Swarm Book Club

[Tech93]

If anyone needs some good suggestions on military history, let me know as I’m currently working on my Masters in that topic.

 

[GoldZ]

Sorry if a repeat, but anything by James Rollins is superb. For this particular time, The Seventh Plague is a good one. His fact from fiction section at the end of his books is excellent.

Otherwise, Wilbur Smith is simply one of the best novelists in the world.

 

[forensicbuzz]

I'm a fiction guy. I struggle to stay engaged in non-fiction. I want a story. Memoirs are usually decent.

For my "Reading in the Time of CoViD19" I have gone back to the classic books I had to read as a teenager for school and have reread them as a 50+-year-old adult. It's amazing how much better I appreciate these books now. I started in March and here's a list of what I've re-read. Some of them were real slogs to get through (Moby ****, Crime and Punishment).

I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings
Invisible Man
Black Boy
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A Raisin in the Sun
Moby ****
Lord of the Flies
Silas Marner
The Catcher in the Rye
Fahrenheit 451
The Importance of Being Earnest
Slaughterhouse-Five
Across Five Aprils
A Separate Peace
Crime and Punishment
Death of a Salesman
Flowers for Algernon
A Tale of Two Cities
The Grapes of Wrath
Great Expectations
A Tale of Two Cities
The Outsiders
Night
Brave New World
Animal Farm
The Diary of a Young Girl
1984
The Scarlet Letter
Of Mice and Men
The Great Gatsby
To Kill a Mockingbird

 

[CuseJacket]

New personal record due to the lockdown. Finished American Kingpin this evening after starting yesterday around noon. Couldn’t put it down, extremely interesting.

Just read this over the last 1-2 weeks. Great read. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[NorthsideJacket]

I'll just rattle some stuff off my "5" scores that I would read again...

• Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania... same author as Devil in the White City which was mentioned by @Tech93
• Unbroken... ignore the Angelina Jolie trash movie... book is legit
• Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us
• Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End
• I am Malala
• The Wright Brothers
• A Long Way Home
• One Second After... fiction... it'll freak you out
• The Stranger in the Woods
• The Sun Does Shine: How I Found Life and Freedom on Death Row
• Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History

Several of those were on bestseller lists for stretches of time.

Started Unbroken at lunch today - read Part I - his early life. Phenomenal so far, hated to stop. And you say the movie is trash? Hate that because so far, the book is great! Thanks for the tip

 

[CuseJacket]

Started Unbroken at lunch today - read Part I - his early life. Phenomenal so far, hated to stop. And you say the movie is trash? Hate that because so far, the book is great! Thanks for the tip

It's probably like most book to movie comparisons. It's possible that I liked the book so much that the average movie take felt like a steeper drop-off.

 

[MidtownJacket]

Just finished "These Truths: A History of the United States" by Jill Lepore. I am generally moderate, and consider my self a compassionate conservative in the veins of George W. and what Jeb advocated for in 2016 but enjoy looking at our problems from view points other than my own so really enjoyed it. It is a LONG 800+ page book so it took some time, but there are some really interesting points the book makes about our past and how it led us to where we are today. Closer to the vein of my personal political leanings I also really enjoyed "The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush" by Mark Updegrove.

I also enjoyed "Upstream: The Quest to solve problems before they happen" by Dan Heath.

For Fiction:

Also big fan of Rollins, and other covert action books (Marc Cameron, Bray Taylor, Brad Thor, Ted Bell, Steve Berry) but I particularly like the Mitch Rapp series by Kyle Mills/Vince Flynn for special operator type books.

Stephen King is the master of all things terrifying.

I read meditations once (if not more) a year too, and find something new everytime (been doing so since freshman year at GT in 2003).

 

[GTpdm]

I just finished reading “Hollow Kingdom” by Kira Jane Buxton. Wow, what a good read! It’s a funny story (domesticated crow named Sh*t-Turd navigates a zombie apocalypse), juxtaposed with some deep threads about spirituality and the meaning of family. It has humor, mystery, action, beauty, and heart. All in all, a really good, short, light read—I started it yesterday, and finished it in about 7-8 hours total reading time.

I’ll freely admit the final chapters hit me deeply enough to bring tears to my eyes—and that is saying a lot, given that my tear ducts have permanent scarring that generally leave my eyeballs drier than the Gobi Desert.