Anyone have any a Mehzingbooks they have read lately?
3I am and avid reader. I am kind of in a rut. Just finished a pretty good one last night by Lisa Jackson. But now I have nothing on my bookshelf. Has anyone read anything good lately? I love all kinds, well mostly, mystories,thrillers, Western, romance… some of my favorite writers are we child, Stephen King, Lisa Jackson, Nora Roberts, TheMaze Runner Series, The divergent series, the house of night series, you can pretty much name it.
I can also recommend the book titled the Help, unbroken, The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, just a few of mine. (pardon the lack of quotation marks, And proper spelling. I know better but I'm lazy and no spell check.) 😊
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I don't read that much, but the last book I read, The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow was awesome. It's a short book written by a dying professor. It contains life lessons that he wanted to pass on to his children after he was gone. It's brilliant.
Have you read any Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child? I like their books as solo authors but I like them even more when they collaborate.
All the John Sandford books, both the Lucas Davenport and the Virgil Flowers series. And a few of the Kidd series. Jayne Ann Krenz.
I think I like Vergil most. Smile.@pooflady
I have never been sadder to finish a series of books than when I finished Patrick O'Brien's Aubrey-Maturin novels, because I knew I would never have any more adventures with them. They start with Master and Commander, but the series isn't just about sailing around the world fighting Napoleon for King and Country. There are personal and political intrigues, early 19th century espionage, and trying to win ladies hearts. There are duels and balls, battles and scientific endeavors, but it's always an adventure and it always leaves you ready for more. With 20 novels, though, it can keep you occupied for a good bit.
@jqubed I have to re-download this one. I lost it when I got a new phone. I admit it moves slowly in the begining. I haven't given up though. The "Girl With The Dragon Tatu" moves slow at the begining. but pulls you along by the belly button once you get a hold of it!
I have enjoyed the Barker & Llewelyn series written by Will Thomas. It is the story of London private enquiry agent Barker and his new apprentice Llewelyn taking place during the late 19th century. Barker has a rather enigmatic past that is gradually being revealed as the series progresses, but grew up in the far east and knows some of the martial arts and is not afraid to use it. I have thought of Barker as a more hands-on Sherlock Holmes, and the series predates the Robert Downey Jr. take on Sherlock. Interestingly enough, I just finished rereading the entire Sherlock Holmes series, and a Mr. Barker who is a rival to Sherlock's services is indeed mentioned.
@silverqueen Definitely The Kingkiller Chronicle set. There's only 2 of the books out right now (Name of the Wind; A Wise Man's Fear) but there is a 3rd in the works, hopefully making it a trio. Rothfuss has some novelas in the works too. It's very VERY well written.
On another note, I started a quirky book club and made my members read A Taste Fur Murder as our launch book. It was hilarious. We're reading The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes this month. Can't go wrong with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
@ jsh139, I found it , downloaded and started it. So far I agree with you it is turning out to be a great book. Thanks for the heads up!
@hallmike
, I have read some of the “Pendergrass” books. I did go and get a title called “Gideon’s Sword(Gideon Crew #1) by Lincoln Child and Douglas Preston. Ever heard of that one?
@ pooflady I got “Rules of Prey (Lucas Davenport #1)” and “Dark of the Moon (Virgil Flowers series #1)” Did I do well?
@ jqubed
, I found “Master and Commander”. I will give it a whirl. It does sound interesting.
@ SIMBM
, I just found “Some Danger Involved (Barker & Llewelyn, #1)” downloaded, ready to go.
@ janetv, I got “The Name of the Wind (The Kingkiller Chronicle, #1)” in my cue. It appears that “A Taste Fur Murder” is not available in my library yet. Bummer cause an amazon excerpt sounded pretty funny. I enjoyed the, “Mrs. Murphy Series”, by Sneaky Pie Brown, Rita Mae Brown
.
Thank you all for the suggestions. Now I have some new authors and series to explore! Good times a head in my Head. Smiles
@silverqueen really??? i guess i did get mine on the google play store...didn't realize it wasn't on amazon! enjoy name of the wind! tell me when you start! its so addicting.
@silverqueen You done good! Let me know if you like them. A little less rough than Lee Child.
@silverqueen I hope you enjoy it! If the first book doesn't have you hooked, try the second book. In retrospect it felt like the characters really get going there.
The Martian by Andy Weir. Currently my favorite book. No aliens, it's about a human astronaut who gets left behind on a mars mission and has to figure out how to survive. Main character is hilarious!
@DaveInSoCal I just figured out how to reply and finished this book! OH My Gosh!!!!!! What a suspensful, gripping and nail biteing story! It was terriffic, Thank you.
@silverqueen you're so welcome! I loved it too. When i had laser eye surgery and needed darkness for a couple of days i bought the audiobook and listened to it. :)
A Confederacy of Dunces
@phatmass Second that! “I dust a bit...in addition, I am at the moment writing a lengthy indictment against our century. When my brain begins to reel from my literary labors, I make an occasional cheese dip. ~Ignatius J. Reilly”
Totally cliche at this point but I can't help but mention and recommend them at every turn… the Song of Ice and Fire Series (Game of Thrones).
Of course the show is amazing and they do a great job shrinking thousands of pages into 10 hours a season but no matter what they do they could never cover everything or convey it with as much detail.
Another fantasy series I recommend is Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson. Really great character development, awesomely inventive and interesting magic system, high stakes couched in small stories. I'm still on the 3rd book but the first 2 were really great!
@JonT agreed. Mistborn stays good. Have you read the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordon and finished by Brandon Sanderson yet? Really long but worth it. ( my keyboards have not arrived so still typing on my cell phone screen so no links - @thumperchick is to blame)
@JonT Brandon Sanderson is always good. When you're done with Mistborn, check out his Stormlight Archive. There's only 2 books out of the 10 planned, but they are very excellent. Wheel of Time is also excellent as mentioned above. Another one of my fantasy favorites is the Gentleman Bastard series by Scott Lynch - they are wonderful. They start with the Lies of Locke Lamora, and even the name is great!
@speediedelivery @coeur Awesome to see some other Sanderson fans here :) I haven't read Wheel of Time yet but I just had a friend talk to me about it and how impressed he was with Sanderson picking up Jordon's tone so seamlessly. I already have dozens of unread books sitting on my bookshelves so I can't really commit to that series just yet. I also heard that Stormlight Archive is really great so it's on my list of things to read.
@speediedelivery I have tried to read wheel of time several times and each time I can't make it as far as the time before
Ken Follett's Pillars of the Earth and World Without End are excellent. I have heard his new series is good but I have not started it yet. I also like the Outlander series. Many of Steven King's books are good but some are really out there. Many of the earlier mentioned authors are in my favorites and I will be trying out a few others. I spend more time than I should reading! @silverqueen
@speediedelivery The majority of my bookshelf is taken up by King books, he's the first 'adult' author I really started reading when I was about 14. My highest recommendations are: IT, The Stand, The Dark Tower series (though it's a big commitment and gets a little wonky with various realities later in the series, but I read it as they were coming out and loved them), Everything's Eventual (short stories), Dreamcatcher, and a more recent one that caught me off guard was Lisey's Story - I wasn't sure what to think about it at first and ended up really loving it.
@JonT I really liked most of the Dark Tower as well. The one book was mostly awful and at the time I read it I was not pleased at the ending. Later I decided it was fitting. I didn't read them until just before the 4th book came out. I just could not get into the first book. I am behind on the last few years of King's books, I got sidetracked with other authors.
@JonT Add Terry Brooks Shannara and Landover series to your list if you have not read them! You are allowed to read at work, right.
@speediedelivery hell yes to Outlander.
www.fantasticfiction.co.uk is a great resource. You can find similar authors and see chronological lists of series.
Ocean at the End of the Lane from Neil Gaiman
Unbroken by Lauren Hildebrand. Read it before the movie comes out.
For Science geeks: Einstein's Telescope: The Hunt for Dark Matter and Dark Energy in the Universe
Note: the Kindle edition leaves out some of the charts and such which kinda make it more interesting.
I'm stuck in the middle of two books right now, the VAmpire Academy books and the GAme of thrones books (each is on a different device) recently finished the fifty shades series better than expected AFTER the first book, and don't judge from what others have said about them they probably only read the back
@jsh139 thank you. I finished "The Last Lecture" this morning. O It was wonderful! What an inspiration!
Now onto the next book in the queue.
@silverqueen glad you liked it!
I agree, game of thrones, unbroken, catching fire, 50 shades of gray, were all wonderful fantastic stories. Game of thrones really needs another book. I don't like the ending of the last one UGG! Kind of dropped you on your head. I kind of thought the end of 50 shades was a little lame too. But all in all a great story. I really couldn't put it down. The girl with the Dragon tattoo, was also a very excellent excellent series.
@silverqueen New thrones book is supposed to be next month.
Gone Girl was a good one, too. I keep adding to the list. I am planning to go see the movie soon.
@pooflady I finished "Dark side of the Moon" this morning. I think I like Mr. Flowers. Pretty smart fella!
@silverqueen Glad you liked it.
I've really enjoyed the Iron Druid series. If you read and like the first one you'll like the rest. Also The Dresden Files are always a crowd pleaser.
Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates is another great book, as is I'm a Stranger Here Myself.
Christopher Moore books are stellar.
I'm a huge fan of Sir Terry Pratchett.
http://www.amazon.com/One-Second-After-William-Forstchen/dp/0765356864
One second After by William Forstchen is an amazing read!
@silverqueen How are the suggestions working out for you?
I'm re-reading the Hunger Games trilogy. I have the latest Stephen King at the ready.
I recommend my absolute favourite book of all time, The Deptford Trilogy by Robertson Davies. Very likely the best book(s) ever written by anyone ever. These days it's easier to find the whole trilogy in one volume, but if you'd rather them as individual books the first one is called Fifth Business.
@lisaviolet It is going well. Thank you for asking. I realy needed to come back here for the list. So far I have finished all but one of the first set of books I gathered. I had to get a new phone and lost my library and needed to refresh my book shelves. @janetv I absolutely loved the King Killer books! I am waiting impatiently for the third one. I finished the first and turned right to find the second one. I did read the short one he rote about ... "... silent things?" I can't come up with the full title right now. It is realy good, explains allot.I had forgotten that the new "Game of Thrones" should be out by now. Haven't heard so I'll go looking for it.
Lisa thanks again for popping this back up. There are still a bunch on this list to check out! Lots to read hear.
@silverqueen Hey! Lisa was not the one to pop the thread up!
@SIMBM Yeah, I was even later to the dance.
I don't read fiction, but my favorite nonfiction recently is Diane Ackerman's The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us. Her Natural History of the Senses is amazing too. Just started reading Just Mercy, a memoir by Bryan Stephenson, an attorney who specializes in exonerating innocent prisoners in the South, and my bedtime reading is the 2014 Best Travel Writing anthology, which is a really well-curated collection this year.
Okay, a question about King's Tower series. I'm curious if anyone else does this. When a new book comes out, I read all of them again, from the beginning to the end of the latest book.
Am I alone in this?
@lisaviolet I've only read through the Tower Series once, I started reading them when the first 3 or 4 were out so I did a good amount of waiting but I never went back through, I do want to read it all one after the other though.
I also read The Talisman and Black House back to back once every 2 years or so.
@lisaviolet Nope. I am due to reread that series.
@SIMBM My apologies I missunderstood.Thank you for popping this up again. I got confused with who said what and when. Smile
@silverqueen What did you think of "Some Danger Involved"?
I really liked Hugh Howey's Silo series (Wool, Shift and Dust). I really love his writing style, both Half Way Home and The Plagiarist are very good as well.
@metaphore Agreed, the Silo series is fantastic and I can't wait until I can find some time to read the newest one "Sand"
@metaphore I stayed with the Silo series up until the middle of the third book when he took it in a direction I really did not want to follow. At that point I had (and still have) the the reaction of "kill them all off; I no longer care what happens to these people".
@SIMBM
I do like Barker. He is a crazy interesting character. He is full of surprises. A lot like Sherlock. I never saw the ending coming! Who would have thought the killer was up front and center the entire time?
The last book I simply couldn't put down is Ready Player One. It's written extremely well and additionally offers some great 80's nostalgia.
@PWiddy That was a good Story. FANTASTIC game troubles and the entire time you forget exactly how his reality is realy playing around him. Impressive writeing! I wonder if I have missed more?? Should go look?
@silverqueen I've been tracking and his next book is due out Summer of 2015. It's not supposed to be a sequel, but I believe there's some common trends. The brief on it comes across to me as a new kind of Wargames
Try out some Dan Simmons. He's pretty darned amazing. For an easy but very enjoyable read, go with my favorite, Summer of Night. For a sci-fi epic tale read, try Hyperion. For an even more epic read, go with Illium. If short stories are more your forte, check out Prayers to Broken Stones. The short story "Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams" really hit me. Here's his wiki: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_Simmons
Here's a memorable quote from the end of Illium:
“Achilles pauses, looks over his shoulder at the masses of men behind him, turns back, looks past Zeus toward Olympos and the masses of gods in front of him, and then crooks his neck to look up again at towering Zeus.
"Surrender now", says Achilles, "and we'll spare your goddesses' lives so they can be our slaves and courtesans.”
― Dan Simmons, Ilium
If you want another really interesting/fun read check out "Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates." It's a bit out-there, but a great story!