what are you reading?

Patty said:
I just started Billy Summers, and am liking it a lot. My husband, meanwhile, is reading Fairy Tale. Completely by accident, we both downloaded books by Stephen King.
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Fairy Tale is on my list of want to reads. I just started a book recommended by Stephan King, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. In the cover blurb he writes:

"I flat out loved The Story of Edgar Sawtelle. I close the book with that regret readers feel only after experiencing the best stories. It's over, you think, and I won't read another one this good for a long, long time....Wonderful, mysterious, long and satisfying: readers who pick up this novel are going to enter a richer world. I envy them the trip. I don't reread many books because life is too short. I will be rereading this one. "

I don't know what made me pick this book off the shelf at Goodwill but after reading King's blurb I thought for a bit less than $3.00 I'd give it a try.
 
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mikelz777 said:
I just finished Stephen King's Billy Summers. For me, King's books are like comfort food - familiar, enjoyable and satisfying. This story was not an exception, I enjoyed it. Now I need to keep whittling away at my book pile. I've been buying them a lot faster than I've been reading them.
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King is sometimes dismissed by the unknowing as "just a horror story writer." Despite his prodigious output, he is an excellent writer. His characters, dialog, scene-setting, and storyline are all first-class. I recently enjoyed both Billy Summers and Fairy Tale. Two very different but excellent books. Stephen King is one of the few authors that I like to go back months or years later and reread. I've probably read The Stand four or five times over the years.
 
Larry U said:
King is sometimes dismissed by the unknowing as "just a horror story writer." Despite his prodigious output, he is an excellent writer. His characters, dialog, scene-setting, and storyline are all first-class. I recently enjoyed both Billy Summers and Fairy Tale. Two very different but excellent books. Stephen King is one of the few authors that I like to go back months or years later and reread. I've probably read The Stand four or five times over the years.
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I've read The Stand 2-3 times myself and I agree with everything you've said about King. I always look forward to his books and I've enjoyed almost everything he's written. I think I've read everything except Fairy Tale and some of his short story collections. From time to time he can be a bit guilty of bloat but at least it's well written bloat. I didn't especially care for his collaborations with Peter Straub and for whatever reason I couldn't get in to his Dark Tower series despite multiple tries. I think I've only read the first two or three and I found myself having to push through the ones I did read.
 
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mikelz777 said:
I've read The Stand 2-3 times myself and I agree with everything you've said about King. I always look forward to his books and I've enjoyed almost everything he's written. I think I've read everything except Fairy Tale and some of his short story collections. From time to time he can be a bit guilty of bloat but at least it's well written bloat. I didn't especially care for his collaborations with Peter Straub and for whatever reason I couldn't get in to his Dark Tower series despite multiple tries. I think I've only read the first two or three and I found myself having to push through the ones I did read.
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I agree with your "well-written bloat" statement. There are times when I wish he would just move on, but he keeps adding more and more layers to the onion. There were a few of those instances in Fairy Tale, but overall, the novel was still quite enjoyable.

I also didn't care for the Dark Tower series, but you can't hit the bullseye every time.
 
Stephen king is also a very nice man, generous in supporing and encouraging other writers, blurbing their books and so on. In fact, he’s the kind of guy who would play a ukulele!

In fact, he does play guitar, and for several decades he played in a rock group formed of well-known authors who performed for charity, a self-styled “hard listening” band called the Rock Bottom Remainders:

www.mitchalbom.com

Rock Bottom Remainders » Mitch Albom

By day, they’re authors.
www.mitchalbom.com

Here he is, rockin’ out:

 
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The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. An amazing description of all of the various interactions between trees and their fellow living things that lead to a healthy forest. Thwer is a lot more to tree life than I could have ever imagined.
 
dancephoto said:
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. An amazing description of all of the various interactions between trees and their fellow living things that lead to a healthy forest. Thwer is a lot more to tree life than I could have ever imagined.
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You may also enjoy Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simard.
 
I’ve got three books on the go at the moment.

Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith, very entertainingly written and quite fascinating, I do love a cephalopod .

The Indifferent Stars Above by Daniel James Brown, which was mentioned by someone on this thread (can’t remember who, but thank you!). I didn’t know much about the Donner Party and I’m really enjoying the book so far, but I haven’t got to the harrowing part yet.

The Birdcage by Eve Chase, which is a very English bit of fluff for when I’m too tired to concentrate on either of the other two. I’m hoping someone’s going to get murdered soon.
 
TBB said:
Other Minds: The Octopus and the Evolution of Intelligent Life by Peter Godfrey-Smith, very entertainingly written and quite fascinating, I do love a cephalopod .
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I must look for this!!! I am a hug cephalopod fan.
 
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ploverwing said:
I must look for this!!! I am a hug cephalopod fan.
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They’re incredible aren’t they? I’ve also got a book called The Soul of an Octopus, by Sy Montgomery, which my mother gave me for Christmas. It looks wonderful but I’ve only read the first few pages, I thought having two octopus books on the go at once might get a bit confusing 😂
 
The Passage by Justin Cronin
So far it's like The Stand, Species, Train to Busan, The Last of Us, Congo and I Am Legend all thrown in a blender. And that's just at the half way point of the novel.
 
kkimura said:
The Passage by Justin Cronin
So far it's like The Stand, Species, Train to Busan, The Last of Us, Congo and I Am Legend all thrown in a blender. And that's just at the half way point of the novel.
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I loved The Passage, and the other books in the trilogy, was actually thinking about rereading them just the other day. Thanks for the reminder!
 
kkimura said:
The Passage by Justin Cronin
So far it's like The Stand, Species, Train to Busan, The Last of Us, Congo and I Am Legend all thrown in a blender. And that's just at the half way point of the novel.
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Well, there's another one to add to my list. At this rate, I won't be allowed to die until I'm at least 120! :p
 
dancephoto said:
The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben. An amazing description of all of the various interactions between trees and their fellow living things that lead to a healthy forest. Thwer is a lot more to tree life than I could have ever imagined.
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What do you think of the theory/discovery about fungi linking all trees together? Is that in there?
 
Nickie said:
What do you think of the theory/discovery about fungi linking all trees together? Is that in there?
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That's definitely in Finding the Mother Tree by Suzanne Simmard; in fact, that was her research. She may not be the originator of the theory, but she certainly pioneered it.
 
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