Start with the Discoverers; you'll be hooked.
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Start with the Discoverers; you'll be hooked.
Btw, have you read "1491" by Mann? If not, go get it.
just ordered on kindle- bonus- also fairly cheap at 7 bucks- thanks!
Enjoy!
about 2/3rds way through "Long Strange Trip." Good book even if you're not a deadhead, in that it goes into a lot of detail and background on the late 60s music festivals, Hait-Asbury and Hippies which I find facinating.
I’m just finishing volume 2 (out of five) of Gale Ontko’s masterpiece, “Thunder Over the Ochoco”. If you like history, specifically western American or Native American, this is a must read. A+.
Just cathing up on this thread. I just read Wild a few months ago and enjoyed it - I thought there was some great writing, though not particular mountain or outdoor focused.Quote:
Originally Posted by The AD
Reading "My Promised Land" about the foundation of Israel and how it is now, and it's really good. Only up till the 1940s and the whole situation seems complicated already.
I'm reading Brian Mclcellan blood and powder trilogy and it is pretty good.
For a Fantasy book I just finished Oathbringer from Brandon Sanderson. Long book and not as good as the first two in the series to me, but still a pretty good book. The author can really build a world.
I just finished James Bond: An Authorized Biography by John Pearson.
Attachment 270709
This was the first post-Ian Fleming authorized James Bond novel.
It's an interesting conceit in that the author treats Bond as a real person and interviews him in Jamaica, filling in the gaps between all of the Fleming novels.
In many ways I enjoyed it more than most of the Fleming adventures (with, perhaps, the exception of The Spy Who Loved Me, which, fwiw, Pearson seems to diss in his "autobiography"). The writing is a bit cleaner and more modern than the Fleming books (rightfully so, since this novel was released in the '70s, some 10 years after the last published Fleming Bond book).
It also has an incredibly gonzo nuts ending which would have made for a great jumping off point for a new Bond series of books (I poked around online and read that Pearson turned down the opportunity to write another Bond book...never stated why, but it's kind of a shame, imho).
just finished Bear: The Life and Times of Augustus Owsley Stanley III
enjoyed it
next up, When Giants Walked The Earth-A Biography of Led Zeppelin
Oh that Owsley book looks good, thanks for the heads up.
should be required reading for any one living west of the MississippiQuote:
Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive
Would love to see a 2020 edition/update.
He's been dead for almost 20 years, an update by Reisner ain't happening.
for semi-vintage espionage/espionage parody the Trevanian books are ok/the Shibumi update by Don Winslow "satori" ain't bad,.
Thanks JONG, meant would love to see a look at the degrading water situation in the West by another author. CD is essential, if a bit datedQuote:
Originally Posted by dunfree
Quote:
Originally Posted by buttahflake
easy reading and very interesting
did you read John Perry Barlow: Mother American Night? i read that over the summer and couldn't put it down.
about 20 pages into Where the Crawdads Sing and it's starting out strong. gotta thing for the carolina coast going back to ruark/Old Man and the Boy. and no it's not about the founding of NAMBA, just a good homey read about hunting and fishing and growing up poor and happy
The last stand of the Tin Can Sailors
also
Neptunes Inferno
Might've been mentioned already, but Bad Blood is pretty good (in a slow moving train wreck kind of way). Currently half way through.
If you liked Cadillac Desert, read Rivers of Empire by Worster. Covers similar terrain (literally) but with a different perspective.
Shantaram. Man escapes Australian Prison and becomes slum doctor in Bombay, then does time in Bombay prison only to get released and becomes part of the Indian Mafia. Great page turner.
And even better is Papillon. More prison breaks and adventures. It is the Endurance of prison escapes. Was also a movie with Steve McQueen and Dustin Hoffman but read it first.
Both are based on true stories.
You've probably already read if you liked the Cadi Desert, but the Emerald Mile about the Colorado river/ Grand Canyon has a lot of good info about water rights, dams etc tooQuote:
Originally Posted by teledad
bad blood looks good- need to pick that up. also on the blood note recently read Nine Pints by Rose George about the blood industry. I wanted to barf a couple times but I couldn't stop reading
another recent weird but really good one was "Tubes" about the physical infrastructure of the internet- the cables and tubes and sh*t. Good read
I'm most of the way through NOFX: The Hepatitis Bathtub And Other Stories. Let's just say it's going to be a different reading experience than A Long Strange Trip (which I have on my shelf but haven't read yet). Perhaps a bit more along the lines of On The Road With The Ramones (which I have read), except that these NOFXers were way the fuck more out there, in terms of lifestyle, no offense to Joey & the gang (okay, Dee Dee was pretty out there). I mean, how is it possible that the Ramones are nearly all dead, and these guys are all still alive?
Anyway, a good tale about ongoing survival and unlikely success, and a peek into the dark side of punk.
The River Why by David James Duncan. This book is awesome, at times hilariously funny, then deadly serious, then deeply profound. It is one of the best novels I've read. If you are a fisherman, or a philosopher, or are a human being, it with likely reach you on a deep level. It's about pursuing one's sole purpose. I wish I could read it for the first time again.
“Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker
“Beyond Weird” by Philip Ball
Two excellent reads.
Funny, a friend just gave me a copy, and I put it in my donate-to-the-library pile, since I rarely read novels. I’ll put it in my read-next pile...Quote:
Originally Posted by Rasputin
I finished this about a week ago (read it over the course of 2 days):
Attachment 275417
Wryly sarcastic road trip odyssey by a great (and often overlooked) American author. Portis is best known for penning True Grit, but so far his two follow-up novels, Norwood, and this one, have delivered.
This is supposedly the first in a "loose" trilogy of secret society books (followd by Master of Atlantis and Gringoes)...I definitely think there were more than a few things "hidden" between the lines and pages in this book that went over-my-head, at least in terms of references and what not. But regardless, it's a well-written, easy going romp with a sly sense of the absurd running through its undercurrent.
Here's a nice piece about Portis and his work for the uninitiated:
https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/a-portis-reader/#!
Yeah, my Dad sent it to me for my birthday one year, and it sat on the shelf for a couple years, because I don't do a lot of reading. I was surprised how much I liked it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive
Just finished this; wow, what a fucked up (and brutally honest) book. Anybody wants my copy, it’s yours for shipping (I rarely keep books).Quote:
Originally Posted by bobz
Check out “shibboleth: my revolting life” as another twisted punk rock memoir by Penny Rimbaud of CrassQuote:
Originally Posted by Flyoverland Captive
Started Neptune's Inferno last week and I'm enjoying it. Thanks for the recco!Quote:
Originally Posted by SB
Two excellent fiction novels by Chigozie Obioma... The Fishermen...and An Orchestra Of Minorities
The River by Peter Heller is very good (though I'm also a fan of the rest of his work). Makes me want do a Canadian/Boundary Waters river trip.
I'm not sure it's recommended, but I just read it. Found it by grabbing random books in the library fiction section.
Quin's Shanghai Circus by Edward Whittemore.
https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1...5l/2176588.jpg
It's an odd book. Not a great book, but an interesting book- a shorter pynchon. From the "rectum of lunacy" it's an absurdist realist journey to the east. Here's the opening
If anyone's read it, I'm curious their thoughts. If you haven't - well, it's at a bunch of librarys. also kindle, don't blame me if you don't like it. I can see why the reviews are really split. Oh, and it doesn't have any quotation marks.Quote:
Some twenty years after the end of the war with Japan a freighter arrived in Brooklyn with the largest collection of Japanese pornography ever assembled in a Western tongue. The owner of the collection, a huge, smiling fat man named Geraty, presented a passport to customs that showed he was a native-born American about as old as the century, an exile who had left the United States nearly four decades before. The collection contained all the pornographic works written in Japan during the last three hundred and fifty years, or since the time when Japan first closed itself to the West... The manuscripts were illustrated with ink drawings exquisitely detailed to show every hair. Even the cat hairs could be counted, where cats appeared.
I need a new book, should scan this thread for ideas.
Just finished the Art of Racing in the Rain, recommended in some other thread. Good read but annoyed me too.
I also did not love The Art of racing in the rain despite many loving it. with all due respect to those that liked it- I thought it was consistently cheesy/ cringeworthy
have you checked out Natural Born Hero's?
It's a great blend of an exciting band of real WWII rebels as well as some running & nutrition info sprinkled in
Bet you'd dig it
'In Our Mad and Furious City' - interesting tragedy told in contemporary London street slang.
Slices out some fucked up truths, but I liked the way it moved words around.
Cool, I'll check it outQuote:
Originally Posted by b-bear
Just finished Baldacci "The Fallen". Gripping and entertaining
Just finished the NOFX book. Riveting. Thanks for the suggestion
getting ready to start all creatures great and small with the boy. my first novels and my favorite for years. i wanted to be a vet until my first pet died and i was so crushed i knew i could never be a vet.