Books You've Read 2018 (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

Rather than tag onto the end of Books You've Read 2017, I thought I'd start a new thread.

Right now I'm reading a book I've heard about for decades but never found the time to read. It's titled Present At The Creation, with a subtitle My Years In The State Department, by Dean Acheson. Acheson was a household name in his time but young people today may barely know who Harry Truman was. Acheson served as Assistant or Under Secretary of State during WWII and shortly thereafter. Truman then promoted him to Secretary of State during 1949 - 1953.

You may ask "the creation of what"? It was the creation of the new world order, led by the United States, following the ruin of WWII. These elements include the founding of the UN, UNRRA, the Marshall Plan, the pacification of Germany and Japan, the Bretton Woods accords, the founding of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the founding of Israel, the founding of NATO, the negotiations for the European Coal and Steel Community that led to the EEC and later the EU.

In all of these things Acheson gives an insider's view of the debates and negotiations. The book is a difficult read today, although it probably was much easier to read when published in 1969. Acheson presumes the reader knows the background of all the people he deals with, which would have been true back then. The names of all these other actors were in the newspapers of the time. When Acheson talks about discussions with Marshall or Jimmy Byrnes or Ernie Bevin, you are given no introduction as to who these people are. If you are unfamiliar with the history of the time, you will need to go read summary bios on Wikipedia on every page.

I'm about a quarter of the way through now and it's a slow read for me, even though I'm sort of a history buff of that time.

 

[Stan]

A friend gave me "The Guilty" by David Baldacci, just a little to violent for her. It's really a pretty good story. About half way through it.

Love action/adventure books. Finished up "U.S.S. Seawolf" by Patrich Robinson a while ago. One of those military submarine stories, absolutely excellent. Also read a lot of Clive Cussler novels. They're really ridiculous but still fun. Although I've noticed his more recent stuff always has a co-writer, wonder if his health might be failing.

I'm a terrible reader, often reading 3-4 books at a time, just going back and forth between them.

 

[DaveF]

Thanks. I’ve been starting these threads the past few years. But it slipped my mind. Glad you got 2018 going.

 

[Rodney]

I've been picking up a lot of Elmer Kelton books lately, and yesterday I finished Wagontongue.

 

[RobertR]

Recently started reading Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, and just finished The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Great page turner, lots of crackling good action.

 

[bmasters9]

 

[Cees Alons]

Since September 2010 buying e-books (and still a few physical ones, of course), e-books bought en read in 2018:

A Time of Love and Tartan Smith, Alexander McCall
Revolution Song, A Story of American Freedom Shorto, Russel
The Appian Way, Ghost Road, Queen of Roads Kaster, Robert
Memento Mori Downie, Ruth
The Sparsholt Affair Hollinghurst, Alan
Reflections in a Golden Eye McCullers, Carson
Clock without Hands, A Novel McCullers, Carson
A Higher Loyalty Comey, James
Macbeth Nesbo, Jo
Tell Tale Archer, Jeffrey
The History of Rome Mommsen, Theodor
A Year of Ravens Downie, Ruth; Dray, Stephany; etc.


Started to revisit John Steinbeck:

East of Eden
The Grapes of Wrath
The Long Valley
The Short Novels of John Steinbeck (including Of Mice and Men)
The Winter of Our Discontent
To a God Unknown


Cees

 

[Dave Upton]

I'm a fairly avid reader, mostly of Sci-Fi and Fantasy though I only track my "pleasure reading", as most of the technical/work related books I read are too dry. Here's my goodreads list since January. Lots of LitRPG books and a few great sci-fi books:

 

[bmasters9]

 

[bmasters9]

Bumping this up:

 

[Clinton McClure]

I bought a Kindle Paperwhite this morning and am looking forward to getting back into reading. I haven’t read a book since I bought Walter Isaacson’s Steve Jobs in 2011. So far, I already have 41 titles on my Amazon shopping list.

 

[DaveF]

N.K. Jemisin's Broken Earth trilogy. This is the best series I've read since The Last Policeman. The Fifth Season, The Obelisk Gate, and The Stone Sky are that rare mixture of marvelous writing and a great story and a new take on fantasy (sci-fi?). Recommended highly, with the caveat that this is not a happy story.

V. E. Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic trilogy. I enjoyed the series, though it's not phenomenal as The Fifth Season is. More conventional at its heart, I enjoyed it. This too was a melancholy story, and it ended with numerous background mysteries unexplained.

 

[DaveF]

Recently started reading Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, and just finished The Cardinal of the Kremlin. Great page turner, lots of crackling good action.

Is this your first read of the Clancy series? They were a lot of fun. I mix in some classics from the '60s and '70s from time to time to get in important scifi or fantasy that I've missed. Sometimes they're fun, and sometimes the march of time is not so kind.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

I've done very little in the way of reading this year; too many other things competing for my attention. I took a vacation to Florida back in February, and read Iron Gold by Pierce Brown (an engaging continuation of and expansion on his Red Rising trilogy), The Hazel Wood by Melissa Albert (intriguing, beguiling, oddly emotional), and The Book of Dust: La Belle Sauvage by Philip Pullman (an enjoyable but not especially essential return to the beloved fantasy world of His Dark Materials) by the side of the pool.

I didn't read anything since then until last weekend, when I was visiting relatives out of town: A Reaper at the Gates by Sabaa Tahir. It took a series I've liked but not loved and moved it in a much more interesting direction. I'm a lot more excited for Book 4 than I was for this one after A Torch Against the Night.

V. E. Schwab's Darker Shade of Magic trilogy. I enjoyed the series, though it's not phenomenal as The Fifth Season is. More conventional at its heart, I enjoyed it. This too was a melancholy story, and it ended with numerous background mysteries unexplained.

This was probably my favorite new series of the past decade or so. It's worth noting that V.E. Schwab is writing a new trilogy of books set in the same multiverse. New protagonists, but some of the characters from the Shades of Magic trilogy will pop up in supporting roles.

 

[DaveF]

This was probably my favorite new series of the past decade or so. It's worth noting that V.E. Schwab is writing a new trilogy of books set in the same multiverse. New protagonists, but some of the characters from the Shades of Magic trilogy will pop up in supporting roles.

I’ve added this to my wishlist.

If you’ve not yet read The Fifth Season...it was recommended to me by multiple friends and podcasts. And it exceeded my expectations.

 

[RobertR]

Is this your first read of the Clancy series? They were a lot of fun. I mix in some classics from the '60s and '70s from time to time to get in important scifi or fantasy that I've missed. Sometimes they're fun, and sometimes the march of time is not so kind.

Yes it is. I'm impressed with the level of technical detail Clancy put in his novels. It's interesting how the stories evolve over time, from the Cold War with the Soviets to modern terrorist threats. One side effect of reading the novels is the effect it has on my view of the film adaptations. I think the movie version of The Hunt for Red October was pretty good. I did not like what was done with Clear and Present Danger. If I get started on what was done to Sum of All Fears, which I refuse to ever watch, I'll go on quite a rant. I won't bother with the film version of Patriot Games either. I'm currently reading Executive Orders.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Executive Orders was where Clancy really started to lose me, even though I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Bear and the Dragon, Red Rabbit, and the Campus series were all a significant step down for me. In the mid-nineties, and especially after 9/11 -- a real world Tom Clancy-esque national crisis if ever there was one -- his work started to take on a neoconservative bent that rubbed me the wrong way. His always wrote from a conservative place, but his Soviet (and IRA and Japanese) adversaries were more nuanced than than the Islamic adversaries that replaced them and the increasingly stark worldview was less interesting to me than the shades of gray the earlier books often dealt in.

I did love the way he created an alternate timeline of American history, where the crises and calamities of past novels shaped the world of future novels. The 1970 that John Kelly/John Clark experiences in Without Remorse is pretty much identical to the real 1970, with Nixon as president and the Vietnam War in full swing. But each of the Jack Ryan books departs more and more from the real history.

I think it was a mistake to set the upcoming Jack Ryan TV series starring John Krasinski in the present day. I would have loved to see them set the first season in 1982, shortly after the birth of Prince William, and then adapt the novels in chronological order from newly minted CIA analyst to president of the United States.

 

[DaveF]

I took a vacation to Florida back in February, and read Iron Gold by Pierce Brown (an engaging continuation of and expansion on his Red Rising trilogy)

I also read (listened) to Iron Gold earlier this year. I liked it, but with reservations. I felt Red Rising was getting away from Pierce Brown by the third book, and struggling under the weight of its own mythos.

Coming then to Iron Gold a couple years later, many important details hazy or forgotten from the trilogy, I struggled to fully reconnect.

I also have mixed feelings about picking up where it did.

And still...The Reaper. Mustang. Sevro.

I’ll keep reading.

 

[RobertR]

Executive Orders was where Clancy really started to lose me, even though I enjoyed it quite a bit. The Bear and the Dragon, Red Rabbit, and the Campus series were all a significant step down for me. In the mid-nineties, and especially after 9/11 -- a real world Tom Clancy-esque national crisis if ever there was one -- his work started to take on a neoconservative bent that rubbed me the wrong way. His always wrote from a conservative place, but his Soviet (and IRA and Japanese) adversaries were more nuanced than than the Islamic adversaries that replaced them and the increasingly stark worldview was less interesting to me than the shades of gray the earlier books often dealt in.

I haven't finished Executive Orders yet. I don't necessarily agree with Clancy's views on everything. However, it does seem to me that if one is going to write a story about modern day terrorism, it has to focus on Islamic terrorists. Only a small percentage of Muslims are terrorists, of course, but it's a denial of reality to say that terrorism these days doesn't overwhelmingly come from adherents to Islam. I thought it was ludicrous when Hollywood looked at The Sum of All Fears, they basically said "tsk tsk, Islamic terrorists (and a German communist and a native american activist) are SO unPC, we simply MUST change the bad guys to German fascists, and who cares if the reality is that such types are no actual threat to people in today's world". I despise the filmmakers for making that change.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Absolutely. It made perfect sense that his post-9/11 books would deal in a post-9/11 landscape. I just didn't think his Islamic adversaries were as nuanced or interesting as his earlier adversaries. I didn't mind Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and their equivalents being the bad guys, I just wish there had been more meat on the bones of the portrayal.

I've never come across any evidence of Clancy being Islamophobic -- indeed, on 9/11, he was one of the talking heads on the air explaining why those attacks were so contrary to Islam -- so my guess is that the difference was rooted in his research. He had deep contacts in both the military and the intelligence communities. The military and intelligence approach to the Cold War was more nuanced than its approach to the War on Terror. Since those were the people Clancy was talking to in order to get it right, it makes sense that it would be reflected in his work.