I used bad grammar in the title just so everyone will feel comfortable posting. Mainly me. Give us an informal book review- thumbs up or down so we know what to queue up next.
I wants to know if a Kindle Paperwhite is worth the $120 (or so) B cuz I have started to get moar and moar of deez here books. My Fire tablet is fair for reading, but I don’t like the shiny screen sometimes.
@therealjrn I love my paperwhite- you can read in the dark. I throw it in a ziploc bag to read in the tub by candlelight. If you don’t need the light you can try out a cheaper basic kindle and upgrade later. I hate reading on a tablet.
@therealjrn beware the “luxury ratchet”. If you enjoy reading on your phone or other LCD, you might find it becomes less enjoyable (to go back to) after you’ve used a Paperwhite/Glowlight/Kobo for a while.
@therealjrn i love real books. Period. Full stop. But I caved and finally bought the paperwhite. And it is infinitely better than reading on a tablet. Toss in that a large number of my favorite authors are public domain and you can download those for free and in less than 6 months it has essentially paid for itself. Fans of British humor if you don’t know PG Wodehouse do yourselves a favor. Read him. The turn of the 20th century class humor is absolutely priceless.
@f00l
Finished this. Liked it. Not a rock and roll tale. A personal memoir written by what seems to be a decent and gracious man of educated and diverse interests.
Incidentally: he never sought to be involved with the musically creative end of things.
Over time it became best that he traveled with the band when it toured. (He dealt with at a high level with managers and promotors, sponsors, transport, embassies and law enforcement, VIPs, legal, hotels, stage handlers, counterfeiters, scam artists).
He attended portions of almost every concert. He learned to tolerate and appreciate the Stones music, but only as an acquired taste. His heart is with high church music and Mozart.
@aetris OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT BOOK SO MUCH. I should go reread it RIGHT NOW, except I don’t own it. The other three books, yeah, but not that one. How did you manage to read the second of four volumes without immediately starting at the beginning and powering through to the end?
@mossygreen - It was a LONG time ago, but I assume that like most of my paperbacks I picked it up at a used book store or yard sale and never ran across the pre/sequels.
My home library looks a lot like this except without the openings!
@aetris wow that is a blast from the past! i think maybe 40ish years ago! thanks for the rreminder, i will revist them,memory hazy except i remember loving them tween/ teen years i think. :)1
During a recent discussion about the Harry Potter franchise a friend of mine sincerely recommended I go read the Inheritance Cycle books by Christopher Paolini. A bit below my usual reading level these days but very enjoyable storytelling.
@f00l well, the first one was. But yes, very impressive.
@sammydog01 they’re well written books. My only real criticism of them would be that they’re rather one dimensional compared to ASOIAF or even Harry Potter where really there is only one main character you grow attached to.
UBIK. Only a couple chapters in, but so far not my favourite PKD.
Just finished up A Dirty Job by Chrisopher Moore. Lots of fun, that one. I have the sequel Secondhand Souls in the pipe ready to go. When I’m into a series, I don’t usually like to digest them one after another. I give it a break between to ensure I don’t get burned out on it from overexposure.
@sammydog01 A Dirty Job kind of wrapped up a bit hurriedly in the last chapter, but overall it was a fun romp. Loved the Minty character, and of course “the puppies”. Maybe Miss Belle is a hell hound. She also has a habit of eating non-food items.
@hac I am not what I would call a PKD afficianado. I am positive others who’ve read more of his work will have a better opine, but I started with his short stories. It gave me a chance to dip my toe and get a sense for his writing style to make sure I was on board and could commit to longer stories.
@ruouttaurmindUBIK is so good. Basically the same book as A Maze of Death, if I recally correctly, but better. I should read it again. Soon. And then A Maze of Death again!
@Cerridwyn Have you ready RPO? I’m curious how Armada stacks up. It was seriously panned by critics and the reading public alike. That’s not generally a good sign.
@ruouttaurmind@sammydog01
Armada is not as entertaining as RPO. I am old enough that most of the old school reference in RPO rocked.
Armada is a bit of old school gaming lingo crossed with the last starfighter. I enjoyed it. Is it best seller material? Nope, is it fun reading, yes it was
@Cerridwyn My son liked RPO- I hoped he might try Armada. He hasn’t been assigned a book of choice at school since so I guess I’ll have to read it. I did the audiobook of RPO and really liked it. Thanks for the review.
@Cerridwyn I just read RPO (late on that I guess). It was fun, mostly for the references I think. It got recommended as a Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) read alike and I get it but mmmmmm.
@monicabc
Don’t think I’d call it that. I think it’s fun, mostly because of the old skool gaming references. I chuckled so many times remembering those games.
Same kinda with Armada. Old skool arcade game references that if you didn’t live in the old video arcade spending your hard earned quarters it probably wasn’t as fun.
I actually read a book. It’s been months since I’ve read anything. Granted it was around 120 pages.
/image Stephen King Blockade Billy
Two stories in one. One about a local baseball team told as an interview. The other story about some rich guy that pays a woman to do something fucked up and the consequences that came from it.
I’m not into baseball so the first story was a little boring. The second story was alright. Wish it continued on a little longer.
I’ve been carrying around David Rakoff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable for a week and only 20 pages in. Next up, Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States.
Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too
A Book
by Jomny Sun
I don’t like philosophy books but I think this one is. Very simple but really makes you think. I’m reading it a few pages a day so I can think about and hopefully retain some of its goodness.
@lisaviolet I have started Sleeping Beauties. It has not grabbed me and pulled me into the story yet. I am maybe a quarter of the way in. Not bad exactly but just not “can’t put it down”. I am still hopeful at this stage that it will get better.
I am about halfway through Lady Midnight, the first book in Cassandra Clare’s third Shadowhunter trilogy. Teen fantasy, no world shaking ideas, just engaging characters and good storytelling. I really enjoy her work. I’ve had it on the shelf for more than a year waiting for book 2 to come down in price, no luck yet, so I decided to go ahead and read it as my first book of the year. Im not interested in eformats, and It’s a 720pg hardback so it takes a while to get cheap.
I am still reading, “The Book of Questions,” by Gregory Stock. It’s a great cheat tool if you are interested in having conversations but often find it difficult in initiating them.
Person 1: Hey, how are you?
Person 2: I’m good, and you?
Person 1: I’m good.
Person 2: That’s good. Do you find it so hard to say “no” that you regularly do favors you do not want to do? If so, why?
At what point do you quit a book you don’t like? I have a really hard time with that! On the recommendation of a friend, I am reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. For the first half of the book I kept thinking it would get better. Now, at about 90% I hate it but still plod along.
For instance, say if someone mistakingly purchased “The Good Girl” by Mary Kubica but did not realize until 50 or so pages in that it wasn’t the book used for the movie adaptation that Ben Affleck was in (“Gone Girl”). Though there were boring parts in the first fifty pages making the person why was there such a buzz surrounding this movie, said person continued anyway and finished the book. Why? Because it was purchased with actual money so technically this person didn’t waste money purchasing the wrong book because they finished reading the book.
PS My copy of Interview With the Vampire was super-cheap, anyway. My way of dealing with a bad book purchase is to not read it, but keep it forever as a penance.
@callow I liked that one but not so much the second book.
There are too many good books to read to waste time on a bad one.
Depends on mood and why I don’t like it for me to quit reading. Some writing styles bother me even if the story sounds good. I quit those fairly quick. If it is “boring” my mood plays more into the decision.
@callow I bought the Twilight series at a used book sale. Cheap. I hated them and yet read them all. OK I skimmed a lot of parts. I have trouble giving up. Right now I’m at 75% in The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. Every few months I read another chapter. I will finish that damned book one day.
@sammydog01 I have never read a Joyce Carol Oates book and have always assumed that I don’t particularly care for her work based on her short stories (which probably isn’t fair because I’ve only read the stories that would have been collected in more literary horror anthologies). Years ago I was told that her short stories are only so-so and her novels are pretty good, and accepted that. Your comment leads me to believe that I was perhaps misled and that I never want to find out the truth.
@callow ugh. I spent three months trying to read this book once. Can’t even remember the name. It was terrible. I wasted so much time with it. I have a hard time quitting a book. I’ll usually want to know how it ends, no matter how terrible. Same thing with movies, usually.
This might be part of the reason that I don’t branch out and read more.
@callow - I always have several books on hand - if one doesn’t grab me after the first few pages I put it down and go to the next book. Sometimes I never get back to that first book, but sometimes you need to be in the right place for a particular book - years later I’ve gotten back to some books I didn’t like at first blush and discovered I now liked them.
@elimanningface Did that someone finally get to read Gone Girl? I enjoyed that one.
I’m truly Meh, most of my books are borrowed, free or very cheap so the money isn’t a factor. @mossygreen I’m skimming more and more but just can’t quit! @speediedelivery In the past three years I’ve only given up on two books and for this very reason. “There are too many good books to read to waste time on a bad one.” @sammydog01 If I put it down I will never pick it up again. @RiotDemon Yep, I do this with movies too. This probably explains why I’ve been married and at the same job for so long. @f00l I need books I can zip right through to make up for this one. @aetris I have hundreds of books. Maybe knowing that I will never go back makes it harder to put down without finishing.
Or maybe it’s because you guys have me binge watching TV that I’m not reading as much as I’d like.
I’ll let you know if I can quit.
@callow no, it is still filed under ‘want to read’ on Goodreads. Right now, I’m reading ‘When You Are Engulfed in Flames’ by David Sedaris. No review; I typically save judgment until the end. I’ve read four or five of his other books and enjoyed them so it’ll probably be positive.
I’m also still reading ‘The Book of Questions’ by Gregory Stock.
Knowing you had a 50 percent chance of winning and would be paid 10 times the amount of your bet if you won, what fraction of what you now own would you be willing to wager?
Yesterday was quite productive. Worked half a day, took down my huge Christmas tree, watched about five episodes of Arrow, and finished that damn book! Started The Cove by Catherine Coulter figuring it will be an easy read.
@callow Congratulations! You deserve something nice to read! I’m going to go finish The Accursed this time. (P.S. Never buy Twilight. You probably knew that.)
@callow I pushed through Discovery of Witches last year on my sister’s recommendation. Thought it got more interesting towards the end, so I started the second one (can’t even remember the name). About a third of the way through, I realized I couldn’t care less about the characters. The story was so painfully slow that I decided I didn’t have enough time in my life to finish it.
@beachbum I liked the vampire/witch/daemon world she created but not the perfect, secretive characters. This review sums it up perfectly (and hilariously. Maybe the TV series coming out this year will be better.
If it doesn’t grab me by the second or third chapter, i stop reading. There are too many out here i want to read to waste time on one I’m not enjoying.
@callow@beachbum I started the first one, got about five chapters in, skipped to the ending, and never tried the others. Too many other good books in the genre to waste time on that.
I am rereading The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr, a classic, tricky whodunit-type novel. I am currently two wrong answers in. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember anything about it, not even any of the red herrings, which is nice. But anyone looking to get into an old-fashioned locked room mystery by Carr should probably read The Crooked Hinge or The Three Coffins first because those are his best.
@sammydog01 They are! The Crooked Hinge has a possibly haunted automaton, intimations of witchcraft, and a backstory involving the Titanic in addition to its impossible murder. The Three Coffins has a professional magician, a scary painting and a Guy Fawkes false face in addition to its impossible murder.
I don’t know how easy they’ll be to track down if you weren’t given a grocery bag full of yellowed paperbacks in the '90’s.
@mossygreen Amazon has a bunch of his stuff on kindle but not the ones you recommended. Maybe someone will take the time to type them out on a computer. I picked up The Judas Window.
And now I can’t hear his name without thinking of Dixon Cider. (warning- probably safe for work but not by much)
I just finished Stephenson’s SEVENEVES (Not really sure, but I think all caps is how it’s supposed to be?)
Surprisingly good! I couldn’t stand the baroque cycle and thought Reamde was barely tolerable. I liked Anathem, though. This is more like that.
Next. . . I don’t know, I might read through the Ethshar series, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. They’re popcorn, but fun and quick, and I’ve only read a couple of them.
@lifftchi Oooh, I really enjoyed Lawrence Watt-Evans’ '80’s stuff, haven’t thought about it in ages. Might have to see if my Lords of Dûs books were upstairs and made it through the flood we had, or if I can get them through library loan.
I am getting the feeling that all this fantasy discussion is going to end with me rereading all the Thieves World anthologies. That’s a mixed bag, to be sure.
@mossygreen I knew a whole herd of Thieves World authors in passing back in the day. They used to say, “you write the first story for money, and the rest for revenge”. If you like shared world anthologies, you might try out Wild Cards.
@mossygreen Lol. Thieves World notoriously had no rules regarding the use of other writers’ characters or settings. So an author would be invited to contribute a story to the shared world, and in subsequent books the other writers were permitted to change or brutalize those characters at will. So you’d come back and beat up their characters for revenge. Learning from this model, Wild Cards requires its writers to secure permission from the owner before making major changes to someone else’s characters or settings. It makes the work much more collaborative.
I have been to a lot of sci fi cons and met many authors and artists and a few actors and musicians. The Thieves World and Wild Cards writers were especially social and most would join you for drinks or dinner if invited. That’s why I said I knew them in passing, I’d see them a couple of times a year and a group of fans and writers would all go out together for drinks and dinners. Sometimes I’d volunteer at a con to be a guest’s aid, the job was to make sure they were comfortable and had anything the needed in the unfamiliar environment. Often I’d take them out on tours of the city between their speaking commitments. The most famous person I squired for was Edgar Winter. He was super quiet and didn’t ask for much. My best friend was an aid and “bodyguard” (keeping fans at bay) for William Shatner at a local con, and I was a runner for Walter Koenig.
@moondrake That’s pretty much what I assumed, since one of the more interesting things about the series is that one writer’s hero, or complicated anti-hero, is another writer’s useless, irritating asshole. Just like real life!
@mossygreen I haven’t thought about Thieves World in forever. I was just sifting through books at my parents and did not save some of the later Robert Aspirin (sp?) Myth books. But I loved the early ones back in the day. (This all makes sense in my head, apologies if it comes out as gibbereish)
Probably not what this thread is going for, but I just got invested in the manga Delicious in Dungeon. It’s definitely for a younger crowd, but it makes me smile. It’s basically dungeon-crawl-themed, but instead of talking about how they slay monsters or what-have-you, every chapter is about cooking up a meal from monsters they’ve slain. It’s goofy.
@brhfl I love manga. I wish they weren’t so pricy. The only ones I own were bought on sale at a bookstore going out of business or bought as a set on eBay.
I can plow through most of them in less than an hour. Granted, I will re-read them, but it seems expensive compared to most traditional books. Especially when some series go on for hundreds of books.
@RiotDemon My daughter is taking a class in graphic novels this semester in high school. It was pretty far down on her list of choices- just above poetry, but she got her first choice last semester (noir) so I guess it’s OK. The books were close to a hundred dollars I think. I hope she doesn’t hate it. I also hope my other kid takes it so I get some more use out of the books.
@RiotDemon Yeah, manga have a fairly bad price-to-entertainment ratio, at least if you’re not examining the art closely. I resolved this problem by reading manga in Japanese, which takes me. . . several times longer than in English, depending on how complex it is.
A few places in the US are lucky enough to have BookOff, a giant Japanese used-stuff chain that has a lot of manga at a dollar each. The ones in Japan have a pretty comprehensive selection, but are of course Japanese-only.
@lifftchi that’s the re-read factor for me. The second time around is more about the art. There’s one manga that I own where I went through slowly, putting bookmarks on every page that I especially liked.
I’ve been re-reading Jerry Pournelle’s “A Step Farther Out”. To be followed by others of his books. Its been good to remember how incredibly hopeful he was about the future.
We were going through the shelves for victims to donate for the Friends of the Library’s next book sale and I rediscovered my E. E. “Doc” Smith Lensman and Skylark books. It has been too long, they yearn to be read again! And by Klono’s Tungsten Teeth and Curving Carballoy Claws, they shall be!
I’m somewhere near the beginning/middle-ish of The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. William Gibson mentioned his latest book in a tweet, but I decided to start with his first. (Mostly because the new one isn’t available on audio yet.) One of the reviews compared the author unfavorably with Douglas Adams. I kind of see why they’d make the comparison. There have been a lot of tangents so far, hope they add up to something. Also a bit heavy-handed on the main theme.
@walarney Goneaway World is definitely in my top 10 favourite books so far. It was long… really really long, but I really enjoyed it. And I never saw the twist coming!
@sammydog01 Finished “Gone-Away World”. Liked it well enough that I’ll probably try another. (Still have Audible credits to burn.) He did mostly wrap things up, but some of the major plot points stretched credulity (even in the context), and the ending got a little sillier than the rest of story.
I gave up and bought the Michael Wolff book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Drumpf White House”. Technically it was released at 0900 EST, but AMZN hasn’t changed the release date, and I can’t d/l it yet.
FWIW to anyone interested in this: (I am about 1/3 of the way into it.)
So far, this book is “present at events and conversations” journalistic report-what-u-saw/heard type writing (the author had amazing WH access).
Not analytic. (So far).
If you ordered the e-version of Fire and Fury, and you haven’t received it, cancel it and re-order. AMZN will immediately send it. The first order still thinks it’s being released the 9th. I’m on page 80, and it’s not at all what I expected. Credible, careful to distinguish between what A said vs. what B said about the same event, and backed up by many, many, many hours of tape. The author had a blue press pass, and he did indeed become a fly on the wall, invisible.
I have my reasons for believing that largely, it is accurate. (I have been told there are some verifiable tiny factual errors, of the sort that a slightly imperfect copy-editor or proofwriter might miss.)
The book jives with info from other sources, and in aggregate they seem quite credible to me.
[I have repeatedly heard that Trump constantly trashes Maggie Haberman from the NYT in his conversations, and also just as frequently calls her.
Supposedly Trump himself is as frequently her unnamed source as anyone else might be.]
The most revealing portions of the book (for me) involve “Jarivanka” (or however he spells this; I heard the audiobook). Their motivations, goals and characters seem much clearer now.
The funniest parts involve that energetic loudmouth, Scaramucci, of course. He was beyond entertaining for his 10 short days. Once sentence involving the consequences of his New Yorker interview had me laughing so hard that I could not even see properly for a few minutes.
So, in aggregate, is this accurate? I suspect pretty much so. People will disagree.
I suggest that one can take Trump’s own tweets this morning in reaction to the content if the book (those tweets about his stability and genuis, and later remarks on these topics) as either a counterargument, or as confirmation, depending …
@f00l Okay, time for me to get back into it. Today was busy with chores. BTW, recently I heard that there was a possibility that Scaramucci might return to the WH. I can’t remember where I heard it. The outcome of this weekend’s Anybody But Jeff conference may start dominoes again.
Likes like somebody with huge opinions had to go “ooops”. Esp after his billionaire patrons cut him off.
Steve Bannon expressed “regret” for his comments to journalist Michael Wolff, whose explosive new book sparked a backlash against the former top Donald Trump aide over his comments about a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016.
According to the book, released a week early due to high demand, the former White House strategist called the infamous meeting in New York between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian operatives at Trump Tower “treasonous.”
In a statement to Axios on Sunday, Bannon heaped praise on Trump and his agenda, and called Don Jr. a “patriot and a good man.“
@OldCatLady so much back channel talking about the candidate and then president elect. My guess is POTUS doesn’t read very much. If not, I wonder how much of the information written in this book will get back to him verbatim.
I’m finding it hard to believe this book is nothing more than a hit piece, a flash in the pan…here…let the author tell you his motives, in his own words:
Wolff, meanwhile, predicted in an interview Friday that his book would spell the end of the Trump presidency.
“I think one of the interesting effects of the book so far is a very clear emperor-has-no-clothes effect,” Wolff said in a BBC interview broadcast Saturday.
“The story that I have told seems to present this presidency in such a way that it says he can’t do his job,” Wolff said.
“Suddenly everywhere people are going ‘oh my God, it’s true, he has no clothes’. That’s the background to the perception and the understanding that will finally end … this presidency.”
I did start to read the book, but in the second chapter when Wolff talked about how Melania, mystifyingly, was staying in New York I stopped. This is one clueless “reporter” if he didn’t understand a child finishing out the school year.
Wolff is getting his little 15 minutes, but bring down an American Presidency? Ha.
@therealjrn is that how it’s being interpreted as? I’ve been mostly following views of the book here on the forum and not the press so I am not really sure. I took the author at his word when he wrote in the author’s notes that he was writing from the perspective of a fly on the wall. Flies aren’t known for being insightful or providing high level analysis so when he does provide some, I don’t treat it with much reverence. I’ve enjoyed the book so far but I am reading it as a political version of the NY Post’s Page Six and not as a Watergate-like expose done by Woodward and Bernstein way back when.
@therealjrn ahh, I am sorry man. You’re right, the guys head seems to be swelling. How ironic would it be if he said the BBC misquoted him and took his words out of context?
@f00l For as far as I got into the book, I found it chockablock full of pejorative language and shadings in his tale-telling…the very idea that they just let some dude hang out on the couch taking notes day after day is laughable.
But as I said, enjoy the show. Lord knows we may as well relax and have “good” fun with it.
Like the part where he compares Trump Tower to a Death Star. That’s some funny shit right there, I don’t care who you are.
Chapter 20? The one that starts out so evenhandedly with: “Trump was impetuous and yet did not like to make decisions, at least not ones that seemed to corner him into having to analyze a problem.”?
Or chapter 21, the one where he describes Bannan’s place as: “…a one-bedroom graduate-student sort of apartment, in a mixed-use building over a mega-McDonald’s—quite belying Bannon’s rumored fortune…”?
It’s all so evocative, so rich.
But I will admit, at the time I thought the nickname “the Mooch” was very unfortunate for a man in politics.
I was suggesting you read the two chapters which have Scaramucci’s name in their titles, just to get the part of the writer’s story that involves “the Mooch.”
Regardless of what you think of the book and of the writer, I would, in your case, just ignore anything I found obnoxious or irritating for a short time, and read those chapters for the sheer entertainment value.
You gotta admit, “the Mooch” burned bright and hot for his short time in place.
@f00l Mehbe I will…but just to be clear. I’m not opposed to the writer. I’m opposed to his pejorative and biased “style.” That being said, I’m not a fucking idiot, I’m Like, Really Smart. I can spot that shit.
Kidding aside, that book is so liberally strewn with disparaging and belittling statements from Starr that I’m surprised any intelligent reader isn’t bothered by it. (unless it just serves to confirm their bias) That fucker is off my Christmas card list for sure.
@therealjrn I am not bothered by his book but I’m only eighty or so pages into it and I’ve only been following the feedback about the book here on the forum. I took Wolff at his word when he wrote in his notes at the beginning of the book that this is his perspective of what he observed. I don’t think he claimed this to be investigative or even objective. Everyone’s opinion is subjective and the weight given to any opinion is up to the individual who chooses to listen. However you did post some stuff earlier that maybe Wolff intends it or thinks it can be something more so I can understand how some might be bothered if that is the case.
Also, I definitely agree with you about the liberal slant but he does hold the mainstream media culpable (at least in the pages I’ve read so far) for playing along.
I also agree with @f00l, the high school nature (allegedly ) of it all is laughable in a disappointing kind of way. Up to this point, nothing written seems that out of step from what has been reported by news outlets before…but the Mooch is still waiting for his cue to enter stage right.
@elimanningface
Apart from politics, philosophies, beliefs, and serious consequences, and apart from differing perspectives and interpretations, this White House is as compelling a reality show as has ever been conceived of.
I finished the book yesterday and fall somewhere between @f00l and @therealjrn. I thought it was okay but some of the shots were juvenile (see Jervanka). No idea what was made up…maybe 45’s love for McDonald’s (isn’t it Arby’s?).
@elimanningface lol, well all the non-readers are in luck. I read some “news” today that was positively gushing over the prospect of a TV show based on the book. We’ll see if there are any Hollywood directors left after all the scandals left to make it.
Because I have to escape sometimes, I reread favorites before bedtime. This week it’s Nora Roberts’ Three Sisters Island trilogy, starting with ‘To Dance Upon the Air’. In some rooms I have old issues of magazines like ‘Victoria’ and ‘Coastal Living’, mostly because I love to look at the pictures.
I got The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead for Christmas and finished it about a week later. Saw someone else reading it on the train yesterday and couldn’t help smiling. Really good book, though I had to check myself when he described an actual railroad. The person who gave it to me is reading it as well, in German. I’m curious to ask whether certain phrases have a good translation that conveys the same meaning it had in 1800’s America.
I’m about to spend some time on public transit. We’ll see if I get anywhere reading or if I write instead.
I’m currently reading For Whom The Bell Tolls, which I somehow missed during my Hemingway phase many years ago. OK so far, but not my favorite. I didn’t really enjoy The Sun Also Rises all that much, either (except for the parts in/near Pamplona). I guess my favorites were To Have And Have Not and Islands In The Stream.
It’s a terrific book that outlines all the stuff we don’t know about our universe. Sounds geekoid, I admit. But it’s illustrated with comic book style drawings and is written in a very approachable fashion.
Now, on the downside, can I rant for a moment about the price of eBooks? I mean, really! When the price of an eBook is the same as hardcover, but it’s not “sharable” and I can’t donate it to my library’s book drive, and I can’t even put it on a bookshelf as a souvenir of my readings… WTF? This is gouging, plain and simple.
And publishers who keep the eBook prices high on long-tail items are hereby consigned to the inner circles of Hell for all eternity. (I’m looking at you, Penguin!)
I started to buy an eBook I’ve been meaning to get around to. It has been out of print for a decade. I can buy as many as I want on that Woot affiliate web site in paperback for $2. But the eBook edition? Eight bucks. Fuck YOU, publisher! I’ll throw a couple of dollars to an online book reseller for a paperback before I’ll let you gouge me for an eBook version of low-volume title that’s been out of print for 10 years that your marginal cost of production is virtually nil. (By the way: I know the author: He says he gets less than a dime if I buy the eBook.)
So… Reading about a book a week, but I’m hating the eBook experience (pricing). Also, why did it take The Woot Affiliate so long to come up with a waterproof Kindle? Am I the only dude who ever wanted to read poolside?
</rant>
@f00l I have this. But we are spending time in Mexico (you’ve seen the weather forecasts up north, haven’t you??? ) this winter, so the local library is 3,000 miles out of the way.
@sammydog01Lots of times I do; and lots of times I’m the guy donating dead trees to my local library for their bi-annual book sales / fund raisers.
But the cure for this is for Amazon to say, "Um, OK… set whatever price you want to for eBooks, Mr. Publisher. But if there are consistently lower cost options elsewhere we will de-list your eBook version."
I guess the book publishing industry didn’t learn one. damn. thing. from the video industry and the music industry: If you price your products reasonably, and you make them widely available legitimately, then piracy of your products will plummet.
(Not confessing to ever having bootlegged a book, but I do confess it’s possible to do so.)
@f00l We’ve got a little place out in the middle of nowhere, on the Pacific coast, about 75 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. The food does, indeed, rock. We get all of the traditional Mexican dishes, plus a ton of seafood dishes, plus birria (chivo ó res) seven days a week.
I’m truly blessed; so much so that bitchin’ about eBook prices seems both unnecessary and triflin’, don’it?
@simssj My experience is that it’s very rare for any book to be under 4.00 on the woot affiliate. (.01 + 3.99 shipping.) If you’re finding books for 2, I would be quite curious how.
@lifftchi You are correct; I was citing the “before shipping” price.
Still, $4.00 for a physical object, placed in my hand, makes a lot more sense (and I can rationalize the cost case much more easily) than a zero-marginal-cost download for twice that.
@simssj
The price fixing lawsuits directed mostly at Apple for e-books netted me about 500-600 bucks, and I never bought a book from Apple.
And i’ve never bought a book from Bezos either.
My first reader was a Sony.
All of mine since have been Nooks.
Do I buy books that are release date yes, do I pay the price of a hard back (new release) not even close. However, about 1/2 or more that I get are ePub and cost between nothing and $2.99 and are fun to read. And since I might go through 6 or 7 in a week, and in a travel week 10-12, those prices are just right. (sometimes you get 10 books for that 99 cents).
And I can side load anything that is not a Bezo’s product (i can actually read those with a Kindle app if I want to do so.)
@sammydog01 I, too, want a waterproof Oasis. Partly for the tub; partly because they didn’t make cases that weren’t leather for the previous generation. Love my Voyager, but probably upgrading soon.
@f00l I just read that you can turn the touchscreen off on the new Oasis. That’s a huge selling point for me. Although one reviewer didn’t like the larger screen.
I recently read Little Big Man by something Berger. Yes there was a movie but ignore it in favor of the book. It was excellent. Liked it so much I gave a copy to my gf’s grandpa for xmas (even tho he is trying to get rid of too many books), he said it was one of the best books he’s read in a long time.
I found the second book in this mystery series as a discard from the library. It’s a 1980’s translated from french book and after I really liked the second one I found out that the series is gone from libraries and out of print so thank you British resellers of library discards.
Why would I go to this much trouble? God only knows, but after reading 50% of all english language mysteries (Hyperbole? No, not me, never) I am really enjoying something different - and good too.
I’ve decided to read the Game of Thrones series. (Loved the show.) I’m a fast reader and the first one took me twice as long as it should have. Glad I read it; picked up many, many details I otherwise missed, but I will definitely take a break to read some mind numbing trash before I start the next one.
@f00l Thank you. The first book also included an appendix that sorted the players into houses and gave brief backgrounds which certainly helped fill in some missing details.
Dear graphic novel fans- these are the books my daughter has to read for her English class- are they good or is she going to hate it?
Plus Signature Wound: Rocking TBI by Garry Trudeau
@sammydog01 Haven’t read the first two. A few folks discussed Watchmen when you mentioned your daughter’s class earlier, so I’ll keep this to the other two.
Maus is a classic, and it’s very intense and emotional. It’s about the holocaust, but there’s also this sort of meta-narrative about the author interviewing his father about the story he’s writing/drawing. Extremely good.
I didn’t like Blankets as much as most people seem to, but I didn’t really dislike it. It’s worth reading, but I doubt I’ll ever buy it. I do quite like the art style.
@f00l Either it was a big crazy mess or I just didn’t understand it. Or both. I didn’t notice when I started it that it was 700 pages long. I won’t be re-reading it.
Finished Lady Midnight, loved it as I love Clare’s characters. Chewed my way through Lost by Gregory Maguire, which managed to be boring and spooky at the same time. We were meant to dislike the lead early in the book and then grow to understand and sympathize with her, but that works better for me in visual media than books. In the end the book hit uncomfortably close to home on the lingering impact of grief, and left important character points unanswered, so not a terribly agreeable read. Got a good running start yesterday at Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, straight up action thriller with a sci fi twist. Next on deck is King’s From a Buick 8, which I listened to on audiobook years ago but have never read. I’ve got a good stack of books waiting to be read and a full shopping cart on ABE waiting for me to review for set completeness, so I’m set for a while. My pending pile:
@f00l My first book club was at a Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville, home of the over-educated and pretentious. They read books I didn’t like and/or understand and used words I had to go home and look up.
Much later I joined one at Barnes and Noble here- we eventually moved to a sandwich place and had dinner. We all read the same book, or not, talked about it if it was interesting, and then chatted for a while. It was OK for people to not finish the book, they still had a good time.
I was thinking maybe we could pick a book and an end date, and either pick a time to chat on Slack or just trade comments either there or here.
I tossed it out here because this is where the readers go- if anyone is interested I could set it up and put it on the main page. I figured if there was no interest here it would just die quickly.
When do people spend most times hanging out at the forums? Weekends?
Why not create a main topic for it then?
I world like to avoid books that provoke endless political go-nowhere. You know what I mean. It’s impossible to count on open-minded discussion in certain areas.
What was it about Charlottesville? Why is that area pretentious? What kinda stuff were they reading?
@f00l Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia, considered to be the best public university in the country (by its alumni), and a ton of filthy rich horse people and celebrities.
Fun fact- a member of that book club played polo with Rita Mae Brown. Yes, the famous mystery author, and yes, with horses and everything.
I vote for no politics, nothing controversial, and nothing that makes me feel really stupid. If you have a book suggestion I’ll put up a topic and date and we can try just posting there to see how it works. So far it looks like you and me. I’m up for that.
@sammydog01 The sci fi book meet-up I am in tried that and it didn’t work. Most people just werent reading the chosen books. For me the problem was two-fold: 1. I wont read a book that bores me and 2. I don’t read ebooks and buy second hand so I have to wait a couple of weeks to get a book, if its even available. Many of the books selected were newly published and I am not paying $15-20 for an unknown book just because somone proposed it. We switched to each of us bringing the books we’d read during the month, talking about them, and loaning them to whoever took an interest. Provided a lot more reading opportunities (lend 2, borrow 4-6) and didn’t stick people reading stuff they didn’t like. Wouldn’t work here, though.
@moondrake I got all of mine at the library which is kind of funny since we met at Barnes and Noble. And in our group you really did need to be open to different kinds of books. But that was the fun of it- I only read mysteries and horror novels on my own and wound up reading some pretty interesting fiction.
@sammydog01 I’m open to the idea. If we’re geographically diverse (as we are) it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to check out copies of a given book in our local libraries.
I signed up for the introductory deal at estories.com for two free months and two free audiobooks. I’m considering the LotR books as read by Rob Inglis.
Has anyone listened to the Inglis version? What are your thoughts on the narration and audio quality? I listened to the Inglis version of The Hobbit and found his speaking pace to be a bit slow, even painfully so at times. The fidelity of the recording was lacking, like it was an old analog recording converted to digital or something.
20 hours for the first book is a considerable investment if I find the narration quirky or uncomfortable. Like having Katherine Kellgren shriek at me for 50 hours of the Oxford Time Travel series.
@sammydog01 I’ve read this in a few reviews of other books. I just started listening to Jaws and am considering giving it a shot with it. The narrator does a decent job, but he speaks pretty slowly.
@ruouttaurmind
I like the Inglis versions. Have listened to the several times.
Yes they are earlier recordings. Done in the 1980’s, or even earlier, I think.
He does well. He even does well with the Sims and doggerel that I usually skip over when reading.
I would completely speed it up to at least 1.25 or 1.5. If they are doing it right, no distortion.
He’s good for a really long listen, which these are. He mostly avoids the modern tendency to add drama. He is not harsh.
Try to remember that, in written form, the story doesn’t really get going full-on, until you are at least at Bree, or on the road to Weathertop. Until then, it’s slow going. you might want to read up to Weathertop in text, if you are a fast reader.
The early chapter “The Shadow if the Past” is really important. Take your time on that one. Otherwise, just get to Weathertop.
Don’t skip the forewards and prefaces etc. Also don’t skip the appendices. At least, skim them. Most of them are nothing but boring collections of facts. Others should have been full novels in their own bindings.
One of the pleasure of Tolkien is his command of prose, but he writes with nearer-invisible sophistication, calling on early European language poetic and pastoral traditions.
Tolkien was completely familiar in detail with the best of the language and rhythm of the Bible, Homer, Greek and Latin, medieval declaming and song traditions, and Nordic sagas and myths, often in the original languages.
That shows up in his deceptively simply prose. He never make a fuss about being sophisticated or being a stylist. But it’s there. In subtle terms.
By modern standards he’s a bit archaic. And soft-spoken. And at times he shifts slightly toward ancient heroic-tradition language, while never losing the emotional path, esp when describing war.
He is amazing at describing scenery. This is a writer who spent a lot of time outdoors as a youth, and knew the names of all the plants and natural features.
But mostly, the books simply make a great story.
He thought of the three books as a single book.
It was published as three books due to a post-WWII shortage of paper, and due to the costs to the publisher of binding that long a work into a single volume.
Tolkien’s right about one thing, as were readers from the early decades before the unending streaming media took over our universe:
@f00l I listened to The Hobbit. I found the doggerel to be unbearable. Thankfully it’s not prolific in that book. Kudos to Inglis for his renditions, but I’ve never been a fan of the musical.
I’ve seen the LotR movies and figured it’s about time I give the books a shot. When I complained about liking the Peter Jackson version of The Hobbit more than the JRRT version, you suggested then that I try LotR, as it was written to appeal to a different audience. So the eStories free trial gives me an opportunity to do so.
The Hobbit was written on the level of a bed-time story for pre-school kids.
LOTR was written in some part as a fictional “heroic historical myth” for English and European civilization. Something for adults.
Tho it was not written as instructional or as an allegory, it calls to one’s sense of civilization and decency and history and culture and meaning, as well as calling to personal responsibility, forbearance, dedication, and decency.
It is also insanely beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking.
Token meant the story to stay with people. Obviously, he achieved that.
@sammydog01 I was wanting a paperwhite. Sorry I missed that. But what the hey, I need to start somewhere. The glare-filled screen on my fire tablet is untenable.
Both of you check out the Amazon warehouse deals on paperwhite Kindles whenever they put the new Paperwhite on sale. Sometimes they lower the warehouse prices when the main item is discounted.
Esp the two-three weeks right before Valentine’s Day and Mothers Day.
You can borrow e-books (and, on your smartphone, audiobooks) for free from you local library system. Once your account and device are set up for it, you don’t have to go to the library to get a book. Just browse the catalog and instant download.
Many libraries use the Overdrive app for this, others use Hoopla. and there are other methods. Check with your library for how-to.
Usually Kindles are well integrated into this system. I haven’t used mine for that, bit I don’t think it’s a big pain to do it.
I’ve been bombing thru some old favorites and some new trash. I have so many free kindle books (IHG credit card gives you 2 or 3 per quarter, one of my credit unions give you a couple more etc) unfortunately they select a list so it’s not just any kindle book read this month
Punishment Scott j Holliday meh. Great concept. Mediocre writing.
The good Samaritan John Marrs same. Thought provoking but a bit weak.
The gods view Barry Eisler fast moving and makes you go woah…not great but a decent afternoon read
The bookcase Nelson Demille bleh. Glad it was free.
The man that corrupted hadleyburg etc Mark twain Yes. Just yes.
Not George Washington PG Wodehouse one of my all time faves
Magician Raymond Feist the only six fi/fantasy author i read every book of. This one hooked me (it’s the first) and I keep going back
The children of men PD james my favorite dystopian novel. Quick fast and she’s a phenomenal writer.
I think that’s everything so far for me this year.
I wants to know if a Kindle Paperwhite is worth the $120 (or so) B cuz I have started to get moar and moar of deez here books. My Fire tablet is fair for reading, but I don’t like the shiny screen sometimes.
@therealjrn I love my paperwhite- you can read in the dark. I throw it in a ziploc bag to read in the tub by candlelight. If you don’t need the light you can try out a cheaper basic kindle and upgrade later. I hate reading on a tablet.
@therealjrn
The Paperwhite will prob be on sale for Valentine’s. And Mother’s Day.
Also some of the more expensive backlit Kindles may go on sale at the same time. MD is the only time I’ve ever seen the Oasis on sale.
Also check the Amazon Warehouse for refurbs.
Worth it? Imho yes.
@therealjrn I
my Paperwhite.
@therealjrn reading on a Paperwhite is, dare I say, a superior experience to reading a paper book, and puts reading on a tablet to shame.
@therealjrn beware the “luxury ratchet”. If you enjoy reading on your phone or other LCD, you might find it becomes less enjoyable (to go back to) after you’ve used a Paperwhite/Glowlight/Kobo for a while.
@walarney
Used backlit e-readers can be had at decent prices during sales or on eBay.
I encourage people to try them, if they like the e-reading experience.
@f00l I think you mean front-lit. Tablets are back-lit which is why they’re so hard on the eyes.
@sammydog01
Yeah I was in error.
Front-lit. Or side-lit. That the way to go with an e-mail ink reader.
@therealjrn Love my Paperwhite.
@therealjrn i love real books. Period. Full stop. But I caved and finally bought the paperwhite. And it is infinitely better than reading on a tablet. Toss in that a large number of my favorite authors are public domain and you can download those for free and in less than 6 months it has essentially paid for itself. Fans of British humor if you don’t know PG Wodehouse do yourselves a favor. Read him. The turn of the 20th century class humor is absolutely priceless.
I’m reading “Baal” by Robert McCammon. I think it’s his first book. I like it- creepy. The kindle version is in a two-fer on Amazon. I recommend it for horror fans.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00O67LTXK/ref=kinw_myk_ro_title
I’m listening to the audiobook “Krampus the Yule Lord”. I bought the kindle book last year on a daily deal and loved it. It’s pretty violent and a lot of nasty stuff happens but the mythology is cool. I meant to to listen to it in December but you know how that goes.
https://www.amazon.com/Krampus-Yule-Lord-Brom-ebook/dp/B007JLK8TQ/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1515089679&sr=1-1&keywords=krampus
Current listen? Wanted something light and fun and not part of a series.
@f00l
Finished this. Liked it. Not a rock and roll tale. A personal memoir written by what seems to be a decent and gracious man of educated and diverse interests.
Incidentally: he never sought to be involved with the musically creative end of things.
Over time it became best that he traveled with the band when it toured. (He dealt with at a high level with managers and promotors, sponsors, transport, embassies and law enforcement, VIPs, legal, hotels, stage handlers, counterfeiters, scam artists).
He attended portions of almost every concert. He learned to tolerate and appreciate the Stones music, but only as an acquired taste. His heart is with high church music and Mozart.
@sammydog01 I believe, although I’m not real sure, that it is 2018. Maybe?
@Barney I wonder if @narfcake can use his powers to fix it?
@sammydog01 @Barney @therealjrn Done.
@Barney Nope, totally still 2017. You can’t convince me otherwise. (Thanks @narfcake)
I am reading this book… it was 50% off at Christmas time, so I bought the hardcover
Unfortunately, I didn’t read the previous book in the series, so I had to buy that on kindle…
I like her series…
and then I have this waiting in the wings…
Thanks to @lifftchi, I’m reading Shadow of the Torturer. I had only read Claw of the Conciliator before.
@aetris OH MY GOD I LOVE THAT BOOK SO MUCH. I should go reread it RIGHT NOW, except I don’t own it. The other three books, yeah, but not that one. How did you manage to read the second of four volumes without immediately starting at the beginning and powering through to the end?
@aetris Excellent choice.
@mossygreen - It was a LONG time ago, but I assume that like most of my paperbacks I picked it up at a used book store or yard sale and never ran across the pre/sequels.
My home library looks a lot like this except without the openings!
@aetris
Like!
@aetris wow that is a blast from the past! i think maybe 40ish years ago! thanks for the rreminder, i will revist them,memory hazy except i remember loving them tween/ teen years i think. :)1
During a recent discussion about the Harry Potter franchise a friend of mine sincerely recommended I go read the Inheritance Cycle books by Christopher Paolini. A bit below my usual reading level these days but very enjoyable storytelling.
@jbartus
The most impressive thing is that they were written by a teenager.
@jbartus I think my daughter read Eragon and liked it.
@f00l well, the first one was. But yes, very impressive.
@sammydog01 they’re well written books. My only real criticism of them would be that they’re rather one dimensional compared to ASOIAF or even Harry Potter where really there is only one main character you grow attached to.
UBIK. Only a couple chapters in, but so far not my favourite PKD.
Just finished up A Dirty Job by Chrisopher Moore. Lots of fun, that one. I have the sequel Secondhand Souls in the pipe ready to go. When I’m into a series, I don’t usually like to digest them one after another. I give it a break between to ensure I don’t get burned out on it from overexposure.
@ruouttaurmind PKD?
@sammydog01 Philip K. Dick.
@ruouttaurmind Thanks. And I love Christopher Moore. A Dirty Job was one of my favorites.
@sammydog01 A Dirty Job kind of wrapped up a bit hurriedly in the last chapter, but overall it was a fun romp. Loved the Minty character, and of course “the puppies”. Maybe Miss Belle is a hell hound. She also has a habit of eating non-food items.
@ruouttaurmind The puppies were my favorite part.
@ruouttaurmind what is your favorite PKD for a newbie? wanted to read him for a long time, but where to start…
@hac I am not what I would call a PKD afficianado. I am positive others who’ve read more of his work will have a better opine, but I started with his short stories. It gave me a chance to dip my toe and get a sense for his writing style to make sure I was on board and could commit to longer stories.
@ruouttaurmind UBIK is so good. Basically the same book as A Maze of Death, if I recally correctly, but better. I should read it again. Soon. And then A Maze of Death again!
@mossygreen The deeper I get into it, as the mystery begins to unfurl, it’s definitely drawing me in.
Well hard to count what I’ve already read this year. Two new much enjoyed:
@Cerridwyn I have Armada. Was it good? Should I read it next?
@Cerridwyn Have you ready RPO? I’m curious how Armada stacks up. It was seriously panned by critics and the reading public alike. That’s not generally a good sign.
@ruouttaurmind @sammydog01
Armada is not as entertaining as RPO. I am old enough that most of the old school reference in RPO rocked.
Armada is a bit of old school gaming lingo crossed with the last starfighter. I enjoyed it. Is it best seller material? Nope, is it fun reading, yes it was
@Cerridwyn My son liked RPO- I hoped he might try Armada. He hasn’t been assigned a book of choice at school since so I guess I’ll have to read it. I did the audiobook of RPO and really liked it. Thanks for the review.
@Cerridwyn Sounds like a “get it when it’s cheap” book and prolly not ideal for a full-price purchase.
Thanks for your opine!
@ruouttaurmind Looks like I bought it for three bucks. I bet it’s worth that much.
@Cerridwyn
A friend just did Artemis and really liked it.
@Cerridwyn I just read RPO (late on that I guess). It was fun, mostly for the references I think. It got recommended as a Snow Crash (Neal Stephenson) read alike and I get it but mmmmmm.
@monicabc
Don’t think I’d call it that. I think it’s fun, mostly because of the old skool gaming references. I chuckled so many times remembering those games.
Same kinda with Armada. Old skool arcade game references that if you didn’t live in the old video arcade spending your hard earned quarters it probably wasn’t as fun.
I actually read a book. It’s been months since I’ve read anything. Granted it was around 120 pages.
/image Stephen King Blockade Billy
Two stories in one. One about a local baseball team told as an interview. The other story about some rich guy that pays a woman to do something fucked up and the consequences that came from it.
I’m not into baseball so the first story was a little boring. The second story was alright. Wish it continued on a little longer.
I definitely enjoy King’s older stories better.
I’ve been carrying around David Rakoff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable for a week and only 20 pages in. Next up, Sarah Vowell’s Lafayette in the Somewhat United States.
Everyone’s a Aliebn When Ur a Aliebn Too
A Book
by Jomny Sun
I don’t like philosophy books but I think this one is. Very simple but really makes you think. I’m reading it a few pages a day so I can think about and hopefully retain some of its goodness.
Plus! It can be a coloring book
@looseneck Second this recommendation!
I just ordered this. I really need a laugh.
I have the King novel Sleeping Beauties waiting to be read.
@lisaviolet I have started Sleeping Beauties. It has not grabbed me and pulled me into the story yet. I am maybe a quarter of the way in. Not bad exactly but just not “can’t put it down”. I am still hopeful at this stage that it will get better.
I am about halfway through Lady Midnight, the first book in Cassandra Clare’s third Shadowhunter trilogy. Teen fantasy, no world shaking ideas, just engaging characters and good storytelling. I really enjoy her work. I’ve had it on the shelf for more than a year waiting for book 2 to come down in price, no luck yet, so I decided to go ahead and read it as my first book of the year. Im not interested in eformats, and It’s a 720pg hardback so it takes a while to get cheap.
@moondrake I read young adult books sometimes. I’ll check her out.
@sammydog01 Start with City of Bones.
I am still reading, “The Book of Questions,” by Gregory Stock. It’s a great cheat tool if you are interested in having conversations but often find it difficult in initiating them.
Person 1: Hey, how are you?
Person 2: I’m good, and you?
Person 1: I’m good.
Person 2: That’s good. Do you find it so hard to say “no” that you regularly do favors you do not want to do? If so, why?
At what point do you quit a book you don’t like? I have a really hard time with that! On the recommendation of a friend, I am reading A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. For the first half of the book I kept thinking it would get better. Now, at about 90% I hate it but still plod along.
@callow before even starting it.
For instance, say if someone mistakingly purchased “The Good Girl” by Mary Kubica but did not realize until 50 or so pages in that it wasn’t the book used for the movie adaptation that Ben Affleck was in (“Gone Girl”). Though there were boring parts in the first fifty pages making the person why was there such a buzz surrounding this movie, said person continued anyway and finished the book. Why? Because it was purchased with actual money so technically this person didn’t waste money purchasing the wrong book because they finished reading the book.
@callow I stopped Interview With the Vampire something like 30 pages from the end because I couldn’t take it anymore. It’s never too late to give up!
@mossygreen I think you would make a great counselor (from a third party point of view).
@elimanningface I have truly wasted all my talents.
PS My copy of Interview With the Vampire was super-cheap, anyway. My way of dealing with a bad book purchase is to not read it, but keep it forever as a penance.
@callow I liked that one but not so much the second book.
There are too many good books to read to waste time on a bad one.
Depends on mood and why I don’t like it for me to quit reading. Some writing styles bother me even if the story sounds good. I quit those fairly quick. If it is “boring” my mood plays more into the decision.
@callow I bought the Twilight series at a used book sale. Cheap. I hated them and yet read them all. OK I skimmed a lot of parts. I have trouble giving up. Right now I’m at 75% in The Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates. Every few months I read another chapter. I will finish that damned book one day.
@sammydog01 I have never read a Joyce Carol Oates book and have always assumed that I don’t particularly care for her work based on her short stories (which probably isn’t fair because I’ve only read the stories that would have been collected in more literary horror anthologies). Years ago I was told that her short stories are only so-so and her novels are pretty good, and accepted that. Your comment leads me to believe that I was perhaps misled and that I never want to find out the truth.
@callow ugh. I spent three months trying to read this book once. Can’t even remember the name. It was terrible. I wasted so much time with it. I have a hard time quitting a book. I’ll usually want to know how it ends, no matter how terrible. Same thing with movies, usually.
This might be part of the reason that I don’t branch out and read more.
@mossygreen I probably just don’t get it. It’s a strange book.
@sammydog01 Well, she’s a strange lady. It’s OK.
@sammydog01
I read these, to my embarrassment.
But popcorn. You can zip right thru them.
Team: “Glad I Got Done With Them”
@callow - I always have several books on hand - if one doesn’t grab me after the first few pages I put it down and go to the next book. Sometimes I never get back to that first book, but sometimes you need to be in the right place for a particular book - years later I’ve gotten back to some books I didn’t like at first blush and discovered I now liked them.
@elimanningface Did that someone finally get to read Gone Girl? I enjoyed that one.
I’m truly Meh, most of my books are borrowed, free or very cheap so the money isn’t a factor.
@mossygreen I’m skimming more and more but just can’t quit!
@speediedelivery In the past three years I’ve only given up on two books and for this very reason. “There are too many good books to read to waste time on a bad one.”
@sammydog01 If I put it down I will never pick it up again.
@RiotDemon Yep, I do this with movies too. This probably explains why I’ve been married and at the same job for so long.
@f00l I need books I can zip right through to make up for this one.
@aetris I have hundreds of books. Maybe knowing that I will never go back makes it harder to put down without finishing.
Or maybe it’s because you guys have me binge watching TV that I’m not reading as much as I’d like.
I’ll let you know if I can quit.
@callow - What I’m saying is, put it down for now because you MAY go back in a different mood later, and find it more readable.
@callow no, it is still filed under ‘want to read’ on Goodreads. Right now, I’m reading ‘When You Are Engulfed in Flames’ by David Sedaris. No review; I typically save judgment until the end. I’ve read four or five of his other books and enjoyed them so it’ll probably be positive.
I’m also still reading ‘The Book of Questions’ by Gregory Stock.
Yesterday was quite productive. Worked half a day, took down my huge Christmas tree, watched about five episodes of Arrow, and finished that damn book! Started The Cove by Catherine Coulter figuring it will be an easy read.
@callow Congratulations! You deserve something nice to read! I’m going to go finish The Accursed this time. (P.S. Never buy Twilight. You probably knew that.)
@callow I pushed through Discovery of Witches last year on my sister’s recommendation. Thought it got more interesting towards the end, so I started the second one (can’t even remember the name). About a third of the way through, I realized I couldn’t care less about the characters. The story was so painfully slow that I decided I didn’t have enough time in my life to finish it.
@beachbum I liked the vampire/witch/daemon world she created but not the perfect, secretive characters. This review sums it up perfectly (and hilariously. Maybe the TV series coming out this year will be better.
If it doesn’t grab me by the second or third chapter, i stop reading. There are too many out here i want to read to waste time on one I’m not enjoying.
@callow @beachbum I started the first one, got about five chapters in, skipped to the ending, and never tried the others. Too many other good books in the genre to waste time on that.
@OldCatLady @callow Did you try the Black Dagger Brotherhood series by JR Ward? Total escapism trash. Lovely way to waste an afternoon.
@beachbum Had never even heard of her. Now I have a reserve on the first 4 books in the series. Thanks!
@OldCatLady Enjoy!
@beachbum I don’t think I’ve ever read any vampire books before this but I’ll check it out.
@callow Hope you enjoy them.
I am rereading The Nine Wrong Answers by John Dickson Carr, a classic, tricky whodunit-type novel. I am currently two wrong answers in. It’s been long enough that I don’t remember anything about it, not even any of the red herrings, which is nice. But anyone looking to get into an old-fashioned locked room mystery by Carr should probably read The Crooked Hinge or The Three Coffins first because those are his best.
@mossygreen Those sound good.
@sammydog01 They are! The Crooked Hinge has a possibly haunted automaton, intimations of witchcraft, and a backstory involving the Titanic in addition to its impossible murder. The Three Coffins has a professional magician, a scary painting and a Guy Fawkes false face in addition to its impossible murder.
I don’t know how easy they’ll be to track down if you weren’t given a grocery bag full of yellowed paperbacks in the '90’s.
@mossygreen Amazon has a bunch of his stuff on kindle but not the ones you recommended. Maybe someone will take the time to type them out on a computer. I picked up The Judas Window.
And now I can’t hear his name without thinking of Dixon Cider. (warning- probably safe for work but not by much)
@sammydog01 Someone typing them out on a computer? Are you hinting? This seems wrong and tempting at the same time.
The Judas Window is a great one too! I mean, I like them all, but definitely give the edge to his '30’s-'40’s stuff.
@mossygreen I gave the edge to the one that cost a dollar.
@sammydog01 And it’s an excellent choice!
I just finished Stephenson’s SEVENEVES (Not really sure, but I think all caps is how it’s supposed to be?)
Surprisingly good! I couldn’t stand the baroque cycle and thought Reamde was barely tolerable. I liked Anathem, though. This is more like that.
Next. . . I don’t know, I might read through the Ethshar series, by Lawrence Watt-Evans. They’re popcorn, but fun and quick, and I’ve only read a couple of them.
@lifftchi Oooh, I really enjoyed Lawrence Watt-Evans’ '80’s stuff, haven’t thought about it in ages. Might have to see if my Lords of Dûs books were upstairs and made it through the flood we had, or if I can get them through library loan.
I am getting the feeling that all this fantasy discussion is going to end with me rereading all the Thieves World anthologies. That’s a mixed bag, to be sure.
@mossygreen I knew a whole herd of Thieves World authors in passing back in the day. They used to say, “you write the first story for money, and the rest for revenge”. If you like shared world anthologies, you might try out Wild Cards.
@moondrake I’m not… entirely… sure what they meant, but you have impressed me.
@mossygreen Lol. Thieves World notoriously had no rules regarding the use of other writers’ characters or settings. So an author would be invited to contribute a story to the shared world, and in subsequent books the other writers were permitted to change or brutalize those characters at will. So you’d come back and beat up their characters for revenge. Learning from this model, Wild Cards requires its writers to secure permission from the owner before making major changes to someone else’s characters or settings. It makes the work much more collaborative.
I have been to a lot of sci fi cons and met many authors and artists and a few actors and musicians. The Thieves World and Wild Cards writers were especially social and most would join you for drinks or dinner if invited. That’s why I said I knew them in passing, I’d see them a couple of times a year and a group of fans and writers would all go out together for drinks and dinners. Sometimes I’d volunteer at a con to be a guest’s aid, the job was to make sure they were comfortable and had anything the needed in the unfamiliar environment. Often I’d take them out on tours of the city between their speaking commitments. The most famous person I squired for was Edgar Winter. He was super quiet and didn’t ask for much. My best friend was an aid and “bodyguard” (keeping fans at bay) for William Shatner at a local con, and I was a runner for Walter Koenig.
@moondrake That’s pretty much what I assumed, since one of the more interesting things about the series is that one writer’s hero, or complicated anti-hero, is another writer’s useless, irritating asshole. Just like real life!
And you know these people! Crazy!
@mossygreen I haven’t thought about Thieves World in forever. I was just sifting through books at my parents and did not save some of the later Robert Aspirin (sp?) Myth books. But I loved the early ones back in the day. (This all makes sense in my head, apologies if it comes out as gibbereish)
Probably not what this thread is going for, but I just got invested in the manga Delicious in Dungeon. It’s definitely for a younger crowd, but it makes me smile. It’s basically dungeon-crawl-themed, but instead of talking about how they slay monsters or what-have-you, every chapter is about cooking up a meal from monsters they’ve slain. It’s goofy.
@brhfl
Sounds interesting.
@brhfl - Any recipes in there for @mikibell?
@aetris
@brhfl I love manga. I wish they weren’t so pricy. The only ones I own were bought on sale at a bookstore going out of business or bought as a set on eBay.
I can plow through most of them in less than an hour. Granted, I will re-read them, but it seems expensive compared to most traditional books. Especially when some series go on for hundreds of books.
@RiotDemon My daughter is taking a class in graphic novels this semester in high school. It was pretty far down on her list of choices- just above poetry, but she got her first choice last semester (noir) so I guess it’s OK. The books were close to a hundred dollars I think. I hope she doesn’t hate it. I also hope my other kid takes it so I get some more use out of the books.
@sammydog01 Hopefully they read The Watchmen and The Killing Joke, both masterpieces in the medium and well worth reading.
@moondrake Watchman is on the list. Ther’s a Gary Trudeau book too.
@sammydog01
The cartoonist?
@RiotDemon Yeah, manga have a fairly bad price-to-entertainment ratio, at least if you’re not examining the art closely. I resolved this problem by reading manga in Japanese, which takes me. . . several times longer than in English, depending on how complex it is.
A few places in the US are lucky enough to have BookOff, a giant Japanese used-stuff chain that has a lot of manga at a dollar each. The ones in Japan have a pretty comprehensive selection, but are of course Japanese-only.
@f00l Yep, the cartoonist.
@lifftchi that’s the re-read factor for me. The second time around is more about the art. There’s one manga that I own where I went through slowly, putting bookmarks on every page that I especially liked.
@RiotDemon I’ve been rereading Nausicaa and I have to read it over a long span of time because the books are so damned unwieldy
I’ve been re-reading Jerry Pournelle’s “A Step Farther Out”. To be followed by others of his books. Its been good to remember how incredibly hopeful he was about the future.
We were going through the shelves for victims to donate for the Friends of the Library’s next book sale and I rediscovered my E. E. “Doc” Smith Lensman and Skylark books. It has been too long, they yearn to be read again! And by Klono’s Tungsten Teeth and Curving Carballoy Claws, they shall be!
@duodec There goes your weekend.
I’m somewhere near the beginning/middle-ish of The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway. William Gibson mentioned his latest book in a tweet, but I decided to start with his first. (Mostly because the new one isn’t available on audio yet.) One of the reviews compared the author unfavorably with Douglas Adams. I kind of see why they’d make the comparison. There have been a lot of tangents so far, hope they add up to something. Also a bit heavy-handed on the main theme.
@walarney I actually just listened to The Long Dark Tea-time of the Soul. So funny. Let me know if the ending makes up for the other stuff.
@walarney
@sammydog01
The Douglas Adams books were my first purchased titles on Audible. Back during the previous century, I think?
Certainly more than 15 years ago.
@walarney Goneaway World is definitely in my top 10 favourite books so far. It was long… really really long, but I really enjoyed it. And I never saw the twist coming!
@sammydog01 Long Dark Teatime was definitely LOL. Loved the premise and the characters.
@walarney BTW, Angelmaker by Harkaway is another of my all time faves. Worth reading the synopsis if you appreciate Harkaway’s literary style.
@sammydog01 Finished “Gone-Away World”. Liked it well enough that I’ll probably try another. (Still have Audible credits to burn.) He did mostly wrap things up, but some of the major plot points stretched credulity (even in the context), and the ending got a little sillier than the rest of story.
I gave up and bought the Michael Wolff book “Fire and Fury: Inside the Drumpf White House”. Technically it was released at 0900 EST, but AMZN hasn’t changed the release date, and I can’t d/l it yet.
@OldCatLady
Big book of the moment and I was afraid it would be lawsuited, so I pre-ordered it.
Kindle and audible.
It’s downloading on audible as I write this.
About to start listening.
(I understand this book represents various individuals’ POVs and may not represent everyone’s perspectives. I understand there are other POV’s.
I really hope those topic does not go all redstate vs bluestate political. That would kinda destroy this topic.)
(I also consume a wide variety of political news and commentary from many sources. Hope everyone does.)
@OldCatLady
Call them.
I’m listening to it on audible. Early pages for me at the moment, but very interesting. It downloaded in full.
@OldCatLady
FWIW to anyone interested in this: (I am about 1/3 of the way into it.)
So far, this book is “present at events and conversations” journalistic report-what-u-saw/heard type writing (the author had amazing WH access).
Not analytic. (So far).
Very interesting.
If you ordered the e-version of Fire and Fury, and you haven’t received it, cancel it and re-order. AMZN will immediately send it. The first order still thinks it’s being released the 9th. I’m on page 80, and it’s not at all what I expected. Credible, careful to distinguish between what A said vs. what B said about the same event, and backed up by many, many, many hours of tape. The author had a blue press pass, and he did indeed become a fly on the wall, invisible.
@OldCatLady
@OldCatLady
Finished. Woah.
@f00l How about that gorilla channel story eh? Woah.
@therealjrn
Marlon Brando’s and Marilyn Monroe’s cameos - everyone’s gonna be talking about those.
@f00l Still reading. What’s your short summary?
@OldCatLady
Some will simply not believe it’s accurate.
I have my reasons for believing that largely, it is accurate. (I have been told there are some verifiable tiny factual errors, of the sort that a slightly imperfect copy-editor or proofwriter might miss.)
The book jives with info from other sources, and in aggregate they seem quite credible to me.
[I have repeatedly heard that Trump constantly trashes Maggie Haberman from the NYT in his conversations, and also just as frequently calls her.
Supposedly Trump himself is as frequently her unnamed source as anyone else might be.]
The most revealing portions of the book (for me) involve “Jarivanka” (or however he spells this; I heard the audiobook). Their motivations, goals and characters seem much clearer now.
The funniest parts involve that energetic loudmouth, Scaramucci, of course. He was beyond entertaining for his 10 short days. Once sentence involving the consequences of his New Yorker interview had me laughing so hard that I could not even see properly for a few minutes.
So, in aggregate, is this accurate? I suspect pretty much so. People will disagree.
I suggest that one can take Trump’s own tweets this morning in reaction to the content if the book (those tweets about his stability and genuis, and later remarks on these topics) as either a counterargument, or as confirmation, depending …
@f00l Okay, time for me to get back into it. Today was busy with chores. BTW, recently I heard that there was a possibility that Scaramucci might return to the WH. I can’t remember where I heard it. The outcome of this weekend’s Anybody But Jeff conference may start dominoes again.
@f00l I ordered my book from Amazon and it won’t be here for weeeeeeeeks! she whined.
@OldCatLady
Likes like somebody with huge opinions had to go “ooops”. Esp after his billionaire patrons cut him off.
@f00l Well, he didn’t deny what he’d said.
@f00l @lisaviolet I THINK what he said was that he was very sorry that what he’d said hurt their feelings.
@OldCatLady
Oh, Bannon is pure, unadulterated contrition today. And every day.
He admires and respects all the Trump kids and their spouses.
Esp the ones he thinks are smart.
@OldCatLady so much back channel talking about the candidate and then president elect. My guess is POTUS doesn’t read very much. If not, I wonder how much of the information written in this book will get back to him verbatim.
@elimanningface
Hope Hicks ands his other friends/aides will make sure he knows.
Bannon attacked the kids. That’s hard to ignore. …
This is not a difficult read. Trump could do it. And he reads (or skims) newspapers incessantly.
I’m finding it hard to believe this book is nothing more than a hit piece, a flash in the pan…here…let the author tell you his motives, in his own words:
I did start to read the book, but in the second chapter when Wolff talked about how Melania, mystifyingly, was staying in New York I stopped. This is one clueless “reporter” if he didn’t understand a child finishing out the school year.
Wolff is getting his little 15 minutes, but bring down an American Presidency? Ha.
@therealjrn is that how it’s being interpreted as? I’ve been mostly following views of the book here on the forum and not the press so I am not really sure. I took the author at his word when he wrote in the author’s notes that he was writing from the perspective of a fly on the wall. Flies aren’t known for being insightful or providing high level analysis so when he does provide some, I don’t treat it with much reverence. I’ve enjoyed the book so far but I am reading it as a political version of the NY Post’s Page Six and not as a Watergate-like expose done by Woodward and Bernstein way back when.
@elimanningface His words, not mine.
enjoy the show.
@therealjrn ahh, I am sorry man. You’re right, the guys head seems to be swelling. How ironic would it be if he said the BBC misquoted him and took his words out of context?
@elimanningface That, indeed would be a twist.
@therealjrn
Wolff has been a good journalist in the past, writing about the original dot.com boom, and writing on the future of television in a digital age.
Wolff does seem quite full of himself at the moment tho.
I did find this book useful as “one more info source among many” (I aim for a variety of sources). I suspect much in this book is pretty on target.
Wolff could have done a much better job. He did inject way too much of himself at times.
He was at his best on Bannon and Jared/Ivanka. And he was at his best when he got out of the way.
Someone with his level if access should have done a much better book, a much more detailed book.
@elimanningface is right. Fire and Fury is kinda book length Page Six stuff.
(Incidentally, Trump loves Page Six. Among New Yorkers, who doesn’t?)
The book won’t bring down an American president tho. That’s fatuous. And Trump is still quite unpredictable.
Re the future: Who the fuck knows?
@f00l For as far as I got into the book, I found it chockablock full of pejorative language and shadings in his tale-telling…the very idea that they just let some dude hang out on the couch taking notes day after day is laughable.
But as I said, enjoy the show. Lord knows we may as well relax and have “good” fun with it.
Like the part where he compares Trump Tower to a Death Star. That’s some funny shit right there, I don’t care who you are.
@therealjrn
Since you have access to the book, read the Scaramucci part. That’s as entertaining as you would expect.
@f00l Which part?
Chapter 20? The one that starts out so evenhandedly with: “Trump was impetuous and yet did not like to make decisions, at least not ones that seemed to corner him into having to analyze a problem.”?
Or chapter 21, the one where he describes Bannan’s place as: “…a one-bedroom graduate-student sort of apartment, in a mixed-use building over a mega-McDonald’s—quite belying Bannon’s rumored fortune…”?
It’s all so evocative, so rich.
But I will admit, at the time I thought the nickname “the Mooch” was very unfortunate for a man in politics.
@therealjrn
I was suggesting you read the two chapters which have Scaramucci’s name in their titles, just to get the part of the writer’s story that involves “the Mooch.”
Regardless of what you think of the book and of the writer, I would, in your case, just ignore anything I found obnoxious or irritating for a short time, and read those chapters for the sheer entertainment value.
You gotta admit, “the Mooch” burned bright and hot for his short time in place.
@f00l Mehbe I will…but just to be clear. I’m not opposed to the writer. I’m opposed to his pejorative and biased “style.” That being said, I’m not a fucking idiot, I’m Like, Really Smart. I can spot that shit.
Kidding aside, that book is so liberally strewn with disparaging and belittling statements from Starr that I’m surprised any intelligent reader isn’t bothered by it. (unless it just serves to confirm their bias) That fucker is off my Christmas card list for sure.
@therealjrn I am not bothered by his book but I’m only eighty or so pages into it and I’ve only been following the feedback about the book here on the forum. I took Wolff at his word when he wrote in his notes at the beginning of the book that this is his perspective of what he observed. I don’t think he claimed this to be investigative or even objective. Everyone’s opinion is subjective and the weight given to any opinion is up to the individual who chooses to listen. However you did post some stuff earlier that maybe Wolff intends it or thinks it can be something more so I can understand how some might be bothered if that is the case.
Also, I definitely agree with you about the liberal slant but he does hold the mainstream media culpable (at least in the pages I’ve read so far) for playing along.
I also agree with @f00l, the high school nature (allegedly
) of it all is laughable in a disappointing kind of way. Up to this point, nothing written seems that out of step from what has been reported by news outlets before…but the Mooch is still waiting for his cue to enter stage right.
@elimanningface
Apart from politics, philosophies, beliefs, and serious consequences, and apart from differing perspectives and interpretations, this White House is as compelling a reality show as has ever been conceived of.
@f00l Complete with fan fiction, like what Starr wrote.
@f00l Publisher’s lawyer responds to trump’s cease and desist letter — letter at the bottom of the page.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/attorneys-fire-fury-publisher-push-back-trump-teams/story?id=52217633
I finished the book yesterday and fall somewhere between @f00l and @therealjrn. I thought it was okay but some of the shots were juvenile (see Jervanka). No idea what was made up…maybe 45’s love for McDonald’s (isn’t it Arby’s?).
@elimanningface lol, well all the non-readers are in luck. I read some “news” today that was positively gushing over the prospect of a TV show based on the book. We’ll see if there are any Hollywood directors left after all the scandals left to make it.
@therealjrn this term has pretty much been a spinoff of Degrassi High or <insert your favorite stereotypical high school tv show here>.
Radical Candor by Kim Scott
@BrendanStride Yeah, I’ve heard that this is good.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind Hardcover – by Yuval Noah Harari
Just started the audiobook (does that count?). I’ve heard that it’s great.
@quinthudson
I own this. Not listened yet tho.
I have also heard that it is damned good.
Yeah, I think starting “counts”.
Hope so.
Because I have to escape sometimes, I reread favorites before bedtime. This week it’s Nora Roberts’ Three Sisters Island trilogy, starting with ‘To Dance Upon the Air’. In some rooms I have old issues of magazines like ‘Victoria’ and ‘Coastal Living’, mostly because I love to look at the pictures.
@OldCatLady That’s what books are for in my opinion.
@OldCatLady My reading is definitely escapism. Used to love Nora Roberts; the last few years, not so much.
I’m reading heart of a dog. It’s funny and cute, but it’s no master and margarita. If you want a quick read and like russian authors I’d recommend it.
Just started:
@f00l I liked that one best of the Kingsbridge series.
I am curious about the series but not sure I want to watch it. Most adaptations annoy me.
@speediedelivery
Many adaptation just feel like a seriously and brutally abridged overdramatizing of the original.
“The good parts” (selected by what seems to be ad-writers sometimes) turned up to 13, missing all of the context and subtlety.
They can be really boring to someone who loves the original work.
So it’s really nice to see an excellent book or series translated into an excellent video version.
@f00l My favorite Follett. Good choice!
This is a Series, this is number 10 it’s pretty good if you like futuristic books supposed romance and suspense?
I woke up at ~3am last night and started combing through the samples on my Kindle. Now deep into Her Body and Other Parties: Stories.
I got The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead for Christmas and finished it about a week later. Saw someone else reading it on the train yesterday and couldn’t help smiling. Really good book, though I had to check myself when he described an actual railroad. The person who gave it to me is reading it as well, in German. I’m curious to ask whether certain phrases have a good translation that conveys the same meaning it had in 1800’s America.
I’m about to spend some time on public transit. We’ll see if I get anywhere reading or if I write instead.
@alphapeaches
Own but have not done this one yet. Sounds quite intriguing.
I’m reading Snowbound by Blake Crouch. I haven’t read any of his other stuff but I watched “Wayward Pines” on TV and really liked it.
This book sucks. I hate it. I hope to finish it today so I don’t have to ever read it again. Then on to “Accursed”.
I’m currently reading For Whom The Bell Tolls, which I somehow missed during my Hemingway phase many years ago. OK so far, but not my favorite. I didn’t really enjoy The Sun Also Rises all that much, either (except for the parts in/near Pamplona). I guess my favorites were To Have And Have Not and Islands In The Stream.
“We Have No Idea” by Jorge Cham & Daniel Whiteson.
It’s a terrific book that outlines all the stuff we don’t know about our universe. Sounds geekoid, I admit. But it’s illustrated with comic book style drawings and is written in a very approachable fashion.
Now, on the downside, can I rant for a moment about the price of eBooks? I mean, really! When the price of an eBook is the same as hardcover, but it’s not “sharable” and I can’t donate it to my library’s book drive, and I can’t even put it on a bookshelf as a souvenir of my readings… WTF? This is gouging, plain and simple.
And publishers who keep the eBook prices high on long-tail items are hereby consigned to the inner circles of Hell for all eternity. (I’m looking at you, Penguin!)
I started to buy an eBook I’ve been meaning to get around to. It has been out of print for a decade. I can buy as many as I want on that Woot affiliate web site in paperback for $2. But the eBook edition? Eight bucks. Fuck YOU, publisher! I’ll throw a couple of dollars to an online book reseller for a paperback before I’ll let you gouge me for an eBook version of low-volume title that’s been out of print for 10 years that your marginal cost of production is virtually nil. (By the way: I know the author: He says he gets less than a dime if I buy the eBook.)
So… Reading about a book a week, but I’m hating the eBook experience (pricing). Also, why did it take The Woot Affiliate so long to come up with a waterproof Kindle? Am I the only dude who ever wanted to read poolside?
</rant>
@simssj
YES.
And feel free to continue ranting.
And YES. The publishers are assholes.
@simssj Show those assholes- get them out of the library.
@simssj
The public library lends e-books. Instant download to device.
Get a library card and they will show you how. Each library is a bit different it seems.
@f00l I have this. But we are spending time in Mexico (you’ve seen the weather forecasts up north, haven’t you???
) this winter, so the local library is 3,000 miles out of the way.
@sammydog01Lots of times I do; and lots of times I’m the guy donating dead trees to my local library for their bi-annual book sales / fund raisers.
But the cure for this is for Amazon to say, "Um, OK… set whatever price you want to for eBooks, Mr. Publisher. But if there are consistently lower cost options elsewhere we will de-list your eBook version."
I guess the book publishing industry didn’t learn one. damn. thing. from the video industry and the music industry: If you price your products reasonably, and you make them widely available legitimately, then piracy of your products will plummet.
(Not confessing to ever having bootlegged a book, but I do confess it’s possible to do so.)
@simssj
You get setup, you can do it from anywhere. I think.
Where in sunny Mexico? Hope the food rocks!
@simssj
I suspect there is far less e-book piracy for those books where the e-book price is close to the current ppb price.
@simssj I do what Jeff Bezos recommended for waterproofing- put it in a ziploc bag. I would love an Oasis but don’t see one in my future.
@f00l We’ve got a little place out in the middle of nowhere, on the Pacific coast, about 75 miles north of Puerto Vallarta. The food does, indeed, rock. We get all of the traditional Mexican dishes, plus a ton of seafood dishes, plus birria (chivo ó res) seven days a week.
I’m truly blessed; so much so that bitchin’ about eBook prices seems both unnecessary and triflin’, don’it?
@simssj My experience is that it’s very rare for any book to be under 4.00 on the woot affiliate. (.01 + 3.99 shipping.) If you’re finding books for 2, I would be quite curious how.
@simssj
OMG you need to adopt me.
Sounds like heaven.
@sammydog01
Look for the oasis to go on sale before Valentine’s day and mothers day.
If they have some refurbs and returns in the warehouse, those might drop price somewhat at the same time. If so, they will fly outta there tho.
@lifftchi
He may mean $2 before shipping. Is still cheaper.
I find that shipped pricing bottoms out at $4/book, unless you can combine shipping, which Amazon does not do.
On eBay, if you buy a set of books, often you can do better. And garage sales …
@f00l Camelcamelcamel says they have never gone on sale. I’m not holding my breath. They have the non-waterproof ones pretty cheap.
@lifftchi You are correct; I was citing the “before shipping” price.
Still, $4.00 for a physical object, placed in my hand, makes a lot more sense (and I can rationalize the cost case much more easily) than a zero-marginal-cost download for twice that.
@sammydog01
The waterproof oasis kindle is new. Just introduced in Oct or Nov 2017.
The original kindle oasis has been on sale - mother’s day last year. (I dont know if they were on sales in 2017 for Valentine’s).
That when I bought my warehouse refurb. They discounted those also. And I had a decent credit balance to help.
I got insanely lucky. I ordered the wifi one from the warehouse. I received a 3g/wifi one.
Perhaps these are no longer available as current Amazon items. For whatever reason, camelx3 doesn’t have amazon new pricing history.
But they did go on sale right before MD in late April or early May. That’s why I bought it then.
https://camelcamelcamel.com/Amazon-Kindle-Oasis-eReader-with-Leather-Charging-Cover/product/B00REQKWGA?context=search
You can see some pricing history if you look at the used and 3rd party data.
@simssj
The price fixing lawsuits directed mostly at Apple for e-books netted me about 500-600 bucks, and I never bought a book from Apple.
And i’ve never bought a book from Bezos either.
My first reader was a Sony.
All of mine since have been Nooks.
Do I buy books that are release date yes, do I pay the price of a hard back (new release) not even close. However, about 1/2 or more that I get are ePub and cost between nothing and $2.99 and are fun to read. And since I might go through 6 or 7 in a week, and in a travel week 10-12, those prices are just right. (sometimes you get 10 books for that 99 cents).
And I can side load anything that is not a Bezo’s product (i can actually read those with a Kindle app if I want to do so.)
/
@f00l They have to older Oasises (oaises?) are for sale at reduced prices- I want mainly the waterproof one. I’ll check it out in February.
@sammydog01 I, too, want a waterproof Oasis. Partly for the tub; partly because they didn’t make cases that weren’t leather for the previous generation. Love my Voyager, but probably upgrading soon.
@brhfl
@sammydog01
My Oasis (last gen) is pretty sweet.
A waterproof one would be loverly. But not at the current ridiculous price.
@f00l I just read that you can turn the touchscreen off on the new Oasis. That’s a huge selling point for me. Although one reviewer didn’t like the larger screen.
I recently read Little Big Man by something Berger. Yes there was a movie but ignore it in favor of the book. It was excellent. Liked it so much I gave a copy to my gf’s grandpa for xmas (even tho he is trying to get rid of too many books), he said it was one of the best books he’s read in a long time.
I found the second book in this mystery series as a discard from the library. It’s a 1980’s translated from french book and after I really liked the second one I found out that the series is gone from libraries and out of print so thank you British resellers of library discards.
Why would I go to this much trouble? God only knows, but after reading 50% of all english language mysteries (Hyperbole? No, not me, never) I am really enjoying something different - and good too.
I’ve decided to read the Game of Thrones series. (Loved the show.) I’m a fast reader and the first one took me twice as long as it should have. Glad I read it; picked up many, many details I otherwise missed, but I will definitely take a break to read some mind numbing trash before I start the next one.
@beachbum
There is a wikia of some sort for SOIAF/GOT.
The character count just keeps climbing, so bookmark that site. Your will need it.
Try this one
http://awoiaf.westeros.org/index.php/Main_Page
When you meet up with some character you know you’ve seen before but can’t remember, check the wikia.
But be careful not to read too far down into the wikia entries, as the entries cover all the books.
@f00l Thank you. The first book also included an appendix that sorted the players into houses and gave brief backgrounds which certainly helped fill in some missing details.
I just ordered Alec Baldwin’s book
" nevertheless"…
Dear graphic novel fans- these are the books my daughter has to read for her English class- are they good or is she going to hate it?
Plus Signature Wound: Rocking TBI by Garry Trudeau
@sammydog01 Haven’t read the first two. A few folks discussed Watchmen when you mentioned your daughter’s class earlier, so I’ll keep this to the other two.
Maus is a classic, and it’s very intense and emotional. It’s about the holocaust, but there’s also this sort of meta-narrative about the author interviewing his father about the story he’s writing/drawing. Extremely good.
I didn’t like Blankets as much as most people seem to, but I didn’t really dislike it. It’s worth reading, but I doubt I’ll ever buy it. I do quite like the art style.
@sammydog01
I can’t imagine anything by Garry Trudeau wouldn’t be interesting.
MAUS is a classic. A good read, but not an “entertainment book”. Don’t know the rest.
@brhfl blankets are great and worth the purchase if you live in the Northeast.
@brhfl @f00l Thanks- I’ll let her know what you said.
@elimanningface Maybe if she rips the pages out and burns them…
@sammydog01 first it’s kids reading comic books for school, now parents okaying them playing with matches. What world am I living in?
/image “bizarro jerry”
I just finished “The Acursed” by Joyce Carol Oates. Now I can read a Kinsey Milhone mystery.
/giphy happy dance
@sammydog01
How was the JCO book?
@f00l Either it was a big crazy mess or I just didn’t understand it. Or both. I didn’t notice when I started it that it was 700 pages long. I won’t be re-reading it.
@sammydog01 I like super long books, if they’re enjoyable. If they’re not, it doesn’t matter how long they are.
@moondrake Super long books are a problem if you are obsessive about finishing any book you start. Otherwise they’re a good value.
Finished Lady Midnight, loved it as I love Clare’s characters. Chewed my way through Lost by Gregory Maguire, which managed to be boring and spooky at the same time. We were meant to dislike the lead early in the book and then grow to understand and sympathize with her, but that works better for me in visual media than books. In the end the book hit uncomfortably close to home on the lingering impact of grief, and left important character points unanswered, so not a terribly agreeable read. Got a good running start yesterday at Ice Station by Matthew Reilly, straight up action thriller with a sci fi twist. Next on deck is King’s From a Buick 8, which I listened to on audiobook years ago but have never read. I’ve got a good stack of books waiting to be read and a full shopping cart on ABE waiting for me to review for set completeness, so I’m set for a while. My pending pile:
@moondrake Nice pile of books!
Hey, is anyone interested in doing a book club where we all read the same book and discuss it? Maybe on a Slack?
@sammydog01
I had never been part of a book club and I’m not sure what they do. I presume it’s just read/discuss/enjoy?
How do book clubs make themselves a success?
What is the sense of direction you have in mind? A book club might be a good thing.
I suggest a full topic out in the open (main topic list) to ask about it. See if there’s any interest among the January sleepyheads.
@f00l My first book club was at a Barnes and Noble in Charlottesville, home of the over-educated and pretentious. They read books I didn’t like and/or understand and used words I had to go home and look up.
Much later I joined one at Barnes and Noble here- we eventually moved to a sandwich place and had dinner. We all read the same book, or not, talked about it if it was interesting, and then chatted for a while. It was OK for people to not finish the book, they still had a good time.
I was thinking maybe we could pick a book and an end date, and either pick a time to chat on Slack or just trade comments either there or here.
I tossed it out here because this is where the readers go- if anyone is interested I could set it up and put it on the main page. I figured if there was no interest here it would just die quickly.
@sammydog01
When do people spend most times hanging out at the forums? Weekends?
Why not create a main topic for it then?
I world like to avoid books that provoke endless political go-nowhere. You know what I mean. It’s impossible to count on open-minded discussion in certain areas.
What was it about Charlottesville? Why is that area pretentious? What kinda stuff were they reading?
@f00l Charlottesville is home to the University of Virginia, considered to be the best public university in the country (by its alumni), and a ton of filthy rich horse people and celebrities.
Fun fact- a member of that book club played polo with Rita Mae Brown. Yes, the famous mystery author, and yes, with horses and everything.
I vote for no politics, nothing controversial, and nothing that makes me feel really stupid. If you have a book suggestion I’ll put up a topic and date and we can try just posting there to see how it works. So far it looks like you and me. I’m up for that.
@sammydog01 The sci fi book meet-up I am in tried that and it didn’t work. Most people just werent reading the chosen books. For me the problem was two-fold: 1. I wont read a book that bores me and 2. I don’t read ebooks and buy second hand so I have to wait a couple of weeks to get a book, if its even available. Many of the books selected were newly published and I am not paying $15-20 for an unknown book just because somone proposed it. We switched to each of us bringing the books we’d read during the month, talking about them, and loaning them to whoever took an interest. Provided a lot more reading opportunities (lend 2, borrow 4-6) and didn’t stick people reading stuff they didn’t like. Wouldn’t work here, though.
@moondrake I got all of mine at the library which is kind of funny since we met at Barnes and Noble. And in our group you really did need to be open to different kinds of books. But that was the fun of it- I only read mysteries and horror novels on my own and wound up reading some pretty interesting fiction.
@sammydog01 I’m open to the idea. If we’re geographically diverse (as we are) it shouldn’t be too much of a problem to check out copies of a given book in our local libraries.
@therealjrn have some fun with it and focus in on books we were supposed to read in high school but that we didn’t.
@sammydog01 I wouldn’t mind giving it a try.
@elimanningface As long as I don’t have to read that awful “Lord of the Flies” again.
@therealjrn Steinback’s The Red Pony. Scarred me for life. Still makes me sick to my stomach when I hear the title 4 decades later.
Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
I signed up for the introductory deal at estories.com for two free months and two free audiobooks. I’m considering the LotR books as read by Rob Inglis.
Has anyone listened to the Inglis version? What are your thoughts on the narration and audio quality? I listened to the Inglis version of The Hobbit and found his speaking pace to be a bit slow, even painfully so at times. The fidelity of the recording was lacking, like it was an old analog recording converted to digital or something.
20 hours for the first book is a considerable investment if I find the narration quirky or uncomfortable. Like having Katherine Kellgren shriek at me for 50 hours of the Oxford Time Travel series.
@ruouttaurmind I haven’t listened to them yet but in the reviews some people said they sped up the recordings- I guess that’s a thing?
@sammydog01 I’ve read this in a few reviews of other books. I just started listening to Jaws and am considering giving it a shot with it. The narrator does a decent job, but he speaks pretty slowly.
@ruouttaurmind
I like the Inglis versions. Have listened to the several times.
Yes they are earlier recordings. Done in the 1980’s, or even earlier, I think.
He does well. He even does well with the Sims and doggerel that I usually skip over when reading.
I would completely speed it up to at least 1.25 or 1.5. If they are doing it right, no distortion.
He’s good for a really long listen, which these are. He mostly avoids the modern tendency to add drama. He is not harsh.
Try to remember that, in written form, the story doesn’t really get going full-on, until you are at least at Bree, or on the road to Weathertop. Until then, it’s slow going. you might want to read up to Weathertop in text, if you are a fast reader.
The early chapter “The Shadow if the Past” is really important. Take your time on that one. Otherwise, just get to Weathertop.
Don’t skip the forewards and prefaces etc. Also don’t skip the appendices. At least, skim them. Most of them are nothing but boring collections of facts. Others should have been full novels in their own bindings.
One of the pleasure of Tolkien is his command of prose, but he writes with nearer-invisible sophistication, calling on early European language poetic and pastoral traditions.
Tolkien was completely familiar in detail with the best of the language and rhythm of the Bible, Homer, Greek and Latin, medieval declaming and song traditions, and Nordic sagas and myths, often in the original languages.
That shows up in his deceptively simply prose. He never make a fuss about being sophisticated or being a stylist. But it’s there. In subtle terms.
By modern standards he’s a bit archaic. And soft-spoken. And at times he shifts slightly toward ancient heroic-tradition language, while never losing the emotional path, esp when describing war.
He is amazing at describing scenery. This is a writer who spent a lot of time outdoors as a youth, and knew the names of all the plants and natural features.
But mostly, the books simply make a great story.
He thought of the three books as a single book.
It was published as three books due to a post-WWII shortage of paper, and due to the costs to the publisher of binding that long a work into a single volume.
Tolkien’s right about one thing, as were readers from the early decades before the unending streaming media took over our universe:
@f00l I listened to The Hobbit. I found the doggerel to be unbearable. Thankfully it’s not prolific in that book. Kudos to Inglis for his renditions, but I’ve never been a fan of the musical.
I’ve seen the LotR movies and figured it’s about time I give the books a shot. When I complained about liking the Peter Jackson version of The Hobbit more than the JRRT version, you suggested then that I try LotR, as it was written to appeal to a different audience. So the eStories free trial gives me an opportunity to do so.
@ruouttaurmind
The Hobbit was written on the level of a bed-time story for pre-school kids.
LOTR was written in some part as a fictional “heroic historical myth” for English and European civilization. Something for adults.
Tho it was not written as instructional or as an allegory, it calls to one’s sense of civilization and decency and history and culture and meaning, as well as calling to personal responsibility, forbearance, dedication, and decency.
It is also insanely beautiful and sometimes heartbreaking.
Token meant the story to stay with people. Obviously, he achieved that.
I just bought a Kindle (7th Generation) Wi-Fi E-Reader (Includes Special Offers), 6" E-Ink Pearl Touchscreen Display, 4GB Internal Storage, 802.11n Wi-Fi - Black from the woot-off.
I figure for this price, it’s a good time to dip my toe into e-readers.
@therealjrn Looks like a fair deal. I’m sorry I missed it.
@therealjrn They had a Paperwhite for $50- I thought that was a really good deal.
@sammydog01 I was wanting a paperwhite. Sorry I missed that. But what the hey, I need to start somewhere. The glare-filled screen on my fire tablet is untenable.
I need to get geared up for the book club.
@therealjrn Yay!
@sammydog01 I guess I should have been keeping a closer eye on the offerings. I probably would have bitten on a Paperwhite.
@therealjrn
Congrats!
@ruouttaurmind
Both of you check out the Amazon warehouse deals on paperwhite Kindles whenever they put the new Paperwhite on sale. Sometimes they lower the warehouse prices when the main item is discounted.
Esp the two-three weeks right before Valentine’s Day and Mothers Day.
@therealjrn
If you dont have a library card, get one.
You can borrow e-books (and, on your smartphone, audiobooks) for free from you local library system. Once your account and device are set up for it, you don’t have to go to the library to get a book. Just browse the catalog and instant download.
Many libraries use the Overdrive app for this, others use Hoopla. and there are other methods. Check with your library for how-to.
Usually Kindles are well integrated into this system. I haven’t used mine for that, bit I don’t think it’s a big pain to do it.
I’m reading Operator Down by Brad Taylor right now.
I’ve been bombing thru some old favorites and some new trash. I have so many free kindle books (IHG credit card gives you 2 or 3 per quarter, one of my credit unions give you a couple more etc) unfortunately they select a list so it’s not just any kindle book
read this month
Punishment Scott j Holliday meh. Great concept. Mediocre writing.
The good Samaritan John Marrs same. Thought provoking but a bit weak.
The gods view Barry Eisler fast moving and makes you go woah…not great but a decent afternoon read
The bookcase Nelson Demille bleh. Glad it was free.
The man that corrupted hadleyburg etc Mark twain Yes. Just yes.
Not George Washington PG Wodehouse one of my all time faves
Magician Raymond Feist the only six fi/fantasy author i read every book of. This one hooked me (it’s the first) and I keep going back
The children of men PD james my favorite dystopian novel. Quick fast and she’s a phenomenal writer.
I think that’s everything so far for me this year.
@pfarro1
Just any fiction he ever wrote is fine by me.