most popular book among critics in 2013?

http://entertainment.time.com/2013/1...s-in-2013-was/

saw this on FB: what 10 books have stuck with you most? not best or worst.

my list off the top of my head, though this leans definitely toward ones I liked:

Less than Zero
Suttree
Ask the Dust
Just Kids
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
A Naked Singularity
The Crying of Lot 49
Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk
The Madonnas of Echo Park
The Lost Scrapbook
The Sheltering Sky

ok so that's 11.

Just finished I Invented the Modern Age by Richard Snow. The rise of Henry Ford from birth until the end of the run of the Model T.

Very interesting insight on how the car industry was formed. I didn't realize there were so many competitors or different idea on how cars were going to be built.

Moving on to an old book circa 1992 called Mob Girl. Story of Arlyne Weiss whose grandmother was involved with the Jewish/Italian mob of the lower east side (Lansky and Luciano) and then grow up to be friendly with the Italian mobsters of the fifties sixties and seventies.

Going to start The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss tonight.

I've read from several people on 2+2 and heard from a couple friends that The Kingkiller Chronicle is really good so I thought I'd check it out.

I randomly picked up the book at walmart one day. I was finished 2 days later.

Its a very good read.

Just finished A World Undone: The Story of the Great War, 1914 to 1918.

It was very good. It tells the whole story of the war, so obviously he's taking a 30,000 ft. view. He does zoom in, spending extra time on instructive examples to give the story depth.

He starts with Franz Ferdinand's death and ends with the Treaty of Versailles. Every other chapter in the book is a history of a key character, people, technology, etc. Within the main narrative of the war he focuses a lot on the key characters in the war, and the roles they played. The combination really paints a picture of both the forces that caused the war and those that made it so terrible.

I've never felt like I really understood WWI. Seeing the museum in KC a couple years ago made me want to learn more. This was the perfect first step.

Looking for more epic-length fiction or non-fiction to get from Audible. I suppose I'd be interested in any content they provide too, lecture series, etc.

I envy you. I'd pay an exorbitant sum to remove the memory of this book and its sequel so I could read them again for the first time.

I really liked Crumley's first three mysteries (The Wrong Case, The Last Good Kiss, and Dancing Bear.) But I thought The Mexican Tree Duck was out of control. (You may not agree--and it was the only one of his to win an award.)

I know he wrote three more mysteries using those characters but I have never looked at them.

After I finished Dancing Bear, while waiting for another of his mysteries, my enthusiasm led me to try the short pieces in Whores, which seemed ok, and the debut fiction, his Vietnam novel, which I abandoned.

The elite move is to not read them until he finishes the third book.

Started reading around midnight and planned on only reading about 1-2hrs since I had to be up early today to get some stuff done before football started.

At 6:30am I finally put it down so I could get a couple hours of sleep.

Anyone read The Orenda?

Incognito
The Secret Lives of the Brain

--

Not bad so far. Not much I haven't read in similar books though.

If anyone who participated in the story contests would be willing to read a story of mine and provide some thoughts/notes, I'd appreciate it.

first book is elite, 2nd is a letdown IMO but still entertaining for the most part.

Has anyone read anything from Carl Sagan? Thinking of starting 'The Pale Blue Dot'.

I think I've read almost all of them. Pale Blue Dot is excellent, also consider Demon-Haunted World and Cosmos.

It's Maria.

I'm halfway through Phillip K Dick's pulp novel Vulcan's Hammer, which has been recently republished. A society that's governed by a supercomputer, 1984-style bureaucratic dystopia... all stuff that ought to be shopworn sci-fi cliches, but PKD's storytelling chops turn it into an engaging sci-fi intrigue. Recommend for PKD fans, fans of classic pulp sci-fi.

But it cries Mary.

tsk, idiot wind.

Jim Butcher is working on a new series called The Cinder Spires trilogy.

Jim said “It’s kinda League of Extraordinary Gentlemen meets Sherlock meets Hornblower. There are goggles and airships and steam power and bizarre crystal technology and talking cats, who are horrid little bullies.”

Sounds interesting.

No, but it's certainly had great reviews. I read the first two Boyden books and I thought Three Day Journey was solid; Through Black Spruce seemed ok but not quite at the same level. I will probably try to get to The Orenda sometime in the months ahead -- but if you do read it in the meantime let us know what you think.

The Last Good Kiss was much better but I enjoyed The Mexican Tree Duck. It's a bit plot thin; I thought its value was more for the spot on depiction of the adjustment-back-to-civilian-life problems of some of the guys I served with.

Anyway, finished The Mexican Tree Duck, started Gods of Guilt and also started to re-read Ask the Dust.