Books

[flackbait]

I just got done reading Of Mice and Men for history 112. Damn! it is depressing at the end. Pardon me while i go try to cheer my self up!

[Killer Bees]

Finished Bad Men by John Connolly.  Very good creepy ghost type of story.

Currently reading The Taking by Dean Koontz.  Must say I'm enjoying the bejeebles out of it.  I'm having trouble putting it down but I do have a job and that's getting in the way right now  *lol*

Next one on my list is Death Instinct by Bentley Little.  Heard a lot about his stuff and I'm looking forward to starting it.  I should be done with Koontz hopefully by tomorrow. 

Lately my reading material is coming from the local library.  That's the good thing about borrowing books, the due date forces me to read what I've borrowed.  Otherwise they'd just be sitting in a pile waiting on "some day".

[Patient7]

I just got done reading Of Mice and Men for history 112. Damn! it is depressing at the end. Pardon me while i go try to cheer my self up!

That book was excellent, you're right about the ending though, it was very depressing.

[lakshmi]

What are you reading?

Here're my most recent:

1.   _On the Take_ (Jerome Kassirer, MD) -- a well-written investigation into Big Pharmaceutical influence on docs.   Depressing, but very interesting, and it certainly is what I need to know.

2.   _Trial by Fire_ -- a Justice League of America graphic novel (forget the author) -- buying a copy of this for the plane this weekend.  That one looks cool.

[Killer Bees]

Just finished reading The Taking by Dean Koontz.  Scary and entertaining as usual and not what I expected.

Also just finished Death Instinct by Bentley Little.  This is the first of Little's books that I've read and it won't be the last.  Quite gory but fast moving and the characters are believeable.  A standard serial killer against the cops kind of book, but even though I had the possible suspect list down to 3, it wasn't until quite near the end that I realised who it was.

Currently reading Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn.  Non fiction book about how advertising and mass consumerism is eroding society's values and how we can stop it.  Very interesting and throught provoking.  I am very glad to find out that I am influenced only marginally by mass consumption and all its evils.  Looks like my cynicism is finally doing me some good.

[indianasmith]

Just finished RIVER OF DOUBT: THEODORE ROOSEVELT'S DARKEST JOURNEY.  I forget the author's name, but it was the story of Roosevelt's expedition down the River of Doubt, a previously unexplored, 1,000 mile tributary of the Amazon, in 1914, shortly after his defeat in the 1912 presidential election.  Roosevelt came very near death on this journey, and emerged from it a broken shadow of his former physical self . . . this is an incredible story of courage, endurance, and hubris.  I LOVED it!

[Dennis]

Right now I'm reading "Castles of Steel" by Robert K Massie, it's a history of the English and German navies in the first world war, very well written, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and feel the sea spray. The author gets into the human side of the people involved and shows how their personalities influenced their decisions. He does this for both sides and it shows that history is much more than just a collection of dry factoids. Makes this a very interesting book.

[indianasmith]

Right now I'm reading "Castles of Steel" by Robert K Massie, it's a history of the English and German navies in the first world war, very well written, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and feel the sea spray. The author gets into the human side of the people involved and shows how their personalities influenced their decisions. He does this for both sides and it shows that history is much more than just a collection of dry factoids. Makes this a very interesting book.

That one is awesome!  I love Massey's style.  One of my best friends wrote his dissertation on U.S. battleship operations in World War One, and Massey cited him as a source in Castles . . . he said that was a high point in his academic career!

[flackbait]

I just got done reading Of Mice and Men for history 112. Damn! it is depressing at the end. Pardon me while i go try to cheer my self up!

That book was excellent, you're right about the ending though, it was very depressing.

Let me guess, had to read it for highschool?
That said your right it is an excellent book and I can see why it's a classic.

[Patient7]

I just got done reading Of Mice and Men for history 112. Damn! it is depressing at the end. Pardon me while i go try to cheer my self up!

That book was excellent, you're right about the ending though, it was very depressing.

Let me guess had to read it for highschool?

Yessir, however I intend to one of these days read it of my own free will.

[Dennis]

Right now I'm reading "Castles of Steel" by Robert K Massie, it's a history of the English and German navies in the first world war, very well written, you can almost smell the gunsmoke and feel the sea spray. The author gets into the human side of the people involved and shows how their personalities influenced their decisions. He does this for both sides and it shows that history is much more than just a collection of dry factoids. Makes this a very interesting book.

That one is awesome!  I love Massey's style.  One of my best friends wrote his dissertation on U.S. battleship operations in World War One, and Massey cited him as a source in Castles . . . he said that was a high point in his academic career!

I've been blessed (or cursed, depends on your viewpoint) with the ability to imagine myself in the same place and situation as the people I'm reading about. This started way back in elementary school, I'd read a line about some event or other and immediately imagine what the event described was like, I've always enjoyed reading about historical events, especially well written ones. They make you realize that history is made by living, breathing people who have all the strengths and weaknesses of the rest of us.

[ToyMan]

i'm reading two at the moment, as i use them to fill time while i wait for the bus.

1) outrageous fortune, by tim scott-

From Booklist @ amazon.com-
Dream architect Jonny X67 enjoys the rewards of designing prepackaged nighttime reveries for the rich and powerful—until the worst day of his life. First his house is stolen via the latest house-shrinking technology; then a persistent encyclopedia saleswoman badgers him all the way to his favorite watering hole. While he deconstructs his misfortunes over Long Island ice tea, a quartet of motorcycle thugs, each nicknamed for one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, kidnaps him and spirits him away to an abandoned hospital. After a riotous rescue by the saleswoman segues into a Kafkaesque incarceration by the omnipotent traffic police, Jonny's increasingly surreal journey takes him into and out of wisecracking elevators, cities subdivided by musical category, and a succession of dreams holding clues to his destiny's denouement. Rarely does a first sf novel have as much energy and creativity as Scott's madcap, mischievously irreverent depiction of a definitely post-postmodern future. Consider this the opening salvo of one of the genre's most promising and original new voices in years.
Hays, Carl

honestly, it's a little derivative of douglas adams' "the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy".

2)misery loves comedy, by ivan brunetti

From Publishers Weekly @ amazon.com
Starred Review. An introduction written by the author's therapist describes the process of creating these comics as excruciatingly painful and painfully frightening. This puts Brunetti's minimal output—three issues of his cult favorite comic Schizo in 12 years—into psychological perspective. Brunetti's work does its malevolent work with an eye to the author's psychological underpinnings. Brunetti constantly offers up the worst possible image of himself alongside his portraits of a despised society. His festival of self-loathing, sexual depravity and brutal cynicism, is, however, amazingly clever and incisive. Whether from the point of view of a miserable comics artist and workaday hack, a nihilistic Jesus Christ or a raging feminazi, these rants are fascinatingly convincing, readable and smart. Not all readers will be able to tolerate the scatologically violent sensibility that is so brilliantly manifested in these pages, but for those with a taste for the most jaded views of our society and its inhabitants, Brunetti has long been a hero. Sharply self-aware, Brunetti informs his readers, I have a gift.... I can articulate what most people won't even face.... and it is this concise and energetic articulation that makes his work so great.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

this one i can only read about 5 pages at a time before being exhausted by how absolutely nihilistic the author is. seriously, i thought i was dark, but this guy makes me look about as serious as a stuffed animal with a bowtie.

[Killer Bees]

Yessir, however I intend to one of these days read it of my own free will.
[/quote]

I was like that with To Kill A Mockingbird.  Read it for high school English and HATED it.  I only skimmed through the story.

Then about 5 years after I left school I read it again and I loved it.  Now I know why it's a classic.

[ToyMan]

a lot of what we're meant to read in grade school and high school is just trash, unfortunately. more often than not, if something is only appreciated for being a "classic", that's all it has to offer. the generation before you cherished it, and now you will. oh, that other stuff that's been written since then? maybe in 20 years we can include it in the curriculum.

i mean, think about this- you wouldn't be surprised to find students reading "romeo and juliet", but if "a clockwork orange" was assigned, it'd likely cause a s**tstorm of controversy.

[Killer Bees]

I can't believe the school system in this country.  In high school, I had to read, among other things, Romeo and Juliet, Z For Zachariah, The Endless Steppe, Quokka Island, A Tale of Two Cities and other tripe I don't care to remember.

That was between the years 1979-1983.  And now my son is high school and he has to read the exact same trash!!  I didn't understand the relevance then and I don't now.  It's easy for anything to become a classic.  You just have to get enough people to say it and the literary wankers will jump on the bandwagon.