In the aftermath of the 2016 elections, the lead up to November 8th, I had been reading a lot of political history of the latter half of the 20th century. After The Donald won, I needed a change. While I have often found modern SciFi a bit hard to get into, I steeled myself and asked a High School friend, Chuck Serface for a couple of recommendations. First up was “All the Birds in the...
As a voracious reader, who primarily focuses on Science Fiction, I do branch out. One genre that I enjoy is the detective thriller. This penchant can be traced to my love of the Doc Savage stories of my youth, and has jumped into some more or less serious threads of what I read. From the flippant Stephanie Plum novels (a guilty, fun pleasure) to the work by J.A. Jance, I have enjoyed many a cliff...
I have a kindle, and I enjoy it. I haven’t always had a Kindle, I started as a Sony reader fan, and then an iPad user, but I succumbed to inevitability, and bought a Kindle. I like it. I do prefer a eInk reader to a tablet, and today, you have to work really hard to live in this space and not use a Kindle. I buy lots of books. Most are just throw-away pulpy fiction that I enjoy reading...
I have admitted to being a fan of the Doc Savage stories in the past. Fun, targeted at teenaged boys, and quick reading, they are the classic adventure stories. I read all 181 original stories, as well as all the modern additions. I have been searching for a similar series of stories, and am currently tasting the Matt Drake series by David Leadbeater. Not really in the Doc Savage mold, but more...
I thought I had written about this before, but apparently, searching my archives, I haven’t. Today’s the day I guess. It is no secret that I have a voracious appetite for reading. It started young, when I was in High School, and was heavily Science Fiction oriented. It was escape from some reality, and I doubled down. My introduction to Doc Savage came much earlier than that though In...
My first introduction to Robert Ludlum's books was back in the 1990's. I was traveling a lot, and my girlfriend at the time tossed me a book she had finished, Ludlum's "The Bourne Identity)". Not my usual read (science fiction), but it was an absolute page turner. I went on to read the rest of the Bourne trilogy, and a lot of the other works of Ludlum. Set in the cold war...
I remember my first introduction to the works of Harry Harrison. I was in high school, getting into a heavy science fiction groove, working my way through some of the classics. A friend, Ken Rice, tossed me a copy of “The Stainless Steel Rat”, a collection of the stories about Slippery Jim diGriz, a criminal mastermind with an ethical bent. I was hooked. The story reaches out and...
I am reading a great book by Daniel Boorstin, called “The Seekers”. It is a book about the different philosophers throughout recorded history, and how they influenced civilizations, arose as the religions, and in general seeking the meaning of life. The section I am reading now is about the Greek philosophers, particularly about Socrates. Great stuff, and I highly recommend the gook...
As I have mentioned many times, I have been a long time satisfied user of my reader and ebooks. Certainly better than hauling around a lot of dead trees when I travel. All good. I have been building a collection for more than 5 years now, from a variety of sources, many commercial, but also many of the free sources (Project Gutenberg) as well as some other sources for out of print books that are...
I am a gadget person. I have always loved tech, and have often been on the leading edge of trends and an early adopter. One category that I dove into head first was the e-Reader trend. I first stumbled across them in 2006, when Sony launched the PRS 500. I didn’t jumped then, but I had my eye on them. At the time, I was traveling the better part of 50% of the time. Being a life long reader...