What are you reading Chapter 4

[RayWithFlats]

Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys

I really enjoyed the movie when I saw it ages ago but I didn’t realise it was adapted from a novel until very recently. It’s a little bit rambling but that’s intentional, the central character Grady is kind of a flake so the style fits the content well. I enjoyed it and I’ve already bought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay but I’m waiting until work settles down before I start it.

 

[Altitude]

I usually have one fiction book going and one non-fiction book.

I just finished the Ken Follett "A Column of Fire". Excellent, but read the others in the Pillars of the Earth series first. This one concerns itself with the religious wars in England and France around 1550-1650 when Elizabeth I became queen. It's not a historical work like a McCullough book as much as it is historical fiction like Michener. Which to me makes it more readable, I'm not in a history class.

Also just finished Scott Galloway's "The Algebra of Happiness." I've been into Galloway lately, listening to his podcasts all the time. This book is a collection of a certain set of his tropes. It's fine, maybe a 2.5/5. Not as compelling as I expected it to be.

Right now, I have decided to take on "One Hundred Years of Solitude" for my fiction. It's been on my list for a long time.

My new non-fiction book is "Surrounded by Idiots" by Thomas Erikson. High hopes - the issue I have with books like this is that many of them are 300 pages long, get their message across fully in the first 60 pages, and repeat it all at increasing levels of detail for the rest. I put quite a few down. But this one leads to another of his "Surrounded by Psychopaths" that deal with manipulation. I happen to work in an industry where I feel a lot of that occurs, so I'm keen to see what he has to say about it.

 

[Altitude]

Michael Chabon - Wonder Boys

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I really enjoyed the movie when I saw it ages ago but I didn’t realise it was adapted from a novel until very recently. It’s a little bit rambling but that’s intentional, the central character Grady is kind of a flake so the style fits the content well. I enjoyed it and I’ve already bought The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay but I’m waiting until work settles down before I start it.

This one was great, one of my favorites. Enjoy it.

 

[slobake]

"A highly relevant and gripping novel that challenges us to ask what it means to forgive while seeking justice and to pursue reconciliation while loving others as ourselves."

 

[RayWithFlats]

This one was great, one of my favorites. Enjoy it.

Did you read any of the comics they produced as a tie-in? I saw that someone published the in-universe books for real and Chabon wrote or co-wrote some of them. I’ll definitely check them out if I get into the novel. I think I should love it, I really liked Wonder Boys.

 

[definenredefine]

This looks like it might be worth checking out -
https://www.npr.org/2023/05/04/1173613977/john-wray-novel-gone-to-the-wolves-heavy-metal-book-review

 

[Jeff Scott]

 

[roccobass]

Just got finished with Vol.1
This is Vol.2

 

[slobake]

"Can Justice Save the Earth from Extinction?

Maxine Justice is an ambulance-chasing lawyer desperate for relevance and cash when aliens hire her to represent them before the United Nations. An off-planet consortium wants to heal humanity of every natural disease in exchange for 30% of Earth’s gold reserves.

The deal launches Max to legal stardom and makes her an international target for assassins. MediCorp, Star Cross, PharFuture—the big medical companies all have good reasons to want Max out of the way. Worse, she discovers her alien clients may be planning something more sinister than anyone has imagined.

Can a lawyer who failed the bar exam three times find some way to save the world from global and interstellar conspiracies? Or will humankind’s future end in a galactic courtroom?"

 

[Oddly]

Honestly I'm hesitating to even admit I've read this, much less loved it, for fear of a suspension here...

@Jeff Scott , have you seen the Tom Hanks movie based on Ove, A Man Called Otto? I thought it did a wonderful job.

 

[Jeff Scott]

@Jeff Scott , have you seen the Tom Hanks movie based on Ove, A Man Called Otto? I thought it did a wonderful job.

Yes, we saw it a few months ago.

 

[LiptonJigglers]

Sequel to I Claudius..

 

[kleinenenten]

Just finished reading about the Egyptian and Babylonian pantheons. Might dip my toes back into some sci-fi or fantasy in the next few weeks.

 

[Jeff Scott]

 

[Tom Bomb]

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[Tom Bomb]

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I dug up the book yesterday. Good laugh
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[Jeff Scott]

Flipping through the photos in this book, now.

 

[MonetBass]

Burkhard Bilger is a childhood friend and neighbor who is a first-generation German-American. The book is about his maternal grandfather who was a schoolteacher and Nazi party member in the Alsace region in the city of Bartenheim, but secretly he was protecting the villagers. Burkhard's writing style makes for an easy read. He was actually here in Tulsa a few weeks ago where he spoke about the book, and I was able to get a signed copy. It was great to see him as it had been about 40 years since!

 

[scott sinner]

I had recently read a book on octopuses and other types of evolved intelligences
https://www.amazon.com/Other-Minds-Octopus-Origins-Consciousness/dp/0374227764

This one, honestly probably not pleasure reading for most though I think it was pretty accessible from a difficulty level. I qualify that because I do have a degree in psychology and long practiced in the realm of applied psych essentially.

But from that, someone recommended a very interesting sci-fi series about terraforming that related to that. These, I'd recommend to anyone, no pre-requisites needed.

They essentially do the 'what if?' of if many things you expect in terraforming to go wrong, but odd things went right.
Children of Time Series by Adrian Tchaikovsky

 

[Sam Evans]

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0810869241