What are you reading? What was the last book you enjoyed?

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz

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Not quite as good as his previous book, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, but interesting none the less.
 
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As the cover says, an indepth account of the 82nd and 101st airbourne divisions actions during Operation MarketGarden. Their landings, immediate objectives, and maintaining their portions of the corridor in the hopes of linking British 30 Corps with 1st Airbourne are all covered. The author is a university professor, not a professional author, so the writing can be a bit clunky at times, but the sheer amount of info, along with eyewitness accounts made it very worthwhile for me.
 
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Been a fan of the man's work for a long, long time and have been meaning to learn more about his life. So far, this is good...but I'm learning that he (just as many other visionaries are) was quite the eccentric. Not quite the Nikola Tesla or Howard Hughes type, but eccentric nonetheless.
 
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As the cover says, an indepth account of the 82nd and 101st airbourne divisions actions during Operation MarketGarden. Their landings, immediate objectives, and maintaining their portions of the corridor in the hopes of linking British 30 Corps with 1st Airbourne are all covered. The author is a university professor, not a professional author, so the writing can be a bit clunky at times, but the sheer amount of info, along with eyewitness accounts made it very worthwhile for me.

Operation Market Garden was a vital operation and turned out to be crazy as ****! Well worth learning about.
 
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I thought it would be kind of cool to read a collection of short stories and novellas to get a "good" sampling of some authors I wouldn't really know of. This book changed my mind. I'll stop short of saying it wasn't worth the $2.99 I paid for it. There are ten novellas in the book and of them there are only four that I liked. Liked in various degrees but not loved, with the exception of one. The Tent and The Painted darkness were Ok and held my attention. The Man on the Bench was pretty good, a ghost story that hinted at similarities of It. Kids fighting an evil that a town had been struggling with over many decades. If there was one that I would say was worth the price of admission it was For Emmy. This story caught me off guard and really got to me, as it would for any parent out there. The author (who's name escapes me) has a fantastic writing style and really dragged me in. I still stand behind my original statement about probably not picking up another collection like this even though there were two "good" stories in it. I still had to go through the rest of them.
 
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I couldn't resist. I read some of the reviews on this and once I read that it was very "Twilight Zone-ish" I hit the buy now button. I'm not going to give anything away here, just my feeling on the ending, so beware. This story has everything I love about Joe Hill; Humor, well descriptive prose and horror, both actual and implied. My only negative about the story was the easy to figure out ending. Which is rare for me because I am never good at guessing the end of anything. But this one was too simple. That being said, at 99 cents, it was a great way to spend my lunch break for under a buck. I wouldn't mind seeing him do more Kindle Singles in the future.
 
Has anyone read Joe Hart? I saw him on my Amazon suggested page and he seems to have some descent ratings. I scrolled down his page and he has a couple Kindle singles for free so I picked up
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and read it on my lunch break. It was really really good. I just wonder if anyone has read any of his novels and if so would you recommend it.
 
The joy of collections IS the one or two stories you dig and the authors they make you look into. Don't focus on the ones that were so-so, hell, beauty is that they are short...so minor time investment. Some collections are better than others. If you want to guarantee success try to pick ones that have at least one or two BIG names. That way you are almost sure to get a winner amongst the rest.
 
Currently Reading. The only novel of his I had not already read before.

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Spook by Mary Roach

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Spook deals with studies pertaining to the afterlife, such as reincarnation, mediums, souls, and what not. I really don't believe in such things, but I find these discussions interesting nonetheless. Roach is generally funny, but at times, she lays it on really thick and misfires.

Carl Sagan-The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

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I am quite fond of Sagan's writing style. This book basically discusses the need for science as means to fully address the unknown, such as UFO's, the supernatural, and other strange phenomena that is often accepted blindly. I really enjoyed it and Sagan brings a lot of examples and research in order to shape his arguments.

Catherynne M. Valente-Deathless

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This was certainly a strange book, but I enjoyed it. It basically takes the Russian legend of The Death of Koschei the Deathless and puts it in a Stalinist Soviet Union context. I think I still need more time to digest some of the stuff in this book. ;)
 
Those Angry Days: Roosevelt, Lindbergh, and America's Fight Over World War II, 1939-1941
Book by Lynne Olson

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I actually read this book from start to finish, which is something I've never done....ever. And I only did it because i saw it was a movie.

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And as I sat in the movie theatre for that movie, I saw a preview for another movie, and I picked up the book it's based on:

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A great book.

I started to read Insurgent, but instead took a break from the series and started this one:

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Still reading this one, and it's freaking great!
 
I actually read this book from start to finish, which is something I've never done....ever. And I only did it because i saw it was a movie.

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I was a little disappointed that they cut the Locke and Demosthenes parts. Otherwise, it was a pretty decent movie adaptation.
 
I was a little disappointed that they cut the Locke and Demosthenes parts. Otherwise, it was a pretty decent movie adaptation.

Yeah, I was rather disappointed with that too. But that's the thing about books being made into movies, they can't fit everything into a 2 hour film.
 
Yeah, I was rather disappointed with that too. But that's the thing about books being made into movies, they can't fit everything into a 2 hour film.

True enough. I guess I should be happy that it was a mostly faithful sci-fi book adaptation and not something like the abomination that was Starship Troopers. (though I have to admit liking Starship Troopers as a brainless sci-fi action flick if I purposely forget that it's supposed to be an adaptation of Heinlein's book)

Speaking of which, if you liked Ender's Game, you might like Starship Troopers too.
 
True enough. I guess I should be happy that it was a mostly faithful sci-fi book adaptation and not something like the abomination that was Starship Troopers. (though I have to admit liking Starship Troopers as a brainless sci-fi action flick if I purposely forget that it's supposed to be an adaptation of Heinlein's book)

Speaking of which, if you liked Ender's Game, you might like Starship Troopers too.

I had no idea Starship Troopers was a book. I loved the movie, I'll add it my list.
 
Starship Troopers is a fun movie, but yeah, liberties were taken. Casper Van Dien doesn't quite look like a Rico (suave? mhihi:), does he?

Joe Haldeman's The Forever War is also worth reading. It was partly a response the Heinlein's Starship Troopers.
 
Yep. And if you like Starship Troopers, you'll love Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress.
 
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