What Are You Reading?

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Spock
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What Are You Reading?

#1 Post by Spock » Thu Nov 11, 2021 10:47 am

Somebody else used to start these threads on occasion-but I have done it for the last while-it has been awhile now. I simply can't read one book at a time.

1)EBook-"The Brown Waters of Africa"-Portugal's naval war on the rivers of Africa in 1960's/70's. Part of an ongoing read into Portugal's colonial wars in Angola/Mozambique and Equatorial Guinea

2) "War Under Heaven"-Pontiac's Rebellion-circa 1763.

3) "We Pointed Them North"-probably the best Cowboy memoir

4) "For Love of a River:The Minnesota"

5) "A Brief History of Earth"

Of note-I recently read "Kennedy's Avenger" on the trial of Jack Ruby. Not a book that I would normally read, but the History Book Club card thingie didn't get returned in time when we were in Africa.

I knew nothing about the trial-(really not even the outcome) so it was new territory for me.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#2 Post by Beebs52 » Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:02 am

Your list is much more eruditey than mine.
However, I rediscovered Jane Smiley. Read something by her long ago, maybe Moo.
Anyway, am reading The Last Hundred Years trilogy, about various families starting as farmers in Iowa, beginning in 1920. The characters, world events, personal events, growth, deaths, are wonderfully drawn.
Am on the second one, Early Warning, now.
Well, then

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#3 Post by MarkBarrett » Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:18 am

No heavy reading for me and lots of pictures as well:

Image

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BackInTex
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Re: What Are You Reading?

#4 Post by BackInTex » Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:24 am

Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

I don't read much these days so it may take me a while. I need to remember to put it in my backpack. I do spend a lot of time on planes, but reading on planes puts me to sleep.
..what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? let them take arms.
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Re: What Are You Reading?

#5 Post by Spock » Thu Nov 11, 2021 12:01 pm

Beebs52 wrote:
Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:02 am
Your list is much more eruditey than mine.
However, I rediscovered Jane Smiley. Read something by her long ago, maybe Moo.
Anyway, am reading The Last Hundred Years trilogy, about various families starting as farmers in Iowa, beginning in 1920. The characters, world events, personal events, growth, deaths, are wonderfully drawn.
Am on the second one, Early Warning, now.
I will be checking out the Last Hundred Years trilogy-It might be of interest. Thanks.

As far as less "eruditey" stuff-I have long been wanting to do a read of the C.J. Box Wyoming game warden thrillers or the Tony Park "Africa" thrillers. This winter I might dig into those a little. I am kind of a "completist" once I start-so I would be with those characters for awhile.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#6 Post by Spock » Thu Nov 11, 2021 12:03 pm

BackInTex wrote:
Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:24 am
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History

I don't read much these days so it may take me a while. I need to remember to put it in my backpack. I do spend a lot of time on planes, but reading on planes puts me to sleep.
Great book. If your interest is piqued, you could also read "The Comanche Empire" by some Finnish named guy.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#7 Post by kroxquo » Thu Nov 11, 2021 6:32 pm

I'm finally getting around to reading Ron Chernow's biography of Alexander Hamilton. His name is Alexander Hamilton. I justed started the book on Monday, so there are still a million things he hasn't done. But I'm waiting.
You live and learn. Or at least you live. - Douglas Adams

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#8 Post by MarleysGh0st » Thu Nov 11, 2021 6:47 pm

This past weekend, I just finished Parable of the Sower, by Octavia Butler.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#9 Post by mellytu74 » Thu Nov 11, 2021 6:52 pm

Too many books to count on my "to read" list.

As soon as I get over this writer's block and finish my screenplay ....

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#10 Post by Bob Juch » Thu Nov 11, 2021 11:32 pm

mellytu74 wrote:
Thu Nov 11, 2021 6:52 pm
Too many books to count on my "to read" list.

As soon as I get over this writer's block and finish my screenplay ....
You too? I'm writing a big fat part for you.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
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Re: What Are You Reading?

#11 Post by Spock » Fri Nov 12, 2021 10:47 am

mellytu74 wrote:
Thu Nov 11, 2021 6:52 pm
Too many books to count on my "to read" list.

As soon as I get over this writer's block and finish my screenplay ....
I know SSS likes to tease me about my "Sons of the Pioneers" buddies over at Frontier Partisans-but the ongoing joke over there is about how many books we all want to read. I used to go by "Breaker Morant" there before I switched to my real name and I was known as "The Breaker of Book Budgets" for all my suggestions.

It has crossed my mind to start some sort of a Frontier Partisans circular library so we could share some of the more expensive books that pop up on to read lists.

And no, they are not all frontier history books that we read there.

There are a lot of folklore and haunted woods type stuff-recently read "Horseman" a retelling of the Sleepy Hollow tale-That kind of stuff is big over there.

Actually, Horseman might be of interest to many here as well.

Re-Screenplay

Why don't you chuck it out and start anew on one that has an innocent and well-meaning mountain guide wrangled into a mission by 2 women with dark pasts who want him to help recover a treasure.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#12 Post by themanintheseersuckersuit » Fri Nov 12, 2021 6:22 pm

The Generals by Winston Groom almost as good as The Aviators
Constance by Matthew Fitzgerald (really like the author’s Gibson Vaughn series)
The Swamp Fox by John Oller (I recently learned that my 5th great grandfather was a private in Francis Marion’s anti-government militia)(Marion constantly complained about his militia members going home to tend their crops)
Suitguy is not bitter.

feels he represents the many educated and rational onlookers who believe that the hysterical denouncement of lay scepticism is both unwarranted and counter-productive

The problem, then, is that such calls do not address an opposition audience so much as they signal virtue. They talk past those who need convincing. They ignore actual facts and counterargument. And they are irreparably smug.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#13 Post by Spock » Mon Nov 15, 2021 10:33 pm

One downside to reading several books at a time is that it can take a while to finish one-but the upside to that is that I tend to finish several within a short time so I am almost finished with the wave that I was reading and am casting about for what to start next.

Don't worry, I have several hundred (at least) here in the house to choose from (LOL)-but half the fun is thinking about it a little and not choose random.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#14 Post by SportsFan68 » Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:51 pm

Just finished This Tender Land by Wllliam Kent Krueger for AAUW book club.

Now reading If It Bleeds by Stephen King just for fun.
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-- America would be a better place if leaders would do more long-term thinking. -- Wilma Mankiller

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#15 Post by Spock » Tue Nov 16, 2021 9:56 am

SportsFan68 wrote:
Mon Nov 15, 2021 11:51 pm
Just finished This Tender Land by Wllliam Kent Krueger for AAUW book club.

Now reading If It Bleeds by Stephen King just for fun.
I really should read me some Krueger. IIRC, his stuff is Minnesota (or at least Northwoods) set?.

Matthew over at Frontier Partisans wrote a guest post on a very strange author that some here might be interested to learn of and possibly read.

R.A. Lafferty. Kudos to anyone here who has read him.

https://frontierpartisans.com/23459/laf ... e-indians/

Got intrigued by a review of Ruth Wisse's (whom I had never heard of) memoir and started EBooking it last night.

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts ... is-chesler

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#16 Post by frogman042 » Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:41 am

Physical books - just finished 'Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards' - Al Kooper's autobiography (not Alice Cooper's) - excellent bio of the whole music business from the fifties onward - I thoroughly enjoyed at and he made no cheap shots nor gossipy. He seemed to be everywhere in the music world and great stories with virtually only positive things to say about most of the people he worked with (with a few exceptions being mostly execs and managers, not artists).

Carole King's 'A Natural Woman' - really a quick read and also a most fascinating life.

Currently in the middle of the Jerzy Kosinski biography by James Park Sloan - I'm really enjoying it - still early into it (about 25%) but I've read nearly all of Kosinski's novels - what a unique person he was.

Audio books - mostly Charles Dickens recently - finished A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Bleak House, about to start Great Expectations. Favorite was A Tale of Two Cities, I found it to be remarkable. Oliver Twist surprised me as I thought I knew most of the story from the movies and musical, but so much was left out and the movies expanded what were more minor sections (IMO) - so that was fun to experience it in a way that I wasn't sure where it was going.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#17 Post by Spock » Tue Nov 16, 2021 12:06 pm

frogman042 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:41 am
Physical books - just finished 'Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards' - Al Kooper's autobiography (not Alice Cooper's) - excellent bio of the whole music business from the fifties onward - I thoroughly enjoyed at and he made no cheap shots nor gossipy. He seemed to be everywhere in the music world and great stories with virtually only positive things to say about most of the people he worked with (with a few exceptions being mostly execs and managers, not artists).

Carole King's 'A Natural Woman' - really a quick read and also a most fascinating life.

Currently in the middle of the Jerzy Kosinski biography by James Park Sloan - I'm really enjoying it - still early into it (about 25%) but I've read nearly all of Kosinski's novels - what a unique person he was.

Audio books - mostly Charles Dickens recently - finished A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Bleak House, about to start Great Expectations. Favorite was A Tale of Two Cities, I found it to be remarkable. Oliver Twist surprised me as I thought I knew most of the story from the movies and musical, but so much was left out and the movies expanded what were more minor sections (IMO) - so that was fun to experience it in a way that I wasn't sure where it was going.
I always told my kids when they were on Quiz Bowl teams and so forth to always go with "Tale of Two Cities" on Dickens questions as the others seem to be interchangeable and not likely to be an answer for high school trivia contests.

That is another book I should read. (Tale of Two Cities).

Right up my alley is a new book on lion conservation that might jump to the top of the pile.

"The Last Lions of Africa: Stories from the Frontline in the Battle to Save a species."

I mentioned earlier that I recently read a book on Jack Ruby's trial that came when the History Book Club card thing did not get returned when we were in Africa this summer. Another book on Watergate (King Richard) was paired with that and I might read it as I know little about Watergate and otherwise the book will just sit in a pile somewhere.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#18 Post by mellytu74 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:08 pm

Spock wrote:
Fri Nov 12, 2021 10:47 am

There are a lot of folklore and haunted woods type stuff-recently read "Horseman" a retelling of the Sleepy Hollow tale-That kind of stuff is big over there.

Actually, Horseman might be of interest to many here as well.
A couple of other friends have recommended that as well.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#19 Post by Bob Juch » Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:16 pm

I just started reading "All About Me!" by Mel Brooks. I'll let you know how I liked it.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
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Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#20 Post by SportsFan68 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:24 pm

frogman042 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:41 am
. . .

Audio books - mostly Charles Dickens recently - finished A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Bleak House, about to start Great Expectations. Favorite was A Tale of Two Cities, I found it to be remarkable. Oliver Twist surprised me as I thought I knew most of the story from the movies and musical, but so much was left out and the movies expanded what were more minor sections (IMO) - so that was fun to experience it in a way that I wasn't sure where it was going.
I hadn't read any Dickens since high school, and a book club member challenged us to read any Dickens for the month she was scheduled to lead. I chose Great Expectations because I'd never read it, but I thought it was awful. One of my friends said that's what you get when you pay by the word.

I'm now struggling through Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and I don't know if I'll be able to finish it by book club date. I better start meeting more anxious people soon.
-- In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.
-- America would be a better place if leaders would do more long-term thinking. -- Wilma Mankiller

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#21 Post by Beebs52 » Sun Dec 05, 2021 4:29 pm

I couldn't finish the Smiley trilogy, last one Golden Age. It just dragged and was dreary. Reading Moo by Smiley, it's okay.
Well, then

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#22 Post by Bob Juch » Sun Dec 05, 2021 9:15 pm

SportsFan68 wrote:
Sun Dec 05, 2021 3:24 pm
frogman042 wrote:
Tue Nov 16, 2021 10:41 am
. . .

Audio books - mostly Charles Dickens recently - finished A Tale of Two Cities, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, and Bleak House, about to start Great Expectations. Favorite was A Tale of Two Cities, I found it to be remarkable. Oliver Twist surprised me as I thought I knew most of the story from the movies and musical, but so much was left out and the movies expanded what were more minor sections (IMO) - so that was fun to experience it in a way that I wasn't sure where it was going.
I hadn't read any Dickens since high school, and a book club member challenged us to read any Dickens for the month she was scheduled to lead. I chose Great Expectations because I'd never read it, but I thought it was awful. One of my friends said that's what you get when you pay by the word.

I'm now struggling through Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, and I don't know if I'll be able to finish it by book club date. I better start meeting more anxious people soon.
We spent half my freshman year of high school disecting Great Expectations. The other half was diagramming sentences. I don't know which was worse.
I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.
- Douglas Adams (1952 - 2001)

Si fractum non sit, noli id reficere.

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and, when he grows up, he'll never be able to drive in New Jersey.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#23 Post by Spock » Sun Dec 12, 2021 7:23 pm

I wish Wintergreen was around but

I have posted about Robert Strassler before, but I am a huge fan of him and his Landmark series of Greek and Roman classics. Self-taught scholar who couldn't find a good readable edition of Thucydides so he made his own with a lot of maps.

https://harvardmagazine.com/sites/defau ... enian.html

I own all the books they have put out-5 or 6, I think.

At one point, I started Thucydides, then I figured it would be better to read Herodotus first. I am on my second try. My first try-I set a goal of reading 4 pages a day-well, that sucks because you never get anywhere so I didn't get real far.

Started a second reading of Herodotus this week and making a point to read more daily-so far it is going good-but then the first part of the book is a re-read.

Really stoked to see that Landmark just put out (this week) a translation of Xenophon's Anabasis which is a work I want to read and I have been waiting for their edition.

In the mid 90's, I read Donald Kagan's series on the Peloponnesian War-which was my first real dabble into ancient history and opened up a whole new world.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#24 Post by Ritterskoop » Mon Dec 13, 2021 10:36 pm

Stacked up to read between semesters (two more days and I'm done):

Joe Posnanski's book on the 100 best baseball players (he went off and became a star writer for the KC Star, but we were on the Niner Times together for five minutes as students at UNCC. I am sure he does not remember this. When my friend told me about the book, she asked who I thought would be No. 1, and I correctly guessed he would say
Spoiler
Willie Mays
.

Billie Jean King's All In

Simone de Beauvoir's only-recently-published novel Inseparable

Emily Nemens' The Cactus League

Lauren Groff's Matrix
If you fail to pilot your own ship, don't be surprised at what inappropriate port you find yourself docked. - Tom Robbins
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At the moment of commitment, the universe conspires to assist you. - attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

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Re: What Are You Reading?

#25 Post by silverscreenselect » Tue Dec 14, 2021 12:19 am

I know Spock will get a kick out of this one.

One of the sites that sends me emails every day is Open Road Media, which specializes in catalogue titles of well-known authors. They don't have the current best sellers but they have lots of books that were best sellers when originally published 20-80 years ago. Five years ago, they put nearly 5,000 of their titles on Amazon for free one weekend just before Christmas. (Needless to say, I picked up quite a few of those.)

They haven't done anything like that since then, but I got an email from them today advertising that they had over 100 "carefully curated" titles that I could get for $10. I looked at the website and the selection had a lot of quality titles in various genres. Buying this was a two-step process. You first had to buy the discount key for $10, then add the titles to your shopping cart and apply the discount key. But I have a couple of programs that automatically scan for available coupon codes and somehow one of them found a code to get the $10 discount key for free. So I "bought" the discount key for free and then got 107 titles for free (original list price over $1500). In all fairness, Open Road Media usually discounts most of their titles periodically, so if I had been patient, I could probably have gotten most of those titles for $2-3 each.

Some of the titles: North Dallas Forty, Crazy Horse and Custer, The Comedians, The Group, The Late Shift, The Thin Red Line, The Young Lions, The White Album, Life at the Dakota, Casino, Alive.

Somehow, discounts and freebies just happen to find me. I've got a lot of reading material ahead of me.
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