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In March, I read some novels for a change!

Famous Men Who Never Lived, a (I think debut) novel by K Chess. It's a sci-fi novel about being an interdimensional refugee. It was slight, but good while it lasted, and thoughtful. Some guy at a mexican restaurant wanted to know if it was about, like Robin Hood. Don't judge a book by its cover.

The City In The Middle Of The Night, by Charlie Jane Anders. This is a follow-two-people-and-meet-in-the-middle science fiction book set on a planet that doesn't rotate and people are forced to live right on the terminator line. It's got some good horror elements and puts some interesting thought into its setting. The story doesn't go where you think it's going, but you'll like where it goes (probably.)

Roadside Picnic, a classic piece of Russian science fiction, which people are probably more familiar with from the things it inspired, like Tarkovsky's film Stalker, and then the STALKER video games that came from that. Aliens visited our planet, but they didn't notice us. They left their trash behind. Bleak in a very Russian way. Excellent.

One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denosovich, the book that shocked the USSR by not being samizdat. It's a slim little thing but says a lot.

Hostage by Guy Delisle. This is the "unusual one" for Delisle, whose books are little sketches of life - it's a telling of someone else's story. This dude was kidnapped by Chechens and held hostage for about three months in 1997, until he escaped. An excellent and baffling story, with excellent artwork.

Things I've read, or reread, recently that might be interesting:

[Echopraxia] (https://www.amazon.com/Echopraxia-Peter-Watts/dp/0765328038) by Peter Watts.

"Sequel" to Blindsight, but it doesn't really matter if they're read in order or not. Echopraxia is full of interesting ideas - Vampires (cloned pre-stone age apex predators with superhuman intelligence), technology-enabled hive intelligences, military zombie soldiers, amidst the backdrop of civilization cannibalizes itself in a battle between post-human factions.

It's also difficult to follow, with it's perspective being that of an unmodified human who is functionally incapable of understanding the motivations and actions of the various super-human intelligences that are the driving forces of the story.

The author's background as a biologist add a level of veracity to the story, and the research is near-peerless.

If you like complex hard-science fiction, with a side order of philosophy of mind, you may love this book. If you don't, it might be a huge miss.

[The Fifth Ward: First Watch] (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=a9_sc_1?rh=i%3Astripbooks%2Ck%3Athe+fifth+ward%3A+first+watch&keywords=the+fifth+ward%3A+first+watch&triggered-weblabs=SEARCH_SPELLING_122845%3AT1&ie=UTF8&qid=1509561625) by Dale Lucas

Pure escapism. One part detective story, one part middle-earth style fantasy. Elfs, dwarves, orcs and murder.

The writing was solid enough to carry the book, and it was a fun read.

[Easy Strength] (https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Strength-Stronger-Competition-Dominate/dp/0938045806/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1509561859&sr=1-1&keywords=easy+strength) by Dan John & Pavel Tsatsouline

An easy enjoyable read, with a lot of useful information and anecdotes if you're interested in coaching.

This rekindled my interest in kettle bells for GPP, and has given me a bit to think about regarding programming and athletic development.

It's also made me interested in reading more of Pavels stuff - Pavels writing style made me basically discount him the when I glanced at one of his books in the past, and I suspect I need to re-evaluate that impression.

I read eight books in September. Between travel and general boredom, I finally started digging into the books on Kindle Unlimited and discovered a few series that I enjoyed, even though they are frustratingly incomplete.

The first was the Unsouled series (5 books) by Will Wight. The universe is a combination of high fantasy and sci-fi with an overarching flavor of Asian mythology. At first, I wasn't completely sold on it, but the characters have some interesting arcs, especially Lindon, the protagonist. If you're a fan of anime-style story arcs with underpowered protagonists bumblefucking their way to glory, you'll like it. Also, the books are really easy to read, but engaging enough to keep interest. 4/5 stars

Second, I read the Euphoria Online (2 books) series by Phil Tucker. It's a story about a dystopian future where humanity has surrendered control to an AI to help mitigate the damage that's been done to the environment. The AI has taken over government functions and put together a VR game for humanity. The game allows players who play on "Death March" mode, which can be fatal, to gain a boon from the AI and the protagonist decides to attempt it because his brother is on Death Row. 3.75/5 stars

The last book that I finished just last night is Pandemic by A.G. Riddle. It's a well written in a Tom Clancy/Dan Brown kind of way. The story involves a pandemic (shocking, right?), a secret society, and other airport paperback style shenanigans. It's an entertaining read, but not breaking any new ground. I enjoyed it simply for the rollercoaster ride of the plot. 3.5/5 stars.

I read finished Volume 5 of Churchill's WW2 memoirs, and then took a break and read the first three trades of The Wicked + The Divine and The Rise And Fall of D.O.D.O.

Churchill remains an extremely rewarding read, even though it's taken me ages, I'm really glad I've done it. It really gives a strong perspective on the period, supported by so many documents.

Wicked and Divine is fantastic from the stuff I've read so far. Definitely gonna continue reading it when I get a chance.

Rise and Fall of DODO was kind of disappointing, but it was a halfway decent novel. Just not as good as I was hoping. Having Stephenson co-write is probably a good idea, because there are actual coherent characters other than the Competent Nerd Dude. In point of fact, the Competent Nerd Dude is a super-minor character, and the book is actually written partially first person from a lady's perspective!

Definitely looking forward to August or so, when I finish up the Churchill memoirs and read a whole stack of novels for a break.

The Harlot By the Side of the Road: Really good read about sexuality, feminism, and power in the bible. Highly recommended and quite entertaining. The author translates stories like what happened with Lot's daughters into modern language, then gives as much historical context as possible. He then talks about similar themes in other biblical books and talks about current and old interpretations and sometimes translations.

Starship Troopers: Loved it! I'd heard it was different than the movie, and it really is. Most of the themes are the same, and you get a ton more context and history on the world/society. This is the first Heinlein book I've read that didn't require mindset adjustment time to deal with the way women are portrayed and treated.

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A bunch of random essays. Some I've liked, some I thought were dumb. I like the book of essays format, I don't feel as completionist with each one as I do with a normal book.

Conflict Communication (ConCom): A New Paradigm in Conscious Communication: I picked this up after the safety pin discussion came out. The discussions I had at the time made me realize that I have no deescalation skills, and I realized that I'd feel more secure in general if I learned some. I'm still on the theory of the book and am really enjoying how it's making me look at things differently.

Example: When you call someone a racist and ignore everything they have to say about anything, even unrelated stuff, are you then using the same mindset as a racist that does the same thing with a slur? Both are actions that other a person via name calling, and reduce that person's entire being down to a single trait.

He does talk about lizard and monkey brain, which maybe isn't super scientific, but I find the logic pretty easy to follow.

I'm in the middle of Wild about a woman who hikes the Pacific Coast Trail because I saw the movie trailer and I spotted it on a friend's bookshelf the next day. I'm about to start in on one about the politics of food safety because it's relevant to my job, I like the way Marion Nestle writes, and I enjoy topics like the politics of food safety.

Please share with me your favorite Faulkner text if you have one. I'm wanting to take him on vacation with me in a few weeks and am not sure if I want a reread or to pick a new one.

After the Victorians, by A.N. Wilson

It's a history of the UK from the death of Victoria to the coronation of Elizabeth II.

I've been getting into late 19th, early 20th century history because, A. that period is completely glossed over in school, and B. that's when the modern world was beginning to take shape.

• It focuses on the UK, but it's not just a straight political history. Wilson talks about everything: religion, poetry, the arts, politics, India, the rise of tabloid journalism, science, etc. And Wilson has a very elegant, upper class style to him. It's very dense, yet it flows very well. This isn't beach reading; this is "I want to be contemplative."
  
  It's also the first book in a long time where I'm actively looking up definitions to words.

I highly recommend this. It's filled with solid jokes, along with personal stories that are just fucking wonderful.

Finally finished my ASoIaF re-read, though I think that was before December. AFfC and aDwD are so fucking underrated. I seriously have a hard time figuring out who the hell is reading that series in the first place that somehow doesn't get those two books.

Kinda want to put some more fantasy/sci-fi in the rotation but over the last couple months I've made some attempts that remind me why I gave up most genre fiction. Started into Simmons' Hyperion and holy fuck if I never hear the word "cruciform" again . . . It seems like there could be a cool story under there, but the writing is clumsy as hell (yes, even after accounting for what's up with the stretch with all the "cruciform" bullshit). Listening to the audiobook might have aggravated the repetitiveness of some portions, but uggh. I feel like I'll eventually finish at least Hyperion just because of how much positive stuff I've heard about the story but I doubt it's gonna reel me in for the two sequels.

Also tried dipping my toe into the first of Sanderson's Stormlight books and goddamn I am not going to finish that one. Turns out everything in the world is a compound word, formed of the kewlest words Sanderson knows. Storm+light. Shard+blade. Oath+pact. "Oathpact." It's a compound word made out of fucking synonyms. It's super high fantasy, which makes me leery to begin with, but every other word is a proper compound noun that I would've made up for my D&D games when I was 11. Despite all the made up words there's still no useful descriptions of the world; I know the magic armor is scaled, but have no idea who the people being killed are or why I'd care. Like three chapters of this jargony bullshit and I still don't even know what the little fairies that apparently appear everywhere, constantly, in response to everyone's emotions, even look like. People sprinting across a battlefield can still casually converse about how clever their tactics are, even while too rushed to simply grip a shield. This is why genre fiction is a ghetto, people.

Got The Peripheral for my birthday a bit ago, and I'm about to be unemployed and sober for a bit so I'm going to be just straight blasting through this bitch. Got some book on a mathematical proof of natural selection for Christmas, should take about an afternoon it looks like.

After that I'm'a stack a couple serious sounding things -- Wittgenstein's Blue and Brown or Philosophic Investigations, go back and reread The Prince, like serious-taking-notes-and-shit style. Mebbe raid my buddy's library of political philosophy textbooks. And 1:1 salt in some lighter stuff -- still got a stack of Thompson's later shit to work through, still need to read Confederacy of Dunces, etc.

Just started The Humans Who Went Extinct: Why Neanderthals Died Out and We Survived. Intriguing so far. Shit like that fascinates me.

Ready Player One

I enjoyed it, sort of a Willy Wonka meets Grand Theft Auto V less the killing.

Currently reading
Greek Warfare: Myth and Realities by Hans Van Wees

and A Storm of Spears: Understanding the Greek Hoplite at War
by Christopher Matthews

both are examinations of Archaic and Classical Greek warfare. Fer people into serious history work, not light reading at all.

I read a lot of war history. This month I knocked out 3 solid books.

Band of Brothers I really enjoyed this book even though the war is a bit romanticized.

With The Old Breed a very in-depth document of the war in the Pacific from E.B. Sledge, a Marine mortarman.

Dagger 22 this one accounts the second half of a MARSOC deployment to Bala Murghab, Afghanistan. It is the sequel to Level Zero Heroes.