pretty advanced system of organization and logistics that was already going down before anyone thought to write about it.  We seem to step out of the fog of prehistory already engaged in societal behavior that we would recognize today and ever since that clicked in my head I've been super curious about WTF was going on before the start of the record?  And for how long?  I think this same train of thought leads people like Von Daniken to search for answers in strange places, but I don't think that is always a bad thing.

Anyway, Hancock spends a lot of time raging against the establishment for not re-writing an entire academic field to suit his worldview and that is always where he loses me.  If these types would just focus on presenting their theories as a plausible alternative along with whatever clues they have gathered or inferred - and skipped the axe grinding- they'd be much more enjoyable to read and I'd be more likely to recommend.   Maybe they've been laughed out of a room of academics too many times to let it go, but it is always going to come across as conspiracy mongering when you claim to have everything figured out and blast established thinking all in the same breath, especially when you yourself lack a smoking gun that can't be ignored.  

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Däniken! This was in the 80s or even earlier, wasn't it? I didn't know that this stuff was still around and had been translated.

As for a lot of stuff going on 3000 BC, that's true. But there is absolutely no contradiction in having certain levels of organization going on for  a few millenia before that without writing (or without preserved writing). And we know that there were cities like Jericho and Catal Huyuk(sp?) already in the prehistoric millenia.

Aliens is just the most facile way out and it would put far more questions than it solves

 

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21 hours ago, Jo498 said:

Have you read other novels by Barnes? "The Sense of Ending" is not bad but it seemed to me largely a "rehash" of themes and motives that had appeared in earlier novels. (If not quite to the extent I get that impression with about half of the books by TC Boyle who really seems to be juggling the same handful of themes in almost every book...)

Only Flaubert's Parrot and History of the World in 10.5 Chapters.  The latter is different.  The former, less so, but I think Sense of an Ending does it better.  I don't mind an author rehashing themes, if it is done well.  

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I read Shelley's Frankenstein a month or so ago. This was a superb, quick read that surprised me both in tone and in its differences from today's pop culture concepts of The Monster. I loved Shelley's irony - the whole question of "who is the real monster?" hangs over the whole book and provides some great moments. I also wasn't expecting the fantastic passages describing the Swiss Alps. It's almost worth reading this for those alone. 

Now reading The Leopard by Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. About halfway through and I already think it's one of the best historical fictions I've ever picked up.  

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