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 Post subject: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 06:56pm 

What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation Of America, 1815-1848 by Daniel Walker Howe and some Science Fiction anthology... somehwere for me.

What are you reading right now?

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 07:23pm 

The Grapes of Wrath by Steinbeck, of all things, on a rec from my best friend. It's funnier than I expected.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 07:31pm 

I think I added What Hath God Wrought to my Amazon.com wish list after it came up on said website at a recommendation based on what I already read. I am wondering, though, what you think of it so far?

Anyways, I just finished reading Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. This book is about the history of the Mormon faith. I was somewhat surprised by how much religious violence had been going on through the 1800s up to the 1900s between Mormons and what said people refer to as "Gentiles" (aka everyone else); there were atrocities committed on both sides. The book goes back and fourth between talking about the history of the Mormons and talking about the story behind the recent murder of a wife and child carried out by Dan and Ron Lafferty, two members of a fundamentalist strand of Mormonism. I got the 2004 edition, so it includes, in the appendix, the official response to the book by the Mormon church, and Krakauer's response to the Mormon church. The book is almost 400 pages, but it is a page-turner for sure. I would say that despite how critical Krakaeur is towards Mormonism, he tries to be even-handed, making sure to distinguish between mainstream Mormons and the fundamentalist strands, and using respected sources. His very inspiration for making this book came out of his experience living amongst Mormons and wanting to learn more about the faith.

Right now, I am reading William H. McNeill's Plagues and Peoples. I found out about this book because of Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. Diamond, in his "Further Readings" section of his book, refers to McNeill and his book thusly (ellipses mine): "... written by a distinguished historian rather than by a physician,...especially influential in bringing historians to recognize the impacts of disease... [p. 477]". He also ranks it one of the "Three classic accounts of disease in history [p. 476]."

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 07:42pm 

Conqueror's Pride, by Timothy Zahn.

I found it while unpacking and realized I had never read it.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 07:43pm 

I literally just got it from the library about an hour ago, so I haven't really begun to read it yet. I'm going to read the first two-ish chapters tonight, though, so I'll get back to you about it.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 08:49pm 

I'm going to have to read that as well - I just finished re-reading Guns, Germs, and Steel. I might re-read Collapse as well.

Other than that, I'm out of new books. I need to make another trip to the library.

Fiction-wise, I just finished China Mieville's Iron Council (nowhere near as good as Perdido Street Station), and I'm waiting on Joe Abercrombie's Best Served Cold.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 08:50pm 

I'm reading you being a retard.

Oh you mean books? I just finished Churchill's WW1 expansion pack; the Eastern Front. Gallipoli ass-covering aside it's a funny book.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 08:56pm 

That was uncalled for right there mister.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:19pm 

The First World War by John Keagan. I've read it through before but I still find it just an engrossing read even if, by its very nature, it cannot delve deeply into the course of the war but rather treats it in larger thematic strokes.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:26pm 

The Eye of the World by Robert Jordan

My friends have been trying to get me to start the Wheel of Time series forever, I finally caved in.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:27pm 

Your doing it wrong, it's supposed to be VENDETTA!!!!!

I'm still slogging through The Caine Mutiny and the Deathstalker series.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:28pm 

I have not read Collapse, but that is also on my wish list. How did that book compare to Guns, Germs, and Steel? Was it as eye-opening? Well written? Far reaching in its implications? Any comparative analysis you may care to provide I would be very interested in reading.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:32pm 

Collapse is hilarious, but may not appear so if you're looking for 'eye opening' or 'well written'.

Kendall, is Keegan's WW1 stuff any good? His tone often makes my teeth itch, but he's a good historian.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:38pm 

Hope you like the first book, because it goes downhill from their, quality-wise.

I'm reading Machiavelli's The Prince, and Ron Paul's The Revolution.*



*No, I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, but my cousin is and he talked me into reading it. I agreed, figuring that I could better argue against Paul's positions having read his arguments firsthand.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:42pm 

I think your confusing me with CmdrWilkens my good man.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:44pm 

Holy shit that's embarrassing. I actually thought it was Wilkens, then scrolled back up to see the first military chap and decided it must have been you. :S Damn quick reply.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 10:45pm 

The Racial state Germany 1933-1945 by Michael Burleigh, I'm not sure how i feel about it yet

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-17 11:45pm 

Most of my books are in boxes right now, but The Collected Stories of Arthur C. Clarke isn't. Mostly because it lives in my bathroom.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 02:28am 

Yeah, I was just thinking "Vendetta!!!"... by Peter David. It's a pretty good book.

So, how are the Deathstalker and Caine Mutiny series? I'm thinking of getting them eventually.

Right now, I'm jumping around between Something from the Nightside by Simon Green, Shadow and Claw by Gene Wolfe, Deadhouse Gates by Erickson (Malazan won my recent "what should I read?" poll, but I still have trouble getting into it), Dragonslayer by William King (re-reading for some laughs, actually), Sperm Wars by Robin Baker (nonfiction, but still very disturbing ), and Age of Ra by somebody or other. The only reason I'm still picking up Age of Ra every now and then is because it is so bad that it's hilarious, like a Steven Seagal movie. Imagine if Dale Brown wrote some bad Stargate fanfiction, and you'd be pretty close.

I also plan to add The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein pretty soon. Also, The Big Cats and their Fossil Relatives by Mauricio Anton. His book about the evolutionary history of dogs was amazing, so I want to read more. Also, I plan to buy Space Hulk: the Novel just for shits and giggles.

Because of my schedule and where I work, I tend to have books stashed away in different places so that I can read anywhere I get bored.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 03:57am 

Just finished Wicked and am probably going to start reading To Kill a Mockingbird on a recommendation from a friend.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 04:18am 

Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader: An Inside Look at North Korea

It's a really good read.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 04:44am 

Deadhouse Gates by Steven Erikson, that being the second in the Malazan Book of the Fallen series.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 06:19am 

The Caine Mutiny is excellent if a tad boring at times, if Wouk's intention was to portray the sheer boredom and tedium of military life then he succeeded. It's also a good look at how the Navy operates, I'm told most of it is still relevant today.

The Deathstalker series is good for pulp sci-fi/fantasy. Green seems to suffer from a lack of imagination when writing combat scenes though, practically everyone of them has the lines "fought back to back" and you can predict the outcome in advance, "the Rebels use their Maze given gifts to win the day". It's still entertaining though.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 06:59am 

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas (Translated by Lord Sudley) Oddly enough the only people with muskets are the servants.

 Post subject: Re: What are you reading right now?

Posted: 2009-08-18 07:59am 

Pretty sure I've read some trashy crime novels since, but the last books I read and actually savored were Guy Rundle's Down at the Crossroads and Don Watson'sAmerican Journeys. Rundle wrote for a variety of Australian media outlets on the US election (mainly Crikey) and it's a collection of that work. It can get a tad repetitive at times but there's a lot of energy in the writing and he paints some pretty tragic pictures at times. If nothing else I enjoyed it for the contrast it provided to here, where I got most of my election commentary. Rundle was actually pretty scathing of the way Obama handled the contest, which was about the polar opposite of opinion here.

It was good reading American Journeys in tandem with it; Watson's take is far more thoughtful and probably more powerful, existing as it does outside election hysteria. Reading them at the same time was also well worth it, because the same imagery and ideas on American life kept on cropping up in both. I'd recommend them to readers in the US for that reason alone, in their own way both are pretty scathing commentaries on modern America.