What are you currently reading?

[Stads]

The posts in the "What are you currently reading?" thread

Edited August 14 by Stads

[steveoath]

Wool - Hugh Howey

Alien 3 - William Gibson version

My daughter and I listen to audiobooks in the car. At the moment we are on book 3 of Neal Shusterman’s Sythe trilogy.

[nfreeman]

I just finished Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese.  I thought it was great.  Highly recommended, especially for the healthcare professionals here.

[SwampD]

I've been reading a lot and I love it. I barely even watch TV anymore. I'm currently reading H.G. Wells' The War of the Worlds. There's a reason it's still around. I have to keep reminding myself just how long ago it was written.

Just got done with The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. I really liked it. Played with parallel universes and alternate realities. Also just got done with We Walk by Amy Lutz. It's about her dealings in the world of profound autism and the ridiculous world of the internet and the garbage that people spew. (My wife and I are kinda gearing up to fend off idiots who are going to push back for her book.)

The book that really got me back into reading was The Metaliad. An epic poem by William Burger. He wrote in it ottava rima (every stanza has a rhyme scheme of ABABABCC.) It's crazy that he could pull this off, because the story is about the metal scene in Brooklyn and how it was being taken over by Racists and gentrification.

My next read is going to be the Three Body Problem trilogy.

[TheAud]

27 minutes ago, SwampD said:

I've been reading a lot and I love it. I barely even watch TV anymore.

I'm right there with you. 

 

28 minutes ago, SwampD said:

My next read is going to be the Three Body Problem trilogy.

Two of my family members recommended this to me this past weekend. It's in the queue. 

[bob_sauve28]

I just finished "Dewey Defeats Truman" about the 1948 election Truman was supposed to lose. It was written by A.J. Baime 

Harry Truman was very unpopular following FDR's death. Post War Inflation was souring the electorate's mood on him, even as he was pushing through some of the most important foreign policy moves our country has ever made, the Truman Doctrine to confront the communist menace and the Marshall Plan to fight the communist by improving the economy of war torn Europe. 

Truman's opponent was none other than our very governor, Thomas Dewey, a Liberal Republican who in the past had broken the mob and the rackets in NYC where everything from milk to artichokes had a 10% mark up because of gangsters. Dewey took them apart. Dewey had lost in 1944 to FDR but was considered a shoe in against the apparently much weaker Truman. 

By 1948 the Democrats had had the WH for the past sixteen years but the Republicans had taken back both houses of congress in 1946. This Congress had passed all of the foreign policy stuff on a bi-partisan manner, but on domestic policy the congress rejected all of Truman's liberal, New Deal like, proposals. The stage was set for an epic election battle that Truman would succeed in making about the issues. 

Also running was a splinter group from the Democrats, the very strange, though, apparently incredibly smart and talented, Henry Wallace. I say "smart" but do not mean it in a political sense, Wallace was a wiz kid with some type of agricultural stuff. He had been FDR's VP until 1944, when Truman replaced him, and he had not forgotten that. He hated Harry! He also hated our foreign policy which he claimed was provoking the Russian bear. He apologized for Stalin, said the Marshall Plan was imperialism and other crap, all while the Berlin Airlift was heroically underway. He was also--as were Dewey and Truman--a champion of Civil Rights, and he attracted a lot of black and radical left support, saying that if communist wanted to vote for him he would take their votes. 

Another party in the race, also a splinter group from the Democrats, was the States Rights Democratic Party led by Strom Thurmond. It was a racist party protesting Truman's Civil Right's plank, which Truman refused to back down on. Truman even used an executive order to de-segregate the military. The South was not happy at all! When Henry Wallace tried giving speeches in the south he was pelted with tomatos and eggs. It was the first time southern racism was on full display to many Americans. 

Truman opened the campaign with a roar. In a surprise move he called the 80th Congress back into session declaring that inflation, the housing shortages and other issues demanded bold and immediate action. He knew they wouldn't do anything, and they didn't disappoint Truman ran with it. His election campaign was not directed against Dewey, but against the 80th "Do-Nothing" Congress. He stormed the country by train, stopping at big cities and small towns alike and giving speeches where he bashed the 80th Congress for being controlled by the special interests. He pointed out again and again to the farmers that usually backed the Republicans that the 80th Congress had eliminated grain bins, that had stored grain when there was over supply. Now it was sold off at market price at a lower level. Truman won an unusually large number of famers. 

Dewey did not run an aggressive attack campaign. He did give a lot of speeches but was more about explaining what he was going to do when he won. He spent a much publicized afternoon with Dwight D. Eisenhower, looking presidential. Dewey did not want to make a mistake and felt he was going to win. 

The pollsters were so sure Dewey would win that they stopped polling a month out. This was the first time the Party conventions were broadcast live on TV. Everyone was shocked that Truman won. The Chicago Tribune published by mistake a headline declaring Dewey the winner. Strange to say, Dewey and Truman agreed on almost all the issues, but Truman just stuck it to the Congress he had worked so well with in foreign policy. Love and war. 

 

 

[Slack_in_MA]

Reading "A Man Called Ove" by Frederick Backman about an old widower curmudgeon who's considering suicide, but is being befriended by young neighbors. This comes on the heels of "Beartown" by the same guy, which is a story (fiction) about a hockey town in rural Sweden with very good junior and A teams. Lots of hockey and life stuff throughout. I'd bet many members of this board would enjoy it, as I did.

[Sabres Fan in NS]

Girl Storm by Mrs. @SwampD.  Just getting into it and it's fantastic.  Just enough humour to make an impossibly difficult situation tollerable (not the best word to use here, but it's certainly not an enjoyable or fun situation they were in).  @SwampD you and Peg are a true example of what loving parents should / need to be.

[MattPie]

• Adrian Tchaikovsky's Children of Time series is a really good read; sci-fi distant future stuff
• A Half-built Garden by Ruthanna Emyrs is a good near-future sci-fi book where people work together rather than have corporations dictate tastes
• NK Jemisin The City We Became and The World We Make is a fun comic-book-ish horror series centered around NYC
• Currently reading The Ray Nayler The Mountain in the Sea, more near-future but dystopian sci-fi that I'm really digging

[Big Guava]

Lots of stuff in Dutch in Rotterdam

[#freejame]

Well, I finished In My Time of Dying by Sebastian Junger and it was very good. The second half of the book examines the science and theories behind NDEs, and that got me finally picking my $1 copy of The History of Time and Space off the bookshelf. It’s a much easier read than I was expecting and has already helped me grasp concepts that I’ve long struggled with. I’m now halfway through that.

I also just opened up Game of Shadows this morning, which was another used bookstore find for $0.85. It’s all about the BALCO scandal and Barry Bonds. Only two chapters in, but it’s a very easy read. Regardless, I expect if I don’t read it quickly it will probably live half read on my shelf sooner or later.