Yeah, I willc ertainly try to check his other books!

Justice League of America Silver Age Omnibus vol. 1. Pretty typical DC output of the era. Characters distinguished only by their looks and powers, and art that is fundamentally sound but lacking verve. Once you get past the spectacle of all these superheroes teaming up, you start to realize that somehow none of them come across as cool as they do in their solo books of the time. Aquaman is especially poorly served, which is one of the reasons why he became a bit of joke over the decades despite his Silver Age comics being rather good. Superman and Batman are also frequently absent or under-utilized, probably to avoid undercutting their teaming up in World's Finest. Some of the stories are fun, though, mainly the annual Crisis team-ups with the JSA, and the story about the demons and the bell, jar, and wheel was cool (Gardner Fox always had a special knack for occult stuff).

★★☆ Entanglement / Zygmunt Miloszewski

"Uwikłanie is a full-blooded crime story with a good plot and great contemporary social background" - fully agree with that opinion. Nice crime novel with suspense and interesting protagonist. Liked it.

★☆☆ A Grain of Truth / Zygmunt Miloszewski

Second part of trilogy. Another case for prosecutor Teodor Szacki. This time the book is much worse. Very political, not very intelligent. It also lost somehow all the suspense.

List of all books read in 2019.

Some catch up to do, again:

Le Roi de fer - Maurice Druon

"The Iron King" is the first volume of the "The Cursed Kings" by french academician Maurice Druon. He tells us, in the form of an historical novel, the time and deeds of the "Iron King", Philippe le Bel ("Philip the Fair") king of France, known for strenghtening the king's grip on the country and his infamous successful plot against the Knigths Templars. Very interesting, if you like to be plunged in the Middle Ages.

La Reine étranglée - Maurice Druon

"The Strangled Queen" is the following of the "Iron King", by the same author. Philippe le Bel is now dead and his son, Louis X le Hutin ("the unhinged" ?) is now king. Still very interesting, a must read.

Fear: Trump in the White House - Bob Woodward

From the "Watergate" fame journalist Bob Woodward, a terrifying inside view in the first years of Trump's presidency. Well-documented, sturdy, gripping, it's a book you might have a hard time to put down before the end. On many points much more terrifying than many horror novels...

So far in 2019: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2019/post10

★★☆ SQL: Visual QuickStart Guide / Chris Fehily

Nice book covering basics of SQL. May be good choice for quick recap. What I liked are: a lot of examples based on the same simple dataset (which makes them clear and easy to compare) and showing differences between most popular DBMS for each and every functionality described.

List of all books read in 2019.

I just finished Orconomics by J Zachary Pike. It was a great Fantasy RPG Satire (particularly satiric to tabletop RPG parties). I plan to read more of his writing later for sure.

Next up is Uncanny Collateral, released early.

(Both of these books are available as e-books DRM-free if you purchase directly from the author.)

A Battle of Nerves - Georges Simenon

Titled "La tête d'un homme" in French ("A man's head"), this Maigret story sees him not believing in the culpability of a man accused of the murder of a rich american woman and her maid, for which he was sentenced to the death penalty. Through a wrecking battle of nerves (hence the title), Maigret will try to uncover the real murderer.

Still one of the early Simenon's works, this story is really very enjoyable, even if a little bit less on the social side than the other stories I've read so far. It also shows the tenacity of Maigret, even in front of his superiors, when he is rightly convinced of something.

So far in 2019: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/books_finished_in_2019/post10

Most recently, Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy. The moments of drama seem rather melodramatic by today's standards, but it's a terrific novel, in an evocative setting, that still has much to say about the way communities work and the condition of the outsider.

Dr. Strange Omnibus vol. 1. Collecting the entire Lee/Ditko run. It's fantastic, full of gorgeously surrealistic landscapes to illustrate the different dimensions Strange is travelling through. Also unusual for the time is that, aside from a handful of self-contained "threat of the month" stories, the bulk of the run tells a continuing story of Strange battling Baron Mordo and Dormammu. Strange defeats them separately, but when they team up with Dormammu funneling his power into Mordo the book turns into a paranoid thriller in which Strange can't go anywhere or use magic without fearing that Mordo will instantly appear to kill him.

The Outlaw of Torn, by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Burroughs's first book was A Princess of Mars and his third was Tarzan of the Apes, and this is what he did between those. It's a medieval adventure in which an angry French swordsman plots revenge against the English king by kidnapping the king's 3-year-old son, teaching him to become the greatest swordsman on earth, and brainwashing him to hate all English people. When he grows up, he starts terrorizing the country but his innate goodness starts pulling him in the right direction despite what he's been taught.

It's alright, I guess. Burroughs seems immediately uncomfortable writing a quasi-Elizabethan "thee and thou" style and the plot and characters sort of fade in and out without much sense of urgency despite a few decent parts. At least it's pretty short. The portrayal of more brutish times is kind of funny at times, though. In one part, the hero decapitates an enemy, puts the head on a platter, and sets it down in front of his girlfriend and the goriness of it completely fails to impress her.

★★★ The Longest Day / Cornelius Ryan

I loved the book. The most realistic and detailed description of the D-Day I've ever read/watched/played/heard. It just allow reader to feel what felt all that guys skydiving and landing on French beach. Highly recommend.

★★☆ Rage / Zygmunt Miloszewski

Quite good ending of the trilogy. Much better reading than terrible "A Grain of Truth".

★☆☆ The Dark Sacrament: Exorcism In Modern Ireland / David M. Kiely, Christina McKenna

It's rather ghost stories of low documentary character than a book about exorcisms, sorry.

★☆☆ Python Data Analysis / Ivan Idris

One of Packt books that should never be published. A wide range of subject described selectively and incoherently, without deep understanding of topics. Book lacks of practical examples. A lot of packages and their relations mentioned, but no proper structure or hierarchy presented.

List of all books read in 2019.

Masters of Doom / David Kushner.

Very gossipy and the narrative was overly dramatic. After all the praise I expected something different.

For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto / Murray Rothbard.

Fantastic book all the way through, the perspectives presented here are very interesting and should be of value of anyone interested in politics - libertarian or not. Rothbard is one of few authors I wouldn't hesitate to label as pure genius.

Defending the Undefendable / Walter Block

Devils Advocate handbook. Had me smiling all the way through, even though some arguments "felt" wrong to me I had a very hard time actually building up a good point against most things he brought up. For those in favor of trigger warnings, this book should probably have the largest trigger warning available.

Waylon: Tales of My Outlaw Dad
By Terry Jennings

Fun but senseless ride through rough towns and long, booze and cocaine filled bus trips. Waylon's son Terry tells what it was like to have a famous singer dad, but the stories are just random with only a rough chronology to unite it, and the book doesn't have much of a point. The entire book could be summed up by saying, 'my dad had a lot of kids, married and divorced a bunch of women, all the while becoming a cocaine addicted country singer who didn't know when to quit but finally did and then died from diabetes a few years later.'

I really dig Waylon's music and style, but his son wrote a book that more or less portrayed him as a possibly ADD junkie music star that couldn't sit still and was never satisfied with any level of creativity or fame. If it was in video form, it would have made a very typical 'Behind the Music' special on VH1. Even as a Waylon fan, I felt totally lost and actually kind of bored reading it. There's only so many 'and then this one time we all got drunk and screwed a cow' stories you can hear before it all starts sounding the same.

Stop adding books to my wishlist!

Both books are available for free at the Mises Institute online in both PDF and audiobook form. Tons of great reading at that site.

Defending the Undefendable
https://mises.org/library/defending-undefendable

For a New Liberty
https://mises.org/library/new-liberty-libertarian-manifesto

The Complete Hans Christian Anderson Fairy Tales by Hans Christian, edited by Lily Owens
This large 800+ pages book took me a while to finish. Contains some classics like The Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid, The Emperor's New Suit. Some tales I enjoyed, Some tales I didn't enjoy and some were so-so.

Most entertaining story: Little Claus and Big Claus
Second favorite tale: The Tinderbox
Most depressing story: The Little Match Seller