Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished Starship Troopers last night and I just purchased "The Forever War". I will be starting it tonight!
The Forever War
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Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished Starship Troopers last night and I just purchased "The Forever War". I will be starting it tonight!
The Forever War
Thanks for the recommendation, I just finished Starship Troopers last night and I just purchased "The Forever War". I will be starting it tonight!
The Forever War
Excellent!
It's a really fun read, as in, it's actually funny, and he does a great job of subverting some played out sci-fi tropes and providing commentary on war (and the pointless of it, for context, he was in Vietnam, received a Purple Heart).
After I posted that I went up into the "server closet" where my book overflow lives, found my copy, wow, it's super worn out (cover totally separated), funny enough, just under it was a copy of Starship Troopers.
Excellent!
It's a really fun read, as in, it's actually funny, and he does a great job of subverting some played out sci-fi tropes and providing commentary on war (and the pointless of it, for context, he was in Vietnam, received a Purple Heart).
After I posted that I went up into the "server closet" where my book overflow lives, found my copy, wow, it's super worn out (cover totally separated), funny enough, just under it was a copy of Starship Troopers.
That is funny, I usually don't keep my books, other than the graphic novels that I have on display (I have a lot of those). But I do have quite a few books that I have kept, such as, the Dean Koontz books that I picked up a few years back. So far, I have read a few of his books more than once so I thought these would be a nice addition to my collection. Not to mention they look nice also.
I really liked ST... Great read!
UPS just dropped off a box of about 7 Harper Collins books coming out in Q3-Q4 2018. Mmm, the smell of freshly printed proofs with errors up the wazoo.
Come on: Who - or what bibliophile - doesn't like the divine aroma, the heavenly scent of freshly printed proofs?
Finished two more books.
1) Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. Second time I’ve read this, and it won’t be the last. I find it of extreme value. This book really helped my career, and even my general perspective on some actions I take during the day. If you are a knowledge worker, you MUST read this.
2) Ed McBain’s “The gutter and the grave”, it’s a great pulp hard-boiled story from one of the best American pulp writers.
1) Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. Second time I’ve read this, and it won’t be the last. I find it of extreme value. This book really helped my career, and even my general perspective on some actions I take during the day. If you are a knowledge worker, you MUST read this.
2) Ed McBain’s “The gutter and the grave”, it’s a great pulp hard-boiled story from one of the best American pulp writers.
Those born without a nose or sense of smell?
Those with neither culture nor civilisation. Or a functioning olfactory sense.
Michael Gibney’s nonfiction work Sous Chef: 24 hours on the line
I read this in a hard copy borrowed from the library a few years ago. Bumped into the ebook version on sale and happily scarfed it up for a re-read. Everything you could want to know about the pressure cooker of being a sous chef for any chef in Manhattan. (Heh, we think tech jobs have burnout potential...)
I read this in a hard copy borrowed from the library a few years ago. Bumped into the ebook version on sale and happily scarfed it up for a re-read. Everything you could want to know about the pressure cooker of being a sous chef for any chef in Manhattan. (Heh, we think tech jobs have burnout potential...)
I don't particularly care if a person reads books or not, provided they aren't dim. Plenty of people read other material. I do take offense with people who are proud that they don't read. You know, like a certain someone who has 3 AM rants. That said, I chose to not choose what proofs I get. I liked to be surprised. That and the fat check per quarter. Which is sad when you think that 90% of these authors won't ever make that much and there's also the unpaid readers. It's a nice hobby of mine, and it feeds my book buying habits and other knickknacks that add up to thousands per year.
Though I did get to read the Pullman book you all read long before it came out. Wasn't my type of fiction but it was enjoyable. I did buy his Lockhart series on recommendation by you and Hathi, though. The sad part is I don't get to keep these books. I have to send them back once I complete the paperwork for them. They're destroyed, I suppose, and hopefully recycled!
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Absolutely random comment, but I only saw the colors of your cover and assumed this was Gods Behaving Badly. A laugh out loud riot of a novel. The original cover looked as plain as that one.
If we're to believe Gibney, "gods behaving badly" could have been his subtitle for what goes on in the kitchen of an upscale restaurant in the press of a busy night (never mind when the Times reviewer also happens to have reserved a table).
I am about a third of the way through it and man, these folks have it rough. Nothing says welcome to the army like a live firing exercise where the pretend enemy is also firing live rounds at you and actually taking out your people!
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Finished two more books.
1) Cal Newport’s “Deep Work”. Second time I’ve read this, and it won’t be the last. I find it of extreme value. This book really helped my career, and even my general perspective on some actions I take during the day. If you are a knowledge worker, you MUST read this.
2) Ed McBain’s “The gutter and the grave”, it’s a great pulp hard-boiled story from one of the best American pulp writers.
The "Deep Work" book looks very interesting, I just read some of the reviews on Amazon and it is now added to the que of books to read. Thank you!
I'll take your word for it. I'll add it to my GoodReads "possible reads" list. I generally don't read memoirs because they're often a back pat. However, kitchen drama and feuds between chefs can be interesting. Though I'm basing my statement on films like No Reservations. A few weeks ago I looked into seeing if professional reviewers were still a thing in this day and age. They are. The LAT food review has spiraled out of control in the last decade. Generally, I've found sites like Eater to offer good reviews about food and atmosphere. Don't get me started on that Foodagramming crap site, Yelp.
This was a very good book. I've read it multiple times myself.
edit: And my current read:
About half way through 'Beneath a Scarlet Sky' a book about the little know partisan efforts of the Italian people during WW II. I particular liked the mountain climbing efforts to get refuges out of Italy.
Repeating my earlier words: best book I read in 2017. I almost wish book clubs were still a thing in our friends group. It'd be one of the few books I thoroughly enjoyed reading. Group died out in the mid-late-2000s.
I'm a big fan of book clubs.
Have either of you come across Eric Newby's utterly charming and beautifully written book (it is autobiographical) "Love and War in the Apennines"?
No. Someone gifted me a new copy of "Calling Major Tom" by Dave Barnnett (or David) this week. Which I plan on starting this weekend given the miserable weather. It's a cheeky choice given this person knows my hatred of Schilling's song of a similar name, which played ad nauseum when it first came out in the 80s and ruined Bowie's Space Oddity for me.
On the Alex Berenson... I have the first in his John Wells series, The Faithful Spy, and tbh have held off reading it figuring if I do read it then I'll want to pick up all the rest of them... and never get anything else done. Do they need to be read in order? If not, any recommendations for picks from the series?
I brought Ursula Le Guin's "Earthsea" series back with me, and shall set about re-visiting them presently.
Even I tire (occasionally) of my eternal diet of current affairs, history and politics and long for something a bit different.
Even I tire (occasionally) of my eternal diet of current affairs, history and politics and long for something a bit different.
I certainly hope not as I picked this one up by itself. I didn’t even think to check if it was part of a series.
I've launched myself into a read of Alexander Chee's Queen of the Night. Unlike some of the reviewers who in my opinion are a bit too literal minded for this mix of opera, history, fashion, social and political madness, stylistic gambles and a fictional protagonist with a wild arc through life, I'm enraptured by both the tone of the narration and the liberty-taking in this novel and have trouble putting it down. Reviews are literally all over the place but I will suggest to the naysayers that once a richly detailed novel like this piques the interest of Pinterest followers... literary and history critics' game over and the book's a keeper with who knows what spinoffs ahead. Meanwhile for those who can imagine a "settler's daughter" from the American midwest hanging out with Verdi and the likes of Eugénie de Montijo, the last empress of the French, you won't regret this journey offered by Alexander Chee. The hardcopy and paperback / ebook covers are very different:
Just started “A Life in the Day” by Hunter Davies. So far thoroughly enjoying it. From Amazon;
“n this much-anticipated sequel, Hunter now looks back across five decades of successful writing to reflect on his colourful memories of the living in London during the height of the Swinging Sixties, becoming editor of Britain’s first colour weekend supplement The Sunday Times magazine; where he befriended the Beatles; and reporting on (and partying with) some of the biggest names in television, film and theatre of the day. As time moved on into the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Hunter encountered the likes of Sir Michael Caine, George Best, Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Sir Sean Connery, Cilla Black, Paul Gascoigne, and Wayne Rooney to name a few.”
“n this much-anticipated sequel, Hunter now looks back across five decades of successful writing to reflect on his colourful memories of the living in London during the height of the Swinging Sixties, becoming editor of Britain’s first colour weekend supplement The Sunday Times magazine; where he befriended the Beatles; and reporting on (and partying with) some of the biggest names in television, film and theatre of the day. As time moved on into the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Hunter encountered the likes of Sir Michael Caine, George Best, Melvyn Bragg, Joan Bakewell, Sir Sean Connery, Cilla Black, Paul Gascoigne, and Wayne Rooney to name a few.”
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