What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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The End of Faith, by Sam Harris. I've just started it, and so far I'm not overly impressed, his arguments have a faint scent of circularity. I hope it delivers later on.
 
I'm now farther into Our Mutual Friend than I've ever penetrated before. It's been suggested that Dickens was getting exhausted by the time he wrote it; could be. But then my mother always said that Dickens is best when you're 16 years old.

I just finished the latest issue of Bukowski, Come On In! It's as usual with Bukowski: you've read it all before, but yet, somehow, he can still make you laugh. I was starting to think that maybe I'm not old enough for Buke anymore, but I guess I was wrong.

His current editor has an uncomfortable habit of ending these posthumous collections with things Bukowski wrote when he was dying, as if the end of the book must in some way coincide with the end of his life. They're not bad pieces, but they make dismal reading. I prefer the laffs.
 
Currently rereading the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. I haven't read the fourth book (Feat of Crows) yet so I figured I'd read the first three again to get up to speed.
 
My signed copy of "The Mask of Nostrodamus." (with his special pen)

glenn:)
 
Re-reading 'On The Road' by Jack Kerouac again, because I was your typical, silly 15 year old girl when I read it the first time.
 
Tale of a Tub, by Jonathon Swift

This is hilarious. I don’t pretend to fully understand it’s historical context, but the passages on new religions and medical remedies are great! :D
 
I am currently reading The Medieval Warhorse by Hyland. An excellent work.

Just finished Drive to the East by Turtledove
 
I've just finished "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World", by Francis Wheen. I've also just started to re-read it, as it was so thought-provoking. I agreed with everything in it I understood. There were a few points on politics and economics that I want to clear up, but I like the way the man thinks, and I hope some of our governments do too.
I see a few other posters have read this and enjoyed it. I must add my recommendation.
 
Forty-Two said:
I just started reading Thank You for Smoking, and it's wicked funny.
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I love Christopher Buckley. My favorites are Little Green Men and Florence of Arabia and ......guess I love all his stuff.
 
Georgia O'Keeffe - A Life by Roxana Robinson. Kind of pedestrian - matter of fact, but still somewhat interesting. But then I'm bored by biography's which try to trace "influences", and since I'm still very early in the book, that's all it it is so far. I tend to think people are often who they are despite their environment, not because of it, but few biographies seem to consider that possibility.
 
Now that I've finally finished "Darwin's Dangerous Idea", I'm reading Dennett's "Breaking the Spell". Pretty good so far, but he spends way too much time trying to explain to the fundy reader why he's doing what he's doing (when, they don't give a toss)
 
Hydrogen Cyanide said:
Now that I just finished To Kill a Mockingbird I can start on that in the morning.
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Perhaps this isn't the right place to ask this, but how did you like Mockingbird? I find each time I read it that I like it more and more. I read it again after finding out that Dill was likely based on Truman Capote, as he and Harper Lee were cousins. (Ah loves me some trivia. :))

I'm re-reading a handful of Heinlein books right now for my senior thesis:
"I Enjoy Being a Girl, Dammit: Heinlein and Third-Wave Feminism."
Using Delilah and the Space Rigger, Friday, To Sail Beyond the Sunset, Time Enough for Love, and Heinlein's first novel, recently published in 2004, For Us, the Living.
 
orphia nay said:
I've just finished "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World", by Francis Wheen. I've also just started to re-read it, as it was so thought-provoking. I agreed with everything in it I understood. There were a few points on politics and economics that I want to clear up, but I like the way the man thinks, and I hope some of our governments do too.
I see a few other posters have read this and enjoyed it. I must add my recommendation.
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He's a very enjoyable read, it's just unfortunate that he lets some of his own prejudices (state control vs free market etc) take over in a rather unsceptical way. Case in point (from page 260):

"The period between 1950 and 1973 was by far the most succesful of the 20th century. This was an era characterised by capital controls, fixed exchange rates, strong trade unions, a large public sector, and a general acceptance of governments role in demand management. The average annual growth in per capita real GDP throughout the world was 2.9% precisely twice as high as the rate since then."

Well, indeed. Perhaps a sceptic might point out that correlation is not causation and that perhaps rebuilding after the second world war in the first epoch and cronyism and dictators in recently independant countries in the second epoch might have been more important to growth than fixed v floating exchange rates...

But apart from Mr - sorry, Comrade - Wheen's unreconstructed Marxism which weakens the economic parts of the book, the rest of it is good.

I guess all of us have a sacred calf that we dont apply scepticism too.
 
Thanks, Giz. Good points. I'll take your comments into account while re-reading it. I'm not sure whether it was my lack of understanding of economics or Mr Wheen's generalisations that made things unclear. I would have preferred the book to be longer, and for him to go into more detail about exactly how restrictions on the free market could improve things for individuals in the future.
 
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