Book Thread number ?

[FreshFish]

Re: Book Thread number ?

I have a book question. My nephew is going to be 8 in January (but is an advanced reader, so above that age is OK - within reason). I'm looking for a book series that he'd like. Last year he got the Lemony Snicket series, and really enjoyed that. I did a quick search on Amazon and came up with the Boxcar Children, but anyone have other ideas? We thought about Little House on the Prairie, but not sure he'd be into that. Hardy Boys, maybe? I don't have much knowledge of little boys' books.

I'm a big fan of Lloyd Alexander's "Prydain" series, though that might be just outside his age range as you describe it.

Gerald Morris books The Squire's Tale and The Squire, the Knight and his Lady might work too, although they also might be just outside his age range as well. Here is the kidzworld review of the latter: http://www.kidzworld.com/article/1942-the-squire-his-knight-and-his-lady-book-review

The Chronicles of Narnia might also be good reads for him, at least the first four.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Starting in on "Urgus the Scribe" by Robert David Boyle. He's a little too Terry Pratchett so far.

And as God is my witness 2015 will be the year I get through "Gargantua and Pantagruel." It took me about ten false starts to finally read "The Name of the Rose" cover-to-cover, so I'm hopeful time has given me a longer attention spa--

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Book Thread number ?

He has a staff that churns them out. This is actually true -- the only thing that's "his" on his books is his name. He's Thomas Kinkade.

I was told that he writes one or two chapters in each book, usually the opening or final chapters. Other than that, yeah, it's pretty much book editors writing them.

It's, I would have to assume, sort of like the books credited to Richard Castle, seeing as how he himself is a ficticious character. I don't know if the producers of Castle have a large team of writers or just a few writers split up and assigned to the two different product/book lines for the Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat characters.

 

[Almington]

I have a book question. My nephew is going to be 8 in January (but is an advanced reader, so above that age is OK - within reason). I'm looking for a book series that he'd like. Last year he got the Lemony Snicket series, and really enjoyed that. I did a quick search on Amazon and came up with the Boxcar Children, but anyone have other ideas? We thought about Little House on the Prairie, but not sure he'd be into that. Hardy Boys, maybe? I don't have much knowledge of little boys' books.

I'd say look into the spiderwick chronicles or the secret series's by pseudonymous bosh.

 

[MattS]

Re: Book Thread number ?

I've been busy so my reading has taken a hit this past month.

However, I did get two books read:

The Dealer and the Dead by Gerald Seymour - Fiction: A book about an arms dealer and his one and only missed delivery during the fighting in Croatia after the fall of the Soviet Union and how the past comes back to haunt him. It was an interesting tale but slightly confusing as the book had many charaters in so many different locations. The plot was decent but the ending was implausible and dragged on. 4 out of 5 stars.

Enemies: A History of the FBI by Tim Weiner - Non-Fiction: The book is just like the title; a history of the FBI. It starts with the beginning of the FBI just before Hoover took over and ends with modern times just before the book was published in 2012. I found it to be intersting read. I particularly like the Hoover years and the post 9/11 years. The time during the later 1960's into the late 1990's was kind of boring. I found that Weiner took a very critical (& probably correct) view of the FBI. 4 out of 5 stars.

 

[Probert]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Recent Books

The Dark Horse by Craig Johnson This Walt Longmire book finds him undercover in a town called Abbsalom. A woman stands accused of murdering her husband who is in the witness protection program and a con man. Though she confessed Walt feels she is innocent and goes undercover to see if he can find out the truth in this one horse town. Good read

Mr. Lincoln's Army by Bruce Catton This book tells of the early days of the Army of the Potomac. McClellan’s organization of it his leading of it thru the 7 days battles, Pope’s loss at Second Bull Run and McClellan’s snatching a draw from a victory at Antietam by not sending in his reserves. Ok read

Sons of Anarchy: Bratva by Christopher Golden An okay book seeking to capitalize on the popularity of Sons of Anarchy. This book follows Jax, Chibs and Opie as they travel to Las Vegas to rescue Jax’s long lost sister Trinity who has gotten involved in the middle of a Russian Mafia war.

After Lincoln: How the North Won the Civil War and Lost the Peace by A.J. Langguth A nice book which follows the story of Reconstruction from the death of Lincoln to Rutherford B Hayes’s removal of federal troops from the south following the “bargain” that enabled him to become President in 1876. It follows the principal players; Charles Sumer, Thaddeus Steven’s, Andrew Johnson, US Grant etc. It details the ways that the southern states sought to deny freed slaves the basic rights of citizenship and the ways Congress tried to help or stop this from happening. It details the rise of groups like the KKK which came into being to terrorize the recently freed slaves and deny them the rights passed after the Civil War.

The Wrath of God by Jack Higgins A very early Jack Higgins book takes place in Mexico after the revolution. A former IRA gunman, wouldn’t be a Higgins book without one of these, a gun toting priest who is really a American bank robber and a Hungarian gun runner are given one last chance to avoid a death sentence. Go into the mountains and kill a bandit who is imposing his own brand of lawlessness on the countryside. OK read.

Invisible by James Patterson, David Ellis I had high hopes for this since I enjoy David Ellis’s books. It was better than a typical Patterson book but not as good as an Ellis book. Emma Dockery believes that she has found an unknown serial killer who manages to cover up his crimes using arson, one of the people killed is her sister. A couple problems she has, she is currently suspended from the FBI and is not an agent only an research analyst. Managing to convince her ex-boyfriend “Books” that the killer is real gets her on the case as they try to catch him before he has anymore victims.

My Last Fight: The True Story of a Hockey Rock Star by Darren McCarty, Kevin Allen I would put this on a par with Bob Probert’s book where McCarty writes about his life as a hockey enforcer, his battle with addiction and his personal life. He focuses on lot on non-hockey issues, like his band grinder and his well-publicized personal issues that happened after his retirement.

The Alexandria Link by Steve Berry The Second Cotton Malone book finds him fighting off a bunch of determined terrorists trying to find the library of Alexandria. Stalked by the Israeli’s, Saudi’s and several behind the scenes groups he must rescue his kidnapped son, keep his ex-wife from being killed and find the library to stop World War III. Ok read

Eyes Wide Open by Andrew Gross Jay Erlich nephew was found dead, he believes it’s a suicide and goes to help his brother and sister-in-law. Following a string of clues related to his nephews death and treatment Erlich believes that a bunch of recent deaths including his nephews are related to his brothers involvement with a charismatic cult leader who is in jail for committing murders 30 years ago. OK read.

The Third Secret by Steve Berry This book explores the current Pope’s fascination with the third prophecy of Fatima and his quest to get to the truth. Stonewalled and tracked by enemies within the Vatican will he and his trusted aide get to the truth? OK read

Choke Point (Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon #3) by Peter Telep This is the first Ghost Recon book I’ve read based on the video game. This Top Secret US military unit is in Colombia seeking to rescue a kidnapped CIA agent when they stumble onto a conspiracy where narcotics traffickers are teaming up with terrorists. As they seek to follow the trail of weapons across the Middle East and stop them from getting to terrorists they are stymied by other factions within the US government. OK read.

Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson by S.C. Gwynne An excellent biography of Stonewall Jackson focusing almost entirely on his Civil War career. While it touches briefly on his childhood, struggles at West Point, service in the Mexican American War, army career after Mexico and his life as a professor at VMI, this book mainly deals with his meteoric rise from eccentric artillery professor to Confederate legend and Robert E Lee’s most trusted commander. It takes you step by step thru the Civil War battles he engaged in; First Manassas, the Shenandoah campaign he wages against Nathaniel Banks, the taking of Harper’s Ferry, Antietam, Fredericksburg and lastly Chancellorsville where he was mortally wounded by Confederate Troops. Excellent read.

 

[The Rube]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Ordered up "Breaking The Code" http://www.amazon.com/Breaking-Code-Story-President-Pursued/dp/1939288681

About a Minneapolis Hell's Angel guy who eventually became friends with the cop who kept trying to bust him. Heard good things about it.

Also ordered up "Kiss 'Em Goodbye: An ESPN Treasury of Failed, Forgotten, and Departed Teams" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345520122/ref=ox_ya_os_product

The title is self-explanatory. Figure it's good light reading.

Finished these up.

"Kiss 'Em Goodbye" was majorly baseball-based, although that does make sense due to the popularity of the sport in the early 1900s. Still, a little disappointed they couldn't branch out more. Decent read.

"Breaking The Code" was a good short read. I think they could have either done the short-read, or the holy-crap-1000-pages treatment. Very interesting to hear both sides' perspective of the same events, etc. I really recommend this one, as the cop and the biker don't really mince words about anything.

 

[pgb-ohio]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Are-We-Winning-Fathers-Baseball/dp/1401323707">Are We Winning?</a> by Will Leitch. LOVED it. We love baseball for the same reasons, and he explains how and why much better than I could.

Good call. Reading it on your recommendation and definitely enjoying it. I'm currently in the Top of the 7th.

 

[jen]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Just when I thought I'd exhausted the supply of baseball books I'd want to read, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Mickey-Willie-Mantle-Parallel-Baseballs/dp/030771649X">Mickey and WIllie</a> came out this year. Just finished it - pretty good. It looks at their lives in parallel (and does attempt to answer the big question, in the appendix - who's better?) I thought it was interesting to compare each phase of their careers. I had a little bit of a tough time taking it seriously after the author said the Braves beat the Yankees in the World Series in 1956, but I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt and saying it was an editing issue. One thing I thought was interesting is the discussion of the MVP voting each year, and how few MVPs each won (relative to their success). In one of the appendices, the author figures (using Win Shares) that each SHOULD have won SEVEN MVPs.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Thirteen Days In September. Carter, Begin and Sadat at Camp David. By Lawrence Wright. Well written, easy read about the 1978 conference that resulted in the first comprehensive peace treaty in what has become what we know as the "Middle East."

 

[MattS]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Latest reads:

Ghost Soldiers: The Epic Account of World War II's Greatest Rescue Mission by Hampton Sides - Non-fiction: A book about the rescue of mostly American POW's from a Japanese prision camp by U.S. Army Rangers and Filipino guerrillas from behind enemy lines. The POW's were the remanents of the Battan death march. This was an excellent book. It was filled with the heroism of the POW's to remain alive in a internment camp with horrible conditions and even worse captors. And by the Rangers and guerrillas who rescued them. I highly recommend this book. 5 out of 5 stars.


Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner - Non-fiction: A book about the history of the CIA. I enjoyed Weiner's book about the history of the FBI so I decided to give this one a try. I found this book to be interesting. I can't help but wonder if Weiner slanted his analysis of the CIA towards their failings rather than their success. However, if he did not than the CIA should be disbanded because it is a waste of money and fails so much more often than it succeeds. Either way the book is an interesting history of the CIA from its founding through its development and up to modern times. This book was not as good as the FBI one but still worth the time to read it. 3 out of 5 stars.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Book Thread number ?

I was told that he writes one or two chapters in each book, usually the opening or final chapters. Other than that, yeah, it's pretty much book editors writing them.

It's, I would have to assume, sort of like the books credited to Richard Castle, seeing as how he himself is a ficticious character. I don't know if the producers of Castle have a large team of writers or just a few writers split up and assigned to the two different product/book lines for the Derrick Storm and Nikki Heat characters.

It doesn't even have to mean the material is crap. It is how, for example, many of the great Street & Smith titles were written in the golden age (30s). A lead writer would dictate a storyline and then an assembly line of aspiring pulp writers would essentially work like animators. Lester Dent (writing as "Kenneth Robeson") is about the only exception to this rule, writing AFAIK every word of the brilliant and wonderful "Doc Savage" stories which for my money have never been equaled in the genre.

Not to mention it's how the Dutch masters and Florentine renaissance artists operated.

 

[MattS]

Re: Book Thread number ?

My recap for the year because I won't finish another book before the end of the year:

46 books read. 27 fiction and 19 non-fiction. That is down from last year which was 66/57/9. But because I went from 9 to 19 non-fiction books and they are almost always longer in length than fiction books are I am not disappointed. I've noticed that my non-fiction books have trended towards WWII which I have never really taken an interest in before. I have always been a Revolutionary War reader.

Now if only I could get into Probert's league of reading....



I was wondering what, if any, program that others use to keep track of the books they have read. I use Goodreads but I am not really sure if I like it and I am thinking about switching to another one. Thoughts?

 

[jen]

Re: Book Thread number ?

My recap for the year because I won't finish another book before the end of the year:

46 books read. 27 fiction and 19 non-fiction. That is down from last year which was 66/57/9. But because I went from 9 to 19 non-fiction books and they are almost always longer in length than fiction books are I am not disappointed. I've noticed that my non-fiction books have trended towards WWII which I have never really taken an interest in before. I have always been a Revolutionary War reader.

Now if only I could get into Probert's league of reading....



I was wondering what, if any, program that others use to keep track of the books they have read. I use Goodreads but I am not really sure if I like it and I am thinking about switching to another one. Thoughts?

I use Goodreads, but I don't really like the recommendations part. I do like the shelves feature and keeping track of books I want to read. I also like the scanning feature (I even got my mom on Goodreads).

82 books read here. 25 non-fiction, 57 fiction. Apparently I only read 36 last year.. that does not seem right.

 

[PrezdeJohnson09]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Picked up Gordie Howe's book for Christmas and I'm about 100 pages in so far and it's been a solid read.

Never realized how close Gordie was to being a NY Ranger...that would have been nice!

 

[Probert]

Re: Book Thread number ?

My recap for the year because I won't finish another book before the end of the year:

46 books read. 27 fiction and 19 non-fiction. That is down from last year which was 66/57/9. But because I went from 9 to 19 non-fiction books and they are almost always longer in length than fiction books are I am not disappointed. I've noticed that my non-fiction books have trended towards WWII which I have never really taken an interest in before. I have always been a Revolutionary War reader.

Now if only I could get into Probert's league of reading....



I was wondering what, if any, program that others use to keep track of the books they have read. I use Goodreads but I am not really sure if I like it and I am thinking about switching to another one. Thoughts?

I use Goodreads, but I don't really like the recommendations part. I do like the shelves feature and keeping track of books I want to read. I also like the scanning feature (I even got my mom on Goodreads).

82 books read here. 25 non-fiction, 57 fiction. Apparently I only read 36 last year.. that does not seem right.

My total for 2014 was 181 because I probably will not finish my Eddie Rickenbacker biography tomorrow. Not sure of the breakdown but probably in the neighborhood of 110-120 fiction to 60-70 non fiction. I do know I rated 1 book 5 stars Rebel Yell Non fiction always takes longer to read, I read a 800 page biography of John Marshall and a 700 page biography of Stonewall Jackson which both took me the better part of a week to read, the typical 300-400 page fiction book usually last 1-2 days. Spending 2 1/2 hours each day on the train gives me plenty of time to read. I've recently started to read a biography on each US President, mainly the obscure ones I have to read, so next up is Franklin Pierce.

I used to use Living Social but switched to Goodreads when Living Social became Group on. I like the shelves and the fact that they group the authors and characters of authors. I can click on Kurt Austen under Clive Cussler and it lists all the Austen books and they are numbered, since I read so many books now I am obsessed with reading the books in order. The recommendation is hit or miss it recommends a lot of books I have already read of ones I haven't read some I have liked and some I disliked.

 

[The Rube]

Re: Book Thread number ?

Picked up Gordie Howe's book for Christmas and I'm about 100 pages in so far and it's been a solid read.

Never realized how close Gordie was to being a NY Ranger...that would have been nice!

Might have to check that one out. Probably going to buy Joe Bonanno's book (Bonanno mafia family of NY) also. Still debating Ron Perlman's book.

I read about 4-5 books a year; not on the level of you guys. My passion is movies, of which I watch 4-5 a week.

 

[jen]

Re: Book Thread number ?

add one more to the list. Finished Ivy Pochoda's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Visitation-Street-Novel-Dennis-Lehane/dp/0062249908">Visitation Street</a> and really enjoyed it. About a Brooklyn neighborhood and its inhabitants after a girl goes missing. I thought the characters were well-written and even though I called one of the "surprises" early, I still couldn't wait to see how it turned out.

I read about 4-5 books a year; not on the level of you guys. My passion is movies, of which I watch 4-5 a week.

While I enjoy TV and movies (although not to the level of some people), I like that when reading a book, I decide how to picture it based on the author's description - what the characters look like, the scenes, etc. I don't have to come up with the words to describe it perfectly - the author does that (ideally). Maybe this is why I'm mostly disappointed when seeing a movie after reading a book - it's generally not what I expected.

 

[jen]

Re: Book Thread number ?

I used to use Living Social but switched to Goodreads when Living Social became Group on. I like the shelves and the fact that they group the authors and characters of authors. I can click on Kurt Austen under Clive Cussler and it lists all the Austen books and they are numbered, since I read so many books now I am obsessed with reading the books in order. The recommendation is hit or miss it recommends a lot of books I have already read of ones I haven't read some I have liked and some I disliked.

I didn't know that about the character thing - will have to check it out. My mom told me I'd like James Patterson's Women's Murder Club (or whatever it's called), so I'll give it a shot. I read the first one - it was a little more grisly than I like my mysteries, but I'll give the second one a try.

Another thing I like about Goodreads - the "new books by authors you've read", because I don't keep up with that stuff (just got my January email, so I thought of it). It's nice to have all the info in one place.

Just looked at my stats - longest book I read was actually fiction - 556 pages (New England White).

 

[The Rube]

Re: Book Thread number ?

add one more to the list. Finished Ivy Pochoda's <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Visitation-Street-Novel-Dennis-Lehane/dp/0062249908">Visitation Street</a> and really enjoyed it. About a Brooklyn neighborhood and its inhabitants after a girl goes missing. I thought the characters were well-written and even though I called one of the "surprises" early, I still couldn't wait to see how it turned out.



While I enjoy TV and movies (although not to the level of some people), I like that when reading a book, I decide how to picture it based on the author's description - what the characters look like, the scenes, etc. I don't have to come up with the words to describe it perfectly - the author does that (ideally). Maybe this is why I'm mostly disappointed when seeing a movie after reading a book - it's generally not what I expected.

Ah. I don't read fiction. I think that's the difference.