What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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For those who enjoy Stephen King's books, his latest is out tomorrow, and a number of online sites are selling it at the low-low price of $9. Not bad for an 1100 page hardcover book. I just pre-ordered a copy from Amazon.com. Not sure if the low price will hold once the book is out tomorrow.

I generally skim the reviews, because I hate spoilers, but overall the reviews for this one have been positive. They also indicate that this is more science fiction than horror, which is fine by me.

On topic, I just finished 'What Should I Do With My Life' by Po Bronson. It's a collection of stories based on interviews he did with people who answered (or were trying to answer) that question for themselves. I found it very thought-provoking, and I enjoyed it very much.
 
Kindle for PC now available

You can now download and read Kindle books on your PC. The application is free. I downloaded it this morning and actually like to option of reading my books this way. It is also great for the copy of Cooks Illustrated that I downloaded to my Kindle. It is much easier to use that book from the PC than from the Kindle. I am planning to down load a few more cook book.

Kindle for PC
 
I just read two financially related books - Stop Acting Rich (Thomas Stanley), and How To Smell A Rat (Ken Fisher). I think both of them are good examples of valuable 2-3 page articles inflated into 100+ page books for financial gain. It wasn't that there wasn't any beef, it was just buried under tons of condiments. Of the two I think I preferred the Stop Acting Rich book. But it was a quick read, only took me about two hours. I tended to skip past the tables and stats after glancing at them to see what point he was trying to make. The Fisher book was how to avoid being Madoff'ed. I learned 90% of what he was teaching while still in the introduction. The rest was mostly dead-horse beating combined with interesting but not very valuable anecdotes and history lessons.

Sorry, guys. :flowers:
 
I am just finishing up the book
The kite runner By Khaled Hosseini

This is a great story. Thoroughly enjoyed it.
 
Dang! 25+ posts, and I'm just now getting here....where the heck have I been?! Oh, I guess I was busy reading or something. :rolleyes:

Anyway, the most recent books are Emeril Lagasse's "Emeril at the Grill: A Cookbook for All Seasons".....I like Emeril, and I love to sacrifice dead animal and stuff over charcoal...year 'round!! I love reading cookbooks...finding unique new (to me) recipes, and new twists on old ones!

My most recent read, is the one I just picked up yesterday at the local bookstore....."True Compass" by Ted Kennedy. I just started it last night, and haven't gotten very far, but it's an interesting (to me) read. In it, Ted is just telling about his life, as if he's sitting there talking to you. Little details that he remembers, the behind the scenes ruckuses the Kennedy kids raised when the young and growing up. And a little humor interjected in amongst the details and stories. And of course, sailing....he loved sailing...and he shares the peacefulness and tranquility that that brought to his life....even up to nearly the end. It looks like it will be an interesting, fun, and easy book to read through.
 
Thank you for listing some non-fiction books, Harley, Goonie, and others! Some of us greatly prefer non-fiction to fiction. I was avoiding this thread because at first, my perception was that the books listed were almost entirely fiction.
 
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W2R said:
Thank you for listing some non-fiction books, Harley, Goonie, and others! Some of us greatly prefer non-fiction to fiction. I was avoiding this thread because at first, my perception was that the books listed were almost entirely fiction.
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I almost never read fiction, either. Then again, I also generally prefer documentaries and educational shows to movies.
 
W2R said:
Thank you for listing some non-fiction books, Harley, Goonie, and others! Some of us greatly prefer non-fiction to fiction. I was avoiding this thread because at first, my perception was that the books listed were almost entirely fiction.
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Hi W2R, I tend to read both. Now that you are really truly retired :) perhaps you might delve into the artistic domain a bit more? I find good fiction adds another dimension and more depth to my world. With some fiction authors you will have to suspend belief a little but the better ones won't require that. Just some thoughts.
 
I never read non-fiction. And the fiction I read is mainly thrillers. No Sci Fi for me, thank you very much, I lack the imagination needed to enjoy them:LOL:!!
 
Cattusbabe said:
You can now download and read Kindle books on your PC. The application is free. I downloaded it this morning and actually like to option of reading my books this way. It is also great for the copy of Cooks Illustrated that I downloaded to my Kindle. It is much easier to use that book from the PC than from the Kindle. I am planning to down load a few more cook book.

Kindle for PC
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Thanks, CB. I've downloaded it and am running it, but haven't yet figured out how to get free books onto it. I can get the free books using the instructions from this article:

Orlando Sentinel - How to download free Kindle books by Etan Horowitz

But so far I haven't figured out how to get a text file into the Kindle for PC.
 
I just read Spend 'Til the End by Laurence Kotlikoff and Scott Burns. It was mentioned in another thread a couple of weeks ago and caught my attention. It's different that many of the investing books I've read - really more about behavioral economics, which I find fascinating. While not really a technical roadmap for spending, it gave me some good, new perspectives on saving, spending, annuities, and Social Security.
 
Someday, when I've got nothing else to do, and I've read all of the non-fiction that I want to....I think I may start reading some of the old classics, since I didn't read any of them as a kid! I absolutely hated reading in those days! Of course that all changed shortly after I finished high school, and no longer had to read. Plus, it was something to do while working the graveyard shift by myself for 15 years.

One day, about 30 years ago, I was in a Waldenbook store and spotted a bunch of nice leather-bound volumes on the bottom storage shelf of a display table. So I meandered over and to take a closer look to see what they were. Turns out they copies of many of the old classics...Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe, and many others.

They were very nicely bound, gold-leaf stamped volumes, with gilt page edges. And they were marked down to $1 per volume just to get rid of them!!! So I broke out my wallet, and scooped up one of each title, if for no other reason than to adorn my book shelves. One of the clerks helped me get my haul out to my van, and I trucked 'em home to my ever-growing 'library'. Where they have remained for all these years, in pristine, unread condition.
 
donheff said:
I'm reading, Bike Diaries, by David Byrne (Talking Heads)...
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haha said:
This is evidently a very popular book. I am now # 225 in the queue!

Ha
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TromboneAl said:
What queue is that? Library?

....
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Oh, boy, I'm next on the queue! It's due to be returned to the library on the 19th. It's available as an e-book but this is one to be seen as well as read. Apparently you can see a bike traveling along by flipping thru the pages, free old-time animation. In two years I've read so many books I never saw in dead tree form.

This is from an Amazon review by Kent Peterson:

Bicycle Diaries is a physically beautiful book, hardcover with no dust-jacket, yellow embossed letters cheerfully identify the title and author while a black silhouette of a rider draws the reader forward. An observant reader will notice a tiny bicycle peeking out from the spine at the bottom of page 11 and on each odd page thereafter the bicycle has makes more progress. Fanning forward through the pages sets the tiny typeset bicycle free, racing across the pages in the oldest style animation, persistent vision holding tight to the bike while the pages blur past.
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Goonie said:
Someday, when I've got nothing else to do, and I've read all of the non-fiction that I want to....I think I may start reading some of the old classics, since I didn't read any of them as a kid! I absolutely hated reading in those days! Of course that all changed shortly after I finished high school, and no longer had to read. Plus, it was something to do while working the graveyard shift by myself for 15 years.

One day, about 30 years ago, I was in a Waldenbook store and spotted a bunch of nice leather-bound volumes on the bottom storage shelf of a display table. So I meandered over and to take a closer look to see what they were. Turns out they copies of many of the old classics...Moby Dick, Tale of Two Cities, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Ivanhoe, The Last of the Mohicans, Robinson Crusoe, and many others.

They were very nicely bound, gold-leaf stamped volumes, with gilt page edges. And they were marked down to $1 per volume just to get rid of them!!! So I broke out my wallet, and scooped up one of each title, if for no other reason than to adorn my book shelves. One of the clerks helped me get my haul out to my van, and I trucked 'em home to my ever-growing 'library'. Where they have remained for all these years, in pristine, unread condition.
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Oh GOONIE!!! You have such a treat ahead of you. Reading the classics, when you are retired and not in a rush, is something that I suspect you will really, really enjoy. Or at least I think so, from what I have read about you on the board.
 
Here is one for the non-fiction crowd: Open Secret by Stella Rimington. This is an autobiography by the first woman Director General of MI5, Britain's FBI equivalent. She has also written some good spy fiction novels and one would like to think she is knowledgeable enough to make them realistic. Her first fiction book is At Risk and it features a female officer in MI5 in pursuit of two terrorist.
 
Judge and jury by J. Patterson and Shadow prey by J. Sandford. So far reasonably good both, mainly Sandford´s.
 
Trombone Al has mentioned Younger Next Year quite a bit on this forum and I've always wanted to read it. When browsing at B&N I found that there was one for women too. (Younger Next Year for Women :D). I've really been enjoying the book. I probably won't join a gym since that didn't work out very well for me last year, but, I am walking more. I'm going to read it again and take notes this time.
 
Just finished two books....

My Sister's Keeper, by Jody Piccoult: terjerker about a family in which one child was conceived to be an umbilical cord cell donor for her leukemic sister......but it all spirals out of hand when the leukemic sister needs repeated donations of white cells, marrow (painful) and eventually, a kidney (risky for the donor). This is actually a plausible ethical dliemma and the characters are well developed. Not telling you how it ends.....I could empathize with the characters and enjoyed the read. I will probably see the movie. And there is reference to the author's next book, Handle with Care, which is about the family of a baby with osteogenesis imperfecta.

Also just zipped through Findependence Day, by Jonathan Chevreau, which is a recently published novella tracing the somewhat choppy progress to FIRE of a US-Canadian couple. While some of the scenes are a bit contrived (when your spouse hands you separation papers would your financial mentor be the very first person you call?) most of the relevant routes to FIRE are touched on (except that I couldn't find any reference to gold). Heck, the hero's FIRE passion is his online community, devoted to vinyl records and financial independence for boomers! Chevreau is a well regarded financial columnist in Canada and is one of the founders of Canadian Money Forum as well as a regular contributor to the Financial Webring. He's obviously checked out this forum too. My assessment: no new insights here for the sophisticates, but might be a good intro for a newbie to the FIRE concept. There is a good reading list at the end.
 
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Yesterday I checked out Hothouse Orchid by Stuart Woods. Talk about phoning it in! I used to be a fan of his stuff, even though his books have always been sort of Lite Reading. This one, though, makes Louis L'amour look like Dosteoevsky. I can sort of buy the life changing relationships that happen over a day or two. And I can accept the really crappy police work that would make the Tulia TX force look like NCIS in comparison. But I couldn't suspend belief far enough to accept that 3 different major characters would suddenly relocate from all over the world to a small community around Vero Beach. And the total lack of suspense! I'd be ashamed to have this one in the young adult section of the library. I want to like Woods' books, because they are such good mind rinse material. But he's not even trying anymore.
 
Harley: I think Stuart Woods never wrote anything better than Chiefs, which was quite entertaining.
 
Meadbh said:
Just finished two books....

My Sister's Keeper, by Jody Piccoult: terjerker about a family in which one child was conceived to be an umbilical cord cell donor for her leukemic sister......but it all spirals out of hand when the leukemic sister needs repeated donations of white cells, marrow (painful) and eventually, a kidney (risky for the donor). This is actually a plausible ethical dliemma and the characters are well developed. Not telling you how it ends.....I could empathize with the characters and enjoyed the read. I will probably see the movie. And there is reference to the author's next book, Handle with Care, which is about the family of a baby with osteogenesis imperfecta.
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I also enjoyed My Sister's Keeper. However I have refused to see the movie as they changed the ending which to me is really kicker of this book.
 
Meadbh said:
Just finished two books....

My Sister's Keeper, by Jody Piccoult: terjerker about a family in which one child was conceived to be an umbilical cord cell donor for her leukemic sister.....
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I've read several of her books . I used to enjoy them but after awhile they all seem pretty similiar . I'm currently reading "My Life in France " by Julia Child and it is curing any insomnia I might have . The movie showed it sooo much better .
 
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