Book of the Month - Merged
- Thread starter Himeo
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This is one of my all time favorite series. Fantastic trilogy. I envy you guys going into this one for the first time.
ToeMissile
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
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FWIW, I made the switch to the kindle version. The audiobook reader for this is not very good, and after the first few hours I felt like I was letting a great story get ruined by a crappy reader.
ToeMissile
Pronouns: zie/zhem/zer
- 2,749
- 1,676
If you have book suggestions PM me them. I will read the book you PM me in it's entirety before I put it in a poll so you need to give me a few days before I put the poll up.
Some of these books are in here because I like them and I think they need some recognition, some of them are popular, some of them are ones I want to read. I will of course put a copy of the book up digitally once voting closes for everyone to download in mob/epub.
This time we have a slight change. Our fantasy selection is a 5 book series. Book one was a suggestion and I think it's a good one. They are older books though and short. For that one if it is picked read as much as you want/can and make sure you /spoiler with a note saying which book the spoiler is for. This is a little outside the norm but I didn't think a book only 175 pages was quite good enough for a monthly book club. This won't be the norm. If it is picked please at least read book one. I will post all 5 files so that you can split it up.
The rules I have are as such.
1.) Book with the most votes wins.
2.) Second place book rolls over one month into it's slot on the poll. All the other ones you will never see again.
3.) I will put the poll up for the next month on or near the 20th giving us around 10 days to vote.
4.) Enjoy reading.
Fantasy/Sci-fi: The First Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself - Shadow worlds that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. The CHRONICLES begin in a hospital on the Shadow Earth, where a man is recovering from a freak auto accident. Since he is also suffering from amnesia, and has been for some time, he has no idea that he's Prince Corwin of Amber - until his memory receives a succession of jolts: He meets a sister who speaks in riddles of plots and counterplots... and a brother who abruptly involves him in a life-and-death battle against pursuers from a fearful Shadow world. He discovers a deck of tarot-like cards, with himself, his sister, and strangers whom he guesses to be other relatives, pictures on their faces. Then comes the most shattering jolt of all... Corwin's confrontation with an intricate design created by a master manipulator of reality - the Pattern. As Corwin sets foot upon that coldly glowing inscription, memories come flooding back to him... more and more with each step. And finally, knowing his true identity, he acknowledges his true ambition - and resolves that the crown of Amber will be his. But unknown to Corwin, there are dark forces massing against Amber ... and before too long he will discover just how great a burden a king's crown can be....
Non-Fiction: Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell - Phil Lapsley
Before smartphones, back even before the Internet and personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world?s largest machine: the telephone system. Starting with Alexander Graham Bell?s revolutionary ?harmonic telegraph,? by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same.
Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T?s monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell?s Achilles? heel. Phil Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine underground of ?phone phreaks? who turned the network into their electronic playground, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, the explosion of telephone hacking in the counterculture, and the war between the phreaks, the phone company, and the FBI.
General Fiction/Popular Fiction: The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother?a singer ?stolen? to Pyongyang?and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy?s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself ?a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,? Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress ?so pure, she didn?t know what starving people looked like.?
Genre Fiction (Mystery): Bad Monkey - Carl Hiaasen
Andrew Yancy?late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff?s office?has a human arm in his freezer. There?s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it?s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first?this being Hiaasen country?Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy?s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen?s greatest characters.
Young Adult/Teen/Children's (both Fiction and Non): Dad is Fat ? Jim Gaffigan
RUNNER UP FROM LAST MONTH COMING BACK
In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who?s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children?everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers? communication skills (?they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news?), to the eating habits of four year olds (?there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor?). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby?s Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
Pot-Luck: The Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project?the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed.
Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious ?Angel of Death?? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings?Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality.
Some of these books are in here because I like them and I think they need some recognition, some of them are popular, some of them are ones I want to read. I will of course put a copy of the book up digitally once voting closes for everyone to download in mob/epub.
This time we have a slight change. Our fantasy selection is a 5 book series. Book one was a suggestion and I think it's a good one. They are older books though and short. For that one if it is picked read as much as you want/can and make sure you /spoiler with a note saying which book the spoiler is for. This is a little outside the norm but I didn't think a book only 175 pages was quite good enough for a monthly book club. This won't be the norm. If it is picked please at least read book one. I will post all 5 files so that you can split it up.
The rules I have are as such.
1.) Book with the most votes wins.
2.) Second place book rolls over one month into it's slot on the poll. All the other ones you will never see again.
3.) I will put the poll up for the next month on or near the 20th giving us around 10 days to vote.
4.) Enjoy reading.
Fantasy/Sci-fi: The First Chronicles of Amber - Roger Zelazny
Amber is the one real world, casting infinite reflections of itself - Shadow worlds that can be manipulated by those of royal Amberite blood. The CHRONICLES begin in a hospital on the Shadow Earth, where a man is recovering from a freak auto accident. Since he is also suffering from amnesia, and has been for some time, he has no idea that he's Prince Corwin of Amber - until his memory receives a succession of jolts: He meets a sister who speaks in riddles of plots and counterplots... and a brother who abruptly involves him in a life-and-death battle against pursuers from a fearful Shadow world. He discovers a deck of tarot-like cards, with himself, his sister, and strangers whom he guesses to be other relatives, pictures on their faces. Then comes the most shattering jolt of all... Corwin's confrontation with an intricate design created by a master manipulator of reality - the Pattern. As Corwin sets foot upon that coldly glowing inscription, memories come flooding back to him... more and more with each step. And finally, knowing his true identity, he acknowledges his true ambition - and resolves that the crown of Amber will be his. But unknown to Corwin, there are dark forces massing against Amber ... and before too long he will discover just how great a burden a king's crown can be....
Non-Fiction: Exploding the Phone: The Untold Story of the Teenagers and Outlaws who Hacked Ma Bell - Phil Lapsley
Before smartphones, back even before the Internet and personal computer, a misfit group of technophiles, blind teenagers, hippies, and outlaws figured out how to hack the world?s largest machine: the telephone system. Starting with Alexander Graham Bell?s revolutionary ?harmonic telegraph,? by the middle of the twentieth century the phone system had grown into something extraordinary, a web of cutting-edge switching machines and human operators that linked together millions of people like never before. But the network had a billion-dollar flaw, and once people discovered it, things would never be the same.
Exploding the Phone tells this story in full for the first time. It traces the birth of long-distance communication and the telephone, the rise of AT&T?s monopoly, the creation of the sophisticated machines that made it all work, and the discovery of Ma Bell?s Achilles? heel. Phil Lapsley expertly weaves together the clandestine underground of ?phone phreaks? who turned the network into their electronic playground, the mobsters who exploited its flaws to avoid the feds, the explosion of telephone hacking in the counterculture, and the war between the phreaks, the phone company, and the FBI.
General Fiction/Popular Fiction: The Orphan Master's Son - Adam Johnson
Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother?a singer ?stolen? to Pyongyang?and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the state soon recognize the boy?s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself ?a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,? Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his Korean overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress ?so pure, she didn?t know what starving people looked like.?
Genre Fiction (Mystery): Bad Monkey - Carl Hiaasen
Andrew Yancy?late of the Miami Police and soon-to-be-late of the Monroe County sheriff?s office?has a human arm in his freezer. There?s a logical (Hiaasenian) explanation for that, but not for how and why it parted from its shadowy owner. Yancy thinks the boating-accident/shark-luncheon explanation is full of holes, and if he can prove murder, the sheriff might rescue him from his grisly Health Inspector gig (it?s not called the roach patrol for nothing). But first?this being Hiaasen country?Yancy must negotiate an obstacle course of wildly unpredictable events with a crew of even more wildly unpredictable characters, including his just-ex lover, a hot-blooded fugitive from Kansas; the twitchy widow of the frozen arm; two avariciously optimistic real-estate speculators; the Bahamian voodoo witch known as the Dragon Queen, whose suitors are blinded unto death by her peculiar charms; Yancy?s new true love, a kinky coroner; and the eponymous bad monkey, who with hilarious aplomb earns his place among Carl Hiaasen?s greatest characters.
Young Adult/Teen/Children's (both Fiction and Non): Dad is Fat ? Jim Gaffigan
RUNNER UP FROM LAST MONTH COMING BACK
In Dad is Fat, stand-up comedian Jim Gaffigan, who?s best known for his legendary riffs on Hot Pockets, bacon, manatees, and McDonald's, expresses all the joys and horrors of life with five young children?everything from cousins ("celebrities for little kids") to toddlers? communication skills (?they always sound like they have traveled by horseback for hours to deliver important news?), to the eating habits of four year olds (?there is no difference between a four year old eating a taco and throwing a taco on the floor?). Reminiscent of Bill Cosby?s Fatherhood, Dad is Fat is sharply observed, explosively funny, and a cry for help from a man who has realized he and his wife are outnumbered in their own home.
Pot-Luck: The Boys from Brazil - Ira Levin
Alive and hiding in South America, the fiendish Nazi Dr. Josef Mengele gathers a group of former colleagues for a horrifying project?the creation of the Fourth Reich. Barry Kohler, a young investigative journalist, gets wind of the project and informs famed Nazi hunter Ezra Lieberman, but before he can relay the evidence, Kohler is killed.
Thus Ira Levin opens one of the strangest and most masterful novels of his career. Why has Mengele marked a number of harmless aging men for murder? What is the hidden link that binds them? What interest can they possibly hold for their killers: six former SS men dispatched from South America by the most wanted Nazi still alive, the notorious ?Angel of Death?? One man alone must answer these questions and stop the killings?Lieberman, himself aging and thought by some to be losing his grip on reality.
None interest you? I have yours from your PM still to read, had several PMs before yours though.
Lusiphur
Peasant
- 595
- 47
I would prefer to see more recent stuff, especially in the SF category. You did an old series in that category last month, I had hoped you would go for something newer. Hence the sigh.
The rest don't interest and I have already read Bad Monkey (average by Hiaasen's standards). No drama though and I will check in again next month.
The rest don't interest and I have already read Bad Monkey (average by Hiaasen's standards). No drama though and I will check in again next month.
Two books aren't essentially brand new. I will try to be better about my SF picks, do you want them to be 2013 only? Can I go all the way in the time machine back to 2012? Considering last year and this year are mediocre at best I figured taking people's suggestions from PM's was a good idea.