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May. 14th, 2014 10:31 pm1. Black Box - the new tv series on ABC on Thursday nights, which I thought was a House clone, is actually rather good and more entertaining than House. It's about a neurologist who happens to be bi-polar. Part relationship soap opera/part medical procedural. With an interesting and somewhat compelling central character.
2. Wed Reading Meme:
what I just finished reading:
Magic Rises -the last of the published Kate Daniels series, which I enjoyed quite a bit and reviewed last week.
what I am reading now
The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. It's a steam-punk boddice ripper romantic adventure with sex. Does come with a trigger warning - it's a boddice ripper or has what some readers may interpret as non-consensual sex. (ie. the hero decides early on that he wants the heroine sexually and will do just about anything to persuade her. The heroine is fiesty, and more than capable of taking care of herself. The first time he propositions her, attempting to kiss her - she grabs his privates and threatens to rip them off, which only serves to turn him on more. The second time, she puts a gun to his head. And according to a review I read somewhere - she even shoots him.)
The world building is rather detailed - HG Wells meets Jules Verne by way of the Terminator, with zombies. Oh and during the Regency period. [For some reason writers are charmed by the following historical periods: Medieval Age, World War II (not so much WWI), Revolutionary War or Civil War, Regency, and Georgian period. And we'll get a bit on Elizabethan and Tudors. But that's it. What's up with that? This is why I prefer the science fiction genre. Also, most of these books take place in England (if a historical romance) or United States (if urban fantasy or contemporary).]
It's not as gripping as the Kate Daniels series - partly because of the writing style, which I find sluggishly Regency/Victorian. Prefer the pop-culture littered, quippy urban style to the formal Regency style.
what I'll be reading next?
I'm flirting with book 2 or book 3 in this series. The series focuses on different romantic couples - it's basically a steam=punk fantasy historical romance series.
Or...I'll read Jim Butcher's "The Skin Game" which comes out next week. That'll be a nice change of pace and may sync well into the fantasy genre.
Co-worker suggested The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - which is about a half-elf/half-goblin boy, just shy of his 18th birthday, becomes emperor. He'd been in exile - due to the fact that his father abhorred him, and his brothers ignored his existence. Well they all die in airship crash. (Apparently airships are all the rage in fantasy novels nowadays). And he becomes Emperor. Think Game of Thrones, except with a likable and nice hero at the center of it. (OR at least that was the description I'd read.) Lots of political intrigue.
Meanwhile downstairs neighbor suggested Capital in The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer.
This is the book they can't print enough volumes of. According to my mother - they interviewed the author on PBS this week. It's about how trickle down economics doesn't work or works in reverse, and within a year or two - we will have the same economic structure that we had before the French Revolution - and we all know how that turned out. It's by a French economist who interviewed and did in-depth research on the economic systems of France, Germany and the US. I've always know that trickle-down economics didn't work - seemed a no-brainer to me, and I'm not an economist. Eh, sounds too much like what I have to read for work - no.
3. The Good Wife continues to be as smartly written as ever. Rather loved an exchange between Alicia and Paisley.
Paisley: You should read Ayn Rand -
Alicia: Ayn Rand is a 12 year old's fantasy. They blow up the IRS and the rich go on strike? You might as well base your philosophical beliefs on the book's of John Grisham.
Truer words have never been spoken. I've read Rand - the philosophy only makes sense in the extreme example of Stalin's cruel regime (which was a dictatorship with a pseudo communist economic system) and Rand's escape from it. Other than that, not so much.
4. This article on Slate regarding languages spoken in the US surprised me. Most Common Languages Spoken in the US other than Spainish
I bet you won't guess what the second most spoken language appears to be or the one in most of the midwestern states?
( answers )
2. Wed Reading Meme:
what I just finished reading:
Magic Rises -the last of the published Kate Daniels series, which I enjoyed quite a bit and reviewed last week.
what I am reading now
The Iron Duke by Meljean Brook. It's a steam-punk boddice ripper romantic adventure with sex. Does come with a trigger warning - it's a boddice ripper or has what some readers may interpret as non-consensual sex. (ie. the hero decides early on that he wants the heroine sexually and will do just about anything to persuade her. The heroine is fiesty, and more than capable of taking care of herself. The first time he propositions her, attempting to kiss her - she grabs his privates and threatens to rip them off, which only serves to turn him on more. The second time, she puts a gun to his head. And according to a review I read somewhere - she even shoots him.)
The world building is rather detailed - HG Wells meets Jules Verne by way of the Terminator, with zombies. Oh and during the Regency period. [For some reason writers are charmed by the following historical periods: Medieval Age, World War II (not so much WWI), Revolutionary War or Civil War, Regency, and Georgian period. And we'll get a bit on Elizabethan and Tudors. But that's it. What's up with that? This is why I prefer the science fiction genre. Also, most of these books take place in England (if a historical romance) or United States (if urban fantasy or contemporary).]
It's not as gripping as the Kate Daniels series - partly because of the writing style, which I find sluggishly Regency/Victorian. Prefer the pop-culture littered, quippy urban style to the formal Regency style.
what I'll be reading next?
I'm flirting with book 2 or book 3 in this series. The series focuses on different romantic couples - it's basically a steam=punk fantasy historical romance series.
Or...I'll read Jim Butcher's "The Skin Game" which comes out next week. That'll be a nice change of pace and may sync well into the fantasy genre.
Co-worker suggested The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison - which is about a half-elf/half-goblin boy, just shy of his 18th birthday, becomes emperor. He'd been in exile - due to the fact that his father abhorred him, and his brothers ignored his existence. Well they all die in airship crash. (Apparently airships are all the rage in fantasy novels nowadays). And he becomes Emperor. Think Game of Thrones, except with a likable and nice hero at the center of it. (OR at least that was the description I'd read.) Lots of political intrigue.
Meanwhile downstairs neighbor suggested Capital in The Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, translated from the French by Arthur Goldhammer.
This is the book they can't print enough volumes of. According to my mother - they interviewed the author on PBS this week. It's about how trickle down economics doesn't work or works in reverse, and within a year or two - we will have the same economic structure that we had before the French Revolution - and we all know how that turned out. It's by a French economist who interviewed and did in-depth research on the economic systems of France, Germany and the US. I've always know that trickle-down economics didn't work - seemed a no-brainer to me, and I'm not an economist. Eh, sounds too much like what I have to read for work - no.
3. The Good Wife continues to be as smartly written as ever. Rather loved an exchange between Alicia and Paisley.
Paisley: You should read Ayn Rand -
Alicia: Ayn Rand is a 12 year old's fantasy. They blow up the IRS and the rich go on strike? You might as well base your philosophical beliefs on the book's of John Grisham.
Truer words have never been spoken. I've read Rand - the philosophy only makes sense in the extreme example of Stalin's cruel regime (which was a dictatorship with a pseudo communist economic system) and Rand's escape from it. Other than that, not so much.
4. This article on Slate regarding languages spoken in the US surprised me. Most Common Languages Spoken in the US other than Spainish
I bet you won't guess what the second most spoken language appears to be or the one in most of the midwestern states?
( answers )