WHAT ARE YOU READING?

[Kuetsar]

11 hours ago, Cliff Hanger said:

I've been bouncing between Perlstein's NIXONLAND (which i probably can't talk about without getting the mods' hackles up) and David Craddock's LONG LIVE MORTAL KOMBAT (which is fucking awesome. He got interviews not only with most of the MK1-4 staff but a lot of the martial artists too.) I've been stuck for a bit on the chapter about Dan Pesina's history with the franchise and his seemingly-ahistorical claims, though.

 

Once I finish one or both, my next nonfiction is Michael Molcher's I AM THE LAW, about the relationship between Judge Dredd and RL law enforcement issues. (Vast oversimplification, obviously.)

 

Fiction-wise, I'm getting ready to finally start A JUST DETERMINATION, the first in John Hemry's space-opera JAG legal thrillers, which I have been meaning to read for 9 years now.

Its been a long time since I read Nixonland, but I liked it.

[JLSigman]

Read Children of the Vault, and it was OK for a Bishop/Cable short, but utterly pointless. Things happen, then everything unhappens. About the only important thing happens in the last issue when one of the Children name drops the current Big Bad.

[Curt McGirt]

Black Heart Turns Blue vol. 1 - Jerry A. Lang

Man. This is the singer of Poison Idea's autobiography and it's a rough one. It's the first of three so obviously he's starting with his childhood, and it is some of the most abusive shit imaginable. Him turning into any kind of decent person after is crazy. Still, his life stayed a spiral of violence and legendary drug abuse. He's a solid dude though, in comparison to reading Jack from TSOL, another '80s hardcore singer's book who was a brutal sociopath that finally changed. THAT was legit the scariest and most disturbing autobio I've ever read and is way more "that guy deserves to be dead" instead of "that guy should be dead". Vol 2 on the way. 

Also reading Shock Value by John Waters  Happy birthday, Master!

And I bought Ultimate Punisher 2. It's the original volume of comics after the miniseries. The Punisher is misrepresented as this Batman/Rambo combination. He's not. He's Dexter Morgan with an arsenal. And he's always smiling.

Edited April 24 by Curt McGirt

[JLSigman]

Catching up a bit -

 

Finished both White Sand and the second batch of Mistborn books, and I think I'm done with Brandon Sanderson for now. Both ended very lazily - yes, I know, he was finishing Robert Jordan's monstrosity - and I'm returning the first book of the Stormlight Archives unread for now.

Library has The Three Body Problem waiting for me. This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for a while, and now that there's a series on Netflix there's a bunch of copies available. I'm also gearing up for a re-read of Tad Williams' The Last King of Osten Ard series. Hopefully by the time I get them / get through them the last one will be out.

[Curt McGirt]

2nd part of the Jerry A. bio down. Drugs, drugs, drugs. Addiction and death. Nasty stuff.

I also sped through The Life We Chose, life story of Billy D'Elia, the successor to overarching mob boss Russell Bufalino, who was the actual "boss of all bosses" in America. Pesci played him in The Irishman. Neat stuff for a mafia historian like me. Now I'm on Roberto Saviano's Zero Zero Zero which is about how cocaine has become the boss of all bosses worldwide. Dark and pessimistic, just like his brilliant Gomorrah. There's a reason he's under police protection for the rest of his life.

[Mike Campbell]

The last two weeks at work, and what's looking like at least the next two weeks as well, have been spent in the middle of fucking nowhere, with practically zero cell reception and the days are getting progressively later and later, on top of the one hour drive each way to the location. So, I jumped into the audible library to see what would help me pass some time. I went with Different Seasons, a Stephen King novella collection.

 

I knocked out the first one: "Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption" in a single sitting, side from a couple of quick pauses for piss breaks or catching my mind wandering and rewinding to make sure I didn't miss anything big. The movie is actually a pretty faithful adaptation, although it expands on a lot of things in order to be a feature length movie, and the ending is a lot more open ended.

[JLSigman]

Read and enjoyed The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu. Well translated by Ken Liu, phenomenal work considering the scientific and cultural stuff involved. I've already asked my library to get the second book in the series.

[JLSigman]

Also read "The Wedding of Tony Stark and Emma Frost", and it was REALLY good. Loved the twists and turns. Made me want to keep up with this iteration of the Iron Man comic.

[SirSmUgly]

Quick hits on new stuff that I've read because I've been doing mostly of re-reading of stuff I've read before since about six months ago:

King by Allan Levine - Yeah, I think I pretty much know everything I could want to know about this particular Canadian PM. He was uncomfortably emotionally entwined with his mother, he was an ardent spiritualist, he was very anti-Semitic. That's the WLMK story. That and having a Nixon-like ability to revive what was seemingly a dead political career after a huge loss or setback multiple times in his life.

The Exchange by John Grisham - As fun as his last book The Boys From Biloxi was, a vintage Grisham airport bookstore page-turner, this was not. I think I liked it better when Mitch and Abby were floating around the Caymans with a few million bucks in their secret bank account. I'm more interested in whatever Mark Sway is up to than finding out that Mitch and Abby are boring yuppies with two kids living in NYC or reading about them experiencing a far less entertaining legal thrill ride than they did in The Firm. 

A Little Yellow Dog by Walter Mosley - I've long loved the film adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress, but I never had gotten around to reading an Easy Rawlins mystery. I finally did, and what do you know, it was a page turner. I committed myself to leaving this one at my bedside and just reading a couple chapters a night before I went to sleep as a cool-down device, but I did cheat a bit yesterday as I got closer to the end, and I finished it last night. I'm resolving to go back and start reading these Easy Rawlins mysteries from the beginning (I think A Little Yellow Dog is the fourth Rawlins mystery). I'm bummed that HBO canceled their Perry Mason adaptation, which was a gorgeous and well-acted show, and I would have loved a Perry Mason/Easy Rawlins L.A. Area Mystery Night on MAX if HBO were still prolific in putting out great shows. 

I also read a couple of complete stinkers (besides the new Grisham) that I've already sold back to used book stores, the most notable of those being Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History, a book of counterfactuals centered around major American sports happenings that includes two decent counterfactuals, one to disprove an assumption that people generally have about the effects of adopting Title IX, and a bunch of crap. There's a book about English and Scottish football counterfactuals called What If? that is actually a series of thoughtfully researched counterfactuals interlaced with some solid narrative writing about how the counter scenario might have turned out, and I expected at least that level of writing in Upon Further Review. I didn't get it, and thus this is one of the worst books that I've read in awhile. 

[Mike Campbell]

I'm roughly 60-65 percent through "Apt Pupil" - the second novella in the collection. It's another good one, albeit with some very unsettling scenes in it. I was talking about it with my sister last night and she informed me that Dusander is played by Ian McKellen in the movie, which completely fits and probably explains the accent that the narrator uses for the audiobook, because it sounds like he's doing his best McKellen impersonation. I'll definitely finish it today and possibly also the next one in the collection "The Body" (better known as Stand By Me, one of my all time favorite movies).

[J.H.]

Love all the Easy Rawlins until the book where Mosley brought Easy back.

Mouse is such a fun little psychopath

James

[The Unholy Dragon]

Been all in on audiobooks lately due to both time constraints and honestly my eyesight having some issues. Curse you age and genetics! 

Knocked out Thirteen Storeys and then Family Business, both by Jonathan Sims. I was already a fan of his work in The Magnus Archives, but writing a serialized horror podcast is very different structurally from a novel. Thankfully, he's been more than up to the challenge. Both were superb, easily among my favourite horror reads of the last decade. The biggest issue I'm having is that I want more novel stuff from him and he doesn't even have a third announced yet.

[Mike Campbell]

"Apt Pupil" was finished yesterday. It's a very good story, but like I said in my earlier post about it, there are some very unsettling scenes in it. The ending is also way out of left field. Which isn't exactly a shocker with Stephen King.

 

I started The Body, but had to take a break because there's a bit of an interlude where adult Gordie reads one of his first published stories, and it's so jarring that it completely took my interest out of it. I managed to finish the chapter and after a little bit, I went back to it and the story itself resumed.

[RazorbladeKiss87]

On 5/14/2024 at 10:00 AM, J.H. said:

Love all the Easy Rawlins until the book where Mosley brought Easy back.

Mouse is such a fun little psychopath

James

I've only read the short story collection and that was a while ago so I'm thankful for these posts reminding me I wanted to get into the series.