Whatcha reading redux.

[Rod]

Area 51 by Annie Jacobsen. Combination of fact, speculation, conjecture, and batshit crazy conspiracy theories. The facts are great, the rest gives me headaches.

Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joseph McCarthy by M. Stanton Evans. First chapter basically says what most people don't know. McCarthy was lied about, official papers supporting him were "lost", and things he "said" were not said. This should be an interesting read.

1636: The Kremlin Games Eric Flint, Gorg Huff & Paula Goodlett. Grantville resident goes to Russia, brings innovation, medical help, and generally starts Russia on the road to being a power instead of a sidenote to history of that time.

Blackout by Mira Grant Third part of a trilogy about post-zombie America and the conspiracy ruling it. I HATE that new books in a series come out and the bookstore doesn't have the rest available. I'm going to read the first chapter then decide if I want to order the rest or not. Anyone else read Feed or Deadline?

[HTRN]

Just started on Professional Stockmaking by Wesbrook. So far, looks good - lots of photos show technique.

[Rod]

Read The Amateur by Joe Klein. A minor quibble is that he said Andrew Breitbart edited the tape of Shirley Sherrod's speech. IIRC, he got the edited tape and showed it, then said after the brouhaha, that he shouldn't have shown it. Otherwise the book is pretty much a rehash of what the conservatives know about Obama as President. Reads like a political advertisement to vote for Romney though he's not mentioned.

[Weetabix]

"The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress" - my copy went missing a decade or more ago, and I finally replaced it.

[MiddleAgedKen]

Just finished A Game of Thrones, currently reading Black Rednecks and White Liberals and Thucydides.

[Greg]

Currently rereading Hard Magic. It finally came out in mass-market paperback. Whoever is responsible for the recent publisher obsession with trade paperbacks needs to be kneecapped. I buy hardcovers (rarely) or mass paperbacks only, not any annoying hybrid that combines the worst of both worlds.

Anyway, a nice upside of this is that now I can continue the process of turning my wife into a Larry Correia junkie. She stole my copy of Dead Six and loved it.

[SeekHer]

Currently rereading Hard Magic. It finally came out in mass-market paperback. Whoever is responsible for the recent publisher obsession with trade paperbacks needs to be kneecapped. I buy hardcovers (rarely) or mass paperbacks only, not any annoying hybrid that combines the worst of both worlds.

Anyway, a nice upside of this is that now I can continue the process of turning my wife into a Larry Correia junkie. She stole my copy of Dead Six and loved it.

I'm the complete opposite--I only buy trade paperbacks whenever I can and especially just before the pocketbook comes out and they get discounted 50% to 70%.

The trade paper book "A Place Called Armageddon-Constantinople 1453" that I just bought cost me $8.99 which is $4 cheaper then the paperback that is just about to be released.

[Greg]

Currently rereading Hard Magic. It finally came out in mass-market paperback. Whoever is responsible for the recent publisher obsession with trade paperbacks needs to be kneecapped. I buy hardcovers (rarely) or mass paperbacks only, not any annoying hybrid that combines the worst of both worlds.

Anyway, a nice upside of this is that now I can continue the process of turning my wife into a Larry Correia junkie. She stole my copy of Dead Six and loved it.

I'm the complete opposite--I only buy trade paperbacks whenever I can and especially just before the pocketbook comes out and they get discounted 50% to 70%.

The trade paper book "A Place Called Armageddon-Constantinople 1453" that I just bought cost me $8.99 which is $4 cheaper then the paperback that is just about to be released.

Odd. I don't see that around here, one of my complaints about trade papers is that they're always more expensive than the mass market books. (I think publishers like to considers trade papers as some kind of 'premium' format and charge accordingly. Not to me, in my eyes it's just an annoying 'tween.)

Another complaint is that they take up more shelf space. A hardcover takes up more shelf space, sure, but at least it's more durable. The trade paper eats up the shelf space, without being more durable. This is an issue because most of my bookshelves devoted to fiction have shelf spacing *just* high enough (yes, I did that and yes, on purpose) for mass market paperbacks. I only have a few special shelves for hardback and trade paperbacks.

[SeekHer]

Currently rereading Hard Magic. It finally came out in mass-market paperback. Whoever is responsible for the recent publisher obsession with trade paperbacks needs to be kneecapped. I buy hardcovers (rarely) or mass paperbacks only, not any annoying hybrid that combines the worst of both worlds.

Anyway, a nice upside of this is that now I can continue the process of turning my wife into a Larry Correia junkie. She stole my copy of Dead Six and loved it.

I'm the complete opposite--I only buy trade paperbacks whenever I can and especially just before the pocketbook comes out and they get discounted 50% to 70%.

The trade paper book "A Place Called Armageddon-Constantinople 1453" that I just bought cost me $8.99 which is $4 cheaper then the paperback that is just about to be released.

Odd. I don't see that around here, one of my complaints about trade papers is that they're always more expensive than the mass market books. (I think publishers like to considers trade papers as some kind of 'premium' format and charge accordingly. Not to me, in my eyes it's just an annoying 'tween.)

Another complaint is that they take up more shelf space. A hardcover takes up more shelf space, sure, but at least it's more durable. The trade paper eats up the shelf space, without being more durable. This is an issue because most of my bookshelves devoted to fiction have shelf spacing *just* high enough (yes, I did that and yes, on purpose) for mass market paperbacks. I only have a few special shelves for hardback and trade paperbacks.

I won’t buy them for regular price or a hardcover for that matter but they both almost always go on sale …Hardcover six months after release when the trade paper comes out and then again six months later when the paperback/pocketbook comes out unless the hardcover has a phenomenal run and multiple printings that normal timetable goes out the window…Then again if the hardcover is a total flop, there will be no trade or pocket version released and they’ll sell off what they have for the cost of the print run.

We’ll buy that way—unless we need the book, now, for a project but my wife’s library is 90% hardcover, research texts, bought at full price when they were just released because they just might have some reference to her work at the university…Then again her area is only about five hundred (± fifty) years of history (100 BCE to 300AD) with comparatively few books on the subject that usually don’t go to multiple printings and almost never to pocket books.

I’ve gotten really good at designing and building bookcases but set them up for stability with the bottom two rows for hardcover, next two for trade paper and the top two for paperbacks two deep (or trade paper on their sides).

[SeekHer]

I found some replacements and am re-reading two books as well.

The Book of the Sword by Richard F. Burton
The Sword In The Age Of Chivalry by R. Ewart Oakeshott
The Sword In Anglo Saxon England by E. R. Ellis Davidson
Codex Wallerstein: A Medieval Fighting Book from the Fifteenth Century on the Longsword, Falchion, Dagger, and Wrestling by Grzegorz Zabinski
Medieval Swordsmanship: Illustrated Methods And Techniques by John Clements
The Crooked Stick: A History of the Longbow by Hugh D. H. Soar
The Medieval Archer by Jim Bradbury
The Book Of The Crossbow by Ralph Payne-Gallwey
Longbow: A Social And Military History by Robert Hardy

Historical Fiction
The Tides Of War by Steven Pressfield
Deus Lo Volt: Chronicle Of The Crusades by Evan S. Connell—He also wrote The Son of Morning Star about Custer and Sitting Bull—both super well researched.