What are you reading?

[Cal Amari]

I'll have to try The Man Who Fell to Earth, all I had read from him before was Queen's Gambit and The Hustler, so Mockingbird seemed way out of left field, but I loved it.

I'll have to check out the Bradbury story too, always loved Fahrenheit 451, and A Sound of Thunder

I tried an eReader briefly but found the same difficulty with reading actual books- time to do it, especially with 3 kids. The last decade or so I've been nearly only listening to audio books, some on cd, and now just digitally. There's a couple apps supported by my local library, so my free public library card gets me access to something like 35 downloads a month from each app, I only use maybe 8 to 12 a month combined, depending on the length. It's great though, i listen while doing housework, yardwork, water changes, driving, grocery shopping, lunch breaks, sitting watching baseball practice etc.

I also recently finished the History of Money by David McWilliams and thoroughly enjoyed it.

 

[jjohnwm]

For me, E-reading is as far from "real" reading as I am willing to go. I simply do not enjoy being read to.

I want to mention something that I may have touched on before; as usual, the Search function is acting up for me, so I can't easily check if I have done so.

There is a wonderful website called Delanceyplace.com that I discovered quite by accident years ago. The tagline beneath their name is "Eclectic excerpts delivered to your email every day". And that's all there is to them; you get an email each day from them that contains a few paragraphs or a short chapter lifted from some book, written by somebody, sometime, about something. There is no unifying theme behind these selections, except that they all seem to be non-fiction works. They can be related to literally anything, and that is their charm. It's like an ice-cream store that offers a free taste of a different flavour every day, and delivers it right to your door. They provide links to some retailers that will happily sell you the entire book if you wish, and whatever kickback the website gets goes to children's literacy charities.

Their email each morning is one of the very, very few to which I actually look forward, and which I usually enjoy reading. And if the choix-du-jour does not appeal to you, well, you've invested a few seconds to learn about something new to dislike; always a good thing!

 

[Cal Amari]

I'll have to check that out, sounds delightful.

 

[Cal Amari]

In another thread a couple of you were discussing Larry Niven, first thank you for turning me on to his work, I've read probably 6 books of his since then and all are fun. Second I would urge you to check out the Draco Tavern if you haven't read it. A collection of short stories about the goings on of an interspecies tavern run by a human. Quite fun!

 

[jjohnwm]

Those are some of my favourites among Niven's short stories! Rick Schumann's narration of his interactions with assorted alien races in the Draco are the perfect light-hearted and fun counterpoint to more "serious"...or at least, less silly... stuff like the Puppeteer migration, the Ringworld stories, Protector, etc.

If you like the Draco Tavern stories, look up the Gil Hamilton stuff as well. Hamilton is another of Niven's unique characters; he's a cop who lost an arm at some point in his career, and who developed a weakly telekinetic "ghost arm" that lets him do some things that are interesting, to say the least...although he uses it mostly to win bets in bars...

Dang! Just the thought of it makes me want to re-read some of those books again.

 

[Cal Amari]

Haha, I'll look into it, the first four I read were Ringworld books, and I likely won't stop until I eventually finish everything he's written, once I find an author I like I find myself back at the trough a few times a year. I'm a very eclectic reader, and go through 5 to 8 books a month of all varieties. But only recently have I realized I get the most enjoyment out of sci fi. I'll still read a wide variety, but never dove too deep into sci fi beyond the Heinlein, Douglas Adams, Stephen King, Asimov, etc, authors who got their sci fi work into the mainstream. I have friends who read a lot, but the primary couple I talk to one reads mostly nonfiction and history, and the other reads mostly action/ suspense type thrillers, so I don't really get the referrals or discussion on the sci fi, or even general fiction side. I read primarily for my own pleasure, not for discussion anyway, but always glad to check out an author another fan of the genre reccomends.

 

[jjohnwm]

Two words for you: Joe Haldeman.

Numerous terrific titles, mostly hard-SF but other stuff as well. Start with The Forever War, or perhaps All My Sins Remembered.

Haldeman is one of those authors upon whose work I stumbled one day and whose name was immediately added to my "Buy Anything By This Guy" list.