What BOOK are you reading right now?

FYI, he did write one fantastic, gruesome novel, Yhe Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, or some such which I loved. Aside, yes, everything classified as a short story.

Not that long ago I read Furst's "Mission to Paris" which is about a Hollywood leading man who gets caught up in spying on the Nazis.

It was only OK.

Excellent book. I read his next one, but it wasn't as good as evidenced by the fact that I can't recall the title.

Loved Mieville's earlier works "King Rat," "Perdido Street Station," "The City & The City" and a few others but then I came up against "Kraken" and "Embassytown" and couldn't finish either.

I used to be obsessive about finishing books even if I hated them, but as I've aged I realized I don't have enough time to waste any of it on books that can't keep my attention. "Kraken" was derivitive to a fault and "Embassytown" I found to be too plodding. He has an incredible imagination and always begins with fantastic and unique premises, but sometimes, I feel, he can't put enough meat on the bones of his ideas. I'm afraid I've soured on him. Two strikes and I'm not sure I want to throw him a third pitch.

That might have been the first one I read too. His books grew on me; didn't like all of them.

Now I'm rereading Budda's Money by Martin Simon - I remember some of the goings on as I reread but still don't remember what all happens.

Funny, in my marriage, I was good for knowing, in memory, who a film's director and cinematographer et al were, and he was good at plot. So again I find myself plotless.. now in Korea, trying to figure out the whys and wherefores again.

How do you like Seveneves?

I bought it but haven't gotten around to it.

I've been in the mood for ripping yarns that I can knock off in a couple of night's

I'm half way through Stephen Hunter's "Sniper's Honor" (So far not as good as his other Bob Lee Swagger novels) with "The Third Bullet" lined up on the nightstand for next.

Prior to the Hunter novel I read "The Country of Ice Cream Star" by Sandra Newman.

It's another post-apocalyptic tale, but unique enough to stand outside of the genre. It immediately invites comparison to Russel Hoban's "Riddley Walker" not only because of the post-holocaust setting, but because Newman, like Hoban, has invented a new language for her characters.

Some readers have commented they found it difficult to follow the language, but I didn't find that to be the case, and I was able to figure out what everyone was saying pretty quickly. I don't think it's something that should cause potential readers to shy away, and once you do get the hang of it, I think you will be entranced by it's poetry.

Another interesting aspect of the novel is that, apparently, only African-Americans survived the virus that's wiped out the United States, but while this fact eventually becomes known to the reader, it's essentially irrelevant in terms of the story and the characters. I suppose the author, a white woman, had her reason for this approach, but beyond some sort of statement that in essence blacks are no different than whites, I'm not sure what it is. It certainly doesn't take anything away from the story, but neither does it add to it. Just interesting.

There are three distinct sections to the book and the story and the first third of the book is the best part, while the second seemed to me to be too contrived and the third less believable, but it still has a good flow throughout and well worth a shot.

I didn't like "Mission in Paris" enough to immediately seek out any of his others. Which is your favorite?

I'll have to consider as I have about nine or ten of them, back later. Off hand, books where I learn stuff, or more stuff, so that might point to the ones set more in eastern europe/Russia.

I'm reading Discourses on Livy by Niccolo Machiavelli, at the suggestion of a Chinese venture capitalist who got his education at Stanford and chops as an entrepreneur in the U.S. and then returned to Shanghai where he is doing very well. He put forward the theory that China has likely advanced on the Western concept of a capitalist democracy through the transformation of the CCP into a true meritocracy, much in the model of the mandarins of four centuries ago (before the, to me, inevitable decay set in) and the ruthless pruning he says they do to the class of rising stars in their evolving ruling elite and party - an interesting hierarchy he describes in a very interesting way.. He believes they will eclipse us and that they have already eclipsed the Europeans.

My view is while there are optimal solutions in human affairs, but they are dependent on circumstances, There are likely no permanent optimal solutions to be found.

He cited both the Confucan Mandarin tradition and this work of Machiavelli as the inspiration for his ideas: hence my interest.

Frankly I don't put much faith in it, as my understanding of history is that all ruling elites, of whatever stripe, -- from Persia, to Athens, Rome, the Habsburgs of Austrian & Spain, the French Bourbons & revolution, the Mogul Emperors, the British parliament, the Romanoffs of Russia and their Marxist successors, to perhaps even our modern Western moderated capitalist democracies -- eventually corrupt themselves through the steady loss of focus on founding principles and the resulting enervation of their elites and core ideas, through the progressive workings of human nature . In some respects this is a bit analogus to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, entropy and the inexorable rise of disorder in natural processes.

Still it's a great read so far and the Renaissance master provides a long and useful sereies of analyses of the many paradoxes of human governance and orgasnization.

I agree that China will be the top economy of the world in just a few years.

With China's loosening of control over its economy, I see their GDP to grow at a very fast rate while our trade deficit with them will continue to grow. One problem with China's growth is that their growth is dependent on borrowing which is growing faster than their GDP. How they will manage that debt will be interesting to watch. There's going to be high inflation or a currency crash. Maybe both.

Perido Street Station was a good read. Not enough to continue with the remainder of the trilogy (at least right now).

I did really enjoy Kraken as well as his YA book, Railsea, a steampunk version of Moby Dick. Tried to read Embassytown two or three times but ... couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. As a writer, some of his characters order on irritating and such.

I really would like to see Kraken adapted to the movies.

He's got a similar vibe (humor and imagination wise) to Neil Gaimon.

Railsea was another one I couldn't finish.

I did, though, think Perdido Street Station was a masterpiece of imagination and creativity. It's only flaw may have been that it overflowed with the creations of his imagination.

I tend to "read" his books, the lazy way ... via Audible.com. So, if the story is too freakishly imaginative, it can be saved by the narrator's tone and temperament. I can't say that about Embassytown which I tried to read via paperback book. I don't plan on wasting a Audible credit on that one so... I won't find out if my working hypothesis is correct.

I found it quite interesting to begin with but ultimately unsatisfying and somewhat disappointing, at least when compared to his other work.

Not quite half way through the Audible version of Dracula.

Stumbled onto to two graphic novels.
Bandette: Volume 1, Presto
Netflix really really really needs to turn this into a tv series!


And a graphic memoir:
Relish: My Life in the Kitchen by Lucy Knisley
Relish: The Graphic Novel For Foodies

I've started rereading Sherlock Holmes. I have The Complete Sherlock Holmes (over 1,000 pages). So far, I've read two of the short novels, and I'm loving it.

The first time I went through this book, I was still living at home with my parents. I'd read a story every Saturday with breakfast. Every week my mother would say, "Are you still readin' that Shoilock book?"

Hey, ma! I'm reading it again. A thousand pages of Shoilock.

Is that the one with the original illustrations from The Strand?

George,

I'm disappointed to tell you that there are no illustrations other than an occasional map, chart, etc.

However, there is a wonderful introduction by Christopher Morley.

Founder of the "Baker Street Irregulars"