Topic: Reader's Nook

[goldshirt*9]

Without internet,

I read every day and ignore the internet

George Elliot and similar of the era dragged the novels out, Have tried to read "period" books but Nope nor for me.
On book 18 of Cato & Macro (eagles of the empire series) and have decided to move away from this style of books, need a change

[goldshirt*9]

I am finally at the end of "Eagles of the Empire" 22 book series. Have enjoyed but need a change.

[6pairsofshoes]

I was recently stuck without internet for a couple of weeks so got in a bunch of reading.
Emile Zola:  The Belly of Paris (plot summary:  people are assholes);  The Happiness of Women (young girl from a small town has to fend for self and two younger brothers in the big city by working at a big dept store).  Both well worth reading.  They deal, respectively, with Les Halles, the Second Empire covered market that facilitated food distribution for Paris, and a large department store (grand magasin) modeled after Le Bon Marché.

Friedrich Durrenmatt; The Judge and his Hangman.  Probably best as a movie script.  I found it kind of lacking as a noir detective novel. 

Tim Powers:  Dinner at Deviant's Palace.  Recommended by a friend and a winner of the Philip K. richard prize.  It has faint reminiscences of richard's shifting reality and deals with a cult manipulated by an alien, but I prefer the darker perspective of PKD's fiction.  It was ok for a quick scifi novel.

Jonathan Karl:  Betrayal:  the last act of the Trump show.  More engaging insights into the megalomaniacal former President's inability to believe he lost the last election and his crew of enablers.  It's readable and depressing.  If Trump wins another time, I may be joining you guys across the pond.

The only Vonegut novel I read was pretty depressing.  Slaughterhouse Five.  I wasn't inspired to read anything else by him.  I just checked the plot of Harrison Bergeron and wasn't tempted.  It sounds like a downer.  He was amusing in the film, "Back to School," featuring Rodney Dangerfield and with an appearance by Oingo Boingo.

[goldshirt*9]

Dont you just hate when you have this book you have read a while ago and want to re read BUT cannot remember its titile

Believe a Russian author, detective goes into looking for murderers but he has to "plug/drug" himself to go into a mental/mind world to catch the killers.
I suppose a matrix/mnemonic style film but definitely older than either
Someone recommended on the Dem. 

[6pairsofshoes]

I assume it was a sci fi book?  I tried googling but not successfully, but I did find this search that might be useful for you:
https://www.goodreads.com/group/show/185-what-s-the-name-of-that-book

[goldshirt*9]

yeo sci-fi, The thing is I have the book in calibre but cannot remember the cover so it makes
my searching for it worse 

[goldshirt*9]

Read a few of  Ted Chiang
The tower of Babylon  enjoyed a lot
Arrival (Stories of your life and others)  more of a so so
May have won awards but I have read that's it.

[6pairsofshoes]

Wading through the Southern Reach Trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer.  I picked up the first, Annihilation, and it seemed familiar as I'd seen the movie with Natalie Portman.  The book is richer and better.  It's so slow to develop and not so much of a horror show as a contemplation of what alien life might be life if it showed up, or not.  The second and third are equally good but strange.  Each focuses on one of three primary characters whose stories interweave.  I'm nearly finished and still don't quite know what's going on and neither do the characters.  There are transformations, illnesses and deaths, but nothing is consistent enough to pin a simple cause on anything.  I'm hoping that by the end I'll have obtained a firmer grasp on things.

There's gorgeous descriptions of animals and the surrounding nature of a coastal ecosystem and of ruined human structures.  Sadness and nostalgia permeate this book and they add to the generally rich writing.  So it's not the average science fiction novel series.

goldie, I saw the movie Arrival and it was decent.  Haven't read any of Chiang's works.  Sounds like he mostly writes short stories but good ones.

[goldshirt*9]

On the 11th book from R.E.Feist trying to read in date wrote. Read the Riftwar and Empire (make a great TV series ) to death but decided to give them all a chance
Finding them gripping TBH and not too taxing

[goldshirt*9]

On the 11th book from R.E.Feist trying to read in date wrote. Read the Riftwar and Empire (make a great TV series ) to death but decided to give them all a chance
Finding them gripping TBH and not too taxing

Still plodding along

[8ullfrog]

One funny thing, I've been wondering for years why my book collection stopped working. I used to use microsoft reader which mostly ignored format differences, but microsoft axed it well before 10, so my book library was essentially in heiroglyphs.

The day before we got internet I noticed that a local store had an open wifi connection, and to my shame, I used their wifi to download calibre.

To mask the download I looked up a bunch of tools I have no intention of buying, and honestly, yikes. Lot of one stars. I thought Harbor Freight had the bad rep as hazard fraught, but I won't be buying my driver bits from local hardware megastore.

Also, I spend way too much time at local hardware megastore. Their prices are not competitive, but I'm SOL on a lot of this. For instance, to dispose of green garbage in our area, you have to buy disposal bags from local hardware megastore.

Also my dog got back there today and I'm not happy about it. I'd honestly be happier if he'd run into the store than the parking lot.

Also, I read Bruce Campbell's If Chins could Kill.

Fantastic book that clearly illustrates it's not an act, it's a PERFORMANCE.

Sadly, it's an older title, I'd love a similar warts and all analysis of his time on Burn Notice.

I rate the book... Groovy.

[6pairsofshoes]

I'm reading Germinal by Emil Zola.  Horrendous living conditions of coal miners under 2nd Empire France.  Whole families are reduced to the level of beasts and trapped in a relentless cycle of poverty as they opt to go into the mines.  There's terrible unemployment, so often this is the best job you can find.  Eventually, the miners get fed up and go on strike.  But the organizers of the strike have a variety of ideas about the relations of labor and capital.  Some of the owners live in a bubble and have no idea of the actual living conditions, so they think the miners are super greedy and unreasonable.  The striking miners adopt a mob mentality, and, of course, hurt the one owner who is a real mensch.  If this ends the way many of the other books by this author end, the capitalists will crush the workers with the wheels of industry.  This is one of those books I picked up due to insomnia.

Best accompanied by Heaven 17's "Work."

[goldshirt*9]

I'm reading Germinal by Emil Zola.  Horrendous living conditions of coal miners under 2nd Empire France.  Whole families are reduced to the level of beasts and trapped in a relentless cycle of poverty as they opt to go into the mines.  There's terrible unemployment, so often this is the best job you can find.  Eventually, the miners get fed up and go on strike.  But the organizers of the strike have a variety of ideas about the relations of labor and capital.  Some of the owners live in a bubble and have no idea of the actual living conditions, so they think the miners are super greedy and unreasonable.  The striking miners adopt a mob mentality, and, of course, hurt the one owner who is a real mensch.  If this ends the way many of the other books by this author end, the capitalists will crush the workers with the wheels of industry.  This is one of those books I picked up due to insomnia.

Best accompanied by Heaven 17's "Work."

Wasn't that how the French peasantry were always kept ?
Possibly it is the reason why they "protest" today is due to this treatment ?