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Spoilers What Book Are You Reading?

Scepticalscribe

Scepticalscribe

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In a coffee shop.
Crowbot said:
I didn't know King doing anything other than horror. What's it about?
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Well, The Shawshank Redemption film/movie is based on a novella by Stephen King (a fact which astonished me, when a student of mine, who had worked as a librarian, and who had read the book, first told me about it - oh, quite some time ago) that comes with the (perhaps surprising) title: "Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption."
 
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Quake1028

Quake1028

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Jun 22, 2011
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Crowbot said:
The Outsider.
Click to expand...
From the website. Spoilered for length.

"An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can."
 
Crowbot

Crowbot

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Quake1028 said:
From the website. Spoilered for length.

"An unspeakable crime. A confounding investigation. At a time when the King brand has never been stronger, he has delivered one of his most unsettling and compulsively readable stories.

An eleven-year-old boy's violated corpse is found in a town park. Eyewitnesses and fingerprints point unmistakably to one of Flint City’s most popular citizens. He is Terry Maitland, Little League coach, English teacher, husband, and father of two girls. Detective Ralph Anderson, whose son Maitland once coached, orders a quick and very public arrest. Maitland has an alibi, but Anderson and the district attorney soon add DNA evidence to go with the fingerprints and witnesses. Their case seems ironclad.

As the investigation expands and horrifying answers begin to emerge, King’s propulsive story kicks into high gear, generating strong tension and almost unbearable suspense. Terry Maitland seems like a nice guy, but is he wearing another face? When the answer comes, it will shock you as only Stephen King can."
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Did King ever do any Sci-Fi?
 
Quake1028

Quake1028

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Agreed. My favorite book of his and one of my Top 10 ish of all-time. Might even be higher, I just don't have a fleshed out "Top X" in my head other than #1.
 
rhett7660

rhett7660

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The last book wasn't doing it for me... So I am once again trying a Warhammer book... reading book 1 right now.

Book 1 of 10 - Horus Rising: The Seeds of Heresy Are Sown.

61sabb-ccLL.jpg
 
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I

ilawlin

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Oct 31, 2018
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Just began reading Thomas Pynchon's Bleeding Edge this weekend; it's funnier that I'd expected, especially given the book's concerns, which can only be described as serious and urgent. Though set in 2000-2001 and published in 2013, this reads like a book written about today's world. Well, to be fair, 2000 is not exactly deep history, so I guess the book's relevance shouldn't come as a surprise to me. Nonetheless, the move to digitize almost everything has certainly gathered steam since then. We think of the "cloud" today as some non-material, magical space, whereas the cloud is really just hardware--server farms in various locations. And like all hardware, it is not impervious. Nonetheless, we seem to be thinking of building climax communities where the internet serves as the basic infrastructure. Bleeding Edge examines tech-utopianism as well as fatalism without taking sides. It's a sobering read, and doesn't inspire much confidence about the future. The writing is fantastic as ever, though - so that's great, I would think! :)
 
rhett7660

rhett7660

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AVBeatMan said:
One of my favourites. Love alternative history books.
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ucfgrad93 said:
One of my favorite genres as well.
Click to expand...

Another one I really like, not by King, but by Robert Ludlum called "The Scarlatti Inheritance". In a nutshell, it talks about an individual who basically goes against the family and what he does with the money when it comes to the initial backing of a young and budding socialist group in Germany prior to World War II. There is more to it... but that is the main piece, alternate version of how the Nazi's were initially funded.
 
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Huntn

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Huntn said:
I read the first William Gibson Sprawl Cyberpunk trilogy starting with Neuromancer and got into it, thumbs up. I recently started his Bridge trilogy starting with Virtual Light and put it down as his writing style being a bit too helter skelter.

Then I remembered I really enjoyed Brandon Sanderson’s fantasy Mistborn trilogy, and decided to give him another go, and was hooked in a matter of a chapter on Warbreaker. Not sure at this point if this is a trilogy or not. The first trilogy mentioned dealt with the ingestion of metal, creating personal power, Warbreaker involves colors, breath, and awakening. The term refers to instilling power into inanimate objects so they will become animated and do your bidding. At this point there seems to be a spiritual power element to “breath” such as a life force.

Click to expand...
Completed Warbreaker, and once again I enjoyed and am impressed with Brian Sanderson’s writing. He is not predictable…

On to City and the City, fingers crossed.

BE253409-2150-4D83-B0BE-56698FA042EB.jpeg​
 
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Scepticalscribe

Scepticalscribe

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Jul 29, 2008
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In a coffee shop.
My library books - the three books that awaited me - are:

Doughnut Economics - Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st Century Economist - by Kate Raworth

The First Emperor - Caesar Augustus and the Triump of Rome - by Anthony Everitt (recommended, on these very threads, by @yaxomoxay)

and

Blood and Sand - Suez, Hungary and the Crisis That Shook the World - by Alex von Tunzelmann
 
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DaveFromCampbelltown

DaveFromCampbelltown

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Currently reading The Abacus and the Cross, by Nancy Marie Brown.
This is the story of Gebert of Aurillac,* who, in his few years as Pope Sylvester II, brought Arabic Numerals, including the Indian Zero, into Western Europe.

Reading in tamdem, The Light Ages, by Seb Falk.
This is about Medieval Science.

Curiously, Brown keeps on using the term 'Dark Ages', which has now been dropped by most people.
OTOH, Falk makes no mention of Pope Sylvester.

It reminds me of A Man for All Seasons, vs Wolf Hall.
The first makes Sir/St Thomas More the hero and Thomas Cromwell the enemy, while the second does it the other way around...
What your view is depends, I think, on whether you look at it from the Catholic or the Protestant point of view.


*yes, the same person who became Gebert d'Aurillac in A Discovery of Witches.
 
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