FR Book Club: What's on your Summer Reading List?

June 17, 2005

[Tanniker Smith]

The Free Republic Book Club is an informal gathering of readers and lovers of all genre of books, which meets on an irregular basis (whenever I remember to post and have a copy of the ping list available.)

If you would like to be on this ping list, please send me mail and I'll include you. If you wish to be removed, please send mail. If you already sent me mail wishing to be removed and you were pinged anyway, oops, my apologies, please request again (sorry about that).

Today's topic: what's on your summer reading list? Whether you are going on vacation, sitting on the beach or just hanging out on your front porch, there's usually a good novel nearby. Any particular plans or will it be a more serendipitous approach?

[AppyPappy]

It was chock full of music theory that I didn't understand. There weren't as many stories as I would have liked. If you're a Deadhead, you'll like it a lot better. He comes off as an everyday joe that was in the right place at the right time.

[Physicist]

Just started The Star Chamber by W. Harrison Ainsworth. I have a hardcover, but anyone can download it for free.

Bibliopath ping.

[sauropod]

Precisely.

Contrast that with today's fifth columnists (antiwar left).

We could lose this war too.

[retrokitten]

Friday Silliness Thread Here ya go!

[Lemondropkid31]

The Narnia series is wonderful!!!! I loved those books. Another series I loved, especially as a kid, was the Black Stallion series. I still read those.

[Crawdad]

That was the first of his books I read, and it got me hooked. I read all the books on the war in the 1880's and I've read the first two on the "Great War" in the 1910's. It's hard, being from the South, when I tell people what they're about (the South wins the Civil War) because they think I'm some kind of politically incorrect racist, but the books are about far more than the South winning that war.

[Lemondropkid31]

Can I be added to this ping? I am having fun here

[Darkwolf377]

Give Island of Dr. Moreau a shot--probably the most enjoyable read of HGW's.

Been reading a lot this month:

Before We Get Started-Bret Lott, interesting thoughts about a writer's life

A Window Across the River-Brian Morton, a "New Yorker" kind of story, i.e. two people in love in New York THINK about being in love in New York, and nothing much happens, but well-written

So Many Books, So Little Time-Sara Nelson, a fun little book about the books one woman read in a year

Misunderestimated-Bill Sammon, some good anecdotes about post-9-11 GWB, but a lot of flab

Another Bull**** Night in Suck City-Nick Flynn, a memoir about a guy who worked in a Boston homeless shelter and what happened when his father showed up as a client

Green Shadows, White Whale-Ray Bradbury, about making the film of Moby Dick in Ireland; mostly about Ireland, not much about movie making

I AM Alive and You Are Dead-Emmanuel Carrere, about the sad life of writer Phillip K. Dick

Citizen Hughes-Michael Drosnin, about the last years of Howard Hughes.

The Painted Word-Tom Wolfe, excellent assassination of the New York art world

Tales From Development Hell-David Hughes, about how some movies don't get made

American Quest-Jack Barth, about several "quests" the writer makes, such as retracing the path of the heroes of "Easy Rider"

A Heritage of Stars" by CLifford Simak, excellent "rural" science fiction

In case you're wondering, I recently found so many books I'd bought but hadn't read that I have banned myself from buying anymore until I read all the unread ones; we're talking hundreds, so I have a lot to read!

[SpookBrat]

Please add me to your ping list. I love to read.

Xzins, did you start a book thread years ago? I thought that was you who did that.

[WI Conservative 4 Bush]

Heck,

Ping me baby one more time, once is never enough...

Thanks!

[SpookBrat]

That one is on my list.

[GOPJ]

And now I'm reading "What the Numbers Say" Excellent read - I recommend it instead of "Freakenomics" which sucks.

I agree. Freakenomics was a disappointment.

[eleni121]

Slouching Towards Bethlehem - Joan Didion

I've been meaning to read this for a long time.

[Fury]

Ping for further read...

[what's up]

Working my way thru some of Jean Plaidy's novels about Henry II and Henry VI. Easiest and softest way of learning English history that I know of.

Also reading "The Italian Renaissance" by J. H. Plumb.

Just started "Treason" by Ann Coulter as well.

I'm looking for a good book on WWI. I know very little about the time. I want to find a book that is not too technical with the details, but accurate about the causes and dynamics of the war; not a revisionist thing.

[7thson]

I am now reading Levin's Men In Black. Recently, I finished Dean Koontz's latest book titled Velocity. That was a good read but he has done better. Waiting in the wings are Cracking The Millionaire's Code by Mark Victor Hansen and Robert G. Allen, Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential by Joel Osteen, and The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.

I have read three by Wells - extremely dry reading and very hard to get through.

[GOPJ]

Please add me to your bookclub ping list. Thanks.

[henkster]

I put 18 history books on my Father's day list. Everything from "To Rule the Waves" (a history of the Royal Navy) to "Twilight of the Hapsburgs" to "What Stalin Knew" (Stalin's failure to prepare or react to the German invasion of 1941). Hope to get about four of the listed books. One will be excellent beach fare this July.

I devour about a dozen fairly thick history books annually. Lately I've been concentrating on the origins of World War 1.

[oblomov]

Thanks. I credit the aging of the population, the mostly booming economy, and the rediscovery of conservative values (which includes tougher prosecution of crime) with the drop in crime rates.

I'll search for the thread on Levitt's book. Thanks.

[7thson]

Watching the Dem Convention of 2000, it was either McCullough or David Halberstam who continued the lie about Gore's father losing his Senate seat due to voting for the Civil Rights Act.