What books are you reading right now?

The Religion, a novel by Tim Willocks published in 2006. This' book one of a triology (to date the third book hasn't been written) of historic fiction, which I didn't know when I started it. It gets off to a fast, gory, and somewhat unbelievable (I have problems accepting highly improbable situations) start.

 

Amazon.com: Multivariate Data Analysis (7th Edition) (9780138132637): Joseph F. Hair Jr, William C. Black, Barry J. Babin, Rolph E. Anderson: Books

The Scree Plot character went down hill immediately, but then started to even out.

 

I've heard there's a good deal of deviation in this novel, and that it's not standard....

 

*whimper*
Noooooooooooooo!!
Must hide. Statistics might find me. Hide.

 

Just reading the title of the book gives me a headache.


Here we go....again, so many times I've lost count--Google Chrome is yet again screwing with my computer. On my screen the link in the quotation is showing as blank space. Perhaps it'll be fine once I hit Post Reply.

Edit--Yes, it's showing after I click Post Reply. WTF?

 

The Magpies by Mark Edwards. Psychological thriller, but I haven't gotten to the "thriller" part yet. I kinda feel like it's setting up certain characters to be the bad guys, but it's all going to be a "wacky misunderstanding" and the actual perpetrator is going to be someone briefly mentioned in the prologue. I also hope I'm wrong, because who wants to guess the twist before the first chapter even starts?

 

I note you're into reading ebooks, Kindle. If you have a PC or a Android tablet, there's a great website for free books to download or read on line. It's digilibrariesDOTcom. There are currently over 14,000 works of fiction not copywrited, and I'm hooked. I can click on a novel, read a chapter or two, and if I don't feel compelled to read it, I just delete it and try another. There are many non-fiction books also. I haven't picked up a printed book in over a year. And, I read approximately ten hours per day, and often through the night.
--- merged: Jan 15, 2016 at 4:11 PM ---
Possession by A. S. Byatt which I am reading through Overdrive on my library card. I can't tell you why I started this... it's classified as a romance novel to begin with. It's much more than a romance novel... romance novels are those paper backs on the shelves of the supermarket, that you pick up and read in one day. It's a tough read but I love the books that challenge me. I don't have to know what all the words mean, the author drags me through all those obscure words, known only by those who study literature and of course poets. If you can get past the idea that you need to understand the nuanced prose of the educated Brit and just let the narrative flow, it's a wonderful read. I don't buy books and I don't go to the library. Why should I when there's so much good reading available to my fingertips on the web. Try this romance within a romance within a mystery if you can get it for free. It's a great story told by one of the best.
BTW, if you're into erotica, there are a handful of erotic novels free for the reading at digilibrariesDOTcom my favorite source of variety.

 

I'll check that out. Thanks.

 

Just started reading the Long Earth series, first book started a bit slow but it got my interest.

 

Just finished Possession by A. S. Byatt... one of the few times a book... no, not a book... a writer... got through to my emotions. What character depth... they're alive... I want to live among them. A romance within a love story... a poem running through all of it in the guise of a mystery. Byatt belongs among the masters. I will find it hard to get into another book after this one. Not for the casual recreational reader.

 

Uncanny X-Men from issue 98 to 250... and counting.

Fun to re-read some of the issues I read when I was in high school. There was even a scene, that I didn't realize at the time, was set in Singapore. Neat.

 

When I was around 11 or 12, I saw Wild Hearts Can't Be Broken. To be honest, I remember very little about it, but I do remember loving it. I discovered over the weekend that Sanora Webster Carver, whom the movie was based on, wrote a book about her life in horse diving. I am currently reading that book, A Girl and Five Brave Horses.

 

Finished

by Patricia Highsmith. I got through it. Just something to pass the time with, not literature. Theroretically intelligent characters doing things and saying things so illogical they strain credulity. An engineer, a 23 y0 woman unable to think rationally, and a cast of extras so dumb they're impossible to like. Drop it in the trash as you leave the plane... Not one of Highsmiths better works. On top of that the Overdrive edition ended so abruptly I would have felt cheated if I had bought it. There are too many good books out there to read this one. ​

 

SPOILER ALERT!!




The Religion is an interesting read. Willocks favors using extreme contrasts.

He's very critical of the Roman Catholic religion for the politics, corruption, The Inquisition, etc., and God in general, yet he shows how many people take great comfort in the church and God.

He's also critical of the extreme beliefs in Islam, yet he also admires how the Turks were advanced in medicine, education, etc.

He mentions the horrors of war in great detail, yet also mentions the exhilaration experienced during combat, even the thrill of risking injury and/or death. One thing mentioned repeatedly is bodily functions, namely people losing control of their bowels and bladders when in battle and when facing death. Seriously, you'd need a calculator to keep count of the number of times feces and urine are mentioned.

Some of the characters are extremely evil and cruel, but they feel that their actions are fully justified in the name of God or Allah. This applies more to the members of the Roman Catholic religion than it does the Muslims (to be fair they are portrayed as fallible).

One thing in the ending bothers me. The hero ends up respecting the villain and his rapist & murdering sidekick, even though they were directly and slightly indirectly responsible for the deaths of a woman he loved, two very close friends, and a respected servant (in the novel dedicated servants are extremely important). The author wants to show how the hero tired of war and killing to the point of not wanting to extract revenge. The hero very quickly kills the sidekick--who he knew had repeatedly raped and eventually strangled one of the women the hero loved--rather than tormenting him then mortally wounding him and leaving him to die a slow & painful death. Earlier in the novel the hero would've made the sidekick regret having been born. The hero also shows mercy by killing the mortally wounded villain.

 

Reading "The Promise... A Tale of the Great Northwest" by James B. Hendryx from digilibraries.

 

Home To Texas, non-fiction by Stanley Walker. It's part autobiography (unbeknownst to me, Walker was a respected journalist, editor, columnist, & features writer back in his day). It's part history, namely the city of Lampasas, Lampasas county, & the surrounding area.

Sadly, Walker committed suicide in '62 after learning that he had a fatal illness.

Edit--His book about the nightclub scene in NYC during prohibition, The Night Club Era, sounds like an interesting read.

 

I'm on a Texas kick, I guess.

Tapadero the Making of a Cowboy, non-fiction by Willie Newbury Lewis. WNL writes about her late husband, William J. Lewis, who became a very successful rancher in the Texas panhandle. In 1885, at the age of 14, he moved with his family to Clarendon, TX, from Maryland. One of the things that caught my attention is WNL states that she interviewed 48 "old-timers" to make sure that she got the details, historic and about everyday life, correct.

This is book 11 in the M.K. Brown Range Life Series, 15 books so far. I can't tell if the series is still ongoing, but all of the titles sound intriguing. The books are by different authors and are related to cowboys and the West, and most are about Texas.

 

Storm Surge, The Destroyermen series by Taylor Anderson.
Do Unto Others by Michael Z. Williamson.
Currently Cryoburn by Lois McMaster Bujold.

 

Just began Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea. Interesting stuff.

 

I haven't read that since I took a class in existentialism thirty years ago.
I should probably go back and read it again since I am sure I didn't get nearly what I should have out of it.