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Thread: What are you currently reading?

  1. #1301
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    I have been binge reading a couple of authors of late. The first is Bryan Smith. He is a fairly prolific horror writer.
    I read a couple of his trilogy series. Depraved, Depraved 2, and Depraved 3. Along with The Killing Kind, The Killing
    Kind 2, and Murder Squad. There is always a lot of graphic violence and sex in Smith's works. He seems to enjoy going
    for as much shock value as he can get, but is still a pretty good story teller.

    The second author was new to me until recent. Jeremy Bates. A Canadian, who penned a four book series on the world's scariest places.
    These are all actual locations, with their own legends. The books are Island of the Dolls (Mexico), Helltown (NE Ohio), The Catacombs (under
    the city of Paris), and Suicide Forest (in Japan). Bates is very adept at taking the legend of each location, and weaving an interesting story
    around it. His writing style kind of reminds me a bit of Nick Cutter, and Richard Laymon. Very impressed with him! White Lies, and A Taste of Fear
    are also books of his worth checking out.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  2. #1302
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    I am about a 3rd of the way into the new book about David Letterman entitled "The Last Giant Of Late Night" by Jason Zinoman. Really enjoying it and it is bringing back a lot of memories as I was a huge fan of his original show.

  3. #1303
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    Lucifer's Lottery By Edward Lee

    I love fiction, especially horror, because of the great admiration I have for the imagination of a good author. Lee has always
    been a favorite of mine. In Lucifer's Lottery, a young priest to be is given a chance to tour Hell and a subsequent deal that
    Lucifer has for him. This is the kind of story where Lee excels. He has hell depicted as the largest city ever known. With various
    boroughs,divisions, neighborhoods,etc. Each with its own theme. As vile and disgusting as anything you can imagine. Lee's
    attention to even minute detail here is astounding. This is one twisted mind we are dealing with! Recommended if you don't
    mind over the top grotesque.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  4. #1304
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
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    Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan

    Never read anything by this guy before. The meat of the story is about a petty criminal's misadventures in a 19th Century Australian penal colony. The gold is the narrator's inner dialogue, often turning the genuine horror and despair of his surroundings into something comical. It's earthy and profane, but isn't so for it's own sake. It's hard for e to describe the balance he strikes, but he strikes it true, and each chapter comes back of a fish in one way or another. Also, the framing device is intriguing, and I'm still waiting to see how he wraps around to it in the end.
    Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.

  5. #1305
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lou View Post
    Lucifer's Lottery By Edward Lee
    Based on your description, Lou, I've put this on my list. I've read one or two of Ed Lee's works, can't remember which, but do remember being knocked out by his writing.
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  6. #1306
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    Currently reading "No Quarter The Three Lives Of Jimmy Page". Very interesting stuff so far and a lot of stuff I did not know about Page especially his early career as a session musician.

  7. #1307
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Lopez View Post
    Based on your description, Lou, I've put this on my list. I've read one or two of Ed Lee's works, can't remember which, but do remember being knocked out by his writing.
    I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Oddly, he also has a couple of earlier books dealing with a similar subject. Infernal Angel, and City Infernal.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  8. #1308
    All Things Must Pass spellbound's Avatar
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    The Drunken Botanist: The Plants That Create The World's Great Drinks (2013), by Amy Stewart

    You might think reading a book by a scientist about plants would be dull. This one certainly is not.

    Walkaway (2017), by Cory Doctorow

    A non-dystopian novel about our jobless future.
    We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
    It won't be visible through the air
    And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973

  9. #1309
    Member interbellum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by notallwhowander View Post
    Gould's Book of Fish by Richard Flanagan

    Never read anything by this guy before. The meat of the story is about a petty criminal's misadventures in a 19th Century Australian penal colony. The gold is the narrator's inner dialogue, often turning the genuine horror and despair of his surroundings into something comical. It's earthy and profane, but isn't so for it's own sake. It's hard for e to describe the balance he strikes, but he strikes it true, and each chapter comes back of a fish in one way or another. Also, the framing device is intriguing, and I'm still waiting to see how he wraps around to it in the end.
    I read this one a few years ago. I was triggered by the wonderful artwork and the coloured letters. It's a very originally written story.

  10. #1310
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    Durchbruch bei Stalingrad (recently translated into Dutch) by Heinrich Gerlach. The English version is called The Forsaken Army.
    It's a WWII-story told from the German side.

  11. #1311
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    Practical Utopia-Strategies For A Desirable Society-by Michael Albert.Preface by Noam Chomsky.

    Albert is a man of the left,but so far,this book is free of dogmatism and cant.I'm hooked.
    "please do not understand me too quickly"-andre gide

  12. #1312
    Highly Evolved Orangutan JKL2000's Avatar
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    I just read Room. I found it a page-turner despite thinking it got bogged down in what I consider padding. Basically, the author could easily have trimmed 40 or so pages.

  13. #1313
    I recently attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival for the first time. It was amazing! 3 days of silent film gems with live accompaniments ranging from a piano to electronic groups playing original scores. I think this festival will become a yearly event for me. Anyway, in the merch room were the current and a number of past program guides for the festival. Each is 100+ pages of info and pics about the films showing that year. That's what I'm reading now.

  14. #1314
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by philsunset View Post
    I recently attended the San Francisco Silent Film Festival
    Sounds like good stuff, Bob. You'll have to tell me all about it at ProgDay at the field or at the pool. I borrowed a copy of the silent Wings with Clara Bow (first-ever Oscar for Best Picture) from the library, but I haven't watched it yet.

    I just finished Gwendy's Button Box. A mighty good novella by Stephen King and Rich Chizmar. There's a lot of Richard Matheson's story "Button Button" in it, but as King has said when confronted with accusations that some of his stuff is derivative of Matheson's, "Yeah, I steal; but, I steal from the best."
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  15. #1315
    facetious maximus Yves's Avatar
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    Born A Crime by Trevor Noah... Very entertaining so far. He can make living in absolute squalor seem funny!
    "Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."

    -Cozy 3:16-

  16. #1316
    Member Lou's Avatar
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    When the Darkness Falls by J F Gonzalez

    Gonzalez is one of my favorite horror authors. He has a brilliantly twisted mind. His novel Survivor, is probably the most intense and disturbing
    thing I have ever read! This is a collection of short stories and novellas.They do not disappoint. Fans of Jack Ketchum, Edward Lee, Brian Keene,etc
    will find a lot to like here.
    A Comfort Zone is not a Life Sentence

  17. #1317
    Member Jerjo's Avatar
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    NPR polled their listeners/readers for favorite comics/graphic novels and then fed them into a hopper overseen by an expert panel that winnowed it all down to 100. I haven't read anywhere near all of these but there's some choice selections.

    http://www.npr.org/2017/07/12/533862...graphic-novels
    I don't like country music, but I don't mean to denigrate those who do. And for the people who like country music, denigrate means 'put down.'- Bob Newhart

  18. #1318
    I'm here for the moosic NogbadTheBad's Avatar
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    Some of my current favorites appear there, lots to explore.
    Ian

    Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on progrock.com
    https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-a...re-happy-hour/

    Gordon Haskell - "You've got to keep the groove in your head and play a load of bollocks instead"
    I blame Wynton, what was the question?
    There are only 10 types of people in the World, those who understand binary and those that don't.

  19. #1319
    Member interbellum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jerjo View Post
    NPR polled their listeners/readers for favorite comics/graphic novels and then fed them into a hopper overseen by an expert panel that winnowed it all down to 100. I haven't read anywhere near all of these but there's some choice selections.

    http://www.npr.org/2017/07/12/533862...graphic-novels
    I've seen a couple of them been sold in stores, but I'm not a real graphic novel-expert/reader. One of the few novels I have is not in the list, but highly recommended: Dave McKean's Cages.
    Of course I got into McKean through his album-covers for Bruford's Earthworks and later his movie Mirrormask.

  20. #1320
    Estimated Prophet notallwhowander's Avatar
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    Prepping for a new semester:

    Empires of the Silk Road - A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present by Christopher I. Beckwith

    I've been wanting to read a history like this for some time: from Central Asia outward, where China, Europe, and India are peripheral. I've only just finished the sizeable prologue, and am looking forward to actually digging in to the first chapter about the Proto Indo-Europeans.
    Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.

  21. #1321
    Member Lopez's Avatar
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    I'm about a third of the way through Steve Jones' Lonely Boy: Tales from a Sex Pistoll. I'm enjoying it so far. Most of his pre-Pistol life was stealing stuff. A regular Alex DeLarge. I'm at the part now where he's got the band together but neither Johnny nor Glen have joined yet. Even though he's lived in America for almost 40 years, the book is written in British slang. It's like reading A Clockwork Orange without the dictionary in the back. After a while you figure it out.

    On deck is A Cellarful of Noise, the autobiography of Brian Epstein (published in 1964). I found it in the Boston Public Library. It's without a dust jacket, and Brian's name is covered with library ID stickers, so on the shelf it looked like some old, forgotten volume ready for the library book sale.
    Lou

    Looking forward to my day in court.

  22. #1322
    Member interbellum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by interbellum View Post
    Durchbruch bei Stalingrad (recently translated into Dutch) by Heinrich Gerlach. The English version is called The Forsaken Army.
    It's a WWII-story told from the German side.
    Actually, the first edition of this book, was not the first one to be released. Gerlach was a German officer who was taken prison by the Russians after Stalingrad. In prisonship he wrote the first edition of the book, but when he was set free in 1950 he wasn't allowed to take it with him. With the help of hypnose he could remember a big part of the book and he started re-writing it. The second edition became a big selling novel. In recent years Carsten Gansel, a German literature-scholar, managed to get the original version from the Russians and this version is now also available.

  23. #1323
    facetious maximus Yves's Avatar
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    "Revelation Space" by Alastair Reynolds... My first foray into his works. Just started it but liking it so far!
    "Corn Flakes pissed in. You ranted. Mission accomplished. Thread closed."

    -Cozy 3:16-

  24. #1324
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    Currently reading “No Quarter The Three Lives of Jimmy Page”. Really enjoying this one. It is very well written and researched.

  25. #1325
    All Things Must Pass spellbound's Avatar
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    Finished The Silent Corner by Dean Koontz. Hadn't read one of his books in a while. This one introduces a new female protagonist, Jane Hawk, ex-FBI, that he plans on writing more books about, saving him from trying to write an ending. A sci-fi-doom plot featuring nanobots keeps the ball rolling. Not bad.

    Starting another wild Florida escapade, Clownfish Blues, by Tim Dorsey.
    We're trying to build a monument to show that we were here
    It won't be visible through the air
    And there won't be any shade to cool the monument to prove that we were here. - Gene Parsons, 1973

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