From the last I read by him, don't hold your breath. It is like someone else is writing for him and using his name.
What Are You Reading?
- Thread starter TimmyBoston
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From the last I read by him, don't hold your breath. It is like someone else is writing for him and using his name.
Finished up Fellowship of the Ring and am 100 pages into the Two Towers.
Dune when I have the opportunity to read something that isn't peer-reviewed.
Just started Howard Kaylan's biography, "Shell Shocked"... so far, exactly what I expected - light and fun!
I spent last week going through the "Wool" series by Hugh Howey on my phone (Kindle app). Now working through the "Shift" series - the prequel to Wool. I'd give Wool, as a group, a 9. Shift is a bit slower, and I haven't read quite enough to reach a conclusive rating. Looking forward to a new Dresden Files book from Jim Butcher sometime soon, I hope.
E. O. Wilson's Social Conquest of Earth. I'm a big Wilson fan, but his detractors were right about this book. Sloppy. Weak. Confused. Riding on his own momentum, but sort of like Wile E. Coyote running off the edge of a cliff and continuing, for a few feet to tread thin air. If a great biologist loses his command but not his self-confidence, what kind of sound does it make in the forest?
Finished Chris Stringer's Lone Survivor. Stringer has been at the forefront of paleoanthropology for the past thirty years or more, leading the way in the transition from "multi-regionalism" (the idea that hominins all evolved in situ, all around the world, from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens) to the "out of Africa" hypothesis: the idea that all modern humans evolved in Africa and only left 60,000 to 40,000 years ago, replacing archaic humans all around the world. Stinger's book is not a closely focused argument, nor vividly evocative. It's a memoir, a loosely jointed ramble around the historical territory. Still, it is worth reading, to gain finer familiarity with the contours of discovery in this rapidly evolving field.
My wife gave me Stephen King's Joyland for father's day. I'm reading it now. Good fun, I guess. I'm less enthusiastic than I might be. I thought The Shining was a serious psychological novel. Maybe Joyland will move in that direction, but it also has a clunky potboiler feel to the prose, aggressively unintellectual, assertively ordinary in mind and language. Not very exciting so far. I like the short stories better. More bang for the buck. If he isn't going to be literary, it's better just to get to the point and get that little shock of sensation, like splashing alcohol on razor burn.
I'm also reading a century-old Swedish novel, Hjalmar Soederberg's Doctor Glas. End of the century metaphysical ennui. Intelligent, introverted, ruminative, not very dramatic. I'll be glad when I get to the part where he bumps off a repulsive elderly pastor out of sheer altruistic sympathy for the pastor's young wife. Maybe the pace will pick up then.
For the past three weeks, though, most of what I've been reading are blog postings about wet shaving. Newbie working his way into razors, brushes, blades, creams, soaps, preshaves, aftershaves, and all the other paraphernalia. I keep hoping I'll get to the point at which I no longer feel compelled to keep reading just to feel that I've gained basic competence. The last spell, yesterday, was finally integrating loft height into considerations of bristle type in order to evaluate the effectiveness of different brushes with hard soaps. I think maybe finally I actually do have enough basic information so that I can leave off the full-time study, go back to my day job (literary research), and just stay tuned to B&B so as to pick up refinements and stay in touch with the wet shaving community. Fingers crossed.
Joe
Finished Chris Stringer's Lone Survivor. Stringer has been at the forefront of paleoanthropology for the past thirty years or more, leading the way in the transition from "multi-regionalism" (the idea that hominins all evolved in situ, all around the world, from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens) to the "out of Africa" hypothesis: the idea that all modern humans evolved in Africa and only left 60,000 to 40,000 years ago, replacing archaic humans all around the world. Stinger's book is not a closely focused argument, nor vividly evocative. It's a memoir, a loosely jointed ramble around the historical territory. Still, it is worth reading, to gain finer familiarity with the contours of discovery in this rapidly evolving field.
My wife gave me Stephen King's Joyland for father's day. I'm reading it now. Good fun, I guess. I'm less enthusiastic than I might be. I thought The Shining was a serious psychological novel. Maybe Joyland will move in that direction, but it also has a clunky potboiler feel to the prose, aggressively unintellectual, assertively ordinary in mind and language. Not very exciting so far. I like the short stories better. More bang for the buck. If he isn't going to be literary, it's better just to get to the point and get that little shock of sensation, like splashing alcohol on razor burn.
I'm also reading a century-old Swedish novel, Hjalmar Soederberg's Doctor Glas. End of the century metaphysical ennui. Intelligent, introverted, ruminative, not very dramatic. I'll be glad when I get to the part where he bumps off a repulsive elderly pastor out of sheer altruistic sympathy for the pastor's young wife. Maybe the pace will pick up then.
For the past three weeks, though, most of what I've been reading are blog postings about wet shaving. Newbie working his way into razors, brushes, blades, creams, soaps, preshaves, aftershaves, and all the other paraphernalia. I keep hoping I'll get to the point at which I no longer feel compelled to keep reading just to feel that I've gained basic competence. The last spell, yesterday, was finally integrating loft height into considerations of bristle type in order to evaluate the effectiveness of different brushes with hard soaps. I think maybe finally I actually do have enough basic information so that I can leave off the full-time study, go back to my day job (literary research), and just stay tuned to B&B so as to pick up refinements and stay in touch with the wet shaving community. Fingers crossed.
Joe
Just finished Around the World in 80 Days by Jules Verne. Fantastic read.
London Baptist Confession of Faith, 1689
I love Dune, it is a favourite of mine and I'm going to read it after I finish Redshirts by John Scalzi which I am starting tonight.
The 48 Laws of Power by Robert Greene. A must for any fan of The Art of War, The Book of Five Rings, or The Prince.
I will look it up! I wasn't too keen on the Prince when I first read it, then I found out that Machiavelli wrote it as a satire, sort of like The Colbert Report, then I really enjoyed it.
The Battle History of The Imperial Japanese Navy (1941-1945) by Paul S Dull
Reading The Chronicles of The Black Company. Read it a few years ago. It's a great dark fantasy.
I'm a Science Fiction fan, and I just discovered Linda Nagata. I'm currently working my way through a series called the Nanotech Succession, and am reading the second novel- The Deception Well.
Really, I never hear that about The Prince before. That's very interesting. I've learned that some writers like Aesop and Dante had to write in a certain style so it wasn't too clear as to who exactly they were talking about. A teacher put it "saying something, without actually saying it." It is a pretty amoral book though and not for the faint of heart. What would you expect from the favored book of almost all dictators?
Just wrapped up "One Shot" by Lee Child. Now moving onto more Reacher books...
So I'm just over a third of the way into Redshirts... I'm really enjoying this book!
I've just finished up all the Odd Thomas books up to Odd Armageddon, which I start today. As the books get further in each gets successively better. I'm pretty impressed.
Cheers,
M.
Cheers,
M.
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