What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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Travels with Epicurus. Author is Daniel Klein.

A friend recommended it and I was sad when the book was over. It is a short gentle read, musings on old age and and old old age. I think it is a semi-must read for aging humans.
 
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore is a find. From the Amazon description: "A gleeful and exhilarating tale of global conspiracy, complex code-breaking, high-tech data visualization, young love, rollicking adventure, and the secret to eternal life—mostly set in a hole-in-the-wall San Francisco bookstore."
It is a mystery, a quest, and a mixed-up twenty something novel all in one. Fun read.
 
DW recommended mystery books by the British author Peter Robinson to me. So I looked it up on Wikipedia and decided to start in the middle of the series with: In a Dry Season (Inspector Banks Novels): Peter Robinson: 9780380794775: Amazon.com: Books

There are lots of flashbacks between the 1990's current and the WW2 era. A skeleton is found after a drained reservoir exposes an abandoned small town in the Yorkshire area. Very well written and I really enjoyed it. The plotting and events were well done. I think this is a decent place to start the Inspector Banks series if you don't want to start at the beginning. There is a chronological listing of the series here: Peter Robinson (novelist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Am no longer into reading current books, but this story,
SnowFall... The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,
an extended tale of skiing that was in the New York Times on December 20th, is a gripping tale of an actual event.
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek - Multimedia Feature - NYTimes.com

It's a captivating story of real life, with many characters, and filled with suspense. There are several chapters, interspersed with videos, and pictures.

I would suggest bookmarking the link, for reading at a time when you can devote about an hour to the story.

Especially interesting to skiers, but an adventure for anyone, including this geezer.
 
John Galt III said:
"Life". The autobiography of Keith Richards, a guitar player in the rock band The Rolling Stones. Very interesting so far. It's spoken word on disk. First several chapters are read by Johnny Depp, then Richards takes over. Not boring at all. But not even half way through it yet.
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I just finished the hardcopy. When he talks about guitars he might as well be writing in Urdu, but it probably means something to a guitar player who knows about five-string open tuning.

I'm impressed how these guitarists all sit around playing each other's recordings and trying to duplicate their chords by ear. There's no conventions or seminars-- just a bunch of guys showing each other about 90% of their tricks (and almost always holding back one, or coming up with something new).

The rest of the book is amazing... one page after another, realizing that the man has no reason to be alive.

For those who are wondering, he attributes his survival to ingesting only the highest-quality pharma-pure cocaine & heroin. Anything "less" would've killed him. He was willing to compromise on almost everything else (marijuana, uppers, downers, booze) but the first two had to be pure.

He estimates that for a number of years he'd stay awake on cocaine & heroin for several days and only slept twice a week, admittedly crashing for 10-15 hours. His record at staying awake was nine days... but he got a lot done!
 
Just finished the latest Michael Connelly book in the Harry Bosch series, Black Box. It is excellent, certainly up to his usual standards. Hated to see it end! Interesting that he tied the book's story to events surrounding the LA riots, which Connelly covered as a reporter.
 
Sarah in SC said:
Just finished the latest Michael Connelly book in the Harry Bosch series, Black Box. It is excellent, certainly up to his usual standards. Hated to see it end! Interesting that he tied the book's story to events surrounding the LA riots, which Connelly covered as a reporter.
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+1 to this and Nords' comments on Life.
 
imoldernu said:
Am no longer into reading current books, but this story,
SnowFall... The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,
an extended tale of skiing that was in the New York Times on December 20th, is a gripping tale of an actual event.
Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek - Multimedia Feature - NYTimes.com

It's a captivating story of real life, with many characters, and filled with suspense. There are several chapters, interspersed with videos, and pictures.

I would suggest bookmarking the link, for reading at a time when you can devote about an hour to the story.

Especially interesting to skiers, but an adventure for anyone, including this geezer.
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That was awesome and the pictures and 'movies' were cool, too. Thanks for recommending, it made a quick enjoyable read.
 
I am reading "America, You Sexy Bitch," by Meghan McCain (daughter of Senator McCain) and Michael Ian Black (a comedian and actor). Those two along with a few others take a 2011 trip around the country in a RV, visiting various places and meeting various people while engaging in some interesting discussions, political and not, with each other.

The book pretty much has alternating passages written by the two, usually for a page or two but sometimes longer. While both perspectives on the same sights are interesting, I find Black's to be a better read.
 
Sarah in SC said:
Just finished the latest Michael Connelly book in the Harry Bosch series, Black Box. It is excellent, certainly up to his usual standards. Hated to see it end! Interesting that he tied the book's story to events surrounding the LA riots, which Connelly covered as a reporter.
Click to expand...


I am almost done and I agree it was a great read !
 
Carrie Rocha's book "Pocket Your Dollars" from her website of the same name.

Book review: “Pocket Your Dollars”

She and her spouse struggled to save for years, and eventually ended up $60K in debt with no real idea how it happened. They were able to turn the situation around by changing their attitudes.

Here are the five attitudes that Carrie and her spouse confronted:
“If only I had more money!”
“It’s been a rough day and I deserve a treat.”
“It won’t happen to us. We’ll cross that bridge if we come to it.”
“Fake it ’til you make it!”
“I can’t afford it.”

Today their attitudes are:
“Financial success isn’t about how much you make, but what you do with it.”
“I work too hard for my money to waste it on fruitless things.”
“It’s our responsibility to plan today for tomorrow’s expenses.”
“Most of America’s wealthy people don’t show it off.”
“We make enough money to buy the things that are important to me and my family.”

Personal-finance bloggers tend to be fairly analytical and logical, and we don't spend a lot of time on the psychological/emotional side. (Jason Hull is a notable exception.) This is the first book I've read that focuses on the attitudes and barely even discusses how they turned their numbers around. Once they changed their attitudes, the rest happened through straightforward boring ol' math.

It just came out last month so it's still working its way into the library system. If you're a numbers guy then it's probably not worth your time. But if spreadsheets make your eyeballs glaze over, and tracking expenses bores the crap out of you, then this book might help cut through the mystery of "Where did my money go?!?"
 
This book was a real page turner for me: Fear Itself: A Novel: Andrew Rosenheim: 9781468300727: Amazon.com: Books

It follows a young FBI agent in the late 1930's as he tries to infiltrate the Bund, an American Fascist organization. The historical setting appears to be well research. It felt like I was in the 1930's. Well since I wasn't around then, it's what I've imagined the 1930's to have been like. This book is well plotted and tightly written.
 
Just finished reading "Lone Survivor" and the author's second book "Service' by Mark Luttrell. Book is first about what it takes to become special forces and second about the failed Redwing operation in Afganistan with the author being the lone survivor. For anyone who has not read it or is interested in or has a deep or vested interest in learning more about "sp "ops", I highly recommend.
 
Just finished a great spy novel by Charles Cumming: A Foreign Country: Charles Cumming: Amazon.com: Kindle Store

It seems the author has some connections in the past with British intelligence and my guess is he has some nice sources to get his facts reasonably correct on current trade craft. The author is very young so he's got lots of possibilities left. Gave me the feeling that that's what British spies really do. But who knows about the realities of the spy business. If I knew I wouldn't tell as there is the Official Secrets Act. :) :rolleyes:
 
I just finished " Kinsey & me " by Sue Grafton. It is a collection of short stories and an intimate look into her life and how she created Kinsey . Great Book especially for Sue Grafton fans .
 
This was an excellent book by my current favorite author William Boyd: Waiting for Sunrise: A Novel (P.S.): William Boyd: 9780061876776: Amazon.com: Books

From the back cover (better written then I could do):
Vienna, 1913. Lysander Rief, a young English actor in town seeking psychotherapy, is caught up in a feverish affair with a beautiful, enigmatic woman—until she goes to the police to press charges of rape. Only a frenzied getaway plotted by two mysterious British diplomats saves him from trial. But after Lysander returns to a London on the cusp of war, the traumatic ordeal haunts him at every turn. The men who coordinated his escape recruit him to carry out a brutal murder. His lover shows up at a party, ready to resume their liaison. Suddenly plunged into the dangerous theater of wartime intelligence—a murky world of sex, scandal, and spies—Lysander must unravel a secret that threatens Britain's safety.

Moving from Vienna to London's West End, from the battlefields of France to hotel rooms in Geneva, Waiting for Sunrise is a mesmerizing journey into the human psyche, a beautifully observed portrait of wartime Europe, a plot-twisting thriller, and a literary tour de force.
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Also I read a book about a detective in India by Tarquin Hall: The Case of the Missing Servant: From the Files of Vish Puri, Most Private Investigator (Vish Puri Mysteries): Tarquin Hall: Amazon.com: Books
The author is a British journalist with lots of experience in that part of the world. A light read with interesting observations of current Indian society. There is a nice glossary in the back too.
 
For One More Day is written by Mitch Albom ( same author of The Five People You Meet In Heaven). This is a well written story of mother and son and a relationship that lasts a lifetime and beyond. Am sure most reading it can identify with the issues raised. What would u do if u could spend one more day with a lost loved one? Will u use it as a chance to make good with a lost parent? Having lost my father more than a year ago and my mum is now in her 80s, this book is truly a wake up call for me.
 
I am reading "The Oath" by Jeffrey Toobin. It is about the current Supreme Court and its relation to the Obama administration. Toobin has a good writing style and is pleasant to read. Court junkies and political junkies (of which I am both) will enjoy this.
 
Karl Marx - Capital Vol 1

The economic theories were long winded and fatally flawed. Unfortunately, they were seized upon to provide the intellectual framework for the planned socialist economies of the twentieth century and were a direct contributor to the humanitarian disasters that followed.

His denouncement of other economists of his and earlier eras was shallow - often resorting to little more than ad hominiem attacks or assertions that he (Marx) is right and, therefore, everyone who disagrees with him is wrong. (Occasionally, he hit the mark.)

Of greater interest was the description of the living conditions of the working classes of the early industrial era. Even allowing for the bias in Marx's writing he paints a picture which is detailed, specific and, above all, horrific.

If he had stuck with social commentary, he might be remembered very differently from the way he is today.
 
I just finished Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge, M.D. Okay, I haven't read the appendix yet.

What an enlightening book! A lot of the pieces of the puzzle of why I and other people do what they do fall into place. Like why I got a job when it wasn't an economic necessity.:facepalm:
 
I just read How to Retire Happy, Wild and Free. I can see why so many people reference this book. I really enjoyed it and my DH is reading it now.
 
I just read, "Survive!" which is about a guy who crashes his plane into the Sierra Nevadas on November 27th and has to hike his way out.

I also just finished, "Unbroken" which is an incredible WWII story of a guy who crashes into the Pacific and floats 2k miles with sharks surrounding his raft only to be captured by the Japaneese when he reaches shore.

Both books were real page turners.
 
I can give two thumbs up to Rage is Back, by Adam Mansbach, author of Go The F**k to Sleep. This is a wild ride through the subway car "burner" graffiti period from the perspective of the 18 y/o son of Rage, a former burner who was driven out of town by a bad cop when his son was a young kid. Rage has been living in the amazon jungles learning from bruhos ala Carlos Castaneda. When he returns he, his son, and his old crew head out for some entertaining revenge against the bad cop who is now a mayoral candidate.
 
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