What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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Lothian said:
That's him, and from what I have read so far, Yes, you should !
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Cool!
BTW, you give your location as "Northern England" (which can be anywhere north of Watford to me), but your handle, "Lothian", implies you're Scottish.
Am I right?
 
I've just started "American Brutus" a biography of John Wilkes Booth and the assasination of Lincoln. So far, excellent!
 
Marquis de Carabas said:

Ballad of the Whiskey Robber: A True Story of Bank Heists, Ice Hockey, Transylvanian Pelt Smuggling, Moonlighting Detectives, and Broken Hearts by Julian Rubinstein, because I will read anything with even a tenuous link to hockey.
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I just gave that to my sister as an early Xmas gift.

She: Is it good?
Me: I haven't read it.
She: But you know the author?
Me: Never heard of him.
She: Well, what's it about?
Me: I don't know. Some Russian guy, I think.
She: Why did you think I'd like it?
Me: I had no idea whether you'd like it.
She: Then why did you buy it for me?
Me: I saw it at the bookstore.
She: But what inspired you to pick it up?
Me: Desperation.
She: Desperation?
Me: I'd been shopping all day and I really needed to go home and take a crap.
She: Oh.
Me. Merry Christmas.

My current:

Operation Shylock by Philip Roth
Sanford Meisner On Acting (with Dennis Longwell)

In the queue:

John Adams by David McCullough
Skinny Dip by Carl Hiaasen

Recent:
When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops by George Carlin: This is a good toilet reader. Short bits of cynical fiber.

Also, I'm halfway through Joyce’s Ulysses. And that will likely be my epitaph.
 
gerdbonk said:
Also, I'm halfway through Joyce’s Ulysses. And that will likely be my epitaph.
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You brave man (or foolish!) - you might die on the bog while reading it. I don't particularly like Modernist literature (I read a few novels and poetry) but I like Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Dubliners but they aren't very modernist in style!
 
Mr Clingford said:
You brave man (or foolish!) - you might die on the bog while reading it. I don't particularly like Modernist literature (I read a few novels and poetry) but I like Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and The Dubliners but they aren't very modernist in style!
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OK, I admit it. I actually LIKED Ulysses, which is a really funny book in my view, and I actually READ "Finnegans Wake". It took me five years on and off. No, I don't know what it's about, either.
 
Skeptic said:
OK, I admit it. I actually LIKED Ulysses, which is a really funny book in my view, and I actually READ "Finnegans Wake". It took me five years on and off. No, I don't know what it's about, either.
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Give Walden a try. Not as funny as Joyce, but makes as much sense.
 
Re-reading Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria Jr. (1969)

Skimming History of Educational Thought, Robert Urich (1926)

Funny, I've only read one fella in this thread mention The DaVinci Code.
The chatter in places where I frequent seems to be about this book.
Methinks I'm about to receive a copy all fancy wrapped on Dec 25.

Any thoughts on this book?

I am new to JREF Forum (this is my first post,) and haven't ventured into all forums yet. Please excuse the question if it has been discussed elsewhere. If so, please point me there.

Thanks
 
Welcome, nishnabe!

Yes, the DaVinci Code has been discussed... what you can do is use the search function to find it. Here is one thread that you want to skip if you do not like spoilers:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39590&highlight=DaVinci

Okay, now I just recently finished The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague In History by John Barry. It was a good read and has some interesting history on both medical education and the political climate of the early 20th century. It covers completely different stuff than Gina Kolata's book on the 1918 Influenza pandemic. She went into the search for the virus, profiling one of the scientists working on it... Barrry's book goes into the actual pandemic using THAT scientist's as a resource.

I am now reading Stormy Weather by Carl Hiaasen... very funny.

I might look into those books you are reading, nishnabe, they look like things I might be interested in (I've picked up a couple good reads in this thread).
 
Skeptic said:
OK, I admit it. I actually LIKED Ulysses, which is a really funny book in my view, and I actually READ "Finnegans Wake". It took me five years on and off. No, I don't know what it's about, either.
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Please realize that when I say I'm "halfway through Ulysses", I mean it as an adjectival phrase. You know, "Well, officer, he was tall, light-complected, green eyes, halfway through Ulysses..."

It's been a permanent trait of mine for twenty years.

I can't say the book is unenjoyable. The issue I have is that my brain catches the thought-stream and drifts out on its own walkabout on every damn page. An evening's reading may advance me a page and a half.

You know, I tried The Mezzanine by Nicholas Baker and suffered a similar way (not quite the same). Detail without progess toward an end (or next station) is interesting in the short term, but never compelling.
 
Callgirl, Eat, shoots and Leaves, Old Fritz and the new Era, and American Soldgier.
 
nishnabe said:
Re-reading Custer Died for Your Sins, Vine Deloria Jr. (1969)

Skimming History of Educational Thought, Robert Ulich (1926)
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The author of History of Educational Thought, is Robert Ulich.

(my 120 minute edit window had passed by the time I realized the typo...an important typo, too.)

Hydrogen Cyanide said:
Welcome, nishnabe!

Yes, the DaVinci Code has been discussed... what you can do is use the search function to find it. Here is one thread that you want to skip if you do not like spoilers:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=39590&highlight=DaVinci

<snip>

I might look into those books you are reading, nishnabe, they look like things I might be interested in (I've picked up a couple good reads in this thread).
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Thanks for the welcome, and the pointer.

As a native studies student, Vine Deloria Jr. is one of my favorite authors. Shoots from the hip, that guy. I smoked and talked with him for about an hour in 1998. I didn't even know who he was until a day later when he took the stage as the keynote speaker of the conference. That was wierd.
His books are provocative. I like that word. Provocative. Yup, that's Vine, Provocative.
 
"Three to Get Deadly" by Janet Evanovich
Not as well plotted as some mysteries I've read, but Evanovich makes up for it with some pretty quirky characters (although I'm not sure that the quirkiness won't get old after a while)
 
My holiday reading:

Life of Pi, Yann Martel
Pale Blue Dot, Carl Sagan
The Song of Fire and Ice series by George R.R. Martin.


Merry Xmas!
:xsmiley
 
Cool, a nice non-controversial thread to delurk on.

I just finished On the Genealogy of Morality by Neitsche (of which I understood about half) so now I'm trundling through The Republic by Plato.

On the side I'm also reading The Soddit (I can't remember the author but, it's a rip on The Hobbit and only of so-so quality) and The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G Wodehouse which is excellent.

Andy/
 
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