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What Are You Reading Right Now?

Just started Stephen King's Needful Things
 
Rome, sweet Rome
RomeSweetRome1-8v2.pdf - Google Drive

The marine expeditionary force (MEU) of 2,200 men is somehow transported back in time from its base in present-day Kabul, Afghanistan, to the Roman Empire during the reign of Augustus and appeared at the Tiber river in 23 BC with a full set of equipment - Abrams M1 battle tanks, bulletproof vests,M249 light machine guns, M16A4 rifles and grenades, but without resupplying fuel or ammunition.

I’ve been looking for that for a couple of years.
Couldn’t remember the name or author. Thx.
 
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The Folly and the Glory: America, Russia, and Political Warfare 1945–2020

By Tim Weiner - Henry Holt and Co. - 2020 - 336pp.


Anyone trying to understand the current tensions between the U.S. and Russia over election interference and much else needs to read this fascinating history.
 
Catch and Kill by Ronan Farrow, fascinating.

Just finished A Year in Space by Scott Kelly, life on the ISS, really good stuff.
 


Sidelined: Sports, Culture, and Being a Woman in America

by Julie DiCaro - Dutton - 288pp

Covering everything from the abusive online environment at Barstool Sports to the sexist treatment of Serena Williams and professional women's teams fighting for equal pay and treatment, and looking back at pioneering women who first took on the patriarchy in sports media, Sidelined will illuminate the ways sports present a microcosm of life as a woman in America—and the power in fighting back.
 
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The Impeachment of Donald Trump: The Closed-Door Vindman Testimony by David Hernandez
 
Dean Koontz: Elsewhere.
 
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Avenger- Frederick Forsyth: It's a sort of action adventure novel about a former Vietnam Veteran who is also a tunnel rat. His mission is to capture an ex-Serbian warlord from his South American fortress. Although it starts out well, there's way too many characters and their back stories. the climax is also sort of anti-climactic and short. All in all, not bad, but not great either. Rating 5.5/10

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Black Dahlia, Red Rose- Piu Eatwell: Non-fiction book about the Black Dahlia murder. Read it for research purposes. It has got a lot of good, factual info, and an intriguing theory since the murder has never been solved. All in all, very illuminating. Rating: 7.5/10

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A Maze of Death- Philip K Dick: What can I say about PKD that I havent already said? The man's a genius when it comes to his ideas, though his writing is sometimes choppy and stilted. This one is about a group of colonists on a planet, and something or someone is killing them. It's got plenty of PKD's zany ideas about life, religion, and everything else. The twist ending is surreal. Rating: 7.4/10
 
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4 books by Ross Macdonald: The Moving Target, the Drowning Pool, The Way Some People Die, The Ivory Grin

When it comes to hard-boiled detective fiction, two authors are considered the classic ones who defined the genre: Dashiell Hammett (who wrote The Maltese Falcon) and Raymond Chandler (who wrote The Big Sleep), but the one author who has been overlooked by most of the public these days is Ross Macdonald. To me, he is sort of like the third man when it comes to being the best of the genre.

Macdonald's Lew Archer started out in the same vein as Philip Marlowe, but as more of the series was written (there are around 18 books in the series that were written from the 1940's all the way to the 1970s), Macdonald found his own voice and added Greek tragedy into his hardboiled plots.

Two of the first books were made into movies starring Paul Newman (renamed Harper), but obviously the books are better- darker and more cynical. If youre looking to read more books like The Big Sleep, then I would suggest you check out the Lew Archer series. They are classics.

Ratings:
The Moving Target: 6/10
The Drowning Pool: 8.5/10
The Way Some People Die: 8/10
The Ivory Grin: 7.5/10
 
The Cartel by Don Winslow.

It's the second installment after The Power of The Dog! Even while still reading this first book (which I was consuming with relish)..... I already ordered
The Cartel, and The Border.

They're long, but fast paced! Nicely researched and vastly entertaining.

If you're interested, I recommend to start with The Power of The Dog.
Glad to have stumbled on this author. I'm now interested to read all his other books.


This novel of the drug trade takes you deep inside a world riddled with corruption, betrayal, and bloody revenge. Art Montana is an obsessive DEA agent. The Barrera brothers are heirs to a drug empire. Nora Hayden is a jaded teenager who becomes a high-class hooker. Father Parada is a powerful and incorruptible Catholic priest. Callan is an Irish kid from Hell’s Kitchen who grows up to be a merciless hitman. And they are all trapped in the world of the Mexican drug Federaci. From the streets of New York City to Mexico City and Tijuana to the jungles of Central America, this is the war on drugs like you’ve never seen it.

 
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The Fleet at Flood Tide: America at Total War in the Pacific, 1944-1945, by James D. Hornfischer
 
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer


It was written during the mass movements of Nazism and communism- but it’s fascinating to read it in light of our contemporary experience with Trumpism. Its insights seem every bit as relevant.
 
The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements” by Eric Hoffer


It was written during the mass movements of Nazism and communism- but it’s fascinating to read it in light of our contemporary experience with Trumpism. Its insights seem every bit as relevant.
Good book. Published 1951. Assigned during my freshman philosophy class in 1968.
 
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Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents

Isabel Wilkerson - Random House - 2020 - 496pp


Pulitzer Prize winning author. NYTimes Bestseller. “An expansive interrogation of racism, institutionalised inequality and injustice . . . This is an American reckoning and so it should be. . . . It is a painfully resonant book and could not have come at a more urgent time.”—Fatima Bhutto, The Guardian
 
The latest Jack Reacher book, "Sentinel". It's supposed to be written by Lee Child's brother, and it shows. I'm trying to slog my way through it but it's pretty bad.
 
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American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery

By Craig Unger - Dutton - 2021 - 352pp.


"For the first time a former KGB employee has gone on record to describe Donald Trump's historic relationship with the Kremlin."—Robert Baer, former CIA operative
 
F1611E47-ECD0-46F3-90A5-55DEDD0237C4.jpegJames Brady passed away 6 or 7 years ago. He used to have a column in PARADE Magazine, in the Sunday paper. He was a green platoon commander in Korea and I have read a couple of his non fiction books; The Coldest War, is one.

I am looking forward to this one as I remember enjoying the authors prior works.

This one is historical fiction.
 
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The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
by Heather McGhee - One World - 2021 - 448pp


One of today’s most insightful and influential thinkers offers a powerful exploration of inequality and the lesson that generations of Americans have failed to learn: Racism has a cost for everyone—not just for people of color.
 
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Relentless Strike by Sean Naylor- it traces the formation and history of JSOC- from its gensis after the disastrous Desert One mission to 9/11, then to Afghanistan. I'm reading it for research purposes. Pretty thorough, though the info is dense and there's a lot of things covered.
 
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