What books are you reading for pleasure these days?

A favorite series of mine! Too bad it's not in print anymore; there are some brilliant science fiction tropes developed for the books.

Same - love it from a mil scifi standpoint.

I had read some of the individual stories and small collections many years ago. When I went looking for the complete collection in hardcover, they had already sold out and I was only able to get the paperbacks. I wasn't aware they were no longer in print.
 
Same - love it from a mil scifi standpoint.

I had read some of the individual stories and small collections many years ago. When I went looking for the complete collection in hardcover, they had already sold out and I was only able to get the paperbacks. I wasn't aware they were no longer in print.
It's like almost every book these days; if they can't be guaranteed of the sale of most of a reprint, they won't run it.
 
It's like almost every book these days; if they can't be guaranteed of the sale of most of a reprint, they won't run it.

Honestly, if it's not a hard cover book I'll keep and read over and over, or a photo book, going forward will most likely be all e-books. Downsizing means less space, I'm not going to have a lot of room for books in the future.
 
These are in Amazon UK in Kindle format: the complete Hammer’s Slammers in three volumes for a little under 16GBP.

I’m picking up so many recommendations from this thread. Thanks for this one!

Yeah, I'll refer to this thread now and again, and later down the road will be getting some books I've seen mentioned. Nice little resource.

I think I paid about 36USD for the three volumes, as paperbacks.
 
Finished Travels with Charley. Sometimes books hit at just the right time, and this was one of them. I enjoyed it like a fine meal. Even though it was written around 1960, I think it still paints an accurate picture of America, or at least Steinbeck's perspective is very close to mine, as someone who was also born and raised in California (and outside of the mainstream 'culture' of California). I feel like my experience of an upbringing like his gives a person a sense of objectivity about the rest of the USA, a sort of detachment. Or, I'm just deluded into thinking that I'm objective or observationally sound. But, anyway, I really resonated with that book and it still gives a pretty clear picture of how I look at the country.
 
I’m currently reading this, which was a Christmas present from my partner. Not only that, but it was bought from a local independent bookshop and signed and dedicated by the author, who lives nearby. Actually, I saw him at the Remembrance Day service in town in November but didn’t get a chance to speak to him. Maybe next time.

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I’m really enjoying his accounts of flying at Red Flag and other NATO training exercises, and finding out how the Royal Navy's Harrier aircraft got on against more capable opposition in simulated combat (some days better than others). There’s plenty of humour, plenty of salty language and plenty of rude comments directed at the RAF (the Royal Air Force being friendly rivals to the RN Fleet Air Arm).

Later in the book Commander Tremelling gets sent into action in Afghanistan, and then to America to fly F-18s as part of an exchange program with US Navy, but I haven’t got those bits yet.

-R
 
I’m currently reading this, which was a Christmas present from my partner. Not only that, but it was bought from a local independent bookshop and signed and dedicated by the author, who lives nearby. Actually, I saw him at the Remembrance Day service in town in November but didn’t get a chance to speak to him. Maybe next time.

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I’m really enjoying his accounts of flying at Red Flag and other NATO training exercises, and finding out how the Royal Navy's Harrier aircraft got on against more capable opposition in simulated combat (some days better than others). There’s plenty of humour, plenty of salty language and plenty of rude comments directed at the RAF (the Royal Air Force being friendly rivals to the RN Fleet Air Arm).

Later in the book Commander Tremelling gets sent into action in Afghanistan, and then to America to fly F-18s as part of an exchange program with US Navy, but I haven’t got those bits yet.

-R

Sounds like an interesting read.

We've been doing the exchange programs and joint training for a long time. Back in the Cold War days, as an FE my first Herc Sq had a German AF pilot, then Spanish AF. Our sister Sq was LXX out of RAF Lyneham, sometimes some of their aircraft and crews would be stateside and they'd do interfly with us. Other time we'd have a few crews and aircraft over and do the interfly in the UK. My second tour at Little Rock our Sq had an RAF pilot the three years I was there (he started his tour about the time I started mine). It's a good thing to be able to exchange training and experience, and helps learning the cultural and language differences with our allies.
 
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Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett

“He came walking through the thunderstorm and you could tell he was a wizard, partly because of the long cloak and carven staff but mainly because the raindrops were stopping several feet from his head, and steaming.”
Got to absolutely love some of his writing!

Like Douglas Adams and Alexander McCall Smith, his use of language is superb.
 
I read a lot of non-fiction. I was in the Army Security Agency and I read a lot of books about the agency and our so-called parent agencies the NSA and CIA. I read Ghost Wars: the secret history of the CIA and others-SteveColl. Most of this happened after I left my service but it gives a lot of history of how messed up some of our intel was. I also liked the Legacy of Ashes-The history of the CIA by Tim Weiner. Lots of formerly classified info in both books. I used to read every Ludlum book several times since he made me feel at home in his book as he would perfectly describe a familiar area I knew in Zurich, or in Italy. I felt as if I was following him around his haunts.
 
Not sure if I would call this pleasurable ,enlightening for sure . At the end of the book the author makes the claim that the sackler family were looking for a judge that would absolve them of any prosecution or liability , did they find one? FNA.
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Not sure if I would call this pleasurable ,enlightening for sure . At the end of the book the author makes the claim that the sackler family were looking for a judge that would absolve them of any prosecution or liability , did they find one? FNA.
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Sackler family - Wikipedia

I take Oxycodone + Naloxone twice a day for my back pain. It will never get better. So I will be taking this for the rest of my life.

For something that's so addictive to so many, I have alarms set on my phone so that I don't forget to take them ...

Regardless of that, these kinds of opiates are less dangerous than taking 4x2 Panadeine Forte daily, as that is dangerously close to a fatal dose of paracetamol/acetaminophen!

Mind you, pharmaceuticals are far more rigorously controlled in Australia than they are in the USA.
 
Recently recharged my old Kindle and downloaded some old classics from Project Gutenberg, the free book site for e-readers, all makes and models. Viewed by most popular and then downloaded several. One by Theodore Dreiser: "Sister Carrie"......gritty, uncompromising realism, a country girl moves to Chicago about 1900.

Now reading "MIddlemarch" by George Eliot. Provincial life in England about 1829-1833.
Wikipedia says this about the novel "now seen widely as her best work and one of the great English novels."
 
I started reading dutch translation of "Poems that solve puzzles" by Chris Bleakly.
Publisher Oxford University Press.
Dutch publisher Jim Jansen.
Really interesting book about AI, algorithms.
Must read book.
 
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What books am I reading at present? The only one I read for profit is the Holy Bible. But just for fun, I'm not reading, per se; instead I am completing the final edits on my latest novel. It is a historical adventure/romance (mostly adventure) paperback of about 550 pages in length. The book will be the fifth one I've written over the past twelve years, strictly for fun and none for profit. As I get older and less able to do the outdoor things I once did, I have turned toward the more sedentary things in life. Photography and writing are quite compatible and fulfil my emotional and creative needs very well. When I finish the writing portion, the next item is to create the front cover photographic artwork and back cover teasers. I'll then ship the PDF's off to a printer and wait to view the final product. It is quite time consuming, but what is time anyway if your endeavors are a thing you enjoy and are fulfilling?
 
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