Time for a new book - any suggestions?

[m2711c]

here’s a quick and interesting summer time true crime read about the corrupt shenanigans taking place on the upstate canals in the late 19th century…





Description

The Forestport Breaks: A Nineteenth-Century Conspiracy Along the Black River Canal. Michael Doyle. The Erie Canal was dying. Adirondack sawmills were falling silent. And in the final years of the nineteenth century, the upstate New York town of Forestport was struggling just to survive. Then the canal levees started breaking, and the boom times returned. The Forestport saloons flourished, the town’s gamblers rollicked, and the politically connected canal contractors were flush once more. It was all very convenient until Governor Theodore Roosevelt’s administration grew suspicious and the Pinkerton National Detective Agency began investigating. They found what a lawman called one of the most gigantic conspiracies ever hatched in New York. In The Forestport Breaks, Michael Doyle illuminates a fresh and fascinating chapter in the colorful history of the Erie Canal. This is the canal’s shadowy side, a world of political rot and plotting men, and it extended well beyond one rough and tumble town. The Forestport breaks marked the only time New York officials charged men with conspiring to destroy canal property, but they were also illustrative of the widespread rascality surrounding the canal. For Doyle, there is a story with a personal dimension behind the drama of the canal’s historical events. As he uncovered the rise and fall of Forestport, he was also discovering that the trail of culpability led to members in his own family tree. Syracuse University Press, 2004, 256pp.


check your local library or you can find it on the Canal museum website.

https://eriecanalmuseum.org/store/pr...stport-breaks/

[ötzi]

Sounds kinda Upstatey.

[dookeyXXX]

I believe I have plugged the works of WILLY VLAUTIN in this thread before.
He’s just dropped a new book and he’s doing a smattering of in-store events.
I highly recommend his novels and he’s great to catch live, too.
Often times at his readings/signings he’ll break out his guitar and play a few tunes, too!

List of events here:
https://www.willyvlautin.com/post/the-horse-events-usa

[Core Shot]

This one is on the way. Lakota are cool humans




If you love the Yellowstone trg tourist thread this a must read. Vintage stories. Getting gored and boiled alive is nothing new.

[Hood26]

It was great. I read the second one, too, but haven't gotten to the others in the series.

Library didn’t have #2 available, so ended up reading the prequel and then #3; I am a weirdo who doesn’t mind taking a series out of order. Prequel was OK and #3 was good with plenty to think on from the Reformation Era. True to form, neither was as good as #1, but I don’t retreat reading either. Again, fast reads despite their length.

This month I have read Astoria: John Jacob Astor’s and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Empire, by Peter Stark. Great read. Written more as popular history in the journalistic style of the author.

I am now reading Follet’s Fall of Giants from the Century Series, and may try to return to the Kingsbrodge when on vacation.

[The AD]

I'm about halfway through The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. Quite entertaining so far and I have a feeling things are going to start getting much more interesting. I like his writing. I also read A Gentleman in Moscow.

[goldenboy]

I'm halfway through Dawson's book and it's honestly been a bit of a page turner. Would recommend.

[yeahman]

I'm halfway through Dawson's book and it's honestly been a bit of a page turner. Would recommend.

Agree. He's honest enough to portray himself as a bit of a self-centered asshole, and I appreciated that because it's pretty much true of every obsessive climber I've ever known. The stuff about him and Ray Jardine and the advent of Friends was fascinating to me.

Recently finished The Wild Truth, by Carine McCandless, sister of Chris McCandless of Into the Wild fame. Highly recommended for anybody who liked that book and movie. What a fucked up family.

[dookeyXXX]

Just finished both of these this week.



COLD STORAGE
The debut novel from Hollywood screenwriter David Koepp is what you would call a “beach read.” It’s an easily digestible sci-fi actioneer filled with stock characters and a saccharine tinged “Hollywood Ending.” While I have never read Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, I did see the 1971 film and this book feels like the lighter, goofier version of that.
While Koepp relies too much on cliched archetypes, he also has a deft hand for well detailed action sequences and creating tension that makes you want to keep turning pages. But the ending; it kinda ruins the whole book.
The film is already in production, btw.

EDIT
Picked up a copy of The Andromeda Strain the other week and ripped through it. Koepp’s novel is most definitely a riff/homage to Crichton’s novel; the similarities are pretty obvious. Koepp just turns the basic plot of Crichton’s novel into a slick Hollywood styled sci-fi action comedy on paper.


VENGEANCE IS MINE, ALL OTHERS PAY CASH
I stumbled upon this book by inadvertently watching the film adaptation on Netflix. I enjoyed the movie enough that it made me curious about the book, so I tracked it down. Honestly, I saw the movie so long ago that I forgot most of what happened in it.
The book, however, is a gloriously irreverent coming-of-age tale about a young boy with a detumescent member, a complicated love life, a mad streak of violent behavior, and a truck. There’s also a ghost, an unflinching examination of toxic masculinity, and plenty of wry and dry dark humor. Oh, and plenty of good old ultra-violence.
I read this joint in 2 days; it’s fantastic.
I may need to re-visit the movie…
RIYL:
Catcher in the Rye
The Fuck Up
Fight Club

[huckbucket]

The Anthropocene Reviewed by John Green. Authentic, quirky, emotional take on random observations. He's a fantastic writer. Super fast read and easily digestable. Did the audiobook on a long road trip and could listen to him for hours.

[dookeyXXX]

THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN - Michael Crichton, 1971
This is only the fourth MC novel I have read, but I have enjoyed every one of them immensely.
Crichton’s writing style is deft and even though he often leans into the dry scientifical side of things, he does so without making it stuffy or overly trying.
In contrast to the breezy and often cheezy action and characters in David Koepp’s obvious homage Cold Storage, this short novel manages to make even the seemingly tedious machinations of scientific research bristle with nail biting tension; I was gripped until about the last 1/3, which loses a tad bit of steam, not to mention a debatable ending (I feel the book coulda been fleshed out a little more, yet the ending has been growing on me due to its coy allusions).
This is what I would call a thinking person’s thriller.

[mcski]

Crichton is not much of a wordsmith and his writing style is pretty basic but the guy always has a world class sense of what’s in the zeitgeist and how to turn that into a compelling and cinematic story

[stealurface831]

92 in the shade by tom mcguane.

[The AD]

The Andromeda Strain was the first Crichton book I ever read because my parents had it. I couldn't put it down. He was up there with King for coming up with interesting plots and getting the pacing right, but certainly not the writer King is/was.

[EWG]

I'm about halfway through The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles. Quite entertaining so far and I have a feeling things are going to start getting much more interesting. I like his writing. I also read A Gentleman in Moscow.

If you look at the craft of writing he's about as good as it gets. He is a very, very skilled wordsmith.

[The AD]

If you look at the craft of writing he's about as good as it gets. He is a very, very skilled wordsmith.

He's good. I enjoyed the book, although I felt like it was a bit cliched at times.

[MontuckyFried]

I just read the short story, "The Machine Stops" by E. M. Forster. A very small book but packs a wallop! It may have been published in 1909, but this is some top shelf sci-fi!!!! Evidently it was one of the Wachowskis' inspirations for the Matrix. Forster seemed to have predicted an eerie amount of things and what I can't help but feel will be the ultimate culmination of things like social media. The Machine Stops illustrates the perfect mashup of utopia/dystopia if you will. Can't believe it took me so long to get around to this one! Well worth your (brief) time.

[Meadow Skipper]

92 in the shade by tom mcguane.

There’s (a good) one I wasn’t expecting to see in this thread. Also Panama by McGuane…hell, any of his many books are well worth the time.

[yeahman]

Nothing but Blue Skies is my favorite McGuane novel.

[dookeyXXX]

Dammit!
As if I need more books…Youse guys always expose me to interesting authors I have thus far been oblivious to.
Just read up on McGuane. What an interesting sounding dude.
I am privy to his Hollywood screenplay work, having enjoyed both Ranch Deluxe and Missouri Breaks.
May have to delve into one of his novels now…

[MontuckyFried]

Dammit!
As if I need more books…

Haha. Seriously! This is a great thread for sure.

For real though, DO spend the 45 minutes or so to read The Machine Stops. Like $8 on Amazon. It's free all over the internet in digital form but I like having the hard copy which has some great modern illustrations by Drew Hill which I thought were a nice addition. This one will definitely get some repeat reads. I can't believe they haven't made a modern film adaptation of this one! Or at least a Black Mirror, Love Death + Robots, or Metal Hurlant episode, as an anthology series like those would probably be a better format than a feature length film.

[Johnny H]

I believe I have plugged the works of WILLY VLAUTIN in this thread before.
He’s just dropped a new book and he’s doing a smattering of in-store events.
I highly recommend his novels and he’s great to catch live, too.
Often times at his readings/signings he’ll break out his guitar and play a few tunes, too!

List of events here:
https://www.willyvlautin.com/post/the-horse-events-usa

I just started The Motel Life and it looks like a good one. Picked it up at library just before seeing your post. Coincidence. I will also check out the new one.

[stealurface831]

There’s (a good) one I wasn’t expecting to see in this thread. Also Panama by McGuane…hell, any of his many books are well worth the time.

its the first of his that i've read. i'm onto Jim Harrison's catalog now but will revisit mcguane.
on that note, can't recommend Revenge enough. kinda indifferent on the other Legends of the Fall novellas but Revenge is a tour de force.
also, winter of our discontent is now my favorite steinbeck.

[Meadow Skipper]

its the first of his that i've read. i'm onto Jim Harrison's catalog now but will revisit mcguane.
on that note, can't recommend Revenge enough. kinda indifferent on the other Legends of the Fall novellas but Revenge is a tour de force.
also, winter of our discontent is now my favorite steinbeck.

Well, if you’re reading Harrison that’s a fkn good thing. You’re on a roll. Don’t miss out on Dalva, though that one might maybe be better when you’re a little older.

[stealurface831]

Well, if you’re reading Harrison that’s a fkn good thing. You’re on a roll. Don’t miss out on Dalva, though that one might maybe be better when you’re a little older.

is brautigan worth reading?