What books are you reading right now?

I've been burning through Anne Bishop book series. I started with her latest, in the urban fantasy genre--but there are only 2 books written in the series, so far. So now I'm three books into her late 1990's 'Black Jewels' high fantasy series, which began as a trilogy. Bishop has a unique voice, an unconventional view of gender roles in the human and other animal kingdoms. I find her a very compelling writer. Most likely, I'll read everything she's written this summer.

 

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess. The book is a good read, and I found the 'new' introduction by Burgess written in Novemer of 1986 interesting; he titled it INTRODUCTION A Clockwork Orange Resucked.

Like many authors discussing their early works, he isn't happy with ACO. Burgess mentions that Kubrick's film was based on the American version of ACO, which excluded chapter seven of part three (chapter 21 so to say) in which Alex outgrows his violent behavior: "Briefly, my young thuggish protagonist grows up." The author accepted the change to ACO because he needed the money.

 

I just finished 1984, I'm thinking of starting Hearts in Atlantis by Stephen King. I got it as a gift from my mom a while ago and figured it was time I finally started reading it.

 

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace, and now Sex at Dawn by Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá

Sea at Dawn is really interesting, debunking the whole "life-long monogamy is natural among human" myth.

 

The Algebraist by Iain M.Banks.

I only read a few pages at a time because of its slow pace and setting but at this point it's like a warm blanket.

 

I recently finished two books. FWIW, I'm still working my way through TRAFOTTR.

Life of Pi, written by Yann Martel, with illustrations by Tomislav Torjanac. It's an interesting read, but I'm not sure who the intended audience is, young adults or adults in general. I still don't understand the delirium dream (or was it real?) segment with the Frenchman. It almost seems like an afterthought, or at the very least a place where the author stumbled a bit.

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The Gospel According To Pontious Pilate by James R. Mills. It is presented as a novel, but it's more of an interpretation of history by Mills. I won't pretend to understand the history of Israel, the Jewish religion and peoples, and the Roman Empire. I do know that Mills (keep in mind he writes as Pilate) is very critical of the Jews treatment of Christ. My research hasn't found any evidence that this book had much of an impact when it was published in 1977. I do know that it was first published by a small publisher in San Francisco, and very shortly thereafter published by Fleming H. Revell Co. in New Jersey.

Note--My copy is a HBDJ, with an inscription to Tom Condron, signed by Jim Mills. My research on Condron basically went no where; does anybody have any idea if Tom Condron was somebody important (perhaps in California politics)?

 

Mills was a California State Senator from the San Diego area in the seventies-- but I've never heard of Tom Condron. Doesn't mean anything, just that I haven't heard of him.

I picked up the book way back when I was in college-- never bothered to finish it because I thought it was so poorly executed. To the extent he seems to have used resources other than his own imagination, he seems to rely heavily on the writings of Church Fathers-- some of which are extremely problematic-- on medieval Christian homiletic tales, and on the history of Josephus, which he seems to have taken entirely uncritically. His use of Jewish resources seems...shall we say, minimal and shallow at best.

I don't believe the book had much impact simply because it is too entirely fictional to be taken seriously as historical work, and not good enough to be taken seriously as literature.

But, of course, those were my impressions twenty-odd years ago-- I could well be mistaken.

 

Just downloaded "A Highly Unusual Scenario or A Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World"....part sci fi humor with Marco Polo, medieval Kabhalists and latter-day Baconians thrown in the mix.

Not sure what to expect.

 

3 hours into my 12 hour drive, I realized that I was done with my audiobook and had forgotten to load another. Luckily, my local library has an app that let me start a new one. So I started James Patterson's first book in the series NYPD Red. Not bad so far.
Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects was really good for the drive over. @CinnamonGirl and @ZombieSquirrel or @GeneticShift (I can't remember) make good recommendations.

 

The book isn't very well written, and the first two-thirds could bore a rock to sleep. Mills' interpretation of what lead to Christ's falling out of favor and him being crucified was the most interesting part of the book, but it took Mills way too long to get there. Mills' follow-up, Memoirs of Pontius Pilate, was published in 2001; I have no plans to read it.

 

Just finished Warriors by George RR Martin and Gardener Dozois, an anthology of short stories about warriors of various sorts. An uneven collection, as all such things tend to be, but better than not. And, the short story by George RR Martin was excellent.

 

Just finished Raising Steam, by Terry Pratchett. Another in the long line of excellent books based in discworld.

 

Fall from Grace, Richard North Patterson. Very engaging, hard to put down.

 

--- merged: Jul 9, 2014 at 11:27 AM ---

yeah, I don't know where the nice came from... but definitely, politeness is bred in the bone. And naughty is waaaaay up there.

 

Ghostman by Roger Hobbs. This isn't my usual taste in novels as I've never cared for characters who constantly emerge untouched from tough scrapes. I will give Hobbs credit for keeping the story moving, and the book was a nice diversion from some recent IRL issues. If crime novels featuring "supermen" is your thing, and you don't mind implausibility, this book is a good read.

Spoiler alert: Review that includes info you probably don't want to know in advance.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/11/books/ghostman-by-roger-hobbs.html?_r=0

 

Ex Heroes
and
Ex Patriots
by Peter Cline

Super heroes against zombies in LA.
How can you go wrong?

 

It's more of a reference book, but I was happy to find it for a $1.00: The Synonym Finder, by J.J. Rodale.

I have a stack of thesaureses, some software, and of course the ones on the internet; the one common thing that frustrates me is the limited number of synonyms provided. TSF not only lists the synonyms closely related to the word (as expected), but also presents many consanguineous ( ) synonyms and expressions.

 

rasputin's revenge by john t. lescroart​