Read any good books lately? Rate them here

[Ravenshire]

Just picked up a 1st edition of Kim Harrison's "The Undead Pool" for a buck!

Now I'm seriously hoping she'll do another signing soon.

[Seraphina]

I just read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. An excellent but devastating read. I highly recommend it.

-Teresa

[Crossless2.0]

I'm reading two books: Jane Mayer's Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right (because I'm not nearly pissed off enough as it is) and Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History (because I'm not nearly pissed off and depressed enough).

[Ravenshire]

I just read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. An excellent but devastating read. I highly recommend it.

-Teresa

Have you read "The Buried Giant" by that author yet? That one has remained in my daily thoughts even though it's been over a year since I read it.

[Seraphina]

I just read The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. An excellent but devastating read. I highly recommend it.

-Teresa

Have you read "The Buried Giant" by that author yet? That one has remained in my daily thoughts even though it's been over a year since I read it.

I haven't read it but I will definitely check it out, thank you.

[Ravenshire]

Have you read "The Buried Giant" by that author yet? That one has remained in my daily thoughts even though it's been over a year since I read it.

I haven't read it but I will definitely check it out, thank you.

My pleasure. I love to read and I love sharing what I've read, especially the good ones.

[Pat Mustard]

and Anne Applebaum's Gulag: A History (because I'm not nearly pissed off and depressed enough).

Bought that about 15 year ago now. Only managed to get c. 60% through the book, due to the depressing nature of the content.

[Ravenshire]

Since finishing the Vorkosigan series by Lois McMaster Bujold I've read the Variant series by Robison Wells, finished the Hunt series by Andrew Fukuda and am currently (re)reading the Reckoner series by Brandon Sanderson.

Vorkosigan is and eclectic group of tales following the exploits of two generations of the Vorkosigan family (and a cousin). Set in the far future where humanity has colonized some of the nearer stars with the help of wormholes. These are great sci-fi reads.

Variant is... well, if you liked "The Maze Runner" and it's sequels, you'll probably like this one. Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but they weren't all together bad. It's a modern day sci-fi (kind of) tale about a school that searches out kids that no one will miss (runaways, orphans, etc...) and entices them in for nefarious purposes.

The Hunt series is probably the worst written Vampire tale ever written. Yes, even worse than the sparkly vampires.
Spoilers within.

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It starts out with a very few "heapers" (humans) hiding in plain site among the "duskers" (vampires) in a land called Nede. Later in the series the duskers manage to smell the scent of heapers from dozens of miles away, even though they could never smell the ones living among them. They have an eclectic mix of technology that included trains, horse drawn carriages, televisions and texting devices. Turns out that it's all in the distant past, the duskers are the original evolved species, the heapers are the result of genetic experimentation anf the last two heapers fly off on a hang glider to found a new land and a new people to eventually kill off the duskers. The name of the new land: Eden

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The Reckoners is Brandon Sanderson's take on the superhero genre. But, there are no superheros, only supervillains. These books are great fun and terrific reads.

[Secular Elf]

This is a good read for Battlestar Galactica fans, The Lords of Kobol:

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/78823

Written by Edwart T. Yeatts III, this series of 4 books is a prequel to the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica universe.  It answers the question "What happened on Kobol before the mass exodus of humanity to the 12 Colonies?"

[Fake Messiah]

Preacher Boy: A Liberty University Graduate Bids Farewell to Falwell and Hello to Atheism by Timothy Michael Short

What can I tell you guys... you know when it comes to Evangelicals it's always going to be fucked up and this book doesn't fail in that regard. It's always startling how much they just hate everything and everybody even other christian denomination (let's face it they all pretty much dislike each other).
For me it is like reading a fantasy novel because it's almost set in this, at least to me, alternative world. Just to explain, it is a biography of a guy that later became an atheist, so for instance, he writes how young people had fear listening to "youthful" music and by that he means christian rock because people passing by thier house may think he is listening ordinary rock music so they would call them in the middle of the night to tell them how devil is up to get them and their soul is in danger.
It's not just hate but they also find almost anything offensive and often fall in psychotic tantrums over really minor things. Like he writes how some grown man was giving lecture in christian college how he fell into trap of taking his daughter and her husband to see "Finding Nemo" when, to their horror, they discovered it was very offensive movie. That they immediately had to visit their pastor to "heal" them. Not just that but guy also started crying and people clapped him.
But there were also kind of hot stories. Like he noted that in his friend's family their mom wold punish them regularly by beating them on the naked ass, so once his 17 year old sister about to be ass whipped entered her room, not knowing he is inside, with her underpants already lowered down her knees.
And that is also something that seems fucking up with their brains, the fact that they have to look at all women as their sisters and constantly be segregated (because they take St. Paul's guidelines toward women very seriously) seems to work them toward looking at their siblings as sex objects. For instance he notes how guys would be really worked up talking about their sister's bras. They even had a term for that situation and that is "being more enamored with female anatomy then with God".

Interestingly one of the things that got him on path to atheism was "Will and Grace". He would watch in his college days (which was by him liberal college because they were allowed to watch W&G) and was surprised that Will was portrayed as normal person, although he was gay, because he was always told that gays were Nazis trying to take down America. But even that wasn't easy because during the show he himself would sometimes get up and started having his "Jesus cleansing the temple" moment where he would yell at them to stop watching this heathen thing.

I only wish someone would make a TV movie out of this book.