MGoReading
Our household has done some cord cutting and streaming downsizing this past year, particularly after the football season ended. We've been doing a lot more reading since then. I often read Horror, Fantasy and US History books. Three that I have on my shelve to read our "Shadow of the Gods", "Dune" and "The Three Body Problem". I'm excited about all three. I think the The Three Body Problem got picked up by Netflix and I haven't read much Sci-Fi in my day. I don't know much about Dune other than I drifted in and out of the movie when I was battling COVID and a high fever.
Anyone else been reading anything interesting?
The Peshtigo fire occurred across a large swath of land in two states and is one of the deadliest events in US history. You misrepresent the size as well as minimize the devastation of the Peshtigo Fire because you don’t actually think about the two events. You just repeat what you read.
The media largely ignored Peshtigo despite it being a greater disaster in terms of lives lost and acreage destroyed. Your post is genuinely ignorant.
Jesus you are exhausting
I’m talking about a book about the Chicago fire that does have a decent bit about the peshtigo fire in it.
but you have to chime in like usual with hey what about this other event that I know so much about because I’m not some sheep that doesn’t think for themselves. It’s like I tell my young children just because I’m complimenting one doesn’t mean the opposite for the other. There’s only so much room and time, I’m not going to cover all aspects of an event in a message board post when I’m just trying to give a book recommendation
Crabgrass Frontier is outstanding. There's a lot of good history of the suburbs out there now. Worth reading.
Great choices--some pretty serious history books! I haven't read it, but I've heard good things about Blood in the Water by Heather Ann Thompson. It's about the prison uprising at Attica. Author teaches at Michigan (African American studies department I believe).
I read Dune at Michigan and immediately became obsessed with it. Re-read it multiple times - not something i usally do - because there are so many levels to it. Also read the next two in the series...but the conclusion of the third one was too weird for me.
Next on my list is the Analects of Confucius. I heard in a podcast that it's very accessible, so as soon as I find the time to finish killers of the flower moon i'm shifting to that. Then maybe re-read dune again.
I'll have to read it. One of my good friends was obsessed with it in high school. I watched the original movie and I think that lost me some interest. not the books fault.
My favorite book has always been "Ender's Game" There are more books in the series that are also interesting, but have a different feel. The movie also did not represent the book well, although I think thye did a good job with a lot of the cast. Ender needed to be younger.
Read Ronnie Woods book and plan to read Greg Allman's at a friend's suggestion. Ronnie's was a window through time.
I've read Dune 10+ times and the entire original 6 books at least 3 times. I obviously loved it - feels like the original Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire with prescience replacing magic and set in space. Be warned though, there are long sections of characters just thinking to themselves. That's not everyone's cup of tea.
I read the Three Body Problem quite quickly and enjoyed it tremendously... until the last 30 pages or so. I plan on reading the second book but I had a distaste for the ending. Fortunately, most people I talked to about it didn't think the end was nearly as bad as I did so there's a good chance you may enjoy it.
If you're looking for an easy SciFi read after Dune then "A Memory Called Empire" was simple but enjoyable. For more terrestrial material, you could also try "Recursion" (as the name implies it's more time travel based).
If you're looking for US history then I highly recommend Chernow's Hamilton (which led to the musical) and Chernow's Washington. Some of the most page turning biographies I've ever read.
I'm still hunting for a good Jefferson biography. Anybody got a suggestion for me?
I started the Jon Meacham biography but have basically stopped just before Jefferson goes to France in 1784. It began to feel like Meacham liked Jefferson so much that he was whitewashing. I think Meacham devoted 1 page to Jefferson's first term as governor of Virginia and maybe 6 pages to his second term. Considering that was in the middle of the Revolution, it's impossible for me to believe that there was nothing worth writing about as he governed the most populous colony. That along with other areas where he seems to completely dismiss or gloss over some of Jefferson's other activities made me question the completeness of the biography. And once trust is broken with a biographer it's very hard to earn back.
not jefferson particularly but i thoroughly enjoy most of the oxford history of the united states series. Their revolutionary and civil war ones are great, but they really shine in those other eras - "the empire of liberty," "what hath god wrought," and "the republic for which it stands" are all excellent narrative overviews of the early constitutional republic, the rapidly industrializing jacksonian era, and the eras of reconstruction and the gilded age. can't recommend them enough.
Best Jefferson biography I have ever read was Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power
I always wish McCullogh wrote about him
Just finished Meacham's Jackson bio. Have read a few of his and am always disappointed. Enjoy his commentary in Ken Burns' documentaries, but just don't love his writing choices.
A Memory Called Empire bored me to tears. Recursion was a lot of fun though.
If you like Epic Fantasy, I'd highly recommend the 3 book series Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn by Tad Williams. The books are: The Dragonbone Chair, Stone of Farewell, and To Green Angel Tower.
I'd also recommend the Green Rider series by Kristen Britain.
Before the pandemic, I used to participate in a monthly speculative fiction book club at my local library. Based on what's on your shelf, it would've been right up your alley. Some favorites I discovered that way:
- John Scalzi (I'd start with Old Man's War or Kaiju Preservation Society. Heavy bit of comedy in his writing)
- China Mieville - The City and the City (very speculative fiction, but makes you think a lot)
- NK Jemisin - The Fifth Season (Sci-fi/fantasy with some horror aspects. Won a ton of awards.)
Some other stuff you might like
- Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (a little sci-fi, a little historical fiction, a little horror)
- Reamde, Neal Stephenson (his most thriller book, but with a lot of fantasy stuff)
- Fluke, Christopher Moore (all his stuff is comic, although if you like horror, you might like his Vampire series better)
Cloud Atlas is a contemporary epic. Fire rec
What is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?
My kind of recs, love cloud atlas and Christopher Moore (although his recent stuff hasn’t be as enjoyable)
and a fan of scalzi
You should try the muderbot series by Martha wells
I'll check it out, thanks! She's been near the top of my list since I read that she's an Aggie. I really wish there were a couple more hours in the day, I'd get so much more reading done.
Cradle by Will Wright.
The entire Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy (The Three Body Problem, The Dark Forest and Death's End) are incredible and worth the read.
Great topic, OP.
I only discovered Percival Everett two years ago, but he's now my favorite American contemporary fiction writer. The Trees was my first, and it was so fucking amazing that I went to I Am Not Sydney Poitier (loved it too). I haven't read Erasure yet, but just watched American Fiction, a screen adaptation of Erasure. It was 100% Everett. No one is spared from his satire. He's got a new novel out, James, based on the character Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (apparently one of Everett's favorite American books). I'll be reading it as soon as I can get my hands on a copy.
I'm also late to the party reading Philip Roth, but I'm a big fan. I recently finished The Plot Against America and thought it was a great book. I won't say any more than that. 😊
I've been reading a lot for my own work during the day lately, so I'm in the mood for some more leisurely reading now. The Lord Peter mystery novels by Dorothy Sayers are a nice light read to help me decompress at night.
I read mostly crime (with some sci-fi and the genre known as literary fiction). I recently read and enjoyed Nick Petrie's The Price You Pay. Petrie is a UM/RC graduate (like me), but I would like this series (Peter Ash) anyway. I wouldn't start with The Price You Pay.
I like The Pentecost and Parker books by Stephen Spotswood, and I enjoyed the most recent one Murder Crossed Her Mind.
Along crime/thriller lines,I also recommend Margot Douaihy's Scorched Grace, John Sandford's Virgil Flowers books, Ace Atkins, Robert B. Parker's Spenser books (old now), Ian Rankin's Rebus series, Joe Ide, Michael Connelly, Sara Gran, Chris Offut (I am probably forgetting some). I have enjoyed the Mick Herron Slow Horses books.
For SF, I second the Scalzi recommendation. I've read most of his books (other than the Old Man's War series--first one was not compelling to me). His most recent two (The Kaiju Preservation Society and Starter Villain) are good introductions to his work.
Seconding Percival Everett, an outstanding writer. If you haven't read Roth's Deception yet, I encourage you to take a look.
Thanks, I'll check it out.
So far, I've only read his American Trilogy (American Pastoral, The Human Stain, I Married a Communist) and The Plot Against America. I'm looking forward to digging deeper.
Been a minute since I read it, but since the OP mentioned Three Body Problem, if you like doorstopper fantasy series that actually finish on time (frowns at George RR Martin) I would recommend The Dandelion Dynasty (four tomes, first of which is The Grace of Kings), which was written by Three Body's translator, Ken Liu.
It's an epic that's highly informed by Chinese history especially circa the Win Dynasty, with some wildly imaginative sci-fi touches, though Liu cribs some story beats even more heavily than Game of Thrones cribbed from the War of the Roses. So, literally dynastic in scope. Parts of the series do get bogged down in the worldbuilding but it's a fantasy epic in every sense of that term and there really aren't many fantasy series like it. It's not for everyone but if you've ever wanted a modern Romance of the Three Kingdoms with steampunk technology, you could do far worse than this series.
Currently reading Stranger in a Strange Land by Heinlein.
If you like horror Dracula is a classic and is an excellent book.
ohhhh sounds awesome! Adding. Thank you!
Currently working my way through Sven Beckert's Empire of Cotton: A Global History.
It's incredibly detailed and it's not something you'd normally choose for reading at the beach, but if you love history it's pretty fascinating.
This Atlantic article by Beckert is based on the book:
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/12/empire-of-cotton/383660/
That looks like a great read. Thanks for posting.
My niece surprised everyone by choosing St. John's College in Annapolis, i.e. the "Great Books" college. She inspired me (the heaviest book I ever read was "Elementary Differential Equations and Boundary Value Problems") to see if I could keep up with her, at least through her freshman year. A little Iliad, anyone? I admit I bailed on Homer, but I got kind of hooked into helping her work out how much of Plato's Socratic dialogues was actually Socrates and how much was Plato blowing his own horn. My college buddies would spit out their beer if they could see me now.
Pretty campus right across from the USNA, great field for a sunset run
The best stuff I've read in the last ten years, in no particular order:
The first three books of the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series. GWTDT, then Girl Who Played With Fire and Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. All Steig Larsson.
Neverwhere and The Graveyard Book, both by Neil Gaiman.
The Black Company series, by Glen Cook. Eleven (I think?) books, with the first three being the best.
SevenEves, by Neal Stephenson.
The Martian and Project Hail Mary both by Andy Weir. There is also Artemis, but that one isn't as good.
Project Hail Mary was so damn enthralling for the latent engineer in me. And enthralling in general.
My (hot?) take is that PHM is better than The Martian and really should be made into a movie.
Yes--I second Stieg Larsson's trilogy. The protagonist ("the girl") is fascinating and the plots are intricate.
I legit fall in love with Lisbeth Salander every time I read through the books. That probably says something about me.....
The Black Company got really slow during the Books of the South, but I don’t know if I’ve ever watched a book series so clearly start off as the author just having fun and being completely irreverent and “this will not be a series,” only for the author to realize completeley organically “oh, there’s an actual story here.”
I 100% agree. The first three books (and the Silver Spike which should be read as Book Four) are fantastic. But then Cook got even more dark, because The Books of the South (especially Dreams of Steel and Bleak Seasons) get sloggy and even more depressing and it becomes difficult to get through them. But I get so invested in the characters in the first trilogy that I have to keep going. Then book ten (?) Soldiers Live is a satisfying ending.
Really liked SevenEves but I have a hard time recommending Stephenson to many people. He definitely isn't for everyone. Snow Crash probably an easier place to start with him.
Was always a big fan of Arthurian Legend stuff, and am finally getting around to reading the Once and Future King. Not too far into it, but enjoying it so far.
Been reading lots of Norse and Greek mythology over the last couple years. Strongly recommend Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman
It's not a book, but "Joseph Campbell and the Power of Myth" was a fascinating series (it's a 6-part series of interviews that Bill Moyers did with Campbell). Campbell was an expert on comparative mythology and the interviews cover mythology from all around the world (Native American, Norse, Greek...). Plus, he's damn fun to listen to.
Here's a link in case you haven't seen it but are interested:
https://billmoyers.com/series/joseph-campbell-and-the-power-of-myth-1988/
Fwiw, Campbell’s work is interesting but I’d be careful with his summaries of mythology. He’s going to (intentionally or not) elide or ignore subtle but perhaps important differences between different traditions because he’s pushing a view that all myths are reducible to a “monomyth”. He’s like the Golden Bough for the 20th century.
You might agree with him on that (I don’t, full disclosure), but just know that that view is in the background when he’s summarizing things.
Good tip; will check them out
Speaking of Detroit, how can anyone overlook Elmore Leonard? Get Shorty?
If you like Norse-inspired mythology, you should give The Shadow of the Gods by John Gwynne a look.
Will do. Thanks for the suggestion
All kind of older books.
The Passage / The Twelve / The City of Mirrors- Justin Cronin
The Strain / The Fall / Eternal Night - Guillermo del Toro
Beartown - Fredrik Backman
The Thicket - Joe Lansdale
LA Confidential and My Dark Places - James Ellroy
The Celebrant - Eric Rolfe Greenberg - mix of old baseball nostalgia and historical fiction. It's a quick read.
Speaking of James Ellroy, I read a memoir by Richard Schickel's daughter, Erika, who had a marriage-ending affair with Ellroy. She's a very entertaining writer but she's pretty self-destructive and it gets a little self-indulgent.
He's pretty messy himself. He spoke in one of my classes during the press tour for My Dark Places. His mother's murder, rightfully so, affected him a lot.