# New Thread: What are you reading?



## TMMKC (Aug 2, 2007)

I'm always looking for good recommendations.

Just finished "How to Be Good" by Nick Hornby (great farce...but because it was recommended by my wife I am now suspicious )

Currently reading "The Man Who Saved Britain: A Personal Journey into the Disturbing World of James Bond" by Simon Winder. It's a fairly interesting telling of the fall of the British Empire and how those events influenced Ian Fleming in his creation of 007.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

Running Board Meetings: How to Get the Most from Them 
and Côte D'Or: A Celebration of the Great Wines of Burgundy (Hardcover)


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## Tom Bell-Drier (Mar 1, 2006)

Sons of Camelot by Laurence Leamer


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## StevenRocks (May 24, 2005)

I just got done reading _Chuck Klosterman IV_ by Chuck Klosterman


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## radix023 (May 3, 2007)

Finished the last Harry Potter book. Now I'm reading "The Children of Hurin" Christopher Tolkien finishing up work started by his father.


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

radix023 said:


> Finished the last Harry Potter book. Now I'm reading "The Children of Hurin" Christopher Tolkien finishing up work started by his father.


Don't bother. It's just an excerpt of the Silmarillion.


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## BertieW (Jan 17, 2006)

Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chesterton's Heretics and Ron Carlson's Five Skies.


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## Gong Tao Jai (Jul 7, 2005)

War-Wasted Asia, a collection of letters sent between a group of Navy interepreters in Asia in the months following Japan's surrender in WW2. 

on the nightstand and waiting to be opened are Africa: a Biography of the Continent and The Forgotten Man, and account of the depression which I am told takes a very critical look at Roosevelt's economic policies.


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## Bob Loblaw (Mar 9, 2006)

Salt
https://www.amazon.com/Salt-World-History-Mark-Kurlansky/dp/0142001619


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## Alistair (Aug 12, 2007)

Leviathan: The History of Whaling in America and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future


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## JRR (Feb 11, 2006)

Have just started these two:

Berlin: A Portrait of Its History, Politics, Architecture, and Society;

https://www.amazon.com/Berlin-Portr...6899124?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187092857&sr=1-1

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance;

https://www.amazon.com/House-Morgan...6899124?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187092915&sr=1-1

Just finished:

The Embarrassment of Riches: An Interpretation of Dutch Culture in the Golden Age;

https://www.amazon.com/Embarrassmen...6899124?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187093063&sr=1-3


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## gnatty8 (Nov 7, 2006)

Business books mainly, Creative Destruction, and Competing on Analytics.


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

Two weeks past, it was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and presently it is "Red Star Rogue" by Kenneth Sewell, with Clint Richmond. Indeed, the truth can be stranger and more alarming than fiction!


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

Now: The End of Faith, by Sam Harris

Just finished: The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger; Icehenge, Kim Stanley Robinson; On Chesil Beach, Ian MacEwan.


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## Albert (Feb 15, 2006)

JRR said:


> Have just started these two:
> 
> Berlin: A Portrait of Its History, Politics, Architecture, and Society;
> 
> ...


Very well done, JRR. Another three points on my to-do-list.


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## Albert (Feb 15, 2006)

At the moment:

"Why Globalization Works" - Martin Wolf

"The Decline of the West" - Oswald Spengler

"Terrorist" - John Updike (didn't start yet)

Cheers,
A.


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## Phinn (Apr 18, 2006)

In reverse order (all recommended):

_Company_, Max Barry (quirky satire of life in the corporate world) (just started it)

Collected short stories of Guy de Maupassant (19th century psychological realist)

_The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, Milan Kundera (about the lives and affairs of a circle of artists and intellectuals in Czechoslovakia)

_Foucault's Pendulum_, Umberto Eco (an odd semi-thriller about 3 editors who get caught up in a conspiracy about the Templars)


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## Karl89 (Feb 20, 2005)

Gents,

After the Reich: The Brutal History of The Allied Occupation by Giles MacDonogh

https://www.amazon.com/After-Reich-...0439214?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187101173&sr=8-1

Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/c...s=books&qid=1187101236&sr=1-1#customerReviews

Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner

https://www.amazon.com/Legacy-Ashes...5663340-0439214?ie=UTF8&qid=1187101236&sr=1-1

Karl


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## JRR (Feb 11, 2006)

Albert said:


> Very well done, JRR. Another three points on my to-do-list.


Thanks Albert.

If you are interested in history esp the American/English connections, Albion's Seed by David Hackett Fischer should also be added to your list:

https://www.amazon.com/Albions-Seed...6899124?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187103792&sr=1-1


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## Wayfarer (Mar 19, 2006)

eagle2250 said:


> Two weeks past, it was "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" and presently it is "Red Star Rogue" by Kenneth Sewell, with Clint Richmond. Indeed, the truth can be stranger and more alarming than fiction!


I did the Potter thing too. Love CostCo book prices


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## egadfly (Nov 10, 2006)

Wilfrid Sheed, _The House That George Built
_
Louis Auchincloss_, The Rector of Justin_

EGF


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## TMMKC (Aug 2, 2007)

Excellent ideas for the next trip to Barnes & Nobel. Also, if you have never gone there, I highly recommend Amazon's used book store. Outstanding deals. Second question....

Does the season dictate what you read? I find myself reading more fiction in the warmer months (usually by the pool with a rum and tonic in hand).


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## Congresspark (Jun 13, 2007)

Some books on Orwell:

Finding George Orwell in Burma

Why Orwell Matters

Inside George Orwell

The first is the most surprising, a travel/journalistic account of contemporary Burma and how it mirrors Orwell's dystopia in _1984_.

Henry Adams and the Making of America

And rereading Douglass Hobbie's novels and Peter Taylor's stories. Hobbie's The Day, which takes place entirely on a Thanksgiving Day visit, is just about my favorite novel of the contemporary middle/upper-middle class. Like Updike, a bit, but more in tune, I think, with contemporary culture and its stresses.


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## eg1 (Jan 17, 2007)

Recently finished Aldous Huxley's _Crome Yellow_ and Evelyn Waugh's _Brideshead Revisited_. In the middle of several right now:

Niall Ferguson's _Colossus_

Aldous Huxley's _Point Counterpoint_

Alistair Horne's _Friend or Foe: An Anglo-Saxon History of France_


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## BertieW (Jan 17, 2006)

Thanks for the Larkin lead. That book on Burma looks quite good.



Congresspark said:


> Some books on Orwell:
> 
> Finding George Orwell in Burma
> 
> ...


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## BPH (Mar 19, 2007)

"Allan Quatermain" by H. Ryder Haggard

Bought the book off ebay (for the huge sum of £1.50) and it dates back to 1888. A proper ripping yarn and its fantastic to see how language has changed with time.

It actually gives me a strange pleasure to be reading an original book that is over 100 years old.


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## 127.72 MHz (Feb 16, 2007)

"While Europe Slept" How Radical Islam is Destroying the West From Within by Bruce Bawer. ISBN 0-385-51472-7 (Doubleday)
An account of an American who has lived in Europe for several years. Bawer paints an alarming picture of a continent in deep trouble and in deeper denial.

"The Private Life of Chairman Mao" by Dr. Li Zhisui. Mao's personal Physician for thirty years writes the most revealing book ever published on Mao, perhaps on any dictator. (Compelling read) ISBN 0-679-40035-4 (Random House)

"Pinocchio Nation" Embracing Truth in a Culture of Lies. by Delvin Donaldson and Steve Wamberg. Many parts of this book will resonate with anyone living in today's world. ISBN 1-57683-224-4 (Pinon Press)

Good thread topic with something for everyone,...

Regards,
Bill
Portland, Oregon


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## Mr. Papa (Jun 15, 2007)

I'm reading _The Deathly Hallows_ with my daughter. I am reading Hobbes' _Leviathan_ to myself, in the manner that one reads to a child. 

Also reading _The Hungarians: A Thousand Years of Victory in Defeat_ by Paul Lendvai. Also, a recent translation of Tolstoy's _Hadji Murad_ translated by Alymer Maude. All good books, but the language in _Leviathan_ is a bit dense to read.


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## Karl89 (Feb 20, 2005)

Mr. Papa,

Sounds like your Hungarian book is written by a confirmed Magyarophile! I have never met a Hungarian who did not insist that both fire and the wheel were invented in Hungary. Poles are the same way. But my observation comes from a rabid apologist of American exceptionalism!

I found Konter's A History of Hungary worth the time.

https://www.amazon.com/History-Hung...5618865?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1187274873&sr=8-1

Still I have a hard time not blaming the Magyars for the Ausgleich and the untimely demise of the Habsburg Empire.

Karl


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## philm (Jun 17, 2007)

I'm reading the copyedit of my book from my publisher before I turn the book over for publication next March. It is entitled _Caution and Cooperation: The American Civil War in British-American Relations_. It is a revision of existing studies of relations in the nineteenth century and specifically during and after the CW.


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## Thracozaag (Sep 5, 2002)

(in addition to futilely trying to cram thousands of notes into my puny brain and fingers)
Non fiction:
Parallel Worlds--Michio Kaku
God is not Good--Christopher Hitchens
The Memoirs of Richard Nixon
Why I Am not a Christian--Betrand Russell

Fiction:
The Reawakening--Primo Levi
The Skylark of Space--ee "doc" Smith
At the Mountains of Madness--H.P. Lovecraft

koji


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## topbroker (Jul 30, 2006)

I'm surprised that this thread didn't entrench itself as a popular one, given that (1) the corresponding threads at Style Forum and The Fedora Lounge are very vigorous, and (2) I'm sure that AAAC members read just as many good books, and have interesting things to say about them. So I'll attempt a thread revival.

I'll start with my own current list of books in progress and recently completed (too many as usual, but hey). The first time I tried posting this, my lengthy notes on each book got swallowed in cyberspace (arggh!!! -- I hate it when that happens). So this time I'll just try the list itself, since I'm not up to re-writing the whole post. I can always say more about the books later.

_FICTION_

Charles Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_
F. Scott Fitzgerald, _Tender Is the Night_
Joshua Ferris, _Then We Came to the End_
Lemony Snicket, _A Series of Unfortunate Events_ 
James Blish, _They Shall Have Stars_
Rex Stout, _The Rubber Band_
Joe Gores, _Interface_
Dorothy B. Hughes, _The Blackbirder_
Georges Simenon, _Dirty Snow _(completed)

_NON-FICTION_

James Harvey, _Movie Love in the Fifties_
Erik Larson, _The Devil in the White City_
Herbert R. Lottman, _Jules Verne_
Louis Menand, _The Metaphysical Club_ (completed)
Daniel Kalder, _Lost Cosmonaut _(completed)


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## Thom Browne's Schooldays (Jul 29, 2007)

Congresspark said:


> Some books on Orwell:
> 
> Finding George Orwell in Burma
> 
> ...


Have you read Crick's Orwell bio?

I'll also recommend Orwell, the transformation.


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## radix023 (May 3, 2007)

Now I'm finishing up with:

The strangling of Persia - W. Morgan Shuster
The First Seven Ecumenical Councils - Leo Donald Davis

Bought the Munger book:

Poor Charlie's Almanack
(can't resist the Buffet stuff)


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## pt4u67 (Apr 27, 2006)

Karl89 said:


> Gents,
> 
> Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna by Adam Zamoyski
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/c...s=books&qid=1187101236&sr=1-1#customerReviews


Great book. Very detailed account of the events and a good study of the characters involved.

I'm now reading Michael Leggiere's The Fall of Napoleon.


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## WhoKnows (May 29, 2007)

I'm getting ready to start reading Good to Great. I have heard it is good, but time will tell.


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## StevenRocks (May 24, 2005)

The latest is Gourmet Shops of New York by Susan Meisel and Nathalie Sann


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## jackmccullough (May 10, 2006)

We just finished A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. Now I'm reading Bridge of Sighs by Richard Russo and The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon.


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## ksinc (May 30, 2005)

My personal bar (the one NOT for guests) is located at the end of my bookshelf in my office. After a recent sentimental journey through the bourbon collection ... I spied my WFB, JR. shelf. I have to admit I was rather 'warm-headed' when I decided that re-reading _Nearer, My God_ was "a neat idea" to quote Col. North. Perhaps I should have waited a year or so, but some things must be seen to the end.


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## TradTeacher (Aug 25, 2006)

Usually, I'm reading several books at a time. However, right now I'm only working on _Gonzo: The Life of Hunter S. Thompson_. Great stories in there.

TT:teacha:


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## eagle2250 (Mar 24, 2006)

For those into biographies, I'm presently reading Schultz and Peanuts by David Michaelis. The biography is as eye opening and informative as was the comic strip so frequentlyfound to deliver a brief life lesson, with a wry smile.


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## topbroker (Jul 30, 2006)

topbroker said:


> So I'll attempt a thread revival.


Thanks for the nice response so far!



> Joshua Ferris, _Then We Came to the End_


I'm midway through this recent acclaimed novel, set in the advertising world during the layoff cycle around 7-8 years ago, and innovatively written in the first person singular ("we" did this and "we" did that). Despite the acclaim, I am uncertain as yet how much this amounts to as a novel. It has a manner, to be sure, a definite bag of tricks, but I'm already feeling that whatever point that manner can make has been made, and there are still 200 pages to go. The lapses in realism seem purposeless, the "characters" are cardboard, and there is no plotting to speak of, only observation. There are funny bits, to be sure, but those are not hard to come up with in depicting the business world.


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## upr_crust (Aug 23, 2006)

*With the other readers' night table selections, I will seem like . . .*

. . . an intellectual lightweight.

The last two books that I have read (or are reading) are "The Letters of Noel Coward", and Farley Granger's biography, a reminiscence (so far - I'm not finished) of the last golden days of the studio system in Hollywood. Coward's letters were, for the most part, witty and upbeat, though a tad precious, at times (especially taken en masse).


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## Howard (Dec 7, 2004)

I've been reading The Newspaper,trying to catch up with what's happening with the news.


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## JayJay (Oct 8, 2007)

WhoKnows said:


> I'm getting ready to start reading Good to Great. I have heard it is good, but time will tell.


It is. Many good points based on decent research are made in the book.


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## TMMKC (Aug 2, 2007)

I am currently finishing "A World Lit Only By Fire" by William Manchester. One of my goals this year is to make my way through Updike's "Rabbit" books.


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## Asterix (Jun 7, 2005)

The Road Less Traveled by Scott Peck.


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## topbroker (Jul 30, 2006)

*Fiction Round-Up*

As usual, I've got a whole mini-library of books going at once, but I did finish three of my novels in progress within the last few days:

Charles Dickens, _Martin Chuzzlewit_ -- What a great book! (I say that after every Dickens novel I read.)

Dorothy B. Hughes, _The Blackbirder_ -- This reads like a Forties thriller that was made into a movie -- which happened with other Hughes titles, but not this one. It would *still* make a good movie; Angelina Jolie, take note. The weakness (unsurprisingly in this genre) is the characterization; but I was sufficiently impressed to want to take a look at other Hughes novels.

James Blish, _They Shall Have Stars_ -- The characterization is also the weakness in this classic science fiction novel, the first in Blish's _Cities in Flight_ tetralogy. Am I in for the long haul? Probably: I was on the fence about this novel, but it was (partially) redeemed by a surprise conclusion that pulled everything together. It is, I think, axiomatic that classic science fiction is more reflective of the past it was written in than the future it projects; more so than some fiction, it needs to be read historically.

My comments about characterization in the two genre novels should perhaps be understood in context; when you are reading Dickens and Fitzgerald at the same time as you are reading other novels, that tends to throw certain of those other novels' shortcomings into high relief. 

I am still working on:

Joshua Ferris, _Then We Came to the End_ -- ...which the library keeps taking back because it's on hold! I'll finish it one of these days. As I've mentioned before, I think it's a pretty marginal performance despite its acclaim.

Rex Stout, _The Rubber Band_ -- Stout is an example of a "genre author" whose sheerly literary talents, including characterization, prose, and so on, require no apologies at all.

Joe Gores, _Interface_ -- Tough-ass book. Gores's prose seems derivative of better noir and hard-boiled novelists; but I'll withhold judgement on the whole performance for now.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, _Tender Is the Night_ -- More about this later. A rich book.

With room opened up by the three completions, I plan to start Anthony Trollope's _Can You Forgive Her?_, the first in the Palliser series; and I've got a number of other novels at the ready. Yesterday I started:

John Braine, _Room at the Top_ -- Having just seen (and loved) the 1959 film version with Laurence Harvey and Simone Signoret (both brilliant), I had a strong urge to familiarize myself with the novel. It reads very companionably; I'm going to like it.

Alan Moore/Eddie Campbell, _From Hell_ -- I like to have a graphic novel in progress, and Ripperologist that I am, I've been meaning to get to this one for years.

I'll get to my non-fiction reading in progress in another post.


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## topbroker (Jul 30, 2006)

*Non-Fiction Round-Up*

Still making my way through several books I've mentioned before (I think):

James Harvey, _Movie Love in the Fifties_

Erik Larson, _The Devil in the White City_

Herbert R. Lottman, _Jules Verne_ -- This holds every promise of being an exceptional biography. Superbly written.

I've added a couple in recent days:

Kenneth Clark, _The Gothic Revival_ -- Yes, the Kenneth Clark of _Civilisation_ fame; this was his first book, as a 26-year old in 1929. He was a brilliant young man, of that there is no question.

Barbara Tuchman, _The Guns of August_ -- Celebrated account of the opening month of World War I.

I need to add some short fiction, drama, poetry, and philosophy into my current reading mix, and have plans to do so.


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