What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

[Retch The Grate]

Recently finished Ramez Naam's Apex, the final book in the Nexus, Crux, Apex trilogy. Really fun read, great plot, engaging characters, thought provoking story.

 

[braumeister]

A very entertaining biography of one of the most remarkable con men the US has ever seen, ranking right up there with Ponzi and Madoff, yet I had never heard of him before.

The title was so delightful that I just had to read it.

My Adventures with Your Money: George Graham Rice and the Golden Age of the Con Artist

Master swindler George Graham Rice operated at the zenith of America's golden age of con artistry with plenty of illicit competition, but he stood apart from all others thanks to the sheer audacity, pure nerve and nefarious brilliance of his scams. Against the dark rise of American greed in the early 20th Century into the Roaring Twenties, the dapper but devious "GG" feasted ...

 

[donheff]

Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie, won the Hugo, Nebula, and Clark Awards in 2014. It is the first in a trio of big "space opera" novels whose protagonist is an artificial intelligence in a human body. I have books two and three on hold.

 

[Koogie]

Al Macy's latest
http://www.amazon.com/Yesterdays-Th...iller-ebook/dp/B018UOTOEA/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8
Is pretty good.
If you Like John scalzi's humorous sci-fi like "red-shirts" or "fuzzy nation", chances are you'll enjoy "Yesterday's thief"

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Just finished "Red Shirts" by John Scalzi. Humorous and meta. The ensigns in a knockoff Star Trek universe come to realize they are expendable and why and plot to stop it.

Al Macy, huh ? He related to the famous musician ??....

 

[Lsbcal]

Read 2 more from Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch series:
The Last Coyote (1995 copyright)

Angels Flight (1999 copyright)

Both were good. Makes me wonder what really goes on in the LAPD.

 

[DrRoy]

I am going to the next Spacefest, and I just finished Moonwalker by Charlie Duke of Apollo 16.

 

[scrabbler1]

I am reading "The Road Taken," by Henry Petroski. It's about the state of our infrastructure, mainly roads and bridges (he's a professor of civil engineering). I saw him talking about his book on C-Span's BookTV. Good book so far.

 

[GravitySucks]

What have you read recently?

"Steppenwolf" by Hermann Hesse. It was a difficult read through the majority of the book as there are a few too many similarity so between me and the protagonist. In the end I believe it had a message I needed to hear though.

 

[RobbieB]

Innocence - Dean Koontz

Very well done bit of urban fiction as is Koontz's style.

 

[REWahoo]

"Thing Explainer: Complicated Stuff in Simple Words" by Randall Munroe (creator of xkcd). The book uses drawings and a vocabulary of the 1,000 (or "ten hundred") most common words to explain complex subjects.

Funny, entertaining and informative.

My favorites: "US Space Team's Up Goer Five" (Saturn Five Rocket) and "Big tiny thing hitter" (Large Hadron Collider).

 

[Dreamer]

I just finished "Just One Look" by Harlan Coben. I enjoyed it. So many books you figure out before the ending, but I was not able to figure this one out.

 

[splitwdw]

"Grandma Gatewood's Walk" by Ben Montgomery. About a 67 year old woman that walks the Appalachian Trail starting in May 1955. She walked the trail twice continuously and once in sections. She also walked The Oregon Trail (among other long distance walks) from Independence, MO. to Portland, OR. in 1959 at the age of 71. The book has some excerpts from her diary and gives details of what was happening in the world at the time of her walks.

 

[MBAustin]

Just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire. Wasn't sure I wanted to read it after some of the awful scenes in the first book, but enjoyed this one a lot. Yes, I'm way late to the party...

 

[Nemo2]

Engines of Change by Paul Ingrassia.

I'm probably as far as one can get from being a 'car person', but I found this book enthralling, informative and very well written.

Engines of Change | Book by Paul Ingrassia | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster Canada

 

[Nemo2]

Haven't read it (yet) but this one was written, under a pseudonym, by an interesting 80 year old New Zealander, (who still competes in triathlons), that we spent some time with on our recent eastbound transatlantic trip.

Having worked for six years in Hong Kong he speaks Chinese, and with input from a couple Chinese-Americans onboard, he's currently working on compiling a Chinese dictionary.

http://www.amazon.com/Hong-Kong-Vagabond-John-Mason-ebook/dp/B007RKQ7DA

 

[MichaelB]

I just finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Most enjoyable, but probably not for everyone.

 

[tulak]

I just finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks. Most enjoyable, but probably not for everyone.

Good book, but definitely not for everyone. And very different than the movie.


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[mh]

What have you read recently?

Good book, but definitely not for everyone. And very different than the movie.


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In fact ,other than the fact that there are zombies ,it has no relation to the book whatsoever which is a shame because the format of the book would have made for a very interesting movie


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[Walt34]

I'm just about to finish "My Adventures With Your Money" by T.D. Thornton, a book about George Graham Rice and the golden age of the con artist. From the 1870's to the 1929 market crash (and perhaps beyond, I haven't finished the book yet) George made and lost millions. The 1973 movie "The Sting" was in fact based on one of his cons.

A colorful character and an interesting read.

 

[RobbieB]

Mr. Mercedes - Stephen King

The master is at it again. Thrilling & chilling. Suspenseful. You really really root for the good guys because the bad guy is just as bad as evil can get. Great character development, human emotions (and lack of same)

A good fast read!

 

[Moemg]

I just finished "Everything I never told you " by Celeste Ng. Interesting book about a family in crisis .

 

[GravitySucks]

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and The Little Prince.
I needed a break from the introspective novels I've been reading.
I never read either of these children's classics before. Baum wrote the original Oz books in the village of Chittenango, not ten miles from my home. They have a weekend long festival in celebration every summer.

 

[RobbieB]

Make Me - Lee Child

If it's Jack Reacher, it's on my list!

This is a particularly disturbing tale of dark stuff on the "deep web", with the worst sort of evil bad guys I've read about in a long time and you just know they are evil right from the start.

But just how evil is not revealed till the end. That's when Reacher kills them all -

 

[growerVon]

Recently finished The Martian by Andy Weir. Have not seen the movie. Really enjoyed the log-based narrative and slightly technical/"mathy" content, plus the main character's humor. I did feel the story ended abruptly and left a lot unexplored. Sequel?

 

[FI by 2024]

What have you read recently?

Recently finished The Martian by Andy Weir. Have not seen the movie. Really enjoyed the log-based narrative and slightly technical/"mathy" content, plus the main character's humor. I did feel the story ended abruptly and left a lot unexplored. Sequel?

If you liked the book, you'll like the movie. It's fairly faithful, and I think both were well executed.