What are you currently reading?

[epilogue]

[epilogue]

Almost half way through this guy, finally. I've been wanting to read it for years now. Really digging it. It's not quite what I'd expected but which is kind of fun and frustrating at the same time. But so far, so good.

[LetMeSleep]

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[LetMeSleep]

Thumbs up

I hope McCready has read it.

Did you get much out of it, Trag?

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[LetMeSleep]

Thumbs up

I hope McCready has read it.

Did you get much out of it, Trag?

Haven't read that book, but have done a lot of work around gut bacteria and health. My sis had her entire colon removed due to colitis, and it's all over my wife's family too -- my MiL and her brothers all have it. Digestive health is super important in our family.

Same. My boy had antibiotics at 2 or 3 and his health suffered. Plus we IBS and Coeliac disease in the family. And nut and egg allergies.

Next up is

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[BurtReynolds]

recently addicted to Audible

[bada]

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bada]

Lemme know your thoughts on this one... What do you think of The Shiningg?

Like the Shinning. This one is good so far. Some Dark Tower references.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[juggernaut]

I'm reading the dictionary. I'm kinda worried that any other book I read afterward will be like a remix.

[bada]

[bune]

I'm reading the dictionary. I'm kinda worried that any other book I read afterward will be like a remix.

The dictionary is already a remix with all the sentences it uses the word in as an example.

I have three books staring at me that I need to get read because I'm coming up on my limits for renewal at the library. I just can't seem to find the time/inclination to start them though. Oh well.

Almost done reading The Giver to my son. And I guess to myself, since I haven't read it before. It's pretty good, and gives me a chance to talk about some pretty dark themes with him.

[epilogue]

Lemme know your thoughts on this one... What do you think of The Shiningg?

Like the Shinning. This one is good so far. Some Dark Tower references.

Everything with Danny was great. Everything with the RV cult was upsetting in a way that King has never quite done before. All the talk about their elderly bowels and whatnot...

Not a fan of this book. Pretty uninteresting and flat compared to so much of Stephen King's more recent output. It was fine but I was expecting a lot more out of it.

[patrick]

The Cruelest Miles was an okay read. The first third is setup with Alaskan history, local tribes, the technology of the times vs. the natives. Most of the relay focuses on 4-5 mushers (out of more than a dozen), but the narrative gets a little confusing as to where they are in relation to the trek. Interesting bits about Balto, Togo, and what it's like to be a musher.



One Summer, America 1927 is my current read for my book club. For all the fascinating things that occur, the prose is boring.

[tragabigzanda]

Whenever there's active promotion on the part of somebody else, whenever I see somebody all dolled up for a fancy photograph and someone's handing out flyers or whenever there's active promotion for something like that, as an imposition on my day, I hate all those people and I want them to fail. I have a visceral reaction to advertising and promotion. There's just something about salesmanship that grates on me on a very base level and I react very negatively towards it. I want those people to suffer and I want their enterprises to fail.

[bune]

You take that back!



Finished The Great Forgetting by James Renner yesterday. I started it Sunday night and finished it yesterday. Does this mean it was a great book that I couldn't put down? Oh heck no, it's about as pulpy as they come.

Jack Felter, a history teacher, returns home to bucolic Franklin Mills, Ohio, to care for his father, a retired pilot who suffers from dementia and is quickly losing his memory. Jack would love to forget about Franklin Mills, and about Sam, the girl he fell in love with, who ran off with his best friend, Tony. Except Tony has gone missing.

Soon Jack is pulled into the search for Tony, but the only one who seems to know anything is Tony's last patient, a paranoid boy named Cole. Jack must team up with Cole to follow Tony's trail-and maybe save the world. Their journey will lead them to Manhattan and secret facilities buried under the Catskills, and eventually to a forgotten island in the Pacific-the final destination of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.

When Jack learns the details about the program known as the Great Forgetting, he's faced with the timeless question: Is it better to forget our greatest mistake or to remember, so it's never repeated?

What it doesn't say in that blurb is that the book posits that conspiracy theories are real. That the flouride in the water and chemtrails are both there to keep you compliant. That HAARP is responsible for more than the gov't lets on.

It's set in an alternate reality (of a sort) where Obama is president but Ferguson was bombed, I think by a drone (that was where it started to go from alt-reality to something else for me so I wasn't paying as close attention). The Twin Towers are still standing but al-Qaeda attacked Deepwater Horizon (with a cruise ship, of course) instead. The story starts off crazy with the conspiracy theories but the author managers to weave them into the story in such a way that they make sense to the story.

There's some cons (quelle surprise). There's a lot of world-building done in the beginning (especially the middle when the crux of the "forgetting" is revealed) but it kind of falls apart when they get to the island. The author throws some names into the mix that seem to be part and parcel with this kind of story. Oh, so-and-so didn't really die, they just moved here! And let's not refer to them by name (because...the estate may sue you?) but by a somewhat vague description so that only the people who actually know who you're talking about get it. Oh hell, spoiler: Elvis shows up and unless you're familiar with him (lots of kids aren't, after all) you would have no idea who the text is referring to.

The ending is almost too much though. Like, it takes a specific date in American history and almost makes a mockery of it. It runs right up to the conspiracy theorists out there and says, "See!" Overall though I liked the story because of the big-picture and the world that was forgotten. If something that big happened and we were able to forget it, would we? Should we?

If you're a fan of alt-history you might like it. It's an easy enough read to be sure. The characters are all distinct enough that you're never lost. They're also well-managed so you're not left with "white guy hero" and "love interest bimbo" but characters. Of course there comes a point where the author forgets who his characters are (right about the time he starts the afore-mentioned name-dropping on the island, actually) and they become kind of one note but it's far enough into the story it's not a completely terrible thing.