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What book have you read lately ?


Mine - When a Pet Dies

I've lost seven pets in the last 5 years. I am an avid animal advocate. It is terribly heartbreaking.

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My sister's diary

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😄

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Currently reading "Three Scientists and their Gods", by Robert Wright. Reminding me a lot of "The Selfish Gene" which I loved.

Before that, "The Runaway Species", by David Eagleman and Anthony Brandt. Typically insightful (of Eagleman).

Before that, "The Vital Question", by Nick Lane. Very science heavy informed-speculation-about-the-origin-of-complex-life type book. Really good stuff.

Before that, "The Big Picture", by Sean Carroll (for the second time). Such an amazing book! Must read. If you read one book in the next decade, pick this one.

Before that, "Homo Deus", by Yuval Noah Harari. Scary stuff about the future of humanity. Spoiler, we Sceerewed!

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(Not sure why my formatting is all screwed up there. I double checked and did everything right, as far as I can tell...)

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(Looks like it italicized everything between the first set of brackets and the last set. What good is that?!)

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I think there have been issues with some of the formatting for some people here. I tried bolding once and it bolded the entire message instead of just the words I wanted. So I ended up editing the bolding out.

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I'm reading David Talbot's book Season of the Witch about San Francisco in the 1960s & 1970s. I was there! Great book!

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Wow, I wanted to go in 1969. Never got there, sadly.

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I'm sorry you've lost so many beloved pets in such a short span of years. That is so difficult and heartbreaking. I wish I had some words of comfort and wisdom, but all I can really say is I know this pain. I hope it eases for you. And I thank you for your work on behalf of animals.

I'm presently reading Murakami's 1Q84, but the last book I finished was Joe Hill's The Fireman. Hill has impressed me in the past and I have no doubt he will again, but The Fireman didn't manage to keep me invested in its characters.

The last thing I read that gave me chills of awe wasn't a book, but this poem by Franny Choi: http://www.theadroitjournal.org/issue-twenty-franny-choi-the-adroit-journal/

I keep going back to read it. The experience is freshly devastating every time.





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What's this one about?

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The poem? It's about imagining alternate realities where you didn't lose a cherished loved one.

If you were asking about the Murakami book, it's about (as near as I can tell) a reality slightly shifted from our own. And honestly, I think I'm failing this book as a reader. I just can't seem to sink into it. I give myself a D- for effort because others seem to love it. I'm determined to finish it, but uuuurgh. I have literally been reading it for months with little joy.

The Fireman is a post-apocalyptic book not entirely dissimilar in premise to Joe's dad's The Stand. I typically enjoy Joe's writing, so I'm not sure how I failed so utterly to enjoy this novel.

Okay, I sound like a bad reader. Maybe I am. The last book I loved unconditionally was Carey's The Girl With All The Gifts. (And the movie was horrid. Oh, how I wish I'd never set eyes upon it.) I'm looking forward to reading Danielewski's House Of Leaves next, but I can't quite give myself permission to abandon 1Q84. You know, there's really no way around it. I really am a bad reader right now.

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House of Leaves is amazing. It is also very difficult to read. It uses many quirky devices but it all comes together in the "punchline". I often think what a great movie it would make, though, not sure how it could be adapted to screen.

The Stand , not Stephen King's?
BYW, thank you for your kind remarks about my sweet furbabies. It is a terrible thing.

I just can't read poetry anymore. Just don't have the patience for abstractness at my age.

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Current book is The Ice Man by Philip Carlo.

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Is this good?

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It’s messed up. To think there are people like him walking amount us is terrifying.
It’s about serial killer Richard Kuklinski.

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I really like bios of serial killers. I've read books by John Douglas and Robert Ressler , FBI profilers. Scary stuff. Three dozen serial killers walking around at any one time in the US? Gah!

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I've read The Boston Strangler by Gerald Frank which was adapted into a movie of the same name starring Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the confessed killer. Also, Born to Raise Hell : The Untold Story of Richard Speck. That creeped me out because I remember following the coverage of that case on television. Especially vivid still is the image of the hysterical surviving nurse on the ledge of her building in the aftermath of the slaughter. Both were very captivating reads.

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DaSalvo may not have committed all of the murders.

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I'm aware that there's controversy surrounding the case. I remember watching at least one documentary addressing that.

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It seems that he probably did the crimes.

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he was a rapist but not a killer.

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Well, I guess we will not know for sure.

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true

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Yes, I read the DeSalvo book and saw the movie.

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I read this years ago - chilling

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Enemies Foreign and Domestic

A novel about the cost of freedom in the age of terror

by Matthew Bracken

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I can imagine this is some scary stuff.

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