Whatcha reading?

DaveHS DaveHS , I saw your comments in the "What are you watching" thread and figured I would tag you here. It's always good to come across other readers.


This is the pile I have gotten through in the past several months; I have diverse tastes. I am getting ready to tackle another pile that I just ordered and should be getting in soon.

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Non.Nisi.Te said:
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
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That one is on my list. I've been making an attempt to get books in that a lot of notable movies are based off of (e.g. Jaws, Legends of the Fall, The Homesman, and more recently, Caught Stealing).
 
The Tiger (Vaillant) was really awesome, if you like narrative non-fiction. The Wager was good. I am currently reading one about submarine captain Dick O'Kane.
 
Pàdruig said:
That one is on my list. I've been making an attempt to get books in that a lot of notable movies are based off of (e.g. Jaws, Legends of the Fall, The Homesman, and more recently, Caught Stealing).
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I'm enjoying it, about a quarter of the way through. I read "Call for the Dead" prior to this and thought that was quite interesting as well.

They're a slow burn compared to modern espionage novels, and the dialogue has a lot of subtext, it's almost sparse- reads more like a real conversation and I get the pleasant sense that the author is pretty sure we have the brains to fill in the blanks
 
Non.Nisi.Te said:
I'm enjoying it, about a quarter of the way through. I read "Call for the Dead" prior to this and thought that was quite interesting as well.

They're a slow burn compared to modern espionage novels, and the dialogue has a lot of subtext, it's almost sparse- reads more like a real conversation and I get the pleasant sense that the author is pretty sure we have the brains to fill in the blanks
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Excellent. I will look forward to it then. Frankly, I prefer more conversational dialogue in books. I think many authors tend to have their characters be overly verbose, or they are inclined to "overexplain", rather than separate the thought processing from the actual dialogue.
 
I've read a handful of the books in your pile, Dylan. My hardest time is deciding what to read. I fall back on police procedurals or espionage as long as they have the ring of authenticity....but I'll read anything from classics to westerns to sci-fi and non-fiction if the book triggers my interest.

I think Goodreads said I read 50 something books in the past year or thereabouts. I need to go back and check...not that it matters.
 
I read a few good espionage novels in the past year...let me look and I'll list a few:

"A Spy Alone" by Charles Beaumont

"A Spy at War" Charles Beaumont

"Box 88" Charles Cumming

"A Reluctant Spy" David Goodman

"The Poet's Game" Paul Vidich

"The Persian" David McCloskey

"The Seventh Floor" David McCloskey
 
Blues said:
I've read a handful of the books in your pile, Dylan. My hardest time is deciding what to read. I fall back on police procedurals or espionage as long as they have the ring of authenticity....but I'll read anything from classics to westerns to sci-fi and non-fiction if the book triggers my interest.

I think Goodreads said I read 50 something books in the past year or thereabouts. I need to go back and check...not that it matters.
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That is most excellent. I did not come close to that last year, though I did manage to read more in 2025 than I have in recent years combined. It has been great to rediscover my enjoyment of reading, it is a good way to settle my mind amidst an unsettling worldview.

I have been trying out new (to me) authors and exploring unfamiliar genres. Another thing I am starting to do with more frequency is when I watch a movie or show where at least the subject material is of interest, I check to see if it is based on a book. More often than not, it turns out to be the case. As is the way of it, the book usually is better.
 
Pàdruig said:
That is most excellent. I did not come close to that last year, though I did manage to read more in 2025 than I have in recent years combined. It has been great to rediscover my enjoyment of reading, it is a good way to settle my mind amidst an unsettling worldview.

I have been trying out new (to me) authors and exploring unfamiliar genres. Another thing I am starting to do with more frequency is when I watch a movie or show where at least the subject material is of interest, I check to see if it is based on a book. More often than not, it turns out to be the case. As is the way of it, the book usually is better.
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Agree. Rarely will a film equal the book it's based upon...though I will say I loved Oldman in "Tinker, Tailor", and again in "Slow Horses". Now, I will not say that le Carre' is surpassed, because he's a master, but I will say that while I think Herron is a wordsmith, his Slow Horses series of books became a bit repetitive and a little too clever and I lost interest after two or three...which was unfortunate.
 
Pàdruig said:
DaveHS DaveHS , I saw your comments in the "What are you watching" thread and figured I would tag you here. It's always good to come across other readers.


This is the pile I have gotten through in the past several months; I have diverse tastes. I am getting ready to tackle another pile that I just ordered and should be getting in soon.

NqVQkGk.jpeg
Click to expand...
I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture series. I mean, I like pretty much all of his books, but that series I found to be a real page turner for me. I just finished Service Model, and I really liked it, but I didn't find it as compulsively page turning for me as the Final Architecture books.
 
Blues said:
Agree. Rarely will a film equal the book it's based upon...though I will say I loved Oldman in "Tinker, Tailor", and again in "Slow Horses". Now, I will not say that le Carre' is surpassed, because he's a master, but I will say that while I think Herron is a wordsmith, his Slow Horses series of books became a bit repetitive and a little too clever and I lost interest after two or three...which was unfortunate.
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I love Oldman in just about anything I see him in. Slow Horses is still on my list to watch, just need to slot the time in when the TVs aren't occupied by the others. I'll consider your comments on the books before I potentially dig into them too.

abbydaddy said:
I really enjoyed Tchaikovsky's Final Architecture series. I mean, I like pretty much all of his books, but that series I found to be a real page turner for me. I just finished Service Model, and I really liked it, but I didn't find it as compulsively page turning for me as the Final Architecture books.
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This was my first foray in Tchaikovsky, and I very much enjoyed it. The second in this series is in the next group of books that I ordered.
 
Hammer67 said:
Finished McCloskey's latest book, "The Persian" a couple months ago. Big fan of his work.
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I didn't like the middle book at all. It ended up a DNF

Check out the Beaumont and Vidich books
 
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