What have you read lately?

[ab_grp]

I had a kind of funny book-related moment with my husband yesterday.  I mentioned here earlier that I had listened to a really fascinating book about one of the moon missions, a book with the main title of Rocket Men.  My husband said he also had it in his Audible library (we have not figured out how to merge them yet), and I was so enthralled about it that he decided to finally give it a listen.  I've been asking him where he is in the book, and he's been talking about a bunch of stuff that I didn't really recall, but I had listened to several of the early chapters months or a year ago and hadn't really gotten into the material at the time.  It was mostly about the astronauts' backgrounds and training.  The mission itself was much more of a page-turner (or whatever you would call it in audio book terms). 

So he had made a lot more progress yesterday, and I asked what was going on.  He said that there was some issue, that the astronauts were possibly going to come in too hard for a landing.  How are they already landing? He's got several hours of the book left! Maybe he's talking about a test flight.  Where are they landing? The moon, he says! I told him that they are not going to land on the moon.  That's not the mission.  He had mentioned Shepard and Armstrong, but I thought maybe they had been mentioned tangentially, and he had also mentioned Borman, one of the astronauts in my book.  I thought maybe I was misremembering, and they did talk about the Apollo 11 moon landing mission and other missions at some point.  But I asked what happened with the Apollo 8 flight? He said it had come and gone, was already over at this point in the book.  I said that mission is the entirety of the book! He had something like 7 hours left to listen and asked if i had listened to an abridged version, or maybe they would talk about it more later in the book?  We stared at each other quizzically for a moment.  I finally looked in his Audible library, and he was listening to a totally different book with the same main title, also about an Apollo mission, but a completely different one.

Anyway I highly recommend the book I "read", Rocket Men: The Daring Odyssey of Apollo 8 and the Astronauts Who Made Man's First Journey to the Moon by Robert Kurson, narrated by Ray Porter.  I will update later if my husband recommends Rocket Men: The Epic Story of the First Men on the Moon by Craig Nelson, narrated by Richard McGonagle.  We may be chuckling about this for a bit.  I have a notoriously poor memory for details of most movies, shows, and books, but as it turns out it's not my fault that I couldn't remember the details he was talking about in this case.

[ab_grp]

We moved back to the Expanse series with Nemesis Games.  Thankfully, the most familiar characters from previous books have already arrived on the scene.  It's hard to get into some of these books without a foothold when there are too many characters. 

Finished this one last night.  Not a bad read, and the various journeys of the crew were interesting along with their backstories, but I'm not sure how much the overall story moved forward.  Certainly, some major events occurred, but by the end there wasn't a lot of explanation of implications.  The epilogue did give some additional hints about what would be coming up, and it sounds like things will be blowing up shortly.  I guess I also felt as though there were come fairly unbelievable (but convenient to the plot) occurrences, even for a book of this nature, and that dampened my enthusiasm a bit.  Still looking forward to the other books in the series, though.

Now we are reading Malorie (Malerman), the sequel to Bird Box.  It's nice to switch genres.  I thought he pulled off the first book pretty well and am hoping that continues with this one.  I think I probably mentioned before that there are some interesting parallels with covid, masking/vaxxing, etc., especially with the difference in perspectives between those who lived before whatever the heck is going on and those who were born during it and have only existed in the current circumstances.

[hmaria1609]

Started: The Untold Story by Genevieve Cogman
New and #8 installment in the "Invisible Library" series.  The author writes in her acknowledgements that she'll be taking a break from the series and has a new trilogy she's writing. 

Here's her blog post: http://www.grcogman.com/2021/12/the-untold-story-released/

I've enjoyed each installment as it came out so it's been an adventure with the Librarian gang!  :)

[apl68]

It's hard to find folks who engage with the difficulties while neither selling the significance of faith down the river, nor using it as a magic crutch to resolve the issues superficially, or failing to address the emotional depths they may go to.

Rumer Godden's In This House of Brede and Mark Salzmann's Lying Awake (reviewed above) are among those rare exceptions.  They both deal with the sisters in a convent environment.  Wonderful books.  If you're in the mood for a big read about a large cast, In This House of Brede is a good choice.  If you want a shorter read focused mainly on its protagonist, but still with a lot of spiritual meat in it, Lying Awake is your book.

May I take this opportunity to recommend a not very well known British author, Penelope Wilcock, who writes (in my opinion) fairly substantial Christian fiction? The Hawk and the Dove and ensuing series, published over several decades, is largely set in a medieval monastery (early volumes also intersperse a modern frame narrative), and tackles a lot of issues of faith and Christian practice head-on.

AR.

I sought out The Hawk and the Dove on your recommendation, and read it Sunday afternoon.  It billed itself as an historical novel, but was more like a devotional book told in anecdotal form.  Not what I was expecting.  However, as a devotional work it gave lots of good food for thought.  It made for a pleasant afternoon's reading and introspection.  Thank you for the recommendation!

[AvidReader]

I sought out The Hawk and the Dove on your recommendation, and read it Sunday afternoon.  It billed itself as an historical novel, but was more like a devotional book told in anecdotal form.  Not what I was expecting.  However, as a devotional work it gave lots of good food for thought.  It made for a pleasant afternoon's reading and introspection.  Thank you for the recommendation!

I am glad you found it thought-provoking, and sorry if I (or the description) mis-sold its genre!

AR.

[Parasaurolophus]

January:

John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up: It's a weird mashup that didn't quite work for me. Partly, it's just so clearly rooted in the 1960s and '70s (e.g. simmering racial tensions, cults and hippies, etc.), and thus out of touch with today. It's also that the vision of environmental collapse is too near in the book's future, so it doesn't really make sense (the book is from '72, it's set in the '80s). I do know about how bad things were getting before the EPA and the Clean Air Act, but even so, it just doesn't work for me, especially in light of today's climate crisis. And there were just way too many shifts of perspective and artistic interludes for my taste: it was a real try-hard novel, and that never works. But I'm glad I read it. I've been meaning to for years.

Darren Naish - Dinopedia: A Brief Compendium of Dinosaur Lore: Aesthetically, this is just a gorgeous book, and surprisingly well-priced to boot. I read it from A to Z, and it was a great, exciting, and informative read. Those of you who know the Tetzoo blog will know that Naish is a very engaging writer, and he does a great job here of giving us both historical perspective and the current technical state-of-the-art. And I quite enjoy his editorial asides, too. It's a great use of twenty bucks. Plus, all the illustrations are his (though they're not quite as exciting as All Yesterdays'!).

[sinenomine]

I'm working my way through the collected (adult) short stories by Ronald Dahl — some I read as a teenager, and others are new to me. A nice reading break to look forward to every evening.

[Morden]

Claire North The Gameshouse. I enjoyed her earlier work  The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August--which tells the tale of a man who lives the same life over and over (retaining his memories each time). Gameshouse posits a world where lower level players gamble on regular games, and higher level players play with people and governments as pieces. It's set up as three linked novellas. The first two were intriguing, but the last one didn't hold together very well.

[paultuttle]

Louis L'Amour's Fallon--one of my favorite Westerns.

[smallcleanrat]

Does anyone have recommendations for escapist reading?

I've cycled through my favorites so much I think they need to lie fallow for a while to become effective again.

I really need a way to be mentally someplace else for a while.

[FishProf]

I really need a way to be mentally someplace else for a while.

Life of Pi is really out there. 

[Parasaurolophus]

Does anyone have recommendations for escapist reading?

What kind of stuff do you like to read?

[smallcleanrat]

Does anyone have recommendations for escapist reading?

What kind of stuff do you like to read?

Open to any suggestions; willing to try a genre I haven't explored much

What I choose for escapist reading:

SF or Game of Thrones-style sword and sorcery

Weirdness/Oddities/Curiosities:
Nonfiction books of the 'surprising facts' or 'strange but true' type (can be on any subject really)
Short stories that take an unusual premise and run with it

Children's literature of the classic/wholesome variety

When I want escapism, for some reason I either want to be comforted or amazed and weirded out.

[ergative]

Does anyone have recommendations for escapist reading?

What kind of stuff do you like to read?

Open to any suggestions; willing to try a genre I haven't explored much

What I choose for escapist reading:

SF or Game of Thrones-style sword and sorcery

Weirdness/Oddities/Curiosities:
Nonfiction books of the 'surprising facts' or 'strange but true' type (can be on any subject really)
Short stories that take an unusual premise and run with it

Children's literature of the classic/wholesome variety

When I want escapism, for some reason I either want to be comforted or amazed and weirded out.

SF or GoT style swords and sorcery: If you want massive enormous tomes, try Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archives (currently four books into the first planned five-book series, publishing regularly, each is over 1000 pages; start with The Way of Kings). Or his Mistborn trilogy (Mistborn, The Well of Ascension, The Hero of Ages), which is complete, and--although not as good as Stormlight, in my view--it's brilliantly constructed, and things pay off wonderfully in the third book.

I also really like Kate Elliott's fantasy series, especially her Spirit Walker trilogy (Cold Magic, Cold Fire, Cold Steel) and Crossroads trilogy (Spirit Gate, Shadow Gate, Traitors' Gate). I think Crossroads is deeper, but more difficult (i.e., engaging realistically with problems of politics and society in the fantasy world), while Spirit Walker is more fun.

Julie Czerneda does some really imaginative SF work. I quite enjoyed her Species Imperative trilogy (Survival, Migration, Regeneration) and I think her Web Shifters trilogy is just superb (Beholder's Eye, Changing Vision, Hidden in Sight).

Kameron Hurley's work is really gooey and gross, but lots of fun. For a standalone, try The Stars are Legion, or for the start of a trilogy that stands perfectly well by itself, try God's War. I cannot emphasize enough that both are extremely gross, but in a cool imaginative way.

Fonda Lee's Green Bone Saga (Jade War, Jade City, Jade Legacy) was outstanding: think The Godfather crossed with Bruce Lee, set in a secondary world fantasy that recapitulates the history of the second half of the 20th century. Wonderful politics and society commentary.

Nonfiction weird books: Well, my recommendations are all about poison, in one form or another. To start, there's Eleanor Hermon's The Royal Art of Poison, about the history of poison in ye olden dayes, and also some case studies of purported incidents of poisoning, complete with a summary of what the contemporary people thought happened and a discussion of what modern people think happened. Deborah Blum has some great books about the history of food safety, The Poison Squad; and the The Poisoner's Handbook, about the history of forensic science in New York during the 1920s. I also really enjoyed Lindsey Fitzharris's The Butchering Art, about the development of antiseptics in surgery. Lots of gross details. Read for the anecdote about the amputation that had a 300% mortality rate. (Yes, not a typo).

[FishProf]

I just finished Malcolm Gladwell's Talking to Strangers.  He made very interesting arguments.

I am usually agnostic on format, but I recommend the audio book (read by the author) for the audio recording of the events in question, the music, and (when need) the reenactments.

to smallcleanrat:  if you like GoT, try the Joe Abercrombie books  (First Law Trilogy – The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged and Last Argument of Kings).  Very gritty, magic is real but complicated, and the characters are fantastic.