What Are You Reading?

[Gerarddm]

Bloomberg BusinessWeek magazine
Woodworker's Journal magazine
Great Book of Woodworking Tips from American Woodworker
A biography of Leonardo da Vinci by Antonina Valletin from 1938.
and The New York Times, daily

[John of Phoenix]

Just finished Dan Brown's Inferno. Not his best work IMOO but a novel solution (pardon the pun) to the earth's overpopulation problem.

At the recommendation of a friend (who is a veterans' benefits attorney), I just started Redeployment by Phil Klay. If you want an insight into how war affects the warriors (and a clerk, Chaplain, civil affairs officer and other non-combatants), this is the book to read. It's entirely non-PC and surprisingly apolitical. It's also very disturbing.

In "Redeployment", a soldier who has had to shoot dogs because they were eating human corpses must learn what it is like to return to domestic life in suburbia, surrounded by people "who have no idea where Fallujah is, where three members of your platoon died." In "After Action Report", a Lance Corporal seeks expiation for a killing he didn't commit, in order that his best friend will be unburdened. A Morturary Affairs Marine tells about his experiences collecting remains—of both U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. A chaplain sees his understanding of Christianity, and his ability to provide solace through religion, tested by the actions of a ferocious Colonel. And in the darkly comic "Money as a Weapons System", a young Foreign Service Officer is given the absurd task of helping Iraqis improve their lives by teaching them to play baseball. These stories reveal the intricate combination of monotony, bureaucracy, comradeship and violence that make up a soldier's daily life at war, and the isolation, remorse, and despair that can accompany a soldier's homecoming.

[ron ll]

"The Martian", Andy Weir

A novel set in the near future about a manned mission to Mars. One astronaut accidently gets strandeid and has to survive, Robinson Crusoe style. It started out as a pretty technical narrative which I thought was going to be painfully boring. But it got great reviews so I stayed with it and then the plot started to open up. I'm only halfway thru it and now really enjoying it. So if you've read it, no spoilers please.

[Bubba L.]

I'm reading a bunch of old stuff right now and all of it's fiction.
Alice Walker's Meridian, re-read Atlass Shrugged a month ago, it was dumber than I remembered, John Updike's Pigeon Feathers, Charles Dickens' Our Mutual Friend and recently finished th Unincorporated series by Dani and Eytan Kollin, sci-fi.

Imban English major, I have to be able to read several books at once.

Gene

[MiddleAgesMan]

The Sixth Extinction, Elizabeth Kolbert. A relatively light romp through the Anthropocene mass extinction.

I read it for the first time about 6 months ago and then re-read it a couple months ago. It is a fascinating book.

I'm currently re-reading Gone Girl. I was not wowed by it the first time (and promptly forgot the story) but with all the fuss about the movie I thought I better get a refresher.

I have also recently re-read The Fault in Our Stars, a story I loved so well I started the second reading right after finishing it. My wife thinks I was in love with it because the young hot girl who is the main character had the same type of cancer I have been living with for decades.

[Old Dryfoot]

The Discworld series - Terry Pratchett. Eight books down out of forty(?) in the past few weeks. A huge thank you to ACB for suggesting that I read them.
The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún - By J. R. R. Tolkien
Up The Lake: Coastal British Columbia Stories - Wayne J Lutz

[skuthorp]

[elf]

Depends on how you define reading. I'm simultaneously wading through a pile of New Yorkers, Orions and WoodenBoats, and a book about the Quinault Nation (full of grammatical errors) and a couple thousand images of team racing and classic boats.

And returning to reading the Sarabande from the last Bach keyboard Partita, which endlessly causes me to shake my head in amazement.

[TomF]

I'm not reading much, aside from work stuff. Been too whacked to be ale to read more than snatches of things I've read before, thanks to trying to paint a couple of faces of the house after work and on weekends.

So, patches of a few Karate books, some favourite bits of Stuart Mclean stories ... and the forum. Other than news, that's been it for a while.

[htom]

Robert L Moore, King Warrior Magician Lover
Clarissa Estes, Women Who Run With the Wolves
Coleman Barks, The Essential Rumi
Anthony Storr, The Essential Jung (grueling.)
Richard Bach, One

That's what's nearby.

[johnw]

Deep Secrets, Diana Wynn Jones.

Been pulling some of my blog posts into a narrative, working title On Being a Ghost in a Soft Machine.

[Tom Montgomery]

The Yellow Cross by Rene Weis
The Last Duel by Eric Jager
The Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler
The Anatomy of Glory by Henry Lachouque and Anne S. K. Brown (translator)

[ron ll]

Time for a bump? I assume we've all finished any book we posted about. I need something, fiction or non. My last few reads have been okay but nothing worth noting.

[johnw]

I'm now reading Frozen Assets, by P.G. Wodehouse.

[Chip-skiff]

Station Eleven, a dystopian novel by Emily St. John Mandel.

[htom]

Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature
by Connie Zweig (Editor), Jeremiah Abrams (Editor) Jungian psychology

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

Lighter, I just started Terry Pratchett's The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, which will be followed by
Dark Light, another Doc Ford adventure by Randy Wayne White.

Just finished Peck's The Road Less Traveled and The People of the Lie. Psychologist writes about what he's learned about human beings.

If I read less I might get more done ... hmmm.

[ron ll]

In reviewing this thread, it seemed "The Beekeeper's Apprentice" might be worth a try so I just bought it. Only first chapter but I like the style.

[skuthorp]

Fourteen Thousand Miles in the Sunbeam in 1883, by Sady Brassey. Longmans 1885.
Woodcut illustrations by Pearson and Cooper after drawings by R. T. Pritchett.
Account of a voyage in the steam yacht 'Sunbeam' from Plymouth, England to the Mediterranean via the bahamas, Jamaica, Sth America, Trinidad and Madeira. Complete with chart.

http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu...2C%201828-1907
My copy is 1/4 bound in red morocco with 'spanish' marbled endpapers and cover inserts.

And here is the Sunbeam moored in the Brisbane river in 1887. Owners Lord and Baroness Brassey.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunbeam_RYS_(1874)


Lord and Lady Brassey, in uniform.

Here, you can read it yourself, https://archive.org/stream/intradest...e/n58/mode/2up

[birlinn]

A bit of archaeology-"Ancient Boats in North West Europe" by Sean McGrail.

[LeeG]

Heritage, Sean Brock, coffee table cook book

Redeployment, Phil Klay, fiction, iraq war ptsd

[pila]

I'm currently reading " Memoirs of World War One" by General William Mitchell. He was forced to retire after a court martial in late 1925 or early 1926. Good memoir about what usually happens in the military....like officers who don't really know anything being put in charge ....sounds familiar from my early days.....typical military....

[Rob Hazard]

I just finished _The Bully Pulpit_ by Doris Kearns Goodwin, about Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the golden age of journalism.

[David G]

Time to ask the question again... what ARE you reading these days.

Myself - it's some 50's sci-fi.

Just finished Frederich Pohl's 'The Space Merchants'. Written in the early 50's - and his dystopican vision of the future is still apt today.

Just started Theodore Sturgeon's 'More Than Human'. Jumps around like a flea on a griddle, plotwise, but still keeping my interest. Impressive writing, really.

There're a couple more similar in the collection - then I'll move on. Maybe to some Arthur C. Clarke, or Asimov, or early pulp Heinlein (Starship Troopers, The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress, and suchlike).

[Old Dryfoot]

Thumbing through Asimov's Chronology of the World, and reading Mythology, by Edith Hamilton.
Reading Conan the Barbarian for the first time. I blame comics for this. . .
I'm also contemplating ordering the George R R Martin books, in spite of everyone saying don't do it.

[PeterSibley]

Terry Pratchett, ''The Science of Discworld 1V Judgement Day.''

Just started, borrowed from the library yesterday.

[skuthorp]

The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee

Jarred Diamond

Review: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/bookrevi...diamond-1.html

[Andrew Craig-Bennett]

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

It seems topical.

[skuthorp]

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

It seems topical.

Gibbon had a lot of problems I reckon, and was a shill for christianity

[PeterSibley]

The Rise and Fall of the Third Chimpanzee

Jarred Diamond

Review: http://www.acampbell.org.uk/bookrevi...diamond-1.html

That sounds interesting Jeff .

[PeterSibley]

Have you read the other three? The entire trilogy is excellent.

I'm reading Bill Bryson "A short history of nearly Everything"

No, this is the only one of the series the library has...... or that has been in when I've searched Pratchett.

[Barry]

http://www.thetigerbook.com/books/

[Barry]

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/impe...ey/1100163887#

[ron ll]

As mentioned in the Columbia Bar thread, "Astoria". Highly recommended.

[Steve McMahon]

Bay of Spirits, Farley Mowat. Probably my 3rd or 4th time reading it.

[Norman Bernstein]

I recently finished 'Hedge Hogs', an account of Brian Hunter, an energy trader for hedge fund Amaranth, who made millions trading in natural gas... but then sank his firm into bankruptcy for taking extraordinary, egregious risks. There were numerous victims, but most especially, a San Diego municipal employee pension fund, which lost over $60M when Amaranth exploded.

Hunter, of course, despite becoming a pariah in the industry, had already extracted tens of millions of dollars in bonuses over the few years he traded.... and is now suffering horribly, with many millions of dollars left in his bank account. This is how we punish people like that: they lose their positions of power and influence...

...but they keep the cash.