Talkinghalls

"The Dark Tower" are amazing, they interlink the majority of Stephen Kings works.
Dark Tower Junkie for life.

bikecrate

Finished The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939 by Antony Beevor. I knew some of the overview of the conflict, but this was a good detailed account that was well written.

Starting Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani. So far a good read.

Diesel_NY

bills

jack pot 

Slaughterhouse Five, Kurt Vonnegut > reread !

HardyWeinberg

Recently finished the Forever War by Joe Haldeman and High Rise by JG Ballard, checking out some 70s sci-fi. Turns out all the sci-fi I read earlier was 50s or earlier! High Rise, also, is not sci-fi so much as 'social-science-fi', I guess. Basically just a step past 'Condominium' by John D MacDonald. All good stuff.

I-Like-To-Bike

Finished listening to the WW2 non fiction book, The Fall of Berlin, by Antony Beevor.

Started listening to the Swedish novel, A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman.

jack pot 

>>> have you ever listened to and read the same book ... if you have, how do you find the oral book compares to the reading experience ... btw i am a BURKE & Leonard pulp crime et al fan ... now reading DIARY by Palahniuk

HardyWeinberg

My wife liked both the book and the movie of the latter.

I-Like-To-Bike

My wife had already read the book on her Kindle. We saw the movie last week on a DVD borrowed from the library and enjoyed it very much so I upped it to the top of my long audiobook queue and like it already.

Note: the Swedish movie will become available on Amazon Prime on Mar 29.

I-Like-To-Bike

I normally prefer audiobooks if they have good readers, especially Frank Muller, Will Patton, John Lee or George Guidall. But I will read or listen to what is available.

I am a BIG fan of the novels of Elmore Leonard and James Lee Burke and have either listened to or read all of their books. You might also like Alan Furst's WW2 era spy novels and James Ellroy's noirish novels especially the LA Quartet series (LA Confidential, Big Nowhere, Black Dahlia, and White Jazz) and Underword, USA Trilogy (American Tabloid, Cold Six Thousand and Blood's a Rover).

I liked the print version of American Tabloid ( a really good book) with the J. Edgar Hoover's "memos" looking like real typed memos typed in courier font on the page.

You also might like the crime novels of the Scandinavian writers that have been translated into English. I especially liked all the Jo Nesbø novels.

The audio books that I like to augment with a library print book are non fiction books that use maps to help understand the narrative, especially war and land exploration books.

I-Like-To-Bike

Finished listening to the Swedish novel, A Man Called Ove, by Fredrik Backman. Highest recommendation! 5 stars.

Started listening to the The Whites, a police novel set in the 1990's South Bronx, by Richard Price, writing as Harry Brandt.

canklecat

I just downloaded the latest Kindle Fire edition of "Ripper: The Secret Life of Walter Sickert" by Patricia Cornwell. I think Cornwell is full of cornwell in her assertions but as an armchair Ripperologist I still find it entertaining to ponder the possibilities.

And the Kindle Fire edition includes animations, so it should be akin to reading The Quibbler, Luna Lovegood's favorite animated graphic newspaper.

Too bad Cornwell never gave proper credit to English writer Stephen Knight for developing the Ripper/Sickert connection decades ago. While Knight's theories have been disputed he still deserves credit for having influenced some movies and books developed by others.

canklecat

@I-Like-To-Bike: Since you enjoy audio books, check out the version of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford as narrated by G. Valmont Thomas. One of my favorite books and movies, and Thomas brings the nuances to life in his narration. I've probably listened to the entire audio book (around 12 hours, I think) half a dozen times over the past few years. It's one of the greatest American novels because it's so much about America itself and its quirky identities.

Ron Hansen wrote the novel in the florid style of 19th century newspapers, penny dreadfuls and dime novels, to consistently evoke a sense of being immersed in the era. He indulges in certain conceits that might fail in another context but work wonderfully in this novel. He verbs nouns, as characters "chair" themselves or "hat" themselves. He uses the literary triplet or tricolon often, sequencing sets of three words with commas but no conjunction: "But once he perceived that he would never see Jesse again. Frank would be wrought-up, perplexed, despondent."

Some of those are heard in the narration over the movie, but G. Valmont Thomas' voice beautifully conveys the many other instances in the novel. And he even pulls off the often awkward trick of suggesting the tones of women's voices without sounding silly. I've seen some critics describe the novel as ponderously lengthy but Thomas makes it a luxuriously epic experience, spanning formative eras in American history and making sense of the inextricably interwoven milieu of politics, religion, race and culture of the Civil War and post war period that still resonates today.

I-Like-To-Bike

Thanks, I did listen to the audiobook of the novel several years ago but don't know who was the reader. 13 hours, 10 minutes long.

I can recommend several other excellent westerns that I have listened to in the last several years and enjoyed and you might also like: True Grit by Charles Portis, Journal of the Gun Years, by Richard Matheson (the great Sci Fi writer and screenwriter for The Twilight Zone this book is a straight up western, no sci fi at all), Doc, a novel about Doc Holiday and his times by Mary Russell, Etta, a Novel, by Gerald Kolpan a novel about Etta Place who accompanied the Wild Bunch, led by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, and The Thicket, by Joe Lansdale. In addition, all the Westerns written by Elmore Leonard are worth a read or listening.

Enjoy!

StrathsCycling

Might give that one a try, could do with reading some more modern history.

Currently reading Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys for the umpteenth time. Very much looking forward to the Good Omens adaptation the BBC are planning.

IceFox

The Witcher - fantasy series about the witcher Geralt of Rivia. Just started read The Time of Contempt , and I really like references to classic fairy tales.

I-Like-To-Bike

Finished listening to the The Whites, a police novel set in the 1990's South Bronx, by Harry Brandt.Good book.

Started listening to the Vietnam War novel Fields of Fire, by James Webb.

jack pot 

just finished THE BELL JAR & ARIEL ****************************************??? still reading DIARY by palahniuk ... fieds of fire is a great book you also might like THE MAKING OF A QUAGMIRE by halberstam

I-Like-To-Bike

I did read the The Making of a Quagmire, as well as The Best and the Brightest by David Halberstam years ago. Other good non-fiction books about the American involvement in Vietnam that I have read and would recommend are Dereliction of Duty by H.R McMaster, Dispatches by Michael Herr, and A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam, by Neil Sheehan.

The best fiction book on the Vietnam War that I have listened to so far was Matterhorn - A Novel of the Vietnam War - by Karl Marlantes‎.

Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu and Street without Joy; The French Debacle in Indochina were two very good books by Bernard Fall about Indochina and the French after WW2.

HardyWeinberg

Working through "Astoria" by Peter Stark. Story of John Jacob Astor's setting in motion Euro colonization of the Pacific NW. Not finding it as compelling as a couple of my friends did but I keep turning the pages. Capable of falling asleep during one of them though, don't push myself to make it to the end of a paragraph...

Next up is Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology.

jack pot 

>>> these 3 books should be read by anyone charged with sending US troops off on interventionist missions ... i have not seen iraq 1 and russia's afgan war analyzed with the same clarity ... just finished WATCHMEN -moore/gibbons > great if you like graphic novels

bikecrate

Finished Becoming Eichmann: Rethinking the Life, Crimes, and Trial of a "Desk Murderer" by David Cesarani. Interesting book. One of my takeaways...give hate a fertile environment and watch it grow.

79pmooney

About 3/4s through a very sobering book. Slaves in the Family. Written by a descendant of a South Carolina rice plantation dynasty. He researched extensively both the records of family and all that existed of the slaves they held, then traced down, contacted and met all the descendants of both that he could and were amenable. Fascinating.

Ben

I-Like-To-Bike

Finished listening to Thunder Below!: The USS Barb Revolutionizes Submarine Warfare in World War II by Admiral Eugene B. Fluckey, who was the Captain of the USS Barb. Fantastic true story, more exciting than any Hollywood fantasy.

Started listening to Flashfire, a Parker series crime novel by Richard Stark, AKA Donald Westlake.

colorider

Do they get better after the first one? I'm a huge King fan, having read over 20 of his novels and short stories, but I just couldn't get into the first one.