What are you reading now?

[Pariah]

"This is Where I Leave You," by Jonathon Tropper

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Amazon Best of the Month, August 2009: Jonathan Tropper writes compulsively readable, laugh-out-loud funny novels, and his fifth book, This Is Where I Leave You is his best yet. Judd Foxman is oscillating between a sea of self-pity and a "snake pit of fury and resentment" in the aftermath of the explosion of his marriage, which ended "the way these things do: with paramedics and cheesecake." Foxman is jobless (after finding his wife in bed with his boss) and renting out the basement of a "crappy house" when he is called home to sit shiva for his father--who, incidentally, was an atheist. This of course means seven days in his parent's house with his exquisitely dysfunctional family, including his mom, a sexy, "I've-still-got-it" shrink fond of making horrifying TMI statements; his older sister, Wendy, and her distracted hubby and three kids; his snarky older brother, Paul, and his wife; and his youngest brother, Phillip, the "Paul McCartney of our family: better-looking than the rest of us, always facing a different direction in pictures, and occasionally rumored to be dead." Tropper is wickedly funny, a master of the cutting one-liner that makes you both cringe and crack up. But what elevates his novels and makes him a truly splendid writer is his ability to create fantastically flawed, real characters who stay with you long after the book is over. Simultaneously hilarious and hopeful, This Is Where I Leave You is as much about a family's reckoning as it is about one man's attempt to get it together. The affectionate, warts-and-all portrayal of the Foxmans will have fans wishing for a sequel (and clamoring for all things Tropper). --Daphne Durham

Tropper's always a fun read. I recommend everything he's written. Nice, easy, beach read.

 

[Pariah]

"Nemisis," by Phillip Roth

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Roth continues his string of small, anti–Horatio Alger novels (The Humbling; etc.) with this underwhelming account of Bucky Cantor, the young playground director of the Chancellor Avenue playground in 1944 Newark. When a polio outbreak ravages the kids at the playground, Bucky, a hero to the boys, becomes spooked and gives in to the wishes of his fiancée, who wants him to take a job at the Pocono summer camp where she works. But this being a Roth novel, Bucky can't hide from his fate. Fast-forward to 1971, when Arnie Mesnikoff, the subtle narrator and one of the boys from Chancellor, runs into Bucky, now a shambles, and hears the rest of his story of piercing if needless guilt, bad luck, and poor decisions. Unfortunately, Bucky's too simple a character to drive the novel, and the traits that make him a good playground director--not very bright, quite polite, beloved, straight thinking--make him a lackluster protagonist. For Roth, it's surprisingly timid.

Holy crap, this was a heartbreaking book. Very good, but very sad.

 

[Pariah]

"The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat..." by Oliver Sacks

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A neurologist who claims to be equally interested in disease and people, Sacks (Awakenings, etc.) explores neurological disorders with a novelist's skill and an appreciation of his patients as human beings. These cases, some of which have appeared in literary or medical publications, illustrate the tragedy of losing neurological facultiesmemory, powers of visualization, word-recognitionor the also-devastating fate of those suffering an excess of neurological functions causing such hyper states as chorea, tics, Tourette's syndrome and Parkinsonism. Still other patients experience organically based hallucinations, transports, visions, etc., usually deemed to be psychic in nature. The science of neurology, Sacks charges, stresses the abstract and computerized at the expense of judgment and emotional depthsin his view, the most important human qualities. Therapy for brain-damaged patients (by medication, accommodation, music or art) should, he asserts, be designed to help restore the essentially personal quality of the individual. First serial to New York Review of Books, The Sciences and Science; Reader's Subscription alternate

Interesting, but ultimately kind of ... unsatisfying.

 

[Pariah]

"The Blonde," by Duane Swiercynski

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Swierczynski chronicles a long, frenzied and near-fatal night in Philadelphia in his fast-paced if far-fetched sophomore effort (after 2005's The Wheelman). The narrative cuts back and forth between journalist Jack Eisley, who's poisoned at a Philadelphia airport bar by the beautiful blonde of the title, Kelly White; and Mike Kowalski, a supersecret operative for a covert government agency, who must find a scientist who has gone into hiding—in order to kill him, and bring back his head—and take Kelly into custody as well. The common thread: a dangerous nanotechnology tracking device. Mike's handlers are interested, and Kelly is infected with the nanites that will automatically cause her to kill if she's left alone. Hence her decision to dose Jack and keep him shackled to her with the promise of an antidote. Rapid-fire pacing, hard-boiled dialogue and excellent local color make up for the unlikely twists and turns of this entertaining thriller.

 

[Pariah]

"Expiration Date," by Duane Swiercynski

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Swierczynski (Severance Package, 2007) originally planned to write this beguiling, pulp-style mix of fantasy and mystery as a magazine serial, but when the New York Times Magazine bowed out of the fiction business, he turned it into a stand-alone novel. Mickey Wade, an unemployed journalist, moves into his grandfather’s apartment in the family’s old Philadelphia neighborhood and, after gobbling a few aspirin to fight a hangover, finds himself beamed back to the day of his birth in 1972. Turns out those weren’t your garden-variety aspirin but, rather, the pills a crackpot scientist had created as part of a government-funded plan to investigate out-of-body travel. Only, in Mickey’s case, he can only go back to the early 1970s. But there’s plenty to do there: if he can somehow divert the young boy who will eventually murder Mickey’s father, he can change his family’s history. Swierczynski cleverly melds the thriller and fantasy elements (especially the notion of nonlinear time), producing a thoroughly readable, suspenseful romp that evokes John D. MacDonald’s pulp classic The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything

Swiercynski is my new favorite. He combines Noir and SciFi--two of my favorite genres. These (The Blonde, The Wheelman and Expiration Date...all linked here in this thread) are really fun reads.

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Currently reading The Day The World Ended At Little Bighorn by Joseph Marshall III.

Great book and excellent read. It's told more from the perspective of the Lakota families and warriors. Marshall's great-grandfather fought at the Battle of Little Bighorn and the stories were passed down through family.

How did I miss this? This is going to the top of my must-read list.

(BTW: Louis, Custer was from my Grandmother's home town in Ohio. New Rumley. Somewhere in the family tree are relatives that died at the Little Bighorn with him. There is a mind-set among the people in that part of the country that totally explains him: An egotist who couldn't believe there were that many Indians out there and whose stubborness wouldn't allow him to wouldn't listen to anyone who told him that there were.)

 

[Louis]

For this book relatively little time is spent dicussing the cavalary including Custer other than to briefly explain the positioning on the battlefield.

Interesting factoid.

One of the interesting things about the "pincher" method the US was trying to implement is the landscape of the area....Apparently not all of the camps could be seen from the buttes and other areas by the calvary so they underestimated the number of warriors that would be able to fight.

 

[DemsMyBoys]

For this book relatively little time is spent dicussing the cavalary including Custer other than to briefly explain the positioning on the battlefield.

Interesting factoid.

One of the interesting things about the "pincher" method the US was trying to implement is the landscape of the area....Apparently not all of the camps could be seen from the buttes and other areas by the calvary so they underestimated the number of warriors that would be able to fight.

Good! I want to read more on the Indians. (I'm on their side BTW.) They are way under-reported. In my whole Custer library I have only a few "Indian viewpoint" books. I've been to the battlefield several times and walked the whole area with guides. It's very interesting. Custer's intelligence stunk all the way around. And you can chew on the word "intelligence" for a while.

My first trip to the battlefield was in 1973 after a visit to Wounded Knee just after the AIM takeover ended. That was an interesting combination.

I can recommend "Killing Custer: The Battle of the Little Bighorn and the Fate of the Plains Indians" by James Welch with Paul Stekler.

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Just bought Casino Jack. I don't remember the author right now but it's about Jack Abramoff and details his crimes he committed along with some people from the Bush Administration and a few other GOP stalwards (Bob Ney and Tom DeLay) to do among other things fleece Indian tribes from tens of millions of dollars.

Quite the interesting read thus far.

I have to ask: Doesn't reading that make you angry? I can't read about that particular stuff without my BP going up.

 

[Louis]

Those guys were screwing a lot of people out of their dough. They got lucky and had a few very rich tribe's that were easy enough to fleece. But the book shows that some of the tribe's politicians were probably bought and paid for just like the GOP people who were part and parcel to whole thing.

Your recommendation looks great, I'll have to have my wife order it at work. Thanks.

 

[Ghraxx]

Not that I am reading it now, but I am going to be reading a new book called Drylor the first artifact. It's coming out later this month and the book sounds great. It's a fantasy setting and it reminds me a lot of a really good RPG for console. One that sucks you in and throws you on an adventerous ride for a few days.

 

[Louis]

Taking a break from non-fiction.

I started reading Camus' The Stranger and up next is Farenheit 451.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

Faces in the Fire by T.L. Hines.

 

[Bert]

The Warmth of Other Suns - by Isabel Wilkerson

 

[Pariah]

"John Dies at the End," by David Wong

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In this reissue of an Internet phenomenon originally slapped between two covers in 2007 by indie Permutus Press, Wong—Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin's alter ego—adroitly spoofs the horror genre while simultaneously offering up a genuinely horrifying story. The terror is rooted in a substance known as soy sauce, a paranormal psychoactive that opens video store clerk Wong's—and his penis-obsessed friend John's—minds to higher levels of consciousness. Or is it just hell seeping into the unnamed Midwestern town where Wong and the others live? Meat monsters, wig-wearing scorpion aberrations and wingless white flies that burrow into human skin threaten to kill Wong and his crew before infesting the rest of the world. A multidimensional plot unfolds as the unlikely heroes drink lots of beer and battle the paradoxes of time and space, as well as the clichés of first-person-shooter video games and fantasy gore films. Sure to please the Fangoria set while appealing to a wider audience, the book's smart take on fear manages to tap into readers' existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next.

So far I like it ... Maybe even a lot.

 

[DemsMyBoys]

Opened up a couple of boxes of favorite old books in my garage so I'm going to start re-reading those. First up: "Reggie - The Autobiography of Reggie Jackson" from 1984. Next will be "Every Secret Thing" by Patricia Campbell Hearst about her kidnapping and days with the SLA. Ancient history. Both of them.

 

[PortlandCardFan]

Since the beginning of the year

'Outlaw of Torn' Edgar Rice Burrough's
'Cold Dish' Craig Johnson
'Starship Troopers' Robert Heinlein
'Gates of Fire' Steven Pressfield
'The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks' Rebecca Skloot
'Eaters of the Dead' Michael Crichton

 

[Ghraxx]

I have just started reading a book called Drylor The First Artifact. It is an Action/Fantasy book created by Ryan Tomasella. So far it is actually damn good, it is a story about a man that suffers amnesia and struggles to regain his memory. As his memory starts to come back to him he realizes that his brother is an evil S.o.b and he makes it his mission to stop him.

It seems like a fairly generic story line but the author makes it his own. There are tons of twists and turns in the story (mainly when the main character thinks he remembers something from his past he realizes that it was only an illusion that his brother wanted him to think was true.) I must say I am really impressed with this book, then again I read almost anything that involved sword and sorcery. Below is the cover of the book and what the back of the book reads.

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When a man wakes up inside a cage that is being carried through
an underground city, he has no idea where he is or what has
happened to him. As Von, a victim of amnesia, is taken to a jail
cell to await his fate amongst elves, humans, dwarfs, gnomes, and
halflings, he is told he is a member of the Royal Guard of Genisus.
It is not long before he is transported to the palace where he
meets an impatient king who eventually returns him to his jail
cell while deciding his destiny.

As Von’s memory slowly returns, he discovers that he is the only
one who can protect Drylor—a world that abandoned him—
from its greatest evil, his own brother. Through his journey to the
truth, Von meets an unlikely group of friends who are willing
to sacrifice everything to help him stop his brother Scarlet
from annihilating the only world they have ever known.

As Von’s past becomes clear and reveals his future, he soon
realizes the only way he can end his brother’s heartless
massacres is to find him and kill him.

 

[LVG]

Read the Lavender Scare by David Johnson as a part of a class - very good read, details a subset of the Red Scare in the early to mid 50's specifically pertaining to the systematic discrimination of gays and lesbians in the US Government. I think that it's a key book to read if you want to understand the beginning of the gay rights movement.

 

[Brian in Mesa]

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson.

 

[Jersey Girl]

Just finished "We Bought a Zoo." Nice account of a family that took over a runned-down zoo in Europe. Good story.

Just started "God is my CEO." Am skipping around, but read an awesome chapter last night. Would recommend this book to any Christian struggling with issues in the work place or with career issues in general.

 

[Bert]

Just finihed "The Book Thief" by Markus Zusak

Loved every page.

 

[Louis]

I just started Deepak Chopra's "Muhammed". I may read "Buddha" or "Jesus" if I like this book. Two chapters and a prologue in and it is pretty enjoyable so far.

 

[AZZenny]

Just last night finished reading my second novel by R. Lee Smith. The first was 'Heat' and it was really excellent - scifi/horror/erotica. One of the best bad guys ever.

Then I read her first novel, recently re-released uncensored/uncut on kindle - 'Olivia.' Paranormal-erotica-horror-mythic journey, which is not my usual read at all, and I absolutely fell in love with it like no book I can recall in many years. Can't shake it from my head.

Smith is a phenomenally good writer, and I am getting ready to start the paranormal-erotica series she's been writing in recent years, Lords of Arcadia.

 

[Louis]

With Muhammed done I am now reading Jesus and will follow that up with the ESPN book.

Muhammed was a good read, I don't know how true these books are supposed to be the legends, but it sounds to me that Muhammed was having seizures shortly before God would speak to him.