EdRomero wrote: ↑Wed Feb 08, 2023 9:00 pm
Also, the name droppping is just ridiculous...4 of the 5 most recent US presidents, Mandela, the Pope, Princess Di, George Soros, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, and a few musicians too.
Let me guess...which was the one President he didn't discuss....
Oh, he discussed him. Just never talked to or hung out with him like the others. He discussed MLK's instruction to find 1 good thing about a person and start the discussion there. It worked for GW. With Trump, he still hasn't found what he's looking for.
This is a harrowing novel and I have been staying up pretty late the last few nights because I can't put it down. Will the fastest I've ever read a near 900-page book.
well this is gonna be someone's new signature - bronto
Giff wrote: ↑Fri Jan 20, 2023 11:22 am
I'm enjoying this one waaaaaaay more than I thought I would.
It's really good. Might be the only book I finished last year.
I really enjoyed it while reading it but felt unsatisfied at the end -- got a lttle too meladromatic for me, and then I found out it's a a television series on AppleTV (which I dont have right now). The early 20th century Japanese do not come across well in a lot of my reading.
I really enjoed this book:
And this one:
I've had some luck choosing popular books on Libby.
Just finished Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel. Very interesting book if you like the author. I'd recommend reading The Glass Hotel first, as one of the characters from that book is a character in this one. To a lesser extent I'd recommend reading Station Eleven first, as another character is surely supposed to be the author to some extent (a little-known author who wrote a novel about a pandemic who later became famous and then lives through a pandemic). Much like her other books, it's hauntingly beautiful and jumps around between characters and timelines. First third of the book you have no idea what's going on, but it all comes together. A little weird reading this while watching Severance, as both have a similar tone to the stories and you initially know there is something going on that you don't understand yet, and it's a cool reveal.
An honest to God cult of personality - formed around a failed steak salesman.
-Pruitt
Absolutely loved all three of those books. Really unique style, and as you say, the kind of ethereal tie-ins of the various characters is very cool device.
You can lead a horse to fish, but you can't fish out a horse.
My mother's librarian friend (not Rush) recommended these:
Loved it. An aquarium octopus is a narrator throughout it and there's a Scandanavian older woman that reminded me of my grandmother.
This was ok. Very interesting stuff about forced sterilization
Its about various college football stars who volunteered for the Marines in WWII, and ended up stationed on Guadalcanal, where they staged a football game (the "Mosquito Bowl") on Christmas Eve, 1944 before they shipped off for the invasion of Okinawa.
It was good. Whatever his personal oddities, Bissinger can certainly tell a story.
i mean, there's no way he could have remembered all these specific conversations from the 1960s so I have to think there may be some revisionism involved... but holy hell this is really fascinating to hear so many specifics on how their latter-period records were recorded.
Blows my damn mind that Sgt Pepper was recorded on a 4 track...
(...me sullenly looking in the corner of my basement at my old Tascam 424 4-track portastudio and the feeble cassette demos I've recorded on it over the years...)
Giff wrote: ↑Fri Mar 10, 2023 3:48 pm
Just finished this one. Between that and The Deluge, I've read 1577 pages between two books since my last trip to library.
What did you think of this one? I read Wanderers when it came out then read this last month.
And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death.
Really enjoying this one, after it finally became available through Libby. Kept getting the sequels listed as available, but didn't want to go out of order.
Until everything is less insane, I'm mixing weed with wine.
Probably not the thread for this, but I just learned that the keyboardist/trumpet player for Vandoliers has a masters in library science and immediately thought of Rush.
well this is gonna be someone's new signature - bronto
I started Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices and it's pretty good. Definite recommend.
All the political horse trading that went on in the 30s and 40s is so fascinating. Like, getting to the SC wasn't the final goal. People routinely left to do other things.
Then there's the fact that everyone knew everyone in terms of Yale, Harvard, and Columbia lawyers is quite something. That's probably still true today though.
And the fact that senators were selected and confirmed within a week is nuts. Double especially that the dude (Hugo Black) wasn't ever really a lawyer, was just FDR's buddy who supported his court packing idea, and that he was a member of the KKK. Like WTF.
It really makes all of the hearings and the spectacle of nominations look quaint today. The Heritage Foundation doesn't really seem to have shit on the Good Ol' Boy New York power playing of that time.
mister d wrote:Couldn't have pegged me better.
EnochRoot wrote:I mean, whatever. Johnnie's all hot cuz I ride him.
I ended up not liking this book at all. It was a page turner and there were some cool ideas but I thought it came across as how an emo teenager would imagine karma for the racists. Not to be the one defending the awful people behind lynching but the author went over the top trying to insult each of the characters; maybe that's his point. Having a character named Ho introduce himself to Chi and then introducing themselves to another character named Minh is just a groaner
Gone on a hell of an audio book tear this year. Highlights have been: Book Lovers by Emily Henry, Hench by Natalie Zina Walschots, Gods of Jade and Shadow, All Systems Red by Martha Wells (these are way shorter than most books). The Vanishing Half by Britt Bennett.
Why Nations Fail was pretty good, but there are chunks that can be skipped as it gets a bit repetitive as they sort of go over similar situations on different continents to prove their point.
Fifth Season by NK Jemisin is pretty good fantasy (imo the magic is the weakest part of it, but otherwise a generally very good book)
For murder mystery, I liked the Dead Water series by Barbara Hambly, she really tries to do slave era New Orleans justice.
Rush2112 wrote: ↑Fri May 19, 2023 2:25 pm
Is that the UK TV presenter that is super tall Richard Osman?
Not sure how tall he is, but I do think this author has a first/second career in television. The first book was super charming.
Like 6'7" but I googled him and he's the guy. I think he's been on 8 out of 10 Cats Countdown, but know him from QI. Former vicar if remember correctly.
