Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[Solitaire1]

Originally Posted by Renate

What kind of technology is well-understood?

Pencils, pens, calculators, CD players...

[Dr. Drib]

I was scratching my back, washing the car, doing the laundry, feeding the dog, mowing the lawn, reading a book, and perusing MobileRead, when it dawned upon me that over 32,000 posts have been made!!

The multiverse is a busy place!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Next up: City of Ruins by Kristine Kathryn Rusch. The second in her "diving" series.

Which was very good. So I went straight onto the third, Boneyards, which wasn't quite as good. Or I got more irritated by the very large number of flashbacks. I'll still be keeping my eye out for the next ones in the series.

Hmm... looking it up, I see I've missed a couple of Novellas between City of Ruins and Boneyard. I suspect they're later fill-in books. All 16(!) now added to my watch list.

Next up: The Master of Whitestorms by Janny Wurts. This was on my watch list, and recently went on offer, so it's now my next read.

[Graham44]

I'm currently reading The Ember Blade by Chris wooding. It sounds like your typical fantasy adventure story, a privileged young man who nevertheless finds himself living under an empire that conquered his people witnesses his father being murdered by the inquisitors of the empire. He and his best friend are themselves imprisoned as slaves after trying to intervene. Vowing to right these wrongs he sets out on a quest to recover a legendary sword that is said will free his people from their oppressors.

Sounds very standard stuff, but so far I'm really enjoying it (I'm only on page 202 of 937). It is well written, the world is well described and has enough fantasy without being over the top. The characters are likeable (or not as the case may be) and there are some genuinely funny moments particularly between the two main characters Aren and Cade.

If it carries on as it's started I will definitely want to read the other book in the series - The Shadow Casket

[Mike Hobart]

�� Books for the shortest month:
A LONDON LIFE by Henry James, 1888
CALL MR. FORTUNE by H.C. Bailey, 1920
THE DAGGER AFFAIR by David McDaniel, 1965
THE SPARROW by Mary Doria Russell, 1996
THE CINEMATIC LEGACY OF FRANK SINATRA by David Wills, 2016

[Dr. Drib]

Just finished I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman, a literary novel with elements of science fiction. (Don't be scared away because it's science fiction; there are no spaceships or time machines in this one. )

This is one of the most incredibly (and sadly) compassionate novels I have read in a long time, a story about the resilience of survival and dealing with 'aloneness' (with many different interpretations of the that word and how it impacts the main character). It is a novel about a woman who discovers who she is and the limitations of her life while surviving in a dystopian world. I can say without embarrassment that it broke my heart as I was reading it. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

And now to my re-read (after 40-some years) of The Lover, by Marguerite Duras.

After that, I plan to re-read Anna Kavan's novel Asylum Piece, a writer I've enjoyed for many, many years.

Then I plan to read the great Stefan Zweig: Letter From an Unknown Woman. I'm well acquainted with his work.

After Zweig, I plan to settle back for a nice long leisurely read of A Man Called Ove: A Novel, by Fredrik Backman.

Happy reading, you strange creatures of the night.