What are you reading currently?

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Originally Posted by inudesu

I like most of those (and love some) but I only ever made it through Last of the Mohicans. Whew. One of the very few times I'd say the movie is better than the book. Not my favorite.


1984 and Animal Farm are very much worth reading.

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This sparks another question. Taking the thread another direction.

What books have you attempted repeatedly and never made it through?

The Good Earth
The Grapes of Wrath
A Tale of Two Cities

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Originally Posted by techman05

This sparks another question. Taking the thread another direction.

What books have you attempted repeatedly and never made it through?

The Good Earth
The Grapes of Wrath
A Tale of Two Cities

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Bob will say The Sun Also Rises. :angry:

The payoff on 2/3 of those you listed make them worth powering through to the end. The Good Earth is really good, but there isn't like a big resolution or anything like what you get in the other 2. If you didn't like the first part, it's not going to change much other than maybe if you get more invested in the characters.

I've been working on the copy of the Iliad on my bookshelf for years. Made some good progress this year, but there is just always something better to read near to hand.

I bet there are others on my shelf that I've picked up a dozen times and never actually make it through. I'll have to think about it.

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Originally Posted by techman05

The Good Earth
The Grapes of Wrath
A Tale of Two Cities

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Good Earth was another HS English assignment (11th grade, I think). Had to finish it, but it never felt like a chore.

Grapes of Wrath, though, that was like chewing bubble gum that lost its flavor half an hour ago. .

Just seeing "Tale of Two Cities" always brings to mind the Python bookshop sketch.

I cheated and took the test for all three from multiple summaries. I’ll go a step further with The Grapes of Wrath. It’s like chewing a frozen piece of gum still in the wrapper.

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Originally Posted by Champ967

Just seeing "Tale of Two Cities" always brings to mind the Python bookshop sketch.

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that's dikkens with two k's, the well-known dutch author

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Originally Posted by techman05

This sparks another question. Taking the thread another direction.

What books have you attempted repeatedly and never made it through?

The Good Earth
The Grapes of Wrath
A Tale of Two Cities

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at the time i read it, i thought tale of two cities was the best book i had ever read. after some separation from the immediate effect of the book, i would still put it in my top 3 for sure.

as for my list, i only tried the sun also rises once, thank you very much. but my list would include
don quixote
five past midnight in bhopal
the republic

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Originally Posted by techman05

I cheated and took the test for all three from multiple summaries.

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this reminds me of my freshman literature class, in which i wrote an essay on An American Tragedy based solely on classroom discussion and managed a B.

So I finally finished A Distant Mirror (no thanks to that sneaky Nintendo the kids got for Christmas) and it was really good. Highly recommend (if you like history, if not - maybe nope).

The author won a Pulitzer for a different book about the beginning of WWI which apparently helped us all avoid disaster during the Cuban Missile Crises (the book is about how leaders sort of blundered into WWI and Kennedy was influenced to the point of trying to be careful not to escalate things into an unwanted war by making the same poor decisions that led to WWI). It looks interesting, might try to pick it up if our library has it (once I've cleared the backlog that built up while I tried to wrap this one up).

Currently working on a kids Fantasy book about dragons that my middle kid is super into and almost done with the Planet Hulk graphic novel (or the graphic novel collected version) that Thor Ragnarok was partly based on. Up next a (thankfully much shorter) novel by the author of Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell called Piranesi. Supposed to be good, we'll see.

Just finished Ken Follett's Column of Fire. It's book three of the Kingsbridge series that started with Pillars of the Earth. Basically, Follett takes a century and tells a story around a local city (Kingsbridge) while interacting with what was going on in history. Pillars relates to the events around the sinking of the White Ship and the death of Henry I's only son. World Without End is set around the Wars of the Roses. Column of Fire deals with Elizabethan England and the struggles between Protestants and Catholics.

I read Pillars 10 years ago when I was in England and loved it. Really good book. Just found Column of Fire this fall. Finally got to reading it this month. It's almost as good as Pillars of the Earth. It's a bit more interested in the historical story than in local events than the other two. The key hero of the story is a guy who ends up working for Elizabeth -- the story focuses more around his adventures than around local events. Still, when he sets his mind to it, Follett is a great story teller.

I will say that as he's gotten older, he seems to be getting more interested in sex. He's not graphic, but at times he's a bit juvenile in his interests (kind of like Heinlein was)

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Originally Posted by TechDawgMc

Just finished Ken Follett's Column of Fire. It's book three of the Kingsbridge series that started with Pillars of the Earth. Basically, Follett takes a century and tells a story around a local city (Kingsbridge) while interacting with what was going on in history. Pillars relates to the events around the sinking of the White Ship and the death of Henry I's only son. World Without End is set around the Wars of the Roses. Column of Fire deals with Elizabethan England and the struggles between Protestants and Catholics.

I read Pillars 10 years ago when I was in England and loved it. Really good book. Just found Column of Fire this fall. Finally got to reading it this month. It's almost as good as Pillars of the Earth. It's a bit more interested in the historical story than in local events than the other two. The key hero of the story is a guy who ends up working for Elizabeth -- the story focuses more around his adventures than around local events. Still, when he sets his mind to it, Follett is a great story teller.

I will say that as he's gotten older, he seems to be getting more interested in sex. He's not graphic, but at times he's a bit juvenile in his interests (kind of like Heinlein was)

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I've heard good things about Pillars. Considered picking it up several times.

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Originally Posted by inudesu

Currently working on a kids Fantasy book about dragons that my middle kid is super into and almost done with the Planet Hulk graphic novel (or the graphic novel collected version) that Thor Ragnarok was partly based on. Up next a (thankfully much shorter) novel by the author of Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell called Piranesi. Supposed to be good, we'll see.

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Piranesi was very good. Highly recommend. It's short, almost a novella, especially when compared to Jonathan Strange. Go look for it, it's worth it.

Planet Hulk also pretty good. Fun.

The middle-grade book is fine. I'm not really the target audience here, but I see why he likes it.

Lots of genre stuff on the bedside stack. I'll mix in a little non-fiction I think (gotta eat your veggies) but I'm looking forward to a lot of plot-driven SF/F/Spy/Mystery for a spell.

ok i have a couple of audible credits that i need to use before i cancel. any recommendations?

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Originally Posted by TechDawgMc

Just thought about a series to recommend. Dennis Taylor is the author. The first book is We Are Legion (We Are Bob). Semi-comedy SF. Tells a cool story. Was a trilogy. Just noticed there's now a fourth one. The trilogy is a well contained story, though.

As far as I can tell, only available through Amazon. I listened on Audible. I have never seen the paperbacks in a store.

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going to use one of my credits for this (can't go wrong with "bobiverse")
but i have two more, and i'm not going to go for the sequels until i know i like the first.

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Originally Posted by arkansasbob

going to use one of my credits for this (can't go wrong with "bobiverse")
but i have two more, and i'm not going to go for the sequels until i know i like the first.

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I'd read the first one then decide if you want to go another way. I just finished the Starfisher's Trilogy by Glen Cook. An odd one. I really liked the first book. Thought it was excellent and it might actually stand on its own if you just choose to let it. The other two books I thought were much weaker, especially book 2.

I liked Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. That had some interesting twists on a more or less hard SF story. There's a sequel, but it's not a necessary one and it's only partially connected anyway.

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Originally Posted by PawDawg

Not sure this should go here, but since all of you read a lot, I thought you might find it interesting...

I've always thought Lonesome Dove the movie followed Lonesome Dove the book closer than any other book/movie combo.

I watched an interview with Suzanne De Passe about production of the mini-series. They pointed out that Peter Bogdanovich and Larry McMurtry had written a screen play together (after "The Last Picture Show") that was to star John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Henry Fonda. John Ford advised Wayne not to do it so it went to the shelf. McMurtry then wrote the book based on the screen play.

Anyway, this is all out there on Wiki, but I had never Googled Lonesome Dove until I saw the short interview.

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Originally Posted by johnnylightnin

That’s interesting. I’ve never read Lonesome Dove, but I might start the new year with it.

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Originally Posted by JuBru

Lonesome Dove was one of the books I was required to read in either high school or college that I enjoyed.

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Originally Posted by inudesu

It's on my to be read list. Hopefully in 2020.

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Originally Posted by inudesu

Pretty good.

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:(

RIP Larry McMurtry