What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Stevee »

The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Best book I have read in quite a while.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

[quote="HardKnocker"][/quote]

http://www.bogleheads.org/forum/viewtop ... 0#p2125309

is my take on the book.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by goldendad »

The Confession by John Grisham
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"Santa Fe Dead" by Stuart Woods.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Ged »

Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Near future dystopia with a genetic engineering theme. Set in Bangkok.

Winner of Hugo and Nebula awards.

I am about half way through Delta State. I'm glad I bought it.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ychuck46 »

"Aces Falling: War Above the Trenches 1918" by Peter Hart
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Trurl Klapaucius »

Ged wrote:Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
I found the most interesting aspect of this book to be idea that, as world population continues to increase, agriculture will emerge as an important tool for geopolitical domination/warfare. In particular, if (when) large segments of the population are fed by genetically engineered crops, the corporations controlling those crops will become incredibly powerful. Conversely, consider the potential for bioterrorism when monoculture crops replace genetically diverse food sources.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Ged »

Trurl Klapaucius wrote:
Ged wrote:Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi
I found the most interesting aspect of this book to be idea that, as world population continues to increase, agriculture will emerge as an important tool for geopolitical domination/warfare. In particular, if (when) large segments of the population are fed by genetically engineered crops, the corporations controlling those crops will become incredibly powerful. Conversely, consider the potential for bioterrorism when monoculture crops replace genetically diverse food sources.
I've done a little work in biotechnology. I'll be interested to see how this is developed, but I'm not optimistic that I'll find it believable.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by steve roy »

"Lincoln" by Gore Vidal. Read it thirty years ago, and it holds up. Covers the same ground as Ms. Goodwin's book on Lincoln, but Vidal is inside everyone's head (save Lincoln). What it highlights for me is that national politics has a familiar, recognizable through line. The political players then had similar motivations to current actors: lots of people grabbing for the big brass ring.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by gkaplan »

I have just begun Massacre Pond, the fourth in a series featuring Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch. The author, Paul Doiron, is a Registered Maine Guide.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by heartwood »

Ged wrote:Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Near future dystopia with a genetic engineering theme. Set in Bangkok.

Winner of Hugo and Nebula awards.

I am about half way through Delta State. I'm glad I bought it.
I can't find a book called Delta State. Is it by Bacigalupi?

The first book of his I read was billed as a YA book: Ship Breaker. I enjoyed that one and have read his others including Wind Up Girl.

Just finished Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch. I especially liked his description of how a doctor, after many years in practice, views his patients.

About to start either The Farm by Tom Rob Smith or Rogues, short stories by George RR Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman and others. I seldom read short stories but was drawn to the availability of new work by both Martin and Rothfuss.

For those waiting for the 3rd book in Rothfuss's Kvothe trilogy, I found a note from him at Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2103 ... s-of-stone

Doesn't look hopeful for publication soon.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

heartwood wrote:
Ged wrote:Wind Up Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi

Near future dystopia with a genetic engineering theme. Set in Bangkok.

Winner of Hugo and Nebula awards.

I am about half way through Delta State. I'm glad I bought it.
I can't find a book called Delta State. Is it by Bacigalupi?

The first book of his I read was billed as a YA book: Ship Breaker. I enjoyed that one and have read his others including Wind Up Girl.

Just finished Summer House with Swimming Pool by Herman Koch. I especially liked his description of how a doctor, after many years in practice, views his patients.

About to start either The Farm by Tom Rob Smith or Rogues, short stories by George RR Martin, Patrick Rothfuss, Neil Gaiman and others. I seldom read short stories but was drawn to the availability of new work by both Martin and Rothfuss.

For those waiting for the 3rd book in Rothfuss's Kvothe trilogy, I found a note from him at Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2103 ... s-of-stone

Doesn't look hopeful for publication soon.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LadyGeek »

Double Star, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This book was given a Hugo award, but I was not impressed. While the writing style was excellent, the plot (and ending) seemed predictable. The protagonist's background was shallow.

Next up, I Will Fear No Evil - in paperback.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by d0gerz »

Recently finished The Silent House by Orhan Pamuk. This is his 2nd novel but wasn't translated into English until very recently.
The setting is 1980 Turkey right before a coup toppled the government. It is written in the first person but each chapter is from the perspective of a rotating list of characters, with intersecting storylines. Very interesting style, looking forward to reading more by the author.

Currently started reading Fevre Dream, a vampire novel written in 1982 by George RR Martin.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"The Run" by Stuart Woods.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Retired1809 »

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life, by Richard Rohr
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by jebmke »

Mission to Paris by Alan Furst
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by bluemarlin08 »

Calico Joe John Grisham
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

jebmke wrote:Mission to Paris by Alan Furst
I never think Furst is as good as he was in his earliest novels: Dark Star, Night Soldiers, The World at Night etc.

However I keep reading them, which tells you something ;-).
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

LadyGeek wrote:Double Star, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This book was given a Hugo award, but I was not impressed. While the writing style was excellent, the plot (and ending) seemed predictable. The protagonist's background was shallow.

Next up, I Will Fear No Evil - in paperback.
Well I don't recall anticipating the plot, nor the ending. It was a long time ago.

Heinlein doesn't give 'deep background' on his protagonists. They just are. He had some experience in politics, and I thought the book showed that.

There's a very implicit message (for its time) about racial issues. The hero is fighting for Martian civil rights, and that presages the American conflicts about Native Americans and Blacks that were just flaming up at that time. One of the reasons why Heinlein is appealing to me is that despite all his outright libertine stuff about sex, etc., he was ahead of his time in what we would now call 'liberal' issues as well. In other words, his philosophy was quite consistent.

I suppose for me Double Star was 'another one of his juveniles' that happened to be written for adults (in the same way Invasion of the Puppet Masters works, or Moon is a Harsh Mistress). And so a thoroughly satisfying story.

The later Heinlein is so jarringly different (and inferior in my view) that I go back to the early ones wondering what I missed. There are some signs of how he would later write, but I don't know how much of that was the constraints imposed on him in the 1950s by the SF milieu (ie had the looser editorial policies and markets of the 70s and onwards purveyed then, he would have written books like Job, or Stranger in a Strange etc. in the 1950s) or whether something happened to him as he aged.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"Run Before the Wind" by Stuart Woods.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Phineas J. Whoopee »

I'm reading the Daily Telegraph republication, day by day from WWI, which grayfox brought to our attention, and something that's striking me, in addition to what I just now posted in that thread, is the extent to which the story is being told from the point of view of many correspondents, from a number of locations, without any wrapup tying it all together such as we might expect today.

In particular, I have a better appreciation now, I think, of Stoker's Dracula, which is told in exactly the same way. He wasn't making up a style, or inheriting one from prior novelists. He was using the journalistic form of his time and place.

Maybe he meant his readers to consume it as if the narrative were news.

PJW
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Ricola »

House and Philosophy: Everybody Lies by Henry Jacoby
also
Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War by Robert M Gates

Both very good
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

"Fields Of Fire" by James Webb. A very powerful novel about Vietnam in the vein of "Matterhorn" but published some 30 years earlier.

Highly recommended.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

Blues wrote:"Fields Of Fire" by James Webb. A very powerful novel about Vietnam in the vein of "Matterhorn" but published some 30 years earlier.

Highly recommended.
The summer of 1990 I read 3 war related books:

Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester (Pacific War)
Despatches by Michael Herr (or Dispatches)
Fields of Fire

The last one is the one I was most disappointed by- -the other two were exceptional and live in my memory. We'd have to get into a historical debate, but I didn't find it a particularly good war novel. To be fair, it's been 24 years since I read it.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

Valuethinker wrote:
Blues wrote:"Fields Of Fire" by James Webb. A very powerful novel about Vietnam in the vein of "Matterhorn" but published some 30 years earlier.

Highly recommended.
The summer of 1990 I read 3 war related books:

Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester (Pacific War)
Despatches by Michael Herr (or Dispatches)
Fields of Fire

The last one is the one I was most disappointed by- -the other two were exceptional and live in my memory. We'd have to get into a historical debate, but I didn't find it a particularly good war novel. To be fair, it's been 24 years since I read it.
I often wonder if some of the war novels I read many years ago would have the same impact today that they had on me many years ago...books such as "The Young Lions", "From Here To Eternity", "Mila 18", "The Naked And The Dead" among many, many others.

I will say that "Matterhorn" was an exceptional book imho and that while I haven't yet finished reading "Fields of Fire", some of the characterizations are very poignant and resonate with me based upon people I have known personally or have encountered over the years. To each his own, I suppose.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

Blues wrote:
Valuethinker wrote:
Blues wrote:"Fields Of Fire" by James Webb. A very powerful novel about Vietnam in the vein of "Matterhorn" but published some 30 years earlier.

Highly recommended.
The summer of 1990 I read 3 war related books:

Goodbye Darkness by William Manchester (Pacific War)
Despatches by Michael Herr (or Dispatches)
Fields of Fire

The last one is the one I was most disappointed by- -the other two were exceptional and live in my memory. We'd have to get into a historical debate, but I didn't find it a particularly good war novel. To be fair, it's been 24 years since I read it.
I often wonder if some of the war novels I read many years ago would have the same impact today that they had on me many years ago...books such as "The Young Lions", "From Here To Eternity", "Mila 18", "The Naked And The Dead" among many, many others.

I will say that "Matterhorn" was an exceptional book imho and that while I haven't yet finished reading "Fields of Fire", some of the characterizations are very poignant and resonate with me based upon people I have known personally or have encountered over the years. To each his own, I suppose.
You make excellent points.

Fields of Fire I may just lack the life experience. There were a couple of novels of Northern Ireland ('Harry's Game' by Gerald Seymour, and 'A Breed of Heroes' by Alan Judd) which did remind me of British Army types I knew.

Also 'From the Field, From the Plough' which was written by a British D Day veteran in part based on his experiences. It's all stereotyped characters, but some of them are quite quite memorable. As is the fate of the battalion.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

VT, "Harry's Game" is one that resonated strongly with me as well. I remember being disappointed by some other books read subsequently which I had hoped would match its power and sense of authenticity.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Ged »

Blues wrote:“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson
"No plan survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Blues »

Ged wrote:
Blues wrote:“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” - Sun Tzu
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." - Mike Tyson
"No plan survives contact with the enemy." - Helmuth von Moltke the Elder
So true. :sharebeer
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by gkaplan »

Yesterday morning I finished Masaryk Station by David Downing. This is the last of the John Russell "train station" series. Despite the pedestrian writing, one-dimensional characters, and absurd plots, I read each book in this series.

Downing has started a new series, featuring Jack McColl, a car salesman who happens to be a British spy during World War I. Most of the reviews on Amazon have been decidedly negative. I doubt if I'll be reading this.

After I finished Masaryk Station, I walked down to the library and exchanged it for The English Girl, the 2013 entry in Daniel Silva's series featuring art restorer and Mossad agent Gabriel Allon.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by d0gerz »

The Dream of the Celt by Mario Vargas Llosa.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by ruralavalon »

The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors, by James D Hornfisher. The story of the escort carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts defeating battleships and heavy cruisers of the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Battle Off Samar in October 1944.

Rational Expectations, by William Bernstein. A good short discussion of risk tolerance and asset allocation, risky vs risk-free assets. Liquidity in bad times is an important determinant of long term success. Favorite quote -- "Q. How do we know that economists have a sense of humor? A. They use decimal points."

A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. Just re-read this, I think I understood him better the first time :( .

Skating Where the Puck Was, by William Bernstein. Most good investment diversification ideas don't last long in a world of increasing correlations, so the stock/bond mix remains the most crucial. "Your long term results are less the result of how well you pick assets than how well you stay the course during the bad periods, particularly if they occurred late in your investing career."

If You Can, by William Bernstein. A very good concise introduction to investing for young people.

Destination Unknown, by Agatha Christie. A spy thriller rather than a mystery. Young scientists are mysteriously disappearing all over the world. I enjoyed the book.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LadyGeek »

I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert A. Heinlein.

As noted earlier by Valuethinker, this book is not one of his better works. I thought the idea was interesting, but it's now dragging itself out. I'm only a little more than half-way through, but I'm tired of the repetitive dialog and can see where this plot is going. The book seems to be about 100 pages too long.

Although it was written in 1970, the dialog and perspectives of the female mind go back to the 1950's - and not in a positive way. The attitude is male-centered and this book is one of the reasons I prefer female authors.

The Heinlein Society's review here explains much of what is wrong and I agree. I'll probably finish the book, but by skimming quickly over the repetitive sections.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by nisiprius »

Just finished Peter Pan, by J. M. Barrie.

Starting The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider's View by Matthew P. Fink. Yes, I'm a sucker for the Amazon Kindle monthly deals. Just started, seems pretty good.

Added: I just learned something--a really key event in mutual fund history was the passage of a law in 1936 that established that mutual funds were "conduits" and, thus, didn't need to pay taxes on the dividends they collected before passing them on to customers.

Added: I just got a PM from someone who wanted to know where to find the "monthly deals."

For this particular book, The Rise of Mutual Funds: An Insider's View. For me, the price is showing as $2.51 and it doesn't matter how you get to the page.

I don't feel right posting an actual link to the whole "deal page." Not sure I feel right touting the deals, but anyway. Amazon being the sneaky outfit it is, you may need to be logged in or meet some other criterion to see them, but for me, "Shop By Department, Kindle e-Readers and Books, Kindle Books" shows me a panel of "deal" links on the left. It's in "Kindle Monthly Deals."
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by FRANK2009 »

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. The reader learns a bit about Afgan culture. More importantly I thought that Afgans aren't much different than us. Really good, a bit different.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

"The Man From Beijing" by Henning Mankell.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by nisiprius »

Interrupted my other reading to gulp down Robert X. Cringely's The Decline and Fall of IBM: End of an American Icon? Actually I have been so unaffected by anything IBM did for the past three decades that I was able to read it pretty dispassionately.

It's just like Dilbert, except without drawings and not very funny.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by oldzey »

Death Comes For The Archbishop, by Willa Cather
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LK2012 »

Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by nwrolla »

The Night Angel trilogy by Brent weeks.


written by one of my English teachers in school when I was younger. It's always cool to see people you know hit the NYT best seller list !
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by gkaplan »

This morning I began The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, also known as J. K. Rowling in one of the worst kept secrets in the history of publishing.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Bungo »

Finally finished Underworld by Don DeLillo. It took a full month! Not his best book (that would be Libra) but very good. It could have used an editor, though.

Next up is Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

gkaplan wrote:This morning I began The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, also known as J. K. Rowling in one of the worst kept secrets in the history of publishing.
Actually it was a very well kept secret BUT it proved the aphorism that if two people know it, it's not a secret.

Like the plots of the later Harry Potter books, the secret was very well protected until one person let it out of the bag. It was of sufficient interest as a secret that it then went viral.

I don't know what professional sanctions were imposed on the solicitor (lawyer) in question, but it was breach of client confidence which for lawyers, like doctors, is a major major issue. At least his firm (and perhaps him) had the absolute decency to admit the mistake up front without prevarication or dissembling.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by chaz »

gkaplan wrote:This morning I began The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, also known as J. K. Rowling in one of the worst kept secrets in the history of publishing.
I liked this book.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by d0gerz »

LK2012 wrote:Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo
That's a great book, I really enjoyed it.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by seeshells »

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances that Drive American Power, by Nomi Prins.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by LadyGeek »

Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This book was recommended by someone as one of his best. I agree, and can't put it down.

In hindsight, I should have skipped I Will Fear No Evil. I already had it in paperback, so it was worth a try.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by nisiprius »

LadyGeek wrote:Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This book was recommended by someone as one of his best. I agree, and can't put it down.

In hindsight, I should have skipped I Will Fear No Evil. I already had it in paperback, so it was worth a try.
Do not overlook his short stories. Personally I think science fiction lends itself better to short stories than novels. I particularly recommend Universe.
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Re: What Book Are You Currently Reading? Part V

Post by Valuethinker »

nisiprius wrote:
LadyGeek wrote:Citizen of the Galaxy, by Robert A. Heinlein.

This book was recommended by someone as one of his best. I agree, and can't put it down.

In hindsight, I should have skipped I Will Fear No Evil. I already had it in paperback, so it was worth a try.
Do not overlook his short stories. Personally I think science fiction lends itself better to short stories than novels. I particularly recommend Universe.
I think Lady Geek has read 'The Past Through Tomorrow' which has many of Heinlein's short stories and novellas. However I agree, Heinlein wrote some of the best short fiction out there.

http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/h/robert-heinlein/

see list at bottom of page.

On Juveniles, my favourites are:

- Between Planets
- Time for the Stars (that might be my very favourite, it certainly felt the most 'grown up')
- Space Cadet
- Farmer in the Sky
- The Rolling Stones
- Citizen of the Galaxy
- The Star Beast


In each case, I wish he had written a sequel. Nowadays, the nature of SF publishing, he would have written a trilogy, then another trilogy.... ;-).

I suspect The Star Beast is in fact the best.

Starman Jones is early, I read it once, I hardly remember it.

Have Space Suit will Travel
is generally rated the highest of all his juveniles.

Tunnel in the Sky you can sort of see The Hunger Games emerging.. Alexei Panshin's Rite of Passage is a direct answer to it, and an excellent 'juvenile' novel in and of itself. So is Michael Kurland's Princes of Earth (never paperbacked, and hard to find).

Podkayne of Mars is the difficult one and still hotly debated. It's got a bit of 'Friday' and the short story 'Gulf' in it. RAH's view of women is what riles people up in this one. It would be too painful to read it again-- avoid spoilers if you are going to read it.
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