Now Reading?

[FUDU]

The troll guy in GoT is actually pretty awesome. He's just also really short and has to work hard to overcome his problem.

Sort of like Peeker with his baldness.

My bad. Break a leg Peeker.

e0y2e3 probably means the dwarf. Dwarves and trolls are two different things. At least that's how moscratcher explained it after boring us with Dungeons & Dragons talk for an hour.

So since I'm not part of any of this gay GoT discussion would I be dwarfing this thread or trolling it?

[peeker643]

The troll guy in GoT is actually pretty awesome. He's just also really short and has to work hard to overcome his problem.

Sort of like Peeker with his baldness.

My bad. Break a leg Peeker.

e0y2e3 probably means the dwarf. Dwarves and trolls are two different things. At least that's how moscratcher explained it after boring us with Dungeons & Dragons talk for an hour.

So since I'm not part of any of this gay GoT discussion would I be dwarfing this thread or trolling it?

You're FUDU-ing it. That's descriptive and ruinous enough.

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Yeah it's pretty awful now that you're here.

You have a Dart.......

[FUDU]

You realize that FUDUing a thread means it makes it follow the complete opposite path it was on, so if it sucked already (like I said it did) then that means it's pretty much going to be an awesome ass thread from here on out.

[LakeErieWarriors]

The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder

Only on p.33 but I can defintely tell that I'm going to like it when it's all said and done.

Read East of Eden by Steinbeck before this, and their writing style is very similar.

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Excellent.

[mattvan1]

You're FUDU-ing it. That's descriptive and ruinous enough.

Is that the new Hankkkking it? Inquiring minds want to know.

[swerb]

Gone Girl was good. Not great. Very entertaining though.

Like 20% into The Devil in the White City. Amazing book and story so far. Saw Leonardo Dicaprio purchased the movie rights to it ... that could be an amazing film.

[peeker643]

Gone Girl was good. Not great. Very entertaining though.

Like 20% into The Devil in the White City. Amazing book and story so far. Saw Leonardo Dicaprio purchased the movie rights to it ... that could be an amazing film.

Still trying to figure out how I feel about Gone Girl. Devoured it and it was clever but... ehhh...

One I didn't care much for was The Analyst. Thought the first half was slow. 2nd half picked up some but I thought it was just OK.

Just grabbed the Reacher prequel today. Dude won't let me down if I can only put out of my mind that Tom Cruise is supposed to play him in the movie.

[motherscratcher]

Gone Girl was good. Not great. Very entertaining though.

Like 20% into The Devil in the White City. Amazing book and story so far. Saw Leonardo Dicaprio purchased the movie rights to it ... that could be an amazing film.

Still trying to figure out how I feel about Gone Girl. Devoured it and it was clever but... ehhh...

One I didn't care much for was The Analyst. Thought the first half was slow. 2nd half picked up some but I thought it was just OK.

Just grabbed the Reacher prequel today. Dude won't let me down if I can only put out of my mind that Tom Cruise is supposed to play him in the movie.

It's ridiculous. It pisses me off to no end that Cruise is playing that part. I have absolutely no interest in seeing that movie. And I like Tom Cruise.

I always thought Reacher should be Ryan Hurst, the dude who played Opie in Sons of Anarchy.

As far as the books, I try to save them for vacations for some reason.

[motherscratcher]

One of these days I have to go through this thread and make a list.

[skatingtripods]

Re-reading this:

[GodHatesClevelandSport]

Reading The Twelve by Justin Cronin. It's the sequel to his smash hit The Passage from a couple years back. Second of a planned trilogy. I really enjoyed the beginning of The Passage. If the bulk of the book continued as good as the first 140 or so pages it would have gone down as one of my favorite books of all time. But it kind of fell apart.

I'm about 40% through the sequel. It's nowhere near what I was hoping for. It's OK. There's a 60% chance I finish and an 80% chance I finish unsatisfied.

Just started a nonfiction book I think I'll enjoy -- Marvel Comics: The Untold Story. That's basically what it is, the history of Marvel Comics. The first dozen or so pages were fun. Stan Lee has an elaborate story of how he came up with the Fantastic Four when his boss told him they needed a superhero group for their comic company because DC was putting Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, et al together as The Justice League. Stan the Man says he wanted to give up and quit, his wife talked him into staying, he came up with hundreds of ideas over a few days and came up with the FF.

Then it jumps to Jack Kirby, who says he walked into the office, saw Stan Lee crying in the corner, Marvel was hauling the furniture out, and Kirby pledged to save them.

[pup]

One of these days I have to go through this thread and make a list.

Anyone know if you can create a group account at Goodreads? Someone could jump in every once in a while and add some new additions?

[StewieG]

Gone Girl I thought was very well written, but it wasn't satisfying as a story. I thought it could have been much better.

Currently re-reading The Passage, because I forgot most of the characters and events in the 2 or so years it's been since I first read it. When I'm done, I'll pick up with The Twelve.

The Devil in the White City is on my future list (on recommendations from this forum, which never disappoint), and I may get into the Reacher series...though I saw there are 8 books, $10 a pop on Kindle. May have to do that one slowly.

[leadpipe]

Love that every couple months or so this thread comes to life.....

Highly recommend "Word Freak."

About the world of competitive Scrabble.

Fantastic on a number of levels.

Yes, competitve Scrabble. Don't laugh at me until you've read the book.

[peeker643]

Gone Girl I thought was very well written, but it wasn't satisfying as a story. I thought it could have been much better.

Currently re-reading The Passage, because I forgot most of the characters and events in the 2 or so years it's been since I first read it. When I'm done, I'll pick up with The Twelve.

The Devil in the White City is on my future list (on recommendations from this forum, which never disappoint), and I may get into the Reacher series...though I saw there are 8 books, $10 a pop on Kindle. May have to do that one slowly.

Probably about 15 books, actually. Hit a library or Half Price Books. Just write down the sequence and get the oldest one you can find first. It really makes no difference if you start at #1 and, honestly a couple of the first 4 or so are just okay. I started with 'One Shot' and that was a good place to start. I went back and read them all but the order really isn't important.

[peeker643]

Here are the Reacher books in order:

Killing Floor
Die Trying
Tripwire
Running Blind
Echo Burning
Without Fail
Persuader
The Enemy
One Shot
The Hard Way
Bad Luck & Trouble
Nothing to Lose
Gone Tomorrow
61 Hours
Worth Dying For
The Affair (Prequel that sets up Reachers last days as MP and last days in military)

[e0y2e3]

^ all obviously named by the same person that came up with classic movie titles "Top Gun", "The Fast and The Furious" and "Gone in 60 Seconds"

[peeker643]

^ all obviously named by the same person that came up with classic movie titles "Top Gun", "The Fast and The Furious" and "Gone in 60 Seconds"

Don't judge a book by it's cover (or its title), dickweed.

BTW, if you were a book you'd be Stephen King's "Misery"

[Cerebral_DownTime]

[StewieG]

Thanks Peeks, I'll check them out.

[CleSportsTruth]

Been out for awhile now, but I was surprised how much I enjoyed 11/22/63. Not what one expects from King and, in the end, challenges the hagiography of JFK. Oh, and basically calls Dallas a city of assholes.

Normally, I HATE time-travel stuff b/c the loop is never closed, but I was fine w/ this.

[Cerebral_DownTime]

Terry Jones (Monty Python) is an amazing writer. He's so great at turning the stereotype on it's head.

[GodHatesClevelandSport]

Just finished "Telegraph Avenue" by Michael Chabon, which is absolutely brilliant by a very tough read. It's MIchael Chabon's attempt at writing "Ulysses." Amazing imagery, roller-coaster asides, fantastic language, just a real effort to read.

[peeker643]

Mitch Rapp. Went back to that series but skipped the book where his dumbass wife gets wacked because that entite story line was killing the vibe. I'm glad she died. I hope it was gruesome.

The rest of the books have been excellent. 'Last Man' was the most recent.

[swerb]

75% done with The Devil in the White City. Like just about every other recommendation from this thread, a worthwhile investment of time. What a fascinating story. Had no idea any of the history of the World Fair and all that went along with its time in Chicago in 1893.

Got a lot of airport time the next 3 months. Any other good recommendations?

[skatingtripods]

Fifteen Digits by Nick Santora. Producer of Prison Break, Breakout Kings, few Sopranos episodes.

[justmebd]

75% done with The Devil in the White City. Like just about every other recommendation from this thread, a worthwhile investment of time. What a fascinating story. Had no idea any of the history of the World Fair and all that went along with its time in Chicago in 1893.

Got a lot of airport time the next 3 months. Any other good recommendations?

"The Revolution Was Televised" by Alan Sepinwell.

It follows the evolution of the great TV shows of the last decade from "The Wire" to "Breaking Bad."

Excellent read, I finished it in two days.

[leadpipe]

75% done with The Devil in the White City. Like just about every other recommendation from this thread, a worthwhile investment of time. What a fascinating story. Had no idea any of the history of the World Fair and all that went along with its time in Chicago in 1893.

Got a lot of airport time the next 3 months. Any other good recommendations?

Lotta stuff that continues today started with that fair.

Anyways, Larsons "In the Garden of Beasts" was excellent as well.

About a guy who becomes Americas first ambassador to Germany, who brings his family, including a flamboyant daughter along. She parties with the young men of the third Recich, initially feeling their infectious desire to restore Germany to world prominence in exciting. But as time goes by, Jewish persecutuon begins, among other things. The guy reports this to US officials back home, and is met with indifference - they have zero idea at this point of Hitler's ruthless ambition, his desire to take over the world by any means necessary.

The insight on Goring and Goebbels is worth the read by itself.

Great friggin' writer.

[peeker643]

"Service" by Marcus Luttrell.

He's the SEAL who wrote "Lone Survivor" and this book adds to that, deals with his return to the Teams and his deployment thereafter in Iraq.

Also really great job on him realizing he can't physically do the job anymore and the difficulty of the transition from SEAL to OPS side, to retirement.

Also loved the stuff about the CASEVAC and Helo pilots/rangers/etc who risked it all to get him back. He tells that here because he couldn't then and he goes into great depth in a chapter called "How We Die". But the best of all may have been the chapter called Warrior Queens about the wives of these guyy who are gone for month at at a time and deep in shit when they are gone. Unbelievable.

I picked it up yesterday afer a friend gave it to me Saturday to borrow and finished it about 130am this morning. Could not put it down.

What they do is absolutely amazing to me and I could read well-written shit about these guys all day.


Thought one of the funnier parts of book was the short story about his buddy who was either transitioning out or on leave in Texas when he stopped to get gas. In the elapsed time of less than 35 seconds this buddy was held up at gunpoint by two would-be armed robbers. He told them he was reaching into car to grab keys, pulled his .45 from shoulder holster while leaning into the car, put the gun under his left arm pit and put two shots in each guy's chest. Grabbed his phone from the console that he was actually reaching to grab anyway, called 911 and then went into qwik-mart and bought a Red Bull aand Snickers. All on the security tpe, all in about half a minute.

[swerb]

I still have Lone Survivor waiting for me on my Kindle ... forgot about that one.

How about some of these recommendations I got through here and Twitter ... this is the top tier of my to read list ... anyone read any of these?

Tell No One author Coben, Harlan
Fifteen Digits author Santora, Nick
The Kite Runner author Hosseini, Khaled
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption author Hillenbrand, Laura
The Madman's Tale: A Novel author Katzenbach, John
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series author Asinof, Eliot
The Teeth of the Tiger (Jack Ryan Jr., #1) author Clancy, Tom
The Eighth Day author Wilder, Thornton
The Voice of the Night author Koontz, Dean
Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards author Wilker, Josh
Three Seconds (Grens & Sundkvist #5) author Roslund, Anders
Boy's Life author McCammon, Robert R.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything author Levitt, Steven D.

[StewieG]

Freakonomics was interesting.

[swerb]

Freakonomics was interesting.

I've heard good and bad on it ... it's never been able to crack my top ten "To Read" as a result ...

[e0y2e3]

It's a sack of nonsensical bullshit.

[swerb]

It's a sack of nonsensical bullshit.

That would pretty accurately represent what I've heard from many.

[gotribe31]

I still have Lone Survivor waiting for me on my Kindle ... forgot about that one.

How about some of these recommendations I got through here and Twitter ... this is the top tier of my to read list ... anyone read any of these?

Tell No One author Coben, Harlan
Fifteen Digits author Santora, Nick
The Kite Runner author Hosseini, Khaled
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption author Hillenbrand, Laura
The Madman's Tale: A Novel author Katzenbach, John
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series author Asinof, Eliot
The Teeth of the Tiger (Jack Ryan Jr., #1) author Clancy, Tom
The Eighth Day author Wilder, Thornton
The Voice of the Night author Koontz, Dean
Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards author Wilker, Josh
Three Seconds (Grens & Sundkvist #5) author Roslund, Anders
Boy's Life author McCammon, Robert R.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything author Levitt, Steven D.

Read Unbroken, Teeth of the Tiger, Eight Men out. Unbroken really is one of the best books I've ever read. Teeth was OK, definitely not vintage Clancy. Eight Men out was solid. I've heard good things about Kite Runner, but it hasn't risen to must read status for me yet. I've been on a big Civil War kick lately.

[GodHatesClevelandSport]

I still have Lone Survivor waiting for me on my Kindle ... forgot about that one.

How about some of these recommendations I got through here and Twitter ... this is the top tier of my to read list ... anyone read any of these?

Tell No One author Coben, Harlan
Fifteen Digits author Santora, Nick
The Kite Runner author Hosseini, Khaled
Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption author Hillenbrand, Laura
The Madman's Tale: A Novel author Katzenbach, John
Eight Men Out: The Black Sox and the 1919 World Series author Asinof, Eliot
The Teeth of the Tiger (Jack Ryan Jr., #1) author Clancy, Tom
The Eighth Day author Wilder, Thornton
The Voice of the Night author Koontz, Dean
Cardboard Gods: An All-American Tale Told Through Baseball Cards author Wilker, Josh
Three Seconds (Grens & Sundkvist #5) author Roslund, Anders
Boy's Life author McCammon, Robert R.
Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything author Levitt, Steven D.

I've read Cardboard Gods. Liked it. It's very melancholy. The guy wrote a blog, then adapted it to a book. It's basically a memoir with each entry inspired by a card from his youth. Gets a bit tedious after awhile.

Kite Runner and Unbroken have been very popular among book clubs. Kite Runner never interested me. Unbroken received rave reviews. Hillenbrand did well with Secretariat. No reason to believe this one isn't as good.

I agree with what's been said about Freakonomics so far.

Eight Men Out I read so long ago that I can't remember how I liked it, but it is generally listed as one of the best baseball books ever.

Not familiar with the others.

A couple more recommendations ...

The Racketeer by John Grisham. Lawyer caught up in a money-laundering scheme that he wasn't really involved in gets sent up the river, plots his revenge. Completely implausible, yet eminently readable. I knocked it out in two days.
The Straw Men by Michael Marshall. Another thriller, but more in the vein of Gone Girl where it teeters on literary fiction. Great characters, well written action, I'm 40 pages in and not sure where the story is going at all. First in a trilogy so if you like it you've got more to pick up.
Billy Wynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain. Kept hearing about this one without really knowing what it was about. Decided to read it at lunch one day and was immediately hooked. You're completely into this one by the fifth page. And it's a topic any dude should love -- Bravo Squad is on leave from Iraq after a heroic firefight and are the guest of the Dallas Cowboys at their Thanksgiving game. It was a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award.

[peeker643]

I read 'No Easy Day' yesterday after 'Lone Survivor'. I believe it to be the controversial account of the Bin Laden killing that had special ops people beside themselves. It was OK. Nowhere near the writing that 'Lone Survivor' displays.

Special Ops administrators need not worry about it compromising a thing as it doesn't really say anything.

And while the SEAL who wrote it goes out of his way to be humble regarding his role in the raid, it comes off as forced. I still finished it in a sitting or two but unless you're a special ops freak it doesn't really add much to anything and you've probably already read most of the account of that night elsewhere in more detail and with higher quality writing.

[Hikohadon]

Love that every couple months or so this thread comes to life.....

Highly recommend "Word Freak."

About the world of competitive Scrabble.

Fantastic on a number of levels.

Yes, competitve Scrabble. Don't laugh at me until you've read the book.

I've read that. It IS damn good.

[peeker643]

Thought one of the funnier parts of book was the short story about his buddy who was either transitioning out or on leave in Texas when he stopped to get gas. In the elapsed time of less than 35 seconds this buddy was held up at gunpoint by two would-be armed robbers. He told them he was reaching into car to grab keys, pulled his .45 from shoulder holster while leaning into the car, put the gun under his left arm pit and put two shots in each guy's chest. Grabbed his phone from the console that he was actually reaching to grab anyway, called 911 and then went into qwik-mart and bought a Red Bull and Snickers. All on the security tape, all in about half a minute.

Ironic, weird, sad.

This is the guy I was talking about above, Chris Kyle "American Sniper", above. He was shot and killed on a range yesterday by what appears to be a former soldier with PTSD.

Kyle was regarded as an angel on the shoulders of GIs in Iraq and Afghanistan for the protection he provided and likely as the most lethal sniper in US History.

SEALs have taken a huge loss in last couple years with this kind of stuff and the chopper crash from a year or so back.

http://nym.ag/WHEGhQ

[peeker643]

I really hope these issues these guys come back with don't get pushed under the rug and neglected. Because they're severe issues that can affect countless people.

Just a waste to see this guy killed by a guy he was trying to reach out and pull through the shit: http://nyti.ms/VCvGHc

[peeker643]

Just read Sebastian Junger's "War". Really good look at Korengal Valley life. Was the basis for the documentary "Restrepo" (or at least was being written while Junger and the film journalist were at Restrope and other KOPs).

Very non-judgmental and I liked the neutrality and the basis of the book being the daily life of these kids. Very well done. Very nice job of describing the mind numbing boredom and pants-shitting terror. Some of the narrative was insightful enough to explain some things. Such as:

“War is a lot of things and it's useless to pretend that exciting isn't one of them. War is life multiplied by some number that no one has ever heard of. Combat isn't where you might die -- though that does happen -- it's where you find out whether you get to keep on living. Don't underestimate the power of that revelation. Don't underestimate the things young men will wager in order to play that game one more time.”

“Each Javelin round costs $80,000, and the idea that it's fired by a guy who doesn't make that in a year at a guy who doesn't make that in a lifetime is somehow so outrageous it almost makes the war seem winnable.”

“Society can give its young men almost any job and they'll figure how to do it. They'll suffer for it and die for it and watch their friends die for it, but in the end, it will get done. That only means that society should be careful about what it asks for. ... Soldiers themselves are reluctant to evaluate the costs of war, but someone must. That evaluation, ongoing and unadulterated by politics, may be the one thing a country absolutely owes the soldiers who defend its borders.”

I read it in a couple days. That's the best review I can give.

[swerb]

Just finished "Unbroken". Great book. As good a non-fiction book as I can ever remember reading. Laura Hillenbrand did a great job with it, researching it intensely. The detail is vivid. It's as if you're there with Louie when he goes through his personal hell.

[danwismar]

A couple of good ones in the last couple weeks:

The Triple Agent: The al Qaeda Mole who Infiltrated the CIA

http://www.amazon.com/The-Triple-Agent- ... by+warrick

True story with a fairly well-chronicled (and gruesome) ending...but a good read. Incredible how the good guys just plain fucked up....

---

and just finished "The Fifth Assassin" by Brad Meltzer

http://www.amazon.com/Fifth-Assassin-Br ... ad+Meltzer

I don't read enough fiction to know how well this stacks up with the best of the suspense/thriller/spy writing guys today, but he had a #1 NYT bestseller recently with "Inner Circle" and has several other successful novels in this genre, and this was a 435-page page-turner I ripped through in about four evenings.

The protagonist is an archivist at the National Archives in DC, and he is tracking a killer who is mimicking the four successful presidential assassins from Lincoln to Kennedy...with a series of targeted killings...with a final goal of taking out the current (fictitious) President. A nice change of pace for me from my non-fiction rut.

[RickNashEquilibrium]

Starting this whole series from the beginning. The "House" books were great, never made it to this, Machine Crusade or Battle of Corrin. Still need to finish the last two books Frank wrote, Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse Dune. Anyone big or not a fan of this series?

[swerb]

Finally read The Kite Runner.

Was one of those books I have had on my "to read" list for a while and had been hesitant to start it. Kite flying? Inside look at Afghanistan? I wasn't sure I'd like it, and the hype was so great on this book I felt I would be disappointed.

I finally succumbed and am very glad I did. Was one of the better books I've ever read.

Outstanding writing from the author, a very well crafted story with no slow points and richly developed characters. He did a great job of tying together the storyline, which spans nearly four decades in this book. I learned a lot about Afghanistan, their culture, and the rise of the Taliban.

The characters were outstanding, specificially Amir and his father Baba. The part where he goes back to Afghanistan at the end was tense. And the ending was good, was glad it was wrapped up realistically and not touchy feelie.

Well worth the time investment to read this one. I couldn't put it down.

[JacksonDysonJackson]

Currently reading 'The Patriarch', a bio of Joe Kennedy. Very, very interesting life and well written.

[gotribe31]

Just finished "Unbroken". Great book. As good a non-fiction book as I can ever remember reading. Laura Hillenbrand did a great job with it, researching it intensely. The detail is vivid. It's as if you're there with Louie when he goes through his personal hell.

Really glad you enjoyed it. Like you, I can't reccomend this book enough. Hillenbrand is an interesting story herself; she's pretty much bedridden, and was never able to actually meet Zamperini. Did all of the research from her home, and talked to him several times over the phone of course. For her to be able to put together a masterpiece like this when most days she's too weak to even sit upright...pretty awesome.

Zamperini is a national treasure. He's 86 years old, and still very sharp and energetic. Having dinner with him was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

[peeker643]

I just read Unbroken as I'm in Memphis for a couple days for work and reading is safer than driving in this place (though I did make it to Tunica for a few hours Tuesday night).

I almost didn't read the book because of the special I saw on the time at sea on Discovery or something. May have even been for Shark Week.

Glad I read it.

As horrific an experience as one could imagine and yet you know 1,000 times over it was so much worse than the book can possibly express.

The Bird is pure, unadulterated evil. And the fact that the dude sidestepped war trials and received amnesty after all of it was a transfixing story too.

Great book. How those guys survived that is just a tribute to their toughness and their generation. There are still some hard cases and some severities out there (like Marcus Luttrell in Lone Survivor) but this was effing years and years. Luttrell's time fighting and in hiding was less than half of Louie's on a freaking raft.

My God, the will to live and do what it took, the ingenuity, the spirit, the smarts and the toughness physically and more so mentally is just something to honor and to never let die as these guys do.