Amph What book are you reading right now?

For my nonfiction book I'm about halfway throughThomas Becket by John Guy. Book came out in 2012 and I saw it in the local Waterstones bookstore and bought it. I'm familiar with him in that he was murdered and is now a saint but I didn't know too many details. Book is pretty good so far, especially if you don't know much about English history of that time period (1120-1170 A.D.)

 

That’s an excellent book. If you’re interested in a fictional portrayal, I strongly recommend the film Becket, starring Peter O’Toole as Henry and Richard Burton as Becket.

 

I'll keep an eye out for that one. We have a satellite channel (Talking Pictures TV) that runs a lot of old films - maybe it will pop up there.

 

The Chalk Man by CJ Tudor.

this is very much Stephen King, but its pretty good. in the mid 80s in a UK town 5 teenagers find a body , the murderer is never really found. 30 years later the friends come back together when new evidence appears.
The stuff about the kids is good , well observed etc. Secrets and family problems mixed in with the murder stuff.

 

I just finished a wonderful classic called "The Old Capital" full of the beauty of Kyoto in the spring through winter. It's a touching story about a young lady who is the adopted daughter of a kimono designer.
Now I just started, today in fact, a TOR novel: Revan. Fascinating stuff!

 

The Humans (2015) – Stephen Karam

This is, if you go by a brief plot summary, a fairly typical family drama play. A group of six family members gather for a tense, existentially ugly Thanksgiving dinner in a cramped Manhattan apartment and we’ve all seen that movie before. But the script is solid and the characters are good as well, so that doesn’t detract at all from what is really this play’s real genius, which is the staging. The play calls for a two level, four room set that makes up this apartment and the play unfolds without an intermission in a single unbroken ninety to a hundred minute act, during which time people are always on stage. One actor is on stage for the entire show and that’s pretty crazy to me, speaking as an actor. But Karam will often have business going on in more room than one at a time; he also utilizes a lot of overlapping dialogue and cross talk. He’ll even occasionally just split the script into two columns that run down the page parallel to each other. What this means is that two separate conversations will be going on at the same time, maybe in different rooms. Sometimes he’ll have a character alone in a room doing a task, like fixing dinner, while the other characters are having a conversation upstairs and he notes at the beginning of the show that every actor must be fully alive and engaged at all times. The audience, he says, may and, in fact, should let their attention wander about the rooms of the apartment as the play progresses. I think what I love about this is that, as a live theater guy, it’s always great to see someone doing something in live theater that you just couldn’t do in any other medium. A play like this justifies that live theater still exists in a time when we have movies and television. This play couldn’t be filmed in the way that its staged and if you tried to film it traditionally, it would be fairly unremarkable, not that the script is bad, just predictable. And this all builds to a really bravura climax where one character is left alone in the apartment and just spirals into a full on panic attack as strange things start to happen. Lights burning out, a door that’s been standing open falling shut, the garbage disposal kicking on loudly, a curtain blowing, etc. There are no real ghosts here, but the final passage of this play is quite scary really as we watch this character, whose nerves have been frayed right down to the edge, collapse emotionally. This is, again, a masterpiece of staging, with almost no dialogue for the last couple of pages. The use of sound design and lighting is exquisite here and this passage is the kind of thing real theater tech nerds live for. I hope to get to see this play actually staged some time. Reading it conjures a palpable atmosphere of emotional chaos and I can only imagine what it would be like when well-staged. 4 stars.

tl;dr – unremarkable, but solid, script features groundbreaking staging and style; a claustrophobic, atmospheric work of American theater. 4 stars.

 

The Red Dwarf book Better Than Life. Surprisingly grimmer than the tv episode of the same name but still funny. Douglas Adams' influence can be felt throughout as expected

 

The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson

With mere chapters to go, I think I'm maybe a little disappointed that my overall reaction to Mistborn has been "Yeah, it's pretty good." I don't necessarily know why I expected to be blown away rather than carted along on an entertaining little journey, but the latter's been much more of the experience (there were also points in Well of Ascension that outright dragged, which didn't help), and rather than being fascinated I find a lot of the mystery buildup and resolution throughout the course of the series a tad bit frustrating. Honestly? I don't think Brandon Sanderson and I agree much on what the most interesting part of a good fantasy book is. That's fine, he still writes books I like, but it does mean I don't really give a **** about the slow drip feed of details about blood magic even though he seems to think I should be captivated. Also it's not even cool blood magic. I'm glad I gave Mistborn a shot, but I definitely need a break before tackling era 2 or The Stormlight Archive.

The Hellbound Heart by Clive Barker

On the flip side of the blood magic spectrum, I reread this one at a sprint pace, holy crap. I mostly encounter Barker by way of rewatching the first Hellraiser, but I forgot just how captivating the source material is when it wants to be. And also how like half of this novella is kind of a weird metaphor for pregnancy. You ever kind of wish you could just hand a book to Sigmund Freud and ask him to go to town? Just asking.

 

Thrawn

Will start on Thrawn: Alliances tonight

 

I finished the Goddess War trilogy by Kendare Blake, one reading session at the local donut shop pictured above (which has delectable cinnamon rolls), on Saturday and it's taken a few days to formulate an opinion. The trilogy certainly contained enough gore, body horror, and swearing to warrant a R rating if filmed. The plot pretty much stuck to the YA notion that Parents are clueless, ha, and Teens must Save The World. They did and it doesn't seem a spoiler to say so. The author delights in simile, which is a real attraction to me but not as much as the use of Greek mythological characters such as Athena, Odysseus, Hermes, and Ares, among others. Their treatment stood out as unique, in particular Ares. I don't know why, but this trilogy and Marie Phillips' Gods Behaving Badly both strode away from 'Ares is bloodthirsty, dumb, and bloke-ish' to present a multi-layered personality. I could rec this trilogy to anybody over 18 and still believe the Teen section of my library ought not to have such a cuss-laden book in it, but that's the parent in me speaking. The Greek mythology nut is pretty darn pleased with this take on ancient gods facing life in 2015's setting.

 

Just downloaded Aftermath: Life Debt on Amazon Audible. I finished the first book of the trilogy on audiobook and figured I might as well download this one. It wasn't available on the Overdrive app I use to borrow audiobooks so I signed up for the Audible trial. At least Empire's End is available on Overdrive.

 

Crooked House by Agatha Christie

 

Thrawn: Alliances

 

‘Salem’s Lot by Stephen King.

‘Salright.

 

In a House of Lies by Ian Rankin. It’s another tangled web of crime for Inspector Rebus and his cohorts to unravel. Keeps me entertained.

Once I’m finished, I’ll be starting Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan.

 

Afterlife with Archie, Vol. 1: Escape from Riverdale (2014) – Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa, Francesco Francavilla, Jack Morelli

You have to respect it when someone just decides to take brand integrity and just kind of curb-stomp it. It sounded like a fun idea, the Archie gang being beset by a zombie apocalypse. Though honestly this isn’t even the silliest Archie crossover I’ve encountered. No, it wasn’t just a fever dream you had; there was indeed a crossover between Archie & the Punisher in the nineties. I grew up with Archie comics; I even get that the title of this series is a pun on the long running “Life with Archie” series. It’s been years since I read them, but once I graduated out of Donald Duck, it was basically Archie all the time. So, with a high-concept hook like this, I was expecting to be really entertained. And I was.

What I didn’t expect was to be genuinely emotionally moved, but that happened too. The basic set-up, and I’m not going to spoil anything that happens past the opening couple of scenes, is that Jughead’s beloved dog Hot Dog is killed by a car; moved by the intensity of Jughead’s grief, Sabrina the Teenage Witch unwisely uses a little necromancy and when Hot Dog returns . . . well, as we all know from Pet Sematary, sometimes dead is better and soon the undead are shambling all over Riverdale. As I said, I have a long history with these characters and I felt the weight of that immediately. On page two, there’s a full page panel of a weeping Jughead holding Hot Dog’s dead body and I was absolutely blindsided by the wave of dread that I felt. The art is gorgeous whether you have a connection with these characters or not and it’s played straight enough that I think this book is effective either way. Just past the half-point of the book (which is a collection of the first five issues of the series) there are two death scenes just a couple of pages apart that I found both really heart-wrenchingly sad and also quite disturbing. And they’re both scenes that really couldn’t be communicated the way they are in any other medium than the comic book. I don’t want to spoil them at all because I am highly recommending this book. I’ll just say that I don’t think I’ll forget either of them any time soon. I kind of worry I might be overselling this book; it’s possible that it won’t have the emotional weight I found there if a reader comes to it without any Archie-related history. But I suspect it’ll still be quite good; for the art alone, I think it’s a book that any lover of graphic novels or comics will want to experience first hand. As for me, I’m prepared to call it a masterpiece, a book that upended my expectations in a marvelous, nightmarish, emotionally intense ride. Vol. 2? Oh, yes. 4 stars.

tl;dr – high concept delivers on the entertainment, but also in the area of genuine horror and tragedy; and the art alone makes it a must read. 4 stars.

 

The Path Between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870-1914, by David McCullough. One might not suspect there to be the narrative material for a history book in a bunch of digging. One would be wrong. The Panama Canal is one of the most stupendous engineering achievements in human history, a massive undertaking that required astounding accomplishments in engineering, construction, administration, organization, medicine, and sanitation. McCullough does an outstanding job of communicating those achievements in an engaging way, whether it’s describing the advanced war on yellow fever that eliminated the persistent disease, the staggering level of precisely regimented activity that went into the massive Culebra Cut, or the remarkably comfortable and engaging society that the canal builders developed for the American expatriates.

But there’s even more to the story, a long history of intrigue, adventure, and revolution that’s part of the canal’s narrative. The quixotic effort by Suez Canal pioneer Ferdinand de Lesseps to build the canal in the 1880s is fascinating, full of noble effort, hubristic folly worthy of a Greek tragedy, and in the end political scandal. Then the story of how America acquired control of the canal effort, created the entire country of Panama just to get a treaty, and began the massive undertaking is its own tale of lobbying, scheming, Latin American revolt, and congressional controversy. It’s just a tremendous, fascinating book from McCullough. An outstanding read.

 

@Rogue1-and-a-half At this point I believe even the venerable Meets the Punisher has been dethroned for sheer WTF value by Archive vs Predator.

 

The Silmarillion, sixth time since 2003.

RIP, Christopher Tolkien

 

The Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan.

The podcast I slowed my reread of WoT to keep pace with just made it to book three about a week ago... therefore, I am also on book three. I quite like this pace, because I get to read the ever popular Other **** (TM) in the interim, which is maybe the best way to re-experience this series for me. We'll see how I feel in, like, two years when they hit something dire like Path of Daggers or... *shudder* Crossroads of Twilight... but for now I'm really digging it.

I've been interested in revisiting TDR in particular because the first time I read it I had no idea there weren't going to be any chapters from Rand's perspective. This is a cool narrative technique for an epic fantasy, a genre that typically favors having a perspective at the center of events. Buuuuuuuut as I am the only fan of Rand chapters in the world, this kind of led to me rushing through the book trying to find one. There weren't any. Whoops. So yeah, should make taking a casual stroll through this one much more rewarding.

Speaking of Other **** (TM):

The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub.

No points will be awarded for correctly guessing which series I may be preparing to reread. Also I kind of want to check out Peter Straub's solo books now. The hallmark of a successful crossover, I suppose.

 

Nyphron Rising
By Michael J. Sullivan

 

Sharp Ends, by Joe Abercrombie. This is a collection of short stories set in Abercrombie’s First Law universe. Being short stories, there’s not a ton of meat here, but the format still allows him to show off what he’s really good at: atmospheric, vivid prose; thrilling action; dark humor; sharp characterization. The stories are generally very good; I just wish I remembered more details from his series, which I really need to reread. I especially enjoyed a series focused on a few new characters, whose adventures were highlights and whose recurrence allowed greater narrative and character development. A really fun book that makes me want to go straight back to more Abercrombie.

 

I just finished Lord of Chaos. Probably my favorite book in the Wheel of Time so far. Will do Crown of Swords soon. And I realize the rough patch is coming

But decided to try out Storm Front by Jim Butcher before that

 

Furious Hours by Casey Cep. A pastor in Alabama suspected of killing five family members is shot at his stepdaughter's funeral. Harper Lee covers the trial and tries to write a book about it.