New! Reading Anything Thread 2.0

[Rev. Powell]

"The Usurper King" by Zeb Haradon

This was written before Trump's election and published in 2017, which shows you how far behind I am in my reading list. It's set in an alternate universe where Ted Bundy is running for President and a guy who reads animal entrails to tell the future is onto him. Self-published by my Internet friend, the director of ELEVATOR MOVIE.

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[Rev. Powell]

About to start

[lester1/2jr]

I loved elevator movie I've got to check that out


I'm reading Bad Blood about Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos. I would love a book on tape of her reading it in her fake deep voice

[lester1/2jr]

I finished Bad Blood. The middle part gets a bit repetitious, he milks the rise in alarming incidents a little too much, but in general it was quite good. Then again, my insomnia is back so my standards for reading material at 4 am are pretty low. Elizabeth Holmes is smart but spoiled and has no connection to people who make less than 500k a year. The author admits she's an amazing salesperson, but running a healthcare company is not a "fake it till you make it" situation and she broke many good and necessary laws. She is headed to prison in April for 11 years.

[ER]

Why did she affect that deep voice anyway?

[lester1/2jr]

she denies that its fake so its hard to know the reason. it does give her a kind of otherworldly presence

[ER]

Surrender, by Bono is a far better book than I expected it to be, a far better book than it should be. When he was messianic Bono could be insufferable; he's learned humility, and become sage.

[Rev. Powell]

[Neville]

Reading "Las cenizas del condor" by Fernando Butazzoni. It's a novel that delves in the 1970s dicatorships in South america through several personal stories, some set during those regimes and some years afterward. The bulk of the novel deals with a young woman who tries to escape from Chile to Argentina through the Andes.

[ER]

http://strangehorizons.com/poetry/urban-legends-of-the-ohio-river/

Seems like something I'd write.

[lester1/2jr]

I'm reading Bart Ehrman's newest book, which sets it's sights on the book of Revelation.

[jimpickens]

Florida Man #1 by Mike Baron fun read.

[ER]

Patti Smith's picture a day book.

[Rev. Powell]

So I finished "Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop." Both great, and depressing. The author's recipe for fixing American democracy is exhaustively researched, convincing, and simple: basically, adopt ranked-choice voting and increase the size of the House of Representatives (so more people and points of view can be represented). There's a little more detail to it, but the reforms would make third and fourth parties viable. The depressing part is he's cavalier about how to convince the Dems and Repubs to support anything that would end their duopoly on political power. Sure, he points out cases like New Zealand where public pressure forced parties to make electoral system concessions, but I don't see how the American public can break out of the "there's only two parties, one good and one evil, and you have to support the good one with every trick at your disposal" mindset that the two parties feed them.

Anyway, I'll be starting "Ovid's Metamorphoses" next.

[lester1/2jr]

I finished Bart Ehrman's "Armageddon", about the Book of Revelation. I agree with him that it doesn't have a lot to do with what Jesus taught and has been reduced to a Nostradamus type future prognostications puzzle. Form wise though, it does work pretty well as a final Bible chapter. 5/5