Read any good books lately?

[eedwards]

Recently finished "The Year 1000" by Robert Lacey and Dan Danziger. Eye opening how little average people had and amazing that they were able to even function with so little.

"1491: New Revelations of the Americas before Columbus" by Charles C Mann. Never been a interested much in Pre-Columbian American History, but it was fascinating to see the new theories of how these people lived. Fascinating that they had 2 Neolithic revolutions before the one in Mesopotamia.

Been working through "The Reagan Diaries" since Christmas. Slow going, but fascinating to see the events of the time from the perspective of the President. Amazing how many times I said, "Oh yeah! I remember that event now!"

[RodeoTex]

Club Rodeo by Garrett Yancy. Its a modern day western about an over-the-hill rodeo rider. Actually if I had that would mean that I had finished writing it. Sorry...

I really have recently read Ronnie by Ron Wood and Clapton's Guitar. Riding With Reagan is a wonderful insight into the president we thought we knew.

I like biographies and would like to find one about Theodore Roosevelt.

[Kingpin]

I just finished A. Lincoln: A Biography, by Ronald C White. What an incredible man our 16th President was.

[Darcy Hoover]

Originally Posted by RodeoTex

I like biographies and would like to find one about Theodore Roosevelt.

He wrote this about his famous African safari....



I have it but haven't read it yet.

[dean]

I'm going to toss another title out there. I read this last year, and it is a book that sticks in my mind as one of the best I have read in years. It is also one of the weirdest and most challenging because of the shifting point of view. It's titled The Egyptologist by Arthur Phillips, and it's an epistolary novel (story told through letters, much like Frankenstein). It's one of the few novels that truly creeped me out at the end (somewhat in the Psycho vein).

This is always a fun thread to follow - I usually end up spending a bit of $$ whenever I read all your recommendations!

Dean

[sacizob]

" Liberty & Tyranny" by Mark Levin

[jkingma]

Just finished Independant People by Halldor Laxness. One of the best books I've ever read.

[stantheman]

I just finished "A Year In Provence" by Peter Mayle and thought it was great.

I'm just beginning "The Perfect Storm" by Sebastian Junger and I can tell I won't stop reading until I'm finished. We're supposed to get hit with a freezing rain storm here in The White Mountains tonight so everything will be down for 24 hours as usual so, I'll fire up the generator and commence reading. I was living on The Coast when The Perfect Storm hit and I hope I never am witness again to the destructive nature of The Sea in full fury - I mean scores of 10-15 rounded sea rocks getting thrown up across Route 1A like pebbles - many sea-side parks had to be altered because of the destruction. I'm still amazed the "The Lady Of The Sea" at Hampton Beach was left undamaged. The Jetty at the Hampton Bridge totally submerged.
Amazing the bridge wasn't washed away.
And The Andrea Gail was in the mouth of the beast.

[ne4tt]

Like Vince Flynn's "Mitch Rapp" CIA novels.

Also like W.E.B. Griffin's series of military novels, and his "Badge of Honor" police series.

DeMille writes good uns too.

jamie

[dan1952]

"Bill Carson:My Life and Times With Fender Instruments" and "Skydog:The Duane Allman Story."

[thunderbyrd]

i'm in the middle of re-reading the Sandman comic book series. best graphic novel fantasy i've ever seen.

[Nighthawk]

I posted in this thread before but I just finished re-reading Madison Smartt Bell's Three novel trilogy about the Haitian slave rebellion under Tousaint L'Overture, 1791 - 1802. My god what a series of books. Not for the squeamish but if you can get beyond that these books work on so many different levels. Not an easy read in some respects but well worth looking at IMO. The titles are:

All Saints Rising
Master of the Cross Roads
The Stone the Builder Refused.

Highly highly recommended. Oh! and he got the history right as the background.

[COAHplayer]

"Born to Run" by Christopher McDougal

[P Thought]

I know that, as an English teacher, I'm supposed to regard John Grisham's books as "brain candy." I am willing to risk opprobrium from my colleagues, though, and say Grisham has written a bunch of good books, and he's written two great ones: A Time to Kill and Bleachers. Anyone who's ever played or otherwise enjoyed football should read Bleachers. It's about all of us.

Thanks for bumping this thread, jkingma! I have often wanted to, but thought it would be bad manners, since I am the OP.

[tele-rain]

I'm a little more than halfway thorough reading this for the 2nd time...

http://www.amazon.com/Music-Lesson-S.../dp/0425220931

I'm finding it just as inspiring, and maybe even a little less hokey than the first time around. Gotta be able to stretch the mind wide open to grasp a lot of the stuff in here, but I like that sort of thing. And I'm definitely catching more of the relation between music and life, and how each can be applied to the other. Good stuff!

[dconeill]

The Last Apprentice series of novels, with my teenage son. This series isn't particularly long in plot (it's really just a series of incidents, like the Hardy Boys), but there's lots of good character development.

Snowball Earth, about a time when the entire planet froze over (about 250MY ago, IIRC)

The World Without Us, about how human artifacts would deteriorate when humans aren't around to keep them going.

[mudshark]

At Swim, Two Boys by Jamie O'Neill

Life and Games of Mikhail Tal by Mikhail Tal

[Paul in Colorado]

"Girls Like Us" (can't remember the author) it's a bio of three women who came of age in the '60's and how they reflected their times in their art. The three women are Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. After reading books about CSN or The Eagles or Gram Parsons it was nice to have the feminine perspective.

"When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" by George Carlin. Very cynical, very funny.

[Wailin' Tele]

Wolf of the Steppes: The Complete Cossack Adventures, Volume One by Harold Lamb

[getbent]

Joe Vitale Backstage Pass
The Beat Hotel Barry Miles
The Paul Bigsby book

All three lovely in their own way. The Bigsby book is incredible... I love guys like Paul Bigsby... the old pioneer spirit 'can do/will do' kind of guy and an innovator full of passion! really inspiring.

Joe Vitale is a drummer. and an italian. this book is kind of the rock n roll tommy tedesco book... it has lots of typos and funny formatting, but it makes it even more endearing... I really love this book...

the beat hotel.... I love Barry miles writing. I am now just going to order the rest of the things he has written even if the subject matter is not of interest to me (or so I think) I have a feeling if he is interested in it, I WILL be...

I have loved the beat poets since discovering Kerouac in junior high school. I think much of what the beats and guys like Gary Snyder described and told have been major influences in my own life, so this contextualization of an 'age' is really powerful. I bought the book for my 10th grade daughter to read and have ended up reading it with her and our conversations about what those guys were up to have been really rich and thought provoking... the reflections and thoughts of a teen and the ruminations of a middle aged man... both still making sense of the three big questions... this book is a great way to 'make sense' of events and re-think why we think the things we do.

the range here is pretty broad.. but all three books are worth it in their own right.

[The Bone]

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

[Kornelius]

Re-reading Orwell's 1984, and i've just finish the Peter Guralnick biography of Elvis "last train to Memphis". I recommand also his little book about Robert Johnson, and his study on Blues and rock legend called "feel like gong home"

[djdeacon]

Originally Posted by jjkrause84

ANNA KARENINA SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ruined it for me....

Finished "The War of the World" by Niall Ferguson not too long ago...just your typical history of World War II....that starts from about 1870.....

One of Ferguson's key assertions, that the racism and jingoism of the 20th century are very much products of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and that people were actually more tolerant before that time, is fascinating.

[T_red7882]

"Man's Search for Meaning"- Viktor Frankl

[EdgarHF]

Originally Posted by P Thought

I know that, as an English teacher, I'm supposed to regard John Grisham's books as "brain candy." I am willing to risk opprobrium from my colleagues, though, and say Grisham has written a bunch of good books, and he's written two great ones: A Time to Kill and Bleachers. Anyone who's ever played or otherwise enjoyed football should read Bleachers. It's about all of us.

Thanks for bumping this thread, jkingma! I have often wanted to, but thought it would be bad manners, since I am the OP.

I was an English major and I remember one of my professors saying there is good junk and bad junk in popular fiction. He was refering to John Le Carre at the time, calling it good junk. I have not been impressed with John Grisham, but if you enjoy his stuff why give a dang about what anyone thinks

[koen]

I'm reading "Revolutions" by Le Clezio and "The Pest" by Camus.

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by milracing

Just finished Killer Angels :)

A truly great book. The follow ups by his son, not so good.

[bruce]

Originally Posted by jimd

Here's a few. I typically like lighter stuff, no War and Peace for me.

Nick Hornby: High Fidelity, A Long Way Down, Fever Pitch

Christopher Moore: Lamb, The Stupidest Angel

Jasper FForde: The Eyre Affair, The Fourth Bear

I'm a big Hornby fan, and A Long Way Down was particularly good. If the other authors are in the same vein, I'll check them out.

Hornby's latest, Juliet Naked, is really good too. It is about a retired and slightly reclusive musician, and the obsessive cult that has developed around him. Very funny.

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by Paul in Colorado

"Girls Like Us" (can't remember the author) it's a bio of three women who came of age in the '60's and how they reflected their times in their art. The three women are Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. After reading books about CSN or The Eagles or Gram Parsons it was nice to have the feminine perspective.

"When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" by George Carlin. Very cynical, very funny.

I read this book. I found the author's style hard to deal with at times. It was informative though. In the end I found that I came to admire Carly Simon more as a person than Joannie or Carole King by the end of it. It did not make me like James Taylor at all.

[Nighthawk]

Originally Posted by The Bone

Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Great book. +1.

[Boblets]

Away from my normal steady diet of Dean Koontz et al veg out tomes, I am currently reading "Singing With Your Own Voice" by Orlanda Cook.

I am learning about Primitive Vocal Energy and Muscles, Mobility and Openness, and how important one's spine and attached muscles are to singing. As someone who has forever been too embarrassed to hear myself singing, I am looking forward to finding my voice through following the exercises in the book.

[eggman]

Howdy,

Minority Report by the late H.L. Mencken. It's really a collection of notes/observations by the deeply cynical columnist from Batlimore. Mencken is best taken in small doses, but he remains as sort of a more cynical 20th Century Mark Twain.

Eggman

[thunderbyrd]

Originally Posted by Paul in Colorado

"Girls Like Us" (can't remember the author) it's a bio of three women who came of age in the '60's and how they reflected their times in their art. The three women are Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Carly Simon. After reading books about CSN or The Eagles or Gram Parsons it was nice to have the feminine perspective.

"When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?" by George Carlin. Very cynical, very funny.

i recently read this book, too, (girls like us) and i was glad that i did. there was a footnote on one of the pages about Laura Nyro that was both happy and heartbreaking, at the same time. Anybody who is really into Laura probably knows the story about her being "boo'ed off the stage" at the montery pops festival (in '67?). Laura was very inhibited about singing on stage after that incident and it undoubtably affected the rest of her career. but the author of this book says that when the audio tape was more closely examined, it was found the audience was NOT boo'ing, but saying "we love You!". but Laura never knew, because this wasn't found until after her death.

when i 1st got interested in music, at the age of 12, in like 71 or so, Laura's music was everywhere, performed by BS&T, 3 dog night, 5th dimension and others. her music just sounds wonderful to me, the sound of my youth and the new frontier...

often i've listened to her almost heavenly performance of "spanish harlem" from montery pops and wondered how anybody could be insane enough to "boo" at this woman. turns out they weren't. i wish she could have known.

[Joe-Bob]

I recently read "Common Sense" by Glenn Beck. IMHO--it should be mandatory for everyone to read.

[beep.click]

Originally Posted by Charlie Bernstein

My favorite question!

Just finished Marisha Pessl's Special Topics in Calamity Physics (hilarious, original, un-put-down-able)

YES, a thousand times, YES!

I keep going to the bookstore to see if she's written anything else yet.

[P Thought]

So many great books, so little time. And now I have a tele.

[rocksteady Max]

Clapton's autobiography is a must read
Clapton's guitar by Allen St. John (fellow TDPRIer) is definitely a book to read. I've read it twice and got the impetus to get a boutique D-28 with adirondack spruce top and fancy curled maple binding from it ... cannot regret this !

[shades]

Good Lord,so much deep heavy reading that would adequately prepare one for time in the dentist chair...

I just finished "Fender,the Inside Story" written by Forrest White who was Leo's right hand man for many years. An excellent book that provides very interesting insights into exactly what made Leo Fender tick, the development of the Fender product line, the CBS debacle,etc.

+1 on Glenn Beck's book.

[imwjl]

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! was a good one. His dislike of hypocrisy and desire for disciplined science seemed somehow very fitting for these times.

Mastering VMware vSphere 4 is on the desk and just started.

[IdahoPicker]

Not much time for reading lately, but the last thing I read was some H.P. Lovecraft.

I've been reading bits of Naked Lunch (William S. Burroughs) again as well. Like David Cronenberg said, it's much like the bible, you don't have to read it cover to cover.