Best books you've read in 2008?

[sethp]

What are the books you've read and which ones are the best this year. I'll start but it's a short l ist.

The autobiograhpy of Benjamin Franklin
Awaken the Giant within
Happy for no Reason
Entering the Castle
Hannibal rising.

 

[trysail]

The Man Who Made Wall Street: Anthony J. Drexel and The Rise of Modern Finance by Dan Rottenberg (University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2001).

The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956 by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (Harper & Row, New York, 1973).

Cromwell: The Lord Protector by Antonia Fraser (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1974).

The Lance and The Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull by Robert M. Utley (Henry Holt & Co., New York, 1993).

Unstoppable Global Warming (Every 1,500 Years) by S. Fred Singer, Ph.D. and Dennis T. Avery (Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, Maryland, 2007).

John Smith's Chesapeake Voyages, 1607-1609 by Helen C. Rountree, Wayne E. Clark, and Kent Mountford (University of Virginia Press, Charlottesville, Virginia 2007).

 

[sethp]

ummm feel like a

I feel like a retard after looking at your reading list.. go spot go see jane run. duh...

 

[AllardChardon]

Lately I have been reading Thorne Smith, an American author from the early 1930s, whose is famous for Topper. Cosmo Topper, the main character, is haunted by the ghosts of George and Marion Kirby, a couple of free spirits that love to drink and party in real life or with ectoplasm as a chaser. Three Topper movies were made and then it ended up as a TV series when I was a youngster.

I read comedies to battle the newspaper headlines, I guess you could say.

So I read Topper, Night Life of the Gods, my favorite, and then a murder mystery called Did She Fall, all three by Thorne Smith. Very entertaining with good endings.

I was thinking maybe I should read more American masters next. Hemingway, Faulkner, Miller, Fitzgerald, Ferber, and on and on... Thank God, they are in the local library.

 

[sethp]

anybody

set a goal of number of books to read per year. I strive for 50 knowing that I'lll probaby end u pin the 20-30 range due to time constraints.

 

[CharleyH]

What are the books you've read and which ones are the best this year. I'll start but it's a short l ist.

The autobiograhpy of Benjamin Franklin
Awaken the Giant within
Happy for no Reason
Entering the Castle
Hannibal rising.

I am too busy writing to read anything that's not pertinent to what I write. I still have a $200 gift cert at Amazon and I regret not getting there since it was given to me. Rather than tell us what books you have read, maybe you can give some reviews or synopses? That would help.

 

[sethp]

ok short reviews of some recent books

My rating scale is 1-10. 10 being a masterpeace and 1 being a book that really does need to be burned. Good, solid recent books can expect a 6-8 range. 5 being average isn't a bad book and should be considered for reading.

Happy for no Reason. Marci Shimoff

Great book with tons of Ideas to increase your happiness. It's everything you've ever heard or read before but just in one place. Very practical and includes interviews, excercises etc. It's linked heavily to the secret but not really about the law of attraction. Can be read in one or two days and can send you off in infinate directions for more reading and more. On a Scale of 1-10 I give this a 7.

Tom Clancy's End Game.

Has a few good moments that you expect from Tom Clancy but is nowhere close to his best works and this book is only recommended if you are getting ready to board a plan and have nothing else to read. Reads like a synopsis of a computer game of Command and Conquer but if you gave some of the units actual names and back story. On a Scale of 1-10 this one gets a 2.

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Hi highly recommend this book. It's incomplete as good Ole Ben died before getting a chance to complete it. It's not Tolstoy or Hemmingway for sure but it is an fascinating journy into the mind of one of our countries founding fathers and life in Colonial USA. It's a short read Mr. Frankliln's life before the Revolutionary War. Recommended for everyone not just history buffs. ummm not erotic in the least though! On a scale of 1-10 this one gets an 8.

There you go..three quick reviews.

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Violet Blue: The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Strap-on Sex

 

[sweetness6280]

Violet Blue: The Adventurous Couple's Guide to Strap-on Sex

*grins* I knew that one would be on your list.

The Mindful Brain Daniel Siegel
Being and Nothingness Jean-Paul Sartre
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges Nathan Englander
The Enchanter Vladimir Nabokov
Damage Josephine Hart
The Tooth Fairy Graham Joyce
Lost in the Funhouse John Barth
Stuck in Neutral Terry Trueman
The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

WHITE FANG by Jack London.
UTOPIAS ELSEWHERE by Anthony Daniels
SOUTH MOON UNDER Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings
MUMU by Ivan Turgenev

 

[NoJo]

*grins* I knew that one would be on your list.


Lost in the Funhouse John Barth

One of the best books of short stories, ever ever --

 

[Guest]

..........

 

[trysail]

My rating scale is 1-10. 10 being a masterpeace and 1 being a book that really does need to be burned. Good, solid recent books can expect a 6-8 range. 5 being average isn't a bad book and should be considered for reading...

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.

Highly recommend this book. It's incomplete as good Ole Ben died before getting a chance to complete it. It's not Tolstoy or Hemmingway for sure but it is an fascinating journy into the mind of one of our countries founding fathers and life in Colonial USA. It's a short read Mr. Frankliln's life before the Revolutionary War. Recommended for everyone not just history buffs. ummm not erotic in the least though! On a scale of 1-10 this one gets an 8.

I agree with you. It's a shame that Ben didn't get a chance to polish his autobiography, but it's a book that's well worth reading. There have been few men who lived such full lives. A thrusting entrepreneur, Franklin got rich young and then devoted the remainder of his life to pursuing a myriad of other interests (not the least of which was his indispensible service to the American Revolution). How many people have achieved prominence in so many fields? To this day, Franklin (rightfully) remains an inspiration and demigod in Philadelphia. One of the oldest of the Founding Fathers, Franklin entertained no illusions about his fate should the Revolution fail. I have quoted his sage advice to the Continental Congress ("Gentlemen, we must hang together or, most assuredly, we will hang separately") many times. Few people are aware that, as a result of the American Revolution, he was estranged from his Tory son who, by necessity, became an expatriate refugee out of fear of retribution by the revolutionaries.

 

[sweetness6280]

One of the best books of short stories, ever ever --

I agree. Everytime I read them, I get something new.

 

[sweetness6280]

About 20 young adult fiction novels by three different authors about animals, witches, alternate future realities and vampires. A lot of YA stories are in a series. It's very popular making kids look for each edition or waiting a year for another one to be published and aggravating to me since I get hooked on them too. I read them for research because it's the genre I'm writing in between Literotica dirty stories and poetry. Seems to be something wrong with that doesn't it?

I love YA lit. Two of the books on my list are in that genre. I could have added several more. Children's and YA Lit will be my specialization when I finish, someday... far, far away.

 

[shereads]

The Unconsoled (for the third time)

The Story of India

Oh - and Unleashed: Poems by Writers' Dogs




-----

Nothing really new for '08 on my list! I'm into reruns.

 

[cloudy]

Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold. A gorgeous, heartbreaking book.

Coyote Medicine, by Lewis Mehl-Madrona. Read it for about the fourth time, and every time I read it, I learn something else (thanks, Imp! )

Fools Crow and Fools Crow: Wisdom and Power, both by Thomas E. Mails. Frank Fools Crow was the last of the legendary Sioux Holy Men...an amazing man.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

The Penge Bungalow Murders by John Mortimer QC

If you are a fan of Horace Rumpole, this is the oft quoted case that he did as a white wig with no leader.

 

[sr71plt]

Alas, none of the books I've read thus far in 2008 could rank as "best" in any list.

 

[drksideofthemoon]

Alas, none of the books I've read thus far in 2008 could rank as "best" in any list.

Come now, you couldn't put a plug in for your favorite bedtime reading, The Chicago Manual of Style?

 

[sweetness6280]

Come now, you couldn't put a plug in for your favorite bedtime reading, The Chicago Manual of Style?

*dr pepper spew*

 

[sr71plt]

Come now, you couldn't put a plug in for your favorite bedtime reading, The Chicago Manual of Style?

Naw, I only consult parts of that one now--someone has to, and obviously few posters here will (since they already know it all by osmosis or divine right).

Unfortunately, I get stuck with reading books I'm editing, not all of which are gems--just now getting a dreadful one on George Washington's religion off my hands, and books by other authors I either will or might run into and who will ask me if I've read their books. For instance, I've had Rita Mae Brown's talking animals up to my eyeballs already, but I'm about to sit on a panel with her at a book festival--so I'm now reading her latest Sneaky Pie Brown book. (like taking castor oil)

I've bought John Grisham's new book, but he didn't select a short story of mine in a recent competition he was judging, so I'm punishing him by letting his book sit.

Jeffrey Archer's False Impressions qualifies for that weak ending thread running elsewhere.

The best I can dredge up is Elizabeth Peters's The Serpent on the Crown, and that was just a bit of fluff to offset a heavy book edit on Iraq.

 

[rengadeirishman]

I am America (and so can you)-Stephen Colbert

and

The gospel according to Biff- the author escapes me.

 

[cloudy]

The gospel according to Biff- the author escapes me.

Great book! Made me laugh out loud way more than once.

(Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Palm by Christopher Moore)

 

[Trinique_Fire]

Kushiel's Chosen ~ Jacqueline Carey

(still in the middle of it)