Grand unified books thread

[crazy canuck]

Just finished A History of Scotland, by Neil Oliver.  Certainly lighter historical fair then much of what is mentioned here, but I enjoyed it as a good read while commuting.  I could certainly have done without the geologic history of Scotland (), and the knob-polishing of William Wallace was to be expected, the author does gain bonus points for pointing out some of the contradictions inherent in scottish nationalism and its victimization complex, and does interestingly go at great lengths to explain how Scotland profitted from slavery.

If you want to cover several thousand years (or billions even) in 450 pages, it wasn't a bad way to do it.

The geology section was great!  I loved how he explained that historians are often criticized for not going back far enough in time so he was starting at the very beginning.  I thought it was a good humorous jab.

You should also see his BBC series on the History of Scotland. 

[Josephus]

Drood by Dan Simmons.

In his previous book, Terror, he fictionalized the end days of the Franklin Expedition. In this one, he fictionalizes the last decade or so in the life of Charles Dickens. Despite what that sounds like, it does end up being an amazing horror novel with an unreliable narrator, drug-induced hallucinations, ghosts, a criminal underworld and all sorts of things. Quite intersting.

[Habbaku]

Finally finished up The Generalissimo, which was a thoroughly excellent read.  Don't know why I plodded through it, to be honest.  Too busy with World of Tanks, most likely.   

Now off to Richard Miles' Carthage Must Be Destroyed.

[HisMajestyBOB]

I'm halfway through Chandler's The Big Sleep. Classic noir, and much better than I expected.

The similarities with the first few books of the Dresden Files is astounding. I knew Jim Butcher was inspired by noir, but didn't realize just how much so.

[Sheilbh]

I finished The Honourable Schoolboy.  I think there must be a German word to describe the feeling you get when you reach the end of a Le Carre novel.  It's a sort of melancholic satisfaction.  But a good book, hopefully they adapt this one next.  The BBC never had the budget when doing 70s Smiley.

I've also just started C V Wedgwood's history of the Thirty Years War.  I've never read a book on the war and wanted to fix that.  Ta-Nehisi Coates gave this a few rave reviews on his blog and rightly so.  The writing's superb.  This is one of those history books that I think are worth reading for style alone and I love the sense of the past weighing her down as she writes this.  The version I've got was updated in the 60s but this was first written in the 30s and that really does come across.  It's a beautiful book so far - I'm only a couple of hundred pages in, but I chewed through them over the past day or two.

[Kleves]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

[Admiral Yi]

Just learned while reading a review in The Atlantic that le Carre introduced the words mole (meaning a double spy) and honey trap into the English language.

[Slargos]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

[Barrister]

Just about finished reading Descent into Madness: The Diary of a Killer by Vernon Frolick.

http://www.amazon.com/Descent-Into-Madness-Diary-Killer/dp/B000WLZLQ0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1321306054&sr=8-5

Not sure how wide a distribution this ever received, though my copy says it is a fourth edition.  I picked this one up in the really good Whitehorse book store, but forgot about it until recently.

Anyways it's the story of Michael Oros, a US draft dodger who flees out into the wilderness of northern BC and survives there for over a decade.  I see that one of the Amazon reviews draws the comparison to Into The Wild - except of course this guy could actually survive in the wilderness.

He was also, of course, quite thoroughly mad.  Classic paranoid schizophrenic.  The guy kept detailed journals throughout the entire period, but of course they mostly just described his delusions of being bersecuted by Them, the Torture-Druggers and sneakarounds.

The guy killed a german trapper because his fingernails were too clean.  Police actually went in and were able to arrest him, but they never had enough evidence to charge him with murder.  However that episode just re-inforced his paranoia, so when he broke into someone's cabin to live in for the winter, and when the police went out to arrest him, an RCMP officer was shot and killed before Oros himself was killed.

This happened in the early 80s so long enough ago that I don't know any of the people involved (though obviously it's filled with various police and prosecutors from northern BC / Yukon), but it describes the kinds of people I know well, and areas I know well.

It's been quite enjoyable.

[Malthus]

Just about finished reading Descent into Madness: The Diary of a Killer by Vernon Frolick.

http://www.amazon.com/Descent-Into-Madness-Diary-Killer/dp/B000WLZLQ0/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1321306054&sr=8-5

Not sure how wide a distribution this ever received, though my copy says it is a fourth edition.  I picked this one up in the really good Whitehorse book store, but forgot about it until recently.

Anyways it's the story of Michael Oros, a US draft dodger who flees out into the wilderness of northern BC and survives there for over a decade.  I see that one of the Amazon reviews draws the comparison to Into The Wild - except of course this guy could actually survive in the wilderness.

He was also, of course, quite thoroughly mad.  Classic paranoid schizophrenic.  The guy kept detailed journals throughout the entire period, but of course they mostly just described his delusions of being bersecuted by Them, the Torture-Druggers and sneakarounds.

The guy killed a german trapper because his fingernails were too clean.  Police actually went in and were able to arrest him, but they never had enough evidence to charge him with murder.  However that episode just re-inforced his paranoia, so when he broke into someone's cabin to live in for the winter, and when the police went out to arrest him, an RCMP officer was shot and killed before Oros himself was killed.

This happened in the early 80s so long enough ago that I don't know any of the people involved (though obviously it's filled with various police and prosecutors from northern BC / Yukon), but it describes the kinds of people I know well, and areas I know well.

It's been quite enjoyable.

Sorta reminds me of a modern version of the Mad Trapper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_(criminal)

[Barrister]

Sorta reminds me of a modern version of the Mad Trapper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Johnson_(criminal)

A comparison that was not lost on the RCMP at the time.  There were several comments that this was the first wilderness manhunt the force had undertaken since the Mad Trapper.

[11B4V]

Finally

http://www.amazon.com/BLOOD-STEEL-MYTH-II-SS-Panzer-Korps-Prochorowka/dp/0974838942/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1323014880&sr=8-18

[Scipio]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

Patrick Rothfuss, if you haven't already read him already.

[Ed Anger]

Anyone read any good fantasy recently? Is Daniel Abraham's The Dragon's Path any good?

This.

I'm currently getting into a reading mood again, after a hiatus of a few months (or to be perfectly honest, more like a year) and I need some good suggestions for either Fantasy or Sci-fi. I'm waiting impatiently for Sanderson and I need something to cover the vast gap until he squirts something out again.

Oh, and if you haven't yet, do check Sanderson out. Mistborn was great, and Stormlight has tremendous potential.

Watch on the Rhine by Kratman. Not really good, but you'll like it.

[CountDeMoney]

Just learned while reading a review in The Atlantic that le Carre introduced the words mole (meaning a double spy) and honey trap into the English language.

It will be a tremendous loss to English language fiction when he finally goes.