Reading anything?

[Rev. Powell]

Richard Dawkins' "The Selfish Gene."

[lester1/2jr]

jim powell "bully boy"  it's position is that TR was a bad president

[Time_Signature]

Erik W. Hansen and Hans Frede Nielsen "Irregularities of Modern English"
Erik W. Hansen "Om Histore og Sproghistorie"

Both are books on historical linguistics.

[Joe the Destroyer]

About done with A Farewell to Arms.  Planning to read Cell pretty soon. 

[SkullBat308]

[indianasmith]

I just finished A MAGNFICENT CATASTROPHE, the story of the turbulent 1800 Presidential election that ended in the only tie in U.S. history.  A nice piece of  political history.

[BoyScoutKevin]

Fowl and Montag.

Fowl is, of course, Artemis Fowl from Eoin Colfer's "Artemis Fowl" and adapted into graphic format by Andrew Dunkin, which is how I read it.

Something of a reverse, as I read the sequel "Artemis Fowl: the Arctic Incident," before I read the original, which, actually, may be the best way to read them, as I thought the sequel was better than the first one. Maybe, because the sequel seemingly has more humor in it.

The characters are also seemingly reversed. As what would normally be the villain is the hero, and the what would normally be the heroes are the villains.

This is also one of the few books in which both sides scared the s*** out of me.

Fowl
1. intelligent
2. amoral
3. ruthless
4. fearless

Elves
1. intelligent
2. amoral
3. ruthless
4. nasty

And what really scares the s*** out of me, is that both sides like to "cut it close," which leaves little margin for mistakes.

Next time: Montag

[Trevor]

Peter Stiff's See You In November ~ an account of the Rhodesian war as seen through the eyes of an ex-SAS soldier turned operative for the government and codenamed "Taffy". 

I liked the book up until the part where "Taffy" goes to the SPCA to buy a dog to see how long a certain poison will take to kill it. 

[SPazzo]

Oscar Wilde's a Picture of Dorian Grey.  Everyone knows what that is.

Also, the Bone Parade by Mark Nykanen.  It's about a serial killer who turns families into bronze statues.  I'm having second thoughts about it actually.

[Jim H]

Finally started reading Don Quixote again.  On a classics of lit note, I'm thinking about reading the Count of Monte Cristo.  Anyone suggest a translation?

[indianasmith]

I just finished 30 QUESTIONS YOU AREN'T SUPPOSED TO ASK ABOUT AMERICAN HISTORY.  Lester would have loved it.  Very opinionated, and passionately libertarian, and almost as obnoxious as Lester on his better days . . . . 

[Leah]

The Kite Runner

[InformationGeek]

1984: I finished it and like Animal Farm, I dislike the unhappy ending.  It's brutally honest and understand the point the writer is getting across, but still.

What I learned from this book is this: 2 + 2 = 5 and the following phrase:

"Peace is War
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength."

Nothing like backwards thinking.

[BTM]

I just got done reading In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect, which, in addition to having one of the longest titles of any book I've ever read, is about the Secret Service.  It gives a quick overview of its history, they training and exercises they go through, how the investigate threats on the President's life, and then various stories about Presidents,  and their familes they've protected.  The last half of the book is how a lot of corner cutting, lack of funding, and just overall mismanagement has lead to some near disasters and a lot of agents leaving for better paying (and better treating) jobs in the private sector.

It's a fascinating book, but I did think it was a little short though, wish they had went into more details on some of the stories about various figures.  We get some interesting stories and insights though, some more surprising than others.  For instance, Kennedy had the secret service set up an "alarm" system for in case his wife would abruptly return to the White House without notice (no real surprise there).  Carter was pretty much considering a dick to the agents and considered them all the be guy who could get "a real job" (which is kind of surprising considering his humble beginnings as a peanut farmer.)

Clinton, according to agents, was a decent enough fellow, although he was constantly on "Clinton time" which meant being about two hours late for everything.  Hillary (again, no surprise here) was a bit of a b***h to all the agents.  Neatly enough though, of all the kids they've guarded they said Chelsea Clinton was the easiest to work with.  She would always let the agents know in advance her schedule and, unlike some (the Bush and Carter kids) wouldn't try to ditch the agents. 

One of the disturbing things though is the book insists that with all the craziness going on with management and lack of funding, that many inside the agency insist it's only a matter of time before someone manages to take out the President.

Anyway, it's a good book, and I recommend it for those interesting in a behind the scenes look at Washington and it's politics. 

[Jim H]

1984: I finished it and like Animal Farm, I dislike the unhappy ending.  It's brutally honest and understand the point the writer is getting across, but still.

What I learned from this book is this: 2 + 2 = 5 and the following phrase:

"Peace is War
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength."

Nothing like backwards thinking.

I remember when I finished 1984 basically thinking "That was probably the most powerful book I've ever read.  And I'll never, ever read it again."

Also, the best bit from either of those books has got to be "All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others."

I might suggest seeing the cartoon version of Animal Farm (or the live action TNT version) as both have different endings.




Anyway, I just read Green Dragon Codex.  Probably the best of the "Codex" books, but still just a decent young adult fantasy book.  It also reminded me why I don't like the current version of D&D dragons as much as the old ones..  They're too far removed from a "normal" life these days.