What are you reading now?
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I'm enjoying this book more than I thought I would, having read more than a few books regarding the Civil War. One has to admire the way people wrote back then. I'm listening to the audiobook version - and found myself chuckling while on my run.One quote I liked related to President Buchanan describing what would happen were he to relieve Major Anderson from his command of Fort Sumter, that when he left Washington and returned home, "the way would be lighted by his burning effigies."
wrote on 4 Dec 2024, 22:03 last edited byThis post is deleted! -
wrote on 4 Dec 2024, 22:06 last edited by
Larson runs hot and cold for me. Devil in the White City is my favorite. In The Garden of Beasts was meh.
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wrote on 4 Dec 2024, 22:24 last edited by
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wrote on 4 Dec 2024, 22:28 last edited by
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Just started it. Very, very interesting.
Best trivia? Musk's father was thinking of naming him "Nice," pronounced like the city in France. Reconsidered when "nice musk" would be the way it was pronounced. Hard childhood and an easy read, so far.
wrote on 5 Dec 2024, 13:42 last edited by@George-K said in What are you reading now?:
The WSJ did an interview with Isaacson. Nothing really new if you've read the book other than some personal insights that didn't make it into print.
Link to video -
wrote on 9 Dec 2024, 17:46 last edited by
"Spook Street" was a fun read - significantly different from Season 4 of Slow Horses.
As long as I'm on a Herron kick...book 5
The more of Herron I read, the more I appreciate his style. Gary Oldman is perfect...
“It’s been brought to my attention that you arsewipes are not happy bunnies.’
This was Jackson Lamb. The arsewipes were his team.
‘So I’ve convened this meeting so you can air your grievances.’
‘Well—’ River began.
‘Sorry, did I say “you”? I meant me.’
They were in Lamb’s office, which had the advantage, for Lamb, that he didn’t have to move anywhere, and the disadvantage, for everyone else, that it was Lamb’s office. Lamb smoked in his office, and drank, and ate, and there were those who suspected that if he kept a bucket there, he’d never leave. Not that its attractions were obvious. On the other hand, bears’ caves weren’t famously well appointed either, and bears seemed to like them fine.
‘Did one of you jokers put a whoopee cushion on my chair, by the way? No? Well in that case I’ve just farted.’ Lamb leaned back and beamed proudly. ‘Okay, you’re all uptight because there’s a national emergency, and somewhere at the back of your tiny little minds you’re remembering you joined the security services. That rings bells, yes? The bright shiny building at Regent’s Park?’
'Jackson,’ Catherine said.
‘It gives me no pleasure to have to“have to say this, but keep your fucking mouth shut while I’m talking, Standish. It’s only polite.’
‘Always happy to have you mind my manners, but do we really need to hear the lecture?’
‘Oh, I think it’ll be good for morale, “don’t you? Besides, the new boy can’t have heard it more than once. I’d hate him to feel he was missing out. What was your name again?’
‘Coe,’ said J. K. Coe, who’d been there a year.
‘Coe. You’re the one gets panic attacks, right? Behind you! Just kidding.’
Catherine put her head in her hands.”
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wrote on 10 Dec 2024, 14:21 last edited by
Flyte said, "I'm familiar with the term 'office culture' but yours seems to have grown spores."
I literally LOLed at that.
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wrote on 16 Dec 2024, 03:17 last edited by
Interesting read. The biography essentially covers both her life and the adult portion of David French's life. David asked to marry her 3 weeks after meeting her. Reading of Nancy's childhood, one is amazed of her achievements. AND having read that portion of the book, one gains little insight into what were the influences and indviduals responsible for her developing her writing skills. I'm just getting up to the portion of the book having to do with the 2016 election. What's fun to read about is Nancy's referencing that if someone showed up at her relatives seeking dirt, Nancy shared that it was very possible those indviduals might end up dead. They were mountain people.
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wrote on 23 Dec 2024, 01:43 last edited by George K
The protagonist from "Bad Monkey", Andrew Yancy, is caught up in a scam involving a woman who fakes rear-end car crashes while shaving her nether regions. A new builder wants to put up a mansion next to Yancy's beach house. More restaurant inspections and more cockroaches.
Yeah, typical Hiaasen stuff with the craziest characters ever.
Fun, but I can only take so much in a while.
ETA: Oh, yeah - there's a subplot with a "Duck Dynasty" takeoff, "Bayou Brothers."
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wrote on 29 Dec 2024, 23:45 last edited by
I said it was time...
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wrote on 30 Dec 2024, 05:54 last edited by
@George-K “You’re a good watcher, anyway, I’ll tell you that for nothing, old boy. Us singles always are, no one to rely on, what? No one else spotted me. Gave me a real turn up there, parked on the horizon. Thought you were a juju man. Best watcher in the unit, Bill Roach is, I’ll bet. Long as he’s got his specs on. What?”
I always loved Jim Prideaux’s conversations with Bill Roach.
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wrote on 30 Dec 2024, 12:02 last edited by
A book called The Coming Wave by one of the founders of Deep Mind.
He explores the risks and opportunities of new waves of technologies such as AI, drones, and synthetic biology.
It was on Gates’ recommended list at the end of the year.
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wrote on 31 Dec 2024, 15:02 last edited by
I'm about 2/3 of the way through TTSP - and I'd forgotten how LAYERED it is. So many side stories, etc. Really enjoying it this time.
As an aside, I'm watching the 2011 movie at the same time, but only watching up to where I am in the book. Movie is very faithful.
It's funny how, in the book, it takes forever to know why Ann left George, or should I say, why the marriage got into trouble. In the film, there are hints, but you don't really know that she was unfaithful until the SECOND shot of the Christmas party.
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T taiwan_girl referenced this topic on 2 Jan 2025, 01:32
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wrote on 3 Jan 2025, 08:37 last edited by
My sister found this and got it for me. A memoir of a Lung Transplant Pulmonologist. I started it overnight. (Dry January comes with a little extra insomnia than normal)
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wrote on 13 Jan 2025, 00:22 last edited by
I'm about a quarter of the way through "The Honorable Schoolboy."
What a slog. I keep waiting for something to happen, and it doesn't. So far, the most exciting thing is that "The Schoolboy" has gone to the East, and Smiley sees his wife through a window.
Yeesh. Don't know if i"ll bother to finish it.
"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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wrote on 13 Jan 2025, 17:37 last edited by kluurs
I had mild expectations - but it's quite good. I'm just at the point where he was in prison. His brother suggested he read Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People" before going before the parole board. Knowing better, Malcom unloaded vitriol upon the board with the not expected result that he was denied parole. Subsequently, Malcom read the Carnegie book and took it to heart - won over prisoners, prison staff - and ultimately the parole board. The book changed his life.
I'm surprised at how much I'm liking the book.
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I'm about a quarter of the way through "The Honorable Schoolboy."
What a slog. I keep waiting for something to happen, and it doesn't. So far, the most exciting thing is that "The Schoolboy" has gone to the East, and Smiley sees his wife through a window.
Yeesh. Don't know if i"ll bother to finish it.
wrote on 13 Jan 2025, 19:02 last edited by@George-K oh come now. U don’t read Le Carre for action. You read him just to enjoy the writing. and the far east buts are kinda interesting. The whole jungle opium Laos scenes.
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@George-K oh come now. U don’t read Le Carre for action. You read him just to enjoy the writing. and the far east buts are kinda interesting. The whole jungle opium Laos scenes.
wrote on 13 Jan 2025, 19:46 last edited by@bachophile oh, I get it. The writing is glorious. So many "train-of-thought" detours in one paragraph.
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wrote on 13 Jan 2025, 23:40 last edited by
Hang in there George, it is very much worth every page and to the very end.
