What book(s) are you reading currently?

[73north]

Originally Posted by rewbear

I'm currently reading 'All the President's Men' by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the story of how they uncovered the top-level conspiracy to hide the US President's staff's involvement in an attempted break-in at the offices of the Democratic National Party headquarters in the Watergate building. It's about the fourth or fifth time I've read this book because the vast number of characters involved makes it sometimes difficult to follow the 'story' but it's an enthralling read nonetheless.

The other book ( less well-known )
is THE FINAL DAYS which covers the scene inside the White House
( by the same authors - published later )

[buttsie]

Originally Posted by Zefrem23

Reading 'The Expanse' novels by James S.A. Corey (new Syfy series based on them came out this year). Good, detailed Space Opera with plausible intra-system travel. Recommended.

Babylons Ashes - 6th book - something to fill in the time while waiting for the Expanse on TV or DVD to make it to Australia - thats the 2nd season not 3rd -
bloody Amazon buying the worldwide rights.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...abylon-s-ashes

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Expanse_(novel_series)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon%27s_Ashes

[tsunamiSD]

One is actually a graphic novel by Rick Geary, maybe the first that he has done that is fiction, instead of being fact-based, called 'Louise Brooks - Detective.' The frontispiece sets the scene, and I quite enjoyed the little murder mystery, even though Louise doesn't quite get everything right at the end.



The second is something of an oddity, apparently it might be considered a 'vanity' book in that the author is also the publisher. But I thought the story, a time-traveling fantasy was done well, given the (wrong, in my opinion) assumption that Louise Brooks was the type to commit suicide over scandalous photos sinking her movie career. The story bounces from the 'present' of October 2011 and the 'past' of October 1927. What travels via the agency of the vanity (as in a piece of furniture) are letters, photos, newspaper clippings, and (I kid you not) a Kobe Bryant jersey! As the saying goes, All's Well That Ends Well.





Scans are by me...

[footstep]

Everything's eventual.
Stephen King.
14 short stories .

[KissArmy]

Cleopatra, by Stacy Schiff. This bestseller from about 7 years ago tells a good story about the life and times of Cleopatra. The author tries her best to cut through the propaganda and rumor that later "historians" wrote about this most famous Egyptian Queen, but some of it still seeps into this book. Parties, parades, banquets, and Alexandria are so fantastically opulent that they have to be based on gross exaggerations by sensationalist writers decades and centuries later. If you're interested in Roman history from Julius Casear to Augustus, this book is a good read too.

[tsunamiSD]

My niece sent me some books that she thought that I would like, some of which are the basis for movies. The Club Dumas is the novel that the movie 'The Ninth Gate' is based on. Although I liked the movie well enough, the book is much better. The book is quite erudite, and half of it's plot was dropped from the movie – the part that the title refers to. In the novel, Lucas (not Dean) Corso has a manuscript he is trying to authenticate called 'the Anjou Wine' (which is chapter 42 of The Three Musketeers.) although the majority of the book is seen from his point of view, several chapters are from the viewpoint of Boris Balkan, an editor and writer (not the antagonist of the movie, that 'Balkan' is actually called Borja in the book.) Names throughout the novel are changed in the movie, why I do not know. The castle ending is somewhat like the movie (without the sex), but more circumspect about the girl (who is never named.)

[jokerman]

The mystery of Olga Chekova. By Antony Beevor.
It's the true story of how a White Russian actress in Germany became a film star and Hitler's favourite actress. And how all the while that she was living in Germany she was also a spy for the NKVD.

[jokerman]

Originally Posted by navvet

Since I was a schoolboy, I've been a student of WWII. Although I well know the story of the battle of Stalingrad, Beevor's book is extraordinarily well written, and very absorbing.

Read the sequal to it. Berlin. It's just as good.

[rosestone]

'Day Out Of Days' by Sam Shepard.



Someone lent it to me, it's an odd slice of americana, it's either pretentious or it's just over my head (or both).

[Silklover]

The lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman