I didn't feel like hassling our normal stable of Book Day authors, so here's a halfassed post:
I put this book on hold at the library after hearing an interview with the author while in traffic. Sounded interesting to me. My turn came, I picked it up, placed it on the table, racked up about $3 in late fines (and we have low per day rates), and then brought it back unread because that's just kinda what I do.
Anything you managed to crack the cover on?
I read The Redemption of Time, which is a follow-up to The Three Body Problem trilogy (also translated from Chinese). Interesting to note it is actually fan fiction, but the original author gave it the thumbs up and it was published as part of the storyline.
I was recommending Jack McDevitt's "Alex Benedict" series to a friend, and when I went to get the link to send him, discovered a new book had been published. Needless to say, a quick jump to the library app and I was able to read it as well -- Octavia Gone
I'm working on "The Dangerous Summer", Hemingway's travelog of a summer in Spain following two bullfighters around watching their fights.
I also started Gaiman's "Sandman" series because we've been really getting into Lucifer on Netflix lately.
While on a trip to D.C. this past weekend, my son wanted us to check out the Library of Congress (which I'd regrettably never been to when I lived out there). While there, we discovered that the National Book Festival was on Saturday. So we went to that, since he loves to read. It was awesome. Ton and tons of authors, exhibits from publishers & museums & such, a giant sales floor, book readings, and a Hall of States where each state had a booth to feature their authors. We had a blast, and found a number of items that we're going to encourage our local librarian to look into (and our librarian will also be pleased to know that he is apparently on the leading edge, judging by how familiar we were with a number of the "new" books various publishers and states were featuring).
I also managed to finish The Lightning Thief - the first Percy Jackson novel - which I told my son I'd read as an inducement to get him into a new series (he tends to revisit his old favorites, and takes a little encouragement to start new things). It was a solid read. Not amazing, not awful. Just solid. Certain good enough for a recommendation if someone liked similar stories.
Follow up: small town libraries are the best. Our librarian was immediately looking up everything we mentioned to him. It was less of a "we'll have to see what we can do..." and more of a "ooh, can I order off of this list?"
I’ve been reading Michale Pollan’s How to Change Your Mind. I’m in need of a reset, not sure lsd is the answer, but he does a pretty deep dive into the science (and lack there of -thanks the government). He’s also got a voice on the page that makes it easy reading.
You're hearing voices from the pages, eh? You sure you haven't been hanging out with Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds?
Crusin' on Lake Shore Drive?
Can't find the screenshot now, but we had a good'un of a winter storm a few years back, and I remember a headline of a TV news report as "Hundreds Stranded on LSD", and I thought, oh, that could be rough.
Worst trip ever, sounds like.
I read it to and it's very interesting. Wait until you get to the
Finished Against the Day. Wow. A slog.
Also, finished Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin. That was from one of you. I liked it - long but quick read. Kinda fantastiche.
A slog even for the last half?
Sorry, yes Slogtastic.
Also, just finished Roosevelt and Churchill, Men of Secrets. Kinda cool after visiting the Churchill War Museum in London, underground bunkers from WWII. Was recently in Berlin but there is nothing like that there.
Sorry to hear that. Obviously I felt differently.
Started Anathem on the return flight from Portland. I'm about a hundred pages through it and really enjoying it. The worldbuilding is great, and Stephenson's prose and humor both really work for me.
It definitely does draw you in. I enjoyed the first portion more than the rest, but it did entertain.
Well I completely missed that this was here. Anyway, I read, and highly recommend reading, On the Clock by Emily Guendelsberger. I think, regardless of your politics, its an important reading. Its fascinating and horrifying all at once.
It was a non-fictiony month for me, as I also read The Socialist Manifesto by Bhaskar Sunkara. Its a good, quickish history of socialism, but more gives a nice, succinct description of it. Forbidden zoney: the last third of the book is a case for why socialism would be good for this country.
After that, I've been finishing up the Bring Down Heaven series by Sam Sykes, which I started reading because there was a sale on the first book in the series, The City Stained Red</em>, awhile back and he posted a picture of his adorable dog on twitter as a way to try to convince to buy his book. They're enjoyable, fantasy romps with demons and wars and such.
Along the line of "The Socialist Manifesto", I read "Utopia for Realists: How We Can Build the Ideal World" last month by Rutger Bregman, who you might have heard of for his video of him calling out the megarich at Davos this year.
His work made it seem so straight-foward and simple that it made me think "WTF? Why isn't the the norm?"
Hey, my library has that. Hold request placed.
I read two Elmore Leonard novels after realizing I had never read one before: Maximum Bob and Killshot. I enjoyed them both enough that I'll probably read a few more down the road.
I also read The Last Stone by Mark Bowden about how law enforcement got someone to mostly confess to a horrific, unsolved crime nearly 40 years later.
I'm currently about halfway through Barbara Tuchman's biography of Joseph Stilwell. It's very good, and I've still yet to read anything that portrays Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek in a particularly good light.
I read Maximum Bob a few years back after I found it at a thrift store for $1. I enjoyed it too, and I especially liked the appearance of the Crowe family.
Yup, reading about Dewey's cousins was great. (Casting Michael Rapaport might have been the biggest blunder in that show's run.)
I said elsewhere online that the best thing to come out of GoT Season 8 is that Michael Rappaport as a Crowe looks much less bad in comparison.
Ha, I put a book on hold after reading something about it somewhere, but by the time it came in I'd forgotten the reason I wanted to read it. So I likewise held onto it until it was overdue without reading it.
A book I did actually read last month:
On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous by Ocean Vuong. This is a really, really good book. Vuong is also a poet, and his writing is beautiful. The book is a compelling coming-of-age story, written as a letter a Vietnamese American young man who came to the U.S. as a young child (just as Vuong himself did) to his mother, who has had very little schooling and can't actually read the letter.
There were lots of sentences that amazed me, and here's a passage I loved from near the end of the book:
I really liked this book too, and ditto on those amazing sentences. There were so many that made me stop and say "Wow".
Reading for August (I had written these out before with more detail, but that got eaten, so this is the more list-y version).
Friday Black was my favorite read of the month. Short stories that all put their characters in intense, sometimes ugly situations, and you find yourself wanting them to bust out of the system that put them there, but that can't always happen. Lots of social commentary here for sure, in affecting, strong stories.
I've read some of Becky Chambers' stuff, looks like I'll need to read Few too.
I liked it better than the first two books. Others complained about the "slice of life"-ness and thus the less riveting plot. But the theme was there and I thought the book worked.
Library reserve was placed.
The Hugo Award winner for Best Short Story was one that I really enjoyed.
A Witch's Guide to Escape by Alix Harrow