Read any good books lately? Rate them here

[notimportant1234]

Just finished Legends of Olympus-Gods by Alexandru Mitru , this is a Romanian book, I don't know if you could find it in english. It is a pretty decent book in wich you find almost all greek mytology of gods also the story of The Flood of Zeus(Deucalion) and the making of man wich are very similar to the ones in the Old Testament.

[Whateverist]

So are we still using this thread to talk about books we're reading? Just read one by China Achebe called Things Fall Apart. It is a novel written in 1959 by a man born in Nigeria about what life in a village before europeans arrive and then what happens when the brits show up intent on imposing both their religion and political order. Gives you a good feel for the nature of the lives they led before and how disempowering it was to have self determination extinguished. It is about the imperialism of european politics and religion. Openly imperialistic political aspirations are no longer palatable to most people, but so much of Christianity remains as hell bent on hegemony as ever. You'd think with their access to god-ordained, objective morality they'd get past this; instead it just their raw ambition more obvious.

[Rev. Rye]

Currently on Conquest of the Useless by Werner Herzog. It's his journals from the time he was making Fitzcarraldo. Unfortunately, it's not complete, and long stretches of the two-year production are unaccounted for (one stretch of time, the journals were destroyed because some termites decided to make a mound near the shelf where he kept the notebook in question.) It's a bit less enlightening than one expected, but the man's distinctive voice shines through in every sentence.

[Clueless Morgan]

I recently finished The White Queen which is about the War of the Roses from the perspective of King Edward's wife Elizabeth. It's apparently very historically accurate, in terms of events in her life, folding in the fact that her mother was accused of witchcraft, as was she, his two boys being imprisoned in the Tower of London, her surviving two stints in sanctuary...

It was a very different book from what I normally read, and rather slow for what I read, but also oddly fascinating. Might read some more of this author's stuff. I think her name is Phillipa Gregory...?

Now reading The Boys in the Boat about the crew team that won gold at the 1936 Berlin olympics. So far it's interesting. Talking about the life of one of crewmen growing up in the 20's and the Depression.

[Whateverist]

I recently finished The White Queen which is about the War of the Roses from the perspective of King Edward's wife Elizabeth.  It's apparently very historically accurate, in terms of events in her life, folding in the fact that her mother was accused of witchcraft, as was she, his two boys being imprisoned in the Tower of London, her surviving two stints in sanctuary...

It was a very different book from what I normally read, and rather slow for what I read, but also oddly fascinating.  Might read some more of this author's stuff.  I think her name is Phillipa Gregory...?

Now reading The Boys in the Boat about the crew team that won gold at the 1936 Berlin olympics.  So far it's interesting.  Talking about the life of one of crewmen growing up in the 20's and the Depression.

I really enjoy historical fiction, loosely historical fiction and even alternative history fiction.  Some favorites include Robert Graves' I Claudius and Claudius The God, the Neapolitan Quartet (four sequential novels) by Elena Ferrante, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.  Oh, and some of the books about places by James Michener are a lot of fun too.   But I could hardly put Middlesex down once I started reading it.  I just today put holds on two nonfiction books and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  But if that novel doesn't hold my attention I'll request The White Queen.  Thanks for the recommendation.

[The Valkyrie]

Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids.

As always a great laugh.

[Ravenshire]

Been reading (ebook) the first of the Laundry Files by Charles Stross. Very interesting take on metaphysics being closely entwined with higher mathematics and using technology to build summoning circles and the like. All bollocks, of course, but still pretty good fiction.

Recently listened to The Bobiverse series. Fantastic series about a guy (Bob) who has his head frozen for future reanimation and winds up as an AI slave being analyzed for control of the first interstellar craft in a future thoacracy. Once he breaks down the security protocols, frees himself from the human controllers and starts to multiply, he/they get up to all sorts of hijinks. Really fun "reads."

Followed that with the Precious Stone trilogy. A fantasy tale with time travel and a predictable and overly sappy love story. Not one I regret reading, but not one I'll read again either.

After that, The School of Good and Evil trilogy. Fairy tale type setting where two girls from a local village get abducted and taken to a school where one will learn to be an evil witch and the other a princess in the best of fairy tale fashion. Add a twits that the girl ever one figures to be the good girl winds up in the evil side if the school and the one everyone assumed would be evil lands in the good side and you've got an interesting premise. Add a wierd love triangle where neediness and greed replace fairy tale 'true love' and you wind up with a series that I'm only finishing because of a morbid sense of curiosity.

[Clueless Morgan]

I recently finished The White Queen which is about the War of the Roses from the perspective of King Edward's wife Elizabeth.  It's apparently very historically accurate, in terms of events in her life, folding in the fact that her mother was accused of witchcraft, as was she, his two boys being imprisoned in the Tower of London, her surviving two stints in sanctuary...

It was a very different book from what I normally read, and rather slow for what I read, but also oddly fascinating.  Might read some more of this author's stuff.  I think her name is Phillipa Gregory...?

Now reading The Boys in the Boat about the crew team that won gold at the 1936 Berlin olympics.  So far it's interesting.  Talking about the life of one of crewmen growing up in the 20's and the Depression.

I really enjoy historical fiction, loosely historical fiction and even alternative history fiction.  Some favorites include Robert Graves' I Claudius and Claudius The God, the Neapolitan Quartet (four sequential novels) by Elena Ferrante, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides, and The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell.  Oh, and some of the books about places by James Michener are a lot of fun too.   But I could hardly put Middlesex down once I started reading it.  I just today put holds on two nonfiction books and The Good Earth by Pearl S. Buck.  But if that novel doesn't hold my attention I'll request The White Queen.  Thanks for the recommendation.

Two books I remember reading as a kid were historical fiction: one was about a kid who time-travels back to Washington crossing the Delaware and one was about a kid who time-travels back and meets Edgar Allen Poe... I have no idea what the names of these books were or what the plots entailed, I just remember enjoying them.

The one critique I have about the White Queen which can't be helped because it's historical is that there are a ton of people who share the same names. Multiple Elizabeths, multiple Edwards, multiple Richards... I gave me flashbacks of reading Wuthering Heights. *shudder*

[Shell B]

I recently finished "The Alchemist," which was just the right length. I love that in a book. I'm now reading "Beloved" by Toni Morrison because it's on all of the best lists, but I have to say there are elements I don't like. Also, everyone told me this was a book about slavery, not a ghost story with a baby killer.

[Whateverist]

I recently finished "The Alchemist," which was just the right length. I love that in a book. I'm now reading "Beloved" by Toni Morrison because it's on all of the best lists, but I have to say there are elements I don't like. Also, everyone told me this was a book about slavery, not a ghost story with a baby killer.

The ghost story aspect really confused me at first and then put me off once I caught on.  But then I don't like Stephen King and all that sort of thing.  Given how many people rate Beloved so highly I was surprised how little I cared for it.  Another one I read not long ago that dealt with the transition after slavery was called A Lesson Before Dying.  I liked it much better.