Posted on 12/24/2007 6:21:46 AM PST by randita
Merry Christmas, all!
I already have in my possession gift cards to bookstores given to me by students of mine. After tomorrow, others will no doubt have bookstore giftcards burning holes in their pockets, as well.
I thought this might be a good time and reason to solicit advice as to what good books you have read this year.
Please post books you would recommend.
Thanks!
I wouldn’t usually recommend any book, but I will pass on one title that was mentioned on FR: ‘The Prize.’ It is a history of sorts of the modern oil industry fleshed out with biographical anecdotes of the main actors from Drake to about 1990.
I also enjoy Grisham’s none court type books, like the Painted House, Playing for Pizza, Bleachers and one other that I can’t recall.
I read a lot, a whole lot, maybe two or three books a week. Grisham has been one of my favorites. I had to go back to my book shelves to see exactly what I had read this year. I only keep the good ones, I toss the rest in the trash when I’m finished, and the really good ones usually get passed on to someone else.
I will have to check out Kurson's Shadow Divers.
Very good. I recommend it for any Ashcroft fan. (Like myself)
This year we had a huge rummage sale (my sister and I were trying to make spending money for our Las Vegas trip), and I practically gave them away, but at least I know that someone may enjoy them.
I am my bookstores favorite person. I know I should utilize my public library more, but books are my guilty pleasure.
Among others:
Literature Lost: Social Agendas and the Corruption of the Humanities By: John M. Ellis
and An Honest Thief and other Short Stories of Dostoyevsky
and Magic Seeds by Naipaul, V.S.
A sickening surprise today: Stopped into Barnes and IgNoble and saw a book titled: Poems from Guantanamo —poems written by the “political prisoners” who write poems in Gitmo.
http://www.amazon.com/Poems-Guantanamo-Detainees-Ariel-Dorfman/dp/1587296063
I read the Reagan Diaries and they were riveting, which surprised me.
An excellent book about Reagan is Reagan’s War by Peter Schweizer that every Reagan fan should read.
Haven’t read The Kite Runner, but did read the next book penned by the same author called “A Thousand Shining Suns.”
It is melodrama about women in Afghanistan during the Soviet era. Very well written.
A really good book is 1776 by David McCullough about the first year of the Revolutionary War. I send it to all our adopted units of soldiers. After reading it, you’re sure it’s a miracle that we won the war and became an independent nation, so many things went badly. And then there are some unsung heroes of the war without whom we wouldn’t have survived the first year.
Another history book I enjoyed this year was the 4th book in Churchill’s series on WWII, called Hinge of Fate, mostly about 1942 just after America entered the war, and all the things that went wrong before they started to go right. The behind the scenes strategy sessions with Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin are fascinating.
I’ve been reading a biography I got for Christmas, Condoleezza RICE by Elizabeth Bumiller. I cheated, skipped her childhood, and started when she went to Stanford and then became provost there. Very interesting, and neutral in its assessment I think, with Condi’s strengths and faults doled out in equal measure. I know I’m going to go back and read the beginning after I finish.
I read and enjoyed the “last” Harry Potter book, the Deathly Hallows, although the ending was a bit flat.
An enticing book is The Samurai’s Garden by someone with a Japanese name. First part is excellent, about a young Chinese man who goes to a seaside resort town in Japan in 1937-8 to recover from tuberculosis while his country is being invaded by the Japanese. He becomes friends with the Japanese caretaker of his father’s vacation home there and learns the mysteries of the local inhabitants. The second half is a shift in the way the story is told from present to flash back dialog, and that is not as compelling as the first half of the book, as it becomes more explanations than story. But the book is worth the read for those who like to immerse themselves in another time and place and culture.
An old classic, very well written, is The Virginian by Owen Wister. Treat yourself to that.
The only “fact” is that, indeed, you are very rude.
Thanks!
I’ll look into that too!
Happy New Year!!!!!
“The only “fact” is that, indeed, you are very rude.”
No, YOU are the “rude” one.
Ayn Rand is an atheist with the morals of an alley cat in heat whose only love is $$$$. Her personal life was an utter disaster. She was someone to be pitied - certainly not one to look up to. Nothing rude or false about that. You just don’t like that UGLY FACT.
As I was saying, mature people who have some experience in life, know her stuff is immature and idiotic. Again, nothing “rude” about that - just FACTS you don’t like.
A list of the last few books I read. (I read a lot!)
Muses, Madmen, and Prophets: Rethinking the History, Science, and Meaning of Auditory Hallucination by Daniel B. Smith.
Sacred Causes: The Clash of Religion and Politics, from the Great War to the War on Terror by Michael Burleigh.
The Flying Camel: Essays on Identity by Women of North African and Middle Eastern Jewish Heritage by Loolwa Khazzoom.
Exposing the Real Che Guevara: And the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him by Humberto Fontova.
Taboo Memories, Diasporic Voices by Ella Shohat.
Keys to the Garden: New Israeli Writing by Ammiel Alcalay.
After Jews and Arabs: Remaking Levantine Culture by Ammiel Alcalay.
Randita, I read the Reagan Diaries and finally, Atlas Shrugged.
Also, God and Ronald Reagan, which gives great insight to President Reagan’s beliefs in a religious context, and how that helped him to focus on fighting Communism, which was godless.
Both Reagan books helped to show the courage of this great man in being focussed on doing what was right in spite of the powers arrayed against him.
History will shine very brightly on him.
Fool. Before posting to a request for good book ideas leave your insults and personal idiot opinions to yourself. Nobody asked for them. Nobody cares to listen to your rants. Now bugger off. Go bother Coyoteman.
The Rage and the Pride by Oriana Fallaci, her post 9-11 rant against her fellow europoeans. Should be read by every american.
JLT
And you are the judge? Idiotic? You cannot really be serious? Someone who writes a book in the 50s with a Congress passing an "Equalization of Opportunity Bill" and an "Anti Dog-eat-dog Bill" is a f-----g genius. Someone who wrote about the absurdity of socialized medicine in the 50s is is a f-----g genius. You might not like the way Rand lived her own life or even some of her work, but your comments are akin to suggesting that Bobby Fisher wasn't a very good chess player.
ML/NJ
Probably once a year!
ML/NJ
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