The Idiot Board Readers Corner - General Discussion

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Cogan's Trade - George Higgins

It's a crime novel written in the 70s about some lowlife gangsters in Boston. The location is pretty much irrelevant, though. The plot is simple; someone knocks over a mob run poker game and Cogan is brought in to figure everything out. You know who did it in the first few pages and the rest of the book is setup. And talking. Lots and lots of talking.

What makes it an interesting read is that it's almost entirely dialogue. There are very few descriptive scenes, other than describing what kind of cars people are driving. It was almost like reading a play or script. You get pages of these lowlifes talking about their wives and cars and dogs and jail and sex. It can be hard to follow along at the start, but once you get used to the rhythm it's a fun read.

I bought it partially because the author wrote half a dozen other books and I like to find an author I can pick up and follow for a while. I'm not sure I'll read another one of his, so take that as you will, but if you like well written dialogue, pick it up. It's a relatively short and amusing read.

As an aside, the movie Killing Them Softly was based on this book and is a pretty faithful adaptation.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James

I'll pretty much read anything I can get my hands on and it's not unusual for me to read 3-4 books a week. (I'm a poor excuse for a redneck, I know)

This book truly stands out.

It's the story of the US rowing crew who won the gold medal in the 1936 Olympics. I've never cared about rowing, but this book brought alive the world in the 1930's when rowing was as big as any sport in the country. Tens of thousands of people would turn out for rowing events. Newspapers carried information about rowing teams like baseball, football, basketball & hockey are today. People knew the names of the men that sat in each seat of the boats.

I never knew that, nor did I really care.

The awesome thing about this book is that it did make me care. It explained the strategies and recreated the races in a way that it was very easy to get lost in the words and convince myself that I was actually watching the races in my mind's eye. The personalities were well developed through the narrative, and I found myself wanting to jump up and cheer as though I were watching an event in real time. That's not an easy thing to do when the subject matter is something I never gave a damn about.

I highly recommend reading this book. It is very well written and tells an awesome story that draws you in even though it may be subject matter you never cared about or wanted to know about. You will come away glad that you took a peek into this world.

 

A Novel Idea

In addition to one-off best-seller novels, Stephen King, and the occasional compelling non-fiction story, I enjoy quick-reading thriller series. I read The Bourne Identity my junior year in highschool, and was hooked the rest of the Bourne series. Even though that "series" was spaced out, I read the first two back-to-back, since Supremacy was released right then. I didn't really like Ludlum's other novels, though. I also read a bunch of McDonald's Travis McGee novels back in the day. So, I guess I like investing in "knowing" a character and following those adventures. So, I started the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child earlier this year and now I've read them all. The next one won't be published until September this year and I need something to read in the meantime.

Has anybody read those, that has a recommendation of a similar series? I have read a few of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp books, but thought those were just "meh." Also, can anybody comment on these that my librarian recommended?

Harry Bosch / Micky Haller, Michael Connelly
Dave Robicheaux, James Lee Burke
Samuel Carver, Tom Cain
Jane Whitfield, Thomas Perry

And what about the Pike Logan novels by Brad Taylor - are they any good?

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Alex Albrink's "Aliomenti Saga" They're all released as e-books, and he's been cranking them out. 6 over the last two years, and another one due this year. The central conceit is that all the stories of witchcraft and people with special powers can be true by finding out how to unlock your body's "Energy". This leads to warring secret societies, over a 12-1300 year span. The series involves time travel, nanomachines, special powers, sacrifices for the sake of family, and a lot of pseudo history. The characterizations are well done, the motivations clear and mostly relatable for the protagonists. They're self released e-books, so the editing leaves something to be desired, but overall, it's been a very good series so far

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.alexalbrinck.com/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.alexalbrinck.com/</a>
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Aliomenti-Saga-Box-Books-ebook/dp/B00GQQPU4I" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.amazon.com/The-Aliomenti-Sag ... B00GQQPU4I</a>

 

Re: A Novel Idea

These area fun. Start with the earlier ones. He's written so many of the things by now they start to feel the same. There is always a bit about Vietnam and how that affected him and his alcoholism, but they're great novels for quick reads.

I like them for the South Louisiana feel of them for obvious reasons, but they're good reads. Clete Purcell (Robicheaux's former partner and a PI that somehow ends up involved in all of his cases) is a great character.

Burke has a book of short stories called "Jesus Out to Sea" that is also worth reading.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Has anyone read The Kingkiller Chronicles by Patrick Rothfuss? I just decided to buy it on a whim, because Amazon loves me when it tells me to buy things. I don't know what it is with books, but I either need a hard recommendation or just be like "FUCK IT, I'M BUYING IT" in the span of five seconds. This one falls into that. With 1000 reviews it was like 4.5 stars or something. The first book is called The Name of the Wind.

 

Re: A Novel Idea

I don't want to ruin either of these two characters by telling you too much because a lot of what you find out about both of them play into their cases, their lives, decisions and their character. I will tell you that if you're patient with Harry Bosch you'll see how Micky Haller's life is intertwined with his; that linking becomes fascinating and deepens the emotional connection that you feel to the characters and whether or not they succeed.

I have obsessively read all of the Harry Bosch books along with Micky Haller. Bosch is a smart detective but in a believable, not invincible sort of way. He's a bit of a curmudgeon but it grows on you really quickly. I have enjoyed every book starring him. His basic rule is that everyone matters and when a case starts he pursues it doggedly. I find him captivating to watch.

Micky Haller is also fascinating for different reasons and it is nice to see Michael Connelly write in a different inner monologue and from a different moral center. Haller comes at things from a different place than Bosch and it is rather cool to see them approach the same city thorough different eyes and with different agendas.

If you dig Bosch you might like the Charlie Parker series written by John Connolly. Good detective stuff with a hint but not an absolute towards the possibility of supernatural existing in the universe.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Has anybody used Audible? Just signed up for a 3 month trial. Any favorite books on there? I am relatively new to listening rather than reading and have quickly discovered that the narrator can make or break a story.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Any recommendations for a sci fi/fantasy novel that is not war/military/shootemup/dystopia? Something either stand-alone or at most a trilogy preferred.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Ringworld.

I'm finishing up the Lost World after listening to Jurassic Park. Those are recommended, but Ringworld for sure.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

The Night Angel Trilogy by Brent Weeks.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor and The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss are both pretty good fantasy series. The former is a bit YA, but I never lost interest, even through the angsty love story parts.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

"When I met Cynthia our sophomore year at the University of Michigan, she was flighty and poor, a French studies major who quoted Simone de Beauvoir. She wiped her runny nose on her coat sleeve when it was snowing, stuck her head out of car windows the way dogs do, the wind furrowing her hair. That woman was gone now. Not that it was her fault. Vast fortunes did that to people. It took them to the cleaners, cruelly starched and steam-pressed them so all their raw edges, all the dirt and hunger and guileless laughter, were ironed out. Few survived real money."

Once every 2/3 years, I come across a book that is so much better than everything else that it redefines my expectations for the genre. Marisha Pessl's Night Film is that good. The first person narrative follows a cynical, disgraced journalist as he investigates an elusive and disturbing film producer. The plot moves like quicksilver, twisting and turning and never quite where you expect it to be. The characterization is Gerald Seymour-level good, even for random shop assistants that have two lines of dialogue.

What sets Night Film above other books, though, is the immersion created by the spectacular attention to detail. Pessl not only invents details that I would never have imagined, she crafts them in such as way as to make the book feel astonishingly authentic. Webpages, movie stills, film clips, and a whole variety of media which you'll only discover if you download the Night Film app and hover your phone over certain marks in the book (see my profile pic). The audio of a custom written children's story is creepy as hell.

There's only one real flaw in the book, and it's the overuse of italics. I can enjoy being pulled out of a story if it's to admire a beautiful piece of prose like the one above (reverse snobbery: "see: any book marketed as 'Literary Fiction'"). Instead, she italicizes clunky, overwrought lines, the literary equivalent of going 'dun dun DUNNNNN' every time the villain appears onscreen. It's deliberate, because she never ruins the good lines, but goddamn is it a terrible call and I hope her editor makes her re-release the novel without it.

That said, this is an amazing book. The Daily Telegraph's review: "At once all-consuming and mind-altering. Nothing else matters while there are pages to turn and, once the book is over, the world seems an emptier place." Highly, highly recommended.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Also, Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. Although, there are themes of sic fi in the novel, it is set in 1980s England and more of a story on empathy.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

I just recently found out that Orson Scott Card and some other guy did an Ender's Game prequel trilogy about the first formic war. Earth Unaware, Earth Afire, and Earth Awakens. Pretty decent.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley:

This is a thought provoking book on personal finance. It's dated (written in the 90s), but the basic underlying concepts are worth reading. It examines the behavior of millionaires, particularly the ones we never know are rich because they don't focus on conspicuous consumption. If nothing else, the book is worth reading for how it will make you examine your own spending and saving patterns. That might be unpleasant to do, but if you take it to heart it might really impact your future.

For anyone already worth a million+, it's still a good read for what it says about gifting to children and the impact on their future.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

Instead of posting general book recommendations, would anyone be interested in doing a legit book club and discuss it afterwards? We could vote on a book and then discuss after 30 days or whatever.

 

Re: The Idiot Board Book Club

A quick couple of book recommendations, some may have been done before:

Fire Bringer, The Sight and Fell by David Clement-Davies

These books are very much in the same vein as The Plague Dogs or Watership Down, yet so damn richly good. Fire Bringer is about red deer living in Scotland during the Middle Ages and The Sight and Fell are about Romanian wolves living a bit further in the Middle Ages during the inroads by the Turkish forces into European soil. The solidness of these books is not to be over-stated, the animals are dealt with very realistically (despite the fact that they are talking, albeit so we the reader can understand them) and they aren't making weapons or walking upright like in a Redwall novel. It's very gritty and very A Song of Ice and Fire-esque in its portrayals, and very sad in certain parts. I suggest reading Fire Bringer, then The Sight and finally Fell. David C-D also has a new book out about polar bears, Scream of the White Bears, that I hope to eventually get to.

Words Of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson

This is the sequel to Brandon Sanderson's The Way of Kings, and I suggest that one before this one, but this one is were the continued story heats up. Assassins, mystical sword-play, lots of fighting and insights into what the hell a bunch of people are doing fighting this war when it seems the world is going to hell in a hand-basket.