What are you reading now?

[McCutchenistheTruth]

Reading Game of Thrones right now.

Completely. Sucked. In.

So many people have told me to read this!

 

[D-Dogg]

Reading both the second book in the Iron Druid series (Hexed) as well as book three in the Books of Ember series (young adult stuff, fast easy read but fun).

Clash of Kings is coming sooooon....

 

[Pariah]

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson

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Not long after Jack the Ripper haunted the ill-lit streets of 1888 London, H.H. Holmes (born Herman Webster Mudgett) dispatched somewhere between 27 and 200 people, mostly single young women, in the churning new metropolis of Chicago; many of the murders occurred during (and exploited) the city's finest moment, the World's Fair of 1893. Larson's breathtaking new history is a novelistic yet wholly factual account of the fair and the mass murderer who lurked within it. Bestselling author Larson (Isaac's Storm) strikes a fine balance between the planning and execution of the vast fair and Holmes's relentless, ghastly activities. The passages about Holmes are compelling and aptly claustrophobic; readers will be glad for the frequent escapes to the relative sanity of Holmes's co-star, architect and fair overseer Daniel Hudson Burnham, who managed the thousands of workers and engineers who pulled the sprawling fair together 0n an astonishingly tight two-year schedule. A natural charlatan, Holmes exploited the inability of authorities to coordinate, creating a small commercial empire entirely on unpaid debts and constructing a personal cadaver-disposal system. This is, in effect, the nonfiction Alienist, or a sort of companion, which might be called Homicide, to Emile Durkheim's Suicide. However, rather than anomie, Larson is most interested in industriousness and the new opportunities for mayhem afforded by the advent of widespread public anonymity. This book is everything popular history should be, meticulously recreating a rich, pre-automobile America on the cusp of modernity, in which the sale of "articulated" corpses was a semi-respectable trade and serial killers could go well-nigh unnoticed. 6 b&w photos, 1 map.

I can't believe I'd never heard of this before. I saw a segment of the Travel Channel's "Hidden City" about it and went about finding out more about it. This is really a terrific book--it's such a bizarre tale that it's almost hard to believe it's non-fiction.

 

[Pariah]

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America

Whoops. I posted this in the wrong thread. Sorry. Mods, a little help? It belongs in "What are you reading now."

 

[jf-08]

Whoops. I posted this in the wrong thread. Sorry. Mods, a little help? It belongs in "What are you reading now."

Got it.

 

[Pariah]

Got it.

thx

 

[D-Dogg]

Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic and Madness at the Fair that Changed America
by Erik Larson

You must be registered for see images attach

I can't believe I'd never heard of this before. I saw a segment of the Travel Channel's "Hidden City" about it and went about finding out more about it. This is really a terrific book--it's such a bizarre tale that it's almost hard to believe it's non-fiction.

I had checked this out once and never got the chance to read it. I've heard it is great.

 

[Pariah]

I've heard it is great.

It's not as gripping as some of the fiction I've been enjoying lately, but it's really good.

 

[Pariah]

I've been violating my personal code of not reading recurring character fiction...I'm now on the third Sandman Slim book. Love 'em.

http://www.fearnet.com/videos/b25372_sandman_slim_richard_kadrey.html

A short video of the author talking about the series.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Just finished it myself. Now starting A Clash of Kings.

I just started book 3 "A Storm of Swords"

I'm loving this series. Have a hard time putting these books down.

 

[D-Dogg]

I am 3/4 through A Clash of Kings.

Holy crap...what a pretzel.

 

[thirty-two]

Just finished up the Harry Potter series for the first time. Very interesting books.

What a world Rowling created.

 

[AZ Native]

My cable/internet/phone bill. They called me and I said I wanted to reduce my monthly bill, they made some changes and and said this would reduce my bill but my statement was $25 more this month.

 

[Pariah]

My cable/internet/phone bill. They called me and I said I wanted to reduce my monthly bill, they made some changes and and said this would reduce my bill but my statement was $25 more this month.

I guess you should read more books?

 

[MadCardDisease]

I just started book 3 "A Storm of Swords"

I'm loving this series. Have a hard time putting these books down.

Book 3 was awesome! Best book of the series so far.

I'm half way through book 4 "A Feast for Crows" now. Not as good as the rest but I'm still really enjoying it.

 

[D-Dogg]

Book 3 was awesome! Best book of the series so far.

I'm half way through book 4 "A Feast for Crows" now. Not as good as the rest but I'm still really enjoying it.

Just finished Clash of Kings and starting Storm of Swords...I absolutely LOVE this series.

 

[MadCardDisease]

Started reading "The Hunger Games" on my new Kindle Fire. Wanted to power through it before I go see the movie.

 

[Pariah]

Started reading "The Hunger Games" on my new Kindle Fire. Wanted to power through it before I go see the movie.

It's an easy read--and compelling. You'll get through it in no time.

 

[MadCardDisease]

It's an easy read--and compelling. You'll get through it in no time.

Yeah I got to a point where I couldn't put it down last night. The chapters were just flying by. I'm about 40% through it already.

 

[Pariah]

"Beat the Reaper," by Josh Bazell

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Dr. Peter Brown is an intern at Manhattan's worst hospital, with a talent for medicine, a shift from hell, and a past he'd prefer to keep hidden. Whether it's a blocked circumflex artery or a plan to land a massive malpractice suit, he knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.

Pietro "Bearclaw" Brnwna is a hitman for the mob, with a genius for violence, a well-earned fear of sharks, and an overly close relationship with the Federal Witness Relocation Program. More likely to leave a trail of dead gangsters than a molecule of evidence, he's the last person you want to see in your hospital room.

Nicholas LoBrutto, aka Eddy Squillante, is Dr. Brown's new patient, with three months to live and a very strange idea: that Peter Brown and Pietro Brnwa might-just might-be the same person ...

Now, with the mob, the government, and death itself descending on the hospital, Peter has to buy time and do whatever it takes to keep his patients, himself, and his last shot at redemption alive. To get through the next eight hours-and somehow beat the reaper.

 

[MadCardDisease]

It's an easy read--and compelling. You'll get through it in no time.

Yep finished it in a couple of days. Fastest I've ever read a book.

Also just finished up book 4 "A Feast for Crows" and have moved onto book 5 "A Dance with Dragons".

 

[D-Dogg]

Just finished A Storm of Swords and HOLY CRAP. That was a great read.

Starting Feast for Crows right now, just a chapter in.

 

[crisper57]

Took a break from a Dance with Dragons to read the entire Hunger Games series this weekend. Remind me why one is for adults and one is targeted to "young adults"? They are both pretty brutal.

 

[Louis]

I just finished The One: The Life and Music of James Brown by RJ Smith. A great look back at the life of Brown and you get to read about the artist and how he came up to be what he is. Good stuff.

I just bought Showdown by David Corn which is probably an Obama rah-rah piece, but I like the behind the scenes writeups on White House/POTUS happenings.

I am really looking forward to reading The Mark Inside: A Perfect Swindle, a Cunning Revenge, and a Small History of the Big Con by Amy Reading. This books sounds like the ultimately pissed off guy gets revenge story and it's true to boot! Here is a brief summary of the story:

In 1919, Texas rancher J. Frank Norfleet lost everything he had in a stock market swindle. He did what many other marks did—he went home, borrowed more money from his family, and returned for another round of swindling.

Only after he lost that second fortune did he reclaim control of his story. Instead of crawling back home in shame, he vowed to hunt down the five men who had conned him. Armed with a revolver and a suitcase full of disguises, Norfleet crisscrossed the country from Texas to Florida to California to Colorado, posing as a country hick and allowing himself to be ensnared by confidence men again and again to gather evidence on his enemies. Within four years, Frank Norfleet had become nationally famous for his quest to out-con the con men.

Through Norfleet’s ingenious reverse-swindle, Amy Reading reveals the mechanics behind the scenes of the big con—a piece of performance art targeted to the most vulnerable points of human nature.

Reading shows how the big con has been woven throughout U.S. history. From the colonies to the railroads and the Chicago Board of Trade, America has always been a speculative enterprise, and bunco men and bankers alike have always understood that the common man was perfectly willing to engage in minor fraud to get a piece of the expanding stock market—a trait that made him infinitely gullible.

 

[D-Dogg]

Took a break from a Dance with Dragons to read the entire Hunger Games series this weekend. Remind me why one is for adults and one is targeted to "young adults"? They are both pretty brutal.

Hunger Games characters do not get their sex on at the drop of a hat.