What Are You Reading

[Josephine]

I'm reading "Wizard For Hire" The first three of the Harry Dresden books by Jim Butcher

I can't listen to books on "tape", I get distracted by something I see, or something mentioned in the book, my mind goes off on a tangent and I come back ten minutes later to some big revelation in the book and I have no idea what happened!

How are you liking "Wizard for Hire"? I've read the first 4 Dresden books (the first 3 back to back) and I was getting a little tired of Harry's "Oh noes, it's all my fault! If I was only (something), they wouldn't be dead/gotten hurt/something else! ::sob::" 4 is better, about that. Kinda.

 

[Hugh Beaumont]

I just read "Nephilim and the Pyramids of the Apocolypse". by Patrick Heron

It's non-fiction, and I read it cover to cover in one sitting (about 260 pages).

An absolutley facinating read.

 

[Joie DeVive]

The American Diner Cookbook by Elizabeth McKeon & Linda Everett.

Lots of wonderful sounding (read mostly fattening) recipes, and history on tons of US diners! Fabulous!!

 

[eldonkr]

I can't listen to books on "tape", I get distracted by something I see, or something mentioned in the book, my mind goes off on a tangent and I come back ten minutes later to some big revelation in the book and I have no idea what happened!

How are you liking "Wizard for Hire"? I've read the first 4 Dresden books (the first 3 back to back) and I was getting a little tired of Harry's "Oh noes, it's all my fault! If I was only (something), they wouldn't be dead/gotten hurt/something else! ::sob::" 4 is better, about that. Kinda.

It's pretty good so far. I got about three chapters in and then ended up buying a nintendo DS. Not to mention stuff with my college courses is picking up so I'm going to try to get back into reading it.

Its been sitting in a trunk for a few months because I ordered it online with a bunch of other books, but they'd arrived AFTER I discovered podcasts so they all never got read.

I picked it up and started reading last week because I've been listening to podcasts for so long one of my friends made a joke that I probably don't even remember how to read a book.

 

[Feraud]

I've begun reading Black Robe by Brian Moore. The novel was made into a movie back in '91 by Bruce Beresford. I remember seeing it at the Angelica Theater in NYC with my wife (then fiancee) when it opened. An excellent film.

 

[Diamondback]

Currently, Location of U.S. Naval Aircraft (OP-31), a report issued every week or two during WWII. Right now, I'm going through the set for 1943...

----------------
Now playing: John Williams - The Battle Of Endor I
via FoxyTunes

 

[BegintheBeguine]

Some library books.

A few from the late 50s: Kill Now, Pay Later. Republished by Hard Case Crime with a lurid cover of a redhead so I liked it already.
Scent of Danger by Donald MacKenzie. I like his chase stories.
The Husband by Vera Caspary, who wrote Laura (as in the movie with Gene Tierney). Depressing.

 

[Smithy]

"Playing for the Ashes" by Elizabeth George. A classic style British whodunnit with a setting in The Ashes cricket series. Can't go wrong

 

[Harp]

OZ

Wrapped The Making of The Wizard of OZ by Aljean Harmetz;
originally published in 1977, then reissued for the film's Sixtieth
Anniversary in 1998. Harmetz, the daughter of a MGM studio employee,
interviewed several of the film's main characters including Ray Bolger,
Jack Haley, and Margaret Hamilton, who played the Wicked Witch.
Of the three, Bolger was the most sentimental about OZ, Haley more
indifferent, perhaps cynical regarding his role as the heartless Tinman.
Hamilton, my favorite character-appearing for all of twelve minutes
in the final cut-the more evolved thespian. Worth a look.

 

[carebear]

Read Atkinson's An Army At Dawn, haven't yet its sequel. Liked R.A.s
attention to detail and his account of personal relations commanders/subordinates,
especially Eisenhower/Bradley with Terry de la Mesa Allen, a most remarkable
officer.

Ever read Anton Myrer's Once An Eagle?; a tale about an Army
mustang's rise to lieutenant general from the Villa chase through advisory
period Saigon. Myrer, a WWII Marine and Harvard alum was required
reading at the War College. My Marine uncle had passed the book on to me
when I was a kid and it made an indelible impression; all the more so years
afterward when I returned to it as a student. I believe that Myrer may have
based his protagonist in OAE on Terry Allen.

Myrer also wrote The Last Convertible, a Harvard paean well worth
the time.

I haven't read "Once an Eagle".

I too enjoy Atkinson's unvarnished protrayals of the commanders and their inter-relationships.

Speaking of Villa, I assume you've read Morrell's "Last Reveille" novel? If not, you should. Really sets the human factor of the transition from the army of the Indian Wars to the modern force that would go on to fight in Europe.

 

[John Boyer]

Walker Percy

I am currently reading a novelette The Moviegoer by Walker Percy. Oddly enough this is the first and only book I have read by this author. So far, I am enjoying the book greatly and would recommend it highly.

 

[Harp]

Speaking of Villa, I assume you've read Morrell's "Last Reveille" novel? If not, you should. Really sets the human factor of the transition from the army of the Indian Wars to the modern force that would go on to fight in
Europe.

Will start a search. I'm drawn to the Spanish-American/
Boxer Rebellion/Post-WWI Allied Archangel period.

 

[StaceFace]

World Made by Hand - James Howard Kunstler

It's not exactly what I thought it was going to be like, but good nonetheless. I obviously wouldn't mind reverting to an earlier way of life, minus the catastrophic losses.

 

[carter]

The Panama Hat Trail by Tom Miller. Pub. William Morrow & Co. 1986; Vintage Departures, Random House (paperback) 1988; Adventure Press, National Geographic (paperback) 2001.
The author follows the elusive trail of the Panama Hat from the home-based weavers in Ecuador to the final sale in a hat shop in San Diego. Fascinating as a travel book as well as for those who are interested in how the Panama Hat they wear came to be.

 

[Mike1939]

Before James Bond there was Richard Hannay!

I just finished reading, 'The 39 Steps', the first story in, 'The Four Adventures of Richard Hannay. I'm a big fan of the Alfred Hitchcock movie 'The 39 Step (1935) and was eager to read this original version of the story written in 1915. Although very different from the movie it is a well written and quick read, about 80 pages. I recommend it for those interested in WWI British spy stories.

 

[esteban]

Currently reading "Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance, and the Rise of Independent Film", and interesting book, mainly based on Miramax's gossip
What amazes me the most is the amount of crap some people take in order to "be on the business".

 

[LizzieMaine]

Starting in on "Peaches and Daddy," Michael Greenburg's hilarious examination of what was probably the absolute rock-bottom lowest ebb of 1920's pop-culture -- the national wallow, over the winter of 1926-27, in the unedifying story of a wealthy pot-bellied middle-aged Manhattan lecher, his blowsy, gold-digging teenage wife, and their pet African Honking Goose. If you think sleazy tabloid journalism is a development of the modern era, "Peaches and Daddy" will show you different.

 

[mannySpaghetti]

I'm currently reading "Murder Machine" by Gene Mustaine and Jerry Capeci and can hardly put it down! I never seem to get enough of Gangsterdom.

 

[just_me]

The Fat Boys Murders by David A. Kaufelt - Recently divorced and wryly independent, Manhattan attorney Wynsome Lewis has returned to her hometown of Waggs Neck Harbor, Long Island, to set up a real estate practice. But she soon discovers that Waggs Neck Harbor shelters a murderer, and no one is safe--especially the members of the elitist club the Fat Boys Society. (fat as in rich and elitist, not overweight)

I love mysteries and nonfiction about early Hollywood (movie studios, directors, writers, actors).

 

[Maguire]

just finished "Metaphysics of War" by evola, a really incredible piece, probably my favorite of his works.

Now i'm reading Pamela Falk's Cuban foreign Policy, relating to Cuban internationalism after the 59 revolution.