Read any good books lately?
I'm just curious to see what people are reading these days. I remember last year there was a summer reads thread going, and I really enjoyed that thread and seeing what kind of stuff people were into.
For me, I'm currently reading Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny. It's got a great premise in that Earth is long dead and on a colony planet, a group of men and women has gained control of technology and made themselves immortal, and rule the world as Hindu gods. I don't have much knowledge of the Hindu religion, so I'm sure I'm missing a bunch, but it's really enjoyable so far, even if I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around what's going on at times. This is my first Zelazny book, but I know he was tremendously influential on writers like GRRM and Neil Gaiman and I'm eager to check out more once I'm done with this one.
The other book I'm reading is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. The premise is your typical "humanity nearly wiped out by a virus" story, but I'm really loving the book so far. I'm only about a quarter of the way through it, but it views the whole event through just a few characters, most of whom belong to a traveling theater troupe/symphony in the post-virus world trying to survive and entertain people at the same time. There's a lot of emphasis on art and culture and I love the devices Mandel uses to connect and move between the pre-virus world the post-virus world.
Anyway, anyone else reading anything good these days?


Comments
I was reading this series of books about all these factions trying to out maneuver each other to gain power of the land. It seems that the well has dried up on that one.
Non fiction wise a book I immensely enjoyed is "Once Upon A Car" about the fall and bailout of the American auto industry. Superbly researched and quite fascinating all the intricacies and factors that made the industry so vulnerable.
It was a very short (208 pgs) novel with a creepy atmosphere. It's told in the first person. It follows 4 scientists on their expedition into the mysterious Area X, an area that nobody seems to know anything about. They are the 12th expedition of this sort. Things start to go awry, people may be keeping secrets, and fear and paranoia abound.
It's a pretty tight read. People may think it's a slog because it's mainly world building, but I enjoyed the atmosphere and the creepiness that came along with it.
It's also the first of three novels in a series.