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I'm another one who only reads for escape. However, I must be the only fantasy reader here. I fell in love with Tolkien at the age of 8 and I've been hooked on fantasy ever since.
Usually I have 2 or 3 books going at once. I'm currently reading F. Paul Wilson's Repairman Jack series.
Fantasy is a reeealllly broad category. I absolutely refuse to read sword and sorcery stuff, but I love authors like Juliet Marillier and Jacqueline Carey.
Another non-fiction one: I'm rereading Monkey Mind just to wash out the bad taste left by the last one.
In addition to sparklingly witty writing, Monkey Mind is the funniest book about any mental illness ever!
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Originally Posted by thekarens
I love Tolkien, and fantasy in general but as Irulan said, it is a huge genre. Have you read the short stories of Tolkien they published a few years back? One is "A Tolkien Miscellany" and another is "Unfinished Tales", there are a few gems in these two collections. Some sword and sorcery books I enjoy, especially when I need some down time. Irulan, I've not heard of Marillier or Carey before, will have to add them to my list, their books sound quite interesting!Quote:
Originally Posted by Irulan
I've not seen Stephen Lawhead mentioned in this thread, I like his work pretty well. I really enjoyed Byzantium, had mixed feelings on his Pendragan series.
I am currently reading "In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin" by Erik Lawson (along with a couple of books on primal/paleo eating).
This is a well written book and quite captivating. It is on the Dobbs family, Dobb was sent to Germany as the US Ambassador soon after Hitler rose to power. He originally took the position hoping to have time to work on a history of the southern US he had been trying to work on for years, but of course events in German changed that. He was not the usual pick for such a position as he wasn't one of the American privileged class.
Dobbs invited his grown children to go with he and his wife, and the author uses diaries of the family to reconstruct that first year. As you read this book, you begin to understand in part why the true nature of Hitler wasn't believed by outsiders for so long. There were all of the horror stories that started coming out when he and his party rose to power, but for visitors to Germany it all appeared to be just exaggeration as everything "appeared" to be the same. His daughter Martha took longer to understand the true nature of the Nazis and was caught up in it all.
I am still reading the book but I highly recommend it if you like to read history. I could easily stay up too late reading this, but the alarm goes off much too early :) Larson is such a good writer that I am going to see what else he may have written.
Catrin, thanks! That's definitely on my reading list.
My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler and had to escape to America. She wasn't Jewish or any other minority - she just wasn't one of Hitler's chosen people. But, she still secretly believed that Hitler was right and carried many prejudices to her grave. Different times.
They were indeed very different times, and that is another thing that becomes clear in this book. We "know" that there was more antisemitism in this country at that point in the 20th century, but reading this really brings that home. The focus is on Germany, but of course there were his interactions with the "folks back home", and even Dobb himself was on the anti-Jewish side of things - but he didn't agree with the methods the Germans used. Different times indeed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogmama
That does sound like a good book. As usual my reading list is stacked to the rafters and I've only got motivation for light fantasy (really enjoying Martha Wells' Raksura books right now, BTW) - but I'll keep an eye out for it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dogmama
My grandmother was in Germany during Hitler's ascendancy also. She had the right bloodlines (she used to tell a story about Mussolini hitting on her at an embassy party! :eek:) but the wrong beliefs. She entered an interracial marriage and followed a circuitous international route to wind up in the US with her children. It's one of the reasons I cut my mom a lot of slack for a lot of things. I can't imagine growing up on three continents speaking four languages, in wildly different social and economic circumstances each time, before she was 12.
Sounds interesting. I am still on a "no Nazis diet" for all media.
Tana French has a new one Broken Harbor.
Who knew there'd be so many creepy murders in Dublin?!
I've never read any of her books. Are they good? They've caught my eye recently because I'm in one of my periodic mystery/thriller phases.Quote:
Originally Posted by malkin
Highest recommendation for Tana French's books!!!
All the normal procedural crime stuff, with fleshed out characters and rich language.
She's great! Tana French and Denise Mina are my suspense discoveries of the year for sure.Quote:
Originally Posted by indysteel
I'm reading "Enemies: A History of the FBI" by Tim Weiner. I picked it up for a research paper for school and keep renewing it because I can't put it down.
I'm also reading in rotations on the bus commute:
Chi Marathon by Danny Dreyer
The Thrive Diet by Brendan Brazier
Eat & Run by Scott Jurek.
And I listened to "Daughter of Smoke and Bone" by Laini Taylor, a young adult novel that was really excellent for a long trip with my artist daughter down to North Carolina and back. We really, really enjoyed it.
I'm on an end of the world as we know it binge, just finished the Wool Omnibus, now I'm reading First Shift, which is like a prequel to Wool. If you are a science fiction lover, I highly recommend it.
My Goodreads bookshelf is an assortment of earth in the future stories..
Radioduranz
2184
Alice in Deadland (Zombies!!)
The Windup Girl
I also spent about a week reading the Hunger Games trilogy. :p
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Originally Posted by snapdragen
Have you read any of the Nantucket/Lady of the Sword stuff by S M Stirling?
Or, the trilogy that begins with 40 Signs of Rain by Kim Stanley Robinson?
I haven't, I'll check them out.Quote:
Originally Posted by Irulan
warning, for SM Stirling you must set your plausibility meter to zero as he's very tongue in cheek. :D
Another vote for Gone Girl by Flynn -- a real page turner
Liked Canada by Ford too but I didn't stay up late reading it (my standard for good vs very good).
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Originally Posted by malkin
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Originally Posted by salsabike
I was able to check out the Kindle edition of Tana French's Faithful Place from my public library and I devoured it this weekend. I really enjoyed it, thanks for the recommendation!
I have Broken Harbor on reserve (no Kindle edition yet so no instant gratification, ratz).
So I'm not the only one stuck in the world of Post-Apocalyptic fiction? :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by snapdragen
I really liked Wool. I don't know how it ended up on my reading list, but I found them to be real page-turners (Ok, it was on my Kindle, so that would be a "real button presser"?)
Geek Feminism had a posting a while back for Dystopian/SciFi with strong female leads ( http://geekfeminism.org/2012/02/15/d...le-characters/ ). Found some entertaining reads there, but nothing that I'd scream, "Read This" from that I hadn't already read.
Nicola Griffith's blog (she who wrote _Ammonite_) occasionally has reading lists and I've found interesting reads there, as well.
Thanks for the link
I started reading a novel by Lisa Lutz over the weekend called The Spellman Files. It's the first in an ongoing series involving a family of private investigators. It's more comedy than myster/thriller, and I'm enjoyed it as a light and fun summer read.
We are a homeschool family so getting books for curriculum and for free is a pretty big deal.
Kids books that adults might like are: a series called "The 39 clues" a very fun series, written by several authors using history and geography to solve the big mystery. I found my son getting answers correct on "Jeopardy" just from what he'd learned and researched on these books. He also LOVES American History- he somehow travels through world history and ends up back here. Oh well. He adored "Destiny of the Republic- Madness, Medicine and Murder of the President" about Garfield. Not historical fiction, but very good non-fiction.
I truly recommend Librivox.org for free downloadable audiobooks. Anything on public domain is there....for freeeee! I just finished Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Long book but a real gem.
We are a homeschool family so getting books for curriculum and for free is a pretty big deal.
Kids books that adults might like are: a series called "The 39 clues" a very fun series, written by several authors using history and geography to solve the big mystery. I found my son getting answers correct on "Jeopardy" just from what he'd learned and researched on these books. He also LOVES American History- he somehow travels through world history and ends up back here. Oh well. He adored "Destiny of the Republic- Madness, Medicine and Murder of the President" about Garfield. Not historical fiction, but very good non-fiction.
I truly recommend Librivox.org for free downloadable audiobooks. Anything on public domain is there....for freeeee! I just finished Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Long book but a real gem.