Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 10, 2014 Moderators Share Posted April 10, 2014 What are you spending your valuable free time reading? Me? To say it was a surprise that I found Gillian Flynn to be as good as they say would be a huge understatement. Edgy crime mystery bordering on the macabre from a woman? I am anything but a sexist. But truth be told, women thus far have not excelled at gritty. Down and dirty gritty. Flynn? Well, I want to have her baby. She's awesome. She can out-do your imagination every step of the way. Out-gross, out-heebyjeeby, out-boy you. Out-think you... of course women have always been able to do that last one. If you enjoy Stephen King at his best, read Gillian Flynn. It's not the grit that is interesting, it is that such a great writer decides to write in this genre. Happy Day! I read all three in a row this week. Certified fan boy. She's the "cool chick". Sharp ObjectsDarkplacesGone Girl Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 Don't read much crime/mystery/horror. Not because I have a pre-conceived bias about them, it's just that life is already too short and the books-to-read list is already too long. I'm early in on what is shaping up to be a pretty extraordinary novel - The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. Won the Pulitzer for it. Main characters and settings are North Korea. If just 10% of what this book portrays about N Korea is true, the place is beyond Kafka's worst nightmare. HIGHLY recommended. For lighter fare, I'm working through the Harry Potter series again - up into book 6 now. Third time through - each time I'm a bit more impressed - JK Rowling is one wise, talented, amusing, and imaginative writer - even 'tho she could have used a more involved editor....a bit of bloat in the big installments. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members WRGKMC Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 I read Bob Katz Mastering Audio book recently but that's about it.I used to read a book a day years back.I do allot of intense computer work on my day job now analyzing numbers and technical stuff. My mind and eyes are usually to fatigued by the end of the day to do much reading in my leisure time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 I don't read as much as I used to or probably should. I mostly read non-fiction (history mostly) these days. Right now I'm reading "The Founding Fathers Reconsidered" by Richard Bernstein and Ronin Ro's biography of Prince. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 I've been dawdling through The Glass Key, Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled, big city corruption tale. I've actually read it a couple times before -- but not since the 70s, I don't think. I'm pondering Hammett's terse, minimally descriptive style. My previous read was Ray Chandler's "High Window," a very different style in the same general genre. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 10, 2014 Author Moderators Share Posted April 10, 2014 I've been dawdling through The Glass Key' date=' Dashiell Hammett's hard-boiled, big city corruption tale. I've actually read it a couple times before -- but not since the 70s, I don't think. I'm pondering Hammett's terse, minimally descriptive style. My previous read was Ray Chandler's "High Window," a very different style in the same general genre.[/quote'] If you like those^^^... you may like Dennis Lehane's The Given Day. Lehane doesn't cop that noir style as much as wear it effortlessly in a natural, contemporary way. Great book by a great writer. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/books/18masl.html?_r=0 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members blue2blue Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 Cool! I dropped the link in my 2-read folder. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Mark L Posted April 10, 2014 Members Share Posted April 10, 2014 Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 I just finished "Accidental Artist", which is a biography of artist Ricardo Breceda, who makes these super huge actual-size metal sculptures in Borrego Springs, CA that I go to photograph every now and again. Very straightforward reading of what is sort of a coffee book. Here's a couple of photos, the latter of which I just took over the weekend while teaching a workshop on star trails and light painting photography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members UstadKhanAli Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 I just finished "Accidental Artist", which is a biography of artist Ricardo Breceda, who makes these super huge actual-size metal sculptures in Borrego Springs, CA that I go to photograph every now and again. Very straightforward reading of what is sort of a coffee book. Here's a couple of photos, the latter of which I just took over the weekend while teaching a workshop on star trails and light painting photography. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 I'm re-reading 2007's TERRORIST, a novel by John Updike. Updike writes so brilliantly....about any subject at all. This story's about a modern American high school kid, half-Egyptian, who gets mixed-up with a local radical Muslim sect, and starts believing in their "jihad" theories, including the clandestine bombing of American sites... It's also a subtle indictment of the shambles that modern high school education has become in many American communities. Also reading a recent history book, HITLER'S FURIES: GERMAN WOMEN IN THE NAZI KILLING FIELDS, by Wendy Lower. Ms. Lower seeks to reveal how deeply women were involved in perpetrating all the horrors of the Nazi regime... many more women than you might expect directly involved in the massacring of Jews and "social undesirables". Reading this book, it makes it nigh-impossible to go on believing the oft-repeated saw that "ordinary Germans just didn't know what was going on". This book suggests that everyone in Germany knew, and that ordinary women were key players in every moment of the savagery. YIDDISHKEIT: JEWISH VERNACULAR AND THE NEW LAND. This is a very entertaining, fun and informative history of the Yiddish language and culture as it was born and developed within the USA since the 1880's. The whole story is told in "comix" by the great "underground comix" author, Harvey Pekar. Fascinating stuff, and a must for anyone who wants to understand showbiz in 20thc America. There is a brand-new book I'm dying to get my hands on: TURN UP THE RADIO!: ROCK, POP AND ROLL IN LOS ANGELES, 1956--1972. By Harvey Kubernik. I'm guessing many on this Forum will surely also want to check it out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rjt Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 I'm reading "The French and Indian Wars" by Borneman. Mostly read non-fiction, either history or about the places I am going to visit. For lighter fare (when I get overwhelmed by how much I don't know about the world) I just finished "Season of the Witch"-a murder mystery. I don't generally go for murder mystery, but it is written by an Icelandic author and set in Iceland, so was a chance to "revisit" the place. Thinking of reading GRR's book 5 in Game of Thrones if I can find some time. Rasputin, I see you are reading a book about Yiddish language and culture. If you like books about general language etc, consider "Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing" by Mohr. Although it sounds like a humorous book it is not. She presents an educated and scholarly history of swearing from Roman times until the present. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 11, 2014 Author Moderators Share Posted April 11, 2014 ...consider "Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing" by Mohr. Although it sounds like a humorous book it is not. She presents an educated and scholarly history of swearing from Roman times until the present. That sounds really good. ^^^ For that sort of thing I recommend Arthur Plotnik.http://www.artplotnik.com/ Either The Elements of Expression: Putting Thoughts Into Words or Spunk and Bite: A Writer's Guide to Bold, Contemporary Style. He's funny, irreverent, and he really cares about communicating in a fresh and vibrant way. Highly recommended! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members rasputin1963 Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 Thanks, guys. I'm stoked about those two authors you mention! I'll check them out! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted April 11, 2014 Members Share Posted April 11, 2014 Proof-reading legal briefs I'm writing. Reading little JFK stuff. Alternating Old Testament & New Testament books, just to learn what a bunch of lunatics they were back in Biblical times. Very tempted to go re-read Gogol with all this Ukraine stuff going on. I'm thinking of 'Taras Bulba'. Gogol was always one of my favorite writers. He was like family to me...my crazy uncle in the attic. Probably the funniest and best prose writer I ever read. He saw our age back in the 1840's - everything. And except for a couple of books, like 'Taras', a savagely ironic adventure story, he's hysterically funny. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Bucksstudent Posted April 12, 2014 Members Share Posted April 12, 2014 I'm currently reading a book on Kurosawa's films, but working on research for Shakespeare's sonnets and Milton's Paradise Lost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AlamoJoe Posted April 12, 2014 Members Share Posted April 12, 2014 Just finished "Unbroken" by Lauren Hillenbrand. Excellent read. breezed through Pete Townshwnds memoir "Who I am" in a couple of evenings. Was hoping for some nuts and bolts recording scoops but not to be had unfortunately...Interesting, but not a must read. Just starting Volume one of "The Autobiography of Mark Twain". Gonna be a massive undertaking, it's a big ass book. But he's one of the greats and I'm looking forward to getting into it.It looks like about 50% of it is footnotes and dictation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members nat whilk II Posted April 12, 2014 Members Share Posted April 12, 2014 Personally I think the Twain canon would have been better off without that autobiography. Hope you've read the really good ones of his already. He's the original American standup comedian seems to me. Maybe there were others, but he established the archetype. nat whilk ii Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members philboking Posted April 14, 2014 Members Share Posted April 14, 2014 Recently: A 1950's era Clifford Simak SciFi I found at a used book store. Regular Magazines: Guitar Player / Electronic Musician / National Geographic / Microwave Journal / Photonics Spectra / NASA Tech Briefs (the last 3 are day-job related; that last one, as you might have suspected, confirms that techno-weenies like me have 'special' underwear ;-) ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Ernest Buckley Posted April 14, 2014 Members Share Posted April 14, 2014 I`m reading all the spam on this site and shaking my head. The guys at HC can make believe they`re making this place better with their new graphics and colors but the truth is, the site is seriously lacking in security. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moderators Lee Knight Posted April 14, 2014 Author Moderators Share Posted April 14, 2014 Having just spent time in Edinburgh I picked up Ian Rankin's new crime novel Standing in Another Man's Grave yesterday. Good trad crime writing with a unique hero in crusty old John Rebus. Rankin apparently has a very successful series in the UK staring Rebus. I like it. To hear mention of all the streets and pubs and ghost lore and highways north to the Highlands where the bodies are buried off the A9 on logging roads.... It's great to go back in my mind. I drove the A9 for 2 weeks. But you know you're getting old when the crusty old guy hero protagonist is making references to Rory Gallagher and Led Zeppelin. Jimmy Page jokes?!?! Cool. Great stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.