What book are you currently reading or listening to and how do you like it?
Me, I’m currently listening to Super Powered’s Year 3 by Drew Hayes. Its a more mature version of Harry Potter only Super Heroes going to college to certify in super hero training. And its utterly fantastic IMO. More mature because the main characters are college age so there are adult situations but none graphically so. Its a four book series the first two books were nearly 40 hrs combined and I finished them both in less than two weeks which is normally what it takes me to finish a 12-15 hr book.
Over the summer I started a book called The Origin by Dan Brown. It’s interesting so far, at least to me. A famous billionaire atheist (Edmond Kirsch) is murdered by theist in Spain when giving a huge presentation about the origin of human life, and the protagonist, a Harvard professor (and former mentor of Edmond Kirsch) named Robert Langdon is caught in the middle of it. He and the future princess of Spain, Ambra Vidal, team up to try to find Edmond’s presentation so it can be shown to the world. Meanwhile, a conspiracy site puts Ambra’s future in jeopardy by suggesting that it was someone from the royal palace that murdered Kirsch, including one of the king’s advisors, Bishop Valenspino. The political dynamic is rather interesting, and not unlike that in the U.S.- it might be an allusion, actually. There’s definitely political undertones to the novel.
The whole thing is obviously anti-theist, but it has been a page turner so far. I’m hooked.
I have on tap for my next read Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol. I am currently reading Harm Done by Ruth Rendell. I have a bazillion books in my To Read pile as well as on my Kindle. I need to get cracking.
I’ve had the audio version of that on hold at my local library for a year or so now. They have one copy and I was 24th on the waiting list when I got it. Last I checked about a month ago I was up to #6. Every check out gets two weeks so I’m probably close. I’ve enjoyed Brown’s novels well enough but I don’t want to use precious audible credits on them as I reserve those for books I can’t get via my library.
Books I’ve listened to over the last few months. I spend hours a day in the car for work so I do a majority of my listening there and I listen at 1.5 speed.
Forging Hephaestus - Drew Hayes. Superhero type book only told from villains point of view. Great book, can’t wait for more in the series.
Sea of Silver Light - Tad Williams. Book Four in William’s Otherland series. People trapped in a virtual reality world. Wildly imaginative but the series is too padded.
Brief Cases - Jim Butcher. Series of short stories in the Dresden Files universe. Series is urban fantasy about a wizard in the modern world. Interesting but I’d rather have the next full book in the Dresdenverse.
Ex Patriots - Peter Clines. Book two in a superhero universe where the heroes failed to stop the zombie apocalypse and are now trying to protect the few remaining humans. Interesting mashup of genres.
Tell No One - Harlan Coben. Murder mystery book by Coben. He is easily my favorite non sci fi / fantasy author. He’s never written a bad book and they all are page turners.
No Second Chance - Harlan Coben. See above.
Lord of the Rings Trilogy - Tolkien. I’d read these many times as a kid but never listened to them. First read / listen since the movies. Blasphemy I know but the movies were better.
The Utterly Uninteresting Adventures of Fred, The Vampire Accountant - Drew Hayes. Humorous story about an accountant named Fred who is made a vampire and find its great because now that he doesn’t have to sleep he can do more tax returns. But he keeps unwittingly getting drawn into supernatural stuff.
Super Powereds Year One - Drew Hayes
Super Powereds Year Two - Drew Hayes. As I described in the year 3 book in my initial post.
Great thread and so far hasnt been hijacked by our resident pseduo intellectuals who normally list the most obscure reading material so we will all be suitably impressed.
I am currently re-reading The Last Crusade by Ira Tabankin. It is quite simply ludicrous conservative porn and badly written conservative porn but still enjoyable in a nonsensical way.
Hilary Clayton (yep thats right) has beome President and the new Isis Caliphate has caused a limited nuclear way. However thankfully the new Pope unites America and Russia and they agree to put all their military under the command of the Pope so he can lead them to victory in a new crusade. He also puts Hannity, Beck and Levin in his books with Trump appearing in his most recent novels.
Yes The Last Crusade is absurd as it sounds and Tabankins writing is dreadful, but for some reason i enjoy reading his books.
I’m currently reading two books, one of which involves listening to an app to further learning.
Fiction I’m reading is Michael Connelly’s “The Wrong Side of Goodbye.” When many mystery authors make their protagonists young adults, it’s refreshing to read about a retired police officer doing some private investigations.
Mr. Connelly weaves some historical themes into the story—mid 20th Century—from how pregnancy out of wedlock to the Vietnam War to Chicano ethnic pride—into a credible work. I’m enjoying it.
Am also learning Arabic from the “15 Minute” series in large part to better understand Qu’ran in its original. It’s a well put together book with photos of Egyptian life (I’ve an Egyptian neighbor, so some conversation in this language helps).
I listened to this last year. It felt like two short stories that Connelly crammed together to make a novel. It was still an enjoyable listen, it just felt odd to me how the two stories had nothing to do with each other.
To add. I am also listening to an audio book while traveling in the car. It is They Lying Game by Ruth Ware. Just started it so don’t have much in the way of recommendation as far as this story goes.
The Female Detective, by J. R. Ware, who wrote as Andrew Forrester. A series of short mysteries written in the 19th century featuring the first female series detective.
Ship of Fools, by Tucker Carlson. Just finished it. He writes very well.
The Eye of the Story, by Eudora Welty, a series of essays, and a short story about writers and the writing process.
They are disparate stories. However, I’m finding “The Wrong End of Goodbye” more enjoyable than his “The Burning Room”, from about three years ago.
What’s sad about that one is it started with a very interesting premise—would this man, who was shot long ago, be dead now were it not for that?—but moved at a snail’s pace.
I wonder in Mr. Connelly ever watched “Dr. G Medical Examiner”. That was the question posed at one of her autopsies of a long ago paralyzed man, & the answer was no. Unfortunately there could be no prosecution as the shooter had since dies.
I know I read / listened to Burning Room at some point, I’ve done everything Connelly has written, but even after reading the summary I don’t really recall what happened in it.
I’m kinda wondering what Connelly is going to do soon when it becomes impossible to continue with Harry as the lead character since Harry is aging in real time along with the rest of us. For a while I thought he’d spin off to books about Harry’s daughter becoming a cop but she seems to be on a different career path. Maybe he’s setting up Renee Ballard as his new protagonist since she was the star of his last book and will co-star with Harry in his upcoming one.
A mariachi band member was shot in what was thought to be a random attack. He dies 9 years later & evidence surfaces that the attack may not have been so random. IIRC spoiler mariachi musician may have been enjoying another member’s wife.
There was another—the third & only one of M C’s I’ve read—and title escapes me. A teenager was slain, & her family is destroyed by it. Turns out she had aborted her baby, so a search to find her killer reveals she was carrying on with one of ger teachers. There was an episode of the CBS series ‘Cold Case’ that featured a similar plot line.
Oh, so you started in the middle of the Bosch series. Its a pretty interesting read if you go back to the start of the series and read them in order. Especially for someone like you because you would see how things got started. He meets Eleanor Wish, Maddie’s mom, in the first book. And since he ages Harry in real time you get to see a much younger Bosch in action. Then if you don’t know his Lincoln Lawyer books are set in the same universe with a surprising connection between the leads of the two series. In reality all of Connelly’s books exist in the same universe, he’s written a few non Bosch or Lincoln Lawyer books, and if you are paying attention you’ll pick up a cameo here or there from characters from those books. For instance his book Void Moon is utterly stand alone but years later in a Bosch book, Harry will meet up up randomly with the lead character of that book and have a short conversation with her. It would be a meaningless paragraph if you haven’t read Void Moon though. You can skip the stand alones but the Lincoln Lawyer books become must reads if your going to read the series from the beginning because of intertwined they become and Bosch begins guest starring in later Lincoln Lawyer books while Mickey, the lead in LL, does likewise in Bosch books.
Also if you didn’t know Amazon Prime has done a TV series called Bosch. Three seasons so far though I’ve only seen the first two. It doesn’t follow the books exactly as at the start of the series he’s already long since met and divorced Eleanor and Maddie is a teen (she isn’t even born til mid series in the books). It also condenses the plotlines of multiple books into one each season.
In the light of the recent migrant caravan stories, I’m thinking of a book I read last month called The Camp of the Saints, by a French author, Jean Raspail. It’s a very long, rambling parable about how different factions in the Western world - citizens, media, clergy, social activists - respond to a flotilla carrying a million Third World migrants as it sails toward France. Apparently, it was inspired by the author’s negative reaction to the Paris riots and to the disintegration of French culture and language.
I’d read about it on a book blog - never heard about it before - but apparently its fans put it up there with Orwell in terms of it’s foresight. Some of the episodes, especially the ones that deal with the media, could have been written today. (It was published in 1973)
Got a question for you as a LEO. Am about 2/3 of the way, where SFPD is running around like headless chickens to find the laid off officer’s address.
Is it permissible for them to use only official resources, like the head of his new agency, or Personnel, to pull an address? Especially in an emergency?
It really isn’t that difficult to use online resources to find that information. Pulled up a LEO friend’s address on The White Pages website. He wasn’t listed, but his wife, who kept her name, was. Even drove an hour away to see their new baby by myself (husband sleeps late on Saturday & I just wasn’t up to going when he went).
Must LEOs, to be able to back up their searches in court, use only official channels? I just am finding it a little unbelievable they’re seriously going nuts trying to find this guy’s residence.
You can use whatever publicly available resources you want to find anything. And LEO’s have access to a lot of databases that the public do not: driver’s license, vehicle registrations, public utilities, etc. There are even special law enforcement only type nationwide databases that pull from things like public records, credit checks, etc that will give you lifetime of history on a person. Finding an address for someone is actually very very very easy for law enforcement except in cases where a person has just moved or isn’t keeping a stable address. Like TV shows though they often make things tougher in novels than they really are to keep up dramatic tension.
The only caveat for some of these databases for law enforcement is that you must be able to connect them to an investigation. For instance a police officer can’t just run a person’s driver’s license because they want to, they have to have a reason but that can be a very minimal reason. It only becomes illegal for law enforcement if they are doing it for no legit reason - a bunch of cops got in trouble in Florida recently for many of them running the driver’s license of a female cop of another agency who was reported to be highly attractive. Or doing personal background checks on people for non law enforcement reasons.
Listened to all of Super Powered’s Year 3 by Drew Hayes in less than a week (41 hrs) and just started Super Powered’s 4 yesterday and have already made through 11 of the 61 hrs. I’ve loved this series so much and am dreading the end coming.
This series is a must for any comic book fan or Harry Potter fan. It hits all the right comic book tropes as well as being a more mature variation of Harry Potter only superheroes instead of Wizards.
