What are you reading now?

[QualityChimp]

Will do, mate.

Got an audiobook for the journey to Scotland (really helps make a long drive fly by!) called
"The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle" by Stuart Turton.

I need to finish it, but my wife did.

The less you know, the better, but in very basic terms, it's a murder mystery, told from the viewpoint of many people.

I don't really want to say any more as the less you know, the better.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on it!

I'm currently on the next John Milton book, "Sleepers" by Mark Dawson.

Whereas Reacher stories got old, fast, each one of these is different enough and a brilliant adventure.
Basically, it's a retired James Bond, but trying to make amends for all the bad things he did.

[Anpanman]

I'm enjoying the Reacher series, going through in chronological order, three on the shelf to read one more to buy then I have the lot.

Just finished Treasure Hunt in the Montalbano series and now re-reading The Associate by Grisham.

I'll try one of the John Milton's, look interesting.

Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile by Adelle Stripe I enjoyed, it's about the life of playwright Andrea Dunbar who grew up on one of the roughest estates in Britain in the 80's and wrote Rita, Sue and Bob too.

[QualityChimp]

I'm enjoying the Reacher series, going through in chronological order, three on the shelf to read one more to buy then I have the lot.

I'll try one of the John Milton's, look interesting.

I prefer the John Milton series, because he's a flawed character. The stories are different enough to not feel like it's the same one each time. Reacher was this infallible tank that was never wrong and never lost a fight.

I loved The Killing Floor and possibly the second and third books (Googles...) "Die Trying" and "Tripwire", but although I could probably read the rest, I found the character of Reacher a wordless, shrugging murder hobo by the 4th book.

[Anpanman]

I prefer the John Milton series, because he's a flawed character. The stories are different enough to not feel like it's the same one each time. Reacher was this infallible tank that was never wrong and never lost a fight.

I loved The Killing Floor and possibly the second and third books (Googles...) "Die Trying" and "Tripwire", but although I could probably read the rest, I found the character of Reacher a wordless, shrugging murder hobo by the 4th book.

I would tend to agree with the earlier ones but for me they improve greatly. He's still not wrong though he is a copper after all!
He's now getting older, he's had nose nose smashed and suffered a brain injury from one of his fights.

As much as I love JB 007 has saved the world a number of times without so much as a scratch!

[Anpanman]

Another from the Montalbano series - A Blade of Light, lovely book which sees Montalbano's events in his past come back to him.
Am really enjoying the series, you can buy the first ten for £25.

...on that note just started another series (I have John Milton's on my list too but the first one isn't available cheap and I'm a tight git) The No1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith. As with Montalbano you can buy the first ten at a reduced price.
First novel is titled as the series and whilst it wasn't very deep it was a nice series of stories within a story if you will and once the novel got going proper it was a good read and by the end it turned out much better than I thought it would after the first twenty pages.
The quality of paper felt very nice too, much better than your average paperback.

[QualityChimp]

I finished the John Milton story, "Sleepers", and went straight into the next one, "Twelve Days", as I was loving the series so much!

Literally finished on today's commute "The Accidental Time Machine" by Joe Halderman, which I really enjoyed!
An M.I.T. student accidentally invents a time machine and starts using it to leap forward, but will he find a way back?
I actually really enjoyed this and it breezed along at a fair pace, with you wanting to know about the time he lands in and also see what he finds at the next jump.

Then I started "The Kind Worth Killing" by Peter Swanson, which starts with a man in an airport lounge joking with a beautiful stranger that he wants to kill his adulterous wife and she replies that he should.
Literally just started it, but I'm enjoying it so far and wondering what everyone's motivations are.

[Anpanman]

Tears of the Giraffe - book two in the No1 Ladies Detective Agency series
A really good second book following Mma Ramotswe in her private life and job as a detective. One can argue that these are not so deep but the second one had some turns which I did not expect and are a nice easy read.
They also give a very good sense of place about Botswana.

A Nest of Vipers - Montalbano number twenty-one
It's really sad that Andrea Camilleri isn't with us, his Montalba' series is wonderful, about the aging detective with all his infallibilities as he gets older.
One or two are really quite dark and like this one deal with a touchy subject matter that is handled beautifully.
Perhaps not as accessible as other crime or action series like Alex Cross, Reacher or John Milton (I'll get one eventually - promise) as there isn't masses of 'action' but you do get an insight into the 'tortured' island of Sicily and Italian politics under Berlusconi.

[QualityChimp]

The graphic novel of "Wool" on which the AppleTV series "Silo" is based on, is currently 99p on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00DL6CY4K

[Soundwave]

At the moment I've just started reading this



But the majority of my reading is done with Chloe for her school reading & we've just finished this series of books which have actually been bloody good fun to be honest



And tonight we started reading book 1 in the Witch Wars series



I genuinely don't read much at all because I can't seem to find anything that grabs me & I get bored really easily so I stick to graphic novels but I'd love to get more into reading properly again, used to do it loads when I was younger but now just can't be bothered lol

Neil

[Adam Stone]

I've only seen a couple of pages back but some great stuff there. Some things I would like to read with my daughter! She's got me inspired recently. We've started having our evening reading time together - where we each read our own thing initially - and then we take it in turns to read to each other and then we discuss our stories so far. I used to just listen to her read but she's really enjoying reading with me beside her reading my own thing, bless her.
Very proud of her reading and her desire to read. She's 8 End of June yet she's showing a real passion for reading, even choosing that other Ipad!!!?!!!?!!!!

Right now I'm re-reading Going Postal by Terry Pratchett - I really like his quirky, inventive writing style.

[Blobcat]

After getting the first 2 volumes in the early/ mid 2000's, on a whim and a bit of luck I decided a couple of years ago to try and collect the rest of the manga series Petshop of horrors, which is randomly an expensive and much desired series despite it being quite widely available back in the day if my memory serves me well (I always remember seeing some volumes in my local Forbidden Planet store).

I somehow managed to get the last volume I needed this year and have been slowly reading them, finally getting past those first 2 books after nearly 20 years. I'm really, really enjoying it and have even started looking for the 'sequel' series Petshop of horrors Tokyo which I have barely heard about without breaking the bank.

Its certainly a series of its time but the detective character is rather un pc and a believable character which may rub some the wrong way in some chapters but the cultural references in the English translation are pretty great.

I still need to go back and read all of Black Jack which I have also managed to finish my collection of years ago, with that series though I need no distractions as i like to get absorbed in Tezuka's work and can easily read 2-3 volumes when I get the chance.

The next new manga series I want to read (and have started buying when I see cheap) is Sweat and Soap but I am still collecting In/Spectre but have not caught up reading the last few volumes. I usually collect and read older stuff.

[Finsbury Girl]

Finally finished The Book of the Ice trilogy by Mark Lawrence. Is is set in the same world as

->Open Spoiler<-

and is also a prequel series to

The Book of the Ancestor. I absolutely loved both series, they are truly worth a read if you like fantasy/sci-fi.

[QualityChimp]

There's been a bunch since my last post here.

Done a couple more of Mark Dawson's books in his John Milton series - Sleepers and Twelve Days. If you've been watching Reacher and like that kind of thing, but not that he's a know-it-all hobo, try these books! I won a signed copy by the author, but also bought the audiobook.

Hell Divers was okay. A post-apocalyptic Earth hosts some survivors in blimps and they have to send down the Hell Divers on special missions that usually end in death.
Flew by, but wasn't massively memorable for me.

Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick is the sequel to the bloody brilliant Fancy Suits and Futuristic weapons. Not as memorable as the first book, but still a fun read.

The Troop is about a group of Boy Scouts camping on an island, but get approached by a man infected with... something.
It was pretty gory, which is fine, but felt a couple of elements were an amazing coincidence and marred the solution.

Fearless by M.W. Craven was a blast and want to read more. It's your Reacher-style adventure but the hook here is that the protagonist had head injury and is no longer scared of anything. If I'm honest, that felt superfluous, but I really enjoyed him using deduction and logic to solve the small-town mystery.

The Year of the Locust is by Terry Hayes, who wrote the excellent I Am Pilgrim, but this was less successful.
The main character is a pretty rubbish spy, getting outmanoeuvred at almost every turn, but somehow surviving.
Then at 75%, the book has a real WTF moment.
I spent the rest of the book incredulous at what was happening and the lack of logic in this massive shark jump.
Would love to hear if anyone else has read it!

I love Blake Crouch, especially Dark Matter and Recursion (less so for Upgrade), and was pleased to see I'd missed his trilogy of Wayward Pines books and I smashed my way through them - Pines, Wayward and The Last Town.
Each book had its own feel, but I particularly enjoyed the small-town paranoia of the first book.

On a roll with Crouch, I checked out Abandon, which sounds like a Tomb Raider like mystery from the description, but it's kind of a horror/thriller set over two timelines.
I liked it, but was quite sad by the end.

Matthew Reilly, who got me back into reading as an adult with his excellent action-movie-in-book-form style, released Mister Einstein's Secretary.
I wrongly presumed that it was a bit like The DaVinci Code, but it was more like a memoir of a woman dragged into WWII espionage from her friendship with Albert Einstein.
It was fanciful, but the lead character was really likeable and it was excellently narrated. There were elements of truth that was interesting to hear about in the epilogue.

I'm currently reading Starter Villain, by John Scalzi, whom I really like and caned through Old Man's War and Red Shirts.
It's narrated by Wil Wheaton and he's really bringing the story to life.

[wakka]

Great stuff. Interesting you mention Year of the Locust. When you mentioned The Troop’s reliance on giant coincidences, it immediately made me think of I Am Pilgrim. I read that on holiday years ago and had a whale of a time, but it’s really silly in many ways, and similarly relies on a crazy coincidence to paper a plot hole.

I will give Year of the Locust a read and report back.

[QualityChimp]

Great stuff. Interesting you mention Year of the Locust. When you mentioned The Troop’s reliance on giant coincidences, it immediately made me think of I Am Pilgrim. I read that on holiday years ago and had a whale of a time, but it’s really silly in many ways, and similarly relies on a crazy coincidence to paper a plot hole.

I will give Year of the Locust a read and report back.

With I Am Pilgrim, it leans heavily on one event paying off and you're having such a blast, it doesn't matter so much, but Year of the Locust's plot twist is unhinged.

I look forward to you reporting back.
I reckon you'll think you know the bit I mean as you read it, then you'll know which bit I mean.