I just bought a full set of Neil Gaiman books. I'll be reading all of them throughout this quarantine.
Haven't read Gilbert before. I've read a few books on the 2nd world war. I think my favorite is Ian Kershaw - Hitler. The single volume edition. Still 1500 pages. He has an expanded 2 volume biography on Hitler that is almost 4000 pages.
There's a series by Mark Zuehlke that covers Canada's WWII campaigns individually that's well worth the deep dive if you're a history junkie - https://www.amazon.ca/s?i=stripbooks...line_sr_book_1
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I just bought a full set of Neil Gaiman books. I'll be reading all of them throughout this quarantine.
Jo Nesbø - Nemesis. Love me my Norwegian crime stories.
Into the second game of thrones book. Is the tv series worth watching once I finish the series?
Associate Editor for DobberHockey (Wednesdays). Click that Ramblings button on the the menu bar!
(No I don't have a hockey problem...)
Yes. I read the 5 books before watching the series. And, to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how anyone can follow the plot and families on the TV without reading the books first. For me personally, reading the books before watching the show made the show much more enjoyable. (Plus the show takes you to the conclusion, whereas who knows if the last two books will ever be published. It's been seven years since Book 5 came out. So unless you want to wait until 2030 or so to know what happens....
https://www.amazon.ca/Trading-Bases-.../dp/0451415175
A Moneyball esque look into baseball gambling lol.
Yeah, that's the sense I'm getting. Still not waiting as long as for the third Name of the Wind book, but I get the sense it just might not happen. It's sad though because as little as I paid attention to the tv series, I have still heard about how terrible the last season was.
Associate Editor for DobberHockey (Wednesdays). Click that Ramblings button on the the menu bar!
(No I don't have a hockey problem...)
If you seriously haven't been into this story... you'll love it.
I, personally, think it's the greatest story of all-time. (whether GRRM finishes it... is another topic).
Keep track of eye-color references from the first book... and you'll love it even more.
In either the 2nd or 3rd book there's some visions for Dany in the "House of the Undead".
Read that shit carefully... twice. I think there's some big foretelling there.
Martin (author) & his publisher have both mentioned that he gives very subtle hints, then stronger hints, then reveals.
So a lot of the "what will happen" can be speculated and solved... if you are really clever.
This makes it a super excellent book to read on different levels.
Martin loves to foretell, but also to misdirect - so that you don't come up with the story's likely path.
Brilliant stuff.
Enjoy. (I think I've read it through three times now).
What else have I read over last couple years...
Not much.
My oldest daughter is 10... and to keep her in reading, I read a lot of Early-Teen stuff just to discuss it with her.
She read through the Hunger Games trilogy and then we both read the recent prequel by Suzanne Collins (Snakes & Songbirds)... which was... not good.
Her elementary has a "Reading Bowl" and I probably read 4 or 5 of the 10 books on the list just to help her prepare.
For "grown-up books"...
I read 2-3 books by Elizabeth Strout incl. My Name Is Lucy Barton, Olive Kitteridge, and the Burgess Boys.
Strout is incredible at character development, but I thought Olive Kitteridge was a bit overrated ("story parts", I call it).
Burgess Boys I really liked.
I try harder these days (with wife + two daughters) to read more female-centric stories.
So I read Where the Crawdads Sing - one of the big hits among age 25-45 women.
It's a decent story... with an ending that... well, people could debate the actual logistics/merits of...
But overall, it was an OK read, I'm glad I read it. (But as a person of logic... there are some things that don't mesh out well for me.)
I read two books by Neal Stephenson.
Anathem was great - LOVED that one.
Cryptonomicon, I believe, is more acclaimed - but that one was a bit too tricky to get into and the characters didn't strike me well.
I made a third (and FINAL) attempt at reading The Brother Karamazov by Dostoyevsky... couldn't do it.
My 23-year old brain could've digested that... at 43... I've lost a step towards having the attention span to take in the deep works of classic literature. I gave up. I feel great shame.
Probably my favourite book was The Dinner, by Herman Koch.
For me... it's an excellent story, that one may not realize is an excellent story until they get to the end and digest it all.
[Personally - I think online ratings bring it down because some people really have expectations towards endings... and Koch shatters those expectations pretty hard here.]
For those that might consider read it... I'd highly recommend pausing at the 1/4 mark, 1/2 mark, 3/4 mark and say "What do I think about these characters?".
Write your thoughts down, then re-examine if your opinion(s) change as the book goes on.
That's people, in life, though. You only, ever, know... a certain amount.
As I age... I find that good characters... GREAT character development... can really make a book for me.
I found a lot of the same things in the Name of the Wind series. There's magic to words there, and the author actually worked it so that when key characters are introduced the number of words spoken shows part of the character path. Similar kind of subtle hint things.
Definitely enjoying it so far!
Associate Editor for DobberHockey (Wednesdays). Click that Ramblings button on the the menu bar!
(No I don't have a hockey problem...)
Just finished TEEMU, and Most Valuable (Sidney Crosby bio). Teemus book is in the third person and he interjects every now and then with his story which makes it not an autobiography but it’s still cool to get the inside story.
Now reading Eddie Olzycks book. It’s pretty good reading, didn’t realize he was such a highly touted prospect and had a really good few seasons. What’s funny tho is every player that’s ever played for Torts always he’s an absolute a-hole of a coach. Not one guy says he was good.
ESPN Roto 10 team
24 man roster (+3 IR) - Keep 20 - Daily settings
Start 3C, 3LW, 3RW, 5D, 2G, 1UTIL
G,A,PTS, +/-, PIM, PPA, PPG, D PTS - W, SV, SV%
C- Zegras, Rossi, Carlsson, Fantilli, Norris
RW- Batherson, Michkov, Quinn, Perfetti(C,LW), Foerster, Kakko
LW- BTkachuk, Stutzle(C), McTavish(C), Benson
D- Mintyukov, Sanderson, LHughes, Clarke, Drysdale, Korchinski
G- Wolf, Askarov, Wallstedt
IR-
IR-
IR-
Picks in 2024/25 1, 2, 4, 5
Picks in 2025/26 rounds 1,3,4,4
This is the big difference between the good fantasy writers and the "I just want to sell another book" fantasy writers. When you are reading books by George Martin or Patrick Rothfuss, you find your self re-reading parts as you finish them and then again a few chapters later when you realize that you should have known this was coming. When you read books by the Sandersons, the Hobbs, the Weeks, you just read it once to get to the end.
Associate Editor for DobberHockey (Wednesdays). Click that Ramblings button on the the menu bar!
(No I don't have a hockey problem...)