GeneKlein

I've left a few myself. So they can't all be totally useless. The trick/problem is determining which can be trusted like mine or those that can't.
 
Gman

Ok, yes I'd trust a fellow poster's review there if I knew that. But rentMen's policy of deleting negative reviews at their discretion negates any value to their reviews. They've deleted mine. To "protect" their paying escort advertisers? Not good...

Yes, people at one time could leave actual descriptions. They stopped those after the RB raid. Of course even when thorny had them, they weren't vetted as well as the reviews on this site are. They were just like the reviews on the site associated with M4RN. They could easily be submitted by the actual escort or friends of his. The same thing can happen here of course. But it's more difficult.
 
Gman

Wow. Have I been using the wrong site? I thought they were on that up and up. Is the general consensus to stay away from rent men?

Not sure I'd reach that conclusion. The advice - especially for a person hiring for the first time - was to seek out another data point using DaddysReviews for a potential validation of the escort on the RB ad. That way, one has increased their chances for a positive first-time experience. I don't think anyone commented that RentMen was not a good place to start a search.

Gene, the film based on the book, unsurprisingly called "The Hedgehog" was terrific as well. It's in French, with subtitles. Well worth seeing.

I'm absolutely in love with this thread. You guys have (unfortunately) given me a ton of new books to pick up.
 
I mainly flirt in scifi/fantasy and most of my favorite books are by more recent authors but I need to pick up more complex writing to help with my own.
 
Oddly enough, my favorite book of all time has not a hint of scifi to it. It's The Elegance of the Hedgehog and I fully recommend picking it up. It's a very bittersweet novel about a parisian apartmenthe concierge who hides her cleverness from the world for fear of rejection and the girl genius she befriends who feels like she's reached her intellectual peak and has resolved to end her life before it all goes downhill. It's a great read and not as maudlin as it sounds.

Currently I'm reading Kings Rising, the conclusion to a trilogy by CS Pacat. Set in a fantasy world, sort of like Game of Thrones. Lots of intrigue and skulduggery and m/m sex. Love it!
I'm also reading on my kindle Afterglow (upending Tad: A journey of erotic discovery Book 6). Sexy and funny and lots of m/m sex. Love it!
Sitting on my bedside table waiting to be read are A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (2015 Booker prize winner), The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro and The New York Nobody Knows by William B Helmreich. The way my interest seems to be going, New York is going to remain a closed book to me.

I could have put this in Friday Funnies, but thought I'd try to revive this thread:

Truth. (Source)
 
I finished some books recently but I'm not sure how interested anyone here would be in them: Manga in America: Transnational Book Publishing and the Domestication of Japanese Comics by Casey Brienza (based on her PhD dissertation and research), The King's Man by Elizabeth Kingston (medieval historical/romance novel), and Special Interests by Emma Barry (contemporary romance set among D.C.'s political class). What I'm in the middle of now might be: The Cuckoo's Calling, the first in the Cormoran Strike mystery series by Robert Galbraith/J.K. Rowling.
 
What are you reading, or what have you read recently?

I tend to be functionally illiterate (English and History being my worst subjects in school), but
maybe some members might find some amusement in the mere handful of books I've read
in the past dozen years or so (or longer) - just for fun.
 
Being somewhat obsessive compulsive, once I start reading it's difficult for me to stop.
 
When I was a graduate student (in math, lo these 40 years ago), one evening I started reading
The Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and I didn't stop until I had finished it, about 6am
the next morning.
 
I read the first five of the Harry Potter series, but had to stop about half-way through the fifth one.
It was so unremittingly bleak that I just couldn't finish it.
 
I also read Wicked on the recommendation of a friend (in 2 sittings).
 
The last time I read anything non-technical for fun, was returning from a business trip from D.C
which had a 3 hour layover in Philadephia; in one of newsstands/mini-bookstores a little tome
called out to me from the shelf - another book that the same friend alluded to above had mentioned
titled Interesting Times by Terry Pratchet.
 
It cause me to burst out laughing many times, causing fellow passengers to wonder just what I had
been reading. I finished the novel just as the plane touched down in San Francisco (perfect timing!).
some of what was so funny were no-to-veiled references to other Novels. I'm sure I missed most,
but did catch a reference to Shogun by James Clavell (which I had read so long ago, I've forgotten when).
 
A British fellow was seated across the aisle; I asked him if he had ever heard of Pratchett. He had not,
so I just handed him the book and wished him well with it.

I'm a mostly science fiction type. I'm currently on the third Game of Thrones book. I loved "Devil in the White City", but found Larson's next book about the US Ambassador to Germany prior to WWII kind of boring. Fascinating events but that ambassador had SO little participation in any of them.
 
I'm in a couple of book clubs, one a group of friends that seems to have died a slow death (although we still get together regularly, the book aspect has dwindled). Our city's library has a book club that meets at a local bar to discuss the book and that's always fun, we're discussing "Watchmen" in a few weeks. My first pick for the other book club was "The Dark Knight Returns", and a few members said they came away from that with a new respect for the graphic novel medium.
 
Some biographies have been very good reads. Dorothy Parker's biography was a favorite, I'm still trying to finish Ellman's Oscar Wilde biography after many, many years. I bring it every year camping, but never manage to finish it.
 
I'm totally with Kurtis about wanting more time, especially now that I have a dog to take care of - lots of down time is just playing with her, rather than reading. I used to bring a book to the bar Friday afternoons after work & read over several beers, or read over dinner at a restaurant, but I'm much more of a homebody now. If I can tire the puppy out we'll crash on the couch and I can get some reading time in. :-)

Gene Klein in D.C.
http://rentmen.com/GeneKlein
Love him.

Gene Klein in D.C.
http://rentmen.com/GeneKlein
Love him.