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Dan
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I tend to gravitate toward fiction in my reading; I get enough serious content at work so I usually don’t seek more out. That said, if you have some more serious works that I should check out, please share!

1. The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives series): this is a reread for me, but I’m a creature if habit so whatever. Probably my favorite modern fantasy series. It has an alien setting and doesn’t spoon feed the reader, which I appreciate. 3 books complete with the 4th scheduled this year. Sanderson is a writing machine so this shouldn’t turn into another GoT...

2. The Republic of Thieves: this book is a disappointment. It’s the third in a series that has done nothing but decline in quality. You should read The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is great, and then forget the series continued. Honestly don’t know if I will finish this.

3. Morning Star: the third book in the Red Rising trilogy. Another dystopian series about class warfare in the distant future, but this one is actually good! Or at least comparatively good. Pretty on the nose, but I don’t regret finishing. 3.5/5 stars.

 

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I read the RR trilogy.  I agree with your 3.5 stars.  It was entertaining and different.

I'm currently reading Neal Stephenson's The Cryptonomicon.  I've actually been reading it for quite a while.  I like it a lot but it's not a page turner like Seven Eves was but definitely a faster read than Anathem.

After this I may pick up some of my really hard to read paper back books like Le Morte d'Arthur (super old English...or I should say ye Olde English), but I'm sure I'll put them down before finishing them and maybe pick up Ernie Cline's latest.

 

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I'm reading almost nothing but Cormac McCarthy lately. I read All the Pretty Horses for at least the third time, 2/3 through The Crossing, and then Cities of the Plain again. I can pick up The Road and read random passages at any time because I've ready it so many times. I felt chilled and disoriented for weeks after finishing Blood Meridian. I picked up a copy of Child of God the other day but I have not read it yet. Supposedly he's working on a sci-fi book these days, but it's taken years to complete. hopefully he finishes it before America's best prophet of doom dies!

Good stuff to dwell upon during this time to remind us of how fragile and weak we are!

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A Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed AmericaHeard an interview with the author on NPR and immediately became interested. Book had sat for months with the others I haven't gotten to yet but, in light of current events it seems pretty relevant and worth getting back into. 

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Are these like... Printed paper books and magazines?

Some. Others are digital copies. However, none are regional special interest magazines distributed through local bike shops (which aren’t even allowing customers inside). Ya’ know like... if that’s what you might have been hinting at.
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10 hours ago, notyal said:


Some. Others are digital copies. However, none are regional special interest magazines distributed through local bike shops (which aren’t even allowing customers inside). Ya’ know like... if that’s what you might have been hinting at.

You know it. And you remembered... Even in detail. How's that for marketing.

"However, none are regional special interest magazines distributed through local bike shops (which aren’t even allowing customers inside)."

Yeh... But that's because it hasn't been printed as yet. And FYI... USPS is stil going... For now at least.

That cleared up... Should these bike shops just close up the brick and mortar? But this is a question for another thread.

Okay, humor break over... Back to hitting the books.

Edited by RidingAgain
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  • 5 weeks later...
On 4/6/2020 at 6:52 PM, Dan said:

I tend to gravitate toward fiction in my reading; I get enough serious content at work so I usually don’t seek more out. That said, if you have some more serious works that I should check out, please share!

1. The Way of Kings (Stormlight Archives series): this is a reread for me, but I’m a creature if habit so whatever. Probably my favorite modern fantasy series. It has an alien setting and doesn’t spoon feed the reader, which I appreciate. 3 books complete with the 4th scheduled this year. Sanderson is a writing machine so this shouldn’t turn into another GoT...

2. The Republic of Thieves: this book is a disappointment. It’s the third in a series that has done nothing but decline in quality. You should read The Lies of Locke Lamora, which is great, and then forget the series continued. Honestly don’t know if I will finish this.

3. Morning Star: the third book in the Red Rising trilogy. Another dystopian series about class warfare in the distant future, but this one is actually good! Or at least comparatively good. Pretty on the nose, but I don’t regret finishing. 3.5/5 stars.

 

Stormlight Archives is a fantastic series. I probably need to reread those. I'm actually looking for a new fantasy series so if you have any recs you been through recently...

Lately for me I've been reading some Peter Zeihan. He has a few books on geopolitics(not normal politics that we all hate) that are very interesting. Accidental Superpower, Absent Superpower, and Disunited Nations. He talks about how America's geography was instrumental in the US becoming a superpower, the shale revolution and energy independence, the US withdrawal from being global police, etc. I'm normally not a fan of these types of books but all three were pretty darn good.

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I read a bunch of non fiction- in the last 2 years non work related reading.  

Politics

Higher Loyalty, Facts and Fears, Audacity of Hope, Kushner Inc, Fire and Fury

Biographies

Becoming Michelle Obama

In Her Own Words RGB* current selection 

Daily Podcasts

New York Times 

Car trip Books (Both Barry and I agree on these) 

From Bacteria to Back

Freakonomics

Malcolm Gladwell : anything 

Fiction:

Tom Robbins

Wally Lamb

Paulo Coelho 

 

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18 hours ago, quixoft said:

Stormlight Archives is a fantastic series. I probably need to reread those. I'm actually looking for a new fantasy series so if you have any recs you been through recently...

The last series I completed was Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. I enjoyed it, but I could see it not being for everyone. It’s long, lots of characters, and provides little exposition. It also borders on “grimdark” at times, which isn’t really my thing. It had interesting characters and world building that kept me reading. It’s a completed series of 10 books that are each about 1000 pages.

I just finished the first book in the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s pretty much the opposite of Malazan. I saw it described as YA fantasy, but to me it seems more like classic, “Tolkein-ish” Fantasy, which makes sense because it was published in the 60s. The first book was only about 200 pages so it’s a quick read. I just purchased the second.

2 very different  series different, but both good!

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6 hours ago, Dan said:

I just finished the first book in the Earthsea series by Ursula K. Le Guin. It’s pretty much the opposite of Malazan. I saw it described as YA fantasy, but to me it seems more like classic, “Tolkein-ish” Fantasy, which makes sense because it was published in the 60s. The first book was only about 200 pages so it’s a quick read. I just purchased the second.

 

I bought a few of her books for my kids after she died but they had zero interest.  I need to reclaim them so I can read them!

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  • 3 months later...

just finished "Say Nothing: A True Story of Murder and Memory in Northern Ireland" by Patrick Keefe. It's a painstakingly researched chronicle of the lives of several Northern Irish Republicans (those who want separation from England) who were drawn into terrorism and murder as the conflict escalated. The author is a journalist who interview hundreds of individuals over the years to get these stories straight, but so much still remains a mystery.

the chilling part of the story is how banal it is, including in our time. people who have reasonable requests for fairness and justice are ignored and maligned when they persist with peaceful means to their ends, and then resort to increasingly drastic and violent actions. as JFK put it, "Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." some of the characters are peacefully marching and taking beatings from loyalists in the streets of Derry in the 1960s at the beginning of the story. a decade later, they are bombing cities and "disappearing" their neighbors. there was a "peace deal" that made Bill Clinton very popular among some Irish, but there was never enough of a "truth and reconciliation commission" type of program like in South Africa. its' still a very raw topic there, as I discovered on my last two trips to the Emerald Isle. 

Edited by mack_turtle
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  • 9 months later...

A couple of Texas authors: 

Rick Riordan has a handful of detective/private eye books set in San Antonio.  
Joe R. Lansdale has written a shit-ton of books in many genres with some great names (Honky Tonk Samarai, Bad Chili, The Two-Bear Mambo, Mucho Mojo)…

Edited by hurronnicane
Misspelling
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  • 1 month later...

Picked this one up from my neighbors. Over casual conversation I discovered they were school teachers in Washington and actually knew Lanegan and taught one of the Conner brothers. As a trees fan my mind was instantly blown.  This book does a great job capturing life in the Seattle scene without being cliche. It also makes you really, really glad you never became a junkie. Fuck me.

 

51JY-iRqn9L._SX338_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

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Sprinting Through No Man's Land by Adin Dobkin, about the 1919 Tour de France, the first after WWI.  This is the era when they rode 370km per day and just started adding mountain stages.  Guys that served in WWI and had not trained (though several had ridden bikes in the service) and just went and started doing this ride.  It's a good read.

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  • 2 months later...

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