OT: What are you reading?

Submitted by Cranky Dave on
After not reading books for a few months I decided recently to get back into non-fiction. Just finished A World Undone:The Story of the Great War by G. J. Meyer. My first WW1history. At the other end of the spectrum I'm re reading Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Quite a contrast... What are you reading at the moment?

Njia

May 20th, 2017 at 8:34 PM ^

Thomas Friedman's latest is about the digital revolution. It's brilliant.

I work for one of the companies (and will be transitioning in a few weeks to another) at the center of the upheaval. Friedman's fresh take on how everything about everything is transforming puts technology, social change, environmental protection, and everyday life into a unique context. 

Jeff09

May 20th, 2017 at 8:36 PM ^

My brilliant friend by Elena Ferrante

Supposedly something of a female version of Knausgaard's My Struggle, which if it's half that will make it a damn good book

Frank Booth

May 21st, 2017 at 3:19 PM ^

I'm about halfway through Blood Meridian right now. Really enjoying it. In adition, I'm also on the road about 12-15 hours a week for work right now, so I'm listening to Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein, though I'm not sure if listening to an audio book counts as "reading" or not.

TrueBlue2003

May 21st, 2017 at 2:38 AM ^

impressed/curious that people can read multiple books at once.  I can't multi-task, er, multi-focus like that.  I have a finite amount of reading time and I need to go linearly with one book start to finish.  Is it just a matter of mixing it up/variety?

OysterMonkey

May 22nd, 2017 at 4:17 PM ^

For me, yeah. I usually have a fiction, a contemporary philosophy, and something from the history of philosophy going, along with a science or history. 

One thing I can't do is read multiple fiction books at the same time. 

swan flu

May 20th, 2017 at 8:52 PM ^

The Expanse series. WAAAAAAAAY better than the song of ice and fire series... Mostly because it will actually have a written ending

Rabbit21

May 22nd, 2017 at 2:21 PM ^

The show is great and the books are fantastic through the first three.  I almost wonder if both authors caught fourth book disease from Martin(who both know well) as I still can't bring myself to finish the fourth one.  I am extremely impressed with the world they designed and how Earth and Mars and the outer belt all work together.

victors2000

May 20th, 2017 at 8:52 PM ^

Actually, listening to it. Richard Fox, the author, and Luke Daniels, the narrarator, team up to deliver a fantastic military sci-fi series. If you are into this genre, I'd definitely recommend it.

Njia

May 21st, 2017 at 9:06 AM ^

Hitchens and I are/were on very different ends of the faith spectrum. However, I appreciate his thoughtfulness and scholarship like none other. What his books and essays on atheism made me think about is the nature of my own faith - nothing less than why I believe what I believe. Hitchens was a remarkable person and I will always miss his intellectual brilliance.

evenyoubrutus

May 20th, 2017 at 9:04 PM ^

Just finished reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to my kids, and personally I'm reading through a collection/anthology of H.P. Lovecraft stories. Just finished the Dunwich Horror. The guy was such a gifted writer. So sad he never lived to see his own success and popularity.

jabberwock

May 21st, 2017 at 10:11 AM ^

She's a reading fanatic, and is usually reading about 5 books at once.

If I might not-so-humble-brag a moment; her teacher in 6th grade assigned her a reading goal of something like 100 AR points last trimester (most kids are about 50).  She just crossed 600 pts.

The last book I read to her was Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book.

Great book, & you must read it to your kid at night by candlelight.

SAM love SWORD

May 20th, 2017 at 9:08 PM ^

SPQR by Marg Beard and Garden of Eden by Hemingway. I try to do a fiction and non fiction simultaneously to keep me reading. If I slow momentum on one I switch over to the other.

chatster

May 20th, 2017 at 9:09 PM ^

I rarely read fiction and generally don't have much time to read books (most of my reading involves legal decisions, expert witness reports and magazine and newspaper articles), but with some spare time, after re-reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird and first reading Philip Roth's novel The Plot Against America last year, I decided to read Harper Lee's other novel Go Set A Watchman and It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.

After reading Jon Meacham's Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power, and before starting Ron Chernow's Alexander Hamilton, I've decided to read David McCullough's 1776.

Artie

May 20th, 2017 at 9:10 PM ^

Getting into true crime books lately. I'm working on "The Most Dangerous Animal of All" and going to start "Devil in the White City", soon.