What Are You Reading

[just_me]

It sounds Diana West is a lady after my own heart -- I'm going to have to look this one up. (And thanks, Feraud, for the plug!)

I'm doing lightweight desperate-to-get-thru-winter reading these days -- just finished a very pleasant time-filler called "The Man Who Brought The Dodgers Back To Brooklyn," by David Ritz -- a comic novel about a corporate hustler who connives to do exactly that, to the amazement and delight of right-thinking people everywhere. Also figuring in the plot is the first female pitcher in the major leagues, a hard-throwing lefty who looks suspiciously like a twenty-year-old-girl version of Sandy Koufax. An entertaining tale that can be knocked off in less time than it takes to actually play a ball game these days.

This sounds really interesting. I'm from Brooklyn and my first ballgame was the Brooklyn Dodgers when I was little. Looking forward to finding it.

 

[imported_miss_molly]

I am currently reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman, but am quite close to finishing. I recently purchased a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo - can't wait to start it!

 

[Abyss]

I just recently started "The Last Days of Pompeii" by Edward Bulwer-Lytton. More modern novels should use words such as "coxcombry"...

 

[Lancealot]

I recently purchased a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo - can't wait to start it!

That is one of my favorites try to read it once a year.

 

[Mojito]

Another Emily Bronte fan here - I've read my Penguin edition of her poems so often and carted it so many places the cover has fallen off, and in this year of the anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species you can imagine which of her devoirs I'm feeling the urge to reread! I am inclined to agree with Juliet Barker that, given the gaps in the material - some fostered by Emily's deliberate reticence - that a truly satisfactory biography of the author of Wuthering Heights cannot be written. That hasn't stopped me from acquiring shelves full of Bronteana, though! At one point I was collecting editions of WH just for the different cover art.

 

[Lamplight]

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

To be honest, it's taking me a while to warm up to it, but I'm definitely starting to like it. His writing style seems extremely simple and straight forward, yet I find myself clearly imagining the events I'm reading in brilliant detail. I don't know if it's my imagination or his abilities, but I like it.

 

[Harp]

A Farewell To Arms by Ernest Hemingway

...His writing style seems extremely simple and straight forward, yet I find myself clearly imagining the events I'm reading in brilliant detail. I don't know if it's my imagination or his abilities, but I like it.

Hemingway once commented that he learned his craft at
Oak Park/River Forest High School, where the "simple declarative
sentence" approach was stressed.

Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises somewhat dovetails Farewell,
and captures the more reflective side of his conflicted personality.

 

[Sarge]

I just started reading A Stupendous Effort: The 87th Indiana in the War of the Rebellion. by Jack K. Overmyer.

I'm not really a big Civil War buff and haven't really read much on the subject but being that my Great, Great Grandfather served in the 87th Indiana I was really interested in reading this book.

The book chronicles the lives and deeds of the men of the 87th Indiana Regiment from their recruitment through their mustering out. It's pretty good so far. It Gives a good feel for what life was like for an Indiana volunteer in the Civil war and also for what life in Northern Indiana was like in the 1860s.

 

[Starius]

Some of the last batch of books that recently found their way to me (haven't yet dived into most of them though.):

Basilisk by N.M. Browne
Evening's Empire by David Herter
Great Adaptations: Making Older Buildings Into Dynamic Homes for Today by Jill Herbers
Great Houses on a Budget by James Grayson Trulove
Season Finale: The Unexpected Rise and Fall of the WB and UPN by Susanne Daniels & Cynthia Littleton
The Devil's Acre by David Holland

 

[Feraud]

Playing catch up with a bunch of magazines that have been accumulating on my desk.
Just this morning I read the Sports Illustrated article regarding the post rescue fate of Michael Vick's dogs.
There is an online version here. It is great to see the majority of the dogs are in the process of being rehabilitated and adopted into caring homes.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Originally Posted by Joie DeVive
It may even offer insight into the ongoing discussions of why some women get catty with those gals who dress up/dress vintage....

I'd like to hear about this--what's their theory?

Sorry this is so late...
Maybe I should have written that more clearly. Diana West doesn’t have an explicit theory on this (that I’ve read yet anyway. I haven’t got too far yet) I was, however, able to use a number of her observations to garner a little insight on the subject.

In the first few chapters she is able to lay out a few thoughts:
1-The mainstream culture is currently a youth obsessed one stuck in a sort of permanent adolescence.
2- That structure and limitation is bad.--“If you set yourself to shaping a self, a life, you limit yourself to that self, to that life. And ‘limitation’, particularly to the perpetual adolescent is bad.” ”it is the world view of the perpetual adolescent who sees constraint and definition as padlocks on self-fulfillment and self-expression and not as keys to identity and certainly not as as means to ‘making a life’.”
3- The media in general and television in particular, “portray age as ‘square’ and youth as ‘hip’.” But, the media culture ”is as anti-authority as it is anti-adult.” So, “The Establishment” is bad. She also surmises that part of the youth culture is rebellion. In the rejection of the old culture, there is a setup of the “cool” against the “square” every time.

From this I can put together that when we appear in public in vintage style, that we are harkening back to that past culture, and though ironically we are the counterculture right now, that what we wear still represents “the establishment” (whether that is the intention or not). This being the case, it may automatically set up a challenge to the mainstream youth culture. We are an obvious representation of what is “square” setting ourselves in direct opposition to the “cool”. In and of itself this may bring on antagonism.

Not to mention that to this culture, we just “look funny”:
“ The camel hair coats, the double breasted suits and the fedoras look only slightly less fantastic to the modern eye than lace collared Elizabethan dandies.”

So, that’s the insight I came up with...
And it's a terribly interesting read...

 

[morgan]

I'd really love to know what he is reading......

http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/03_01/keithrichards_1000x578.jpg

Morgan

 

[Peacoat]

Shadow Warriors

Many years ago when I was a pilot in VN, I knew a Major Stiner. He was an excellent officer, probably one the best I ever knew. I often wondered what happened to him and if he had been able to get his star. I knew he would probably make colonel (O-6), but making general officer is a difficult step to accomplish. Did a google on him awhile back and found a bunch of information.

Yes, he got his star, and the second one, then the third one, and finally he got his fourth star! What a career. I found out he had co written a book with Tom Clancy about the Army Special Forces and clandestine operations. Had to have it. So, that is what I am reading now. Probably not of much interest to people not involved, or interested, in special operations, but for me it is fascinating.

What I also found interesting is that he has retired to his family farm, which is about 3 1/2 hours from me. May have to make a day trip.

 

[deelovely]

I am currently reading "The Bridge Across Forever" by Richard Bach. I highly recommend it!

 

[jack miranda]

I'm reading "Thirteen" by Richard K. Morgan.

Oh, dark and gritty it is. Aye. Bioengineered soldiers turned into high-price assassins in a very user-unfriendly near future. Oh, and also reading "Roadside Geology of Wyoming", where I plan to spend a couple of weeks on a dinosaur dig this summer.

 

[just_me]

The Big Bam: The Life and Times of Babe Ruth

Very interesting. Until the Babe came along, home runs were not a common thing.

 

[WH1]

King Solomon's Mines by H. Rider Haggard, Barnes & Noble reissue

Interesting read good adventure very politically incorrect but must be judged by the time period it was written in, 1880's. The information on Haggard is very interesting as well with an introduction and notes written by Benjamin Ivry.

 

[Diamondback]

I just started reading A Stupendous Effort: The 87th Indiana in the War of the Rebellion. by Jack K. Overmyer.
...
The book chronicles the lives and deeds of the men of the 87th Indiana Regiment from their recruitment through their mustering out. It's pretty good so far. It Gives a good feel for what life was like for an Indiana volunteer in the Civil war and also for what life in Northern Indiana was like in the 1860s.

Have to look that one up--it's kinda embarassing to admit, but some of my ancestral relatives were deserters with a pedigree from the Helms-Dowell gang that gave Hell's Half Acre in Whitley County its name... On the upside, one of the pair of deserters eventually went legit, pinned on a badge and decided to use his past to make him a better peace officer.

 

[Cricket]

The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky

 

[Harp]

...I knew a Major Stiner. He was an excellent officer, probably one the best I ever knew. I often wondered what happened to him and if he had been able to get his star...
I found out he had co written a book with Tom Clancy about the Army Special Forces and clandestine operations...

General Carl Steiner?
...I heard that he had died.