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Second Quarter 2021 Reading


williamjm

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Read Alex Honnold's Alone on the Wall, it was a fast easy read.  I've been trying to read more nonfiction and this was a good way to get some momentum going on that front. 

I'm currently rereading One Hundred Years of Solitude, an old favorite I've read a dozen times but always a pleasure.  

Next up in the nonfiction queue is Mama Poc: An Ecologist's Account of the Exinction of a Species by Anne LaBastille.  A friend of mine recommended it to me and it sounded like it would be in my wheelhouse.  For fiction next is Bank's Look to Windward.

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Recently finished the new Murderbot Diaries novella, Fugitive Telemetry.  Even though the main focus of this series is the character development of Murderbot and not plot, the plot greatly improved compared to last year's book. 

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So I'm almost finished with Evil Geniuses and  The Field of Blood, both excellent reads, but I've found reading Moby Dick to be really hard to do. In short I hate the narrator and it's making it difficult to read more than a few pages each sitting. Can't say I've read much of  The Great Unknown, but plan to shortly.

And to round out this quarter I ordered four more books:

  • Robert E. Lee and Me
  • Dark Money
  • Why Nations Fail
  • The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

So slightly over 2,500 pages of light reading, plus all this grad school study material I need to get through. Challenge accepted. 

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No Rules Rules by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings offers fascinating insight into nonconformist corporate culture at Netflix and why candor is key to success. 

Team of Rivals... by Pulitzer winning Doris Goodwin, the book on which Spielberg's Oscar sweeping Lincoln was based is purportedly a great read and I just can't wait 

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@Tywin et al.

Please do provide your thoughts on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I have plans to read it over the summer (along with some other sprawling history books of that sort - Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, etc.). I look forward to your review!

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On 5/10/2021 at 4:18 AM, TheLastWolf said:

 

Team of Rivals... by Pulitzer winning Doris Goodwin, the book on which Spielberg's Oscar sweeping Lincoln was based is purportedly a great read and I just can't wait 

There are big problems though with that book, as being quite incorrect in many of her claims as to how things worked.  But it is entertaining as hell.

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I listened to Stephen Fry read his Heroes, the sequel to Mythos, this week.  He does a good job as a reader, which I was a little surprised about, since my exposure to him is limited to his television work twenty or more years ago as Jeeves or on Fry & Laurie.  In addition to not being over-the-top as a reader, as a writer he maintains a very light touch, with a reasonable number of contemporary interjections into the story to keep it funny.

He also uses some intentionally funny accents for various characters, such that Eurystheus features as right out of the Dales, for instance, which makes his objections to Heracles' completed acts all the more enjoyable.

I recommend it to you, particularly if it is readily available via Overdrive or some other local library system.  This morning I picked up Mythos and Troy, the other two works by Fry in this same series.

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On 5/11/2021 at 3:26 PM, IFR said:

@Tywin et al.

Please do provide your thoughts on The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. I have plans to read it over the summer (along with some other sprawling history books of that sort - Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East, etc.). I look forward to your review!

Not sure my thoughts matter that much. It's a 1,150 page book and will take a few months to read as I have other things to work on. 

basically my understanding is if you want a book that appeals to the journalistic approach, you'll like it and if you what the rigor of academics, maybe not so much.

But I set the three other books I mentioned beside it and it looks like it could eat them, and they're not short, easy reads themselves. 

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Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was how I learned of nazis, the Holocaust and WWII, when I was about 10 or 11.  One of my grandmothers had stored stacks of old magazines in her basement, brought to her by family members and community members, which I dug into relentlessly from the first moments I had memory and could read.  Among them were old issues of The Readers Digest, which abridged and serialized the book, as The Readers Digest did. The Readers Digest, as monthly magazine and book club was an institution where I grew up in Nowherelandia, bringing books by mail into many homes.

For over a year I spent every visit to Gran's down there, reading each installment in a haze of fascination and complete historical ignorance, and surely understanding very little, yet, still compelled by what I read.  It was one of the beginnings of my education into history, along with much else that went on in her basement, including the ritual of Great Gran in a rocking chair and my brother perched on one of the rocker's broad arms, and I on the other.  She'd settle, we'd settle, then I'd demand, "Tell me about when you were a little girl. Start with your favorite horse."  I always say I started on the road to becoming an historian in my grandma's basement.

Currently re-reading Justinian's Flea: Plague, Empire and the Birth of Europe (2007) by William Rosen. Even more interesting to read now than back when it was first published.

Have just finished from the publisher -- it's just about to become available for purchase -- Haunted by Slavery: A Southern Woman's Memoir of the Freedom Struggle by the still sharp as hell, 90+ year old Gwendolyn Medlo Hall. Gwen pioneered the compilation of databases as the primary historical research tool they now are.  She did this BEFORE computers, while being harassed and abused by the FBI -- they kept getting her fired from jobs, evicted from her homes, denied banking service -- she had to move to France for a while -- and of course threatened with death and worse by the good white racists of Louisiana where she did this pioneering work. They would try to deny her access to the public records in court houses and so on because, "They ain't gonna do you any good, little girl, cause they're in French."  "O that's just fine.  I read and speak and write French just fine."

 

 

 

 

 

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I read A Crown For Cold Silver by Alex Marshall, but I didn’t love it.  It started well enough as a grimdark fantasy with plenty of wry humor from jaded and grizzled veterans — a bit Abercrombie-ish, which is high praise — but it drifted and lost focus as it went on and then got bogged down across too many POVs and no real progression.  The author really wanted to create a bunch of cool characters and throw in lots of twists, but it just seemed sophomoric and silly. (Be wary of what your concept of cool reveals about you)

Now, unfortunately, “sophomoric” is at the top of my mind as I write a quick review after re-reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.  This is a book I have read a few times now and still enjoy enormously despite the entire current-day plot being a sophomoric libertarian tech-bro wet dream.  But this book is written with such verve and humor, and the POVs of Lawrence and Bobby are so entertaining as they fight WWII with information theory in their very different ways.  Stephenson had a stretch of five consecutive novels — Cryptonomicon, The Baroque Cycle trilogy and Anathem — that were pure gold.  Sure he was juvenile (but still pretty good) before that, and surprisingly boring afterward, but he really found his stride for that stretch.  I’m planning to re-read the others in the coming months.

And I just finished Big Sky by Kate Atkinson, the fifth in her Jackson Brodie detective series.  This was, once again, immensely well written.  She writes the inner monologue of several different POVs and the narration is not what they are doing or experiencing but how they are thinking, reflecting, making associations and drifting off on tangents.  I think Atkinson is really one of the best at writing minds and personalities, as opposed to moving characters about like puppets in her play.  Caveat: there is a reason why I go a long time between her books; they are very gloomy.  In her world, women are constantly preyed upon by men.  All of her characters are defined by this, either as predator or prey.  Even functioning relationships seem to involve emotionally-distanced use rather than love, especially women using husbands for financial security while disdaining them utterly.  Her worldview is very bleak.  But what a great writer.

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@Tywin et al.

 

You're a smart, well informed guy. I'd be interested to see whether the book met your expectations, in what areas it might have disappointed, etc. I like to be exposed to the viewpoints of others on material that I've read, especially if they have demonstrated an ability to analyze things on a deeper level.

 

@Zorral

That's a wonderful anecdote. I'm very excited about the book.Thank you for sharing!

 

@Iskaral Pust

 

I would also include the first 2/3 of Seveneves on that list. It really did fall apart at the end, but I think that first 2/3 was pretty entertaining, and practically a different book from the final portion of the novel.

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14 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

{Be wary of what your concept of cool reveals about you)

So true, alas, so true!  

~~~~~~~~

I had such terrific fortune that my childhood contained three great grandparents -- maternal Great Gran's husband died in the Great Influenza pandemic, whereas the paternal Great Gran's husband got gassed close the end of WWI when the US went over to Europe, but lived, though talking was not so easy, due to respiratory damage -- four grandparents, and lots of cousins.  Such relatives contribute so much to a rich childhood -- that is if they are decent people, and not abusers. But generally the culture out there was very nice to babies and little kids.  It's when a child reached the years of individual opinions and perception parents turned violent and cruel, physically and emotionally.  All committed in the name of keeping a kid from 'getting the big head,' 'too big for its britches,' etc.  Grandparents had aged out from that necessity, which was now turned over the adults they'd abused when they were older kids and adolescents.  So they were exempt from the duty.  Which plays hella with a kid's emotional development, I can tell you!

 

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I just finished listening to Queen of Nothing, the final book in the Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black. It was fine, and I'm glad I got it, but it didn't live up to the first 2 books. It was so short and I feel like the author either ran out of ideas or passion for the story. There were a lot of great parts too, but not the best of the series.

I also started reading Empire Ascendant, book 2 of Kameron Hurley's Mirror Empire trilogy. Somehow despite massive amounts of gore, action, and intrigue, I'm finding it boring. Hurley is a great writer but sometimes I feel like I want to like her books rather than actually liking them. I'll try to stick it out, since I already bought book 3, but it may take me a while. Doesn't help that I dislike basically every single character except maybe one (the non-murderous Kai).

My next audiobook is Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James that I know 0 about but picked up from the library, so we'll see I guess!

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I read S.A. Chakraborty's The Kingdom of Copper, the second book in her Daevabad Trilogy. It picks up the story a few years after the end of the previous book, which does mean that the book has a slightly different feel to it. For Nahri in particular the first book had been a coming-of-age story where they found themselves thrust into the middle of a new world they knew nothing about. Several years of having to navigate Daevabad's court intrigue has made her a more mature and wiser character, although there are still some times when her passions will lead her into dangerous situations. I thought the supporting cast was also developed in more detail this time, particularly Muntadhir and Zaynab. One of the things I liked about the first book was the balance between the different factions and what characters wanted and I thought this got more complex in the second book. One of the big problems the characters have is how to chart a course between all the different groups of people in the city when they all have centuries of justification for hating each other, and it is hard for Nahri and others to know which side they should support. The first part of the book is mostly build-up but there is a lot of action towards the end of the book and I thought this was done well. The story does end on a major cliffhanger which does set up some intriguing potential plotlines for the last book in the series.

I then read Martha Wells' latest Murderbot Diaries novella, Fugitive Telemetry. The series has always been enjoyable and this was no exception, it didn't really make any big changes to the overall arc of the series but I thought it was a good science fiction variation on the traditional locked-room murder mystery.

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3 hours ago, Starkess said:

Hurley is a great writer but sometimes I feel like I want to like her books rather than actually liking them.

 

 

Yeah I've tried two of her series- the first Mirror Empire and the first Bel Dame- and something about them doesn't stick (I did finish the Bel Dame one but I remember nothing). Mirror Empire has some fantastic ideas but I can't even remember if I did finish it or not.

 

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Finished Paul Jankowski's Verdun: The Longest Battle of the Great War. Nothing too specific as far as the actual battle goes. Jankowski details morale, inertia, the day-to-day conditions for troops, Falkenhayn's strategy of Ausblutung (which the author questions), historical revision of the battle and its significance to the French.

I'm now reading N. Bruce Duthu's American Indians and the Law.

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Last time I posted I was debating starting WOT or The Realm Of The Elderings series. I decided on WOT. Well, my partner was having sleeping problems so I couldn't read with the light on in bed for a time, iPad was dark enough however and I've always been meaning to try Kindle or eBooks on the iPad and I discovered I had Assassin's Apprentice as a freebie on both Apple Books & in the Kindle app from years ago. Collected it on a free offer to my account then forgot about it.

Hooked, absolutely hooked on Robin Hobb now. I can't remember the last time I was counting down the hours to reading time for a book. Must be over a decade since I've been so engrossed with a story. I've paused reading Chernow's Alexander Hamilton and also The Prime Ministers by Iain Dale to devote all reading time to this. Half way through Royal Assassin now with Assassin's Quest delivered and ready to go soon as I finish RA.

I know many on here tried pointing me to Hobb instead of Wheel Of Time, now I know why. Very happy to be wrong and glad I didn't start on WOT before the Farseers. Also, what a good marketing strategy to give AA away free as well. They've banked sales of the rest of her books from me and probably thousands of others as well.

As for reading on a device/reading eBooks? Eh, it's fine and nowhere near as bad as I was dreading, took about a week to get used to and I read noticeably slower on a tablet than with books. I also seem to have to focus a bit more as well otherwise some parts don't stick my mind. I'm not against eBooks as I once was but I got Royal Assassin & Assassin's Quest in book form. I'll always prefer books but if I'm absolutely desperate eBooks will be a backup option for me now. Apple Books app is head and shoulders easier/more fun to read from than the Kindle app (on the iPad anyway) which is atrocious in comparison.

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1 hour ago, Jodan said:

Hooked, absolutely hooked on Robin Hobb now. I can't remember the last time I was counting down the hours to reading time for a book.

She’s quite the talent. And unlike a lot of fantasy writers, she only gets better as you go along (at least in the Fitz and the Fool books).

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