What book is everyone reading at the moment?

[SRW]

Infidel, and all I can say is wow. Islam really comes to life in this book, and I wish I didn't know what I now know. I have had to put it aside and watch mindless junk on youtube just to keep for crying. I did not think I could ever understand the tribal slaughters in Africa, but now...well that is religion for you.

 

[Chris Haynes]

I just finished the book Ultimate Fitness by Gina Kolata, and I am waiting for my turn to check out her book Rethinking Thin from the library.

I was actually first in line to check out the biography of Maurice Hilleman by Paul Offit called Vaccinated, so I am reading it now.

 

[Jon.]

Finished Generation X by Douglas Coupland - meh. Not bad, but it struck me as kind of a book version of Seinfeld. Nothing really happened, it wasn't really about anything, but there were plenty of quirky characters and it was well written.

Started on Lost Testaments by Bart Ehrman. It's meant as more of a companion to Lost Christianities, which I finished recently, but it's fairly interesting on its own. It does help to have read LC first, though.

 

[Dr. Imago]

I'm currently reading:

"Clinical Anesthesiology" by Mikhail, Morgan, and Murray, the purported 1000+ page "Cliff Notes" of my profession. (In-service training exam on 7/14... YIKES!)

-Dr. Imago

 

[Spidey13]

I'm almost finished with Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. I highly recommend it.

 

[canadarocks]

Finished "Big Bang" by Simon Singh. Excellent summary of "how we know what we know" about the universe and a demonstration of how science works. I'm trying to develop a short presentation to show at a science class/talk in the future.

Currently reading "Extinction! - How life on Earth nearly vanished 250 million years ago" by Douglad Erwin. Good book for those interested in geology and evolution.

 

[Hokulele]

I was stuck in an airport and bored, and stumbled across "Mind of the Raven" by Bernd Heinrich. He is a biologist studying the intelligence and apparent consciousness of ravens. Fascinating read so far.

 

[Geek Goddess]

"Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who changed the Bible and Why" by Dr Bart D. Ehrman. A treatise on textual criticism, how manuscripts were copied before the invention of printing, and how errors in copying were made and discovered centuries later.

 

[RecoveringYuppy]

I too just started "Misquoting Jesus..." while on vacation.

Also reading "God Created the Integers" a history of mathematics.

 

[T'ai Chi]

I'm rading a book called 'All the Books that T'ai Chi Read'. I'm trying to figure out if this book is listed in it or not.

 

[Jeff Corey]

A book? It sounds like a one page handout.

 

[Spidey13]

I'm currently reading In the Dark of the Night by John Saul. Why? Because I needed something to read and didn't have time to go to a bookstore. So I had to choose from what they had at the grocery store. And I had already read all the Stephen King books they had.

 

[The Whether Man]

1421: The Year China Discovered the World, by Gavin Menzies.

I have to say this book has already made an impression on me. It landed corner-wise on my head after I knocked it off the shelf above my bed while fumbling for a remote control.

I feel sullied by this book. I bought it in good faith as it was labelled non-fiction, but it turned out to be strings of conjecture and wishful thinking tying together second-hand stories and dodgy maps.

I'm treating it more like a Clive Cussler novel than a serious historical effort. Matthew McConaughey as Zhou Man?

 

[Grimoire]

On the Shoulders of Giants, edited by Stephen Hawking. It is a collection of scientific books with commentary. It contains On the Revolutions of Heavenly Spheres by Nicolaus Copernicus, Dialogues Concerning Two Sciences by Galileo Galilei, Harmonies of the World by Johannes Kepler, Principia, by Isaac Newton, and papers from The Principle of Relativity by Albert Einstein.

I'm just starting into it, but it is quite interesting to read the old scientific texts. You can really tell that Copernicus was quite afraid of the Pope's reaction to a heliocentric solar system.

 

[CFLarsen]

A book? It sounds like a one page handout.

Blank, too.

 

[kmortis]

I'm having another go at Ulysses by James Joyce. Last time I got to chapter 10 before I gave up. I found a podcast that reads it, so I'm hoping having read parts a few times and hearing it all at least once will make it an easier read.

Just finished American Aurora and I'm almost done with Shadow of the Giant and History of Warfare.

 

[Tipush]

Reading Nine Princes in Amber by Roger Zelazny now.

Same here.

 

[sackett]

They Fought at Anzio, by John S. D. Eisenhower. Not that I ever read anything about Anzio or nothin', but you never know what facts may have come to light since my day. It's a tad pedestrian in the style dept., and seems to depend a lot on secondary sources -- memoirs, in fact -- but it's that rarest of military histories, a book with enough maps!

Well...actually, I paused midway through Eisenhower to read an old Balantine paperback on the Spitfire, part of that huge series, History of the Violent Century.

Spitfire! Most beautiful fighter of WW2, maybe the most beautiful airplane, period.

'Scuse me, I'm going to get out my toys and play war.

 

[Z]

I just started reading Code of the Lifemaker, byu James P. Hogan. I'm rather startled at how much it reads like a day of posting at JREF! They even have a main character that is a LOT like James Randi - including a white beard and a career of stage magic and debunking nonsense. He even was in Florida on his last assignment, as the book opens. And his antagonist, a fascinating combination of Uri Geller and Sylvia Browne, but with a fantastic look at the scene BEHIND the scenes.

Oh, and then there's the malfunctioning robot alien civilization that has developed religion and all the inherent woo that goes with it...

Strongly recommended so far!

 

[AgeGap]

"Weeping Women Hotel" by Alexei Sayle. British comedians very funny novel.