What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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"Death From the Skies" and "Midnight Brunch."

Recently finished "Just After Sunset," Stephen King's latest story collection. Loved it. And for those who enjoy King, try Joe Hill's collection "20th Century Ghosts" and his novel "Heart-shaped Box." Joe Hill is the pen name of King's son. He made his own name by publishing in the UK before the US. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Hill_(writer)
 
Walden. From page 1, just like Freshman English, rather than sampling and flipping as I have occasionally over many years. This is the 1960 Signet Classic edition, and includes Civil Disobedience and a few poems. The afterword is by Perry Miller.

Thoreau sure was an exasperating sucker. I want to tap him on the shirt-front and begin with "Now you listen here, Holden Caulfield --" but of course it's too late.

He built his monk's cell, excuse me, cabin for $28.12 1/2 in 1845. How much is that modern money?
 
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Next on my list after Dr Plait is to finish The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat so that I can return it to its owner, then Salmon of Doubt which I've been meaning to read for a long time.
 
I'm rereading a book I read in my 20's. It's The Romance of Medicine by Benjamin Lee Gordon. An exhaustive history of medicine both ancient and modern and a paean to the scientific method. Highly recommended. Good stuff for boring the socks off your fellow man.
 
The Areas of my Expertise by John Hodgman. It's excruciatingly funny (if you like that sort of thing), especially after seeing him on the Daily Show because I read him hearing his deadpan voice in my head.
 
A few, not including textbooks from school, 1984 by Orwell, The Two Towers by Tolkien, and The Origin of the Species by Darwin.
 
sackett said:
...Thoreau sure was an exasperating sucker. I want to tap him on the shirt-front and begin with "Now you listen here, Holden Caulfield --" but of course it's too late.
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He is even more insufferable if you listen to Walden as an audio book. He tends to lecture on and on and on, including trying to tell a young family that were kindly feeding him lunch how to run their lives. Though the nature observations were nice.
 
Currently reading "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo" by Stige Larrson. It seems there is more to Sweden that I thought. Good Story so far.
 
Henry David again

Hydrogen Cyanide said:
He is even more insufferable if you listen to Walden as an audio book. He tends to lecture on and on and on, including trying to tell a young family that were kindly feeding him lunch how to run their lives....
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So we can add food faddist to the things we find insufferable about Thoreau.

Insufferable, but never repulsive. As Perry Miller puts it, the image of Thoreau at Walden has become "for thousands the dream of a green isle in the sea." With Civil Disobience, he's a writer of influence comparable to Saint Paul; healthier influence, too.

I've read at, i.e., skimmed, the Journals also. Maybe dipping and pecking is the way to read Thoreau.

And congratulations to Mr. Bowen for starting this interesting and long-lived thread.
 
Re-reading "Demon Haunted World".

Recently finished "Death from the Skies". Been rather busy with work and family, so haven't had a chance to do a lot of reading for fun. Most of my other reading has been things like the New Federal Acquisition Regulations and the like... :eek: Not fun!
 
Just finished Bernard Cornwell's newest - Azincourt, and I just started one of his first books - Redcoat.

I've been on vacation for 11 days and this is the fifth book I've read.
 
Re-reading The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, Fred Coleman, St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. Repetitive; journalism, not history. But it carries you along; the subtitle is Forty Years That Shook the World. Lots of free advice for the US gummint, but, funny thing, I looked in the index for Putin, and His Creepyness isn't mentioned even once.
 
I'm reading 3 books at the moment. Well, sort of. My wife is practising her English by reading Three Men in a Boat to me, out loud, we're also reading Journey to the West to each other, and I've finally gotten around to taking my copy of Bad Astronomy off the shelf.
 
Just finished Death From The Skies and I'm reading the December issue of Scientific American before either returning to, and finishing, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat so that I can return it to its owner, or starting Bad Astronomy.
 
sackett said:
Re-reading The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union, Fred Coleman, St. Martin's Griffin, 1996. Repetitive; journalism, not history. But it carries you along; the subtitle is Forty Years That Shook the World. Lots of free advice for the US gummint, but, funny thing, I looked in the index for Putin, and His Creepyness isn't mentioned even once.
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Finally bothered to look at the spine and it's The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Empire, Yes, he had the chutzpah to call it that.
 
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