What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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Of the earth, earthy

JennyJo said:
How extraordinary, this fascination with mud. But then again, the more you know about a thing, the more interesting it becomes I guess.
:)
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Well, hardly a fascination, just a side-interest arising from my lifelong habit of reading military history.

Although it's true that I come from a family of earth-movers, and some of my earliest memories are of my father building dams and roads. A tip: If you want your handiwork to last the ages, build in banked dirt.

Now I'm reading Beasts of Eden, David Rains Wallace, U Cal Press, 2004. It's about the history of mammalian paleontology, and opens with an interesting quote:

"...most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic," said Ernst Mayr.
 
Piscivore said:
Good for you.

Did he really think that a book that treats women as swooning, shallow, little-better-than-really-clever-talking-house-pets was going to win you over? that's just sad.
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Well, that's how a lot of books written at that time (SF or otherwise) treated women. SiaSL was no exception. I read it in 12th grade (1982-83), and it would never have occured to me to use it as an instrument of seduction. But then, I found it so boring I gave up about 2/3 of the way through.

In general, I do not think Heinlein aged well. His supercompetent individualistic frontiers(wo)men are just too unrealistic, and do not resonate with most readers today, not even with male teenagers any more.
 
sackett said:
Well, hardly a fascination, just a side-interest arising from my lifelong habit of reading military history.

Although it's true that I come from a family of earth-movers, and some of my earliest memories are of my father building dams and roads. A tip: If you want your handiwork to last the ages, build in banked dirt.
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My great-grandparents did that! When I was little, my grandmother used to tell me about it. Later, when they were not so poor anymore, they built themselves a tiny wooden house though.

"...most scientific problems are far better understood by studying their history than their logic," said Ernst Mayr.
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That is a nice quote to ponder about; it might very well be true.
 
Secret Weapons: Defenses of Insects, Spiders, Scorpions, and Other Many-Legged Creatures, Eisner, Eisner, and Siegler, Harvard U Press, 2005. Can't-put-it-down chemical chills & thrills from the arthropod world. Us vertebrates are so far behind we'll never catch up.
 
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For the first time since I was 10-11 years old, I am reading The Chronicles of Narnia. I started with The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and am now reading Prince Caspian.

Delightful, allthough the experience of reading the books is much different than I remembered it. Understandably.

One small thing- when I was a kid, the Christian allegory went near totally over my head, save for the last book. Now it's pretty apparent.

I'm a little startled that these books are so popular among Christians. I would think that making a surrogate Jesus figure out of a magic lion in a childrens' book would border on blasphemous.

Yes, it's an allegory- but I'm surprised no one objected to this.
 
My current read? Well, I got a copy of The Rest Is Noise* by Alex Ross for Christmas. Well, actually I got a book token off my sister and Waterstones were doing the hardback at £4 off the cover price of £25. So it cost me £19.99. Boy, is their computer confused! :confused:

*Subtitled Listening to the Twentieth Century.
 
St. Mawr, D. H. Lawrence, Vintage Books, 1953. The volume also includes The
Man Who Died. Got it for a buck at our neighborhood used-book and used-comic outlet.

It's always (or nearly always) interesting to read Lawrence, to see what the little bastard will come out with next. It's also pleasant to finish with him and turn to just any other author, knowing that now you'll encounter paraphrasable meaning once again.

Although I think he had at least flashes of lucidity. From p. 99 of the Vintage: ""Just bunkum...faked up, in order to have something to mystify about." Maybe Frieda or somebody inserted that in a moment of weariness.
 
Mark6 said:
Well, that's how a lot of books written at that time (SF or otherwise) treated women.
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For a refreshingly different perspective, you might want to try H. Beam Piper. He was a contemporary and friend of Heinlein, and a MUCH better writer. His characters live and breathe- even if his protagonists all do seem to tend to a type, they are not all carbon copies. And while the protagonists are generally are competent, none of them are flawless and I've not run into a Mary Sue yet.

I'm currently going through his body of work, some of it a re-read, some first time, and I really like him. His stuff is public domain now (following his suicide in '64, and no one renewing the copyrights) so some of it is on Gutenberg. "Little Fuzzy" is a classic (Lucas stole the Ewoks lock, stock and barrel from there), as is "Omnilingual". "Ommphel in the Sky" presents a view of religion and the religious that I happen to agree with.
 
Just finished E=mc2, A biography of the World's most famous equation, by David Bodanis. A very good read- recommended.
 
I'm currently reading the series "Sisters of the Sword" by Maya Snow. :D
It's pretty good. I was really embaressed when I found out it was a series. I thought it looked like a good book so I checked it out of the library. Well, Thinking it was a oneshot I started reading it and couldn't put it down until I finished it. It has a story that really pulled me in.

The only part I didn't like is that if you didn't know a few basic words in Japanese you would be confused and mispronounce a few things in it.

Anywho, I was on the last page when the last sentance was "Our journey had only just begun" My from the other room my boyfriends hears a LOUD "MO****F*****!!!!!" and comes running in making sure I'm allright. When he gets there he sees me all mad and hysterical and realizes it's over a book and says: "Are you sure there aren't other volumes?" I pause. I look on the side of the book and find in the corner (half covered by the big "new" sticker the library puts on every recent book) I see a small square with a "1" in the middle of it....

Yeah.... that was kinda embaressing. It's a really good book though! It's about a girl and her sister being born into a noble family where her father is the Jito. But if you decide to read it I won't spoil anymore if it. :D

Oh! Sorry for the long post. I'm bored and my boyfriend is on our PS3.
 
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The Ox-Bow Incident, Walter Van Tilburg Clark. I first read it when I was a raw youth back in the 50s. I recall finding it better written than I expected. Reading it again, and of course knowing what I do now, I get angry at the protagonists -- beacuse I recognize every damn one of them -- I grew up among them -- I almost was one of them. Ignorant floundering hayseeds! Numb-witted violent clod-stumblers! Bah! Pah-tooie!

The edition I'm reading has a short afterword by Walter Prescott Webb. He quotes Clark: "The book was written in 1937 and 1938....I was most afraid of...that ever-present element in any society which can always be led to...use authoritarian methods...." So the book was meant politically. I give it a break for that reason; 1938 was a seriously bad time.

But it's still a period piece. So am I, you say? Reckon so. 'Scuse me while I shift my quid. Pah-tooie!
 
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Julius Winsome by Gerard Donovan.
Just checked it out this evening and I have already finished. It is not a long novel. But a crisp, flowing read about the relationships between a man and the world he has created for himself.
 
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