I don't know what the heck to call this thread!

[Slam_Bradley]

Only Woolrich I've read is The Bride Wore Black, which I thought was pretty good, though not much more than that. Any recommendations? I've had my eye on Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mainly because I think it's such a great title.

Rendevous in Black is usually regarded as his best work. I haven't gotten to it yet. I'd say Black Alibi is the best of his work that I've read.

[Libaax]

I noticed a Dying Earth tribute anthology in the bookstore the other day, Songs of the Dying Earth. Lots of pretty well known writers in there - Tanith Lee, George R. R. martin, Gaiman, etc - but no idea how good it is.




Only Woolrich I've read is The Bride Wore Black, which I thought was pretty good, though not much more than that. Any recommendations? I've had my eye on Night Has a Thousand Eyes, mainly because I think it's such a great title.

Many of those writers admire Vance, George Martin has written characters based on Vance sf humour series. Tanith Lee has written Dying Earth inspired science fantasy series. What we fans admire must be even more to admire for writers who know its not easy being imaginative and great prose stylist who invented his own language.

That book is good but not if you havent read Dying Earth. All those stories set in the same settings expects you to know the classic Vance stories.

Matt Hughes is the best SF writer who uses Vance style with his take. The others are better with their own type of fantasy,SF.

berk i dont like how similar we are on certain authors. Bride who wore Black is also my only Woolrich but i liked very much as femme fatale,revenge story. I will use Slam's recommendation for the other two books.

[FirestormTheNuclearMan]

The Dangerous Days of Daniel X The short chapters is something I must get use to.

The Chronicles of Vladimir Tod Eighth Grade Bites. I think I'll read chapter 2 before I read Chapter 3 THe Hidden Attic before I go to bed.

[Libaax]

I finished The Man in the High Castle by Philip K.Dick

This novel is set in 1962 San Francisco in a very memorable alternate world years after a longer World War II, most of the world is under totalitarian Fascist imperialism as the war was won by Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.

It is a profound novel that has much to say about our world through an alternative political world like George Orwell's 1984.

Its a very ambitious novel that Dick uses to comment on Fascism and also people who hate non-white peoples. There was a racist character that was clear negative example. He manages to both explore his ideas, comment on the big issues and doesn't forget to tell many smaller,personal stories about many different POV characters living in this world. Japanese,German,second class peoples in the occupied USA. He didn't forget to write about Africa,Asia either and think the world ends at Europe like some novels like this does.

Normally his prose style, somewhat dated language is his weakness but this time the prose,the storytelling is the finest i have seen of all the books i have read. That made this novel easy choice as the best book i have read of him.

This is not weird,thrilling SF story but read more like a great social realism novel about our modern history and one of those books you have to think a lot while reading it and again that reminds of 1984. Not because they are alternate history SF novels but they are great novels period.

[CaptainCanada]

Bring Up The Bodies by Hilary Mantel

Mantel returns with the second volume in what will now be a trilogy about Thomas Cromwell. Unusually for a sequel, it's markedly slimmer than the first book, but since this grew out of plans for a single successor volume that would account for it. It's damn hard to say anything new about this particular period in history, which has been fodder for writers pretty much since it happened (Shakespeare himself wrote one of his more minor, propagandistic works on the subject; it's fun to imagine what he might have done with the story if writing a more truthful account wouldn't have gotten him hung, drawn and quartered), but Mantel manages to make things somewhat fresh, the principal reason being the use of the uncommon perspective of Cromwell. He's wouldn't make the top ten most common POVs for these events, and after reading the book it's still clear why: most novels aren't interested in making their hero a ruthless apparatchik with no particular qualms about doing whatever the king tells him to do. At the same time, Mantel makes him relatable/likeable (though that's the thing with POV). She does a great job of evoking the atmosphere of the court, and how everyone is constantly dancing to the king's whims and changeable moods (Mantel's take on Henry himself, glimpsed through Cromwell, is also interesting; as with most portrayals he's a creature of appetite, but he comes across as basically unconscious of what he's doing, and how he's constantly rewriting events to suit whatever he wants now).

[Slam_Bradley]

The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey by Candice Millard

Look at the Roosevelt/Rondon Expedition that explored the River of Doubt (later re-named the Rio Roosevelt). The only thing I knew about this prior to reading the book was a bit about it when I was helping Nathan with the Amazon Trail computer game when he was about 7 or 8. And frankly I don't know diddly about South American history.

Very interesting book. The Amazon really was the last great frontier in the early 20th century. It's hard to imagine a 1000 mile long river that was pretty much completely unexplored by non-natives. It's also amazing that an expedition could be as poorly planned as this one was, particularly with Candido Rondon as co-commander.

Great true adventure book.

[Deathstroke]

I finished reading the John Sandford novel Buried Prey today.

[CaptainCanada]

Selected Stories of Anton Chekhov by Anton Chekhov

Continuing my project to familiarize myself with short stories, I decided it wouldn't make much sense not to include the writings of the original master of the form (to the point where every other short story writer with talent is the "Chekhov of _____"; ie, "Chekhov of the suburbs" (John Cheever), "the Canadian Chekhov" (Alice Munro). These were translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the top guns of Russian-to-English translation, and while I don't speak Russian so it's hard to fully evaluate these, the stories themselves flow effortlessly. In terms of theme, Chekhov is perhaps not much different from the other Russian writers I've read from this period (or any other): people going about their everyday, often depressing lives while philosophizing. "Ward No. 6" is probably my favourite story from the collection.

[Libaax]

Captain have you Gogol short stories ? He is to the short story in Russian lit what Poe,Washington Irving is to american short stories.

[CaptainCanada]

No, I haven't, though Pevear and Volokhonsky have a collection of his stories too, so I was planning to get to them eventually.

[CaptainCanada]

Gimpel the Fool and Other Stories by Issac Bashevis Singer

The first of many short story collections by the Yiddish-language Nobel Laureate. I'd previously read two of his novels, one of them an all-time favourite of mine, but his short stories seem to be what he's most famous for, so when I started to make an effort to get into the format, it was an obvious place to go. Library of America produced a three-volume set of it's highly economical hardcovers that collect all of his published collections, and various other strays. This is the first, and it's typically high quality stuff (I wouldn't say it's on the level of The Slave as a whole, but much better than Enemes, A Love Story). The stories mix heartfelt, sentimental depictions of traditional Jewish life, grimmer ones (though there's a comic element to a lot of those), and (my favourite) a number told from the perspective of the evil spirits out to seduce people into iniquity.

[Deathstroke]

I read the Janet Evanovich novel Explosive Eighteen yesterday.

[dupersuper]

No, I haven't, though Pevear and Volokhonsky have a collection of his stories too, so I was planning to get to them eventually.

Whose short stories have you read?

[CaptainCanada]

Conan Doyle, Chesterton, Munro, Cheever, Singer, Chekhov.

Troubles by J. G. Farrell

I read The Siege of Krishnapur, the second book in Farrell's Empire Trilogy, about three years ago, but it took a while to get around to reading the others. Finally did, starting with the first (which retroactively won the Booker for 1970, in 2010; still annoyed that Fifth Business didn't even make their longlist), set around the dissolution of British rule in Ireland in 1919-1921. Farrell's style is tragicomic, with a penchant for dry humour (with occasional farce). The social commentary isn't particularly subtle, but he was, as the author notes, one of the leading edge of people making in back in the 1970s.

[Libaax]

Conan Doyle, Chesterton, Munro, Cheever, Singer, Chekhov.

Saki or Munro as that was his real was the best book buy i did this year. I bought The Septimus of Brope and other stories collection because i thought Saki was a japanese or asian author as the name sounds looking more world lit authors. But i got subtle, great short story humor writer. That did remind me of the humorous Chesteron stories.

I have not read PG Woodhouse yet but the humor of Saki remind to read him. As he said to have hugely influenced the writing of Woodhouse.