moseying on to book 4 of the Parasol and Protectorate series. I was doing really well, reading a book a week until i screwed myself. I looked up another one of her series and the synopsis of the first book was a spoiler to what happens at the end of this series. ugh. i lost my momentum. I'll probably finish book 4 sometime next week, which would mean it would have taken me 2 weeks to finish reading it instead of the 4-5 days it took me to read the others. anywho, September is Suicide Awareness and Prevention month. I may take a break in this series to read Together We Will Go by J. Michael Straczynski about a failing young writer who aims to drive across country to San Francisco and off a cliff.
Interesting synchronicity. On another thread, at about the same moment you wrote this, I was writing about a car being driven off a cliff. Things that make you go hmmmmm.... Wow, even more synchronistic. You wrote the word aims in the same sentence, and I also wrote about a gun going off in that same post. Hmmmm indeed...
I was about to start singing "We're all in this together" from High School Musical, but then i found this gif instead
"I am he as you are he as you are me And we are all together See how they run like pigs from a gun See how they fly I'm crying" ~Lennon & McCartney
The latest issue of Rattle came a few days ago, and I just sat down to peruse it. Every issue includes a chapbook from a single author; the current one is "The Death of a Migrant Worker," by Gil Arzola. Sounded interesting, so I started with it. Here's an excerpt from the title poem: You know how Emily Dickinson said that she knew something was poetry if it made her feel like the top of her head had been taken off? Yeah. Boom. That's how I feel now. Off to read some more.
Wow! The Wheel of Time is by far my favorite series of possible any genre. I’ve read the entire cycle of a dozen-plus books on multiple occasions, including the prequel New Spring. I think the first 5 or 6 have a pretty fulfilling arc, but I do agree that the number of named characters can get out of hand. I also find some of the middle novels do not progress enough of the main storyline. However, the hard work really pays off. The last three novels are so satisfying! I’m also interested in the TV show, though I promise not to have any expectation of it matching the breathe or depth by more than a fraction.
Just finished the 2nd of my 10 book target: The Thursday Murder Club. I think most would enjoy this book. As I did not expect to finish this book so quickly, I picked up the best that Asda could offer for my next two reads. Robert Galbraith - Troubled Blood Wilbur Smith - Legacy of War Don’t entirely fancy these but will plough on .
Ever read a piece of non-fiction and you just have to stop because the subject matter sounds exactly like you? So I’m reading ‘The Art of the Heist’ by Myles J. Connor, a thief infamous for stealing priceless works of art and he just wrote a sentence in Ch. 2 that stood out to me: “A man could write a book about himself and still not solve the puzzle of who he really is.” He also reveals that he was more interested in priceless artifacts from Asian cultures like a pottery from the Ming Dynasty, or a Japanese katana. Though he did go after European stuff as well, they weren't exactly pinging high on his list. He wasn’t rich, he was moderately well-off, born to same-styled well-off people but rich he wasn’t. He learnt to appreciate art through his grandfather. He was also Catholic, but he grew skeptical of organized religion (something he would later regret.) He also studied the Bushido code as well as martial arts under the tutelage of a Japanese gentleman named Watanabe. He summarizes how a Japanese katana is made, as well as the Bushido code and how it worked. Essentially, he was a quirky little fella growing up in South Boston in the 1940s/1950s collecting antiques from other cultures and studying their ways and developing a taste for art. It's...scary reading this. Like this is me in another life if I decided to get involved with crime. Is it bad that I actually feel a connection with this guy? Like he seems like the sort I would've been great friends with.
Yes there is a preview is at the end of book one. Did not realise it was coming out so soon. I will pick it up when it’s nice and cheap!
I'm not reading this yet, but it arrived in the mail the other day. I have trouble reading poetry, my mind doesn't catch the, erm, meter? Scheme? Rhythmnationatorism? But this is the last of His Works. It's utterly ridiculous for a man my age to be this obsessed by one author, but here we are.
Never took Iain Banks for a poetry writer. I thought he wrote crime fiction. I think poetry is at its finest when it is the most accessible. If people are “getting” the metaphors, allusions, metre, imagery - and basically just the overall message, then it’s got to be doing something right. I’m not sure about Iain Banks and “poems” though. I’m currently reading Children of Dune but an electronic copy of the story (i.e. ebook). The other day a copy of the novel itself fell into my hands. It was an old and tatty copy but as I skimmed through the story, I felt like I was more immersed in the story than with the electronic copy. Then I realised that back in the days when Frank Herbert was writing this series, ebooks and reading novels on the Internet was not existent. When he was writing the Dune series, he would have expected you to get through a print copy of his book while turning each leaf at a time. I’m finding the series is more enjoyable as the the books advance.. but progress is gradual.
Wha?!? Pkslmghh!!! Umm, sorry... So I guess you ran across Complicity or Stonemouth, but trust me, those are among his lesser works. As Iain M. Banks (emphasis mine) he was the finest space-opera SF writer of his generation, IMO. He created the Culture, a post-scarcity pan-human interstellar civilization run by benevolent AIs known as "Minds." The Culture is an anarchist paradise, as the Minds "run" things in terms of keeping the lights and air on and making sure that no one does anything exceptionally dangerous to others. Of course, the Culture doesn't encompass everything, so within that paradise there is the Contact section. Members of Contact are a little different, psychologically, from the average Culture citizen as they have to work with those outside the Culture, who may engage in all sorts of brutalities that would make the average member recoil in horror. Contact makes contact with other civilizations and in some cases helps them into membership. Non-coercive, the Culture isn't the Borg. Sometimes Contact encounters civs that need to be... adjusted. That's the job of Special Circumstances, people who are generally recruited from outside the Culture for their specific skills. That's where many of the Culture books take place. There are also a few non-Culture standalone SF books like Against a Dark Background and The Algebraist. As Iain Banks (no middle initial) he wrote literary fiction, including the above-mentioned Complicity and Stonemouth. His literary works veer wildly across topics but do tend towards 1) Scotland, 2) dark family secrets, and 3)MacGuffins. I love all of his works, but prefer the "M" (science fiction) stuff to the "non-M" books. Recommended reading: Against a Dark Background. SF, not a Culture book, but it'll give you a good sense of his style and most of all his sense of humor, because all of his books contain parts that are just laugh-out-loud funny. The Wasp Factory. His first published work, literary, and extremely dark and fucked up. But again, sections that are incredibly funny told from the point of view of a... well, spoilers. If you want to read the Culture series, I recommend reading them in order. I didn't. I picked up Use of Weapons on a whim and was hooked, but it's actually Book 3. They don't need to be read in sequence, they're set in the same universe, not the same character set, but there are events in the earlier books that are referenced in the later ones. Anyway, short version of rant over. Put a couple beers in me and I can go for hours; Banks is hands-down my favorite SF author and his literary stuff is pretty good too.
Sigh... Thanks for reminding me that I still haven't gotten around to diving into Banks. I read The Algebraist and one of the Culture novels and loved them both—so much creativity! I need to clear off some of my reading pile so I can get to more Banks. (or just jump him to the head of the line)
Just finished Don Quixote, until next time good sir! Now the best thing in life, New Book Day! My top choices this time around: Shoe Dog by Phil Knight - this has come up a lot recently in a number of management meetings and networking events The Sicilian by Mario Puzo - This comes from my favorite time in The Godfather saga, but I haven’t read it yet Little Soldiers by Lenora Chu - a true account of elite education in Shanghai which will be very interesting given the drastic changes in the country’s education policy this year. Any other recommendation will be considered or at least purchased for a later date because I am a bibliophile who can’t help buying new books regardless if I have the space for them.
I empathize, though I am kinda reformed in that I no longer go to library book sales and load up on treasures. Over the last few years, I have carted thousands of books to Friends of the Library, Little Free Libraries, interested friends, and second hand stores. It's almost fall, so I am contemplating another thinning out to benefit FOTL. The first few boxes of books to leave hurt my heart, but it's become easier to let go of the books I know I won't read again or that I finally admit I will never read.
That is a tough one, especially giving away books you've never read. I am now beginning the sixth book in The Expanse series, Babylon's Ashes, and it's been an interesting series so far. I am now on the book that is currently being filmed for the last of the tv series, it's a nice feeling reading something where I have no idea what is about to come. Having watched the series on Amazon it does give away the plot somewhat.
In addition to the Dr Who book of the month (which for September is Paradise Towers) I've starting reading The Expanse series of novels. I've only gotten about 100 pages into Leviathan Wakes and so far it's been good. The TV series did well by it, as far a I can at this point.
They are good, and pretty consistent too. Also don't forget the shorts and novellas that fill in between main novels.
Revisiting the first two volumes of Joe Abercrombie's Age of Madness trilogy in preparation for the third book dropping this Tuesday. Picking up on some detail that passed me by the first time 'round, and my appreciation for just how well these books are put together is continually reinforced. If I can ever learn how to connect plot threads half as well as this, I've got it made. Prior to this I finished the Powder Mage trilogy, which was good, but in my opinion lacked an intangible something to make it great. I will be continuing on with the Gods of Blood and Powder sometime soon, and I hope it will remedy my slight disappointment with this series so far.
Maybe you're already aware, but this is a sequel trilogy to First Law, set in the same world some... I want to say 15 years later, that is to say 15 years after Red Country. I think. Not to give too much away, but the Union is undergoing a bit of an industrial revolution, which does absolute wonders for keeping things fresh. A lot of the characters whose point of view we follow are the actual children of the First Law protagonists and sundry other characters, many of whom make appearances. In my opinion, these books are at least as good as the original trilogy and the three standalone volumes. I do have a soft spot for the Old Guard, but this new generation of characters is fantastic. Joe's writing is sharper than ever, and the plot is just... wow. I can't wait to see how this concludes. In short, it's everything you could hope for in a First Law series and then some. Well, there is one single thing missing, but I've got my fingers crossed for this next instalment.
