Posted on 07/29/2009 7:23:00 AM PDT by MplsSteve
Well, it's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" thread.
I do this thread to gauge what other Freepers are reading. As all of you know, Freepers are probably some of the more well-read individuals on the Internet and I'm always curious as to what we're reading.
It can be anything, a classic work of fiction, a NY Times bestseller, a technical journal, a trashy pulp novel...in short anything.
Please do not ruin this thread by replying "I'm reading this thread". It become un-funny a long time ago.
I'll start. I'm about halfway thru "The Horrid Pit: The Battle Of The Crater" by Alan Axelrod. It's a great book that concentrates on one of the more controversial and bloody battles of the Civil War.
Well, what are YOU reading now?
“Childhood’s End” -— Arthur C. Clarke
Just finished Mark Levin’s “Liberty & Tyrrany” and Glenn Beck’s “Common Sense”. Now reading “Nebula Award Winners of 1941” (edited by Asimov & Greenberg).
Dancing with Rose: Finding Life in the Land of Alzheimer’s by Lauren Kessler
I highly recommend it.
Dig it out and read it again in the new light of this new "dust storm".
It rings true.
It's lot's of fun too.
Lines like "..ain't big enough to plug a ants a$$!".
Just finished for the third time “Atlas Shrugged”. I get something new and meaningful every time I read it.
Wonderful piece. I have never heard of anyone else reading this novella before. We are a select few. I’ve read that work two times.
Atlas Shrugged.
So timeless!
Sarah and Rebekah, two of the books in Orson Scott Card's "Women of Genesis" series.
Just Do Something, by Kevin DeYoung (a biblical approach to decision making).
Japan: An Illustrated History, by Shelton Woods.
Next in the queue:
Most likely Liberty and Tyranny, by Mark Levin.
re-reading ‘Sarum’ for lack of anything else to read. I have no TV and so read in the evenings a lot. Have run out of things that take my imagination lately.
Re: Nebula Award Winners -— will try to get it on Amazon. Sci-Fi from that period was wonderful.
Re: Grapes of Wrath -— pretty good. Depictions of Okies were, I think, inaccurate, they seemed more like English working-class people. ‘Mice And Men’ is the best.
I REALLY really recommend ‘Forsaken’. Amazing research about a l;ittle-known episode.
Just started “Democracy in America” by Alexis de Tocqueville.
p.s. thanks for posting this. Sometimes I think conservatives have not much concern for the arts. Can’t blame people, however, considering the state of modern art in all disciplines.
Midnight Falcon- David Gemmel... great fantasy
Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith
and, Volume 3 of Douglas Southall Freeman's biography of Robert E. Lee (again).
T. R. : the last romantic / H.W. Brands.
Teddy Roosevelt
The haunted wood : Soviet espionage in America— the Stalin era / Allen Weinstein, Alexander Vassiliev.
The Blue Ridge Parkway by foot : a park ranger’s memoir / Tim Pegram.
Blue Ridge Mountain memories : the true story of a mountain girl at the turn of the century / by Alice McGuire Hamilton.
Seekers of scenery : travel writing from southern Appalachia, 1840-1900 / edited by Kevin E. O’Donnell and Helen Hollingsworth.
Rabbi Moshe Weiner, The Divine Code
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Thanks alot!
“Bel Ami” in French by Maupassant.
Just finished (finally) “The Lost” by Daniel Mendelsohn. A story of reconstructing what happened to the author’s relatives in the holocaust in the Ukraine. Fascinating research but nearly unreadable as whoever served as his editor should be sued for malpractice.
I am currently reading “Federalist/Anti-federalist”
It’s nice to be able to read the for and against arguments from our founding fathers. They both had some very good points.
Lights Out (Mark Steyn)
and for long train journeys “The Lion Hunts in Darkness” by Wilbur Smith
$
Yup...it’s a great book. One of the classics
Lion = Leopard. D’oh!
There’s just something about the Great Smoky mtns, I love going to the Park and Gatlinburg.
Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand
Great read because it is happening right NOW!
“The Tiwi of Northern Australia”
An anthropology study of a tribe where women are the units of value. A fascinating look at an alien culture.
I’m working through Software Engineering with Ada by Brooch, just started Atlas Shrugs, and I’m thinking about rereading Hackworth’s Price of Honor.
Moby Dick, Plato’s Republic, some non-fiction related to business I’d like to be in, some short stories by various authors
Just finished The Iliad again
Would recommend Moby Dick ...so long as it is approached with patience and in small doses (there are 135 chapters)
Second half of August is vacation time, and I hope to knock a lot of this down then.
I read that book too. I didn’t know what to think when I was done. The first part about the Seal training rang true and I had no reason to question any of it. But starting with the fateful mission gone wrong ... we have Marcus’s version of events with nothing to corroborate. Maybe it happened that way, maybe not. We do know he left the military pretty soon thereafter. I have a neighbor who’s a First Sergeant in the NG, and he said he’s heard some not so good things about the whole deal.
Finished Gladwell’s “Outliers” - interesting book. Reading “Barron’s” on Saturdays and “Atlantic” when it comes - - I’m looking around for something - this thread might have an answer...:)
my favorite TR biography is the first volume of the Edmund Morris set. I like that even better than the McCullough early life of TR, Mornings on Horseback.
About to re-read “The Mote In God’s Eye’. Do it every 5 yrs or so.
I have noticed just how often the US economy has collapsed due to credit expansion based on bogus facts if not outright lies. Generally one company or bank Too Big To Fail collapses, and we're in a depression for a few years. I find this oddly comforting in a "this too shall pass" way-I can only imagine what reading/watching the news feels like to young people who may not know much about the Big Crash of 1929 , much less the panic of 1837...1857... ...
I finished rereading the Time Life Old West series just a few days ago. You know, the one with covers made of "real hand-tooled saddle leather!" Love those books.
I mentioned on your last thread that I had just started reading Terry Pratchett. I finished all his works. I like his Death and his witches novels, but I don't particularly care for the wizards, Rincewind (blasphemy alert!) or the Moist von Lipwig books. I think I am "Assasins Guild/Vetinari'd" out.
I am also rereading all my F & SF magazines, in search of a story I read *somewhere* in late winter/early spring 2008. No idea if the story was read in an anthology or a magazine, but I had no luck finding it in books, so now I am reading my magazines hoping to find it.
I have virtually every issue of F&SF magazine published between 1980 to 20009.
May God have mercy on my soul.
(If anyone recognizes this : The story was a horror story about a British archeologist who accompanies some M15 (?) agents to a remote uninhabited island in the north Atlantic. The archeologist is there to make it look like it's an expedition about old ruins . In acuality, it's a move against Soviet agents who are trying to set up a clandestine base there (the story is set in the early 1960s, but was written much more recently than that). Unfortunately, the team revives the reason the island is uninhabited : An insane , murderous zombie woman who was sacrificed to the gods circa tenth century A D to end a plague ravaging the island. Sound familiar to anyone?)
Currently reading “Liberty and Tyranny” by Mark Levin. Next up: “Safely Home” by Randy Alcorn, a novel about Christian persecution in China.
The Tyranny of Liberalism, is now available. You can read a review, a Q&A, and excerpts (here and here).
Saving Freedom by Senator Jim DeMint.
“Living Dangerously in Korea,” by Donald N. Clark. Dr. Clark was one of my college professors, longer ago than I care to think, and this book is about the experiences of Western missionaries in Korea (including his parents and grandparents) from 1900-1950.
“Basic Economics” by Thomas Sowell (again).
Most everyone knows the stories from the First Barbary War in 1801-05. However, at the end of the war the United States was still committed to paying tribute to the Barbary States. In 1815, after the War of 1812 was concluded, the American Navy returned to the Mediterranean to “convince” the Barbary States that they really wanted peace with the United States, and the U.S. was no longer going to pay tribute to them. My latest tagline comes from one of Stephen Decatur's negotiating sessions.
The decisive point in negotiations has to be when the American negotiator pointed out to his Arab counterpart various ships in the American squadron that had been captured from the Royal Navy.
It's a comedy/fantasy/allegory about the Prince and Princess of Wales on a Huckleberry Finn-ish journey of self discovery after banishment to the United States. Their secret mission is to return the former colonies to the British Crown.
It's also very much about America, it's culture and it's politics. Very funny, insightful and wonderfully written, as is everything else I've read by Helprin.
The Pirate Queen: Queen Elizabeth I, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire
By Susan Ronald
...I considered myself pretty well read on the British and American airborne forces, but this book also covers the German parachute forces in a bit more depth than I've previously explored them.
Who's the author? Is it fiction or nonfiction?
If I could be so bold as to get slightly off topic here, I would like to suggest this DVD for all freepers who are either history/military buffs, or martial arts fans, or traditional craftsmanship/swordsmithing/blacksmithing fans, OR movie fans. In other words, it has something for everyone here.
It is a history of swords and swordsmanship:
http://www.reclaimingtheblade.com
Check out the preview at that link. You can get the DVD at Amazon, or you can download it on iTunes.
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