What are you reading... ?

[David G]

I'm also about 1/4 into Morning of Fire, by Scott Ridley. It's the story of John Kendrick's voyage into the Pacific. It's just a few years after the Revolutionary War, and he's on the hunt for the Northwest Passage, a rich trade with China, and a good excuse to expand the reach of the U.S. all the way to the Pacific. Interesting so far.

[David G]

Coming down the home stretch on a book worth mentioning.

"River Horse" by William Least Heat-Moon. He and a companion take a boat (a C-Dory) from Astoria, New York to Astoria, Oregon. Sometimes they have to portage. In spots they have to switch to more appropriate boats, but they keep going. It's low-key, but interesting. They've just sighted Oregon. I should finish tonight.

[skuthorp]

My Life as an Indian" by J. W. Schultz, first published in 1907. He wrote 30 odd boys adventure books between 1907 and 1940. First went to Fort Benton in the Montana territory in 1877 so he said. Don't know if the whole story is just that but it's a good light read. After that, a tome on Einstein.

[purri]

"I Claudius" for the second time...

Slightly off topic but relevant. I know some of his descendants. The genius lives on!

To truth:

Federal gubbahmint's "National Cultural Policy: Discussion Paper" in preparation for a weekend conference. BTW it's a motherhood statement that will not achieve what is required.

[PeterSibley]

''The Shadow of the Silk Road'' Colin Thubron .

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I am one of those people who tends to have several books open at the same time.

For fun - re-reading yet again Arthur Ransome's "Swallowdale" because I just bought an early edition with the Clifford Webb pictures, and Terry Pratchett's "Wee Free Men" because I had missed it and Eric Newby's "A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush" for the same reason.

For improvement - Jan Morris's "Pax Brittanica"

[PeterSibley]

Well ! If we are mentioning ALL the books currently being supposedly read , meaning sitting there with bookmarks inserted

the afore mentioned ''Shadow of the Silk Road''
Terry Pratchett ''Making Money''
John Man ''Kublai Khan''
John Man ''Genghis Kahn''
Steig Larsson ''The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo''

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

I bet you finish "Making Money" before you finish "The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo".

The Problem with Pratchett is that he started out writing lightweight stuff, and has quietly got very serious indeed, but the literati struggle to come to terms with an author who is so popular.

[PeterSibley]

Pratchett is brilliant , no question at all !

Popularity seems to be a curse that the literati cannot abide .

[skuthorp]

ACB, Newby's book on the Hindu Kush has been a favourite since my 20's and I read it every few years again, It was interesting at the beginning of the Afghan intervention, as were some of a series of books by retired British Officers called Tales from the outposts, Small Wars of the Empire. I have 6 volumes, some turn up occasionally.
http://www.abebooks.com/Tales-Outpos...l/872703203/bd

[David G]

Interesting about A Short Walk... It was highly recommended by someone here a while back, so I finally got around to reading it. It was ok. Mildly interesting. Skimmed the last bit. Certainly wouldn't read it again.

Maybe one has to be 'Of The Empire' to really appreciate it?


I, too, usually have several books in process. Right now:

Last of the Rivermen - Ray Fadich - chronicles the Columbia River salmon fishery

Long Gone - Alafaire Burke - mystery by the daughter of James Lee Burke

L. Francis Herreshoff Reader - rereading

The Last Samurai - Helen DeWitt - just started

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The last bit works if you have read Thesiger's "The Marsh Arabs". Otherwise a bit odd. Frankly I prefer Tilman as a travel writer. But then I suppose I would.

Herreshoff is always worth reading even when he is being utterly outrageous!

[johnw]

I'm reading On Killing, by Grossman. Fascinating study of the psychological and social costs of getting people to kill in wartime, and how hard it is to get people to actually try to kill another human being. Most cultures find ways of conflict that actually kill very few people. Makes you wonder if we should be perfecting threat displays instead of weapons.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

But I think we do, John - the Cold War was exactly that - a threat display.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

But I think we do, John - the Cold War was exactly that - a threat display. Nice article in your blog on this, by the way.

[PhaseLockedLoop]

But I think we do, John - the Cold War was exactly that - a threat display.

That's if you don't count Vietnam, Korea, El Salvador, assorted South American mop-ups, Afghanistan I, and many lesser bloodbaths, all intended, supposedly, to forestall influence of one or other side in the "Cold" war. An improvement on WWI,II,or III, I'll grant you.

[johnw]

But I think we do, John - the Cold War was exactly that - a threat display. Nice article in your blog on this, by the way.

Backed up by the possibility of wiping out the entire human species.

You know, SLA Marshall found that only 15-20 percent of WW II grunts were actually shooting at the enemy, and that seems to be about right for previous wars. Marshall, a WW I vet, thought it was about right for his combat experience. By Viet Nam, changes in training had about 90-95 percent of the soldiers actually shooting at the enemy. So, which war went better for us, and which soldiers came back in better psychological shape?

It casts a different light on our heroes. No doubt Sgt. York was a crack shot and a brave man, but perhaps his greatest asset was a willingness to shoot to kill. Most soldiers, according to Grossett, are far more willing to risk their lives than to take the lives of the enemy.

Alexander the Great, in all his wars of conquest, is said to have lost only 700 men in combat. Granted, the enemy lost a lot more, but I'm wondering if what was brilliant about his tactics was that he demonstrated he had won, and got the other side to flee or submit. Look at other primates, or for that matter other species, and you see that there is a strong, innate aversion to killing your own species.

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

But we have a problem when we no longer associate our action with killing someone.



And this young man who flies his huge machine,
A bomber, five miles up, why, save his heart
He's never followed down his bombs and been
In the same room with lives he's torn apart.



This is a damned inhuman sort of war.
I have been fighting in a dressing-gown
Most of the night; I cannot see the guns,
The sweating gun-detachments or the planes;
I sweat down here before a symbol thrown
Upon a screen, sift facts, initiate
Swift calculations and swift orders; wait
For the precise split-second to order fire.
We chant our ritual words; beyond the phones
A ghost repeats the orders to the guns:
One Fire ... Two Fire ... ghosts answer: the guns roar
Abruptly; and an aircraft waging war
Inhumanly from nearly five miles height.
Meets our bouquet of death – and turns sharp right.

RN Currey, the best English poet of WW2, according to TS Eliot, and incidentally my school English master

[johnw]

Yes, putting distance between the soldier and the person they kill makes it easier to kill. Someday, perhaps, it will all seem like a video game. But in Viet Nam, we saw war waged as if it were pest control at times, and the result was not good. I'm wondering if perhaps all our war doctrines since Clausewitz have been wrong.

[S.V. Airlie]

To be honest Spin, I'm reading crapola. Nothing intellectual. Nothing historical just your basic..crapola.What I read, I know i'll forget tomorrow.

[Boater14]

Dutch, that opening of look homeward is the best of American writing. If you haven't read Bergs bio of max perkins do so. He was editing Thomas wolfe, Scott Fitzgerald and Hemingway and had to send moving men to wolfe's apartment to take the book away in two big wooden crates. The description of the soldiers trooping past the Gant farm to Gettysburg went on page after page and max said it had to go. Wolfe couldn't let the book go.

[SamSam]

Just finished Trader Horn. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trader_Horn It's an autobiographical about a young man going into equatorial West Africa in 1871 and becoming an ivory/ebony trader. The first half of every chapter has his story and the second half of every chapter is his conversations with his co-writer about what he'd written. Both parts are very good. It had three movies of the same name made about it in 1931, 34 & 73.

If I can find it at the library, next will be a re-read of The Frontiersmen. Read some reviews here...
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...e_Frontiersmen

[perldog007]

Taking a mind break and reading a trash adventure novel that's free on Kindle....

[AnalogKid]

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline.



About 1/3 through, very geeky but pretty well written and I'm enjoying it.

[perldog007]

Back on track now... but the trash break was good. First one since ninety two I believe. Currently reading "The Masters and the Path" by C.W. Leadbeater.

[Beowolf]

Just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. Way over-paced. Seems written for people with the attention span of a hummingbird. Overall, not bad for a teen-driven post-apocalyptic story. I'm having a difficult time seeing how they plan to turn these into movies though. Lots of violent deaths involving children.

[David G]

Wow... it's been a while since anyone bumped this thread.

I just finished a book that I found quite good - despite not being up my normal alley at all. 'The Thirteenth Tale' by Diane Setterfield. Complex, Victorian, lots of interested plot twists and mechanisms. Keep me turning pages!

[johnw]

Just finished the Hunger Games trilogy. Way over-paced. Seems written for people with the attention span of a hummingbird. Overall, not bad for a teen-driven post-apocalyptic story. I'm having a difficult time seeing how they plan to turn these into movies though. Lots of violent deaths involving children.

written for people with the attention span of a hummingbird.

Well, that would be teen fiction, eh?

My business partner claims that it's based on the myth of Theseus.

http://booksellersvsbestsellers.blog...its-roots.html

Don't know if she's right. I rather liked The Bull from the Sea, but I've not read The Hunger Games.

[Jimmy W]

I have been reading 'Where Main Street Meets the River" by Hodding Carter. I was born and grew up in the town where Main Street meets the Mississippi River and Hodding was the owner and editor of the local newspaper. Hodding Carter was a Pulitzer prize winner and was probably the most liberal newspaper editor in Mississippi in his day. I met Hodding once when we went swimming in his pool. A friend of mine's mother rented the guest house on his property.

[johnw]

Wow... it's been a while since anyone bumped this thread.

I just finished a book that I found quite good - despite not being up my normal alley at all. 'The Thirteenth Tale' by Diane Setterfield. Complex, Vicorian, lots of interested plot twists and mechanisms. Keep me turning pages!

I've been reading Why Nations Fail, but it's a bit of a downer, what with all those nations failing and all, so I've been reading some Diana Wynne Jones to take a break. She's one of the more inventive fantasy writers, wrote Howl's Moving Castle, which was made into a film. Generally published as a juvenile writer, but read by adults for the most part, based on who I sell her books to.

[johnw]

Oh, and speaking of juvenile fiction...

[Gerarddm]

...just now chewing through Thank You For Arguing: What Aristotle, Lincoln and Homer Simpson can teach us about the art of persuasion. By Jay Heinrichs.

Brilliant, really. " Your master class in the art of persuasion, taught by professors from Bart Simpson to Churchill".

[seanz]

Was forced by SWIMPAL to read some fantasy fiction by a female author with a female protagonist. It started off as (I thought) a coming of age with magical powers type of thing but I gritted my teeth and read on. Took about twenty pages and it went hard-core, David Gemmell style. Bit of a surprise.....so I read the next one in the series too.
Local author; Helen Lowe and the books are The Heir of Night and Gathering of the Lost. There's the odd little local reference, I thought, which makes it fun.
Anyway, entertaining juvenile fantasy fiction.

[Captain Intrepid]

I'm starting to slowly pick my way through C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity. So far the introduction is good. I really like his opinion of the differences between Christian denominations.

[AlexAlex8100]

"The Hundred Great Persons" written by Michael H. Hart.I love reading about history.Really interesting and informative.Just recently finished.Like it!!!

[Flying Orca]

Thinking Fast And Slow. Not too far into it but it's brilliant so far.

[John B]

Life in Feejee:

Or, Five Years Among the Cannibals : "truth is Strange, Stranger Than Fiction"

http://books.google.co.nz/books/abou...d=YxIgQwAACAAJ


aka, dinner dinner dinner .....

[AnalogKid]

I'm just closing out book 6 of the seven part Saga of Seven Suns by Kevin J. Anderson. The series has kept boredom at bay over the winter but I wouldn't hold it up as a masterpiece. It's more a case of endurance now, I'm so close to the end I'm determined to see it through, just another 600 or so pages to go.

[Farfalla]

"Merivel" by Rose Tremain, the follow up to "restoration. Both great books.

"Sexual Personae" Camille Paglia, a history of art, ideas and culture in the West. I've read bits and pieces of her work so I decided it was time to take the plunge. Amazing scholar, some of her ideas are infuriating but you really have to think long and hard.

[skuthorp]

Making hard work of a book that I am repairing for another forumite and catching up with some magazine articles. #94 Watercraft has a great daysailer yawl by Don Kurylco on pge. 54.

[RichKrough]

For my inaugural foray into Kindle type reading I just started on Padgett Powell's 'You and Me". So far I would characterize it as two old men sitting on the porch bull$hitting.... but eloquently!

[ron ll]

Ken Follet's Fall of Giants. It has a lot to do with the start of WWI and it is incredible how
stupidly that war started. Just a bunch of individual tzars and kings and their egos. Most of them thinking things like, "Well if there
IS going to be war, I better be the first to attack." Of course it's a novel, but still...

[seanz]

Ken Follet's Fall of Giants. It has a lot to do with the start of WWI and it is incredible how
stupidly that war started. Just a bunch of individual tzars and kings and their egos. Most of them thinking things like, "Well if there
IS going to be war, I better be the first to attack." Of course it's a novel, but still...

If you'd like a history of the period, Tuchman's The Guns of August is a good read.

[Chris Coose]

Steven King's, Under the Dome

Been a while since I read Steve but this casual character introduction reminded me why I love reading this guy.

A skateboarder has taken a decent spill, gashing his leg. Norrie has recently received stitches and the kid is comparing with Rusty, the Dr. who is stitching him up.

"Not that many," Rusty said. He knew Norrie, a mini-goth whose chief aspiration seemed to be killing herself on a skateboard before bearing her first woods colt. He pressed near the wound with the needle end of the syringe. "Feel that?"

[Joe ( Cold Spring on Hudson )]

Kitchen Confidential - Athonony Bourdain

[ishmael]

As 'Andrew says, I've got half a dozen books open.The current one that is catching my eye is "Blue Water, Green Skipper", Stewart Brand. The trials and tribulations of a relative newbie trying to get up to speed for the OSTAR.

I've been sailing since I could toddlle, but I couldn't qualify. No way.

[Captain Intrepid]

And No Birds Sang - Farley Mowat


Full of Mowat's typical larger than life storytelling style, it tells of how he went from an idealistic teenager encouraged by his father to become a proper soldier for King and Country, to a battleworn and weary man.


In July of 1942, Mowat was an eager, idealistic infantry lieutenant barely out of his teens, bound for Europe on a troop ship and impatient to see action. This powerful true account of the action he saw, and against all odds survived, evokes the terrible reality of warfare with an honesty and clarity fiction can only imitate. Here is the agony and the antic humour, the tragedy and the tedium, the special camaraderie shared only by those who have fought a war. Here, too, is the impassioned anger of one soldier who discovers he can no longer accept the bloody carnage that engulfed him near the end of the Italian campaign: "I was staring down a vertiginous tunnel where all was black and bloody and the great wind of ultimate desolation howled and hungered. I was alone....relentlessly alone in a world I never knew....and no birds sang."


I just finished it yesterday, and felt myself moved to tears at the end. Makes me think of me grandfather, and what he must have gone through.