What is everyone reading at the moment?

Pretty much what it says on the tin. What are you reading? How are you liking it? If you recently finished a book you want to talk about, let's hear that, too.

I personally generally have two books going at any given time. I listen to an audiobook during my commute, and read a book on my Kindle.

Currently

• Listening: Hard Day's Knight by John G. Hartness. Haven't actually started this one, but it's a short, fluffy urban fantasy horror. Nothing particularly interesting.
  
• Reading: Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older. Just started. A YA fantasy. I've ready other books by Older and he is a great writer. Urban fantasy that's a bit more authentically urban than the kind of bland stuff in most UF books.
  

Just finished Mark Lawrence's The Liar's Key, which is an epic quest fantasy sort of stood on its head. The main character is kind a jerk, is definitely in it against his will, but he's also charming and funny, so you get put in the awkward situation of rooting for some schmuck you can hardly help but like. Even though you know he's a narcissist, womanizer and coward.

Right now, I'm reading a gothic novel, The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters.  I was looking for something different and this certainly is not my normal read.  I don't think I'd recommend it but it's not too bad.



Before that, I finished All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr.  This has been #1 or #2 on the Los Angeles Times best seller list for more than a year so I finally decided to give it a go.  Frankly, I was disappointed.  The theme seemed extremely interesting but, ultimately, I just found it a bland read.  I admit that, based on reviews, I definitely seem to be in the minority but I just never got 100% involved with the two main characters.



The best book I have read in the last few months is The Martian by Andy Weir.  It is, for lack of a better term, realistic science fiction.  I could not put it down. Finding himself alone on Mars after an aborted mission from Earth, a man does all he can to survive.  His intelligence is topped only by his very human mistakes and humor.

I'm not much of a reader at all, but can't seem to put this one down.

It helps that I love to BBQ and smoke meat.

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Hi Bruce. Lots of folk read cookbooks and the food in that one looks particularly delicious.

Hi Bruce. Lots of folk read cookbooks and the food in that one looks particularly delicious.

This one was a PIF and is mainly technique, tutorials, how to pick and trim meat, plate it and of course smoke it. I learn something every time I pick it up.

It did spark my interest to add a Weber and Lodge cook book.

So far I'm half through the Ncronomicon and then it's onto Eldritch Tales, all of the collected stories from H.P. Lovecraft. And, damn, some of his stuff.. don't read it while intoxicated, in any form, it will screw with you're mind. Not that I'm speaking from experience... no really I'm not! >.>

Right now I'm in the middle of Adams' biography of King C. Gillette and Roy Underhill's Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker.  Both are suffering though because I just got in a copy of Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley.  The photography in that book is amazing.

Karl

Right now I'm in the middle of Adams' biography of King C. Gillette and Roy Underhill's Calvin Cobb: Radio Woodworker.  Both are suffering though because I just got in a copy of Virtuoso: The Tool Cabinet and Workbench of Henry O. Studley.  The photography in that book is amazing.

Those all sound pretty great. I should probably read more biography type stuff. Maybe I'll do that next, with a subject I already know I'm into. The Impressionists maybe? Dali?

I finished both of my books from last week.

• Despite my already high expectations, Shadowshaper exceeded them. The book ended up hitting on so many levels. Great stuff.
  
• Despite my already low expectations, A Hard Day's Knight managed to disappoint.
  

I'm on the next book in both audio and eBook format.

• Malus Domestica by S. A. Hunt (eBook) is a horror novel with a lot of interesting references to Classical myth and literature. So far, very interesting. Creepy and tense.
  
• Three by Jay Posey is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi story. So far, I don't really know a lot except that the eponymous Three is a bounty hunter, something horrible comes out in the wilderness after dark, and some kid and his mom are on the run. Posey does a good job evoking the environment and people with his language, though. Good sign.
  

I've just finished reading the last two novels in the 'Dresden Files' by Jim Butcher - 'Cold Days' and 'Skin Game'.

I quite like the series - it has engaging characters, is smart, and the character development over the series is interesting. There's also humour and some sly pop-culture references. 

All-in-all, it's a fun series, and Butcher is a good author (I like some of his other series too). 

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I am a huge fan of Val McDermid's Tony Hill series.  McDermid is a Scottish author living in England and is known for her various murder/police procedural series. (There are others besides the Tony Hill books.)  Tony Hill is a psychological profiler who, along with Carol Jordan, the DCI he works with, attempts to get to the killer before he or she can strike again. The tension builds nicely as the story progresses.  The one I am currently reading is Cross and Burn.