What Are You Reading

[Miss 1940's]

"Valley of the Dolls"

That Book is something eles!

 

[Cricket]

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.

I think you just made my next selection.

 

[K.D. Lightner]

I am finally getting around to reading the latest Sue Graton novel, T is for Trespass.

I've read all the other books in Grafton's Kinsey Milhone series, A through S; it will be interesting what she will pick for X and Z in her titles.

karol

 

[just_me]

I am finally getting around to reading the latest Sue Graton novel, T is for Trespass.

I've read all the other books in Grafton's Kinsey Milhone series, A through S; it will be interesting what she will pick for X and Z in her titles.

karol

xylophone and zebra?

 

[randooch]

nobel dude

i'm waiting on an alibris book, a translation into english of Le Clezio. can't remember the title. anyone here read him yet?

 

[K.D. Lightner]

Just_me:

Yes, or maybe X-ray and zephyr....

karol

 

[dhermann1]

Liddell Hart's "History of the First World War"

Having just finished Victor Davis Hanson's "A War Like No Other", about the Peloponnesian War, I just started Basil Liddell Hart's "History of the First World War". I thought I'd like a change in scenery. Liddell Hart was a young junior officer in the war, and was invalided out of the regular army in 1923. He became one of Britain's most far seeing experts on the art of war. If some of his ideas had been followed in the 1930's countless British, and other, lives could have been saved.
The book was published in 1930 as "The Real War", and revised and enlarged, with the new title, in 1934. It is full of startling insights. In many ways WW I was a greater shock to the world than the much larger Second World War.
Anyhow, it's a great, informative and vivid read.
Having just done a few little edits, and added a title to the post, it occurs to me that Liddell Hart could not have originally entitled the book "First World War", because at that time there was no second war to compare it to. It was actually called "History of the World War", according to the title page. Whatever.

 

[Dixon Cannon]

After seeing an lecture and a Q&A on CSPAN I picked up Chris Hedges book "American Fascists". A fascinating read about contemporary religio-political influences in America today. Rather frightening!

-dixon cannon

 

[carebear]

Having just finished Victor Davis Hanson's "A War Like No Other", about the Peloponnesian War, I just started Basil Liddell Hart's "History of the First World War". I thought I'd like a change in scenery. Liddell Hart was a young junior officer in the war, and was invalided out of the regular army in 1923. He became one of Btritain's most far seeing experts on the art of war. If some of his ideas had been followed in the 1930's countless British, and other, lives could have been saved.
The book was publisehd in 1930 as "The Real War", and revised and enlarged, with the new title, in 1934. It is full of startling insights. In many ways WW I was a greater shock to the world than the much larger Second World War.
Anyhow, it's a great, informative and vivid read.
Having just done a few little edits, and added a title to the post, it occurs to me that Liddell Hart could not have originally entitled the book "First World War", because at that time there was no second war to compare it to. It was actually called "History of the World War", according to the title page. Whatever.

Big VDH fan, I find it appropriate that a man so well versed on Greek and Roman warfare lives on a farm in California. The Western way of war being at root so agriculturately based.

Liddell Hart was indeed visionary.

 

[Vampyre Master]

whar are you reading

I'm reading The Count of Monte Cristo and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.

haa just read 20,000 (its seas btw) invisible man, time machine. now on The Geographers Library

Vampyre

 

[Akubra Man]

I am reading SEARCH FOR THE MotherLode OF THE ATOCHA

I am reading a true life book about treasure hunting. SEARCH FOR THE MotherLode OF THE ATOCHA by Eugene Lyon. It is the story of Mel Fisher's life long search for the lost treasure of the Atocha a Spanish Galleon loaded with gold, silver and emeralds headed from the new world as tax meant for the King Phillip IV of Spain who had taken the throne the year before. The ship was heavy beyond its manifest as it is estimated that an extra third weight of silver and gold was smuggled aboard. This book is a great read for for the arm chair adventurer and historian.

 

[Sarge]

I am currently reading "Public Enemies: America's Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34" by Bryan Burrough.
It is one of the better books I have read on the subject in a long while, quite a page turner.

 

[Sunny]

Exile's Gate by C. J. Cherryh. For about the 4th time in less than 18 months.

 

[ShoreRoadLady]

After wrapping up more Cool & Lam mysteries, I've started William Shirer's Berlin Diary. I've only barely started, but it looks very interesting. I may have to go back and forth between the Diary and The Rise & Fall of the Third Reich to get a better handle on the specifics he's talking about, though.

 

[John Boyer]

A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

 

[Harp]

Simone Weil, A Life by S. Petrement.

Written by a close friend, this memoir is a more intimate
portrait of the French philosopher and mystic; though Weil still
remained something of a mystery even to those who knew her.

 

[Starius]

I still have like, 4 stacks of "to read" books near my bed... so I wont go into what I'm currently reading at the moment, but here are the 3 most recent books to hit my stacks:

Ghost Hunters: William James and the Search for Scientific Proof of Life After Death by Deborah Blum.
The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.

 

[carter]

The Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller

Great Book! It's been years since I read Miller's post-apocalyptic classic. Must read it again.

I'm reading Shadow Divers by Robert Kurson. It's the true story of [primarily] two men who dove a U-Boat sunk sixty miles off the New Jersey shore. It became an obsession. They dove the site repeatedly for years until they were able to positively identify the U-Boat.

The book details multiple dives and the personnal involved, extensive research, trips to Germany, trips to US Naval archives, interviews with former U-Boat crewmen, the backstory of the U-Boat they come to believe is the one sunk at the site, and failing marriages.

This book is very well-written and nearly impossible to put down.

 

[skyvue]

Exile's Gate by C. J. Cherryh. For about the 4th time in less than 18 months.

C.J. Cherryh was my Latin teacher in high school (she was known as Carolyn -- or was it Caroline? -- Cherry then).

I'm reading At Random: The Reminiscences of Bennett Cerf. The wife and I both enjoy watching What's My Line?, which airs on the Game Show Network at 3 a.m. eastern every night, and Cerf is one of our favorite panelists (second only, perhaps, to Arlene Francis), so we decided to borrow his memoir from the library. It's quite an entertaining read.

 

[pigeon toe]

Right now I'm trying to find the time to read Flim-Flam! Psychics, ESP, Unicorns, and Other Delusions by James Randi. It's a fun book in which Randi debunks a lot of superstitions and pseudoscience. I listen to the podcast "The Skeptic's Guide to the Universe" (http://www.theskepticsguide.org/) and they mention Randi a lot.