What Are You Reading?

[Rommie]

Working through "The Last Policeman" right now. Pretty interesting read that's the first of a trilogy. In short, the world discovers that a giant extinction-level asteroid is going to hit Earth in the next six months, so it's interesting to read what happens in society and all that. One of those things is a lot of people are committing suicide, and there's a young police officer who's convinced one case isn't suicide and tries to solve the murder, even though the world is going to end in a few months. So, murder mystery meets sci-fi. Pretty fun!

[Parrothead]

I still haven't finished re-reading Greg Bear's Eternity or begin the follow up/prequel Legacy. I did read LeCarre's The Night Manager. Entertaining and some differences from the tv mini-series, based on the book.

Over the holidays, I finally got myself an e-reader. Downloaded a couple of ebooks from the library. Finished reading David Morrell's novelette The Opium Eater and am currently enjoying his novel Assumed Identity. This one has a covert operative who has had over 200 "legends" and isn't sure who he really is anymore. So far it has been a good read, a quarter of the way in.

[SciFiFisher]

Freakonomics -

Which is more dangerous, a gun or a swimming pool? What do schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have in common? Why do drug dealers still live with their moms? How much do parents really matter? How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

These may not sound like typical questions for an economist to ask. But Steven D. Levitt is not a typical economist. He is a much-heralded scholar who studies the riddles of everyday life—from cheating and crime to sports and child-rearing—and whose conclusions turn the conventional wisdom on its head.

The book asks some very interesting questions and provides some very intriguing answers. One thing the book points out is how drug dealing is run more like McDonalds than you would think. And that the average street soldier in a gang has a higher chance of being killed than a death row inmate does. It's about 4 x more likely for the street drug dealer to be killed. Yikes!

I find the book worth reading. Your mileage may vary.

[Thumper]

I'm sure I've caught some radio shows about Freakonomics. Maybe even featuring your author. As I recall, some very interesting discussions and conclusions.

[SciFiFisher]

I'm sure I've caught some radio shows about Freakonomics. Maybe even featuring your author. As I recall, some very interesting discussions and conclusions.

Yes. They also have podcasts and a blog. http://freakonomics.com/

[Parrothead]

Slowly getting through The Company by Robert Littell. Historical fiction dealing with the CIA from it's inception, to the fall of the Soviet Union. Currently a third of the way through the 900 plus pages, setting at this point is the 1956 Hungarian uprising.

I'll borrow the film from the library, once I've finished the novel.

[Parrothead]

Finished The Company, a couple of weeks ago, enjoyed the read. Since have read a couple of novellas by Nora Roberts. Have enjoyed re-reading after many years, a number of Whitman or other pre or early teen books The Wonderful Wizard of Oz , Hawaii Five-O : Top Secret, The Man From UNCLE : The Affair of the Gentle Saboteur and am currently reading a couple of "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators" books. Also reading The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde .

[Thumper]

I'm reading a self help book. Can't remember the name of it which goes to show how much I'm reading it and involved...
Maybe I need a self help book to help me read a self help book.

[Rommie]

I read two books recently that I thought were awesome:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A mediocre physicist finds himself in the multiverse, and that's all I'll say. One of those books that reads quick and like a movie plot- totally going to be a popular summer thriller in a few years!

The Great Alone by Kristen Hannah. Wow, one of the most beautiful books I've read in awhile. Basically it takes place in the 1970s and the protagonist is a 13 year old girl whose father got PTSD in Vietnam as a POW, and then she, her mom, and dad move up to Alaska because they got offered some land up there off the grid. So adult Little House on the Prairie, kinda, except it's one of those beautiful and tragic stories that I'm going to be thinking about for a long time. I also love Alaska, and think it's going to be one of those "books that define a location for years to come," if that makes any sense.

[SciFiFisher]

Neverwhere: A Novel. By Neil Gaiman. Sort of an adult version of "Through The Looking Glass". It is also a TV series which I think might be on Netflix. It posits a very interesting world where people literally fall off the grid and everyone forgets they ever existed.

[geonuc]

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A mediocre physicist finds himself in the multiverse, and that's all I'll say. One of those books that reads quick and like a movie plot- totally going to be a popular summer thriller in a few years!

I believe it's in my Nook waiting to be read.

Yes, I still have and use a Nook.

[grapes]

How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

That was about culling, wasn't it? How did they divorce that from the similar vietnam effect?

[Thumper]

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A mediocre physicist finds himself in the multiverse, and that's all I'll say. One of those books that reads quick and like a movie plot- totally going to be a popular summer thriller in a few years!

I believe it's in my Nook waiting to be read.

Yes, I still have and use a Nook.

Dark Matter is the title of a Netflix Sci Fi series. That I kind of liked but haven't had the time to continue watching.

[geonuc]

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. A mediocre physicist finds himself in the multiverse, and that's all I'll say. One of those books that reads quick and like a movie plot- totally going to be a popular summer thriller in a few years!

I believe it's in my Nook waiting to be read.

Yes, I still have and use a Nook.

Dark Matter is the title of a Netflix Sci Fi series. That I kind of liked but haven't had the time to continue watching.

Yes, me too.

[SciFiFisher]

How did the legalization of abortion affect the rate of violent crime?

That was about culling, wasn't it? How did they divorce that from the similar vietnam effect?

Essentially, what they say the data suggested is that women who are allowed to choose not to have a child they can't support emotionally or financially stopped having children who grew up to be violent criminals IIRC. Not so much a culling as a self selection process. The opposite situation occurs if the girl is forced to have and keep a baby she does not want. The violent crime rate correlates to the birth rate. More babies = more violent crime. With a strong correlation to economic and social factors. Birth rates go down = violent crime rates go down.

I don't recall if they discussed birth rates/violent crime rates and etc in regards to Vietnam.

[Parrothead]

Dracula by Bram Stoker and Watership Down by Richard Adams.

[Thumper]

Dracula by Bram Stoker and Watership Down by Richard Adams.

I've heard of both of those!

[Rommie]

I love Watership Down! One of those books I read in middle school that feels like it should be a kids book, but really is not. Always made me sad that there's really no other book quite like it (well ok, there was a sequel which was acceptable enough, but I mean it's not like I can go off and read about a realistic group of deer going off to fight a totalitarian group of deer).

It's kind of fun btw that because it's a real place, you can actually go online and find pictures of the area. Here is one example.

[Thumper]

Apparently not much reading going on.
I'm finishing "Endurance" by Astronaut and former Navy Commander Scott Kelly. I've seen him twice and got the book for Christmas. It's only the second astronaut biography that I've read NOT from the Apollo era. I've really enjoyed this book. Kelly has a special skill of wowing you with cool astronaut stuff while still keeping it grounded. He's an ordinary guy getting the chance to do extraordinary things, but he explains it in matter of fact language. And he is able to make it personal. You feel his sacrifices, missing birthdays, holidays. Not being able to support his family when his sister in law was shot.

I find myself doing what I normally do as I reach the end of a book. (I take a long time to read a whole book) I'm slowing down even more because I don't want it to end. Even if you don't care a lick for astronauts and space. Scott Kelly tells a personal story about choices, hard work, and relationships.

[pumpkinpi]

Apparently not much reading going on.
I'm finishing "Endurance" by Astronaut and former Navy Commander Scott Kelly. I've seen him twice and got the book for Christmas. It's only the second astronaut biography that I've read NOT from the Apollo era. I've really enjoyed this book. Kelly has a special skill of wowing you with cool astronaut stuff while still keeping it grounded. He's an ordinary guy getting the chance to do extraordinary things, but he explains it in matter of fact language. And he is able to make it personal. You feel his sacrifices, missing birthdays, holidays. Not being able to support his family when his sister in law was shot.

I find myself doing what I normally do as I reach the end of a book. (I take a long time to read a whole book) I'm slowing down even more because I don't want it to end. Even if you don't care a lick for astronauts and space. Scott Kelly tells a personal story about choices, hard work, and relationships.

I'll give you some other recommendations of non-Apollo astronaut biographies to read. There are some great ones.

I've had bad luck in the past year, not being able to make it through books. These three are sitting half-read on my night stand.

One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel García Márquez. I'd been wanting to read it for quite a while, since I'd been to Colombia. But it turned out to be really dull. I'll share why in a moment....

The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad (author of Heart of Darkness). I picked it up at Greenwich Observatory, because the plot is loosely associated with the Greenwich bombing of 1894.

Both of these novels were heavy on abstract descriptions of people and what they were thinking, and short of dialogue and action. That style apparently is not for me.

And the third, I'm sorry to say, is Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, sent to me by code monkey. This surprises me. I love Neil Gaiman books, and MrPi has been cracking up reading Terry Pratchett books for the past year. But a number of things bother me. It's like they are trying too hard to be be too clever. The writing style reminds me of another, I think Douglas Adams, where they add in a lot of quirky asides and asterisks that don't really advance the story but are supposed be funny. And they aren't. It worked for DA, but not them.* Also, it seems like every other paragraph they jump to a new location and set of characters, whom they don't really introduce but pick up as though you've been reading about them all along, and many chapters later you find out that they indeed are related to the story. Part of my problem is that I don't get a lot of time to sit and read, so when I pick it up I don't know if it's actually a new character or one I read about already but I have forgotten about.

Last night I decided I'd give Good Omens one more try. I'll let you know how it goes. And I don't plan on watching the series, because it's on Amazon and I've chosen not to support that company.

Over this period I've read plenty of other good books. The most recent one I finished was another I picked up in England, the original James Bond story Casino Royale. It also started a bit slow but I knew it would get to some action. I really enjoyed it and I look forward to reading some more. The irony is that I have never seen a James Bond movie, and I am making it my life goal never to see one. I don't really have a good reason for that. In my 20's I realized I hadn't seen one yet, so I just decided never to start. I'm sure I would enjoy the movies, but I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything by not watching them. However, based on clips I've seen, I think Sean Connery would be my favorite Bond.

*I think it's Douglas Adams** the book reminds me of, but I'm not sure. I feel like there is another writer I'm forgetting about. One that comes to mind is Nostradamus Ate My Hamster by Robert Rankin, which is in my list of favorite books, but it's the only only book by him I've read.

**See what I did there?

[SciFiFisher]

Autobiography of General and President Ulysses S. Grant. It is a better read than you might believe. He provides some insight into that period of time that are very interesting.

[Thumper]

Wow, I had no idea he wrote a book.

[SciFiFisher]

Wow, I had no idea he wrote a book.

Near the end of his life, when he was dying from cancer IIRC, a friend of his who was a publisher paid him to write his memoirs. As I understand the story he was broke and the family needed the money. It really does offer some insight into the man and the stories of the times he lived.

[SciFiFisher]

I just recently finished a very fascinating book called "Surprise, Kill, Vanish: The Secret History of CIA Paramilitary Armies, Operators, and Assassins" by Annie Jacobson. Using FOIA and other sources she has managed to review documents and interview former Green Beret, CIA, and other clandestine operators. The book is a great read if you want to know how the U.S. and other countries have used and misused assassination and other influence operations to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in some cases.

She does not whitewash the subject. She presents it in a very reasoned way and explains the moral dilemma, the rationales, and is not afraid to point out the secondary effects that often lead to unintended consequences for the U.S. and others.

She mostly starts with the OSS in WWII and how it became the CIA. She even has a good analysis of why the Bay of Pigs failed. Read the book to find out.

[Thumper]

Sounds interesting but somewhat depressing, or scary.