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#2056471 - 01/02/16 02:07 PM
What are you reading? (2016)
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Joined: Aug 2001
Posts: 21,939
Next to Harvey
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"Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath" by Ted Koppel (2015). Okay, the title sort of sketches the plot: "...imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months." It's interesting, but it's one expert after another being quoted as saying this is possible and that we are toast if it does happen; at 34% it's beginning to get pretty repetitive.
Thus susceptible to diversion, I downloaded a book it alluded to, "One Second After" (2011) by William R. Forstchen a novel focused on a rural community in North Carolina when the lights go out after an NEMP. It's very simply written, but still a very good read and thought provoking. (It's apparently become the preppers': We told you so!) It was good enough that I also read the sequel, "One Year After" (2015) which is little more than a script for a great action movie. (There are really good parts for Pierce Brosnan, Helen Hunt, Chris Pine, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.)
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#2056476 - 01/03/16 09:21 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 21,293
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Originally Posted By Ken_Pegasus
"Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath" by Ted Koppel (2015). Okay, the title sort of sketches the plot: "...imagine a blackout lasting not days, but weeks or months." It's interesting, but it's one expert after another being quoted as saying this is possible and that we are toast if it does happen; at 34% it's beginning to get pretty repetitive.
Thus susceptible to diversion, I downloaded a book it alluded to, "One Second After" (2011) by William R. Forstchen a novel focused on a rural community in North Carolina when the lights go out after an NEMP. It's very simply written, but still a very good read and thought provoking. (It's apparently become the preppers': We told you so!) It was good enough that I also read the sequel, "One Year After" (2015) which is little more than a script for a great action movie. (There are really good parts for Pierce Brosnan, Helen Hunt, Chris Pine, and Cuba Gooding, Jr.) Ken, your post reminded me of a call I received from my sister a few weeks after Hurricane Ivan. Her home was the last in town to get power back, 2 to 3 weeks after the storm. It had to do with being just about the oldest house in a very small town. At one time she actually had the shut off for the gas supply for the town in her yard (she learned it was not just her shut off valve when she turned it off.  !) When she called me post-Ivan for an update, she called on her cell phone that had been charged in her car, and said "Just call me "Ma Kettle". I am sitting on a lawn chair in my back yard, drinking a beer from a cooler, and eating an MRE that the National Guard dropped off." We still laugh about that.
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#2056481 - 01/04/16 01:45 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Platinum Poster
Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 637
Acceptance, USA America
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61 Hours by Lee Child.
I have "One Second After" on hold at the library.
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#2056487 - 01/04/16 02:45 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Joined: Oct 2002
Posts: 730
Maine
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I started the Jack Reacher series this vacation, and am already hooked. I loved the first book and stayed up way too late last night on the second one! Far fetched stuff, but a great read!
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#2056497 - 01/04/16 03:13 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
DEL
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Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 19,855
Pulling people out of the ditc...
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I started the Jack Reacher series this vacation, and am already hooked. I loved the first book and stayed up way too late last night on the second one! Far fetched stuff, but a great read! I've read each one, in order, as they've come out...they are starting to get repetitive...guess you can only single-handedly save the world in so many ways...
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#2056501 - 01/04/16 03:23 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Joined: Apr 2005
Posts: 637
Acceptance, USA America
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I am reading the Jack Reacher books out of order (as they become available at my library) but it doesn't matter to me. The storylines are repetitive but not a problem for me yet.
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I overstand.
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#2056506 - 01/04/16 03:29 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Platinum Poster
Joined: Feb 2010
Posts: 960
Illinois
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I'm reading Inferno by Dan Brown. Another Robert Langdon adventure like the DaVinci Code, this time set in Florence. I keep googling the places he writes about to see what they look like. Like Brown's other books, it's a thriller that hooks you in right from the start, and you can learn a few things along the way.
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#2056520 - 01/04/16 04:18 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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100 Club
Joined: Aug 2013
Posts: 116
Texas
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Always have several books going simultaneously. One finished yesterday was "Behind That Locked Door" by Graeme Thomson, a biography about the life of George Harrison.
I enjoyed it and appreciated the insights if offered into the Beatles, the music business, and Harrison's creative work both during and after the Beatles. Given the subject, it's probably too weighty an effort, dwelling on peripheral aspects of his life. Surprisingly scholarly, it's a long read that probably will bog down for most readers after about half-way through when one reaches about the mid-1970s and Harrison's relevance to pop music begins to fade though his personality is further developed for the reader in the second half of the book.
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#2056522 - 01/04/16 04:22 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Gold Star
Joined: Apr 2012
Posts: 264
one state over
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I just finished re-reading the Walking Dead compendium 2 and starting Odd Interlude by Koontz today at lunch. On a side note after reading so much Walking Dead and playing Fallout 4, I'm ready to not be involved in the end of the world for a while.
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#2056529 - 01/04/16 04:46 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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TN
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CompliantOkie - I just finished that book over the weekend. It took me awhile to get into it, though. It wasn't my favorite Robie/Reel novel.
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#2056532 - 01/04/16 04:53 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Skittles
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Gold Star
Joined: Dec 2013
Posts: 425
OOOOOOklahoma
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CompliantOkie - I just finished that book over the weekend. It took me awhile to get into it, though. It wasn't my favorite Robie/Reel novel. It was a bit of a slow start. The plot seemed too similar to a Robert Downey Jr. movie I recently watched though the name escapes me. But listening to it on my phone kept me interested. I tend to read very quickly and skim over descriptive sections of novels. This didn't allow me to do that so maybe that's why I was immersed more quickly than I typically would be.
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#2056534 - 01/04/16 05:06 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
CompliantOkie
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Joined: Aug 2010
Posts: 23
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I am half way through the Goldfinch by Donna Traptt, one of the best I have read recently. You never know where the story line will take you next. Highly recommend it.
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#2056537 - 01/04/16 05:14 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Diamond Poster
Joined: Jan 2010
Posts: 1,028
Utopia
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Just finished Girl on the Train over vacation, now on to The Secret Life of Violet Grant.
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#2056566 - 01/04/16 07:20 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Soccer
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Posts: 21,939
Next to Harvey
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I've really enjoyed all of the Jack Reacher books except the last one (the plot was so implausible I couldn't swallow it) and always pictured James Gandolfini as the lead. Casting Tom Cruise in the movie was like casting Cheetah to play King Kong.
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In this world you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant. Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant.
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#2056568 - 01/04/16 07:24 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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TN
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Funny - and I get actors in my heads when reading certain books. I always picture Jim Caveziel (spelling?) as Will Robie in the Baldacci series.
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#2056575 - 01/04/16 07:55 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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10K Club
Joined: Jun 2004
Posts: 19,855
Pulling people out of the ditc...
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the good thing about Reacher novels is they each stand alone, doesn't matter what order you read them. Ken, I agree that Cruise was implausible in this role, yet they are currently filming the 2nd one in Baton Rouge at this time (not sure which one it is based on).
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#2056583 - 01/04/16 08:11 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Acceptance, USA America
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I've heard the second Reacher book is based on Never Go Back.
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#2056635 - 01/04/16 09:58 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Power Poster
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 6,726
the sandy shore
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CompliantOkie, I adore Audible, it's definitely one of my favorite apps. Some of the narrators are so good.
Currently listening to the second book in the Zombie Fallout series (A Plague on Your Family) and reading... um.... I have forgotten. I read so many books over the holidays I have forgotten what I'm actually reading right now. I am pretty sure it's a time travel book; I just started it so I don't know if it's good yet.
Does anyone do Goodreads book challenge? I set my challenge at 125 for 2016. I finished 2015 at 168 books (goal of 115) so I'm pretty confident I should be able to do 125 by year-end.
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#2056834 - 01/05/16 08:39 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
Elwood P. Dowd
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Diamond Poster
Joined: Aug 2012
Posts: 1,700
48.934476, -114.343735
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I'm working my way through the Leon Panetta Memoir "Worthy Fights" and have picked up what's left of Tom Clancy's "Debt of Honor".
Worthy Fights is my home/hunting book.
Debt of Honor is my work book that has sat half-read for over a year.
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#2056838 - 01/05/16 08:44 PM
Re: What are you reading? (2016)
CompliantOkie
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You mean story-time. You enjoy story-time.  I kid, I kid. I shouldn't joke here because I don't get to read as much as I used to, but I'm a strong opponent of the audio-book movement.
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Maybe you just wanna fly the plane yourself. Well good luck pressing take off, then auto pilot, then land.
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