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What are you reading?

In the past three years I've partially started upward of 30 books, maybe even closer to 40.

Better now to start treating them like television shows where I periodically watch another episode of my interest.
 
The Villa - Nora Roberts

The Villa is about the merger of two prominent winemaking families, the Giambellis and MacMillans. The resulting reorganization brings ugly skeletons dancing out of the closet followed by mysterious thefts and attacks in California and Italy. I really enjoyed rereading this book. I had the pleasure of having Ms. Roberts sign my copy of The Villa in person when it came out in 2001. Delightful lady, great read. I've been a fan of hers since I was a kid. She only wrote for Silhouette in the beginning.


The Green Mile - Stephen King

A loved one was appalled by the heresy that I'd never read this book or watched the movie. The book made me cry more than once. It is now among my favorites from King. I do, however, find it a pity that so many people just see the Christian themes in it. I saw so much more than that in terms of myth and cultural folklore from the '30s. The fact that John Coffey develops an affinity for another prisoner from New Orleans was very telling for me in this regard. Beautiful book.


Make Something Up: Stories You Can't Unread - Chuck Palahniuk

I gave it a shot because Fight Club is fucking epic, but this could not keep my interest. And frankly, it was starting to depress me.


77 Shadow Street - Dean Koontz

I found myself utterly unsympathetic to any of the characters in this story, save one. If this address has such a dubious history within a community that small, one would think the wealthy tenants would have weighed this prior to establishing residency there. Their combined naivety was too much for me to swallow. But the autistic girl...she seemed to be the most realistic to me.
 
"Quantum Enigma" by Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner.

An exploration of the relationship between the observer, brain/mind/consciousness, and quantum wave function/particle position, superposition, etc.

''A case in point is the book Quantum Enigma. This book is a result of a course for non-science majors (at the University of California, Santa Cruz) on the meaning of quantum mechanics, and in particular the authors seek the role, if any, of consciousness. The authors bring out, in pretty good fashion, the experimental facts that show the Universe to be drastically different in its nature than almost anyone thinks (usually, even after they have studied quantum mechanics in detail). And they do note, and quite correctly, that quantum mechanics easily accounts for every single one of these bizarre facts, and that it does so completely. And yet, are our two authors able to come to an actual conclusion? No, they are NOT⎯here is their concluding thought: “Does quantum theory suggest that, in some mysterious sense, we are a cosmic center?” The question is left hanging.''
 
Michaelmas, by Algis Budris.

One of the best books. Never gets old no matter how many times I read it. Long out of print, but available for a penny plus shipping.

The writing is sublime. I don't know how much to reveal. I can say that it's SciFi. I'll say that this should have been named Cyborg instead of that stupid thing that spawned The Six Million Dollar Man. The writing is sublime. Exultant.
 
Blue Labyrinth by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child.

Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast finds a murdered enemy delivered on his doorstep and must unravel the clues to find his killer. This one was refreshing.

I like the books because Pendergast is a Southern James Bond with a severe morbid streak who solves cases that would titillate Hannibal Lector.
The authors annoyed me with the last two books, though. White Fire was so ludicrous I almost tossed it out a window, but remembered it was a library book.My favorite from them: Still Life with Crows.

Beasts by Joyce Carol Oates

An unsettling, subversive tale about students at a college in 1975. The last twenty pages had me saying "What?!" out loud in the park as I read this afternoon. Haunting. Be aware that the prose is poetic, but somewhat boring at first.

Obsession in Death by J.D. Robb

Not high on my list of favorites. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is usually a target of some sort in her homicide investigations. But having her gain her own personal stalker seemed a bit silly to me. I would have liked it better if the object of obsession had been someone she cared about or another character altogether.
 
One said:
Obsession in Death by J.D. Robb

Not high on my list of favorites. Lieutenant Eve Dallas is usually a target of some sort in her homicide investigations. But having her gain her own personal stalker seemed a bit silly to me. I would have liked it better if the object of obsession had been someone she cared about or another character altogether.
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Seems to be so common in procedurals. "Crack detective is forced to match wits with homicidal stalker with killer obsession." And the villain is used as a stock character for season after season, or sequel after sequel, as it were.
 
James Brown said:
Seems to be so common in procedurals. "Crack detective is forced to match wits with homicidal stalker with killer obsession." And the villain is used as a stock character for season after season, or sequel after sequel, as it were.
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Very true. But there's a certain substance to most of the books. For me, I like the procedural aspect, the nitty gritty of police work and forensics. I stumbled over the In Death series after Patricia Cornwell could not get out of her own head to write a coherent story anymore. So Detective Eve Dallas replaced Kay Scarpetta. Surprised me, too, since the In Death books are futuristic and set in New York in the year 2060.

As such, I take it that matching wits is part of the job. Creation in Death, for example - Dallas has to go up against a disturbed killer she caught before that escaped from prison, a case that causes a lot of her colleagues to take unwanted trips down memory lane. That book is just under Red Dragon by Thomas Harris in my top 10. It is as much a meditation on death as it is a crime thriller.

It's just that I have a bias when the main character is too much of the spotlight. The great thing about the In Death series is that it is about Dallas as much as Roarke.
Roarke is a wealthy businessman and an elite socialite who knows everyone. We get that the press adores him, so you come to expect people fawning over his character.

But reading a book where a homicide detective is sorting through her fan mail to find her own stalker? I could not swallow this. (To be fair, neither could Dallas by her attitude).
Less "star cop" stuff, more grit.
 
Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas. I'm not terribly impressed: it's nowhere near as good as a certain series of books with thrones in.
 
Cockroaches by Jo Nesbø.

This was suggested to me given based on my affinity for The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.

The second book in the Inspector Harry Hole series follows the investigator after he is sent to Thailand to handle a murder case involving a Norwegian Ambassador killed under scandalous circumstances. This story is pretty good with a disturbing twists. It also touches on the sexism and child exploitation that exists in some Buddhist societies.
 
Re reading Richard Dawkins excellent book, A River Out Of Eden. Recently re read The God Delusion from the same author.
 
Robots and Empire. Asimov was a genius--his robots are incredibly good characters, far more interesting than the robots typically depicted in film and literature.
 
The Queen's English. C. J. Moore and

The King's Revenge. Don Jordan and Michael Walsh




(giggle) Just noticed the titles, purest coincidence.
 
1356 by Bernard Cornwell (audiobook)

Dance of Dragons by George R. R. Martin
 
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