OT: Watcha reading?

[SnowblindNYR]

I really liked Shoe Dog, which is the story of Nike.

Beat you to it. Might be my favorite book ever. Thanks though!

 

[SnowblindNYR]

A game changer for me was signing up with the New York Public Library. You qualify if you live or work in the city. Now I can download any book I want into Kindle on a whim, and simply renew it in three week's time if I need. I have sampled so many new writers and genres that I never would have if I had to pay per book. A seriously great public service.

I feel like this isn't quite a secret anymore. Maybe the Kindle part is.

 

[CasusBelli]

I’m a big fan of the first but not the second
Quite the contrasting duo lol

Ha! Definitely. The second definitely isn't popular on Wall Street -- that's for sure. But challenging one's own notions is important; how can we be confident in our beliefs if we haven't considered their alternatives? If Piketty presents a compelling case, so be it, but so far he hasn't managed that lol.

 

[Shadowtron]

Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson. It's volume one of his baroque cycle and basically a 900 page introduction lol. It's a slog at times, but I'm still digging it.

 

[True Blue]

So, my taste in books heavily favors non-fiction.

Going to presume that you read Friday Night Lights?

 

[True Blue]

For fiction, though not for the faint of heart, would recommend "Preparation for the next life". Not for the faint of heard and packs quite a wallop.

Recently read Frankenstein, and wow is there a difference between what Hollywood shows and the actual text.

This is not recent, but "Art of Fielding is VERY good. And really enjoyed The Historian.

 

[True Blue]

I’m going back and forth between “The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown and “Born to Run” by Bruce Springsteen.

Tell me what you think of the Springsteen book when you are done. Was not a huge fan of it.

 

[True Blue]

Cormac McCarthy- All the Pretty Horses
Cormac McCarthy- Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy- No Country for Old Men
Cormac McCarthy- Outer Dark
Cormac McCarthy- Suttree

I like McCarthy a lot. But such a dichotomy. No Country for Old Men was great. But I found Blood Meridian to be essentially a one very long run-on sentence gibberish.

BTW, how can you read Roth and not mention Portnoy's Complaint? Nevermind. You did read it. I read it twice. First time I thought it was great and probably an apt description of what goes on. Second time I read it, I found Portnoy to be loathsome and did not really like it as much. Still remains a book that needs to be read.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Tell me what you think of the Springsteen book when you are done. Was not a huge fan of it.

I love Bruce. My favorite musician by far. He has a particular meaning for me because a Bruce show was my first unofficial date with the woman who became my wife.

But I'm finding it a tough read. The book comes off like it was spoken dictation into a microphone. He has a way of speaking that doesn't easily translate into the written word. And a lot of great phrases/phrasing in a song come off as trite, or even convoluted, at times.

There are parts where he sounds like he's commenting on a character, rather than talking about himself.

Watched Springsteen on Broadway on Netflix and found the portions between songs more enjoyable hearing the stories rather than reading about them in the book.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

Going to presume that you read Friday Night Lights?

I took a great class in college on "Interpretations of the American Dream". For one section of the course we had to read "Friday Night Lights" and "In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle" by Madeleine Blais (about the girls basketball team at Amherst Highschool in Massachusetts) fascinating read together.

 

[haveandare]

Started The Judge Hunter by Christopher Buckley over the weekend. My father in law recommended it really highly – he's a pretty tough critic and he loaned it to me just as I finished the last thing I was reading. Only a few chapters in but really good so far. Not sure I've ever read historical fiction like this before but it's an interesting exercise. I have to stop and google some colonial American/English history here and there but that's been interesting also.

 

[East Coast Bias]

Ha! Definitely. The second definitely isn't popular on Wall Street -- that's for sure. But challenging one's own notions is important; how can we be confident in our beliefs if we haven't considered their alternatives? If Piketty presents a compelling case, so be it, but so far he hasn't managed that lol.

I was getting my MBA just after the economic crash from 09 to 11. Our economics classes were geared around a lot of studies of European and Asian markets. As a result, I read a lot of stuff that I really wasn't exposed to prior to that. Don't agree with all of it, but there's very narrow mainstream economic ideas in this country, and a real objection to ever admitting some of what we do was/is wrong.

It's good to get a broad view of economics, even if you don't agree with it all.

 

[True Blue]

There are parts where he sounds like he's commenting on a character, rather than talking about himself.

Not only that, I found the book to be very self-congratulating.

I took a great class in college on "Interpretations of the American Dream". For one section of the course we had to read "Friday Night Lights" and "In These Girls, Hope is a Muscle" by Madeleine Blais (about the girls basketball team at Amherst Highschool in Massachusetts) fascinating read together.

I watched the movie first. The book made the movie seem like Disney World.

 

[True Blue]

A WoT series, if done right, would be amazing, but 14 books that are all 600+ pages is going to be tough.

Each book would need to be it's own season.

I've love to see a series based on the Dark Elf Trilogy.

There is just sooooo much to cover at this point.

For fantasy lovers, I would recommend Prince of Nothing and Aspect Emperor. Same series, two separate trilogies. Very dark and absolutely no good guys.

 

[SingnBluesOnBroadway]

I watched the movie first. The book made the movie seem like Disney World.

That it does!

 

[Unusual Suspect]

A little nonplussed to find that quite a few of you seem to be a LOT more erudite than I am... the hockey posts sometimes don't read like a host of armchair academics are providing the content.

Ashamed to say I can NOT get through Faulkner. Well, not literally true, but I recently took another crack at As I Lay Dying and just got nothing from the experience. It must be me. In three attempts I've also never completed the second volume of the Dos Passos U.S.A. series. But... my INTENTIONS are good......

Liked the first hundred pages or so of the Springsteen book but thought it lost interest dramatically once his recording career was launched. Enjoy Neal Stephenson at times (Cryptonomicon, Reamde) but found The Baroque Cycle impossible.

Currently reading James T. Farrell's Studs Lonigan trilogy (in a very old Modern Library edition... smells great!!) interspersed with Mark Twain travel writings. Finishing up The River of the West by Frances Fuller Victor, a bio of "mountain man" Joe Meek... I always have a volume of 19th C. US history going, usually westward exploration and migration but other aspects as well. Looking to take up birding again to some degree and so am dipping into some related books in that area. For quick "palate cleansing" reads I pick up suspense and mystery titles... Philip Kerr, Alan Furst... right now am liking Martin Walker's "Bruno, Chief of Police" stories set in the French countryside.

 

[Lion Hound]

Paulides, just ins't a very strong writer. Good detective, just not a strong writer. The reason I couldn't put the book down is the data, and patters he uncovered in the process. 750,000 people per year go missing in the US. Many can be explained. Paulides takes on the cases that cannot be explained and writes about them.

He commented on the recent dissapearance of Hathaway. Kid that went missing ion the woods of NC this week. They found him a few days later. Was all over the news. The kid said, he spent the few days in the woods with a Guardian that was a bear. Weird, if a Bear that kid would have been eaten. Of course he could have made up the bear story. But what is strange...There are numerous cases now of people that went missing and were later found that said similar things. Bears, Apes etc. The obviously are no native Ape species in NA.

New article on the case i mentioned above. The story is weird, what is baffling is the amount of people that have gone missing, later found who tell of the same type of story.
3-year-old boy lost in freezing forest for two days says bear kept him safe

Yahoo Lifestyle,Yahoo Lifestyle 8 hours ago

Missing 3-year-old North Carolina boy found alive
A missing 3-year-old boy who was found alive after enduring two days of heavy rain and freezing temperatures says it was a bear who kept him safe and warm.
Authorities from the FBI and U.S. Marines professional search teams joined up with volunteers to search for Casey Hathaway when he vanished from outside his grandmother’s house in North Carolina on Tuesday afternoon.
As his distressed family waited for updates, one of their neighbors out walking her dog heard a loud cry come from the bushes. About 40 yards from the road, Casey was found crying and tangled in thorn bushes.
He was rushed to the hospital in surprisingly good condition, where he later told his family that it was a bear who had kept him safe for the past two days, according to a GoFundMe page set up by the toddler’s grandmother at “the public’s request.”
“He told us that his best friend the bear was with him to help keep him safe,” the page says. “Thanks to God’s mercy he came home to us alive and well.”

 

[True Blue]

Ashamed to say I can NOT get through Faulkner. Well, not literally true, but I recently took another crack at As I Lay Dying and just got nothing from the experience. It must be me. In three attempts I've also never completed the second volume of the Dos Passos U.S.A. series. But... my INTENTIONS are good......

That is like Henry James to me. Impenetrable.

Dumas, I read like candy and have lost count of how many times I read Odyssey.

 

[Edge]

If you can find it, “Losing The Edge” gives a pretty good behind the scenes look at the 1994 and 1995 Rangers teams.

 

[Edge]

Going to presume that you read Friday Night Lights?

Never have.

 

[mike14]

Read in the last month or still reading (thank god for holidays!):

The Hard Stuff by Wayne Kramer - interesting look at MC5 and music from the 60s/70s. I feel there is a gap in my knowledge of America during this time period that stops me from fully understanding the events that are unfolding around Wayne, but a pretty good read.

The Beastie Boys Book - a love letter to MCA, a love letter to NYC and a love letter to music. Written in an interesting, fun style this was a great read, especially if you have any interest in the Beastie Boys or 90s music.

The Satantic Bible - there's some interesting stuff in here but it is wrapped up in some incredibly dull 'theater' which makes the whole thing pretty annoying to read

Island of the Coast of Asia - a horribly depressing, but well written and very interesting read on Australian Foreign Policy and the stupidity of successive governments

Don't Panic - Neil Gaiman's 'biography' on all things Hitchhikers and Douglas Adams. Some interesting stuff in there but most of it I was aware of from other sources.

Trigger Warning - Neil Gaiman short stories. Probably not his best collection but like all thing Gaiman they are easy to read and very enjoyable.

The Lean StartUp - maybe you actually have to be a software developer to care? I'm finding it very dull but the boss wants me to read it for work. So far it doesn't seem to offer anything different from a myriad of other startup type books.

Vox by Christina Dalcher - there's a good novel in here somewhere but the premise is flawed/poorly thought out and described, and then it becomes very formulaic and predictable at the end. Tries to capitalise on the popularity of the Handmaid's Tale and tell a topical story, but largely fails

Embers of War by Gareth Powell. I always find SciFi to be hit and miss. This was ok without being anything ground breaking or giving us anything that hasn't been seen in other SciFi series. This was book 1 and it was ok enough for to give book 2 a try at some point - hopefully it will get better

Early Riser by Jasper Fforde - a typical Fforde novel (if you haven't read Shades of Grey do so!) that meanders a bit and ends unsatisfactorily. This really should have been the SOG sequel instead of making me wait for the damn thing!

Circe by Madeline Miller - Fictional life of the Greek goddess. A good, quick read

 

[keith hernandez]

Grant by Ron Chernow. Only about a hundred pages in during the Mexican American war. So far very good and is a smooth read.

 

[True Blue]

Never have.

If you like non-fiction, and want to see an entryway to a completely different world, you should read. It is eye opening.

 

[True Blue]

Grant by Ron Chernow. Only about a hundred pages in during the Mexican American war. So far very good and is a smooth read.

On my very long to read list. I got it and is currently in my stack.

 

[True Blue]

Art of Fielding is a very, very good book.

Although I have read them before, as soon as I make my way through my book stack, I need to start my Russia project. Master & Margarita, Dr. Zhivago, Anna Karenina & War & Peace. All in a row. Ambitious or crazy? Spread the Tolstoy out? Lots of peasants and lots of farming!