What are you reading now?
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"Ragtime...."
A very interesting book. Doctorow's style is unusual, very straightforward, with an occasional diversion into detailed descriptions of an item, behavior, location.
He weaves many historical characters into the narrative (Houdini, Freud, Archduke Ferdinand, Perry, Emma Goldman, Henry Ford), and all of that struck me as being a bit contrived. Yeah, it's clever, but many of the historical characters didn't really add that much to the narrative. It was like - "let's see how clever I can be to bring this guy into the tale."
A fun read, with a story that really doesn't get going until about ⅓ of the way through.
Time Magazine called it one of the 100 greatest books of the 20th century. That may be, but I found it nice, but not overwhelming. It doesn't hold a candle to Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-FIve, Invisible Man, Brave New World or a host of others.
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@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
I caved...
This is the audio version with multiple actors portraying the characters. I've only gotten to the "Arrival at Arrakis" part, but so far it's a very good adaptation.
Followup...
I finished it a while ago. This was my third time through the book (2nd time on audio).
I got half way through Dune in two days of jury duty (before I ended up on a jury) and never picked the book up again. -
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@Kincaid said in What are you reading now?:
I am reading Nathaniel Philbrick's The Mayflower. Very interesting to learn actual facts behind the myth.
Indeed. I enjoyed it as well. If you like Philbrick's work, check out "In the Heart of the Sea." Defoe used a lot of the history of the whaleship Essex for "Moby Dick." I enjoyed it more than "Mayflower."
If you're interested in "fact vs. pop culture" stuff, take a look at Caroline Alexander's objective story of "The Bounty: The True Story of the Mutiny on The Bounty." It's great.
More than two centuries after Master’s Mate Fletcher Christian led a mutiny against Lieutenant William Bligh on a small, armed transport vessel called Bounty, the true story of this enthralling adventure has become obscured by the legend. Combining vivid characterization and deft storytelling, Caroline Alexander shatters the centuries-old myths surrounding this story. She brilliantly shows how, in a desperate attempt to save one man from the gallows and another from ignominy, two powerful families came together and began to create the version of history we know today. The true story of the mutiny on the Bounty is an epic of duty and heroism, pride and power, and the assassination of a brave man’s honor at the dawn of the Romantic age.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
Off to a rousing start, I might add.
OK - about ⅓ of the way through.
This is good, hard, Sci-Fi.
Set at least 10,000 years BEFORE the events of Dune, it sets up the player, in the personas of the houses - Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, etc. It sets up the origin of "The Spice" as well as the origin of the Guild Navigators (at least as far as the ability to move through space at FTL speed). It also gets into the history of the "test" that Paul Atreides has to endure in the opening of "Dune."
("We had to make sure he was human....")
The style is VERY different from Herbert's book(s).
As I said, its hard, HARD, Sci-Fi.
Thoroughly enjoying it, and hoping it doesn't disappoint at the end. If it doesn't, I'll dive into the next of the three prequels.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
Off to a rousing start, I might add.
OK - about ⅓ of the way through.
This is good, hard, Sci-Fi.
Set at least 10,000 years BEFORE the events of Dune, it sets up the player, in the personas of the houses - Atreides, Harkonnen, Corrino, etc. It sets up the origin of "The Spice" as well as the origin of the Guild Navigators (at least as far as the ability to move through space at FTL speed). It also gets into the history of the "test" that Paul Atreides has to endure in the opening of "Dune."
("We had to make sure he was human....")
The style is VERY different from Herbert's book(s).
As I said, its hard, HARD, Sci-Fi.
Thoroughly enjoying it, and hoping it doesn't disappoint at the end. If it doesn't, I'll dive into the next of the three prequels.
I enjoyed these better than the actual Dune series. Better storytelling....
Me/rry/Christmas
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@LuFins-Dad said in What are you reading now?:
I enjoyed these better than the actual Dune series. Better storytelling.
Indeed. It's tight, coherent, and progresses nicely through the timeline. Looking forward to #2. Have you read the next trilogy?
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I can’t remember. I did read the two books that came “after” Chapterhouse in the timeline. I didn’t read any of thHousr Atreides or House Corrino books
One of these days, I need to force my way through Chapterhouse, Heretics, and God Emporor.
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From the "Look Inside" of the book The Weather Machine, [wherein] Andrew Blum takes readers on a fascinating journey through an everyday miracle . . . . Written with the sharp wit and infectious curiosity Andrew Blum is known for, The Weather Machine pulls back the curtain on a universal part of our everyday lives, illuminating our relationships with technology, the planet, and the global community:
"Over the next eight days, Superstorm Sandy [Oct 2012] dumped flooding rains in the Caribbean, headed north across the warm ocean, soaking up energy, then took an extraordinary left turn toward the East Coast, toward New York City, toward us. We pulled down the shades as far as they would go and filled the bathtub with water. The storm came with fury, making the walls restless and twisting the windows in their frames. The lights flickered and my screen flashed with strange images: the glass carousel on the Brooklyn waterfront floating in the river like a magical barge, downtown streets turned to canals, lampposts sparkling into fireballs. Not far away, the ocean rose up against the land, rushing through living rooms, flooding power stations and corroding the subways' delicate machinery. Neighborhoods along the shore were devastated, and Lower Manhattan went dark, a disaster film come to life. At the hospital at which my son had been born, nurses and doctors carried twenty-one infants down unlighted stairways, tangled in battery-powered monitors. Across the region, 147 people died during Sandy, 650,000 homes were damaged or destroyed, and total losses exceeded $50 billion. The city felt fragile. I had the feeling that our luck had run out."
Needless to say, I bought the book.
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Still in my sci-fi mode. Started this the other day:
2312:
The year is 2312. Scientific and technological advances have opened gateways to an extraordinary future. Earth is no longer humanity's only home; new habitats have been created throughout the solar system on moons, planets, and in between. But in this year, 2312, a sequence of events will force humanity to confront its past, its present, and its future.
The first event takes place on Mercury, on the city of Terminator, itself a miracle of engineering on an unprecedented scale. It is an unexpected death, but one that might have been foreseen. For Swan Er Hong, it is an event that will change her life. Swan was once a woman who designed worlds. Now she will be led into a plot to destroy them.
This is the third Robinson book I've read.
The first, "Aurora" was great. Generation-ship headed to who-knows-where and the challenges of such a journey. Absolutely great. Encouraged by this author, I picked up "Red Mars," the story of terraforming Mars into a habitable place for humans. I gave up about halfway through. It became ponderous, predictable ("And then, on our way to Mars, this shit happened, and this asshole didn't get along with..."). I stopped.
I'm about ⅓ of the way through 2312, but I'm losing hope. Too much irrelevant filler. He's trying to combine a thriller with hard sci-fi. At this point of the book, I still don't know what's going on. Yeah, he keeps dropping seeds of the overall plot, but it's painfully protracted. I'll give it another "walk's worth" of listening and then probably bail.
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some excellent non fiction about some excellent fiction.
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@bachophile what is it about?
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a number of years ago an alleged papyrus from the first century was discovered which purported to imply Jesus was married and it turned out to be a forgery.
It’s the story of a Harvard professor and how academia was fooled, and in general about the role of women in the early Christian texts.
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@bachophile said in What are you reading now?:
a number of years ago an alleged papyrus from the first century was discovered which purported to imply Jesus was married and it turned out to be a forgery.
It’s the story of a Harvard professor and how academia was fooled, and in general about the role of women in the early Christian texts.
Ah thanks. I read a book like that a years ago that supposedly said the same thing. I can't remember the name right now. Hard for me to finish, as it talked about lots of things I have no background or knowledge in.
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@taiwan_girl said in What are you reading now?:
I read a book like that a years ago that supposedly said the same thing.
Was it one of Bart Ehrman's books?
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
@taiwan_girl said in What are you reading now?:
I read a book like that a years ago that supposedly said the same thing.
Was it one of Bart Ehrman's books?
I am pretty sure no. I looked up his books.
EDIT: I found it!!!!! "The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail"
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@taiwan_girl said in What are you reading now?:
"The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail"
Ehrman is a most interesting guy. He grew up in Wheaton, IL, in a very religious family. He attended religious-based schools all his life, and became the chairman of religious studies at (I think) Duke. Then, upon reflection, he became an atheist.
I've always found it interesting that the chairman of a religious studies department can be an atheist. On one hand, it gives him a position of objectivity, on the other, you have to wonder whether if, as an atheist, he has any standing as chairman of a department that's devoted to religion.
(waiting for @Ivorythumper to chime in!)
