On to "The Book of Mormon Made Easier"

My usual choices in fantasy literature tend towards the grim & gritty, but I actually really enjoyed the The Name of the Wind.

Dune, hadnt read it in about 10 years, and I still notice new things for the first time.

I like just about anything really so I'm finding this enjoyable.

Who would you recommend for grim and gritty? I haven't read much fantasy, I wasn't really interested until just a few years ago.

Facing Violence: Preparing for the Unexpected

Certainly!  Here are some recommendations:

Joe Abercrombie, The First Law

Ed McDonald, The Raven's Mark Series

Rob J. Hayes, The Ties That Bind series

Scott Lynch, The Gentleman Bastards series

Douglas Hulick, Tales of the Kin

Hah! I'm actually a few chapters into The Blade Itself but I got distracted by Monster Hunter

I'll check out the rest, thanks!

The latest book "River of Night" in the "Graveyard Sky" series by John Ringo is available as an eARC.

https://www.baen.com/river-of-night-earc.html

So far, pretty good, I'm about 1/3rd in.

Glen Cook's Black Company series ought to do!

Oh yes, missed that one.  The first couple of books in the series are top notch.

I've only read the first three, as they came in a volume I found at Half Price. Are the later entries not as good?

Also, I've added your recommendations above to my list, thanks !

Edit: I just finished Eaters of the Dead by Crichton. It is pretty short and a change of pace, but I enjoyed it and it might fit the gritty fantasy genre.

Book 1 of Name of the Wind was great.  Book 2 got really bad with PC bullshit to the point it became hard to stay "in story" for me.

Heard he came out with some gayass novela about the sewers moon girl.  I read the synopsis on amazon and removed Rothfuss as an author to follow.  I expect I'm not missing shit if/when book 3 comes out

Loved Joe Abercrombies books though his recent young adult stuff was significantly inferior to his more mature works.  Not his fault as YA is always shit.

MadMonkey, how dark and gritty are you looking for?

R Scott Bakkers  Prince of Nothing series is incredibly good, but pretty dang dark.

I'm currently enjoying 40k stuff and am loving the Gaunts Ghosts series.

Dark as nut coal and gritty as nut coal?

I enjoy a wide range, from sunshine and unicorns to as dark as possible. I don't see much of the latter though, so I'd be interested in what you'd recommend.

Restarting after a nice hiatus. Hannibal by Patrick N. Hunt.

Recently finished "Bad Blood" about Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos.  Great read.

Thinking about starting either "Dopesick" or "Alienated America" next.  Not sure which one I'll pick up first...

"Impasse" by Royce O Buckingham.

Honest lawyer goes to Alaska, on vacation. Then discovers he wasn't supposed to survive. What he was must change. Can he?

Esoteric Hollywood 2:. More Sex, Cults and Symbols in Film by Jay Dyer.

The Count of Montecristo again

In the last twoish weeks:

Blind Man's Bluff by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew. Seems to be an arfcom favorite, lots of interesting info about the chicanery the US sub force got into during the Cold War.

The Deadly Deep by Ian Ballentine. Pretty exhaustive history of the development and employment of submarines in warfare, from the 16th century to the present.

Crusade by Rick Atkinson; a history of the Gulf War. As I was an infant at the time alot of it was all new to me. It certainly changed some perspectives I had. Schwarzkopf sounds like a marionette, and the Kuwaitis in particular and Arabs in general come off as utter scumbags.

Started:

The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang. Only a few chapters in but it's certainly interesting hearing a coastal technocrat's efforts to identify, and plan to rectify, issues plaguing modern "normal" Americans.

Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parsall and Anthony Tully. An account of the Battle of Midway that claims to be from a completely new and unexplored perspective. I have my doubts but we'll see.

One of Us Craig DiLouie

Through book 3 of “Galaxy’s Edge”.

Was interesting, what if Beowulf was a true story, what was that story...

They made it into a movie as well, The 13th Warrior.

Philip Haslam and Russell Lamberti's When Money Destroys Nations.  It discusses Zimbabwe and the hyperinflation they had there.  Here is an interview with one of the authors:

Malazan Book of the Fallen book 4, House of Chains

Awesome! A good audio book of that title makes it even better.

Frederick Taylor's The Downfall of Money.

"Inhuman Land, Searching for the Truth in Soviet Russia 1941-1942," by Jozef Czapski.

It's the story of a Polish soldier captured by the Soviets during the September Offensive in 1939, and his journey as a member of the Soviet-backed Polish army through Iran, Palestine and Italy. I'm four chapters in, and it's an illuminating glimpse of the incredible human cost of Soviet Communism, from a perspective we don't often see.

The collected Conan the Barbarian series, by Robert E. Howard. It's simple, easy reading that doesn't leave you feeling like shit for being a dude. Been reading this stuff since I was a kid.

Scouting on Two Continents, by Maj. Frederick Russell Burnham. Damn good book about an American frontier scout who went to Africa during the Boer War and got into adventures.

Leviathan by Hobbes.

Received yesterday and read Pedro Garcia's Port Hudson: Last Bastion on the Mississippi.

Just finished Arthur Bergeron & Lawrence Hewitt's Miles' Legion: A History and Roster.  They fought at Port Hudson under Gardner.

Lab 257 by Michael Christopher Carroll.

Notes from the Underground

I'm on my first re-read of the Wheel of Time series.  I just finished book 9 and started book 10.  I never finished the series the first time and book 10 is where I'll get into new stuff for me.

I finished this one recently. Oddly, there wasn't much I hadn't heard before just from reading Arfcom and the occasional Youtube video. It was a good book to help put a timeline on things.

Never mind.

Since my last post about six weeks ago:

Started/Ongoing:

Vietnam by Max Hastings. I'm not very familiar with the conflict, at least at the level I'd like to be, and this seemed like a fairly comprehensive account by someone who'd actually been there. Unfortunately Hastings was a Britbong journo and not a trooper, so his characterizations come off as elitist, sneering, and derogatory despite acknowledging his life was saved by US servicemen. It kind of pissed me off after a while so I set it aside for a bit, I'll come back to it later.

Clash of the Carriers by Barrett Tillman. An in-depth account of the "Great Marianas Turkey Shoot," I'm not far in yet.

The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang. Honestly haven't made it far since last time; he seems to have gone out of his way the last few weeks to align further with the hard left versus bringing an outside/non-partisan-hack perspective to the Democratic primaries, so I'm in no hurry to read much more.

Finished:

Shattered Sword by Jonathan Parshall and Anthony Tully. They tried to present it as a totally new take on Midway by presenting it through the Japanese point of view. I will say the research was good, and it provided an interesting look into the Japanese leadership's mindset during the action; they genuinely believed until the last moment they could win. Worth reading if you're really into the Pacific War, but worth skipping as a generalist.

Hornblower and the Hotspur, Hornblower and the Crisis, Hornblower and the Atropos, A Ship of the Line, The Happy Return, Flying Colours, and The Commodore by C. S. Forester. If you aren't familiar with Hornblower, think Aubrey-Maturin but if Aubrey was an uncharasmatic autistic person (at least initially) and Maturin a bit of a dullard, accelerated over the course of like nine books instead of 20. Fun reading if you're a fan of the era as I am. Please don't take my characterizations of the main characters as criticism; I like it when authors are able to actually attribute flaws to their heroes.

His Majesty's Dragon, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War, and Empire of Ivory of the Temeraire novels by Naomi Novik. These were re-reads and listens so I was able to get through pretty quick. For those unfamiliar, it's an alternate history series set during the Napoleonic Wars where dragons are real, sentient beings and are crewed and fought much as period warships. Kind of silly on the face of it, but enjoyable reads and not shy about the brutality.

Hard Magic by Larry Correia. Another re-read and another alternate history, set during the 30s, in which, surprise, magic is real. Guns still work, though, so that's nice. The first in a trilogy, I think the world created in this series is the strongest in all Correia's work and I'm a bit disappointed it ended after three.

Spearhead by Adam Makos. An interesting story, poorly told, it follows a handful of members of the Third "Spearhead" Armored Division throughout the ETO, including the crew of one of the first M26 Pershings to join the fight. That particular M26 was the one caught on camera in 1945 dueling with (and destroying) a Panther at comparatively close range. That tank's gunner was extensively interviewed as prime source material by the author; unfortunately, the author didn't seem particularly skilled in weaving together a narrative and I frequently lost track of who was who and doing what. Additionally the book is light on technical details which I know some spergs (such as myself) long for.

Bergeron and Hewitt's Boone's Louisiana Battery: A History & Roster.  Now halfway through Confederate Guerilla.

Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram on audiobook while I workout.

Eye of the World by Robert Jordan on the Kindle.

Edward Young Memorries' History of the First Regiment Alabama Volunteer Infantry, C. S. A.

Just finished "A Spy and a Traitor" by Ben Macintyre. It's a very good read.  It's about Oleg Gordievsky's career in the KGB.  It gets a little into Aldrich Ames's treachery.

After this book I'm wanting to read more books about espionage.  Can someone recommend something?

Rereading With British Snipers to the Reich.

Battle of Westport about Westport, Missouri.

The 97th Step, by Steve Perry.   Read it years ago and it was good then, too.

I trust you have read Sniping in France and the McBride books?

Reading Stephenson's latest Fall, or Dodge in Hell.  Neal goes SJW?  Not sure yet.

Steele's earlier stuf was pretty good (I think there were 3 books previous), but yeah, Coyote's plot and main character got kinda into the weeds.

@mPisi - yes, I've read Sniping in France and McBride's two books.   If you can get down to the local library, try to get my other books via interlibrary loan.  While my research is primarily into the blackpowder sharphshooter who did the same thing our modern snipers do, you'd be surprised about how much history on sniping I've found - especially in the second book.

The Thirteenth Tribe by Arthur Koestler. 1976 Original Hardback Edition.

SHARPSHOOTERS FORWARD The Regimental History of the Palmetto Sharpshooter Regiment, South Carolina Volunteers, 1861-1865 by Brocky A. Nicely