I've read the Expanse series and enjoyed it quite a bit. It's very fun.

In regards to Elmore Leonard...I read Honeys Room a few years ago...I enjoyed it but earlier works like Killshot, Get Shorty, Glitz, Bandits were written at the height of his considerable powers.

I think you're half-recalling The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick by Peter Handke, which has been compared to Camus's The Stranger. The protagonist is a former soccer goalie (who seems to be undergoing a psychic meltdown): that's about it for the soccer content.

thanks guys just got leviathan wakes on audible.

I've gone a bit nuts on audible so my queue is pretty extensive but I'll report back when I get to it.

Started reading Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (pronounced chick-sent-me-high). Been meaning to read this for a long time, as it's a seminal work in the field of positive, research-based psychology, not the usual mumbo-jumbo crap that passes for self-help. Impressed with the first chapter already. A lot of food for thought in there. Book published in 1990.

Another Raymond Chandler, my second. Farewell My Lovely was the first, and I loved it. The Big Sleep doesn't have quite the ridiculous metaphor game that Chandler brought to FML, but the story and style are still awesome. Such good pacing, scene-building, descriptions, and so on. I do think there are too many characters packed into such a short novel, which makes it hard to remember who's who, but that's about the only complaint I can muster.

The Big Sleep (maybe this refers to the screenplay, but still) famously has a plot so complicated that Chandler himself couldn't recall who committed the central crime.

I started reading this book once... It is one of only two books in recent memory that I stopped reading before I finished. It put me to sleep.

The second book was War and Peace - I've started this a number of times and have never gotten more than a few pages into it before giving up.

I won't spoil it for you, but The Murder of Roger Ackroyd is unique even for Agatha Christie and the genre. The Murder on the Orient Express had a similar originality for the time.

Her stuff is starting to show up free on Gutenberg.org, but I have to double check to see what they have now after Mysterious Affair at Stiles.

The Long Goodbye is fantastic also. Probably Chandler's masterpiece.

Pretty good film adaptation with Elliott Gould.

Definitely a great book.

Also like the Elliott Gould (Robert Altman) movie. Nice bit part by Ahnold in there.

Interested in starting to read Discworld. Any thoughts on which book I should start? So far one friend told me to start with Colour of Magic and another one told me Guards! Guards!

The colour of magic is, iirc, the first one Pratchett wrote, but I think it's generally regarded that he really got into his stride after a few books, so there's a case to be made for jumping in a bit later on in terms of the historical order. If you look online, you'll find some family tree of which books involve characters from prior books (e.g. http://bestfantasybooks.com/forums/t...in-order.2244/) so if you want to really follow characters through a strict order, that gives you the chief clusters (the guards books, the witches books, the books focused on death...)

My experience of jumping about and ignoring the order, after reading the first ~10+ books way back in the day, is that it doesn't really matter - most of them stand alone in terms of plot, and the characters are strong enough that even when you read the back story out of order, it's still ok, like a BS Johnson style reordering.

Yeah, I agree Long Goodbye over The Big Sleep.

You could read Men At Arms and then stop there. I tried a few more of his books after that, and between being repetitive and not as funny/compelling/innovative, I saw no point in continuing.

Finished The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams. A collection of previously published short stories and 13 new ones. If you've never read Williams and want a taste this would be a good place to start. Williams writes in a plain, common voice and tells you what happens with little commentary. The reader has to work to understand what is happening internally with characters. It's like life. I like it, some may not.

Finished Tales from the Silver State III (Stories of Sacrifice), edited by Richard J. Warren; a short story anthology by Las Vegas based authors. Since I know several of the authors, I'm not going to evaluate this collection.

Up in Honey's Room - Elmore Leonard

I could give it a fairly honest and bad review, but it was fine. It's the first time I've read EL and I can definitely see why his stuff becomes movies. It wasn't that far from reading a screenplay.

I believe he was over 80 utilizing researchers when he wrote it. His early work is taut...shorter...less historical data drop. And his work from early on was movie bait. Paul Newman...(Hud?)...Charles Bronson. I wonder who has had more movies made from their books?

Finished Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon. It's one of Simenon's hard novels.

The main character is as worthless, disgusting PoS as I can recall in any literature. He murders to gain favor, impress his friends and satisfy his own self-esteem needs. He delivers up his girlfriend (or at least a girl who genuinely loves him) to a proxy rape to satisfy the perverse desires of an associate for a young virgin. He likes to have other people envy him, but that eventually leads to his arrest. His imprisonment, at first, seems Kafka-esque, but is revealed to be logical and rational. In prison, he develops an emotional attachment to a woman he can only see from a long distance.

I think Proust would say it's The Stranger without the price tag.

438 days by Jonathan Franklin

true story about a fisherman who survives 438 days at sea (not a spoiler it's made very clear both in title of book n right from start of story that he makes it).

really compelling and fascinating.

it's not really what you're looking for, but 'among the thugs' is a super easy and interesting read

I read Inverting the Pyramid awhile back. Very dry, but quite detailed and technical account of the evolution of soccer strategy. If you are looking for a casual easy read this isn't it. If you are interested in strategy and you are willing to plow through a fairly unreadable book to get it, check this out.