Spring/summer book club--what's everyone reading?
6I’ve been very committed to reading stuff on my kindle recently. I just finished Grady Hendrix’s How to Sell a Haunted House and I really want to tell everyone I know about it, but I also want them to read it without spoilers, so I’m just like, it has puppets, you should read it. No one’s going to read it based on that. But whatever.
Before that I read The Book of the Most Precious Substance by Sara Gran, because someone I follow on twitter said (I paraphrase), “I liked the parts about book dealers, I didn’t like all the middle-aged sex in the second half.” And you know what? She was right. It was just OK. I would be willing to spoil that book.
Before that, I read The Second Shooter by Nick Mamatas, which was weird and good although the ending was disappointing. But it was a hard plot to wrap up, I give him credit for the attempt. The same person I follow on twitter described it as Thomas Pynchon crossed with Daniel Pinkwater, which is an irresistible description. It wasn’t as good as that sounds, but really, what could be?
Now I’m reading a kind of depressing book about the Secret Service (Zero Fail) and thinking about reading a vintage mystery which may be about a magician who solves crimes instead.
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When in doubt, read “The Scientific Process Goes Boink” by Calvin and Hobbes.
@ypwulby Can’t argue with good sense.
@mossygreen @ypwulby Or the whole 3 volume set (4 volumes in paperback).
@blaineg @mossygreen @ypwulby
Anything involving Calvin and Hobbes is way better than anything not involving Calvin and Hobbes.
Jenkins 2: Up & Running
Git Pocket Guide
Programming Principles and Practice using C++
Etc.
I start a new job in a few weeks.
@blaineg Good luck with the new job. Remember to wait at least a month before suggesting human sacrifice.
Just finished Mr Mercedes. Will start Finders Keepers soon. I read The Outsider a few weeks ago and liked Holly so I now I am getting caught up. Note to self, reserve a copy of Holly this summer. I am rereading the Spellsong Cycle for something light and easy to put down since I know the story.
I have been working my kindle hard for the last 6 months or so. Most light romance and fantasy sprinkled with a touch of horror.
@speediedelivery I was going to be silly and say “I read Finders Keepers as a kid!” and then link the the version I read, as well as “I assume this is the one you mean, though” (with a link to a more realistic one).
But then I went to GoodReads to find them… and there may be up to 615(!) books with “Finders Keepers” in their name.
Fwiw, I think I found the one I read as a kid. Pretty sure that’s not the one you’re planning to read.
My turn for Finders Keepers! I had it on hold at the library and someone returned it early. I put the third book, End of Watch on hold and should get it about when I finish this one.
@xobzoo I missed reading that version! I am busy getting hooked on King books again.
I’m n a reading binge. Finished Mr. Mercedes series - good, Chairlift- read a bit and did not like it. Curious enough to skim through to the end reading a page or two here and there. It did not get better. Got Watchers because @Barney said it was good. Concur. Owning Jacob - good. Just started The Boys from Biloxi - good so far.
@speediedelivery Aw, I’m glad you liked Watchers.
I’m in the middle of Stephen King’s Fairy Tale. My wife liked it, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I was a big fan of his early books, but lost interest in his writings for the last decade or so. So far, so good with this one.
@macromeh Same feeling about King. I have started reading the newer stuff and am likening most of it. Fairy Tale was good. I did not like In the Tall Grass.
I Want to Die but I Want to Eat Tteokbokki: A Memoir
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
A Widower’s Notebook
Circe
Earthlings
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Recently finished I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy.
Currently reading Get Good with Money: Ten Simple Steps to Becoming Financially Whole by Tiffany Aliche.
@njfan I finished “I’m Glad My Mom Died” last month. You may like "The Opposite of Butterfly Hunting: The Tragedy and The Glory of Growing Up; A Memoir " by Evanna Lynch.
As soon as it downloads to my Kindle app on release day, I will vanish into Charles Stross’ latest Laundry-files-universe book.
@werehatrack I’ve heard a lot of good stuff about it, but haven’t waded in yet.
I’m 42nd in line at the library for How to Sell a Haunted House. I’m looking forward to it.
I finished Graveyard Apartment (creepy), The Woman in Cabin 10 (not my favorite) and just started my first Discworld book, The Wee Free Men. (Just remembered I read Hogfather so second Discworld book.)
@sammydog01 don’t blame the ghosts in your house for your fantasy lineup.
@njfan Johnathon Taylor is haunting me still.
Rereading The Talisman, with Black House next (King, Straub), then the Dark Tower books.
@lisaviolet Having read books by both King and Straub before taking on The Talisman, I found that I could pretty much guess which author contributed which parts of the story. For example: werewolves with machine guns attacking the train? Gotta be Straub.
@lisaviolet @macromeh Ghost Story is one of my favorite books, I think I prefer Straub to King.
@macromeh @sammydog01 I don’t remember Ghost Story and I don’t see it in my collection (I still have my original paperbacks from when I was single and didn’t buy hardcovers). Maybe it’s behind another book.
I vaguely remember the premise, but I don’t remember the story.
It should be here today.
@lisaviolet @macromeh There’s also a movie starring Fred Astaire and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. It’s worth a watch after you read the book.
@macromeh @sammydog01 Thanks, I’ll check into it.
@sammydog01 Come here and we’ll discuss How to Sell a Haunted House! Although now that I’m here I’m remembering that we should have a Ghost Story book club read, or movie watch.
@mossygreen I’m only about halfway through it I need to finish and find out WHAT HAPPENS WITH THE DOLLS. (And puppets.)
/giphy scary dolls
Have you read Horrorstor?
@sammydog01 IT’S ALL VERY SATISFYING. Seriously, his stuff always seems to be optioned for tv or movies and nothing’s been made yet, but THIS NEEDS TO BE MADE INTO A MOVIE OR SERIES. I love *Horrorstör, and you’re the one who told me the catalog parts in the audio book are read by Bronson Pinchot, But I still haven’t listened to it.
@mossygreen I read My Best Friends Exorcism and the Southern Book Club vampire one and didn’t think either was great. So I’m pleasantly surprised.
@sammydog01 I bought both of those ages ago but haven’t read them yet. We Sold Our Souls was okay, The Final Girls Support Group was so-so (both fairly predictable). I figured he was going too often to the horror-but-also-social-justice well. But this one, man. The world-building is brilliant. All the puppet stuff is amazing. And it’s funny as hell. It probably didn’t hurt that I read a book I didn’t enjoy anywhere near as much immediately before it that had much shallower world-building and an outside-forces-compel-our-behavior-for-plot-purposes explanation for things characters did that worked much better for this book.
@mossygreen If you’re interested the audiobook of Horrorstor is $3 on Chirp. I just bought We Sold Our Souls there- I’ll save it for a so-so day.
@sammydog01 It’s available through my library app, and it does always seem to be available when I check (you’d think there’d be more Bronson Pinchot fans out there). (Or would you? It’s been decades since Perfect Strangers was in syndication, and the last time I remember him in the news was his very candid avclub interview, which was in, good god, 2009? Really?)
@mossygreen @sammydog01 Just borrowed the haunted house book. It’s not scary, right? Right?
@mossygreen @speediedelivery You’ll never look at Irk’s buddy Glenn the same way again.
@sammydog01 @speediedelivery It’s not scary scary, and the scariness is cut with a very strong absurd streak, so it should be manageable. Similar to Horrorstor, which my horror-adverse mother managed just fine, but a little harder to just skip over the more potentially disturbing parts. Which is why I didn’t recommend it to my mother even though I think she’d love the funeral part.
@mossygreen @sammydog01 I was joking about the scary. The funeral was fun. I am just beyond it now.
@mossygreen @speediedelivery I thought it was pretty scary. It would also make a great movie. I bet they make a movie. And the postscript was funny.
/giphy radical puppet collective
@sammydog01 @speediedelivery It was PERFECT world-building! I hope they make a movie, there’s SO MUCH physical comedy, mostly puppet-related.
@mossygreen @sammydog01 Finished How to Sell a Haunted House and went on with HorrorStor and the vampire one. My library did not have any other ebooks so I have them on my list to find.
Latest reads - Pillars of the Earth and Awakening. Current The Turn of the Key. Lined up Becoming and The It Girl and Dreamland. My holds at the library are coming up faster than predicted.
I am reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl
@TerryFrost Were there any women in the story?
I can barely keep up with reading this forum…
@chienfou
Just ask AI to read things for you.
That’s my plan anyway.
Finished Charles Stross’ “Season of Skulls” and Brandon Sanderson’s “Rhythm of War”, deliberating about what will be next in the post-Bujold era.
@werehatrack I liked Rhythm of War and most of Sanderson’s work. I have read most but I saw a new to me Mistborn title recently. I have not decided if I want to start the series over or go directly to the new one.
Update: finally read William Lindsay Gresham’s Nightmare Alley–very different from both movies, but very good. Also a book about QAnon (but not the one I wanted to read, which is not available as an ebook through my library yet) and a couple of Ngaio Marsh mysteries. Currently reading Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre, which is history about the British plot to convince the Germans they were going to invade Greece and not Sicily in WWII (very fun read so far, but I’ve just begun).
I checked out STUFF again but haven’t begun reading it again because it brings up such mixed emotions in me. Also a brand-new book titled The Sullivanians about a deviant psychotherapy cult (aren’t they all, but the my description is actually the sub-title of a book from the '70’s about the Process Church which I have very few opportunities to break out in conversation).
I’M STILL WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO READ THE SECOND SHOOTER BY NICK MAMATAS SO WE CAN TALK ABOUT IT. Seriously, it’s good! Doesn’t quite stick the landing, but how could it?
@mossygreen I like the fairy tale about a dream come true for a very loyal Wooter who won one of the Mega BoC’s. Congrats, you deserve it.
@Barney AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! Thank you!
@mossygreen Do you do Wordle?
@Kyeh A 5-letter word for Paris?
@phendrick No - Sunday’s word.
)
( Is your name mossygreen?
@Kyeh That’s more than 5 letters.
@phendrick I didn’t ask YOU!
@Kyeh I sincerely beg your forgiveness, your highness. I misread “Community Forum”. I didn’t realize that certain parts were just the “Kyeh Forum”.
I thought that was what the “whisper” was for.
Are you going to tell me you never replied to a comment that didn’t address you specifically? Or is that solely your privilege?
I bet if I were to check, you have at least one reply. In. Every. Single. Forum. where you were not addressed.
@phendrick
I could say the same about you. At least my answers aren’t always multiple paragraphs long. Every. Single. Time.
I had a particular reason to address @mossygreen, but it didn’t need to be a whisper. Don’t you have another math problem to talk about somewhere?
@mossygreen Here’s why I asked:
@Kyeh Ha! I don’t wordle, so didn’t see it.
@mossygreen
Oh, okay. I got a kick out of it!
Stumbled across a bio of Queen Victoria that I already own.
Thought to myself
that’s someone who was born into an interesting life at a time in history I know a tiny bit about.
This is by no means a great bio, but it’s all right
I guess I would call it an introduction to her life
The Little Queen.
Quick takeaway:
She was intelligent, but not brilliant
She was kind of made of steel after being too needy when she was young
Her upbringing situation was horrible
She had barely any education beyond languages and music and dancing and stuff like that
Given what she started with, and given the social assumptions of the time she seems to have done decently
Her single best decision may have been her choice of husband. Albert seems to have been awesome.
@f00l I have a vague memory of reading somewhere that Albert was basically raised to be a white knight/perfect husband to a royal lady, is that the impression you got?
@mossygreen
Yes. Everyone knew that whatever child the then Duchess of Kent was carrying would be next in line.
The Duke of Kent was a wastrel and died, so the Duchess and Duke would produce no new heirs.
This meant that when the child was born, and was female, she could not be supplanted by a younger brother.
Once Victoria was born, Albert was essentially raised to be her consort and to be pleasing to her, and ready for the role.
He was a younger son. His older brother would inherit the principality, and so was less suitable due to split loyalties.
Albert was a Saxe-Coburg, as was Victoria’s mother the Duchess of Kent, and was Victoria’s uncle, the King of Belgium.
They hoped that Victoria would step back and let Albert were effectively reign.
That didn’t happen. In the beginning Victoria guarded her turf. Later in, they shared the work with her always having final say.
After more years, Victoria at times allowed Albert free rein in policy consultations.
—-
Albert just happened to be almost perfect for the role of Victoria’s consort.
Progressive in expiring new things, fascinated by technology, a bold athlete, very intelligent, always trying to find better ways to do things.
Much like Prince Philip, except possibly more diplomatic in his public comments than Philip.
I now wanna read a Prince Albert bio.