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The BOOK Thread

The Rabbit Hole

Hugh Tube?
Y’know, click this, that, And hours have passed.

Books do this to me.
“Leave me alone!” I’m reading!
Some books.

Some of you may have similar experiences.

Edit, right now I am reading “Blowout” by Rachel Maddow. Some would say non fiction. Current neverless. Fascinating. I can put it down though. See? I am BARFing right now.
 
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I just finished "Blowout" by Rachel Maddow, about the gas and oil industry.

Fascinating. I have never seen her show so I do not know her views as a pundit, but the book seemed factual.

Rex Tillerson is a piece of work.
Good read.
 
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one of my favorite westerns, True Grit ...

Charles Portis, Elusive Author of ‘True Grit,’ Dies at 86
“The publicity-shy Mr. Portis earned a modest but devoted readership and accolades as America’s “least-known great writer.””
NYT.com, 02/17/2020

The narrative voice of “True Grit” is that of a self-assured old woman, Mattie Ross, as she recalls an adventure she had in Arkansas’s Indian Territory when she was 14, on a quest to track down her father’s killer with Cogburn’s help.

Mr. Portis wanted her to sound determined to “get the story right,” he said in an interview for this obituary in 2012. The book has virtually no contractions, and the language is insistently old-fashioned.

One of Mattie’s first impressions of Cogburn, who patrols the territory out of Fort Smith, is harsh. She finds him in bed at 10 o’clock in the morning, fully clothed and hung over.

“The brindle cat Sterling Price was curled up on the foot of the bed,” she says. “Rooster coughed and spit on the floor and rolled a cigarette and lit it and coughed some more. He asked me to bring him some coffee and I got a cup and took the eureka pot from the stove and did this. As he drank, little brown drops of coffee clung to his mustache like dew. Men will live like billy goats if they are let alone.”
Click to expand...

godspeed, Mr Portis ... :rose
 
"Squeeze Me" . . . Carl Hiaasen

National politics distilled into a Florida golf resort with snide commentary about big money, feckless widows with big money, twat waffle heirs, people trying to do the right thing, idiot politicians, people doing the wrong things for the wrong reasons and big, big snakes.

Give a python a hit of acid and set it loose at a political fundraiser in Floriduh. Hiaasen delivers with a big WTF.
 
I like Carl Hiaasen for a quick humorous green read. I just finished Flush one of several that features kids as protagonist. I probably just have good reason to appreciate juvenile delinquents.

“ The Prince of Risk” by Christopher Reich.
Read some of his books and I like the $/ Wall Street angle. Found The “Prince of Risk” to be very timely in a commie china rule the world way. I’m optimistic that it’s a 3 initial intelligence agency exercise possibility.
Not sure if this qualifies as an achievement other than letting my mind wander.
 
I've read a few Hiaasen books and always enjoy them. Razor Girl was the last one I read, will have to pick up the new one.

I just finished Utopia Avenue by David Mitchell, which takes place in the swingin' 60s london and follows a band on their way to stardom. Being David Mitchell it's not a completely straight forward story, but I really enjoyed it and it reminded me of "Hall of Mirrors", a great biography of Jimi Hendrix. I would love to teleport back to London in those days.

The band makes a trip to SF and LA and a bunch of musicians from back in the day make (fictitious) appearances.
 
William Gibson has written bunches of good stuff.

For some reason, Johnny Mnemonic came to mind...
It’s a moooovie too. IMDB plot summary:

In 2021, the whole world is connected by the gigantic Internet, and almost a half of the population is suffering from the Nerve Attenuation Syndrome (NAS).Johnny with an inplanted memory chip in his brain was ordered to transport the over loaded information from Beijing to Newark. While Pharmakom Industries supported by yakuza tries to capture him to get the informaiton back, the Low-tech group led by J-Bone tries to break the missing code to download the cure of NAS which Johnny carries.
 
I’m reading “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan.

Whoa.
It is changing my mind. It is about psychedelic drugs and how they work in the brain. It seems to explain a lot about how people think.
 
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The trips are in a scientific setting with controlled set and setting and very high doses. No bad trips.
 
Probably an improvement over the Veterans Administration’s Menlo Park experiments. Not that Ken Kesey ever complained!:loco
 
Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters are noted in Pollan’s book.
Thanks for mentioning Norm McDonald, I am not familiar with his work. Funny stuff. And we just lost him last month. RIP.
 
I just finished "That Near-Death Thing" about the Isle of Man TT.

Fascinating. I think anyone who has raced motos would also enjoy. It is also full of Brit phrases which are confusing, and in a fun way.

I had to get side tracked on all sorts of Isle of Man stuff. Or Mann stuff. According to googlr maps there is a nighclub called "Isle of Woman"...

My rabbit hole documented
https://www.bayarearidersforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=552243
 
I’ve been reading the Travis McGee stories by John D McDonald. He’s like a not- private investigator, similar to Parker’s Spenser or Lee Childs Jack Reacher, usually recovering money. McDonald wrote the story that was the basis for Cape Fear, Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck are the better movie. I find his ‘70s attitudes and thinking different and fun.
Also been listening to some John Grisham. It’s interesting how the storytellers can influence the experience. I couldn’t continue with A Time to Kill finding the initial violent crime too difficult to hear and now I don’t even want to read it.
 
as recommended by Tyler-Dog Stars. Excellent reading, post apocalypse story that is thrilling.
 
I recently finished the entire series of The Expanse that I started earlier this year. Really struggling to find anything that's holding my attention afterwards.
 
Tyler have you tried Red Rising? The first few books are awesome then it gets repetitive. Same plot over and over.

Also if the fucker will ever finish it the Kingkiller Chronicles started out pretty good.

Also Brian Sanderson has a few good series if you haven't read them.
 
Sharxfan said:
Also if the fucker will ever finish it the Kingkiller Chronicles started out pretty good.
Click to expand...
I lost interest a while ago, though if he finished it, who knows?

The best fantasy series that nobody seems to talk about is The Seven Kennings by Kevin Hearne. Final book should be out next year. Starts with A Plague of Giants.

Middlegame by Seanan McGuire is the start of a great series. 2nd book is Seasonal Fears. Don't know if there will be more.

There are more school of magic books than I can count, but Naomi Novik's Schoolomance series is unique, the best of them that I've seen. Starts with A Deadly Education.
 
picked up a hardcover The Hobbit with 1st edition cover at Blackwell books in Oxford. They had a nice collection of Tolkein books there.

some of you bookish people may be interested to see the actual door that inspired Lewis's Lion, Witch a nd Wardrobe and Chronicles of Narnia. It's also in Oxford, where he and Tolkein were friends and fellow professors:
 

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I'm plowing my way through the John Sandford 'Prey' novels.

Sandford is an ex-crime beat newspaper reporter so his characters and plot lines are gritty enough to make you squirm but you continue reading because the bad guys come to really bad ends.

As a bonus he skewers politicians, administrators, slackers and enablers.
 
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