What are you reading this week of May 7, 2017?

[hermetic]

I'm still reading the same book. Been kinda busy...

We went to an art festival yesterday at the local U and one lady did book folding. There was one like this, that I thought was pretty.

I did not look close enough to see what books she was actually using but it got me to thinking. Is that the proper way to treat a book, after all? I suppose certain authors would be easier to use/destroy. What do you think?

AND, what are you reading or dreaming about this week.

from your deliriously happy host!

[democratisphere]

1. The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Planning ahead.

[hermetic]

2. Truly!

Some things never change.

[democratisphere]

4. .......and history always repeats itself.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. The Road to Jonestown by

Jeff Guinn.

It's impressively researched. I was an adult when the Jonestown Massacre happened, and recall all too well that it took nearly a week for exactly what happened to be known.

[hermetic]

5. Me, too

Some things just can't be forgotten.

[TEB]

6. Aztec Gary Jennings rereading it from 30 years ago

Aztec is about there civilization before the spaniards destroyed there world . Mixtli is the focus of this novel , it is told by priest that interview mixtli. Then they send letters back to king of Spain from interviews talking with him.

[hermetic]

9. Sounds fascinating.

Thanks for sharing.

[TexasProgresive]

7. "The Lost City of the Monkey God" by Douglas Preston

I finished Reliquary by him and Child. I really enjoyed the book. The guy who leads our group bike rides thought it wasn't as good as Relic but he is continuing to read the rest of the Special Agent Pendegast series. Reading the non fiction THe Lost City of the Monkey God I get the sense that certain aspects of the writer/journalist Bill Smithback are abased upon Douglas Preston himself. In Monkey God Preston on his first night in the rain forest founds himself face to face with a fer de lance snake. It was so Smithback to me - putting himself in harms way seeking a story. There's more but that is the one I just read.

There is a scene of a woman wiping up a bunch of middle and upper class types into a rage. That seems true to life to me. It doesn't take much to get people riled up to the point of violence.

Back to snakes:

I am not morbidly afraid of snakes, but Barbara Kingsolver Poisonwood Diary and know this book had allowed 2 snakes to slither into my subconscious; the green Mamba and now the fer de lance. A few years ago a local herpetologist bitten by fer de lance while in Central America. She survived only because she was with friends who got her immediate care with antivenom. Even with that she walks with a limp because the bite deformed her leg.


Fer de lance


Green mamba

[hermetic]

10. Hooboy!

I can't wait to read that one!

Snakes don't scare me. Had a garter snake for a pet about 20 years ago. Named him Zaphod. Sure wouldn't want to cross paths with either of those guys above, though.

Good news: My bicycle has been freed from captivity! My sweetie has airplane wire cutters so he cut the cable. I hope to get it on the street in a couple of days and start riding, although since I now have access to a vehicle, I don't need to use it as such. I'll just ride it for fun and good health.

[Number9Dream]

13. Recently finished "Lost City of the Monkey God"

I enjoyed the first 3/4's of the book, dealing with the lost city. When he began going into great detail regarding diseases, it got rather dry. I get the significance of the diseases mentioned, but I was much more interested in the city itself.

[hermetic]

17. Hey, thanks for your input!

When I first discovered the book online it came with a big spoiler about the ending. Likewise, I am much more intrigued by the city.

[Runningdawg]

8. I am half way though

The Chemist by Stephenie Meyer The story of a female black-ops agent, whose specialty is torture, gone rouge.
I just added Lost City Of The Monkey God to my hold list.

[shenmue]

11. Silent Hall by NS Dolkart and the Serpent Bride by Sara Douglas

[hermetic]

18. Sara Douglass

A new name to me so I did some searching and learned she was quite a prolific writer who penned twenty some fantasy novels plus short stories. She won several awards in her short lifetime of 54 yrs, leaving us in 2011. She was Australian and spent her final years in Tasmania.

Silent Hall is another tale of wizards, dragons, fairies, which sounds highly entertaining.

[PoorMonger]

12. A Harvest of Thorns by Corban Addison

A beloved American corporation with an explosive secret.

A disgraced former journalist looking for redemption.

A corporate executive with nothing left to lose.

In Dhaka, Bangladesh, a garment factory burns to the ground, claiming the lives of hundreds of workers, mostly young women. Amid the rubble, a bystander captures a heart-stopping photograph—a teenage girl lying in the dirt, her body broken by a multi-story fall, and over her mouth a mask of fabric bearing the label of one of America’s largest retailers, Presto Omnishops Corporation.

Eight thousand miles away at Presto’s headquarters in Virginia, Cameron Alexander, the company’s long-time general counsel, watches the media coverage in horror, wondering if the damage can be contained. When the photo goes viral, fanning the flames of a decades-old controversy about sweatshops, labor rights, and the ethics of globalization, he launches an investigation into the disaster that will reach further than he could ever imagine—and threaten everything he has left in the world.

A year later in Washington DC, Joshua Griswold, a disgraced former journalist from the Washington Post, receives an anonymous summons from a corporate whistleblower who offers him confidential information about Presto and the fi re. For Griswold, the challenge of exposing Presto’s culpability is irresistible, as is the chance, however slight, at redemption. Deploying his old journalistic skills, he builds a historic case against Presto, setting the stage for a war in the courtroom and in the media that Griswold is determined to win—both to salvage his reputation and to provoke a revolution in Presto’s boardroom that could transform the fashion industry across the globe.

[getting old in mke]

14. The next book in the Culture Series for me

Excession by Iain M Banks.

I'll try to stretch out the rest of the Culture books since he's no longer around to write more

[hermetic]

19. How very sad

Another amazingly prolific author who was only with us for 59 years. As a Scot, myself, I felt quite touched by his passing in '13.
In 2008, The Times named Banks in their list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945."

[PoorMonger]

15. Postmortem By Patricia Cornwell

(Kay Scarpetta #1)

Under cover of night in Richmond, Virginia, a monster strikes, leaving a gruesome trail of stranglings that has paralyzed the city. Medical examiner Kay Scarpetta suspects the worst: a deliberate campaign by a brilliant serial killer whose signature offers precious few clues. With an unerring eye, she calls on the latest advances in forensic research to unmask the madman. But this investigation will test Kay like no other, because it’s being sabotaged from within—and someone wants her dead.

I wanted to get into an easy reading procedural series so I finally decided to give this a chance.

[PoorMonger]

16. Blue Light Yokohama by Nicolas Obregon

Newly reinstated to the Homicide Division and transferred to a precinct in Tokyo, Inspector Iwata is facing superiors who don't want him there and is assigned a recalcitrant partner, Noriko Sakai, who'd rather work with anyone else. After the previous detective working the case killed himself, Iwata and Sakai are assigned to investigate the slaughter of an entire family, a brutal murder with no clear motive or suspect. At the crime scene, they find puzzling ritualistic details. Black smudges. A strange incense smell. And a symbol―a large black sun. Iwata doesn't know what the symbol means but he can hear it whispering to him: I am here. I am not finished.

As Iwata investigates, it becomes clear that these murders by the Black Sun Killer are not the first, nor the last attached to that symbol. As he tries to track down the history of black sun symbol, puzzle out the motive for the crime, and connect this to other murders, Iwata finds himself racing another clock―the superiors who are trying to have him removed for good. Haunted by his own past, his inability to sleep, and a song, 'Blue Light Yokohama,' Iwata is at the center of a compelling, brilliantly moody, layered novel sure to be one of the most talked about debuts in 2017.

[hermetic]

20. Thanks, as always,

for your detailed descriptions. Def going to keep an eye out for this one.

[PoorMonger]

21. Musical Suggestion - "Blue Light Yokohama"

https://m.

This one was kind've a no brainer on my part since the book itself was named after the song - and it played into the internal dialog of Inspector Iwata.

I found the book to be very engaging for a debut. I'm hopeful that this becomes a series.