what are you reading?

[sdcheezhd]

All The King's Men. Loved it. Even some Raymond Chandlerish touches in there.

[InsomniacInkRoss]

Prefer biographies or autobiographies. Haven't paid attention to any new ones out there.

Any suggestions ??

If you are a music fan, or, just like a crazy life story, read Scar Tissue Anthony Kiedis's life story. That guy should be dead 6 different ways and Cher was his baby sitter growing up. Also, Killing Bono is the story of a man who wants to be a famous musician but fails as he has to watch his close friend Bono live out the life he wants.

[mothershipconnection]

I just finished Jared Diamond's Collapse about 2 weeks ago (fantastic, but not quite as great as Guns Germs and Steel), and am now close to halfway into Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth. I rarely ever read fiction, it's generally behaviorism, skepticism/pseudoscience, evolution, and anthropology stuff for me.

[dadofandrew]

Those that have read Left Behind...isn't that a very depressing series? The mere possibility that the future has only the bad people remaining and the good leaving to go elsewhere seems very cult-like and depressing to me.

[Nader Raider Tim]

I try to read 3 books at once. 1 book for the car. 1 for at home when I have a few minutes and 1 that I read when I have hours (day's) to burn.

 

Recently finished:

 

Irreligion: A Mathematician Eplains Why the Arguments for God Don't Add Up (2.5 of 5 Stars)

 

Torture Taxi; On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights ( 4 of 5 Stars)

 

Censored 2010; The Top 25 Censored News Stories of 2008-2009 (5 of 5 Stars)

 

City of Windows; An Iraqi Woman's Account of War and Resistance (5 of 5 Stars) Just finished this for the second time.

 

 

I am pretty much out of books so I have to try and hunt some down. Hopefully the library finally has something good, doubtful though. The only book I have left I haven't read is Moral Minds; The Nature of Right and Wrong. The books is theorizing that morals have become instinctual.

[TooLiveBrew]

I just finished Jared Diamond's Collapse about 2 weeks ago (fantastic, but not quite as great as Guns Germs and Steel)

What's Collapse about? I read GG&S in college & really enjoyed it.

[mothershipconnection]

Quite similar to Guns Germs and Steel, but it's a more in-depth analysis of the causes for the collapse of societies. Generally, we again find fragile environments, lack of resources, profitability of trade (either the society is exploited or itself exploits unsustainable resources for short-term windfalls), war, and unsustainable production as the reason societies disappear. The analysis of why Norse Greenland failed while the Inuit survive there is really interesting.

[TooLiveBrew]

Thanks for detailing that, msc. Sounds really interesting.

 

I just got Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak for Christmas. It's a Wisconsin Historical Society publication, by William Povletich. I've only had a chance to thumb through it briefly thus far, but holy cow does it look amazing. Lots of good photography included as well. Just awesome for any baseball fan, but especially WI baseball fans. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[BREWCREW5]

brewerfan.net

[flosses like fossas]

If you're a reader, check out the website Shelfari. If you want to add me as your "friend" there, it's my username here at yahoo.com

 

also on this tip, i'm a member at goodreads.com, which is a great, user friendly way to keep track of what you've read and learn about books. if anybody else is on over there, you can find me by my name: john murn.

[hawing]

I just got Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak for Christmas. It's a Wisconsin Historical Society publication, by William Povletich.

I would call this a fine choice even if WHS weren't my employer. I've read it, just haven't bought my own copy yet. It provides yet another glimpse of the ultra glory days of baseball in Milwaukee.

 

One photo I particularly love in the book is from the early 1960s (or at least in a chapter describing the early 60s) showing a fan hoisting a case of Schlitz (bottles) into County Stadium. And I'm not even a drinker.

[pogokat]

i'll preface this with the acknowledgment that I am a high school English Teacher, so it's my job to read Lit. type books (although, lots of you know this stuff is the goods anyway)

 

Recently read:

 

 

The Invisible man by Ralph Ellison and Light in August by William Faulkner

 

currently reading:

Hard Times by Charles Dickens - I hate Dickens---I may never finish this book, but i'm not giving in

"The Bear" by William Faulkner---a challenge just because I'm sick of the tweed and pipe set saying " you'vr never read The Bear?"

Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien - the Master of Vietnam, really a true American genius...everyone on here would love O'Brien...try it

 

and soon

All the Pretty Horses - Cormac McCarthy

Wild Things - Dave Eggers

 

McCarthy and Eggers are my two favorite contemporary writers (well, and George Saunders) so I'm trying to read through everything by the both of them..

[GAME05]

happy to hear someone else doesn't particularly enjoy Dickens. so many English lit courses in college and i never really dug too many authors--Swift (though i guess he was Irish, really), Milton and Shakespeare were about it. so dry, and their use of irony never really grabbed me.

 

spent a couple hours loading my "have read's" onto Shelfari. you can find me at Jason Penshorn.

 

if anyone has any recommendations for non-fiction adventure books, i'd be all ears. i'm headed to the Yukon River in June, so something in that area would be great, too.

[TooLiveBrew]

I really enjoy some (though certainly not all) of the Brontë sisters' work, along with most of Donne, Woolf, Conrad, & more. I don't feel the same way in general as you about English lit., GAME, but I do have to admit I know what you mean.

 

I'm pretty ambivalent on Dickens overall. I agree on Milton & Shakespeare... haven't read any Swift.

[GAME05]

definitely just a style thing, TLB. a lot of talented writing, just never took for me. i really liked the American Romantics, but that's another one that's either love or hate. although i definitely enjoy most British poets.

[BlueFever]

Thanks for detailing that, msc. Sounds really interesting.

 

I just got Milwaukee Braves: Heroes and Heartbreak for Christmas. It's a Wisconsin Historical Society publication, by William Povletich. I've only had a chance to thumb through it briefly thus far, but holy cow does it look amazing. Lots of good photography included as well. Just awesome for any baseball fan, but especially WI baseball fans. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

I finished that book just a little bit back and agree with you on your last statement.

But, on page 75, I am waiting for an answer from the author about why strictly relief pitcher Don McMahon is in a picture referring to the "'57 Braves established a franchise record 199 homers and lead the league in runs and triples while finishing with a .269 team batting average behind the bats of Mathews, Aaron, Hazle, McMahon and Covington." (McMahon in '57 in 10 pa had 2 hits including a 2b and 3 ribs).

 

I don't know about you, TLB, but this is probably the best book I've read on the Milwaukee Braves. There was also, sometime ago on PBS, a program on the Braves referring to this book.

[TooLiveBrew]

Haha -- nice catch on McMahon http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

 

I still haven't made the time to read through it (still w/family as of now), but I can't wait to actually do so. I'm really glad to hear you weigh in with such a positive review.

[bacon06]

Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien - the Master of Vietnam, really a true American genius...everyone on here would love O'Brien...try it

Agreed, Tim O'Brien is a very good author. I read The Things They Carry in high school and it was excellent.

[brewcrewman17]

I should probably add a preface that I'm an English, History, Latin triple major at the UW, so my taste in books might be a little snobbish.

 

Light in August by Faulkner and Invisible Man by Ellison are absolutely stunning I think. Light In August was a tough read but it was really great.

 

I have to disagree with GAME about Milton and Shakespeare though. I took a Milton course last semester right alongside a Shakespeare course. Perhaps it was just that the professors were so great, but I really loved both. I like the feeling you get when you read Paradise Lost all the way through - mostly it's just the sense of accomplishment and brotherhood with the other people who've done it because it's just such a ridiculous thing to do. Milton's prose works are pretty awesome as well. Areopagitica is one of the first major essays on freedom of the press and it's pretty incredible. The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce has a lot of very interesting personal implications to Milton's life (He wrote it while frustrated by the fact that he could not divorce his estranged wife). I think if you read some of his prose alongside Paradise Lost, it really opens the poem up beyond just the religious aspects into the personal aspects of Milton's life.

 

I'm currently reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. It's pretty heavily slanted in favor of Hamilton, which annoys me since I'm pretty firmly in the Burr camp when it comes to Hamilton, but so far, very interesting.

[TooLiveBrew]

"Stunning" is probably the word I'd choose for Invisible Man, too.

[PlayerHader]

bcm, you can mark me as another lover of Light in August.

[GAME05]

"I have to disagree with GAME about Milton and Shakespeare though"

 

i meant those were about the only English writers i did like.

I have an English undergraduate degree, too. tried English teaching but that didn't take; tried editorial work but that didn't pay.

 

i don't think there's anything snobbish at all about liking Faulkner or the other greats of literature.

[brewcrewman17]

"I have to disagree with GAME about Milton and Shakespeare though"

 

i meant those were about the only English writers i did like.

I have an English undergraduate degree, too. tried English teaching but that didn't take; tried editorial work but that didn't pay.

 

i don't think there's anything snobbish at all about liking Faulkner or the other greats of literature.

 

Sorry, guess I misunderstood what you were trying to say. Have you read much Spenser, GAME? If you like Milton... Milton does a lot of ripping off of Spenser. Spenser is actually my favorite of the "great English quartet... Chaucer, Spenser, Milton, Shakespeare." I imagine you've probably read a book of the Faerie Queene at least, seeing as you have an English degree - so you probably already saw a lot of Spenser in Milton.

[PlayerHader]

I hated reading Spenser more than anything. At least when reading "Paradise Lost" you feel like you are accomplishing something. That helps push you through the muddle to to a degree. It was also an interesting concept for a person brought up with a Catholic education.

 

Edmund Spenser was just horrible for me. I still have my "Faerie Queene" text, so maybe I will give it another shot.

[GAME05]

i like Paradise Lost more for the story itself than for the writing style in particular. it shows itself a lot in the various rewrites of Faust, too, how the perception of the devil changes according to the particular religious leanings of that age.

 

i think i'm going to write a book on my upcoming kayak trip in the summer. an acquaintance of mine wrote a book on a hike we did, and all i kept thinking when i read it was "Dang, i could have written that!" i think i've been too intimidated from reading great authors, knowing i don't have close to their skill, when really i just need to write, even if I'm no Hemingway.