Readers corner

[Le duke]

For those with long commutes and limited time to read the written word:

Audible is now free with Amazon music unlimited.


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[mspart]

Listen to The Cat in the Hat.    Worth a listen!!!

mspart

[PortaJohn]

3 hours ago, Le duke said:

For those with long commutes and limited time to read the written word:

Audible is now free with Amazon music unlimited.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Can never make it past the book of Job without thinking to myself that this God guy is pretty messed up

[ILLINIWrestlingBlog]

On 7/2/2024 at 8:32 AM, Danny Deck said:

The Demon of Unrest by Erik Larson

 

Loved it! But I've loved all of his nonfiction books. I've been to Charleston and Fort Sumter twice, and that trip blew me away both times. The Larson book that I'd recommend to start with is The Devil in the White City. The way he weaves storylines together and then throws in historical trivia is a style I have tried to emulate. 

For example, in The Devil in the White City, he tells us about a serial killer in Chicago during the 1893 World's Fair while also describing how the fairgrounds were built, the first Ferris Wheel, and especially the insane gardening that had to be done, and why the Hell haven't they got me those damn Peonies yet!

Oh, and then the killer strikes again. 

Besides being a Dickens fanboy, I also love me some Douglas Adams. Yes, the Hitchhikers, but now I'm fixated on the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency series. Maybe because I've re-read them most recently? I curse the coronary artery disease that killed him at such a young age. 

Edited November 20, 2024 by ILLINIWrestlingBlog

[Danny Deck]

I really liked Candice Millard's Destiny of the Republic which also need a really good job of weaving in multiple things that were happening around the time of President Garfield's assassination. 

[VakAttack]

I'm currently reading "The Invisible Life of Addie Larue."  Really interesting story/idea!

[Danny Deck]

Alright, going to finish at least one more book before the end of the year, but here is where we are. 

I read 65 books last year, and only to 63 so far this year, but I did read more pages this year. 

My average rating on Goodreads was 3.4 which I think is the lowest average since I started using it to track what I was reading. That feels accurate since I don't know that I really loved a lot that I read this year. 

I liked lots that I read in November and December. I finally read The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen. Only 20+ years after it was a sensation, but I did enjoy it. Endurance about the Shackleton Expedition was great, an incredible story of survival. 

I'm closing out the year reading several Dylan books, his own Chronicles Vol. 1, Why Bob Dylan Matters and Dylan Goes Electric. Unsurprisingly Chronicles is most interesting for his facility with words, as a memoir it's highly suspect. At least two chapters are at least mostly fiction. Why Bob Dylan Matters is mostly about how Dylan pulls together disparate pieces into new art focused mostly on him lifting passages from Roman poets. Dylan Goes Electric is the basis for the movie coming out, and I'm really enjoying it so far. It does an excellent job giving the full picture of what all was going on in music at the time. 

Overall favorites for the year are

Augustus by John Williams. I can't recommend it or Stoner by him highly enough. 

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V Higgins

An Officer and a Spy by Robert Harris

Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe

Not sure what all I will read in 2025. Naturally despite all of the books I own, it's several books I don't that I'm most anxious to read now:

To Overthrow the World: The Rise and Fall and Rise of Communism by Sean McMeekin. I enjoyed Stalin's War and The Russian Revolution also by him. 

The Achilles Trap: Saddam Hussein, The CIA and the Origins of America's Invasion of Iraq by Steve Coll

On the fiction side, I will probably put some more work in on the remaining Larry McMurtry and John Le Carre books I have to read. I've considered re-reading the Jack Ryan books. I read them up through Executive Orders in middle school. I enjoy the movies and the series so I thought it might be fun to revisit the books. I'm also considering working through some Russian Lit. Can't decide if it's better to really set the mood by reading in winter or wait for more sunlight.