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What are you reading?

 
 
 
In the process of reading Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

A little "thing" of some sort, traveling at the speed of light shoots through the center of the moon and breaks it into seven pieces. It is soon realized that the moon will disintegrate completely and fall in a "hard rain" onto the Earth, thereby sterilizing the entire planet in a gigantic inferno. In just 22 months, the planet will become uninhabitable for up to 10,000 years. The plan is to build a colony around the International Space Station that will wait it out until the planet is habitable again.

I'm not yet halfway through but obviously there are some problems with this plan. Many of the characters realize it too.

The pacing began pretty well and then slowed. It has remained at that slow pace. And I swear to the Great Whatever, that if this book doesn't pay off in the end somehow, I will never read another one of his books again. Unfortunately, the first book I read by him was Cryptonomicon, which is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The rest have been either blah or utter shit. This is his last opportunity.
 
Bacillus anthracis said:
In the process of reading Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

A little "thing" of some sort, traveling at the speed of light shoots through the center of the moon and breaks it into seven pieces. It is soon realized that the moon will disintegrate completely and fall in a "hard rain" onto the Earth, thereby sterilizing the entire planet in a gigantic inferno. In just 22 months, the planet will become uninhabitable for up to 10,000 years. The plan is to build a colony around the International Space Station that will wait it out until the planet is habitable again.

I'm not yet halfway through but obviously there are some problems with this plan. Many of the characters realize it too.

The pacing began pretty well and then slowed. It has remained at that slow pace. And I swear to the Great Whatever, that if this book doesn't pay off in the end somehow, I will never read another one of his books again. Unfortunately, the first book I read by him was Cryptonomicon, which is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The rest have been either blah or utter shit. This is his last opportunity.
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I just finished Seveneves, and I thought it was pretty good; but not quite as good as the excellent Anathem. If you didn't like Anathem, then we obviously have different taste in literature, and you should ignore my recommendations :)
 
Picked up a book called 'The Story of New York City' from an incredible book-store Els and I ran into in the city while we were there. The purchase was more about a souvenir than a quality book, but it's been an interesting read as the work is a bit dated, and shows some pretty heavy anti-native, pro-European bias, as well as uses phrases like 'indian' and 'redmen'. The story itself has been pretty shocking so far as I've read about 17th century New York which went from friendly Dutch / Native relations to all out-war and massacres between the two groups. Surprisingly, I've never read about European/Native relations so closely before, so it's been interesting and has made me want to read further into the history of the Natives themselves.

The other book I picked up while in the city is called '50 American Artists You Should Know'. It's a great but light read. Gives a quick two page synopsis of the lives and historical context of 50 famous American artists, as well as a few shots of their work. It's a nice introduction to American Art History, as well as a nice look into American history from that perspective. I also plan to look further into the work of some of the artists.

Both of these books are great as I'm finding myself getting more and more into American history these days.
 
Reading 3 right now:

The Heart Song of Charging Elk about a Lakota man who eschews reservation life and ends up traveling with the Wild Bill show, travels with them to europe, gets sick in Paris and is left behind by the show knowing no french (or english, for that matter) in a Paris hospital

Ashley's War: about the front combat women's cultural team of elite marines in Afghanistan

Unbroken: An Olympic runner ends up as bombardier in WWII and is shot down. I think he probably gets captured. Not far yet.

Interesting that they are all non-fiction - not my usual mix. But they are good reads.
 
The Mechanical, by Ian Tregillis

A steampunkish alternate history with the premise that the 17th century Christiaan Huygens used alchemy to invent a race of overpowered sentient robots/golems that are completely in their master's control. Fast forward to the early 20th century, and the Netherlands has conquered most of the planet, with only the French kingdom, exiled to Canada, continuing to resist. Themes involve the slavery endured by the robots, and the different ways the Catholic French and the Calvinist Dutch approach the issue. To my sense, it kind of falls into theological charactures when doing so: the Dutch are depicted as universally justifying slavery on the basis that the robots don't have souls and them not having free will; whereas most of the French are depicted as the good guys because they want to free the robots on the basis that the Catholics in the book believe they have souls. If this were a real scenario though, I think Catholics would be among the last to acknowledge artificial creatures having souls. Still, the difference, and the religious conflict still being as important in the timeline as it is, could be explained by the alternate path taken by history... and it's amusing to see my nationality placed in the role of world-conquering black-and-white evil empire because we have magical robots.

A good read, thus far.
 
bilby said:
Bacillus anthracis said:
In the process of reading Neal Stephenson's Seveneves.

A little "thing" of some sort, traveling at the speed of light shoots through the center of the moon and breaks it into seven pieces. It is soon realized that the moon will disintegrate completely and fall in a "hard rain" onto the Earth, thereby sterilizing the entire planet in a gigantic inferno. In just 22 months, the planet will become uninhabitable for up to 10,000 years. The plan is to build a colony around the International Space Station that will wait it out until the planet is habitable again.

I'm not yet halfway through but obviously there are some problems with this plan. Many of the characters realize it too.

The pacing began pretty well and then slowed. It has remained at that slow pace. And I swear to the Great Whatever, that if this book doesn't pay off in the end somehow, I will never read another one of his books again. Unfortunately, the first book I read by him was Cryptonomicon, which is one of the greatest books I've ever read. The rest have been either blah or utter shit. This is his last opportunity.
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I just finished Seveneves, and I thought it was pretty good; but not quite as good as the excellent Anathem. If you didn't like Anathem, then we obviously have different taste in literature, and you should ignore my recommendations :)
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Damn you! Now I have to read that book. I read Cryptonomicon some 10 years ago and I've been chasing it like crack ever since.

I hope you're satisfied. ;)
 
Art & Fear by Paul Virilio.

Virilio is a French cultural theorist. I stumbled across his book while browsing in 2nd & Charles in Atlanta - a venue that I immediately fell in love with. His concepts are loud, brass and interesting. He has a way of linking modern art, technology, war, and scientific precedent in ways I have not seen before. Although I can admit I am not following him completely down his rabbit hole, I am nonetheless intrigued while inspecting its circumference.
 
Started reading Howard Zinn's 'People's History of the US' yesterday and man is the account of the Spaniards first contact with natives ever horrifying.
 
Whiskey Beach by Nora Roberts.

Eli Landon had no place else to go. Fleeing from the suspicion surrounding his wife's murder, he travels to his family's historic home on Whiskey Beach. The house is empty while his grandmother recuperates from a bad fall down the stairs. So he is left to his solitude and his writing until Abra Walsh, a family friend, decides to help him find his way back to himself. But when a private investigator following him is brutally killed, it becomes apparent that his wife's murder was just the beginning.

I enjoyed reading this again. It's in my top five for Nora because Abra reminds me a lot of myself.

_____

Divine Evil by Nora Roberts.

Clare Kimball is creatively stuck. Living in New York City as a successful artist, she ends up returning to her hometown of Emmitsboro, Maryland in the hope that the change will get her back on track. Upon returning, she finds that the town badboy, Cameron Rafferty, is now the sherriff. They pick up on a romance that both thought would never happen. But all this soon becomes the backdrop to a series of ritual thefts and murders that seem tied with Satanism, which causes Clare to remember suppressed memories she's been running from all her life.

I think I read this when I was 14 or something because I remembered the ending. But the book had that odd effect I get sometimes when there are religious rituals described in full detail: I start muttering to myself when something is off. Academic habit. :o

Specifically, the rite where Hecate is mentioned tickled my memory and had me checking my old notes. Aside from the cult in England called the Friends of Hecate that disbanded in the '80s after a spree of alleged ritual killings, modern Satanists had moved away from using Hecate much by the time this book was written (1992). It is still a bone of contention in the Pagan community that Hecate rites were adopted into "the bastardized mythology" of LeVey and Crowley anyway. So Hecate is a very controversial figure.

That said, I can't say that I liked this book all that much. I also rolled my eyes when the main characters would see an inverted pentacle necklace and say, "What's that?" and or play dumb as if they never knew The Satanic Bible existed. Considering that the late 80's and early 90s were full of Satanists trying to get attention in the media, especially in cities like L.A. and NYC - makes no sense. That's just as bad as the dialogue in the Left Behind series when the characters ask each other if they've heard "the good news" and the reply is, "Gosh no! What's that and who is Jesus?" Very lame.

_____

Awakening Osiris by Normandi Ellis.

My favorite translation of The Egyptian Book of the Dead, which I carry with me everywhere. Reads like poetry, speaks with eloquence. I always return back to these pages like they are an old friend speaking wisdom by the Nile.
 
Just finished reading The Scandalous Sisterhood Of Prickwillow Place which is a simple Crime Comedy book written by Julie Berry
And it was a simple yet entertaining read, it probably won't appeal to those who like more in depth crime books but if you want a light read with a bit of comedy then this book works well enough

Next will be A Curse Embraced which is a sequel to Sealed With A Curse by Cecy Robson
Basically an urban fantasy romance story which was a bit formulaic but well written and with some actually pretty good ideas so I thought I would give the second installment a look
 
I finished Seveneves last night by Neal Stephenson.

That's it. I'm done with the guy forever. Yes I've read a bunch of his books; no need to prod me about it.

What a plodding slog through techno-description hell. If you love over-description that goes on for page after page after fucking page, this book is all you.

The characters suck too. There's one good one, but Stephenson just took Neil Degrasse Tyson and put him in the book. Deny it and you're a liar.

The rest are all flat and yawn-worthy. I was even glad when one of the heroes died toward the middle of the book because he was so goddamn boring.

And the last 1/3 of the book is just fucking awful. You really can skip page after page because you know that nothing is going to happen. Especially when it comes to spaceship description. If you read this book, and you see Stephenson beginning to describe a spaceship, go ahead and read the first page, page and a half. Then skip forward 5-6 pages. I promise you that you will have missed nothing and saved some time in the process.

There's a "climactic" battle scene at the end of the book.

You can skip it. Seriously. If you get that far, just turn to about the third-to-the-last page and go from there.

Or just save yourself the time and read something else.
 
The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell - WTF

This book actually gave me a headache. I have read many things and consider my stamina for literature pretty high. The prose was beautiful. But that's was the problem. It got me so involved with a character that I was jarred by the sudden flashbacks, time period shifts or the transition into another character's head altogether. I've heard this sort of thing was the main issue with his other work, Cloud Atlas.

I got so confused that I went on Goodreads in the hopes that I was not the only one with this experience.
The book is shortlisted for the Booker Prize. But no, there were entire droves of other people just as baffled as I am.
 
Started Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem, and so far it is gripping. I'm not sure what to expect of it; the opening of the book is set during the cultural revolution, with hints of a mysterious military/scientific station near a reeducation camp on the China/Mongolia border, then it moves to the present day (or near future), and the mystery deepens.

It is very Chinese in feel, and gives a real sense for both the complex political, social and bureaucratic state that is modern China, and for the madness of the cultural revolution that preceded it. For me that ever-present but at times almost impenetrable backdrop, of complex relationships between state, army, police, and people, adds to the skillfully built sense of mystery; the translation is excellent though, and it doesn't have the slightly disjointed feeling you sometimes get in books translated from other languages.

If it delivers on its early promise, it should be an excellent read.
 
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

I avoided all spoilers in the media regarding the book and the movie. I expected to be disappointed. But man, I picked it up last night and didn't stop reading until I was done.
I spent most of that time with my mouth open in shock. Great writing. Dark, seriously twisted novel. My mind is blown.
 
bilby said:
Started Cixin Liu's The Three Body Problem, and so far it is gripping. I'm not sure what to expect of it; the opening of the book is set during the cultural revolution, with hints of a mysterious military/scientific station near a reeducation camp on the China/Mongolia border, then it moves to the present day (or near future), and the mystery deepens.

It is very Chinese in feel, and gives a real sense for both the complex political, social and bureaucratic state that is modern China, and for the madness of the cultural revolution that preceded it. For me that ever-present but at times almost impenetrable backdrop, of complex relationships between state, army, police, and people, adds to the skillfully built sense of mystery; the translation is excellent though, and it doesn't have the slightly disjointed feeling you sometimes get in books translated from other languages.

If it delivers on its early promise, it should be an excellent read.
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Just finished it, and it was far better even than I anticipated from the first few chapters. Cixin Liu has produced an incredible and terrific work of science fiction, ably translated by Ken Liu. If you like scifi, read this book.

Oh, and it is just $2.78 on Kindle.

I can't wait for the second part of the trilogy (The Dark Forest) which is due to be released on 11 August.
 
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Bought a couple more titles which arrived yesterday:

"The History of Jazz" by Ted Gioia and "Deep in a Dream: The Long Night of Chet Baker" by James Gavin.

Both look like they'll be fantastic reads. This morning I was going through The History of Jazz from the end of the New Orleans period to what Ted Gioia calls the 'Jazz Era', where Louis Armstrong ushered in the era of the soloist. I found it interesting because popular culture always leads to you believe that Louis Armstrong was a guy with a few pretty vocal tunes, and not someone who completely revolutionized jazz.

Gioia mentions a few recordings that Armstrong did called 'The Hot Fives' which he says are the most influential jazz recordings of all time. What's interesting about them now, he says, is that people today look back on them and they seem tame because almost everyone who came after Armstrong emulated and improved the style, but at the time something like that had never been done before.

 
Halfway through Existence - David Brin.

Over 800 pages, could use a bit of editing, but Brins descriptions of the problems we face in relation to our development and survival as a tech species are quite thorough. His concept of first contact is interesting. Well worth reading.

''Brin throws the reader into the deep end of a near-future world with its technologies, its changed political landscapes, its economy, and much else that has clearly been given serious thought. But you are introduced to these aspects of the future Brin imagines not through lengthy descriptions, but by being set down and immersed in the midst of that future, already in full swing. And in my opinion, it works.

Against that backdrop, the story envisages a situation in which humans had detected distant worlds with rudimentary life, but as yet, no signs of intelligence. And then a discovery is made of a crystal object which had been flung into space eons earlier by sentient aliens. The story then revolves around discovering what the device is meant to accomplish, what dangers its message poses to humanity, and the question implicitly posed in the title: What is the hope for our future? Do sentient beings and their civilizations typically survive? If not, can we beat the odds?''
 
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