What Are You Reading?

[Spock]

Been awhile since I have seen this done here.

EBook
1) "The Black Swan"-Malcolm Gladwell fans might like this one.

2) "The Madagaskar Plan"-2nd book of alt-history set in Nazi-controlled Africa.

Hard copy
1) "The Second World Wars" by Victor Davis Hanson. Not a basic narrative of the war, offers more analysis.

2) "Wildlife at War in Angola"-Heartbreaking, as are (almost) all conservation discussions in Africa. Author was involved in conservation in the very last years of Portuguese control and thus has longstanding knowledge of the Angolan situation. A slow read, but I am savoring every page. Never knew that a discussion of the difference between "sweet veldt" and "sour veldt" would prove so interesting and fill in a gap of knowedge that answered some of my longstanding questions.

Just for fun
1) "Royal Flash"-the second Flashman novel. Recently listened to "The Prisoner of Zenda" which was based on Flashman's experience in the Duchy of Strackenz and it had been awhile since I read it.

[MarkBarrett]

Kindergarten class mom says it all. It's by wife of Michael Gelman the EP of Live with Kelly & Ryan.
The other one is a mom who embezzles a small fortune from her children's private school and makes a run for it.

[Vandal]

Currently:



Recently finished:

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

War at the End of the World
Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea 1942-1945
by James P. Duffy

Everything you didn't know about New Guinea in WWII

The Short Drop (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Matthew FitzSimmons (available on Kindle Unlimited)

[Spock]

War at the End of the World
Douglas MacArthur and the Forgotten Fight for New Guinea 1942-1945
by James P. Duffy

Everything you didn't know about New Guinea in WWII

The Short Drop (The Gibson Vaughn Series Book 1) Kindle Edition
by Matthew FitzSimmons (available on Kindle Unlimited)

"War at the End of the World" is somewhere near the top of my TBR (To Be Read) pile.

Some may enjoy this post (and the comment thread) over on Frontier Partisans-The only other site I am active on.

BTW, I am "Breaker Morant" there.

https://frontierpartisans.com/12243/bre ... k-budgets/

>>>"Now we know what Frontier Partisans correspondent Breaker Morant’s nickname is REALLY all about. His namesake got the moniker for his skill at breaking rough horses; OUR Breaker is a Breaker of Book Budgets."<<<

[Ritterskoop]

David Papineau
Knowing the Score
what sports can teach us about philosophy
(and what philosophy can teach us about sports)

English dude uses mostly cricket and baseball, and some soccer, to work through questions about morality. I've always loved about sport that it can be practice for real life, and does indeed allow us to work stuff out with often smaller consequences.

Recommended by our own kayrharris.

[kroxquo]

Where Nobody Knows Your Name by John Feinstein. Bestseller a few years back that I am just now getting around to. Fascinating look at life for players, coaches, managers, and even umpires in Minor League baseball.

[Spock]

I started keeping tracks of books read about 10 years ago. I am really happy I did that.

I have read 120 books this year (so far) which was kind of my goal. That is the most in a year since I started keeping track. Shoot for the same next year-hopefully more if I could limit wasted internet time.

My really bad habit is to read a lot of books at one time. I have 6 going right now. I like to have 2 e-books going-a non-fiction type and a funner one-read a chapter of each in sequence.

4 analog books going is a little extreme, even for me. The fun part of that is that sometimes I can finish 3 or 4 books the same day as they all wind down towards the end.

The book(s) that I am happiest to have read this year are the Bartle Bull trilogy (Novels set in Africa post WW1 to WW2) and the 4 Richard Hannay novels by John Buchan.

Nonfiction-"Terrible Justice" on the Missouri River Sioux as it filled a gap.

I simply can not understand people (in their 40's or whatever) who proudly say they have not read a book since high school.

[T_Bone0806]

I've also been pouring through my comic book archives alphabetically, having managed to replace most of it that was lost in that damn flood a decade ago (although most of the earlier items were replaced by reissues and paperback collections..the originals would be way too expensive). Next up is:






I will never be one of those "intellectual readers". At least I do still read the newspaper every day. In PRINT, no less. And NOT just for the sports and funnies. That should count for something.

[Bob Juch]

I got this for my 13 year old step-daughter for Christmas. She loves it.

Max Brooks is Mel's son.

[danielh41]

I enjoyed The Martian so much that I got Andy Weir's new book Artemis for Christmas. I'm about 50 pages into it now.

[Spock]

Just finished "Memory of Trees:A Daughter's Story of a Family Farm"" by Gayla Marty. She is a little older than me, but she catches the lost small family farm world of my youth as well as anything I have read.

The saddest thing to me in the book, that most readers will not catch, is that her parents and uncle sold the farm, at fairly young ages in 1991. Financially, they did not have to sell, but they sold at (basically) the lowest price time is decades. If they had just hung onto it for a few more years, they would have gotten a lot more for the farm.
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I am not counting this as a book that I am reading, but (channelling Wintergreen) I have been intrigued by Robert B. Strassler and his Landmark series of classics ever since I first read of him.

https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2007/0129 ... 3a32e257a5

I am trying his Thucydides and have it setting by my paperwork pile and have a goal over the winter of reading at least 2 pages a day.

So far (at page 32) it is a lighter read than I thought it might be and have done probably 6 pages a day (2 at a time).

If I continue the series next year-maybe Herodotus or I see they have Julius Caeser's stuff out.