What are you reading?

Me | 12/21/05 | Darkwolf377

[Darkwolf377]

Anyone reading anything good?

[Darkwolf377]

I'm loving audio books on my walks. I've listened to McMurtry's "Duane's Depressed" numerous times--it's a slow, reflective book and it's like walking around with an old friend.

[Darkwolf377]

I liked the intro to the Gaiman book, but don't want to get influenced (I write and sell short fantastic fiction, too).

[GretchenM]

No need to be snarky.

I have responded with actual factual data on many such threads but for some reason your thread title hit me funny.

Maybe you could have a beer or something.

[Darkwolf377]

I see, you were snarky, but others who respond in kind hurt your widdle feewings.

Fine, your intelligent additions to the thread have been noted.

Don't go away mad, just go away.

[GretchenM]

If you can't tell the difference between silly and snarky, I am at a loss to know what on earth I could say to you.

[paulat]

Please stop. This is a very nice, informative thread. Gretchen...you made an irritatingly obvious joke. Dark...you are being a bit pissy. You posted a good idea...why don't we keep it that way.

[Darkwolf377]

I'm trying to.

[Darkwolf377]

Try "nothing".

[Northern Alliance]

I can't make up my mind which Griffin series I liked better - "The Corps" or "Brotherhood of War"

They're very close. That's part of what makes Griffin so unusual and appealing. Although most of the books in both series is are sort of similar, he does not get boring or repetitious.

Thanks for the leads.

[johnny7]

It was Connell's book that piqued my interest on Custer and the Battle of the Little Bighorn. I found it a pleasure to read.

Manchester's dripped with the knowledge of experience... he had been there/done that.

[7thson]

I am going on vacation tomorrow - CanCun. I have four books. On the way down, I plan on reading Forever Odd by Dean Koontz and finish Black Rednecks, White Liberals by Thomas Sowell. While down there and relaxing either on the beach or poolside, I will read the John Adams bio by McCollough. On the trip back up, I plan on reading Unhinged by Michelle Malkin. Since I mentioned her name, someone should post a picture.

[GodBlessRonaldReagan]

If you like Niven and Pournelle,don't sleep on Lucifer's Hammer!

It's on my list, with about 500 other books! :)

[tioga]

Hostage to the Devil by Malachi Martin.

[wardaddy]

Battle by some historian called Grant.

[razorback-bert]

In Quicksilver, the first volume of the "Baroque Cycle," Neal Stephenson launches his most ambitious work to date. The novel, divided into three books, opens in 1713 with the ageless Enoch Root seeking Daniel Waterhouse on the campus of what passes for MIT in eighteenth-century Massachusetts. Daniel, Enoch's message conveys, is key to resolving an explosive scientific battle of preeminence between Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz over the development of calculus. As Daniel returns to London aboard the Minerva, readers are catapulted back half a century to recall his years at Cambridge with young Isaac. Daniel is a perfect historical witness. Privy to Robert Hooke's early drawings of microscope images and with associates among the English nobility, religious radicals, and the Royal Society, he also befriends Samuel Pepys, risks a cup of coffee, and enjoys a lecture on Belgian waffles and cleavage-—all before the year 1700.

The book courses with Stephenson's scholarship but is rarely bogged down in its historical detail. Stephenson is especially impressive in his ability to represent dialogue over the evolving worldview of seventeenth-century scientists and enliven the most abstruse explanation of theory. Though replete with science, the novel is as much about the complex struggles for political ascendancy and the workings of financial markets.

[beebuster2000]

bump for later

[Aquinasfan]

Basic logic: The fundamental principles of formal deductive reasoning; The Question of God: C.S. Lewis and Sigmund Freud Debate God, Love, Sex, and the Meaning of Life; What the Great Philosophers Thought About God; The Summa Theologica; The Brothers Karamazov.

The Lewis/Freud book isn't very interesting, except for displaying Freud's ignorance regarding religion. Reading the Summa is a constant, ongoing project. It's hard to imagine a better novel than "Brothers." All other novels seem very shallow in comparison.

[ReignOfError]

George Washington is absolutely hands-down the greatest founding father and my true hero!!! John Adams is a close second. Thomas Jefferson was an eloquent writer and did many good things--but he was also THE original "limousine liberal".

Agreed across the board. One of the things I remember most from the Adams bio was the sharp contrast between Adams and Jefferson -- both great men, both nominally farmers, but Jefferson never got his hands dirty while Adams spent his time out of government service moving rocks and building fences. Adams was the classic example of the frugal Yankee, while Jefferson lived and died in debt.

And Washington ... it's too easy to place too much importance on one man in turbulent times, but in Washington's case it's wholly deserved.

From keeping the army together during the war to keeping the army from revolting afterward to keeping the various factions from splitting apart in the first years of the Republic, Washington carried the whole burden on his shoulders. Without Washington there would be no USA as we know it.

[RooRoobird14]

"From keeping the army together during the war to keeping the army from revolting afterward to keeping the various factions from splitting apart in the first years of the Republic, Washington carried the whole burden on his shoulders. Without Washington there would be no USA as we know it."

Well said! And on top of that, Washington was the only Founding Father who owned slaves and freed them in his will.

I would have loved to have been Washington's adjutant general or aide-de-camp (Of course, chicks weren't allowed to do that kind of stuff then. LOL)

[RooRoobird14]

LOL, I liked the hairy-Frenchman-freak Cornwell books. But that's just me :)