What Fiction are you reading this week, August 19, 2018?

[hermetic]

Some books feel like a really long climb

Origin by Dan Brown, for example. I got the audio version through my digital library and listened as often as I could but at 2 weeks end I still had a couple hundred pages left and I had to turn it in because someone else wanted it. So, I went to the library and got the actual book. Now I'm trying to get through those last pages because I really do want to find out what it's all about. One thing I found to be better about the physical book is that you can see the symbols which play a part in this story.

I am listening to Furiously Happy by Jenny Lawson. It's not fiction but it is hysterically funny, in parts, and it was the only thing on my list that was available at the digital audio library right now. I still do not understand why only one person at a time can hear a digital book. Imagine if only one person at a time could listen to a podcast. SMH.

What books are you climbing through this week?

[lisa58]

1. Giuliani's BS....

Sorry- couldn’t resist...

[Runningdawg]

2. Horns by Joe Hill

Yes, I know its old and I never saw the movie. I would have missed it entirely if it hadn't shown up on a summer reading list that was generated by my library after taking a quiz. The list has been 50/50 so far, but this one seems entertaining at the least.

[hermetic]

5. Not that old...

2010? It does sound like fun. Ignatius Perrish spent the night drunk and doing terrible things. He woke up the next morning with a thunderous hangover, a raging headache...and a pair of horns growing from his temples.

At first he thought the horns were a hallucination, the product of a mind damaged by rage and grief. But there was nothing natural about the horns, which were all too real.

[PoorMonger]

21. I love Hill.

Horns is my second favorite of his. NOS4A2 is tops on my list.

Netflix is adapting his graphic novel series Locke & Key into a show.

[TexasProgresive]

3. "The Crossing" by Michael Connelly

It is so good. In other novels Connelly would make mention of the tension between the half-brothers, LAPD detective Harry Bosch and defense attorney Michael Haller. I never really thought about it, but it makes sense that the cops would view defense lawyers as the enemy. This book like every Connelly novel I've read is excellent, great characters, plots and twists and themes.

I've noticed that some of the best I've read will have a running sub line or plots of the personal lives of the characters. That makes it more real to me.

[hermetic]

6. That does sound

like a good one. Looks like Bosch is about to run into some problems with the LAPD.

[Docreed2003]

10. I'm about to start that one...

Love the Bosch and Lincoln Lawyer books by Connelly.

[dhill926]

11. fantastic book....

his writing is so tight. Started reading his books when we moved to LA 12 years ago. A great way to get to know the city. That and watching the daily car chases... Just started his "The Late Show." New main character....

[TexasProgresive]

28. That one was good too

I hope he continues a series with Renee Ballard. Connelly seems to do a good job writing strong women characters.

[dweller]

4. more Martin Cruz-Smith

finished Stallions Gate
dropped into Havana Bay

enjoying the series again

✌🏼️

[hermetic]

7. Oh, the author

of Gorky Park. There's a classic.

Those sound really good, too. Will have to give a look. Thanks.

[dweller]

8. if you're a newbie

start early as you can find and work your way through...
it's a remarkable series, I'm rereading for the "Russian perspective" of the investigator in search of truth while the USSR crumbles, sorta...

✌🏼️

[dameatball]

9. about half way through "Sacre Bleu" by Christopher Moore.

This is the fifth novel by Moore that I have read. The characters are very interesting, but it is a bit hard to follow. Not in my top three at this point.

[hermetic]

12. Okay

Thanks for sharing your opinion. I just got Lamb in the mail. I know that's gonna be a winner.

[dameatball]

15. "Lamb" is my favorite so far. "Noir" a close second.

[dameatball]

18. I may have to re-evaluate. From approximnately page 150 - 225, things start coming together.

[hermetic]

19. Oh good

Glad to hear that.

[sinkingfeeling]

13. Still reading "The President Is Missing". I'm more than half way through it, but haven't read a

single page in the last 8 days. I don't read every day and it can take me a month to find the time to finish a book.

So far, I think the book is very, contemporary and has an interesting (and very possible) plot line.

[hermetic]

17. I know how that can be

I'm on the waiting list for that one at the library.

[Bayard]

14. An old Jonathan Kellerman

"Bad Love".

[hermetic]

16. Oooh, creepy

It came in a plain brown wrapper, no return address - a tape recording of a horrifying, soul-lacerating scream, followed by the sound of a childlike voice delivering the enigmatic and haunting message:

'Bad love. Bad love. Don't give me the bad love...'

For child psychologist Dr Alex Delaware, the chant, repeated over and over like a twisted nursery rhyme, is the first intimation that he is about to enter a living nightmare. Others soon follow: disquieting laughter echoing over a phone line that suddenly goes dead, a chilling trespass outside his home, a sickening act of vandalism. A carefully orchestrated campaign of vague threats and intimidation rapidly builds to a crescendo as harassment turns to terror, mischief to madness. -- 1994

[Number9Dream]

20. "Track of the Cat" by Nevada Barr

Thanks for the thread, hermetic. I decided to try the first book in this series due to a mention in a previous "What are you reading" thread, as well as a positive review of this book by Tony Hillerman. I enjoyed the book more than I thought I would. The natural setting was very appealing. I found the main character, Anna Pigeon, interesting due to her uniqueness. In addition to her unique job, she seems to be bisexual, or having been bisexual in her past, is at least bi-curious in this book. She is a widow, an atheist, and is kind to animals. It was a good mystery and had a satisfying ending. I'm already moving on to the second book.

[hermetic]

24. Hi!

This does sound like some good reading. I've always thought I should have done things differently and become a park ranger. I will give this series a look.

[PoorMonger]

22. Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel (Themis Files Vol. 3)

Pacific Rim meets The Martian in the explosive follow-up to Sleeping Giants (“One of the most promising series kickoffs in recent memory.”—NPR) and Waking Gods (“Pure, unadulterated literary escapism.”—Kirkus Reviews).

Brilliant scientist Rose Franklin has devoted her adult life to solving the mystery she accidentally stumbled upon as a child: a huge metal hand buried beneath the ground outside Deadwood, South Dakota. The discovery set in motion a cataclysmic chain of events with geopolitical ramifications. Rose and the Earth Defense Corps raced to master the enigmatic technology, as giant robots suddenly descended on Earth’s most populous cities, killing one hundred million people in the process. Though Rose and her team were able to fend off the attack, their victory was short-lived. The mysterious invaders retreated, disappearing from the shattered planet . . . but they took the scientist and her crew with them.

Now, after nearly ten years on another world, Rose returns to find a devastating new war—this time between humans. America and Russia are locked in combat, fighting to fill the power vacuum left behind after the invasion. Families are torn apart, friends become bitter enemies, and countries collapse in the wake of the battling superpowers. It appears the aliens left behind their titanic death machines so humankind will obliterate itself. Rose is determined to find a solution, whatever it takes. But will she become a pawn in a doomsday game no one can win?

[PoorMonger]

23. Pops : Fatherhood in Pieces by Michael Chabon

“Magical prose stylist” Michael Chabon (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times) delivers a collection of essays—heartfelt, humorous, insightful, wise—on the meaning of fatherhood.

For the September 2016 issue of GQ, Michael Chabon wrote a piece about accompanying his son Abraham Chabon, then thirteen, to Paris Men’s Fashion Week. Possessed with a precocious sense of style, Abe was in his element chatting with designers he idolized and turning a critical eye to the freshest runway looks of the season; Chabon Sr., whose interest in clothing stops at “thrift-shopping for vintage western shirts or Hermès neckties,” sat idly by, staving off yawns and fighting the impulse that the whole thing was a massive waste of time. Despite his own indifference, however, what gradually emerged as Chabon ferried his son to and from fashion shows was a deep respect for his son’s passion. The piece quickly became a viral sensation.

With the GQ story as its centerpiece, and featuring six additional essays plus an introduction, Pops illuminates the meaning, magic, and mysteries of fatherhood as only Michael Chabon can.

[hermetic]

26. I do love

Chabon's writing so much.

[pscot]

25. Ring World by Larry Niven

This is better than I remember it being. I just finished Reaper Man by Sir Terry Pratchett and I'm starting Mort as well. I have Dead Girl Running by Christina Dodd on my night stand. Hmm. I'm seeing a theme here; Intimations of Mortality.

[hermetic]

27. Enjoy!

[PoorMonger]

29. Confessions of the Fox by Jordy Rosenberg

Jack Sheppard and Edgeworth Bess were the most notorious thieves, jailbreakers, and lovers of eighteenth-century London. Yet no one knows the true story; their confessions have never been found.

Until now. Reeling from heartbreak, a scholar named Dr. Voth discovers a long-lost manuscript—a gender-defying exposé of Jack and Bess’s adventures. Dated 1724, the book depicts a London underworld where scamps and rogues clash with the city’s newly established police force, queer subcultures thrive, and ominous threats of the Plague abound. Jack—a transgender carpenter’s apprentice—has fled his master’s house to become a legendary prison-break artist, and Bess has escaped the draining of the fenlands to become a revolutionary.

Is Confessions of the Fox an authentic autobiography or a hoax? Dr. Voth obsessively annotates the manuscript, desperate to find the answer. As he is drawn deeper into Jack and Bess’s tale of underworld resistance and gender transformation, it becomes clear that their fates are intertwined—and only a miracle will save them all.

Confessions of the Fox is, at once, a work of speculative historical fiction, a soaring love story, a puzzling mystery, an electrifying tale of adventure and suspense, and an unabashed celebration of sex and sexuality. Writing with the narrative mastery of Sarah Waters and the playful imagination of Nabokov, Jordy Rosenberg is an audacious storyteller of extraordinary talent.

[hermetic]

30. That sounds like fun!

Will have to look into that one. Thanks!

[PoorMonger]

31. Summerland by Hannu Rajaniemi

From Hannu Rajaniemi, one of the most exciting science fiction writers in the last decade, comes an awe-inspiring account of the afterlife and what happens when it spills over into the world of the living

Loss is a thing of the past. Murder is obsolete. Death is just the beginning.

In 1938, death is no longer feared but exploited. Since the discovery of the afterlife, the British Empire has extended its reach into Summerland, a metropolis for the recently deceased.

Yet Britain isn’t the only contender for power in this life and the next. The Soviets have spies in Summerland, and the technology to build their own god.

When SIS agent Rachel White gets a lead on one of the Soviet moles, blowing the whistle puts her hard-earned career at risk. The spy has friends in high places, and she will have to go rogue to bring him in.

But how do you catch a man who’s already dead?