Return of the Book Thread

[HaemishM]

A few months ago, I read The Destiny Engine by E.C. Belikov. He's one of my fans that follows me on Twitter and had asked if I'd read this book and give him a cover blurb. I gave it a try but I told him if I didn't like it, I'd tell him so and the blurb might not be positive.  He was cool with that, so I read it. It was worth it, and you can see my review/blurb by going to the Amazon page. It's really good sci-fi with a cyberpunk edge and some interesting metaphysical concepts behind it. It's worth a read.

[LK]

I've happily indulged in Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain.

The book gives a detailed explanation of Introverts drawing from current research, comparing against Extroverts and each temperament's strengths and weaknesses. The book is punctuated with stories from famous and prominent exemplars about the challenges they go through dealing with who they are in Western culture that puts what Susan calls the Extrovert Ideal on a pedestal. Chapters include comparisons to Eastern culture and a showcase of those who are introverted that have excelled in careers that are suitable to an extrovert. She indicates that extroverts and introverts working together in harmony provide valuable perspectives for making decisions, but introverts tend to get shut down by extroverted qualities that have more impact such as presentation skills and aggressiveness. Wall Street is given as an example of a segment of society that emphasized too much Extrovert behavior.

It's targeted at Introverts from all walks and at every stage of life. It is less self-help and more self-esteem boosting; I considered her overall theme to be Introvert Pride. The book has been extremely comforting to me, as it validated feelings and innate understandings about who I was, my upbringing and my experience with corporate work, but not to such a degree that I feel it unnecessary to give up on learning extroverted behaviors. Very well written.

[murdoc]

I'm reading The Strain by Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan and I'm not sure if I'll finish it. Finding it extremely dull and plodding. Starts off with an interesting hook, but rapidly devolves into a cliched horror novel that just doesn't seem to be going anywhere.

[HaemishM]

A few months ago, I read The Destiny Engine by E.C. Belikov.

It's worth a read.

Just wanted to re-pimp this because he has apparently lowered the eBook price to $.99 cents. If you have a Kindle, there is literally no reason not to buy this book unless you just don't like sci-fi.

[Evildrider]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

[RhyssaFireheart]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

[Viin]

Seriously try the Peter Grant series by Ben Aaronovitch (the first is Rivers of London in the UK, Midnight Riot in the US).  Part police procedural, part UF where magic after a long decline (and most wizards being casualties of WWII) seems to be on the upswing and there is a small sub-unit of London police that gets called in if things are a little odd. 

Thanks for the recommendation, I like this series better than Dresden. But he needs to write more!

[Evildrider]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

I'll make you wait to read it.  :D  I ordered it last night at midnight for my Nook. 

[WayAbvPar]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

I'll make you wait to read it.  :D  I ordered it last night at midnight for my Nook. 

I got started on my re-read late, so it will a couple of weeks before I get to it. On Summer Knight now 

[RhyssaFireheart]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

I'll make you wait to read it.  :D  I ordered it last night at midnight for my Nook. 

I'm only getting it in hardback because I started the series in physical media so I'm damned well going to keep reading it that way.  Same with the Wheel of Time books.

But for new series now, I have no qualms about getting the Nook versions and reading away!

[Morat20]

I'm ordering my copy Friday. I'm exhausted already and I know I'll stay up late working my way through it. Or start reading before work and get in late.

I'm finally starting to move my Discworld collection to Kindle. Started with Going Postal, Making Money, and Night Watch. (Prompted by watching the Going Postal thing on Netflix last week).

[Hammond]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

finished it around 11:30 last night. 

[Evildrider]

I have a 100 pages left on Cold Days and I've enjoyed it so far. 

DAMN YOU!


I need to pick that up tonight or order it from B&N and having it delivered.  I want to know what happens badly enough that I'll get a hardback.

finished it around 11:30 last night. 

 

[Hammond]

 

The quote tree is getting a bit long..

 

Since I finished Cold Days I started on the new Iron Druid book Trapped by Kevin Hearne.  Reading these back to back its amazing how similar his characters are to Jim Butchers. Dog, check Spunky side kick, check smart mouthed main character check. 

[Tmon]

Much to my surprise I had no trouble buying the nook version here in Belgium (for some reason I thought there would be some kind of blocking based on my IP) the tough part is do I start it now or save it for the flight back to Denver on Monday.

[Evildrider]

Butcher has said that he's planned on about 20 books then there will be 3 more that are an "apocalyptic" trilogy to finish it off.

[Xilren's Twin]

Enjoyed Cold Days as well.

[WayAbvPar]

So apparently Jim Butcher is in the hospital with some illness and has canceled the rest of his book tour. If he goes the way of Robert Jordan I shall be very put out.

e- according the the @HarriedWizard Twitter account, it is food poisoning.

[Hammond]

Uh all I see is he has food poisoning and they canceled today's signings.

http://www.jim-butcher.com/

[WayAbvPar]

I was seeing vague things on Twitter that made it sound far more dire.

[Chimpy]

I'm finally starting to move my Discworld collection to Kindle. Started with Going Postal, Making Money, and Night Watch. (Prompted by watching the Going Postal thing on Netflix last week).

I too am on a discworld kick from watching Going Postal. But I had never read any of them so I am reading them in publication order (working at a library does have some perks). Am reading Mort at the moment.

[Morat20]

Sorcery and Mort were the beginnings of Stage 2 Pratchett, where he moved out of parody and into writing fantasy. (Hilarious fantasy, but fantasy).

Somewhere around Reaper Man and Small Gods is where he went from good fantasy (hilarious good fantasy) into great fantasy.

Don't skip the children's books (Wee Free Men, Hat Full of Sky, Maurice and his Educated Rodents) either.

I loved me some Douglas Adams, but Pratchett ended up head and shoulders above him -- probably because, unlike Adams, you didn't have to practically hold a gun to his head to make him write. The man loves doing it.

[RhyssaFireheart]

Uh all I see is he has food poisoning and they canceled today's signings.

http://www.jim-butcher.com/

Glad to hear he's okay, but dammit!  I wish I'd known about the book tour earlier.  He's going to be in Skokie tomorrow night but there's no way in hell I'm going to be anywhere near Old Orchard mall at 7pmon a Friday night without more planning ahead time.  :(

Cold Days and Side Jobs (which I still haven't read) are both en route to me as of today.  I'm hoping tomorrow or possibly Saturday but I'll be fine with a next week arrival.  End-of-month is a sucky time for me anyways because of work.

[Quinton]

Just finished Cold Days and really enjoyed the ride.  Lots of fun stuff, interesting revelations, and some surprising twists at the end.  I feel like we're on track for some pretty awesome stuff in the next couple books.  


EDIT: I'm glad I kept reading the series (the first couple books were pretty rough) -- it keeps getting better.

[Khaldun]

Just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's latest. A bit bloodless and intellectual even for KSR.

[satael]

Just finished Cold Days and really enjoyed the ride.  Lots of fun stuff, interesting revelations, and some surprising twists at the end.  I feel like we're on track for some pretty awesome stuff in the next couple books.  

Dresden Files is pretty much the only (series of) books I enjoy more in the audio book format (James Marsters is really great as the reader) 

[Shannow]

Just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's latest. A bit bloodless and intellectual even for KSR.

is that possible?

[murdoc]

Started in on 'Cold Days' and I think it's the first book I have ever read that included 'vajazzled'. 

[Tmon]

Finished Cold Days this morning.  I would have finished it yesterday on my flight home but my damn tablet battery died in the middle of the second to last chapter.  I took a couple hour nap during the flight and forgot to turn off the tablet, which thanks to a bug or feature does not go into sleep mode when I'm using the nook app.  It is one of the better stories in the series in my opinion.

[RhyssaFireheart]

I STILL DON'T HAVE MY BOOK!!!!  DAMN FREE SHIPPING!!!!

Of course, I was actually fairly busy this weekend and wouldn't have gotten things done if I'd read, so I'm sort of okay with this.  But good gods, never again free shipping.  I'll pay for next or 2-day.

[Khaldun]

Liking Garth Nix's Confusion of Princes.

Almost through Ysabeau Wilce's latest Flora book with my daughter. Very good YA for 12-and-up (there's some very muted sexual stuff going on and an alcoholic parent in a fantasy setting--but it's really excellent.)

[Cyrrex]

Did anyone mention that the next Wool book is out?  I didn't even know there was one on the way, but it has now rocketed up towards the top of my To Read list.

http://www.amazon.com/Second-Shift-Order-Series-ebook/dp/B00A6ZT2FS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1354707199&sr=1-1&keywords=wool+7

The series has been mentioned in this thread before, but for any of you who haven't had heard of it...highly recommended.  Read them in the proper order (not the chronological one).

[Morat20]

Liking Garth Nix's Confusion of Princes.

Almost through Ysabeau Wilce's latest Flora book with my daughter. Very good YA for 12-and-up (there's some very muted sexual stuff going on and an alcoholic parent in a fantasy setting--but it's really excellent.)

Is Garth Nix the guy that did the Abhorsen books?

[RhyssaFireheart]

IT'S HERE!! IT'S HERE!!

/runs off to read.

There goes sleep tonight.

[Khaldun]

Liking Garth Nix's Confusion of Princes.

Almost through Ysabeau Wilce's latest Flora book with my daughter. Very good YA for 12-and-up (there's some very muted sexual stuff going on and an alcoholic parent in a fantasy setting--but it's really excellent.)

Is Garth Nix the guy that did the Abhorsen books?

Yup.