Posted on 01/23/2024 5:03:13 AM PST by Tanniker Smith
A long time ago, there was a Free Republic Book Club ... mostly because I opened my mouth and a bunch of people told me to organize one. I haven't pinged it in a long time. (Actually, another book club started, so I stopped.)
Any way, has anyone read any good books lately. Fiction, non-fiction, genre, mainstream. Anything you want to share?
Has anyone WRITTEN any good books that the rest of us should check out?
True. It’s amazing how the mind is able to fill in those gaps when watching the movies.
Read the first two - did not know there was a third book.
You might like “Conquerors: How Portugal Forged the First Global Empire” by Crowley. This really gave me a much better understanding of the Indian Ocean’s opening to the west.
I bet just about every veterinarian has ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL. My friend who runs Brentwood Animal Hospital in Tennessee has a very nice print edition.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s CANCER WARD is a wonderful novel and the translation by Nicholas Bethell and David Burg is brilliant (the translators took some license and according to some improved an already great novel). It is more about life than it is about the cancer hospital.
Thanks for starting this thread...currently reading a Biography of Bob Hope by Zoglin. Gave up on Noblest Triumph by Bethell, about Property Rights thru the ages. Just could not finish it.
““I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
Now they're saying he was "gay." I didn't know that till recently. I just like his stories. At least he didn't push it.
The fourth book, “Five Years After,” just came out.
A compilation of some official and personal papers of an irascible and thoroughly individualistic naval genius.
I am currently and very belatedly, working my way through “Something Wicked This Way Comes,” by Ray Bradbury. Wordy, but worth it. Well crafted.
“The Attack” by Kurt Schlichter.
Thousands of terrorists enter the US (while Biden/Harris are still in office) and slaughter thousands of Americans at their workplaces and their homes.
I remember when Jurassic Park came out. It was really different. Great book.
I hope someone is writing “Intervention”. where the military and a NY businessman Well, you know. 😉
Conservatives should love them. They are set in rural Wyoming and the characters are rugged individualists for whom hunting and firearms are part of their culture. Villains include environmentalist wackos, grooved-thinking bureaucrats and a corrupt RINO governor. The novels also address current issues like bitcoin and drones. And there is no sex or nudity.
I am shamelessly recommending my own novella (Historic Fiction Revolutionary War) “A Night that Saved Virginia” ebook 99 cents on Amazon:
http://a.co/d/gsMsC65
Currently reading: ‘Ordinary Grace’ by William Kent Kreuger. All of his books are terrific.
My Mom has gotten me hooked on ‘Women’s Murder Club’ books by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro - entertaining murder mysteries, good group of characters. ‘1st to Die’ starts the series of 23 now, I think?
I read a minimum of one book a week, so SOME of the books I’ve read in the recent past and have enjoyed:
‘Tom Lake’ by Anne Patchett
‘Once Upon a River’ by Diane Setterfield
‘The Lost Apothecary’ by Sarah Penner
‘Whiskey When We’re Dry’ by John Larison
‘The Snow Child’ by Eowyn Ivey
Anything by Dennis Le Hane and/or James Lee Burke and I really enjoyed the last three from Blake Crouch. I usually don’t like ‘fantasy’ type books but ‘Dark Matter’ ‘Recursion’ and ‘Upgrade’ were all really interesting and thought-provoking. :)
If you’ve never read the ‘Travis McGee’ series by John D. MacDonald, treat yourself. They’re awesome. I recommend them to anyone that will listen. :)
Start with ‘The Deep Blue Good-By.’
A Cry of Angels by Jeff Fields. Kinda cross between Tom Sawyer and To Kill a Mockingbird.
Not new and a little outdated but “A Short History of Nearly Everything” by Bill Bryson. Reading an interesting and well written book titled A Short History of Nearly Everything, in which the author tracks the progress if science fron ancient Greece to the modern day. What is evident, and the author admits, is that when it comes to settled science nothing is settled and much can hardly be called science. What we have, he says, is a mountain of theories built on a molehill of evidence, and even some of the evidence is questionable. What is amusing, and amazing, is how scientists of every stripe resist so vigorously anything that upsets their orthodox apple carts. The theory that a meteor strike killed the dinosaurs was dismissed by geologists, mostly, it seems, because it was proposed by people who were not geologists. Luis Alvarez, a Nobel-winning physicist who helped formulate the theory, joked, “We were caught practicing geology without a license.” Even today about a third of geologists continue to dismiss the theory. Settled science, it seems, is abhorrent to scientists who, nonetheless, continue to assure we peons that their lofty pronouncements are the final word on matters. Two things surprise me in A Short History of Everything. First, all of our scientific braggadocio aside, we are abysmally ignorant in everything from geology to physics. Second, an astounding amount of the scientific progress we have made was done by Christian clergymen. I can think of several reasons for this. Clergymen in the past were better educated than others and had the leisure time to investigate what they could see around them. It is axiomatic that all human progress depends on having free time to think without having to worry where your next meal is coming from. Beyond that the Bible encourages people to probe and pry. God demands that we ask questions and seek understanding. The Bible is not a textbook but when it spoke to questions of science it was hundreds of years ahead of its time. For instance, before the invention of the telescope astronomers thought there were about 10,000 stars. The Bible said the stars were beyond numbering. (We now estimate there are one septillion [1 followed by 24 zeros]).
“Exit Wounds” Lanny Hunter
“Killing the Witches”, Bill O’Reilly... Very Good
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