re: What are you reading?

To Sleep in a Sea of Stars by Christopher Paolini

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Flowers for Algernon

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I need to throw that on my list for this year. Haven't read it probably 10 years. Been a book I've enjoyed since the 80's.

Alive and Killing by Jeff Carson. (David Wolf #3)

Centennial by James Michener.

An interesting eventual trilogy by a historian named John C. McManus. It is a history of the United States Army in the War in the Pacific. I’ve read the first volume and am currently half way through the second. The third book in the series will probably be published in the next year or so. We’ve all mostly learned about WW2 in the Pacific from the emphasis on the navy and marine corps. The US Army actually had a greater ground combat role than the Marines in the Pacific and it was mostly glossed over in subsequent histories of the era. McManus is a very good historian and an excellent writer.

Janissaries by Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green
Clan and Crown by Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green
Storms of Victory by Jerry Pournelle & Roland Green
Mamelukes by Jerry Pournelle (published posthumously)

Just finished Cities of the Plain - the last book of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy. I loved the dialogue between the cowboys and it has one of the funniest scenes of dry humor I can think of. John Grady Cole spends a while at the campfire talking with an older cowboy about his experiences. One was about waking up in the middle of the night to a strange noise that turned out to be an enormous flock of geese, which the cattle just ignored. Another story had to do with a kid who set a cat on fire and threw it into the cattle to stampede them. It took 3 days to get the herd under control again. Afterwards John's buddy Billy asks him:

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What was he talkin about?

Just stuff.

What did he say?

I guess he said cattle could tell the difference between a flight of geese and a cat on fire.

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I enjoyed the border trilogy a lot more the second time through, and it helps with No Country for Old Men as well as a lot of the themes are similar and No Country makes indirect references to the border trilogy as well. I'd heard that No Country could be considered a fourth book in the border trilogy and I'd tend to agree with that. On the other hand Billy Parham doesn't die until well after No Country, though the time frame of No Country isn't covered at all in Cities of the Plain.

Poland by James Michener.

Book 5 of The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski, “The Lady of the Lake.”