As an avid reader I am always interested in what other people are currently reading along with a comment or two about those books and anything else they would like to include. I've just finished reading the following books by Cormac McCarthy and they are ALL excellent. Cormac McCarthy is in my opinion, one the best American authors of all time. No Country For Old Men The Road All The Pretty Horses Blood Meridian The Crossing I'm now finally getting around to reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, being a voracious science fiction reader growing up I am surprised that I missed what many would consider to be one of the best sci-fi books of all time? http://home.austarnet.com.au/petersykes/topscifi/lists_books_rank1.html
I'm currently re-skimming Susan Wise Bauer's History of the Ancient World in preparation to read the sequel on the medieval world. I'm also reading Francine Prose's Reading Like a Writer, to better understand fiction. Incidentally, I started a thread on books...http://www.wordforge.net/showthread.php?t=77605
Excellent. Along that line...I'm sure you've probably read this already but this version is awesome. http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/pairih/index.html PS - Once you get used to the medial or long S's it's great. Also don't forget to double click on the first plate to view at full size.
I'm currently reading the Jim Corbett Omnibus which is a collection of three books he wrote to chronicle his experiences hunting the most famous man-eaters of India. Next up, I'll be reading "Blood Meridian" by Cormac McCarthy.
Seems like the only things I read anymore are repair manuals and installation guides. I even let my magazine subscriptions expire, because I got sick of them stacking up.
Got some Bernard Cornwell in, really good historical fiction. Just finished the first three in his Saxon series, about a 9th century Saxon nobleman whose parents were killed by Vikings and he was raised by Danes. Lots of blood, guts and battles, and some intriguing history around the time of Alfred the Great who led the unification of England. Interesting that there was almost not England - all of the Saxon lands were conquered at one point except Alfred in a small stretch of swamp in Wessex. If he had sickened or was betrayed it would have become Daneland, and that would have created an entirely different reality than we know today.
Bernard Cornwell is excellent! I read The Last Kingdom from the Saxon series you describe below and loved it. Look like I will have to track down the other four books in the series. Historical fiction is probably my favorite genres of writing, especially when the authors really do their research and tie all the historical facts together with great, compelling writing that gives all the characters life and puts you right in that time period. Cornwell's Warlord Chronicles set in Post-Roman Britain, a "historical" recreation of Arthurian Britain is definitely on my list of future books to read.
As a Dan Simmons aficionado, I'm excitedly reading The Crook Factory, his fictional account of Ernest Hemingway fighting Nazis in 1940's Cuba. On the shelf are Hayek's Road to Serfdom, and a Henry Rollins book I picked up at his spoken word performance last weekend.
I just finished rereading Jim Bouton's Ball Four. Great baseball book! Currently I'm reading Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters by Matt Ridley. I just started it so can't say much about it yet.
Reading a collection of H.P. Lovecraft stories. Not exactly scary, but definitely twisted and otherworldly. :halloweenskull:
I'm currently on the third part of Three at Wolfe's Door by Rex Stout. Wolfe and Archie are about to lower the boom on the guilty party who strangled a show promoter at Lily Rowan's penthouse in The Rodeo Murder.
For fun I'm reading C.S. Lewis' The Four Loves. It's very interesting book! For a class I'm taking, I'm reading Teaching today:An introduction to Education 8th edition...and I just know everyone is going to run out and buy a copy right now...heh.
Something or other by Terry Pratchett. It's just not grabbing me the way his earlier Discworld books did, and it's taking me a LONG time to get through it because when I think of picking it up, most of the time I say, "Eh... why bother", and go do something else. I don't remember the name (it's at home and I am at work) but it's the one where the wizards of Unseen University have to play Football for some reason or another.
I'm currently reading Patriots: A novel of survival in the coming collapse. After that, I'm on to One Second After. I've been in a post apocalyptic mood for some odd reason!!
I just got started on Vince Flynn's Term Limits. I've heard good things, but so far, two or three chapters in, & I'm not terribly impressed. It's not that it's bad, but the prose seems sort of flat so far. We'll see. Edit: I could be being overly judgemental 'cause I'm subconciously wishing that I had started with Clive Cussler's The Chase first.
Finally got to where I feel comfortable reading again. After the eye surgery I was taking it easy and trying not to strain my good eye. Rereading the Pern series and the Leaphorn & Chee series. At least on the iPod I can make the font size large enough to read comfortably without the strain.
I read the original series multiple times growing up, great series. The images that always stick with me from those books are the Thread searing and burning everything it touches, the unguent gel used to cool and heal the burns and the sulphurous, brimstone smell of dragon fire! Great stuff!
I'm going to give 'And Another Thing' another crack, but I suspect I'll find it as tepid as before. And since I'm not doing much on the way of work for the next couple of months, thought I'd give my brain a workout and got ahold of Thus Spake Zarathustra. For someone who went through hundred of books in his teens and twenties, I have really gone off reading in my 30's
Ancient Greece: A History in Eleven Cities by Paul Cartledge. An overview of ancient/classical/Hellenistic/early Byzantine Greece through an examination of the most significant cities.
Dead Souls by Gogol, though it has mostly been on pause since my spring semester started a few weeks ago.
Nothing at the moment, but a couple of days ago I ordered... Men on Iron Ponies: The Death and Rebirth of the Modern U.s. Cavalry Steeds of Steel: A History of American Mechanized Cavalry in World War II The Infantry's Armor: The US Army's Separate Tank Battalions in World War II ...the last two by Harry Yeide, one of my favorite authors.
200 plus pages in, and I'm done with Term Limits. For me, this book is the literary equivilent of eating stale, unflavored rice cake. That's actually made not of rice, but of cheap styrofoam. I couldn't face slogging through that at breakfast the other morning, so since I had a copy of Rex Stout's The Father Hunt in my car too, that's what I'm on right now.
