What Are You Reading Now? - My Quarterly Survey of Freeper Reading Habits

9/29/08 | MplsSteve

[MplsSteve]

It's time again for my quarterly "What Are You Reading Now?" thread!

It can be anything...a NY Times bestseller, a technical journal, a trashy pulp novel...in short, anything!

DO NOT answer by saying "I'm Reading This Thread". It stopped being funny a long time ago.

Here's what I'm reading. I'm just about finished with "Blockaders, Refugees & Contrabands: Civil War on Florida's Gulf Coast 1861-1865."

It's a very interesting book about how the US Navy was able to turn a substantial portion of Florida's Gulf Coast population against the Confederacy, creating a civil war within that part of Florida.

So tell me...what are YOU reading now?

[ChocChipCookie]

I haven’t read anything just for fun in a long time, so I just finished Michael Crichton’s State of Fear and started Sahara by Clive Cussler. Both are quick reads and fairly entertaining.

[Fractal Trader]

Ping for later

[airedale]

If you like Devil in the White City you also like his book Thunderstruck. It uses the same technique of tying to different themes to create the whole. It’s got a good gruesome murder and the same attention to history and change in society that Devil in the White City does.

[aomagrat]

“Catlow” by Louis Lamour

[chilepepper]

The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. Fantastic book...

[gorush]

"What a great book that was."

I agree. I love historical books where eyewitnesses are still around. The Tobruk story was similar in that respect and I highly recommend it.

[daisyscarlett]

I just finished Daniel Silva's latest: Moscow Rules. Silva keeps getting better and better.

Next I will read Dennis LeHane's new book (the author of Mystic River, this is his first book in 7 or 8 years).

[jalisco555]

I would recommend for you The Conquest of New Spain - Bernal Diaz.

Yes, I've heard of this. I'm only about 1/10 of the way into Conquistador but apparently what he does differently is go into much greater depth on the Aztec response to the invasion, which I'm looking forward to. It was an amazingly sophisticated civilization and yet it was destroyed in two years.

[LakeLady]

Brave Companions - David McCullough

[Verloona Ti]

I've read Farrell's The Summa Simplified, and I found it fascinating-it inspired me with a desire to try again on the "real thing",an English edition of the Summa (Great Books of the Western World version)...As for Aristotle , I've read (English translations of...)his major works several times over the last few decades. It is slow going-no more than a few "questions" at a time, which is probably the only way, really, to get through the book at all.

[jalisco555]

I just finished Daniel Silva's latest: Moscow Rules. Silva keeps getting better and better.

IMO his best yet. I stopped reading Silva for a while after the book that made Yasser Arafat out to be some kind of hero (can't remember the title) but he's back in form.

[Oratam]

I just finished I Heard You Paint Houses the story of Frank "The Irishman" Sheeran who was a leading Teamsters figure in Philly and Delaware (Yes Sen. Biden makes an appearance) and a confidant of Hoffa. It's part memoir part investigative journalism. I recommend it to anyone who loves reading true crime, mafia, or theories about Hoffa's disappearance. It's also a quick read.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

John Steinbeck — “East of Eden”
Nikos Kazantzakis — “Zorba the Greek”
Short stories by William Faulkner and Anton Chekov.
Ulysses S. Grant — “Personal Memoirs”

[Skooz]

“The One Hundred Days” by Patrick O’Brian

[Skooz]

Ulysses S. Grant — “Personal Memoirs”

Outstanding. I read that at the end of last year and thoroughly enjoyed it. It is excellent.

[AppyPappy]

“Theodore Rex”

Great book!

[ChocChipCookie]

Do you love your Kindle? It’s on my Christmas wish list.