I'm only two chapters in, but from what I gather from the synopsis is that the main character, a 15 year old assassin in training is tasked with protecting a prince from assassination, which means he has to go up against his own kind, which is kinda breaking the law of assassin-ship (a real word?).
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👏👏👏!! Aldo Leopold is one of my great heroes. It's amazing to see this book selling in the millions, a best seller on Amazon, considering its published date and that Aldo didn't live to see it in print.
There was a film about him in 2011 that won an Emmy, but I can't find it to stream. Here's the trailer:
I'd love to know what you think. The only issue I take with the title is the word secret. Now that America has grown in some ways anti science it feels like China is making a go of it.
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. It's about grief. I love Didion's books in general and this one is very good.
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I recently finished The Broken Hours by Jacqueline Baker which was a pretty good read. It's described as 'A book of H.P. Lovecraft', which begs the question, does that mean a book BY H.P. Lovecraft or ABOUT H.P. Lovecraft? The answer is complicated, but the label totally fits. I quite enjoyed it.
Also recently finished Sarah Canary by Karen Joy Fowler, and this is shaping up to be my favourite read of the year. It's a sort of SF/not SF set in the late 1800s in Washington Territory. A mysterious woman shows up in a Chinese Railworkers camp and this encounter leads a man named Chin on a surprising and picaresque journey. He's soon joined by a mental patient, a suffragette, and a side-show huckster. For a short book, it's many things. Its a feminist novel. It's a retelling of the Wizard of Oz. It's a novel of first contact. It's a novel about finding yourself by reflecting how you interact with others. It's an American version of Roadside Picnic, or a western version of Moby Dick. I can't stop thinking about it. I haven't read Stephenson yet but I have been meaning to because I've heard good things about his writing style. About the only negative thing I've heard about him is that his books are quite lengthy, but I don't really consider that a bad thing. I've read long books relatively quickly and some short books have taken a long time to finish. I think it depends on the book itself and not the actual length.
I agree, long books that are interesting and engaging are never too long. Stephenson always stretches my vocabulary and encourages me to read with a dictionary nearby. But some of his more fantastical books don't hold my interest, but I tend to favor hard sci-fi over fantasy.
Another author that I enjoy, like Stephenson, who is not always the easiest to read, but is engaging and thought provoking, is David Mitchell, author of "Cloud Atlas", "The Bone Clocks" and my favorite "The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet".
The only David Mitchell I have read is "Cloud Atlas". I was very disappointed in the book. Maybe I missed something, but to me the book felt like four different, unrelated stories. I kept waiting for some "a-ha" moment where all the stories came together, but other than catching some references to the previous story in the current one, I didn't see the connection. But as I said, maybe I missed something.
I did enjoy his writing style, though, and would read some of his other stuff if I have the chance.
Read the opening chapter in the Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet and see what you think of the scenes he creates.
I loved Cloud Atlas, but I confess, I saw the movie first ( what a strange visual feast ) and so I had some idea about what was coming in the book.
I loved Reamde: A Novel
So did I! That was my second Neal Stephenson book after Snow Crash. I loved how Reamde seemed to stretch all across the globe and it was fascinating to read about the Chinese sweatshops dedicated to levelling up video game characters. The story had a lot of threads but I felt they were woven together very well. I did see that people on Goodreads have mixed feelings about Fall, but from the blurb the premise seems very interesting. I will definitely share my thoughts here when I finish the book. :)
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I've read Cloud Atlas and De Zoet. I didn't read Bone Clocks, but I did read the associated novel, Slade House. Of these, Cloud Atlas is definitely the masterpiece. My reading was memorable, as I started it on vacation and while the first part was set on a creaking ship of sail, I was lodged in a handmade wooden hut with a grass roof that creaked in the night wind while the surf rolled in on the nearby beach. In that book, Mitchell demonstrated different styles in each of the different nested stories, and the way the characters and themes arched across time was impressive.
De Zoet was also very good, though we read it with my book club and several members pointed out that the climactic rescue at the temple was really out of place in the culture and people felt Mitchell was guilty of orientalism. We subsequently found an interview with Mitchell in which he revealed the scene was inspired by Ursula K. LeGuin's fantasy novel, The Tombs of Atuan, rather than by history, so I guess they were justified. Orientalism doesn't bother me very much, so I thought it was a great read.
Slade House was an ambitious attempt at a haunted house mystery with a sci-fi twist. I feel he wasn't quite able to pull it off, and there's a little too much exposition. It was certainly worth the read, though, and I gave it 4 stars (bumped up from 3.5) on Goodreads.
I would love to see Reamde as a good film or a good series streaming somewhere. I read about Chris and Paul Weitz planning to serialize it from a link back in 2013 but I haven't found anything more about it.
@Apocryphal - what a great setting to read Cloud Atlas!
Whoa! This would be awesome as a 6 or 8 episode mini series on Netflix!
Halfway through The Absolution Gap by Alastair Reynolds, part of the Revelation Space series. Not the best one in the series, but I'm a completist and I love the worldbuilding, so here we are. :-)
After that probably going to the next in the series, but only if I have the time until the main book event of next year: Agency by William Gibson comes out on January, 20th. It's the sequel to the outstanding The Peripheral, which was just greenlighted for a TV series by the Westworld creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan (and, whoa, can't wait for that one!).
I'm so glad you enjoyed it! Thank you for letting me know :)
Thanks for the shout out Stephen!! I am reading Tergenev's Fathers and Sons painting a picture of a family dynamic around a societal evolution from feudal Russia. Not quite finished yet so I am curious to see how this all wraps up. Good book so far though. This is from a collection of books I inherited from my deceased father so I can't help but think of him as I read. He was a great man!!!
Well that looks interesting. Might have to pick this one up for my next read!!!
I always have too many books on the go, and often representing too broad or eclectic a range of topics. It's a personal failing I wish I could correct, but I suspect I am too set in my ways. For example, I am reading a biography of Henry VIII on the one hand and "Physics of the Impossible", by Michio Kaku, on the other.
Kaku takes sci-fi staples such as phasers, force fields, death stars etc, and explores where our current technological capabilities sit in such respects. In some cases, we are closer than we might all think.
Wow! What a great collection of book suggestions.
I am heading to the bookstore and then the library tomorrow. Here’s the books that intrigued me from the discussion and are on my acquisition list:
From @Ravi . Mogworld by Yahtzee Croshaw. I’m a big fan of comedies and so you had me at “hilarious” with your description. Comparing it to the LEGO movie only made me want to read this book even more.
From @Pathfinder . Paul Theroux's "On the Plain of Snakes". I’d like to take a deep dive into the border issue.Why the US Immigration Courts are a Huge Mess
From @Drue . "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold. I think I’ll have to check my library for this. Sounds interesting on conservation science.
From @JazliAziz . Age of Assassins, by RJ Barker. It sounds like a good fantasy high action book. If it’s a page turner, I’m in!
I’ll see where things take me with those and then take a second look at the other suggestions!
Last week’s This American Life podcast looked at some of the current immigration issues. Very interesting (and heart-breaking).
No worries Stephen. Hopefully you get Mogworld in hand by the time you finish a few of the heavier themed books. It would be a nice way to loosen up and unwind with some humour. 🙂
Kerr, METROPOLIS. enjoy the Bernie Gunther series
Welcome to Cake, jal333. 🎂
As for Metropolis, fantastic! A masterpiece, no?
