Books: What book are you reading right now

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: MartinRyan
Date: 29 May 13 - 01:00 PM

Miles Davis's autobiography (for the first time) and RH Dana'a Two Years before the Mast (not for the first time).

Regards

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: J-boy
Date: 29 May 13 - 01:45 AM

"A Death in Belmont" by Sebastian Junger

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 May 13 - 06:05 PM

Alan Dershowitz, "The Case For Israel".

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Larry The Radio Guy
Date: 28 May 13 - 12:40 AM

"If You Meet the Buddah On The Road Kill Him":The Pilgrimage of Psychotherapy Patients, by Sheldon B. Kopp. (from 1972)

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 27 May 13 - 09:56 PM

Anne Perry's A Christmas Garland. It's still belongs on the library's new book shelf, but now that the season is done I guess it is no longer in demand. Once again this was a personal choice not for a book club.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Bat Goddess
Date: 27 May 13 - 07:37 PM

I never read just one book at a time, but I just read pretty singlemindedly through the three books that Philip R. Craig and William G. Tapply wrote together, combining both their characters J.W. Jackson and Brady Coyne on Martha's Vineyard.

But I've also been reading Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy", Murial Spark's "Memento Mori", and I'm reading (I'm rereading, but Tom's hearing it for the first time) aloud to Tom Lawrence Millman's "Last Places", his trek following the Viking sea routes from Shetland Islands, the Faeroes, Iceland, Greenland, and Labrador.

Linn

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 May 13 - 06:25 PM

I took a big collection of H. L. Mencken's journalism to Fellsmere Park. Also, there was a swan there, as well as ducks & geese & a lot of proles out for the holiday.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Claire M
Date: 27 May 13 - 02:28 PM

Hiya,

I would, John, but I like to finish things I start. Also a couple of psychic mags. Can anyone recommend me a good folk book?? Just passed on a Led Zep book which was brilliant.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: GUEST,Blind DRunk in Blind River
Date: 26 May 13 - 10:41 PM

Fer flip's sake! If I was readin' a book right now...would I be on the flippin' compyuder???? How stoopid can peeple BE? I pity youse!

- Shane

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 26 May 13 - 08:33 PM

The latest by Donna Leon.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: kendall
Date: 26 May 13 - 07:31 PM

I'm wading through Bernard Cornwells books. Born a thousand years too late I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 25 May 13 - 10:20 PM

Looking for Yesterday by Marcia Muller, the 2012 addition to her 30 mysteries about San Francisco PI Sharon McCone. This is my own choice, not a selection for one of my book clubs.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Midchuck
Date: 25 May 13 - 08:30 PM

The Irish General: Thomas Francis Meagher, by Paul R. Wylie

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 25 May 13 - 06:35 PM

Claire, where is it written that one must read a book to the end?
You don't like, go on to the next one.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Claire M
Date: 25 May 13 - 02:57 PM

Hiya,

[i]50 Shades Of Grey.[/i] Saw it at a free book sharing scheme. I used to have 2 carers who were obsessed with the series, it was all they talked about, so I thought it must be worth picking up.

I just don't get why – I don't think I've ever read anything so boring. If it had been something like this:

"Hence, wench!" he snaps. "Look not at me for I like it not!"
From the look in his burning eyes I can tell he's ready to reave me in twain with his impressive broadsword.
"Lankin, I......" I whisper, my eyes spilling over.
Why, when there's men all over the world, does it have to be him I can't function without??

I can't wait till I get to the end of the real book, so I can start on one of my folklore books. But then I could read fantasy till it comes out my ears so I probably shouldn't have bothered with it in the 1st place!

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Neil D
Date: 25 May 13 - 12:27 AM

"Death of Kings" by Bernard Cornwell

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 May 13 - 07:39 PM

Pulled Winwood Reade's _Martyrdom of Man_ off the shelf. He doesn't half give it to the Christians.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: kendall
Date: 24 May 13 - 07:32 PM

The Tiger's Revenge by Claude Balls.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 May 13 - 04:14 PM

'Collecting Antique Furniture' by Chester Drawers.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: GUEST
Date: 24 May 13 - 03:31 PM

'How to Furnish Your House' by Walter Wall Carpeting.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Max Johnson
Date: 24 May 13 - 02:13 PM

So Disdained Nevil Shute. Really good.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Elmore
Date: 24 May 13 - 01:09 PM

Groan

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: kendall
Date: 24 May 13 - 09:52 AM

I'm reading a book on gravity; can't put it down.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Elmore
Date: 24 May 13 - 09:47 AM

Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 24 May 13 - 08:25 AM

The Harlot by the Side of the Road: Forbidden Stories of the Bible by Jonathan Kirsch

It's about all those bizarre stories in the Old Testament that preachers never mention because nobody quite knows how to make sense of them. Examples:

Genesis 19: Lot offers his daughters to a mob of would-be rapists. Later, after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the daughters get Lot drunk and rape him in order to get themselves pregnant.

Genesis 34: Shechem rapes Dinah, then wants to marry her. Dinah's father and brothers negotiate a marriage contract which requires Shechem and his whole tribe to get circumcised. They do so, but then Dinah's brothers attack Shechem's city and kill everyone.

Genesis 38: Tamar, a widow, wants one of her husband's brothers to impregnate her, in accordance with custom, but her father-in-law won't allow it. So Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute and tricks her father-in-law into impregnating her himself.

Judges 11: Jephthah, bargaining for God's support in an upcoming battle, vows to make a sacrifice of whoever first greets him when he returns home. It turns out to be his daughter. Unlike the story of the Binding of Isaac, this one does not end happily.

Kirsch has no definitive answer to what these stories mean and why they are in the Bible, but he reviews all the commentary from the Talmud on down to the latest scholars.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 24 May 13 - 07:19 AM

I've just finished 2 Police Procedural books by Swedish authors.

The Golden Calf / Helene Tursten ; translation by Laura A. Wideburg, 2013

The princess of Burundi / Kjell Eriksson ; translated from the Swedish by Ebba Segerberg, 2006

My local library has further books by each author & I'll be borrowing them asap.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 23 May 13 - 10:20 PM

I'm reading "Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor". Actually, I'm reading about half the book, the side by side transliteration of the cuneiform being beyond my ken.

For relaxation I've recently completed the series of Shardlake mysteries, and John Shakespeare mysteries published to date. It is interesting that two authors would place the setting of their series in Tudor times covering Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, respectively. Having read each series in immediate consecutive order added to my enjoyment of them.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: jacqui.c
Date: 23 May 13 - 07:45 PM

I'm reading the second book of the Game of Thrones series. Now thinking of joining Netflix just to get hold of the DVDs.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: May Queen
Date: 23 May 13 - 03:59 PM

I Bought "Contented Dementia" as recommended on here and the A L Lloyd biography at the same time and am trying to read both at once! I know I can learn a lot to help my poorly mum from the former but the latter is just sooo interesting!

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Rog Peek
Date: 23 May 13 - 01:08 PM

Recently read "Woody, Cisco and Me" - Brilliant, couldn't put it down.

Rog

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Bill D
Date: 23 May 13 - 12:59 PM

Once again (never finished it in 2-3 tries)delving into Wonderful Life by Harvard paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould.

Much of it is technical detail, but the overall descriptions and astounding implications make my brain churn.

"Gould's thesis in Wonderful Life was that chance was one of the decisive factors in the evolution of life on earth. He based this argument on the wonderfully preserved fossil fauna of the Burgess Shale, animals from around 505 million years ago, just after the Cambrian explosion"

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Becca72
Date: 23 May 13 - 12:50 PM

Just started "No Regrets - A Rock'n'Roll Memoir" by Ace Frehley

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: bobad
Date: 22 May 13 - 11:39 PM

"Fug You"....No, I am not railing invective upon the Mudcat community, this is the title of the book I am currently reading. It is Ed Sanders account of the flowering years of New York's downtown bohemia in the '60s starting with his founding of the underground magazine Fuck You/A Magazine of the Arts, the travails of running his Peace Eye Bookstore and the founding of (along with Tuli Kupferberg) and career of his band The Fugs.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 May 13 - 09:24 PM

MtheGM has been wanting me to read a 1987 book by David Lodge titled How Far Can You Go?, a humorous look at young people growing up in the Catholic Church in the 1950s to the 1970s. Right now, the young people are in the early 1960s, and in the process of losing their virginities.

Brings back a lot of funny memories of my growing up Catholic.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 22 May 13 - 09:16 PM

Just finished Z by Therese Ann Fowler. It's a novelized account of the life of Zelda Fitzgerald. Highly recommended.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 13 - 09:06 PM

Of course there were many Britons who already were against the American policy of the king and his ministers--and were therefore predisposed to believe the Americans over their own government.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Ron Davies
Date: 22 May 13 - 08:56 PM

1775:    A Good Year For Revolution, by Kevin Phillips

Among many other points, explores the aftermath of Lexington and Concord.   " The First Continental Congress had specified that the other colonies' support for Boston....would depend on the British being the aggressors". The Patriots were aware of this and acted immediately, sending the news that this had been the case , "prefaced and packaged" on a chain of couriers and fresh horses, Massachusetts to Georgia, with newspapers along the way "embroidering the apocryphal details of atrocities".

In addition, they sent the news on a fast schooner to London so that it could--and was--published in quite a few newspapers there.

They were determined to win the propaganda war on this. And they did.

General Gage sent a terse report-- stating that the Americans had fired first-- which arrived weeks later.   By that time quite a few Britons did not believe him.

It is actually unclear who fired first.

Now, according to a friend of mine who visited Lexington just recently, Lexington is perfectly fine with the idea that the Americans fired --"the shot heard 'round the world"---first.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Dorothy Parshall
Date: 22 May 13 - 08:08 PM

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford: being Chinese or Japanese in Seattle 1942 and 40 years later. Very interesting.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: ChanteyLass
Date: 22 May 13 - 07:12 PM

Wish You Well by David Baldacci. It's for my YMCA'x book club.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: kendall
Date: 22 May 13 - 02:48 PM

Churchill's Triumph by Michael Dobbs.

It's about the meeting of Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin in Yalta. I can hardly put it down. Stalin was an evil bastard, Roosevelt a sick, dying old man and Churchill a Monarchist, somewhat egotistical has been, but, damn he was right.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Jun 07 - 01:44 PM

".. holding each in front of the alternate eye at the same time."

and who did the split brain surgery? ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 11:40 PM

"JESUS and YAHWEH, The Names Divine," by Harold Bloom. It has interested me for the last few years why the followers of Jesus broke away from the normative Judaism of the time, and also made him God.

"White Noise," by Don DeLileo. This is a comic novel of a small mid-western college where the protagonist/narrator is the head of the Department of Hitler Studies...and he doesn't even know German! So much for doing research using primary sources.

BTW, I read them serially, not at the same time, holding each in front of the alternate eye at the same time.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Riginslinger
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 10:45 PM

"Big Bill Haywood & The Radical Union Movement," by Joseph R. Conlin.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Cluin
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 09:31 PM

Ron,

I also found "Will You Miss Me..." fascinating. Those Carters sure got around for a long time. Some of the stories about their dealings with Ralph Peer and Jimmie Rodgers and "Doctor" Brinkley (the quack who "cured" erectile disfunction by cutting a chunk out of your testicle and replacing it with a hunk of dried goat's testicle), and Hank Williams and Johnny Cash. They wouldn't turn their backs on John R. during the worst of his drug addiction because of guilt over Hank Williams early demise, apparently.

And yes, the picture it shows of the recording industry in the 30s and 30s is a real eye-opener. Ralph Peer apparently looked down on the hillbilly and "coloured" music that made him a rich man.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Raedwulf
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 06:28 PM

Old Soldiers Never Die, Pvte Frank Richards, DCM & MM, 2nd Btn Royal Welch Fusiliers, WWI.

Simple, straightforward & utterly readable - almost exactly as though you were talking to him.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Rog Peek
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 04:25 PM

The Squad by T Ryle Dwyer.

The story of the intelligence opertions of Michael Collins, based on interviews with members of the group of assasins who were recruited by Collins to eliminate those considered to be enemies of the Irish fight for independance. They did this by targeting detectives and army personel who were engaged to quell the insurgency. These iterviews were carried out by the Bureau of Military History in the early fifties, interviewees being given an assursnce that the material would not be released in their lifetimes.
This is the first book to make use of these interviews.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: HouseCat
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 03:31 PM

Hey Joe, you should try Thomas Merton's "Seeds". I read his "Seven-Storey Mountain" when I was too young to comprehend much of it and I need to go back and read it again.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Becca72
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 02:45 PM

I'm almost finished with "Missing; the execution of Charles Horman" by Thomas Hauser, something my Spanish teacher recommended, oh, 15 years ago and I'm just now getting around to reading.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Gulliver
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 01:38 PM

Finished "Death of Achilles" by Boris Akunin (who is mentioned above), which was a great read. Can't wait to get more by him.

Subject: RE: BS: What book are you reading right now
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Jun 07 - 12:12 PM

Thanks to a gift, brought all the way from OZ by a friend, I am just starting "Folklore of the Australian Pub" by Bill Wannan. It's full of stories, poems, songs...all put in the context of pubs and their place in the culture...