NOW READING

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On sale on Kindle for only $1.99:
Frank Bello (of Anthrax) autobiography!

Just finished Lost City of the Monkey God by Douglas Preston.
True story from about 10 years ago of discovery of lost city in rainforest of Honduras.
1st 1/2 of the book tells of the history of the previous searches and the research modern day to find it.
2nd 1/2 is when they actually enter the jungle.
That's when it starts getting good.
I won't spoil their encounters with wild life and jungle conditions here.

Good read.
 

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Read Bone Silence (2020) by Alastair Reynolds.

Third and final book of the Revenger-trilogy, following Revenger (2016) and Shadow Captain (2019). I absolutely adore the universe Reynolds has created with this series - and the final chapter does the usual Reynolds thing of providing a somewhat satisfying, and at the same time a somewhat frustrating answer to many of its great mysteries while creating a few more. Everything being both familiar and strange at the same time leads to an irresistible whole with many things to ponder.

Also read Insomnia (2022) by Sarah Pinborough.

A psychological thriller - although if you've read (or seen the Netflix adaption of) Behind Her Eyes (2017) you will know there is a chance of wacky-wacky supernatural stuff being introduced at the climax... If I ever questioned it before, by now it's undoubtedly style. I enjoyed this a lot - though I would only recommend it for fans of the absolute bonkers side of thrillers. Epilogue connects it with a continuation of the other mentioned novel, and I felt this universe is brewing on the verge of possible greatness. It might not be in good taste, but I want more.
 
Read The Hike (2023) by Lucy Clarke.

A thriller about a group of friends going hiking in Norway. Not amazing, not terrible. Somewhere in between. As a quick read - you could do way worse than this.

Also read The Only One Left (2023) by Riley Sager.

A gothic mystery thriller set in 1983, with flashbacks to 1929. It reminded me a bit of watching an Agatha Christie-adaptation unfold, which isn't bad at all. Maybe a few too many twists (whiplash warning issued), but a good atmospheric and suspenseful read nonetheless. I particularly enjoyed the historical setting and the gothic elements, while still being a modern style thriller. A definite recommend.

Also read Survive the Night (2021) by Riley Sager.

A thriller about a young woman getting in a car with a stranger to cross the country and go home, set in 1991. Plays out like an old thriller movie, with ridiculous twists along the way. I know this has been somewhat panned - but I enjoyed the book for what it was. Not as good as The Only One Left though.

Finally finished Fairy Tale (2022) by Stephen King. Took me a long time... Started reading at the end of July. My third King-novel this year and the one I was looking forward to the most. Surprisingly, I lost interest about 300-400 pages in, and it was a struggle to finish. I don't necessarily say it's a bad novel, it's just that the beginning was great and as it enter fairy tale-land about halfway through it turns into something else entirely which I felt was hard to stomach. The story is like the weirdest parts of The Dark Tower without the stakes and characters from that amazing series.

All in all, 49 books read in 2023 so far.
 
Just read Tattooist of Auschwitz.
Amazing story of survival and positive attitude (and horror).

Also read House On Haunted Hill Resurrection.
Is a sequel to 1959 classic horror movie.
Takes place 20 years later. Starts with Vincent Price's character released from prison after serving 20 years for the murders in the film.
Then he throws another party in the house!
Was good Halloween read.
Cheesy at times but fun.
 
As of now I'm reading the following:

From the Ultimate Tolkien Reading List, after finishing The Annotated Hobbit, I am currently reading Lord of the Rings and in parallel Wayne G. Hammond & Christina Scull - The Lord of the Rings - A Reader's Companion which is the annotation for the book just like with The Annotated Hobbit, only put into a separate volume because of length (the annotations seem to have about 1000 pages or so).

Robert Galbraith (J. K. Rowling) - Troubled Blood, the fifth in the Cormoran Strike series - so far it seems it's going to be one of the better ones, like 2 and 4.

Brandon Sanderson - Elantris, after finishing the Mistborn trilogy.

Jane Austen - Sense and Sensibility - being in a company of Janeites (my best friend and another of my good friends are particularly rabid), I feel like I need to update my knowledge - having read only Sense and Prejudice, I have decided to read her entire bibliography to keep up.

I've momentarily postponed continuing with Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun, because my friends have lagged behind and honestly, the books are clever and good and all, but not really my cuppa.
 
Reading Blood Red Snow by Günter K. Koschorrek.
Is a diary by a Nazi on the front line of the Battle of Stalingrad.
Real contrast between his enthusiasm when he leaves home to what he encounters in frozen foxhole.
Interesting to read how the front line soldiers hated their Nazi superiors for bad decisions.
 
Reading more of Blood Red Snow.
The Nazi who wrote the diary while fighting in Russia mentions he could never shoot anyone unarmed (he sees a fellow Nazi walking around shooting dying Russians on the battlefield).
He specifically says he can't imagine a soldier being ordered to shoot women or children.

I guess he had no knowledge of the Einsatzgruppen death squads trailing the front line soldiers.

Narrator is also horrified by seeing the flame thrower used to clean out the Russian trenches.

Does this burst the bubble of all Nazis being sociopathic sadists?
Some were just young soldiers on the Front Line who had no knowledge of The Final Solution?
 
Read First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung.
She was a child at the time of the Khmer Rouge in 70s Cambodia.
Heart breaking story of her survival through years of starvation and oppression.
Wow.
 

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Right now I am reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy

His writing style may not be for everyone (lack of punctuation, violent/dark depictions, gritty stories), but I dig it. I'm only in the beginning part, ~page 50, but the book has caught my attention more quickly and is more enjoyable than what little I have read of All the Pretty Horses.71IJ1HC2a3L._SY385_.jpg
 
Annnnd done with The Wheel of Time. Lots of good, lots of bad. Was it worth it? I have to say yes, as it occupied a piece of my mind for over a year now, and I enjoyed reading even with spoiling the whole plot for myself early on. I'll have to test how much I care about this tension by not spoiling the next series I go for.
 
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Now that I'm free from Wheel of Time... Great book, it begins comedic and turns into a slippery, paranoid mind screw. Horrifying , even, towards the end. One dimensional characters but the focus is on the setting and the mystery. Safe when taken as directed.
 
terrell39 said:
Reading more of Blood Red Snow.
The Nazi who wrote the diary while fighting in Russia mentions he could never shoot anyone unarmed (he sees a fellow Nazi walking around shooting dying Russians on the battlefield).
He specifically says he can't imagine a soldier being ordered to shoot women or children.

I guess he had no knowledge of the Einsatzgruppen death squads trailing the front line soldiers.

Narrator is also horrified by seeing the flame thrower used to clean out the Russian trenches.

Does this burst the bubble of all Nazis being sociopathic sadists?
Some were just young soldiers on the Front Line who had no knowledge of The Final Solution?
Click to expand...
I have read this book and found it very interesting. Not sure how to answer your questions so I won't even try. Anyway, check out the following:
https://www.amazon.com/Eastern-Infe...x=german+soldiers+diary,stripbooks,84&sr=1-16
 
Currently reading this:

The Nursery (The Bayou Hauntings Book 3) Kindle Edition​

by Bill Thompson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,099 ratings

4.5 on Goodreads

752 ratings
Book 3 of 9: The Bayou Hauntings

A house that sat empty for fifty years as its dead owner instructed. A locked room with no key. A single father with eight-year-old twin girls. A nursery from long, long ago that no child ever played in.There are eerie things going on at The Arbors in St. Francisville, Louisiana. Architect Jordan Blanchard is joined by his friend Callie Pilantro (“Callie – The Bayou Hauntings 1”) and Landry Drake (“Forgotten Men – The Bayou Hauntings 2”) to learn the secrets of a domineering matriarch whose two husbands died in bizarre ways. They explore the house as someone watches from a hidden place high above. The Nursery, the third book in the series, will keep you up late at night wondering what’s behind the next door, what lies beyond the mirror and who hides and waits at The Arbors.




 
I bought the (non-expanded) The Sandman comic collection, after watching the first season of the Netflix adaption. I've read comics since forever, although very sparsely the past 15 years, but have recently started to read a comic magazine or two on a biweekly basis; I've kept most of my comics from my teenager years (The Phantom, Rip Kirby, Modesty Blaise etcetera).

Anyway, The Sandman is ridiculously good, both in terms of story, but equally so in regards to the illustrations themselves.
 
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Yax said:
I bought the (non-expanded) The Sandman comic collection, after watching the first season of the Netflix adaption. I've read comics since forever, although very sparsely the past 15 years, but have recently started to read a comic magazine or two on a biweekly basis; I've kept most of my comics from my teenager years (The Phantom, Rip Kirby, Modestly Blaise etcetera).

Anyway, The Sandman is ridiculously good, both in terms of story, but equally so in regards to the illustrations themselves.
Click to expand...
Yep, it’s incredible. I’ve read it at least 3-4 times over the last 20 years.

I enjoyed the show, too, at least until the last few episodes.
 
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Read the free sample of Murakami's new book, The City and Its Uncertain Walls recently - in German, since there is still no English translation.
Looks good, another approach to Hard-Boiled Wonderland ideas (not putting this in spoilers because it is obvious from virtually the first page).
Quite melancholic, as could be expected.
Will wait for the English version to buy anyway because my wife doesn't read German yet.
 
Terry Pratchett's Moving Pictures. Rescently I decided to continue collecting discworld books, I need only 15 to have full set. :-)
 
Now reading:

Still Galbraith/Rowling's Troubled Blood - I love the book, really, especially Robert Glenister's audiobook narration, it's just that I'm reading too many books at the same time and I haven't had enough time for reading lately

In the Tolkien Ultimate Reading List I'm now reading Lord of the Rings + the 1000 pages of annotations, called LOTR Reader's Companion by Hammond and Scull

Sanderson's Elantris

Lewis' The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe

The seventh book of the Witcher - Lady of the Lake (oh Gosh, let this one be over yet, I really dislike the books)

Hahn and McGinley's Catholics in Exile

Gene Wofe's The Sword of the Lictor (the third book of Book of the New Sun) - this one has been going slowly as well.

Chesterton's Father Brown stories.


That's about the main stuff, I suppose.
 
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