OT: What are you reading?
I loved Babbit. Maybe I'll reread it.
It's about Hal Mumme and the advent of the air raid offense.
Besides the Bible, which one might accurately guess I read regularly, I am reading: the Military History of the Western World by Fuller, Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tripp, and some sermon study stuff on Genesis, including a re-read of a Brief History of Time.
Some of this reading is intermittent.
Very interested to hear your take on "Shepherding a Child's Heart". Multiple people at my church read it and we didn't all agree on his main strategy.
Ever read "Desiring the Kingdom" by James K. A. Smith? Very interesting connection between embodied cognition, desire, liturgy, and worship. Especially his cultural analysis of the (shopping) mall and big sporting events as "liturgies" that shape us "affectively" (as opposed to intellectually in a propositional sort of way) to think and behave in certain ways (chp. 5).
fantastic book. might have to listen to the cranston audio version.
That book got me into Tim O'Brien -- Going after Cacciato, If I Die in a Combat Zone, and In the Lake of the Woods are all great.
Personally, I usually don't like all the self referential call-backs and tie ins that make it so you need to read all the books to see all of them, but I don't really have anything better to do so...
Something that just came out earlier this week that I'm really getting into is Autumn of the Black Snake: The Creation of the US Army and the Invasion that Opened the West by William Hogeland. It's about the first conflicts between the Native Americans and the newly-created United States government. The setting is mostly in Ohio, but in western Pennsylvania, Indiana and Michigan as well.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M31A9BM/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=U…
I'm also reading Too Big to Fail by Andrew Ross Sorkin. A book about the financial crisis of 2008 that came out about 6-7 years ago. It's a pretty terrifying read.
In fiction, I'm trying, and failing, to get into Elmore Leonard. Anybody have any recommendations for a good book of his that doesn't require any familiarity with an established character? I am reading his older stuff, which might have been a mistake.
I just finished The Peripheral by William Gibson. If you liked any of his previous works, I highly recommend it.
The Paper Menagerie and other stories, by Ken Liu, an emerging SF/F talent. The title story won the Hugo award a few years ago and the stories, while ostensibly sci-fi, are profound meditations on family, technology and self-identity. Highly recommended.
The Count of Monte Cristo.
Only 350 more pages to go!
how it ends.
I read that book for the first time in 7th grade and have re-read it about 1 time every five years in the 40 years since then. That and a Tale of Two Cities are my two favorite classic novels.
"Postwar" by Tony Judt - a pretty fascinating walk throught the politics of Europe immediately after the Second World War, as well as through the 60 and 70s and into modern times. It ties together a lot of modern European politics and its origins in the aftermath of a devestated Europe in 1945. My family kind of lived this to a certain extent, but it is interesting to get other perspectives on it.
The Locust Effect by Gary Haugen
Just finished Huck Finn. Read it 20 ago (eep). Liked it then, loved it this itme. Might read it again soon.
Reading: Flash Boys. I work in the industry (not a trader), fun read. At my last job everyone was reading it when it came out but I hated my job too much then to read it. Now that some distance has passed thoroughly enjoying it.
Also reading Private Empire, about Exxon Mobile. Ok read but not really a page turner.
Listening to Sapiens. Not bad.
For Dune fans, the guy who directed Arrival is making another Dune movie. IMO, its the book most needing of a movie. Lynch's 80's movie was a miss, and the sci-fi channel's version is pretty good but still a made for TV movie. Really looking forward to it.
Huck Finn is one of those books that gets better every time you read it. Hemingway later said that all American fiction ever since is merely another version of it.
Slowly working my way through UM professor Heather Ann Thompson's Blood in the Water, the Pulitzer Prize-winning study of the Attica prison rebellion. It's a wonderfully dense read, and well worth the absolute pile of accolades she's earned this year.
Also in the midst of Kate Moore's The Radium Girls, the story of Progressie Era young women who painted radium watch dials and paid an immensely heavy physical toll for their work. Absolutely engrossing, and completely enraging.
And as always these days, I'm picking away at Robert Caro's multi-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson. Going to take me years at this point, hopefully in time for him to finally publish the final volume.
Early on, doctors quizzed these women on whether or not they worked with phosphorus for that very reason. The whole story is completely bonkers--women painting their teeth with radium and wearing their best dresses to work so they'd glow when they went on dates, glowing in the dark when they'd look at themselves in the mirror at night, then when their teeth and jaws started falling out of their heads, their employers tried to pretend like there was nothing amiss. A quick, scary, but well-worth-it read.
Second in a series about a magical war in Paris between fallen angels and Vietnamese gods. The first book (The House of Shattered Wings), and much of her short fiction, is quite interesting.
I'm reading Taran Wanderer (Lloyd Alexander) with my son and plan to start reading Harry Potter with him once we finish The High King (fifth in the Chronicles of Prydain; we've read the first three together).
Just finished Drinking Gourd, the 14th book in a mystery series by Barbara Hambly about A Free Man of Color (Benjamin January) in 1830s New Orleans. The historical backdrop is very detailed and quite well done (although not for the squeamish, as you'd imagine).
I will leave the books I read out of this but I do know one very good self help book. I read years back. Angry All The Time.....An emergency guide to anger control... Seeing as nobody has an anger problem especially those who do. Just for shits and giggles, YOU might pick it up and read a couple lines on the back cover and if you still think you are not angry put it back.
i'm a recovering alcoholic so i read a ton of music bios about addiction. kind of unrelated to your post, but i feel you man.
Highly recommend--
Saga graphic novels. Like Star Wars for adults. If it's been years since you have picked up a comic book it will blow your mind. The best in the business make the best ting I've read in years, of any genre. Finished book 2 this week.
Sapiens. By Harari. Insightful, original thinking about people and why we are like we are.
3 and out. Because I hadnt read it yet and it cost $3.00 on amazon...
A walk in the woods by bill bryson. Getting ready to do the white mountains portion of the AT. I wish I could be hiking it with Bryson. Comedy gold!
The big book. For AA. 6 months sober now. Never imagined I could live without drinking. Now I can't imagine returning to that spiral of deception, guilt, and bullshit. Highly recommend to anyone who wants to stop drinking but can't.
And...peace is every step, by hanh. Good easily digestible truths for living. The book of,joy has been great too.
Just put The Stand on my iPad, (have never read any Stephen king...!) along with "samples" of what some of you suggested. Thanks.
I agree with others about dune and confederacy of dunces. Both are brilliant.
congrats on six months man. 3 1/2 years here. keep fighting the good fight.
coincidentally i also have a u of m english degree. I've read a ton of great addiction recovery memoirs in the past few years.
Another Science Fiction: Advertising the Space Race 1957-1962 by Megan Prelinger
Gulp by Mary Roach
Beyond Glory: Joe Louis Vs. Max Schmeling and a World on the Brink by David Margolick
Started but set aside for later:
The Path to Power by Rober Caro
John Adams by David McCollough
Series is fantastic, great world-building, interesting and sympathetic characters, I just wonder where the pltos going, but I'm happy to find out as the ride right now is so damn good.
is The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck: A counterintuitive approach to living the good live by Mark Manson.
Just read The Agony and the Ecstasy, a fictionalized bio of Michelangelo!