429 replies to this topic

[weave]

Someone mentioned the book 100 things Sabres Fans Should Know and Do Before They Die in another thread.  I recieved the book as a gift from a freind.  It was exactly as reviewed on this site, a book full of too short stories that any die hard fan would already know.  I suppose it was put out there for the type of fan who knows the story but likes to reminisce.  Only casually covers the interesting stories of the Sabres and the characters that were part of the team.  Could have been an interesting tome if there was some investigative type reporting behind it.

[Tony P]

Hank, on 21 December 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Looking for a recommendation-

I enjoy series based off a character, my favorites are:

Any series from Robert B Parker (Spenser, Stone, Randell)

The jack reacher series by lee child

The Prey series by John Sandford

And to a lesser extent the women's murder club by Patterson

Based on my preferences can anyone make a recommendation on a new series for me?  Thanks in advance...

Try the Myron Bolitar series by Harlan Cobin. I liked the earlier novels better than his more recent efforts. Try to read them in order if you can.

Also, as mentioned by Gohansrage, I just started A Song of Ice and Fire series By George RR Martin. I'm 70% thru the first book (A Game of Thrones) and can't believe I've waited all of these years to pick it up. I read one of Martin's very early short stories in the 70's called the Sand Kings and it was teriffic. I just never thought I'd get into Ice and Fire as it's more fantasy but is really well written.

[Claude_Verret]

The author of this book just posted a link over at TSW, it's a mob novel that takes place in Buffalo.  I just finished a book last night so I'm going to dive into this one next given the glowing reviews on Amazon.  Plus it's free for Kindle owners.

http://forums.twobil...ller-on-amazon/

[notwoz]

Just finished "The Typewriter Is Holy: The Complete, Uncensored History of the Beat Generation "
Now I'm working on, "The War of 1812" by J.C.A. Stagg.
Next up: "Why I Am a Catholic", by Gary Wills

[Neo]

I am about 1/3 through Les Miserables.    I never got around to it, before.   I saw the current iteration of the film over Christmas, in Buffalo, and loved it.

It is a tour de force ... and I would recommend it to anyone.   It paints all that is "French", for me, in hues and tones I'd not seen before.  Epoch, vast, human.

I finished, tonight, "The Second Amendment" by David Barton.   A pamphlet, really.   I was inspired by the gun control debate on this board and decided to explore original intent, language, and commentaries.   I read very slowly, but was able to zip through in an evening.   To those who participated in such a lively fashion in that thread, I'd recommend it.   Couple of bucks on Amazon.

[Eleven]

Claude_Verret, on 14 February 2013 - 04:51 PM, said:

The author of this book just posted a link over at TSW, it's a mob novel that takes place in Buffalo.  I just finished a book last night so I'm going to dive into this one next given the glowing reviews on Amazon.  Plus it's free for Kindle owners.

http://forums.twobil...ller-on-amazon/

That thread was deleted.  What's the book?

[Spndnchz]

Eleven, on 16 February 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

That thread was deleted.  What's the book?

Hard Freeze?

[Eleven]

Spndnchz, on 16 February 2013 - 10:11 AM, said:

Hard Freeze?

I don't think so, that's from 2002.  But maybe.

[Claude_Verret]

Eleven, on 16 February 2013 - 10:03 AM, said:

That thread was deleted.  What's the book?

http://www.amazon.co...aw/d/B0050WA44K

[Eleven]

Claude_Verret, on 16 February 2013 - 10:26 AM, said:

http://www.amazon.co...aw/d/B0050WA44K

Added to cart.  Too bad my most recent shipment arrived yesterday.

[Grumpy]

Hank, on 21 December 2012 - 08:02 PM, said:

Looking for a recommendation-

I enjoy series based off a character, my favorites are:

Any series from Robert B Parker (Spenser, Stone, Randell)

The jack reacher series by lee child

The Prey series by John Sandford

And to a lesser extent the women's murder club by Patterson

Based on my preferences can anyone make a recommendation on a new series for me?  Thanks in advance...

I have read the same Patterson, Sandford and Child as you.  Have to read technical for work, so love light, action reading at home. The  Sandford  Virgil Flowers series is as good  as his Prey series. His  Kidd series is okay and am currently on the fourth of that series.. Daniel Silva's Gabbriel Allon series very good and made me explore some middle east history.  My favorite of this genre is Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series.

Edited by Grumpy, 16 February 2013 - 06:29 PM.

[weave]

I'm currently reading a series co-wrote by Sanford and Child about a character named Gideon Crew.  Not bad as action/thrillers go.

[Grumpy]

weave, on 16 February 2013 - 06:41 PM, said:

I'm currently reading a series co-wrote by Sanford and Child about a character named Gideon Crew.  Not bad as action/thrillers go.

Thanks. I'll check it out.

[Hank]

Grumpy, on 16 February 2013 - 06:27 PM, said:

I have read the same Patterson, Sandford and Child as you.  Have to read technical for work, so love light, action reading at home. The  Sandford  Virgil Flowers series is as good  as his Prey series. His  Kidd series is okay and am currently on the fourth of that series.. Daniel Silva's Gabbriel Allon series very good and made me explore some middle east history.  My favorite of this genre is Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series.

Thanks grumpy

[weave]

My FIL lent me a book titled The Big Squeeze and subtitled Tough Times for the American Worker.  It is by Steven Greenhouse, a NY Times labor correspondent.  I guess the book made quite an impression on my FIL.  It is supposedly an expose on corporate American putting the crush on their workers.  I'm about 1/3 of the way into the book and I wish it had more meat.  As time wears on for me I want to become more sympathetic to "the plight of the American worker" but this book so far isn't prodding me further down that path.  The book is almost entirely anecdotal, which in and of itself isn't bad, but anecdotes can be found in large numbers for almost any any side of any rational argument one wants to have.  It reads like a Readers Digest.  I don't find collections of anecdotes compelling.  I want to see investigative reporting and analysis, not anecdotes.  Maybe they show up later in the book.



On deck is a work titled The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, a book about the Cholera epidemic in London circa 1854 and its effect on science, medicine, and modern cities.

[Grumpy]

Hank, on 22 February 2013 - 11:28 AM, said:

Thanks grumpy

Also Michael Connelly's, Harry Bosch novels
     Robert Crais's Elvis Cole/Joe Pike

Edited by Grumpy, 23 February 2013 - 12:48 PM.

[Claude_Verret]

weave, on 22 February 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

On deck is a work titled The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, a book about the Cholera epidemic in London circa 1854 and its effect on science, medicine, and modern cities.

This one is in the queue on my Kindle, let us know what you think of it.

[LGR4GM]

Just finished Game of Thrones and have gotten into Clash of Kings. Should be finishing all 5 books at some point.

[WildCard]

LGR4GM, on 25 February 2013 - 01:08 PM, said:

Just finished Game of Thrones and have gotten into Clash of Kings. Should be finishing all 5 books at some point.

Same here, although I'm about half-way through Clash of Kings at the moment. Without spoiling anything I will say that it only gets better from the end of Game of Thrones; the plotting becomes much more intense/intelligent. I keep seeing the commercials for the second and third season on tv and I can't wait to finish the books and then get a view of all the action and detail through HBO

Edited by WildCard, 25 February 2013 - 01:37 PM.

[Eleven]

Tying into another thread on this board, I am reading Nabakov's The Luzhin Defense, which started kind of cool but which is dying out mid-novella; 2666 by Roberto Bolano, which is freaking fantastic but difficult to parse at times (it's like reading Ulysses); Sunnyside by Glenn David Gold, which is kind of fun; and Barbara Tuchman's The Proud Tower:  A Portrait of the World Before the War, 1890-1914.  Tuchman is the one of the best history writers I've ever read; her book on the beginning of WWI (The Guns of August) probably can't be bested with respect to that topic.

Edited by Eleven, 01 March 2013 - 11:55 PM.

[nfreeman]

weave, on 22 February 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

On deck is a work titled The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson, a book about the Cholera epidemic in London circa 1854 and its effect on science, medicine, and modern cities.

Claude_Verret, on 25 February 2013 - 12:32 PM, said:

This one is in the queue on my Kindle, let us know what you think of it.

Coincidentally, I know the author.  He's a pretty smart guy.  I haven't read Ghost Map, but I've read some of his earlier stuff and it's pretty interesting.  His first book (I think) was called "Why everything you think is bad for you is actually good for you" or something like that, and it makes a pretty compelling argument that in moderate doses, stuff like TV and video games are actually good for brain development.

WildCard, on 25 February 2013 - 01:30 PM, said:

Same here, although I'm about half-way through Clash of Kings at the moment. Without spoiling anything I will say that it only gets better from the end of Game of Thrones; the plotting becomes much more intense/intelligent. I keep seeing the commercials for the second and third season on tv and I can't wait to finish the books and then get a view of all the action and detail through HBO

The show is excellent.  I've been meaning to tackle the books but haven't gotten around to it yet.

Separately:  I know this thread has been dedicated to books, which I think is great, but I would like to endorse the website longform.org.  It's a compendium of feature-length magazine articles, both historical and current, and many of them are fantastic.  (For example, I just finished reading a long feature about Frank Lucas, the gangster that the Denzel Washington movie "American Gangster" was based on:  http://nymag.com/nymag/features/3649/.  Highly entertaining.)

The website is iphone-friendly, as are most of the articles.

[weave]

weave, on 22 February 2013 - 12:10 PM, said:

My FIL lent me a book titled The Big Squeeze and subtitled Tough Times for the American Worker.  It is by Steven Greenhouse, a NY Times labor correspondent.  I guess the book made quite an impression on my FIL.  It is supposedly an expose on corporate American putting the crush on their workers.  I'm about 1/3 of the way into the book and I wish it had more meat.  As time wears on for me I want to become more sympathetic to "the plight of the American worker" but this book so far isn't prodding me further down that path.  The book is almost entirely anecdotal, which in and of itself isn't bad, but anecdotes can be found in large numbers for almost any any side of any rational argument one wants to have.  It reads like a Readers Digest.  I don't find collections of anecdotes compelling.  I want to see investigative reporting and analysis, not anecdotes.  Maybe they show up later in the book.

I've finished this book.  I wish I could say it was better as I really wanted to buy into what the book was trying to sell.  There were couple of chapters in the middle of the book that I found compelling, where the author went beyond anecdotes and provided some macro-economic analysis to support his ideas.  Those chapters focused on outsourcing, globalism, and the increasing use of contract employment instead of hiring regular employees.

The book did contain info that was new to me.  I was not sure when, and why, American companies started offering health insurance and pension plans to employers.  Turns out it was a post WWII response to gov't  controls on wages and prices. Companies couldn't throw money to attract the best employees so they offered insurance and pesnions instead,  It became truly widespread when GM offered insurance plans to the UAW in 1950.  I did not know that.

The book shed a very poor light on Walmart.  Anyone reading this book would be hard pressed to spend money in Walmart again and have a clear conscience in doing so.

The ending chapter was the biggest disappointment.  He tied everything up into a neat and tidy little package that became obviously political, as he unabashedly endorsed politicians election campaigns as a "fix" for the problems he highlighted in earlier chapters.  Those last 20 or so pages uncovered an obvious politcal agenda.  The book could have been so much more if he'd have dug deeper into investigative reporting and research, focused less on anecdote, and left the political ball washing out at the end.  Nonetheless, it was informative at times.

[weave]

I'm most of the way through The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson right now.  It is a telling of the cholera outbreak of 1854 in London, England.  What a fantastic read.  The author does a terrific job of seemlessly combining the story of the investigation of the outbreak with historical background.  The thing is, the story of the investigation reads like a mystery novel, complete with foreshadowing.  But he manages to alternate between the story and historical/scientific looks at key items without any awkwardness at all.  The book had as much...... I'll call it entertainment value for lack of a better phrase.... as any good novel.  Enjoyable even though it is a difficult subject to get past, human waste and its impact on our health.

The last 1/3 of the book sums up the results of the investigation and subsequent changes to how modern cities deal with the byproducts of its population density.  It is mostly stuff that we now all take for granted and isn't written with the same style as the earlier chapters.  Even still, a recommended book.

[d4rksabre]

weave, on 23 March 2013 - 04:59 PM, said:

I'm most of the way through The Ghost Map by Steven Johnson right now.  It is a telling of the cholera outbreak of 1854 in London, England.  What a fantastic read.  The author does a terrific job of seemlessly combining the story of the investigation of the outbreak with historical background.  The thing is, the story of the investigation reads like a mystery novel, complete with foreshadowing.  But he manages to alternate between the story and historical/scientific looks at key items without any awkwardness at all.  The book had as much...... I'll call it entertainment value for lack of a better phrase.... as any good novel.  Enjoyable even though it is a difficult subject to get past, human waste and its impact on our health.

The last 1/3 of the book sums up the results of the investigation and subsequent changes to how modern cities deal with the byproducts of its population density.  It is mostly stuff that we now all take for granted and isn't written with the same style as the earlier chapters.  Even still, a recommended book.

My girlfriend informs me (as she reads over my shoulder ) that she researched the outbreak and believes parts of the book to be plagiarized. I don't know if anyone else has ever made this observation but it's certainly worth noting.

[thanes16]

I liked "The Killer Angels" a lot! If you like historically based books, I recommend it.

[d4rksabre]

thanes16, on 23 March 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

I liked "The Killer Angels" a lot! If you like historically based books, I recommend it.

Great book! I haven't read it in years. Might have to pick up a copy soon.

[weave]

d4rksabre, on 23 March 2013 - 05:05 PM, said:

My girlfriend informs me (as she reads over my shoulder ) that she researched the outbreak and believes parts of the book to be plagiarized. I don't know if anyone else has ever made this observation but it's certainly worth noting.

Huh.  Well, I enjoyed it even if he didn't give credit where credit is due.  

[WildCard]

Just finished (literally) Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."              Great book, it really delves into determinism and life/love between four people under Soviet oppression. Would recommend it to everyone; deals with some heavy stuff, but real easy to read

[Claude_Verret]

thanes16, on 23 March 2013 - 05:08 PM, said:

I liked "The Killer Angels" a lot! If you like historically based books, I recommend it.

Have you read Cain at Gettysburg ?  Many reviewers claim that it even surpasses Shaara's classic work.  I don't know if I'd go that far, but it's close.  The horror of battle is described in brutal detail.

[MattPie]

Reamde by Neal Stephenson. I'm not going to say his books are great works of literary art that will stand the test of time, just entertaining. Think the Divinci Code or Indiana Jones but with a decidedly geeky shift. Essentially, written for people like me.