Recent Books you have enjoyed

[WellsstreetWanderer]

anything by  Ken Bruen
his prose is like indulging a deck of Luckies along with a pint of Black and  a shot of J
his stories set in Galwaay are addicting

[Spotcheck Billy]

So why is Devil in the White City so popular right now? It is a good read but seems odd that an old book is being read by so many now.

Edit: Now I see that a movie is being made from it by Scorsese with DiCaprio.

[warriorchick]

Reading Devil in the White City at the moment.  So far so good.

Amazing book.  Soon to be a Major Motion Picture with Martin Scorcese and Leonardo DiCaprio.

[mu_hilltopper]

Not for adults, but I've been reading books to my 7-9 year old boys by an author, Stuart Gibbs.

They are phenomenal.  If you have boys (and maybe girls) in the 7-14 range, these are great.  The first series is about a 12 year old boy who is recruited to "Spy School" and becomes a young CIA agent.

Follow up books .. Spy Camp, Evil Spy School.    Also, Space Case and Spaced Out.

[warriorchick]

Not for adults, but I've been reading books to my 7-9 year old boys by an author, Stuart Gibbs.

They are phenomenal.  If you have boys (and maybe girls) in the 7-14 range, these are great.  The first series is about a 12 year old boy who is recruited to "Spy School" and becomes a young CIA agent.

Follow up books .. Spy Camp, Evil Spy School.    Also, Space Case and Spaced Out.

Glow jr's favorite books during those years were the "Captain Underpants" series.  Full of inappropriate grade-school humor. His third-grade teacher had a program where parents would randomly show up dressed up as character in a book, and guess who I chose?  When the teacher asked, "Whose Mom is this?", glow jr. put his head on the desk and covered it up with his arms.

[jficke13]

So why is Devil in the White City so popular right now? It is a good read but seems odd that an old book is being read by so many now.

Edit: Now I see that a movie is being made from it by Scorsese with DiCaprio.

Ah, i didn't even realize they were making a movie of it. I just finally got to it on my ever-growing book pile.

[warriorchick]

Ah, i didn't even realize they were making a movie of it. I just finally got to it on my ever-growing book pile.

It's still "in development".  You've got time.

[GWSwarrior]

So why is Devil in the White City so popular right now? It is a good read but seems odd that an old book is being read by so many now.

Edit: Now I see that a movie is being made from it by Scorsese with DiCaprio.

It is a phenomenal read

[Spotcheck Billy]

I like the part where the folks in Waukesha met the train with pitchforks, that spring in Big Bend is still operational.

[jficke13]

It's still "in development".  You've got time.

Ah, I finished it already. I'm on to some low-impact genre fiction (the 5 John Cleaver books by Dan Wells) before I move on to the next two non-fictions in my queue, The Gift of Fear, and Consider the Fork.

[rocket surgeon]

needed a break from "current affairs" so i dove into steven tyler's "does the noise in my head bother you"  some of his stuff would really surprise you except for the fact that he should be dead from drugs n drink.  believe it or not, he is quite the musician.  his dad was an accomplished concert pianist.  his real name is steven victor tallarico.  very entertaining read

[vogue65]

Just finished "Neptune's Inferno, the US Navy at Guadalcanal" by James D. Hornfischer.

This book delves into the mental condition of warriors thrown into battles in which career training didn't prepare them for the speed and lethality of a well prepared enemy.  It's a story of officers in command using peace time methods to prepare their ships and ground troops for combat and those methods causing the death of thousands and the loss of many capital ships.  Its a story about the daily learning of the right lessons to defeat the Japanese Navy and Army, fighting close to all their bases and Americans fighting from thousands of miles from their bases.

Great story and one that should be taught in any American History class in middle school and high school.

So much for "training", just a left over burr from the politics posts.

A Question of Belief, Donna Leon, A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery.

The Seven Story Mountain, Thomas Merton, it finally makes sense.

An Army At Dawn, First of the WWII Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson

Over the weekend I suggested to a friend, The Killer Angels, an historical novel of Gettysburg, the definitive novel on the subject.

[ZiggysFryBoy]

Bump.

need some fresh reading ideas.  fiction or non-fiction suggestions welcome.

[Pakuni]

Bump.

need some fresh reading ideas.  fiction or non-fiction suggestions welcome.

"The North Water"
"The Last Days of Night"

[jficke13]

I just read "Station Eleven," which is essentially about the threads of lives intertwining between the before 0 hour of a civilization-ending plague and of the survivors 10ish years later. The prose is exceptional, but it very much so falls on the "literary" rather than "mainstream" end of the spectrum. It was a finalist for the National Book Award, and for that to happen to a genre book is... uh... indicative of its quality.

I presume you're aware of it and that it has been reccomended, but Patrick Rothfuss' "Kingkiller Chronicle" (Book 1: "The Name of the Wind") is spectacular. It's dense, artistic, prose, with a layered complex narrative that subverts fantasy tropes. The biggest downside is that he has yet to finish the third and (allegedly) final book of the trilogy.

Continuing on the genre theme, I highly recommend Jim Butcher's "Dresden Files" books. It's essentially a noir styled PI story, only the PI is a wizard for hire in modern day Chicago. Butcher has mastered pacing and structure to pull you through books fast. The first couple aren't incredible, but by book 3 it becomes absolutely compelling. On the plus side of the ledger here, there are like 15 books in the series. On the minus side of the ledger is that there are like 15 books in the series.

[4everwarriors]

Bump.

need some fresh reading ideas.  fiction or non-fiction suggestions welcome.

Dude, I'm down wit "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fook," hey?

[CTWarrior]

How We Got to Now: Six Innovations that Made the Modern World by Steven Johnson.

From a few years ago.  My son gave it to me and it was a very interesting and fast read.

[MU82]

Just finished John Grisham's latest novel, "Sooley."

It's about a basketball player from South Sudan who leaves his extremely rough existence in that ravaged nation to play basketball in America. About 2/3 of it is basketball-related and the rest is about what the folks in South Sudan deal with.

The South Sudan stuff was fascinating and heartbreaking, and Grisham obviously did extensive research. I knew it was effed up there, but learned a lot.

Grisham is a fine writer and he did a good job developing most characters.

It is a novel, though, and quite a bit of the basketball-related stuff is beyond unbelievable fiction. Without giving too many spoilers ... if you think the shooting percentage in Hoosiers is ridiculously high, wait till you get a load of Sooley's shooting from 3-point range (and not just 3s, but everything is a "30-footer," or more). He also went from redshirt to super-duper-star in about half a second, which of course doesn't happen.

Not the best Grisham novel, and nowhere near the best basketball book I've read, but a pretty easy read that I'm glad to have done.

Oh ... and there's even a Marquette hook:

Sooley's coach goes on to take our most recent job opening! Seriously. Sorry, Shaka!!

[Scoop Snoop]

Just finished John Grisham's latest novel, "Sooley."

It's about a basketball player from South Sudan who leaves his extremely rough existence in that ravaged nation to play basketball in America. About 2/3 of it is basketball-related and the rest is about what the folks in South Sudan deal with.

The South Sudan stuff was fascinating and heartbreaking, and Grisham obviously did extensive research. I knew it was effed up there, but learned a lot.

Grisham is a fine writer and he did a good job developing most characters.

It is a novel, though, and quite a bit of the basketball-related stuff is beyond unbelievable fiction. Without giving too many spoilers ... if you think the shooting percentage in Hoosiers is ridiculously high, wait till you get a load of Sooley's shooting from 3-point range (and not just 3s, but everything is a "30-footer," or more). He also went from redshirt to super-duper-star in about half a second, which of course doesn't happen.

Not the best Grisham novel, and nowhere near the best basketball book I've read, but a pretty easy read that I'm glad to have done.

Oh ... and there's even a Marquette hook:

Sooley's coach goes on to take our most recent job opening! Seriously. Sorry, Shaka!!

Agree with your comments, especially Grisham's decision to make Sooley into a super star "in about half a second". I wish Grisham had taken a very different route and had Sooley becoming a star over several seasons. The ending was, to me, just a really bad idea. I laughed when the coach took the Marquette job. Grisham knew Wojo was a goner long before many MU fans who said he'd be coaching another year at MU!

Grisham is a big fan of baseball and pulled his car over to watch a youth team play not too far from where I live. Grisham lives about an hour North of me in Charlottesville. The field and other facilities were pretty bad so he paid for a first class facility to replace it. I heard he has done that in at least one other location. 

[MU82]

Agree with your comments, especially Grisham's decision to make Sooley into a super star "in about half a second". I wish Grisham had taken a very different route and had Sooley becoming a star over several seasons. The ending was, to me, just a really bad idea. I laughed when the coach took the Marquette job. Grisham knew Wojo was a goner long before many MU fans who said he'd be coaching another year at MU!

Grisham is a big fan of baseball and pulled his car over to watch a youth team play not too far from where I live. Grisham lives about an hour North of me in Charlottesville. The field and other facilities were pretty bad so he paid for a first class facility to replace it. I heard he has done that in at least one other location.

I didn't want to give away too much of the ending (and you didn't either). But yes, it's not the way I would have ended it.

Very nice of him to have paid for a new baseball facility. Wealthy folks can build up so much goodwill doing stuff like that, stuff that is so appreciated but costs them the equivalent of a penny to you and me.

[Lennys Tap]

Thought “Sooley” was good, not great.

Currently reading “Lincoln Highway” by Amor Towles (“The Gentleman From Moscow”). Great story, and this guy can REALLY write.

[4everwarriors]

American Marxism is a must read, aina?

[Uncle Rico]

American Marxism is a must read, aina?

So is Unfit, aina?

[warriorchick]

Just finished the Giannis biography by Mirin Fader, and holy Hell, if you haven't read this book, you don't know anything about what he has overcome to make it to where he is, or the extent of his humility.

[MuggsyB]

The newest Ishiguro book sounds interesting.  I just finished and really enjoyed Murakami's Killing Commendatore.  Wind-Up-Bird Chronicle is still his best but all of his stuff is never boring.  I would also recommend The Death of Expertise by Nichols if you're looking for some non-fiction.