Working my way through SHOOTER...great stuff. The guy formed a mobile sniper strike team in Iraq. He spent several days riding on the back of an armored Humvee shooting crap.

After that I'm going to read some trashy UFO "nonfiction." :D

I picked that one up a few months ago but haven't gotten around to reading it. I have read other McCarthy and imagined its just as you said. Depressing and hard to put down, plus the free flow lack of punctuation.

I'm about halfway through "The Kite Runner." I know folks have been talking about this for a couple of years, but...wow! What a well written book. There has been a couple of times I've had to put the book down for a few moments, because it can be absolutely gut wrenching. This morning, reading about his father dying had me in major tears. But I can't wait to pick it up again every time I put it down. I recommend this book for ANYONE!

A student really wanted me to read Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said by Phillip K. Dick because he's doing an independent study on PKD. I think I'm going to have to read some more stuff by this guy. This particular book is a little... sloppy in the way it's put together. Sort of reminds me of Pynchon in that you have to infer lots and lots of meaning and reality, like putting together a puzzle from subtle little hints and clues the author leaves you. I'm not sure I'm particularly buying the world that PKD is selling in this book, but it's interesting anyway.

Dick's one of the best and most influential writers of the 20th century, science fiction or otherwise. He's worth your time.

This particular book is, seriously, like reading a David Lynch movie or something.

I use the subscription feature, so I can easily find threads like these

You can set it up so you don't get emails and they all will be in your list subscriptions area

I might add that I'm going to avoid stories about starving people on roads for a while as Pillars and the Road have satiated my desire for this particular subject.

Yes indeed. "The Man in the High Castle" is one of my favorite novels. I've been told VALIS is also superb, but it's still in the "to read" pile.

Black Rednecks & White Liberals - Thomas Sowell

I am America, and so can you. Steven Colbert. It's very inlighten..........ahh **** it it's funny.

Mornings On Horseback by David McCullough

I'm just starting to read Ringworld by Larry Niven. One of the sci-fi 'classics' that I'd just skipped over for some reason. Odd, considering how many Niven/Pournelle books I like.

Just finished reading the latest in David Drake 'Lt. Leary' series, and the Court of the Crimson King by Stirling. Both are good, if you like the authors (I do). The Drake novel is just like all the others he writes...I happen to like the formula.
But the latest 'Mars and Venus' series from Stirling is an homage to all the 'life on nearby planets' books by authors like ER Burroughs that I grew up reading. I'm not Stirling's biggest fan, but these Mars and Venus books, I like.

'Flow My Tears' - mentioned above - is a tough read. It'll make more sense as you plow thru it but it's not an easy book.

One more book I read recently that I should mention. "Quartered Safe Out Here" by George MacDonald Fraser. GMF passed away this year, you may know him as the author of the Flashman series of historical fiction. Funny, funny stuff. He also wrote a few screenplays - the three musketeers/four musketeers is worth a rent sometime, just to see Rachel Welch fall down a lot...she looks GOOD doing pratfalls.
Anyway, QSOH is about Fraser's time in the British Army, fighting the japanese in Burma. A great 'common man' war diary, an excellent read, highly recommended. For the record, Fraser is opposite of political-correctness. If you can't stand that heat, stay out of his kitchen.

Ringworld and its sequels were great. The last one wasn't quite as good as the last three, and based on the ending I suspect he wrote it to show off. Louis Wu and Teela Brown are two of Niven's best characters, IMO.

I'll have to give Stirling's Mars/Venus a try. I...enjoyed doesn't seem the right word...his Draka novels (great dystopian writing), and the "Change/ISOT" series are fun, if a bit silly in places.


Thanks for the Fraser recommend, I liked the Flashman books, but haven't read that one.

QSOH might be Fraser's best book, really. Since he passed, they're releasing a new edition of it so it'll be easy to find.

There's another book coming out soon called 'Reavers' that's set in the border country between Scotland and England. It may be the last thing we'll see from him, which is a shame. I've waited a long time to find out how Flashman wound up on both sides in the US Civil War.