What books are you reading right now?

I'm reading The Colour of Magic by the same author right now, almost done.

Just finished Neuromancer by William Gibson, Gone Girl and Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, and Beyond The Blue Event Horizon by Frederik Pohl (the second book in the Heechee Saga, comes directly after Gateway, which is also great).

Loving it so far. I love the whole abstract messing-with-space-and-time thing, reminiscent of Doctor Who and Hitchhiker's Guide.
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It's wonderful, right? I can't wait for the next book in the series!

 

House of Earth a novel by Woody Guthrie (yes, that Woody Guthrie). Nutshell--A farming family struggles to keep their land, with the idea/dream of building a sturdy home made of adobe. This is a "lost" work that was copyrighted in 2013, but was actually finished sometime in the late 1940s, got shuffled around while Woody was hoping to have it made into a movie, and resurfaced around 2010.

 

I finished House of Earth a novel by Woody Guthrie. This' probably a must-read for Guthrie historians, and would be of interest to students of dust-bowl writings, but as a pleasure reading novel (more of a novella) it's not that good. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm glad that it wasn't a long novel.

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I've very nearly finished Border Music by Robert James Waller. It's a pretty good read. Waller keeps the story moving quickly for the most part, and it's 242 pages set in a small book with a large type size. I think it could be read as a simple & interesting novel, or could be analyzed on several deeper levels. I'm familiar with Waller's name (who hasn't heard of The Bridges of Madison County?), but haven't read any of his other works.

 

Stick with them. Each book gets better and better, and is written for a very slightly older audience. The series as a whole is brilliant.

 

Preparing for my next life

 

Mindy Kaling's "Why Not Me"... I'm dying laughing.

 

Since my Fire bit the dust, I'm rereading The Magicians.

 

I finished Blindness by Jose Saramago.


The plot was solid and interesting (pretty much everything I about to mention is in the dust jacket blurb). People in an unnamed city begin to suffer from blindness which is immediate. The government reacts by interning them in old hospitals, unused buildings, etc. The military is charge of organizing this, and lets fear overrule compassion. Nearly everyone who hasn't gone blind is scared shitless (that's a little joke that makes sense if you read the book) that the blind are infectious. The story follows one group of internees who are lead by a woman who pretends to be blind in order to stay with her blind husband. What they go through is horrific.

Unfortunately the combination of rambling run-on paragraphs, no quotation marks (with mutiple characters speaking in the same paragraph), no names for the people, and the author philosophising about about human nature, the role of the government, etc., made this a difficult read (for me).

 

I've just started The Blood Covenant by Rena Chynoweth with David M. Shapiro. RS was the 13th wife of Ervil LeBaron, a man who founded two "churches," The Church of the Firstborn of the Fulness (SIC) of Times, later The Church of the Lamb of God. EL was a brilliant man who became power-hungry and ordered the killings of several people who disagreed with his teachings and/or left his "church." Three of those victims were killed in Houston on June 27, 1988. I remember the cases and the media coverage, hence my interest in the book.

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Next on the list are The Martian by Andy Weir (the movie trailers made me curious about the novel) and The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. I might start TGWPWF since I very recently finished The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

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Oops, I forgot to mention a fairly 'quick' read, Red Earth, White Earth by Will Weaver. It wasn't a great read, but I liked it well enough, will check into other books by WW.

 

And now onto The Magician King, which is my favorite of the series. I <3 Julia.

 

I finished The Blood Covenant by Rena Chynoweth with David M. Shapiro. It was an interesting read in that it gave some insight into how people can sucked into a cult, especially children who are basically raised in the cult. A couple of things stopped me from completely sympathizing with RS. She killed a man in cold blood for no good reason, lied about it court, lied in court to cover for other members, and almost bragged that since she was acquitted on murder charges she couldn't be re-tried. And she excused all of her actions because she was under the influence of the cult.

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I'm about half way through The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson. Other than some parts with unnecessary details (do we really need to know every piece of furniture she bought, every food item, etc?) and way too many characters (the same fault I found with The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo), it's a good read. SL does a good job of keeping the reader interested, and wanting more.

 

I am in no hurry to read The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest. The last fifth of TGWPWF strayed way too far into "this reads as though it was written by Hollywood screenplay writers" territory. And the ending, while not a complete "cliff-hanger" per se, was close enough to piss me off (if you have to rely on a cliff-hanger ending, your writing needs work). To be fair, Larsson, hampered by death, wasn't available for a re-write.