By Nic Lindh on Friday, 13 December 2013
Enormously important reporting about the policy failures in the war in Afghanistan and the soldiers who attempted valiantly to carry out their mission, ending in heartbreaking disappointment. Tapper’s reporting is first-rate and he treats his subjects with respect.
It is an important, frustrating and ultimately deeply sad book, with the outpost a microcosm of all the failures of the war in Afghanistan, where understrength divisions struggled with fuzzy objectives, lack of intelligence and changes in strategy.
Required reading.
The inside story of the beginning of the first-person shooter era, focused on the “two Johns,” Carmack and Romero, and how id software got its start.
Masters of Doom is a compelling read even for non-gamers, in that it covers the company’s struggles to figure out its business model—how to make money off of a project that depends on being free to spread around BBS systems and the nascent Internet—but for anybody who experienced the terror of running through the levels of Doom it’s also interesting to get the back story of how id’s games came to be and to appreciate John Carmack’s genius.
For any younglings out there, yes, Doom was terrifying back in the day. I’ve seen grown men jump out of their seats when a hidden demon suddenly attacks.
Fun, uplifting and actionable, Adams’s view of your brain as a moist robot that can be reprogrammed if you only understand which buttons to push is a great framework to think about life.
Highly recommended.
Fascinating history of Amazon from its beginnings during the dot-com boom to where it stands today. Paints a not very flattering picture of Jeff Bezos as a brilliant tyrant—it’s easy to understand why Bezos’s wife left a one-star review on Amazon. (Which is amazingly meta.) It’s easy to see Bezos as a CEO much in the mold of Steve Jobs—for better or for worse.
The early chapters are riveting, especially how many times Amazon almost went out of business while clawing its way up the retail ladder.
The Royal Air Force received a lot of criticism after World War II for their relentless campaign of ‘area’ bombing, or as it can also be called, terror bombing, which wiped out large parts of many German cities including most notoriously Cologne and Dresden—ravaged by horrific fire storms casued by incendiary bombs.
Bomber Command examines the origins of Britain’s bomber fleet and the thinking, personalities and operational realities that brought about the terror campaign and shows without being an apologist how Bomber Command realistically couldn’t have operated any other way.
As you’d expect from Hastings, it’s a masterful, definitive work that sheds ample light on that part of World War II.
Mickey Haller (of The Lincoln Lawyer movie and book fame) is back in another solid courtroom thriller. A client from Haller’s past is found murdered and her killer becomes Haller’s client, but it turns out (of course) the case isn’t as simple as it seems. And naturally there is drama in his personal life.
As usual in a Mickey Haller novel, there are twists and turns, but less so than in the past, and the ending is signalled a bit too obviously. But Gods of Guilt is nevertheless a solid thriller and worth picking up if you’re a fan of the series. Though as with any series, you should start at the beginning with The Lincoln Lawyer.
Low Town is the slum underbelly of the city of Rigus, and the Warden is its king, wrestling a living from selling drugs and information. A former soldier and cop, he is a man tormented by his memories. This is dark fantasy with a heavy dose of noir.
When a Low Town child is found murdered it is up to the Warden to find the killer. Sorcery, thuggery and violence follow in his wake.
Low Town is an impressive debut novel and a given for anybody who enjoys their fantasy gritty and raw.
Note: There’s something odd going on and the novel is also available under the title The Straight Razor Cure, but that version is not available for the Kindle.
(DISCLOSURE: Links go to the Amazon Kindle store and are affiliate links. If you buy one of the books through a link here I get a tiny kickback from Amazon without it costing you anything extra. Be a mensch, eh?)
Includes Doppelgänger, Be Useful, Rose/House, System Collapse, and Empire of the Wolf.
Includes Friends, Lovers, and the Big Terrible Thing, Extremely Online, Number Go Up, Mercury Rising, The End of the Myth, and The Big Break.
Includes Hello World, A Frozen Hell, Powers and Thrones, Dead Country, Blitz, The Hope that Kills, and Worth Killing For.
We pour one out for The Expanse and Sandman Slim, and we raise our glasses for a sequel to Malazan. Also, an extra-bleak Holocaust tour and a discussion of how cults control their members through language. Includes Cultish, Nein, Nein, Nein, Driven, Happy-go-Lucky, The Nineties, Fargo Rock City, The Scholast in the Low Water Kingdom, King Bullet, The God is Not Willing, and Leviathan Falls.
Why your body hurts, lots of politics, and some truly demented grimdark fantasy in this installment. Includes Reign of Terror, Evolution Gone Wrong, The Cruelty is the Point, How to be a Liberal, The Splendid and the Vile, Deep Work, A Desolation Called Peace, Black Stone Heart, and She Dreams in Blood.
Includes Everybody Has a Podcast (Except You), Pappyland, Backstory, and Medallion Status.
Some very good history, some very strange novels and some slick space opera. Includes Enemy of all Mankind, A Very Punchable Face, Confederates in the Attic,Ballistic Kiss, Harrow the Ninth, The Library at Mount Char, Children of Time, The Last Emperox, and Cage of Souls.
Back once again with the sci-fi and general calamity. Includes The End is Always Near, Eat the Apple, A Memory Called Empire,Gideon the Ninth, Infinite Detail, Permafrost, Fallen, and The October Man.
A sci-fi and fantasy heavy installment that includes The Valedictorian of Being Dead, The Mastermind, Broadsword Calling Danny Boy,Tiamat’s Wrath, The Raven Tower, The Liberation, The Light Brigade and Cryptonomicon.
Includes The Incomplete Book of Running, Aching God, The Murderbot Diaries, Lies Sleeping, The Consuming Fire, and Rendezvous with Rama.
Includes Hollywood Dead, Tales from the Loop, Things from the Flood, The Court of Broken Knives, and Port of Shadows.
Includes The Storm Before the Storm, White Trash, Calypso, Tell the Machine Goodnight, Prince of Fools, and Provenance.
Mostly excellent non-fiction in this installment. Includes Fantasyland, The Miracle of Dunkirk, Das Reich, The Undoing Project, Waiting for the Punch, Vacationland and Points of Impact.
Lots of sci-fi in this installment. Includes Retribution, Boomerang, The Collapsing Empire, All Systems Red, and Ninefox Gambit.
Includes a mea culpa, Hillbilly Elegy, Gulp, The Stars are Legion, and The Kill Society.
Lots of fiction series in this one. Includes Grunt, 1177 B.C., Louder Than Hell, Smarter Faster Better, The Hanging Tree, Death’s End, Chains of Command, and Who Killed Sherlock Holmes?.
This installment features grimdark fantasy, peppy astronauts and the Roman Empire. Includes SPQR, And On That Bombshell, The Code Book, Schiit Happened, Beyond Redemption, The Severed Streets, The Martian and Veiled.
Includes The Antidote, One Nation, Under Gods, Losing the Signal, The Todd Glass Situation, The Last Policeman, The Three-Body Problem, The Dark Forest, Beacon 23, Killing Pretty and Queen of Fire.
Lots of fantasy and sci-fi in this installment plus a book about sports! Includes Boy on Ice, Difficult Men, Restaurant Man, The Red Line, Cunning Plans, Seveneves, Nemesis Games, Bitter Seeds, The Mechanical, Angles of Attack, and City of Stairs.
Nic is sad about Terry Pratchett's passing. Includes No Land’s Man, Idiot America, Something Coming Through, The Burning Room, Foxglove Summer, and The Dark Defiles.
Things go dark and magical in this installment. Includes So, Anyway…, Yes Please, The Mirror Empire, London Falling, Broken Homes, Perfidia, The Peripheral, Burning Chrome, and the Bel Dame Apocrypha Omnibus.
Lots of good reads in this installment. Includes All Hell Let Loose, Metallica: This Monster Lives, 10% Happier, Onward, Echopraxia, Cibola Burn, The Getaway God, Lock In, The Red: First Light, Terms of Enlistment, and Lines of Departure.
Solid reads abound in this installment of the roundup. Includes Console Wars, Your Inner Fish, Flash Boys, Digital Wars, The Perfect Storm, Tower Lord, By Blood We Live, I am Pilgrim and Lexicon.
Some great reads and a huge disappointment in this installment. Includes The Loudest Voice in the Room, Hatching Twitter, Dogfight, Ancillary Justice, KOP Killer, The Circle, Working God’s Mischief and Where Eagles Dare.
A slimmer-than-usual book roundup is heavy on the non-fiction, including several must-read titles.
Another book roundup, including some stellar athletes and soldiers, what might be the most jaded, soul-weary protagonist ever, and some grimdark fantasy.
Nic reads a book about the processed food industry and is incensed.
The Core Dump is back! Books were read during the hiatus. Includes The Coldest Winter, Oh, Myyy!, Tough Sh*t, The Revolution Was Televised, The Rook, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, Gun Machine, Fortress Frontier, Standing in Another Man’s Grave, and The Memory of Light.
From a true patriot to a world-weary detective, a dead god, and a civilization about to sublime from the galaxy, this book roundup spans the gamut. Includes Where Men Win Glory, Wild, Inside the Box, The Black Box, Three Parts Dead, Red Country, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
From the heights of athletic excellence to the depths of depravity, this roundup includes The First 20 Minutes, Double Cross, The Heroin Diaries, Tattoos and Tequila, Dodger, Farthing, and Devil Said Bang.
Includes Wabi-Sabi, Making Things Happen, D-Day, Tallula Rising, Blood Song, The Americans and Amped. All in all, a happy romp through the meadows of literature.
Includes Search Inside Yourself, The Information Diet, Redshirts, The Gone-Away World, Wool, Leviathan Wakes, and Prince of Thorns. One of these may very well change your life.
Includes Shadow Ops: Control Point, The Night Circus, The Hunger Games, Quiet, The Science of Yoga, and Kitchen Confidential. Lots of good stuff in this one.
Includes Angelmaker, The Magicians, Magician King, Iron Council, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Distrust That Particular Flavor, and Talking to Girls About Duran Duran. One of these is the most important book of 2011.
Includes The Drop, Ready Player One, Moon Called, Among Others, Excession, Inferno, The Paleo Solution and I am Ozzy.
Includes Sandman Slim, Snuff, The Cold Commands, Reamde, Goodbye Darkness, Steve Jobs and The Psychopath Test.
Some books you might enjoy reading.
Matt Taibbi’s Griftopia is an important book, and it will make you angry enough to froth at the mouth.
The Heroes is an intense, wild ride into a maelstrom of violence, brutality and flawed human beings. You should read it.