What Are You Reading??

We are all completely beside ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Don't know how to describe this- reads like a typical dysfunctional family in Bloomington but it is something very different.Don't want to give spoilers so will stop there.Suffice it to say it's absorbing and an easy read. (but not airport fluff). Enjoy.

Had enough of literature for the moment. Thus...

The Red - Linda Nagata

Not that it's not literature. Fancy techno war pulp is literature too.

The October List by Jeffery Dreaver.

A mystery/thriller told in reverse.

The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language    by Melvyn Bragg

recommend 

Zone One - Colson Whitehead

Now, (a) it's a zombie novel, but (b) it's supposed to be a literary novel as well. It's supposedly a "punchy cocktail of horror, comedy and social critique". I will say it is an extremely wizzbang set of words. Speaking of reconstruction efforts and data collection after the apocalypse, the story says: "The scientists wanted the sweeper data to superimpose it on their map of the smithereens and generate prophecies." That's just one tiny piece of all the wordsmithing that goes on in this story. "Smithereens"! What a word.

However, can you really have a zombie novel where people are crushed by the weight of how dumb society is? Can you have a zombie novel were everyone, and especially the protagonist, is miserable? Well, sure. The apocalypse isn't necessarily jolly. But so far the people in the story are miserable because they're miserable, not because the world ended. They would have been miserable anyway. WHAT IS THIS STORY ABOUT?!

just think of the spin-offs: The Official Guide Book to the Smithereens, Sing Around the Napalm: an Official Smithereen Songbook, Smitherine in 5 minutes a Day

I JUST LIKED IT OKAY?!

He didn't say the world had been blown to smithereens. The early chapters are about how everything's been ruined by huge numbers of people being wiped out, and what's left is all sorts of broken down infrastructure and a small groups of people with all sorts of new jobs, - like Disposal, or Sweeper (for stray dead) - and some attempt at central government. Rather than say the task of data collection amid the ruins fell to the sweepers so that the central government could collate and plan for Restoration, he said they wanted a map of the smithereens.

The author actually can't go longer than a sentence or two without deploying some such word smithery. It's word porn, really. Every image is re-rendered as something else using some trick of reference to make a wider image. It's not as tiring to read as it sounds.

relax mate, just teasing a bit. I'm intrigued by the thought of a writer who can't go more than a sentence or two without some word-buggery. My (puerile) imagination is piqued, I'll give it a look if I can find it this summer. Besides, I love zed-lit. Nothing makes you appreciate being alive more than those who won't take death lying down.

Seems like there's not a lot new at the moment. I've presently settled for

Cibola Burn by James S.A. Corey

It's the fourth book in what was supposed to be a space opera trilogy, and James S.A. Corey is two people. I suppose it will be okay. They appear this time to be exploring more of what the protomolecule is - a biomechanical, planet-sized problem solving machine that is not conscious but has assimilated consciousness. And also introduced humanity to the Gates.

Having recently had to do a lesson on the Indian Wars between 1865-1890 I read Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee"....oh Odin....I think that book should be mandatory reading in all high schools.

Having recently had to do a lesson on the Indian Wars between 1865-1890 I read Dee Brown's "Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee"....oh Odin....I think that book should be mandatory reading in all high schools.

I most heartily concur.

Herbert Asbury's "The French Quarter" which deals with the history of crime in New Orleans from the earlist days to mid-Twentieth Century is a riot. I am reading that and his book on San Francisco back-to-back. Read the one on New York which informed me of how much the DiCaprio movie got wrong...so many things wrong...never understood why an Irish immigrant and a Catholic Priest to boot would name his son Amsterdam...and err...since when did Catholic priests have sons?....Ordered the one on Chicago. I have always had a fondness for Chicago and how the gangsters there ruined Valentine's Day...Every year on Feb 14 I spend ten minutes showing Pictures of and explaining the Valentine's Day Massacre.

The Kept by James Scott (2014)

Daring and bleak, they're calling it. Reminiscent of Michael Ondaatje, Cormac McCarthy, or Bonnie Jo Campbel. Set in turn of the 20th century rural America, with isolated homesteads, massacres (it starts with one), and some new revelation in every chapter. I'm avoiding spoilers while I read (and herein review) because part of the pleasure I'm finding in this book the simple life it describes and the wow moments where with a sentence the narrative takes a deeper turn into something else.

Ordered the first (British TV) series offering of Outlander.  A 1940's ex-nurse is transported back into 1700's.  Multiple adventures ensue, as she crosses over time and again - pun intended.  Looked like great fun. 

I then saw that it was based on a series of books by Diana Gabaldon, so ordered them for myself. Only now I am reading (Amazon) reviews, which make these books sound/feel remarkably similar to Sergeanne Golon's Angelique tales. I will have to continue my investigations with my own set of tomes, and let you know my conclusions in due course.

Ordered the first (British TV) series offering of Outlander.  A 1940's ex-nurse is transported back into 1700's.  Multiple adventures ensue, as she crosses over time and again - pun intended.  Looked like great fun. 

I then saw that it was based on a series of books by Diana Gabaldon, so ordered them for myself. Only now I am reading (Amazon) reviews, which make these books sound/feel remarkably similar to Sergeanne Golon's Angelique tales. I will have to continue my investigations with my own set of tomes, and let you know my conclusions in due course.

I've read the series and they were all a great entertaining read.

I'm into Ben Bova lately. Just started the "Moon" series: Moon, Moonrise, Moon Wars

Strange for me because I don't really like science fiction, but I really like these books. I previously read Jupiter and thought it was amazing as well as The Kinsman Chronicles.