What are you reading at the moment?

[nomoretears00]

just finished Fantasy in Death by J.D. Robb. pseudonym for Nora Roberts. very good series.

[stephen55]

I'm almost finished reading Gauntlet by Richard Aaron, a new Canadian author, A Novel Of International Intrigue.

Then I'm going to read Genius, by James Gleick, a book about the life and science of Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics and the guy who said, "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics". In his spare time he played the bongos.

[trysail]

I'm one hundred six pages into Bryan Sykes' Saxons, Vikings, and Celts: The Genetic Roots of Britain and Ireland and am pleasantly surprised. I harbored some doubts when I selected it, fearing it would lean too far toward "pop" science. Instead, I've thus far encountered novel history of the Celts, the Saxons, blood types ( i.e., A, B, AB and O ), John Beddoe's 19th century effort to categorize the population by physiognomy, the application of differential mitochondrial DNA analysis and genetics.

Sykes, professor of human genetics at Oxford, earlier authored The Seven Daughters of Eve.

[MzDeviancy]

Originally Posted by CrimsonMaiden

Laurell K. Hamilton's latest Anita Blake novel "Flirt".

Is it any good? I got burned out on her after Narcissus in Chains.

[Handley_Page]

The "Angel" books by Mike Ripley.
Fun and mystery with very amusing in-jokes.
Oh yes, and a damned good who-dun-it.

[JMaxwell69]

"The Road" Cormac McCarthy

[sutherngent985]

'Centennial' by James Michner

[OzoneRed]

'Annals of the Former World' by John McPhee. A geological history of North America, from the time the continent first assembled about 4 billion years ago to the present. Sounds dry, but the guy really is a good writer.

[trysail]

Originally Posted by OzoneRed

'Annals of the Former World' by John McPhee. A geological history of North America, from the time the continent first assembled about 4 billion years ago to the present. Sounds dry, but the guy really is a good writer.

Nah, it isn't dry 'tall. There are some fabulous descriptions of our national topography. The section "Rising From The Plain" about the Tetons is vividly memorable as is McPhee's description of Wyoming. David Love's family history is extraordinary. "Assembling California" is fascinating.

The book did, after all, win a Pulitzer. It's wonderful reading. Many are not aware that the book is a selection and collection of McPhee's earlier books.

[trysail]

I am not alone in my long fascination with the Battle of The Little Bighorn. Evan Connell's 1984 Son Of The Morning Star was my first encounter with a detailed account of the event and its protagonists. That was followed by Dee Brown's Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, Robert Utley's The Lance And The Shield and Steven Ambrose's Crazy Horse And Custer. I've read that Nathaniel Philbrick has a book in the pipeline on the subject— Philbrick has yet to disappoint.


I'm currently reading James Donovan's A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn— the Last Great Battle of the American West ( New York, 2008 ). It's eminently readable, nicely illustrated ( I don't recall having seen photographs of the Crow scouts White Man Runs Him, Hairy Moccasin, Curly and Goes Ahead or of the noted mountain man/scout Mitch Boyer or the Arikara interpreter Frederic Gerard heretofore ) and Donovan relates several events leading up to the dénouement that are new to me.

[Handley_Page]

Just finished "Night of the Generals" by HH Kirst,
Now on with "Pyramids" by Terry Pratchett.

[trysail]

Thomas, Steven D. The Last Navigator. New York, NY 1987.

I recall learning about this book when it was originally published in 1987. It's taken me this long to get around to reading it. Thomas lived with a Micronesian master of the art of oceanic navigation— a system which operates without the aid of any instruments or charts ( i.e., using solely stars, currents, winds and birds ). Piailug, a native of Satawal in the Caroline island archipelago, learned the craft as the most recent link in an unbroken father-to-son chain extending back to time immemorial.

Because I did not own a television for several decades, I was completely unaware that the author subsequently became known to the public as the host of PBS' "This Old House." Yes, it's that Steve Thomas. The knowledge that he had authored this book has elevated my opinion of him.

It's an interesting story but unless you have a pre-existing interest in navigation or the sea or Oceanian anthropology, the story probably won't hold your interest.




Paulson, Henry M. On The Brink: Inside the Race to Stop the Collapse of the Global Financial System. New York, NY 2010.

Being Secretary of the Treasury and Chairman of Goldman Sachs requires a personality with an ability to gladly suffer vast hordes of idiots ( a/k/a politicians and the average American ) and an astounding ability to believe whatever you choose to believe. A word of advice: don't bother attempting to go to work for Goldman Sachs ( or anybody else on the "sell side" of Wall Street ) if you have any reflective tendencies or any intellectual integrity. While banks and investment banks perform a necessary social function, that doesn't mean they aren't necessary evils.

The global financial system narrowly averted the mother of all meltdowns. Whether— in the long run— the world would have benefited from an extremely painful, cathartic, wholesale systemic purging or the somewhat cosmetic treatment of symptoms that was orchestrated by Paulson, Geithner, Bernanke et al will never be known.

This account will mildly interest financiers, capitalists, communists, socialists and political junkies. I discovered there's but one degree of separation between Hank Paulson and me.




Philbrick, Nathaniel. The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull and the Battle of The Little Bighorn. New York, NY 2010.

I'm a sucker for anything related to Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and "Custer's Last Stand." When authored by Nathaniel Philbrick, there was never a chance that I wasn't going to read this. Much to my amazement, Philbrick came up with some new material ( at least, to me ) and a somewhat novel interpretation of the thinking behind Custer's actions.

From "The Heart of The Sea" to "Mayflower" to "Sea of Glory," Philbrick has yet to disappoint.

[Handley_Page]

Boris Akunin: Pelagia and the white Bulldog.

[sr71plt]

I'm reading Martha Grimes's The Man with a Load of Mischief. It was the first of her Richard Jury/Melrose Plant mysteries. I had read quite a few of the later ones and found this first book recently. It's surprising, because she described her recurring characters more fully in this book than in follow-ons, and I certainly had formed different images of some of them than her original characterizations.

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

A bio of William Randolph Hearst.

[Verdad]

Haven't been reading much fiction lately, then I grabbed two novels for a change.

Iris Murdoch's Under The Net is the first I read of hers, and to be honest, likely the last. Not that there's anything wrong with her writing—delicious sense of humor, for one—but when all is said and done, the book didn't really grab me.

Ingeborg Bachmann's Malina, on the other hand, was a pleasant surprise. The Austrian authoress' breathless, introspective, almost-stream-of-consciousness style didn't attract me in the beginning, yet the story she weaved proved satisfying on several levels. A love triangle between the female narrator, a man she lives with, and another man, opens to interesting interpretations when we realize the first guy can be read as her male alter ego.

[george51]

Originally Posted by sutherngent985

'Centennial' by James Michener

Now there is a good book.

I am reading a textbook. It is boring.

[Niriate]

Jim Butcher's Cursor's Fury

Mostly known for his very successful Dresden Files series, The Codex Alera takes place in a Roman style world where all humans have an elemental spirit under their control, called a Fury. Except for the main character, who is completly Furyless.

Having heard about the series from a radioshow I used to listen to, I picked up part 1 for my birthday, and have subsequently devoured the following 2 parts.

Also reading, my own stories, trying to get as many errors out of it where possible.

[Tio_Narratore]

Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture: A View from the Southeast. Patricia M. Lambert (ed.)

[driphoney]

Originally Posted by Tio_Narratore

Bioarchaeological Studies of Life in the Age of Agriculture: A View from the Southeast. Patricia M. Lambert (ed.)

[Tio_Narratore]

Originally Posted by driphoney

What can I say, Honey. I do enjoy my field.

[YoursSINSerely]

Originally Posted by driphoney

psst...I wonder if there is any romance in it?

[Tio_Narratore]

Originally Posted by YoursSINSerely

psst...I wonder if there is any romance in it?

yes, actually...and I did a lecture entitled "Romancing the Bones." Dropped the title to avoid having to frequently emphasizet hat it wasn't a dirty lecture.

[Handley_Page]

Originally Posted by YoursSINSerely

psst...I wonder if there is any romance in it?

There must be else nobody would study the subject (I guess).

[driphoney]

Originally Posted by Tio_Narratore

What can I say, Honey. I do enjoy my field.

I bet you're outstanding in it!

Originally Posted by YoursSINSerely

psst...I wonder if there is any romance in it?

Originally Posted by Handley_Page

There must be else nobody would study the subject (I guess).

Uh-huh.

Originally Posted by Tio_Narratore

yes, actually...and I did a lecture entitled "Romancing the Bones." Dropped the title to avoid having to frequently emphasizet hat it wasn't a dirty lecture.

U-huh. Pity. About the needing to part.