JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?

[Angry Ewok]

Just started reading Glover's WATERLOO ARCHIVES. Volume 1 is a collection of English accounts of the Waterloo campaign. I read the first five or six letters and then dropped everything to order Volume 2, which I believe is a collection of Prussian accounts.

[Phrubruh]

I'm starting a new epic series with "The Eye of the World: Book One of 'The Wheel of Time'" by Robert Jordan.



The peaceful villagers of Emond's Field pay little heed to rumors of war in the western lands until a savage attack by troll-like minions of the Dark One forces three young men to confront a destiny which has its origins in the time known as The Breaking of the World.

[BrentS]

I finally finished Mockingjay over the holiday weekend. I will probably got back to Feast of Crows next.

[Phrubruh]

I've got two going right now.


The Last Praetorian by Mike Smith
Commander Jonathan Radec is a man desperately trying to escape from the mistakes of his past.

Now the owner of Vanguard Shipping, his primary concerns are trying to keep his ships flying and his crew alive. However, the shadowy Syndicate organisation has set their sights on the Commander and his business, having sent a beautiful assassin to kill him. To make matters worse, she’s become the target of his infatuation, much to the dismay of his ex-girlfriend. Recently elevated to President of the Confederation, she’s still very much in love with him and capable of making his life a living hell.

Surrounded by a galaxy beginning to tear itself apart, with enemies on all sides, he’s now also unwillingly tasked with trying to save the Confederation – for which he has little regard. Jon has little going in his favour, except a crew consisting of the elite of the old Imperial Navy, all of whom would fight to the death for him, and a past that possibly makes him one of the most dangerous men alive.

The Last Praetorian is a Science Fiction adventure/romance, which tries to answer the question: “Can you ever find redemption for the mistakes of your past?


Also,  Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins
When eleven-year-old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York apartment, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats—but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.

Gregor wants no part of a conflict between these creepy creatures. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a strange prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland's uncertain future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him and the Underland forever.

Rich in suspense and brimming with adventure, Suzanne Collin's debut marked a thrilling new talent, and introduced a character no young reader will ever forget.

[Angry Ewok]

The Sagas Of The Icelanders

[Chris M]

I'm about 100 pages from finishing, but I'm in the middle of my last class before I begin my thesis, so those pages are on hold for now.  But this is a great, great book.

[Phrubruh]

Finished Gregor the Overlander. Now reading the Colorado Kid by Stephen King.



DeMunn offers an appropriately lighthearted reading of this surprisingly toothless mystery from King. The prerequisite is the ability to handle the pronounced Maine accent the book demands, as it features a pair of veteran newspaper reporters from an island off the state's coast relating a story to an eager young intern. DeMunn handles the old men's colloquialisms with consistency and ease while the two take turns spinning the tale of "the Colorado Kid," a man found dead on a local beach years ago without any identification or any feasible reason for being there. With its regional flavor and chummy protagonists, the book never lacks charm, and the story is intriguing. It hardly delivers the kind of noir tale that the first entry in the Hard Case Crime series would lead one to expect, but DeMunn does a more than adequate job of narrating this cozy mystery that will leave listeners not so much shocked as pleasantly perplexed.

[Matt_Fury]

I'm currently reading Killing Kennedy by Bill O'Reilly.  It's just as good as Killing Lincoln.  I highly recommend both books.

[Phrubruh]

Now reading, "Blue Remembered Earth" by Alastair Reynolds.



With his critically acclaimed Revelation Space novels, Alastair Reynolds confirmed “his place among the leaders of the hard-science space opera renaissance.” (Publishers Weekly) With Blue Remembered Earth, the award-winning author begins a new epic, tracing generations of one family across more than ten thousand years of future history—into interstellar space and the dawn of galactic society…

One hundred and fifty years from now, Africa has become the world’s dominant technological and economic power. Crime, war, disease and poverty have been eliminated. The Moon and Mars are settled, and colonies stretch all the way out to the edge of the solar system. And Ocular, the largest scientific instrument in history, is about to make an epochal discovery…

Geoffrey Akinya wants only one thing: to be left in peace, so that he can continue his long-running studies into the elephants of the Amboseli basin. But Geoffrey’s family, who control the vast Akinya business empire, has other plans for him. After the death of his grandmother Eunice—the erstwhile space explorer and entrepreneur—something awkward has come to light on the Moon, so Geoffrey is dispatched there to ensure the family name remains untarnished. But the secrets Eunice died with are about to be revealed—secrets that could change everything...or tear this near utopia apart.

[Mikey D]

Finished:



Currently reading:

[Scott]

If you have read The Road I highly recommend you read The Dog Stars



Finished Inferno a few days ago...meh.  I think I am done with the Robert Langdon books



I read most of this after the last Oz movie as I had never read any of them and it was like a buck on the Kindle store



And finally, it took me a long long time but I got through The Making of the Atomic Bomb...it was awesome from a scientific and history standpoint I just couldn't stay awake at night reading it

[Scott]

Just started:

I also read this after I saw Rob had started it...I liked it, lots of good philosophy and science

[Phrubruh]

"Arctic Drift" (a Dirk Pitt novel #20) by Clive Clussler




Bestseller Cussler and son Dirk imagine the U.S. and Canada on the brink of war in their third collaborative Dirk Pitt novel (after Treasure of Khan and Black Wind). In 2011, as the price of gas hits $10 a gallon, President Garner Ward must contend with a corrupt Canadian cabal that's subverting efforts to solve America's energy problems. Pitt barely escapes serious injury when a bomb destroys a D.C. lab along with records of research into an artificial photosynthesis process that could, almost immediately, eliminate the threat of global warming. That discovery may be connected with a legendary failed 19th-century sailing expedition to the Arctic as well as a series of deaths due to the phenomena that the Native Americans of British Columbia know as the Devil's Breath. The Cusslers won't suspend many readers' disbelief, but thriller fans in search of a quick, exciting read should be satisfied.

[Phrubruh]

Sorry, I haven't been listing my books recently here. I just finished Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Outcast a couple of nights ago. It was fun to get back into a Star Wars book again.



Does a new start for the Galactic Alliance mark the beginning of the fall of the Jedi Order?
 
After a violent civil war and the devastation wrought by the now fallen Darth Caedus, the Galactic Alliance is in crisis. From all corners, politicians, power brokers, and military leaders converge on Coruscant for a crucial summit to restore order and determine the future of their unified worlds. But even more critical, and far more uncertain, is the future of the Jedi.

In a shocking move, Chief of State Natasi Daala orders the arrest of Luke Skywalker for failing to prevent Jacen Solo’s turn to the dark side and his subsequent reign of terror as a Sith Lord. But it’s only the first blow in an anti-Jedi backlash fueled by a hostile government and suspicious public. Negotiating his freedom in exchange for his exile from the Jedi Order, Luke, with his son, Ben, at his side, sets out to unravel the shocking truth behind Jacen Solo’s corruption and downfall. But the secrets Luke uncovers may bring his quest—and life as he knows it—to a sudden end. And all the while, another Jedi Knight, consumed by madness, is headed to Coruscant on a fearsome mission that could devastate the entire galaxy.




Currently reading Death Masks : The Dresden Files #5. I kind of skipped ahead of Harry Dresden back when I read Ghosts. Now I'm back on track with the series.



Harry Dresden, Chicago's only practicing professional wizard, should be happy that business is pretty good for a change. But now he's getting more than he bargained for: A duel with the Red Court of Vampires' champion, who must kill Harry to end the war between vampires and wizards ...Professional hit men using Harry for target practice ...The missing Shroud of Turin ...A handless and headless corpse the Chicago police need identified ...Not to mention the return of Harry's ex-girlfriend Susan, who's still struggling with her semi-vampiric nature. And who seems to have a new man in her life. Some days, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. No matter how much you're charging.

[Phrubruh]

Now rereading, "Speaker for the Dead" by Orson Scott Card. Sequal to Enders Game.



In the aftermath of his terrible war, Ender Wiggin disappeared, and a powerful voice arose: The Speaker for the Dead, who told the true story of the Bugger War.

Now, long years later, a second alien race has been discovered, but again the aliens' ways are strange and frightening...again, humans die. And it is only the Speaker for the Dead, who is also Ender Wiggin the Xenocide, who has the courage to confront the mystery...and the truth.
 
Speaker for the Dead, the second novel in Orson Scott Card's Ender Quintet, is the winner of the 1986 Nebula Award for Best Novel and the 1987 Hugo Award for Best Novel.