Books: Anybody reading anything interesting

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 12:14 PM

I was really astonished by what a good piece of writing Dylan's "Chronicles" was. I am bemused that some people are bored by it, but, I guess it's a matter of taste. For those people, I guess I might recommend the book about Steven Tyler (of Aerosmith) or David Bowie. Lotsa sex, partying, and hell-raising! Far less "boring"... :-)

(I didn't read those ones yet. Partying bores me.)

The best book I have read recently was "The Disappearance of the Universe". I figure there might be about 1 in 100 of you who would be interested in it, so let's just leave it at that...

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: greg stephens
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 12:28 PM

Currently half way through Britain BC by francis Pryor. A most inbteresting state-of-the-art(for laypersons) archaeology book, covering both British and Irish prehistory. Always a fascinating subject, and it changes bewildering every ten years as archaeology answers more and more questions, and asks even more new ones. Indispesable reading for anyone who like shooting off their mouth about celts, island cultures, national identities or anyone of a number of topis beloved of Mudcatters.
    Also just finished the Da Vivci Code, a rivetting, and unputdownable read: and the most unimitagted bit of badly written, badly researched drivelling crap I have ever read. But amazingly entertaining.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Little Hawk
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 12:31 PM

Heh! Interesting review, greg.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 01:17 PM

I think what bored most people about the Chronicles is the sad fact that hits you fair and square in the face every page is that Dylan seems to have had a pretty boring life. Granted he meets lots of interesting peole, but they never seem to say much of interest and he never seems to say much of interest to them.

i gave up halfway through. I dunno about partying - perhaps it lived better than he tells it. theres no denying his creativity but as a raconteur he made a bloody good sleeping potion.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,harpgirl
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 04:34 PM

I'm about to begin the autobiography of Freda Frommm Reichman, one of my idols and a great role model. I'm excited to hop into bed tonight!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: jets
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 10:13 PM

Currently reading The Big Little World of Doc Pritham by Dorethy Clark Wilson.
Dr Pritham Passed away in 1972 after practicing medicine for sixty five years in Greeville Maine USA. Greenville is up there with MOOSE Head lake. 40 below country. Those in the medical proffesion who think that they have a hard row to hoe , should read of this man .

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Gorgeous Gary
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:11 PM

Midchuck - I just recently read DIES THE FIRE myself. I'd totally agree with your "best read of the year" if not for Susan Shwartz's HOSTILE TAKEOVER, a first-contact story mixed with a dead-on satirical look at the financial world. Helps I suppose that I know Susan personally. But Stirling was a **very** close second. (Also not hurt by the fact I know Heather Alexander...quite obviously the model for Juniper).

Also read GOING POSTAL earlier this year and enjoyed that.

Indulging my engineer/architect side, I just finished Neil Bascomb's HIGHER, about the construction of the Chrysler, Manhattan Bank and Empire State Buildings. That was a fascinating read. More rivalry, intrigue and one-upsmanship than any season of Survivor or The Apprentice.

-- Gary

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: mg
Date: 26 Feb 05 - 11:26 PM

Haven't read it but just met the author at the Astoria Fisher Poets gathering. Her name is Margaret Doyle and she has written a book called Fisherman's Quilt. She is the wife of a fisherman and they lived and fished in Kodiak Alaska for some time. This book is being read by book clubs...she is a very impressive woman. The book is a novel and explores various myths of fishing etc. I suspect and will confirm once I have had a chance to read it, that it is a very important book. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:03 AM

I think you just lack real interest in the subject matter, Weelittledrummer, that's my guess. You were looking to be entertained in the usual manner of biographies. That's not what Chronicles was about. It was about sheer unbridled love for the music and where that took him. Face it, man, most of us live pretty boring lives when it comes to the bare facts of our daily activities, and when we meet famous people, they usually say quite ordinary stuff...just like we do. :-)

What stands out about Dylan is how much in love with the music he was. He was like someone in search of the Holy Grail. I love reading about it. He was hungry, man, and willing to do anything it took to live that dream to the full realization of his inner thoughtdreams. And he did it.

Read "The Ragman's Son" instead, by Kirk Douglas. Lots of sex, lots of great anecdotes, lots of dramatic and amusing stuff. You'll love it. It's a very, very entertaining book. (I'm not being sarcastic when I say that. I thought it was just great.)

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Teresa
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:13 AM

I agree with you Little Hawk, about famous people.

I also have to agree with you about Bob Dylan loving the music. I saw him perform four years ago, and the impression I got was that he could have played all night. he just loved playing the music.

Teresa

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 12:21 AM

Well, it's about all he's ever done. He must have performed, oh, 2600 or so concerts in the past 20 years, and he's very, very wealthy. He doesn't need to play music at all. He clearly must love playing live shows.

I have seen him on one or two nights when he wasn't so into it, but usually he seems to enjoy it a lot.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: LilyFestre
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 07:10 PM

I am reading a book called "Year of Wonders" by Geraldine Brooks. It's a novel about a woman living during the 1660's when the Plague hits her villiage via a bolt of cloth from London. I like the day to day living bits of history and the various religious slants of the time. Two thumbs up from me.

Michelle

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Pauline L
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 10:17 PM

I'm reading a book about folk music (how strange). It's "Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone? The Carter Family & Their Legacy in american Music," by Zwonitzer and Hirshberg. I like it very much. It's about the Carters, and it's also a portrait of life in Appalachia around the time of the Depression.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: number 6
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 10:32 PM

Weelittledrummer .... Bob's Chronicles I found extremely intersting. I guess you have to be a Dylan fan to enjoy it. It is written in the same style of his songs. Bob plays the mysterious, you just have to take it as it is.I found the book fascinating, just like his music. He certainly has not lived a boring life.

Currently I reading (for the 3rd tiem) Moby Dick by Herman Melville.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: hesperis
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 11:08 PM

Little Hawk lent me "Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain and I finished it a few days ago. I think Steve is still reading it now. A very interesting read, and even more interesting when you realize how historically accurate it was!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Little Hawk
Date: 27 Feb 05 - 11:30 PM

Yes, it is an utterly remarkable book. It inspired me to write one of the best songs I've ever written...and inspired me in other ways that go way beyond that. I have not read any other life story to match hers, (other than that of Jesus Christ). It is Mark Twain's masterpiece, although it's not very well known. Mark Twain was a complete cynic (in a quite entertaining way) about religious/spiritual matters until he spent 10 years investigating and researching the life of Joan of Arc, and writing the book. He appears to have changed his mind after that, though he kept close-mouthed about it (he published the book under a psuedonym, so no one knew it was his book for some time afterward).

Look for "Joan of Arc" by Mark Twain. It's readily available in paperback through Amazon.com and other such outlets.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 12:29 AM

Ah, Mary, now you've gone and insulted fishermen!! Why am I not surprised?? ;-)

Art

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: ranger1
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 08:13 PM

I'm jugling three or four books at the moment. Current favorites are "Winter World" by Bernard Heinrich and "Winter" by Rick Bass. Both are more or less about natural history. I just finished a couple of Robert B. Parker's Sunny Randall novels, "Waifs and Strays" by Charles de Lint, "Scribbling the Cat: travels with an African soldier" by Alexandra Fuller and "Sunshine" by Robin McKinley. My next foray will be a book I just picked up about the Iditarod.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Don Firth
Date: 28 Feb 05 - 08:23 PM

Degunking Windows by Joli Ballew and Jeff Duntemann. A must for every Windows XP user.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Grab
Date: 02 Mar 05 - 07:42 AM

Another vote for "Otherland". Stonking series. I found the ending a bit weak though (the "Memory, Sorrow and Thorn" series had a similar problem). I've also got Tad Williams' other books "Caliban's Hour" (a retelling of "The Tempest" from Caliban's POV) and "War of the Flowers". "War of the Flowers" is just stunning - most of it is very funny, so the few moments of outright horror in it are even more shocking. Which I guess is the point. For my money, Tad Williams is one of the best writers anywhere - the only thing he's missing is slightly tighter control over his plots, but the writing itself is amazing.

Kim Stanley Robinson's "Red Mars" didn't impress me, so I don't plan on ploughing through the other two just for the sake of it. Rather like Arthur C Clarke, it seemed like he had some great "hard sci-fi" ideas but wasn't a good enough writer to turn them into a decent book.

Most recent acquisitions are a few books on luthery, which have showed me how unlikely it is that I'll ever build a musical instrument from scratch myself! :-(

Otherwise it's all been re-reading stuff like Pratchett recently. Got to find something new to read...

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 11:52 AM

I'm currently reading 'An Inconvenient Truth' and side by side to it, a book by Charles Wohlforth, 'The Whale and the Supercomputer'. It examines climate changes in interior and northern Alaska. It is a good read- Wohlforth makes it an intimate account of the Inupiats' way of life.

I just finished Heather Lende's book 'If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name'. It too s a good read about life in a small town, a town that doesn't have the usual 'down south' expectations. Lende lives in Haines in Southeast Alaska. She also writes for the Anchorage Daily News so she is well known.

I'm also re-reading Gail Sheehy's 'Passages', a book I first read maybe 40 years ago. It amazes me how different it sounds to me now.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: dulcimer42
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 03:32 PM

"The Architecture of the Arkansas Ozarks" by Donald Harington A novel, following 6 generations of a family in the Ozarks. Written with a wry sense of humor, explaining the fear of progress, superstitions, and a glimpse into life in the Ozarks. One of the most delightful books I've read in a long time.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,Wesley S
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 03:44 PM

I just finished reading "Misquoting Jesus" by Bart Erhman, Today I'm starting "To Kill a Mockingbird"

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 06:23 PM

"Stiff" by Mary Roach.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: rock chick
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 06:44 PM

The White Masai by Corinne Hofmann, just waiting for the sequel ' Back to Africa. Also 'Living with Wolves' ekk cant remeber her name, it was her life story from about from about the age of 4 till the end of the 2nd world war, extremly intresting reading, I could not put the book down once I started it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: rock chick
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 06:45 PM

Sorry meant 'surviving with wolves' Its late and I need my bed, and No that is not a book ;-))

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 07:42 PM

Misquoting Jesus : The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why, by Bart D. Ehrman (Clicky 1). Looks most interesting!

Having read Rev. Jim Wallis's God's Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Clicky 2), from another thread on Mudcat I heard about Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism, by Michelle Goldberg (Clicky 3. Pretty damned scary book. Read the Publisher's Weekly blurb. This, in turn, led to Thy Kingdom Come : How the Religious Right Distorts the Faith and Threatens America : An Evangelical's Lament, by Randall Balmer (Clicky 4). From the blurb:   "The distinguished author of Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory returns with a searing examination of a new generation of evangelical leaders who have hijacked the Christian faith on behalf of the Republican Party."

This is another in a growing number of books by Christians who are fed up with various Right Wing fundamentalist groups claiming to speak for all Christians. On all of the Amazon pages I've linked to, scroll down a bit for lists of other books on the same subject.

But trying to regain a sense of a solid, scientific view or the universe, I'm thoroughly immersed in Parallel Worlds : A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos, by Michio Kaku (Clicky 5). Absolutely fascinating book! But since it deals with quantum physics, other dimensions, and parallel universes, rather than feeling my feet solidly on firm ground, I find myself suffering from a bit of vertigo. . . .

The more I look around me, the more I think about the interpenetration of dimensions and universes, the possibilities of encountering the theoretical worm-holes or other portals that Dr. Kaku talks about, then slipping through and checking to see if it's at all saner over that-a-way.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 08:00 PM

Geraldine Brooks is an Australian writer. Her book "Nine Parts Desire" about Muslim women from various countries is a fascinating read. I recently re-read the Jigsaw Man by Paul Britton, a British psychologist who worked with police solving crime - an extremely interesting book. I have a second hand bookshop up the road & recently picked up "Egypt - How a Lost Civilisation was Rediscovered" by Joyce Tyldesley. This book was published last year and has ineterviews with archeologists about their work and experiences in Egypt.

Quote: "As my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, staqatues and gold - everywhere the glint of gold. For the moment - an eternity it must have seemed to the others standing by - I was struck dumb with amazement, and when Lord Carnarvon, unable to stand the suspense any longer, enquired anxiously "can you see anything"it was all I could do to get out the words "Yes, wonderful things".."

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: freda underhill
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 08:14 PM

Don, you would find these interviews very interesting. These transcripts of six interviews are a series of discussion between the interviewer, Philip Adams, and Professor Paul Davies, a quantum physicist who has the ability to explain science to ordinary people.

I watched the interviews on TV and was staggered when Professor Davies explained the theories of paralle1 dimensions and why a majority of physicists accept that these exist. According to current theories, somewhere in a parallel universe there is another world very similar to this one, and I will be typing a similar comment on a Mudcat thread as you are reading it!

regards

freda

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 08:36 PM

Don, you might also try "The Jesus Dynasty" by James Talbot.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Don Firth
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 09:41 PM

Thanks, Freda and Rapaire!

I have Superforce, by Paul Davies, and intend to read more of his writings. Good stuff! And Talbot's The Jesus Dynasty looks most interesting (I pop over to the Amazon website and read the blurbs and reviews).

If you ever get to Seattle, I should be fairly easy to find. Just look for a huge pile of books and I'll be in there somewhere. . . .

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Rapparee
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 09:57 PM

Don, I hear that you are a bladesman. The next time I come to Seattle I'll bring my epees.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Ebbie
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 10:00 PM

Man. I have some reading to do. Of all those, I've read only God's Politics.

Thank you, all.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: van lingle
Date: 25 Jun 06 - 10:01 PM

Just finished Larry McMurtry's Telegraph Days which wasn't one of his better efforts, IMO, but was still pretty entertaining.
I'm about half way through The Only Game in Town which is an oral biography of some major league baseball players including Dom Dimaggio, Tommy Henrich and Bob Feller. It was compiled by former commisioner Fay Vincent and is similar in approach to the excellent The Glory of Their Times except that the subjects are from the 30's and 40's. Really interesting stuff to a baseball history junkie.vl

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: bobad
Date: 26 Jun 06 - 10:06 AM

Just finished "Three Day Road" the first novel from Canadian writer Joseph Boyden. It is a powerful historic novel inspired by the story of Ojibwa First World War hero Francis Pegahmagabow in which two friends, of James Bay Cree origin, join the army and become snipers in the trenches of Europe during the First world war. The horrors of war and the damage it does to individuals are vividly portrayed by the authors fine use of descriptive prose and the interlaced narrative which weaves between the battlefield and the homeland of the protagonists. a good read.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From:
Date: 26 Jun 06 - 07:10 PM

I'm actually about half way through "Rebecca" By Daphne de Maurier (sorry if I've spelled it wrong)...I figured I had to read a book that shares my name and am just now getting 'round to it.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Slag
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 01:44 AM

The World of Physics, Vol. III, Brian Green's The Elegant Universe, Selected Poems of Louis Borges. I'm always reading in the Bible. I have just finished the bio on Conde Rice but the author's name slips my mind and I loaned the book out.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,DB
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:30 PM

I'm just reading 'Istanbul' by Orhan Pamuk. It's an autobiographical book about growing up in that city. I've been a bit obsessed by Istanbul after visiting it a few years ago (although I haven't had a chance to go back). Pamuk's book is full of fine writing and many wonderful (black & white) photographs.

For SF fans try Walter Jon Williams's 'Dread Empire's Fall' trilogy:

'The Praxis', 'The Sundering' and 'Conventions of War'. This is a huge space opera full of highly convincing space battles, civil wars, politics, romance and skullduggery. I think that Williams is one of the greatest SF writers of recent times and hugely underrated. His 1995 novel, 'Metropolitan' is one of my favourite books of all time.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Liz the Squeak
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:45 PM

Jasper Fforde; 'The Big Easy'... Kate Atkinson; 'Behind the scenes at the museum' (Thanks Giok... it filled a sleepless night), selected poems of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Maureen Lipman; 'Thank you for having me' and the latest J K Rowling; 'HP & the Half Blood Prince' just out in paperback.

For once I found a whole glut of new books that I wanted to read. It's back to the old favourites next week, probably starting with Spike Milligan or Shakespear.


LTS

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: open mike
Date: 01 Jul 06 - 12:46 PM

listened to the book on tape of Robert B. Parker's Shrink Rap
a while back and I am reading A thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
(made into a movie in 1997)and Jitterbug Perfume by Tom Robbins.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 10:02 AM

The Sherlock Holmes stories of Arthur Conan Doyle. I had read them donkeys years ago and recently decided to re-visit them. Very well written as you would expect but I had forgoten how they sometimes have traces of our more modern 'detective fiction'. There is a boat-chase in 'The sign of the four' that would grace many a modern thriller. Holmes was a very early 'flawed hero' as well. Look at his propensity for cocaine! Makes the modern alcoholics positively staid:-) It is also a great window into Victorian England and London in particular.

Cheers

DtG

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 11:59 AM

Just finished reading Kitchen Confidential, subtitled something like "My Life in the Underbelly of the Restaurant Business". Written by Anthony Bourdain, a noted chef and writer, both of fiction and nonfiction.

This book is not only informative, it is hilarious!. Besides which, it will give you a quite different picture of that tony restaurant you might visit. This is a sort of autobiographical book, and he doesn't gloss over his own faults, which included heavy drug involvement when he was younger.

Read it! read it! read it!

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 02 Jul 06 - 12:23 PM

yeh the thread on the Greenbriar Boys - in particular Sourdough's memories of the new York fringe in the 1950's

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: number 6
Date: 03 Jul 06 - 12:26 AM

"Over the Edge of the World " ... by Laurence Bergreen.

A book chronicling Magellan's Circumnavigation of the Globe.

sIx

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,rm
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 03:29 AM

I just finished reading "11 Minutes", by P. Cuehlo, not bad, sweet with a true Hollywood ending!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: bbc
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 07:13 AM

I just got home from a vacation trip to Washington state & Oregon. I visited Powell's City of Books in Portland, Oregon, which is a truly dangerous place for a librarian. It fills a city block! Here's a link to their website:
Powell's
While I was browsing there, I found an add-on to Hitchhiker's Guide called The Salmon of Doubt, as well as a cute book by Ursula LeGuin, called Changing Planes. I expect both to be fun summer reading.

bbc

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 08:37 AM

The Rotweillor - Ruth Rendell

I never know what to think about her work. Speaking as a member of the lower orders, I sometimes think that she regards us all in a bemused fashion as all being a hairbreadth away from being Jack the Ripper, or maybe John Reginald Halliday Christie - a bit creepy in other words. I bet she regards her newsagent and the man who services her car with great suspicion.

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,Chic
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 10:20 AM

para Handy br Neil Munro

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: GUEST,Ludo Vick
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 10:21 AM

Yikes!

Subject: RE: BS: Anybody reading anything interesting
From: Bunnahabhain
Date: 10 Jul 06 - 10:54 AM

Three different books with the same title, plus or minus a synomin: 'The Geological history of the British isles'

And Kipling, when my brain can't take any more rock...