Amph What book are you reading right now?

Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

 

I quite reading Malazan. There are interesting things in it, like the floating moon city, assassins galore, wizards at war. But this is such a mess of writing I just can't get into it. Waiting for a book to arrive via Amazon.

 

Lost Roses by Martha Hall Kelly
The story of three women set in the years around World War I as it tells of their experiences in Russia at the brink of the Bolshevik Revolution and how they make their way of escaping.

 

Star Wars Choices of One by Timothy Zahn.

When an alien warlord threatens the border of the empire, various parties converge with their own agendas and some strange bedfellows get made.

To give my general thoughts

-I love the way zahn winks at Mara and Luke, who run very close together and eventually into contact and think of each other. This part is definitely for EU fans who like these sorts of winks.
-Vader coming at the end to save the day was awesome.
-The deserter stormtroopers are fun to read about.
-Always good to see Thrawn in action.
-Zahn does a good job of weaving various schemes and threads in a way that excites the interest of the reader. As well as making references aplenty to TTT.
-I couldn’t tel when the book was set. Apparently it’s a few months after Yavin. I guess I’m a dummy for not being able to figure that out earlier.

All in 9/10.

The Rebel POVs were probably my least favorite overall. But a really good EU contribution from Zahn.

 

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

 

Just delivered, Red Sister by Mark Lawrence.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.

 

The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC, by Adrian Goldsworthy. Goldsworthy is a prolific writer of Roman history whose work I’ve enjoyed so far. This is a very early effort of his, so not as polished, but it’s a highly readable, intelligent history of Rome’s famous clash with Carthage. When the First Punic War began, Rome had never fought outside the Italian peninsula; by the end of the Third a little over a hundred years later, it was the dominant power all across the Mediterranean. Goldsworthy does an excellent job of exploring and explaining that transition. It reads well, and it provides an intelligent analysis of the history it contains without overemphasizing the author’s interpretation, both great features in a history. A very good starting point if you are looking to learn more about the most famous sequence of wars in the ancient world.

 

In His Own Write by John Lennon

A collection of his whimsical and humorous poetry that was inspired by the word play and puns of Lewis Carroll and James Joyce.

Here is a sample:

At The Denis

Madam: I have a hallowed tooth that suffer me grately.

Sir: Sly down in that legchair Madam and open your gorble wide-your mouse is all but toothless.

Madam: Alad! I have but eight tooth remaining (eight tooth left)

Sir: Then you have lost eighty three.

Madame: Impossyble.

Sir: Everybody knows there are four decisives two canyons and ten grundies, which make thirsty two in all.

Madame: But I done everything to save my tooth.

Sir: Perhumps. but to no avague.

Lennon uses quite a few different styles too. It's a rather entertaining and humorous book of poetry.

 

Marvel's Star Wars Han Solo

 

Just run into Barnes & Noble and get that one book I says. You'll be out in 10 minutes I says. One hour later, 5 books, $83.

 

Sounds like me in Waterstones. Unfortunately our local one is still closed - I've been having to browse on Amazon UK and it isn't the same.

 

Call for the Dead by John le Carré, read by Michael Jayston
The first Smiley novel, in fact le Carré's first novel altogether. It's a mystery story surrounding the death of a civil servant, who's suicide note blames a security check conducted by Smiley for pushing him to the final act. Smiley is shocked and confused, the security check in question having been routine and conducted in a friendly fashion, and sets out to investigate.

It's a short novel, well written and tightly focused, not nearly as ambitiously labyrinthine as his more famous books. In this case, however, it is no bad thing, and I found it engrossing from start to finish. I shall read it again at some point.

 

Interesting since the new B&N CEO made Waterstones what it is right now. The B&N I went to is totally different. It is more like a labyrinth with a lot of square sections that wrap around. The Fantasy and Scifi are in the same area but separated for the first time in 20 years. Action fiction moved out of Fiction and is with Thrillers and Mysteries. Games and Comics are moved away from Scifi and board games have a whole other section.

Although, I'm sure that helps and all but apparently the secret formula was publisher's fees for store placement which he renegotiated so now they do not spend 10-20 million a year returning books no one wanted.

 

B&N is probably the only store besides the Grocery store and Walgreens (where I get my medication at) that I'd willingly step foot in right now.

 

It's been three months for me, though they were doing curb side pickups for awhile. Otherwise yes, I too stay out of most stores.

 

I'm struggling through The Goldfinch. It's so ****ing boring.

 

Latest date on the local Waterstones opening is Monday. But we've been here before - they first had a June opening date but that came and went.

 

Two Treatises of Government, by John Locke. In the first treatise, Locke refutes Sir Robert Filmer’s popular defense of absolute monarchy; in the second, he explores the basis and purpose of government. It’s a very famous book in the history of political theory, and rightfully so. Locke articulates a vision of government and its ends — a creation of the community that can exist only for its own good and the protection of the people and their natural rights — that would prove enormously influential. His writing style is seventeenth-century, but not overly troublesome. I found it entertaining as well as informative; Locke is a fun arguer.

 

The Annotated Dracula. Leslie S. Klinger is well-known for his incredibly detailed annotated volumes, and I just came off of reading his Frankenstein.

 

Have you read his three volume annotated Holmes set? It's a fascinating mixture of useful details (i.e. this is what this 19th century thing you definitely haven't heard of is) and a survey of Sherlockian theories. It inspired me to check out Martin Dakin's delightfully caustic A Sherlock Holmes Commentary, which I definitely would never have done if he hadn't brought it up so often, so at minimum I owe him for that.

 

I own both Klinger's set and the old Baring-Gould annotated volumes.

I occasionally engage in "The Great Game" myself, so they are invaluable resources. Whenever I actually cease being distracted by my 15 other projects, I have a couple Holmesian essays bouncing in my head, specifically, the hidden implications of one of the pre-Watson cases, and analyzing the pre-Hiatus stories for unspoken conflicts between Holmes and Moriarty.

 

These sound like illustrious, scholarly volumes; let's leave the "gasogene" and "tantalus" to mystery, though, because it's such darn fun to speculate what these could have been.

 

Off the top of my head (don't click if you want the mystery to remain forever )

Spoiler

Going off memory alone, "Tantalus" was a holder for bottles of expensive liquor that had a lockable wooden top that held the bottle necks in place. The idea was to stop the staff from sneaking sips from your pricey alcohol when you weren't present.

 

I will not click. I am strong. I am Woman, hear me roar.

 

The First Man In Rome by Colleen McCullough. First book that starts the wonderful historical interpretation of the events surrounding the fall of the Roman Republic. It is truly a fantastic story.