reading

[Uncle Jesse]

What are you guys reading these days? I'm working my way through the Dune books, starting with the prequels written by Brian Herbert and Kevin Anderson. I read all six of those and I'm working my way through Frank Herbert's six originals. I'm reading Children of Dune at the moment.

Can't wait to get to the final two books which were written by Brian and Kevin but are taken from the original notes for "Dune 7" written by Frank Herbert before his death.

[HookLine]

'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich', by William L. Shirer.

Not for the faint hearted, both in size and content.

I also read any 'Scientific American' and 'New Scientist' I can get my hands on, usually have half a dozen on hand in the toilet to help pass the, umm, time.

Not a big fan of fiction anymore. Read heaps of it when I was younger, but these days I prefer reality - science, history, biography, etc.

I also read less these days and watch more. I love Channel BT.

[Uncle Jesse]

haven't read Rise and Fall but I read Rocker's "Nationalism and Culture" which is a great read, and I've read a lot of books on tactic. Liddell Hart's book in particular was a fun read. After I finish the Dune series I'm going to read Guderian's memoirs. After having read so much history and philosophy I've taken a 2 year hiatus to re-read sci-fi stuff.

[smokerscully1]

Non-fiction--"Guns, Germs and Steel" by Dr Jared Diamond--best book I ever read--also just finished "Collapse"--same guy--not as interesting but worth the read.
Fiction-- Stephen Hunter--"The Vanising Point" or something like that they made a movie about it which was terrible called "Shooter"--really good book but really lousy movie.

[punkin]

Lost mt reading time when i discovered the internet a few years back. Went from three or four books and a couplea magazines a week to maybe one magazine. The toilet and the tub is the only time i get to read nowadays, tween the distilling, the net, and renovating a house...i rarely start a book and haven't been to the library in years...









WishIWasATwinSometimesPunkin

[SpiritSprite]

I just finished Native Son by Richard Wright and have another Vonnegut to start (I forget the title of it though). I think this may be one of the last ones of Kurt's I haven't read yet which makes me sad.

[blanikdog]

Shit, what a difficult question, UJ. I read every day!! Our home library has around two thousand books ranging from Tolstoy to Tom Sharp; Archaeology to English Literature/Poetry as they are our trades. And, I visit the library on a weekly basis. My favourite book is "War and Peace" - I fell in love with Natasha.

I've read most of Margaret Atwoods work but have been a little disappointed with her most recent stuff, but I will continue to read her. I read Sharp when I want a laugh. He's a great writer of 'intellectual' humour. Very clever writer.

I've also read a lot of Hermann Hesse'e work, my favourite being "The Glass Bead Game" which I have read several times. I'll often read a good book several times.

We very seldom read local newspapers but subscribe to "The Guardian Weekly" for world news. A bit left I agree but one has to be what one has to be.

My favourite Australian writer is Tom Keneally, but I just can't stand Patrick White although he is a great speaker.

I guess I'm what one would call a very catholic reader.

blanik

[madscientist]

Not sure if you have picked it up yet but this is a good one, how about Richard Friedman "The World is Flat"
Half.com has it cheap
http://product.half.ebay.com/The-World- ... 4QQtgZinfo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow
good read on the changing of the world.

Also read this book on DMT and death experiences very interesting but quasi dry .

http://product.half.ebay.com/Dmt_W0QQpr ... 7QQtgZinfo" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

Yea I am a drunk with a nerdiness habit.
But if it makes you feel any better I am also a frank hubert fan and read most of the dune series when working on my MA between term papers.

[MountedGoat]

Just finished Enders Game by Orson Scott Card for the second time in 15 years. Have the second in the series, Speaker for the Dead, just haven't gotten into it. Like Punkin, since the internet came about my reading has dropped. Now the only time I read a book is on a plane, vacation or when my eyes tire of various screens (TV, Computer...). Just grabbed an Organic Gardening book though about how to make like a hippy and plant a garden sans chemicals. I live in a great local for gardening, just have so many hippies around that you have to find out ways to blend in without killing my tomatoes...

Just had a frost in fact that knocked out half of my mater plants...

Cheers,
M

[madscientist]

Just finished Enders Game by Orson Scott Card for the second time in 15 years. Have the second in the series, Speaker for the Dead, just haven't gotten into it.

I had to read that for an educational gaming class, cool story but also really applicable to education in a lot of ways.

Never knew there was a continuing story may have to read the rest.

[blanikdog]

[quote="MountedGoat"]Just grabbed an Organic Gardening book though about how to make like a hippy and plant a garden sans chemicals. I live in a great local for gardening, just have so many hippies around that you have to find out ways to blend in without killing my tomatoes... /quote]

Way to go!!!

blanik

[Tater]

Liked the Dune books and Foundation . Stranger in a strange land also a favorite.Dont seem to read much as I use to either.

[Bob E]

I started The Price of Glory by Alistair Horne. And haven't made much progress with it, but it's proving how ignorant I am about WWI.
I was given a copy of Unstoppable Global Warming by S. Fred Singer and Dennis T. Avery the other day. Pretty interesting concentration of weather history supporting a 1,500 year climate fluctuation that may have more to do with current warming trends than greenhouse gasses...
I'm also in the middle of a bunch of reserch papers on CO2 scrubbers.
I subscribe to "Brew Your Own" and "Hot Rod" I also get the free "Off-Road Adventures" magazine from 4 Wheel Parts.

[HookLine]

I ain't gonna get into an argument here about this issue, cause this is not the forum for it, there are plenty of science forums where this stuff is thrashed to death,... but I'd take anything S. Fred Singer says with a very large grain of salt.

[mikeac]

Looking at 1500 years is far to short a time scale to interpret global weather histories. Ice core samples give us data a hundred times farther into the past. It's scary if you take a look at the data.

Huge fan of anything fiction myself, I get far to much reality from my physics text books (almost done the BSc though and then I can get back to reading what I enjoy) So I am currently reading a book on optics and another on classical mechanics. Would rather be reading somthing by Terry Pratchet, or (being a real geek here I know) some of the star wars books. Also loved all JRR Tolkens work long before they turned into movies and everyone decided to love them too.

[pintoshine]

Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers.
Working on the Halo series and the really old Stainless Steel Rat books.

[GingerBreadMan]

I enjoy light science/history reading. James Burke's Connections was a fun read.

I now have Theories for Everything - National Geographic at my bed side

[blanikdog]

[quote="mikeac"] Would rather be reading somthing by Terry Pratchet, or (being a real geek here I know) ..../quote]


Not the pnly geek, mikeac. I love Pratchet almost as much as Tom Sharpe.


Blanik

[Uncle Jesse]

Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers.
Working on the Halo series and the really old Stainless Steel Rat books.

Funny Pintoshine, I read Ringworld, Ringworld Engineers, Ringworld Throne and Ringworld's Children last year. Also read The Mote in God's Eye and The Gripping Hand when I was going through a bunch of Niven.

[Uncle Jesse]

Well I'm off the sci-fi kick. I met an old timer who served under Patton as a tank gunner in France, Germany and Bavaria. He was a pretty interesting guy and loaned me a few books. First one I read was about U.S. Submarines in the Pacific in WW2. Now I'm working my way through the 2nd of two books on Gettysburg, both very good books.

[heynonny]

Try reading 'Crime and Punishment' by Dostoevski. This is slow reading but a good story, once you get used to all the nicknames are the same person. Also, you are really into it if you catch when the sun rises twice on the same day.

Try 'Shock' by R Matthesin (?) a book of short stories, very good Several movies made from this book.

'The Revolt of the Angels' and 'Penguin Island' especially, by Anatole France
heynonny

[Hack]

I just finished "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" and "Way of the Peaceful Warrior" in the last month. I've just started "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight" by Vladimir Nabokov. I picked this up almost at random to try something different. I've just discovered Terry Pratchett in the last couple years and have been reading everything by him I can find. I've read alot of how-to books lately, but really enjoy good fiction as well. I've also been getting more and more into reading philosophy in the last few years.

[punkin]

I'll have to revisit the Zen book, haven't read it since i was sixteen or seventeen. i'd probably grasp a bit more nowadays. Nothing makes you grin like Pratchet, unless it's frank Herbet.

[Butch50]

The History of Philosophy. Pretty interesting but slow at times. I read a couple of chapters, put it down an polish off a good old murder mystery, then pick it back up.

I agree with the conclusion that most of the old philosophers came to: The only thing that history really teaches us is that man never learns from history.

[Uncle Jesse]

Never read any of Tolstoy's fiction. I've read his non-fiction stuff though. Confession, What Then Should We Do? and The Kingdom of God is Within You.

I'm about half way through this excellent book on Gettysburg. After that I've got one on Chickamauga to read.

[madscientist]

Just finished "A Madman Dreams of Turing Machines" a fiction that covers Turing and Godel and their ideas. Really good read but kind of heady, covers determinism and their theories that all cannot be known mathematically. Overall really a new neat novel.

[Selby]

How can any home distiller with the internet find time to read ? Iused to read in bed but now I'm flat out keeping up with my podcasts instead. Selby

[HookLine]

How can any home distiller with the internet find time to read ? Iused to read in bed but now I'm flat out keeping up with my podcasts instead. Selby

He he he. I got the same problem. Virtually all my reading these days is on the net.

[theholymackerel]

I mostly read non-fiction. When I do read fiction it's mostly Sci-Fi.

What I've been readin' the last five or six weeks has happened to me unplanned. I was re-visitin' Yeats a while back. (Tread softly because you tread on my dreams. -- W.B. Yeats from "He Wishes For the Cloths of Heaven") I thought this time around how he reminded me of a fancified spouter of Psalms and Proverbs. Which lead me to re-read a few of my favorite Psalms.

Then I was readin' ALOT of South Western US history. The Mormons were comin' up over and over, and it all didn't seem to fit right and make sense. So I asked a Mormon neighbor of mine if they had a spare book of mormon. She was quite happy to give me a copy. That was my next read and it helped me get a grip on the hatred that Americans had for them in New England, then in the Mid West back in the early 1800's. Basically it had alot to do with their Pro-Indian stance, and a tiny bit to do with their Pro-Jewish stance, it seemed to me.

A Muslim friend of mine (from Georgia in the former Soviet Union) caught me readin' The Book of Mormon and told me if I could read that, I could read the Koran. He gave me a very nice leather bound copy. It wasn't what I expected. It was beautiful and almost poetic. It left me feelin' very positive and lovin' twords other people. All I can say is that the negative things that the Western Culture programs us to to think and feel about Muslims has nothin' to do with that beautiful book.

Well, a hippy friend caught me readin' the Koran, so she brought me three small volumes of selected readin's from The Vedas and the Upanishads. At times it was a bit Declamitory, like parts of the early Old Testament, but mostly it was nice if a bit "alien" and hard for me to get a grip on. One of the small volumes I did like more than the others, but it had alot of selections that were sensual and sexual. Neither here, nor there, but fun that it is considered "Holy".

I've been too busy the last week or more to read. Any suggestions on what to read next?

[madscientist]

Any suggestions on what to read next?

give this a try to put all of that stuff in perspective.
http://www.amazon.com/Great-Transformat ... dpp_ttl_in" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow