Humanity is garbage.

David Hume proved that years ago. And the Greeks previously to that.

Omelas is excellent.

The Great Book of French Impressionism by Horst Keller. Excellent. With scores of illustrative plates from Manet to Lautrec. I purchased this great book from Goodwill for $2.99. An amazing price considering the quality and large number of illustrative plates of impressionist paintings.

This is a good price. I spent a large part of the plague lockdown looking at picture books -- maybe for the first time since I was a kid. My dad, who had a doctorate in physics, always claimed that he couldn't read but was good at looking at pictures. I tried to recreate his skills and found that I could spend hours examining a picture -- so I sort of get what he was talking about.

Finally finished The White Russian. I really loved this book so thank you guys so much for the recommendation. I love books that are set in other parts of the world (and am realizing it's pretty much all I read) and after randomly stumbling on The Last Tsar on Netflix a couple years ago, with Simon Seabag Montefiore very prominent in it, I went down the rabbit hole of being obsessed with Russian history, particularly the 1917 revolution and Nicholas II reign. This book was perfect for me. It is a great story, with great characters that is perfectly set against the backdrop of 1917 Russia without it being forced or corny. Just really really well done. So many of the characters are memorable for me too. I liked this wayyyyy more than the one Phillip Kerr book I read too.

I read the Locke Lamora trilogy last summer and liked it a lot more than I thought I would (well except 2/3 of book 2) for someone who doesn't consider themselves a fanatic of fantasy. Joe Abercombie seems to be the most suggested name in what to read next for someone who liked the Locke Lamora books. Think I'm going to give this a try and buy the first 3 as a set. Just debating which cover I want lol

The First Law was very good, but all of the standalone novels which followed have been much better imo. Especially liked The Heroes.

I'm torn on starting Patrick Rothfuss' The Kingkiller Chronicle. The first two of the supposed trilogy have rave reviews, however it's been ten years since their release and, from what I gather, the final book appears dead in the water currently.

Do I need to read the first 3 for context and to understand "the world"?

You could probably get away with it, but I really wouldn't recommend it personally.

Agreed. The trilogy itself is pretty good too, just not as good as the solo books which followed imo.

Loved Rothfuss's first two books a lot, even if the trilogy never finishes. Definitely worth a read despite the current lack of a conclusion.

Agree with this.

After finishing The White Russian I got a bit carried away with a book order, mostly the fault of this thread.

First I looked on Thriftbooks where I was going to order A Gentleman In Moscow in hardcover. It was no longer available by time I checked out so instead ordered it from Amazon with the first three books of the Joe Abercrombie First Law series. Upon looking into the Joe Abercrombie series I kept coming across the Rothfuss series so went back to Thriftbooks and ordered The Wind Itself, The Wise Man's Fear and then threw in a LeCarre I've heard talked about highly itt grabbing Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I think my reading is set for a while lol.

Since finishing The White Russian, which again was fantastic, I started Gorky Park but just couldn't get into it. I think I'm still in 1917 Russia and not ready for 1970s communist Russia. The two books even start very similarly and I couldn't get the characters from The White Russian out of my head. They were such great memorable characters. So in the meantime I picked up the 5th book of the Millenium series The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye, which is written like a 2nd grader, but is a pretty simple quick read to pass the time til the books I just ordered arrived. Thank you guys for getting and keeping me enthused about reading!

I only got into LeCarre last year as I didn't think 'spy' novels would be my thing but he's deiniftely exceeded my expectations. Started off with Tinker,Tailor.. and I've since gone on and read another 4 of his books.

just grabbed titan by chernow at my local library

big fan of his work so been meaning to read this for a while

I've been reading Robert Silverberg lately, got Dying Inside for $1.50 at my Half-Price Books and while it sure isn't Tolstoy, I was entertained and my thoughts were provoked. As a younger man I had always sorta wanted to read science fiction/fantasy but often found the prose so gratingly awful that I couldn't make myself, with some popular exceptions like Vonnegut, GRRM, some Heinlein, some Asimov etc.

So my library had an audiobook of Silverberg's Nightwings, I liked it as well. I also like that he seems pretty cool, got rich early off investments etc., and is still alive in his 80s.

So yeah, I just paid 5 bucks for a used paperbook of Book of Skulls off Ebay, off we go! And as Silverberg has evidently written literally hundreds of books, I need to pick and choose each step carefully. They can't all be good. Looks like he dabbled in porn a little too.

Gorky Park is fantastic, well-written, multi-layered, nails the landing. Wait for the other book to sink in your memory a bit and then pls go back to it I promise you'll enjoy it.

Reading the new bio of Robert E. Lee by a 2x Lincoln Prize winner. About 20% in up to the Mexican War so far.

Has anybody else read Grant's Memoirs? It is beyond excellent -- and surprisingly modern in many ways. His recounting of his participation in the Mexican War was very interesting. I believe he detested the whole business.

Just got around to reading this and, as usual, Zeno is wrong. 10 1/2 is perfect.

I will certainly come back to it. Thanks for this post. It will be the difference between me burying it on the shelf and actually coming back to it sometime soon. This may sound weird but I also think the physical copy of the book has something to do with my putting it off. It was a ThriftBooks purchase so used. The condition is fine but it's the tiny book with tiny print, yellowing pages and thick enough where it doesn't turn so easily to be held in one hand. Hard to describe and weird nit I know but here we are. Definitely coming back to it though.

More than halfway through The Girl Who Takes an Eye for an Eye in 4 days. I consider myself a very slow reader but there's a place for books like this. The writing is really bad, but that almost makes it easier to read. It's a nice palate cleanser after a heavier book and a nice confidence booster heading into bigger more challenging books. I have to say I'm enjoying it even though it's ridiculous, predictable and poorly written.

About halfway through I am America! And you can too! by Stephen Colbert.

Written in 2007 as his character from the old Colbert Report, it's about what's wrong with America and what we should do to fix it.

It would be a lot funnier if I didn't have the advantage of hindsight. Seems as if it's what the far right actually believes nowdays.

Also reading The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by several authors. It's a compilation of several modern-day authors' Holmes stories. The only name I recognize is Stephen King, but the intros make it seem as if the other authors are well known, just not to me.

Being a fan of the great detective, I'm enjoying this quite a bit. Interesting stories and also true to the original characters.

Just finished Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle. Solid B-. He’s definitely more prolific than other celebrated writers of his generation, which is good because he spins a decent yarn, but bad because this one feels rushed at the end.

Story traces a 125th st furniture store owner for about a decade starting in the late 50s. Kind of like a black Rabbit. The scope is more narrow than Updike though, making it tighter at points but also seeming to miss / ignore some wider elements. May be a good thing because the book isn’t overly preachy or too on the nose.

Have you read his WSOP book?

Perfectly awful. Barnes is a typical hypocritical, limey elitist scum whose head should be hacked off and thrown into the Thames.

I have the book and read parts of it while lounging on the beach. It is an excellent read. And he just finished it before kicking the bucket.