Whatcha reading?

Cafe Society
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No one’s asked recently, so …

Just finished Matt Ridley’s Red Queen (recommended by former Doper Krisfer the Cat). Interesting book, but it took me over a month to finish. That was a combination of the fact that I’ve got way too much going on at the moment, and the fact that it just didn’t grab me, for reasons I can’t quite put my finger on. There’s a lot of stuff on “why sex?” and “how does sex affect evolution?” (male display patterns, etc.), both with regard to humans and to all kinds of other animals It’s about 10 years old at this point, I kept wondering whether what the current state of thinking was.

Just started the latest Julian Barnes novel, Arthur and George, telling the story of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and some other guy (the significance of whom is not yet clear) in alternating chapters. So far I’m really enjoying it.

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Ooooh, Judith Prietht just recommended that over in the Doper reading community on LiveJournal, and I want to read it now! Was disappointed to see it’s still in hardcover. Well, this is why god invented libraries.

I’m reading 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, by Walter Borneman, after it was recommended by several Dopers in a recent thread on popular history books. I’m enjoying it so far, but am a little disarmed by the rather conversational style that the author uses. That’s my At Home book.

My Carry Around book at the moment is A Short History of Canada, by Desmond Morton. This is part of my ongoing plan to freak out Canadians by actually knowing stuff about Canada. (They often seem surprised Americans are even aware Canada exists.) I haven’t gotten very far into it yet so I don’t have much of an opinion. I like the cover.

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Please come back and let us know if it’s any good. That book’s on my list, but it’s going to take me a while to get to it. If I hear someone singing its praises, I’ll bump it up in the list.

Right now I’m just starting Last Orders by Graham Swift. It’s great so far, but then I’m only on page 6…

I just finished rereading The Cider House Rules by John Irving, which I definitely recommend. I think I’ve read it 4 times by now, and it keeps getting better.

4

Kevin Bazzana’s life of Glenn Gould. Banjo’s piano teacher recommended it.

I just finished Max Wallace’s book on Ford, Lindbergh, and the Third Reich.

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The Great Mortality, a very readable examination of the Black Death.

According to the author, contemporary sources didn’t refer to this pandemic as the Black Death, but as the Big Death, the Great Mortality, and other names, but not Black Death. Which is no big deal, except that now, when I read historical fiction set in this time period, and the author has a character talking about the Black Death, I’ll go all <Nelson Muntz> a-HA, you didn’t do your research. :slight_smile:

Also reading Quicksilver by Neal Stephenson and Rebels of Babylon by Owen Parry. It’s a Civil War mystery series I’m very fond of.

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“Ghost Light” by Frank Rich - about his childhood and teen years in Washington, DC in the 50s and 60s during Broadway’s golden years - he loved the theatre.

I’m about finished with it, so I’m not sure what’s next on the list.

E.

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Oh, crap. Nothing right now, actually. I just polished off The Birth of Venus, by Sarah Dunant. Good, though I sped through it in parts and missed things here and there.

I’ve been poking at Foucault’s Discipline and Punish without as much luck as I might like, mostly due to lack of discipline; the subject matter is interesting, but it’s simply not the sort of book you can make light work of. You need to sit in a comfy chair, a glass of scotch nearby, a pencil for taking notes, light positioned perfectly above you, and plenty of time so that you don’t have to stop in the middle of a thought and be baffled when you try to pick it up again.

Even if I can manage to keep that going as an at-home book, I’m not quite sure what’ll be the carrying-around book. I’ve had a Robert Rankin novel, Knees Up Mother Earth, sitting around for a while; maybe I’ll give that a try. I could use some silliness.

8

Why are there ads for drill sharpening?

I just finished the latest book in the Song of Ice and Fire series by George R.R. Martin, Feast for Crows.

I’m starting Polaris by Jack McDevitt, and relistening to Ringworld by Larry Niven. Next up is Angelica by Sharon Shinn.

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I ordered several books online and I’ve been reading them as they get delivered. I just finished Did Babe Ruth Call His Shot: And Other Unsolved Mysteries of Baseball by Paul Aron and just started Thieves!: True Stories from the Edge by Andreas Schroeder. And I’m about three quarters through Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart Ehrman.

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I’m reading March, by Geraldine Brooks. I picked it up becasue I liked her first book, Year of Wonders, about the town that shut itself off for a year when it became infected with the plague.

This one is from the point of view of Mr. March, the father from Little Women who went off to fight for the Union in the Civil War. The book intersperses his mild letters home to his daughters with commentary on what’s really going on around him, which is not mild at all. I’m only about a quarter of the way through, but so far I think it’s a great book – incredibly well imagined and hard to put down.

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Do you hate yourself or something? I read that for my senior seminar and it made me want to pound my head against the wall. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to read that unless forced by a cruel professor.

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Currently reading “Finding Serenity”, a collection of essays about various topics pertaining to the Firefly TV series. My next book will almost certainly be “Engaging the Enemy” by Elizabeth Moon, the latest in her “Vatta’s War” series which I have become a huge fan of :smiley:

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Currently reading The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester.

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No, we know you’re aware we exist. You’ve gotta blame those chilly Arctic winds on somebody, after all. :wink:

I own and have read Morton’s Short History of Canada, by the way. It’s quite good. Not as detailed as it could be, but it is a good overview of the major players and events. Certainly, it would be a good place to start; and if it piques your interest enough, I’m sure that we Canadian Dopers can point you to other, more detailed, sources. And if not, that’s okay too.

As for me, when I have a few free minutes from my studies, I’m either enjoying one of the crossword puzzles in a New York Times Sunday omnibus (as you might guess, twickster!) or reading my way through The Best of Jim Coleman.

I’ll explain. Jim Coleman was a sports columnist here in Canada for many years. He wrote for a variety of newspapers and syndicates, and his columns were very much like Rick Reilly’s in Sports Illustrated. They dealt with all sports, although Mr. Coleman did have a special place in his heart, and his columns, for horse racing. In fact, when the Daily Racing Form Press published a collection of famous racing writers a few years ago (titled Finished Lines if anybody is interested), Mr. Coleman was the only Canadian writer included.

Incidentally, I cannot think of him in any other way than “Mr. Coleman,” because I did meet him when I was a child. He knew my father, and so when I was with Dad, and Mr. Coleman happened by, my Dad would say, “Hello, Jim! And Spoons, you remember Mr. Coleman, don’t you?” Hard to break the habit of “Mr. Coleman,” even now.

Great columns though. They follow Canadian sports history from 1939 to 1983, and as I said, dealt with everything: hockey, football, curling, boxing … and horse racing. Maybe it was by reading one of Mr. Coleman’s earlier books on the subject that I became interested in horse racing. Anyway, for now, I’m quite enjoying the recent collection of Mr. Coleman’s columns.

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Harpo Speaks! by - of course - Harpo Marx. (And Rowland Barber.) I don’t know which of them is responsible for the quality of the book, but it’s a terrific read. I’ll be through it much too fast. Fortunately, with work and everything else I have to do, 475 pages will still take me a few days. When that’s done, I’ll have Groucho’s second autobiography, Memoirs of a Mangy Lover.

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Lucrezia Borgia and the Mother of Poisons, by Roberta Gellis (it’s interesting, but a bit melodramatic, and you need to read it very carefully all the way through to get the whole thing) and some of Yeats’s poetry. It’s a pretty quiet week for me, reading-wise.

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ChiRunning by Danny Dreyer and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. Various textbooks.

It’s the second time for reading His Dark Materials and it still blows my mind that it’s considered a children’s series.

Dreyer’s book is interesting with an approach that seems to make sense. I really want to regain the sense of joy, fun, and speed of running I had when I was a little girl. I’m not really into self-help books though, and there is enough of that element to make it a shortburst read.

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Current book is Bleak House, inspired by the recent Masterpiece Theater mini-series (which I didn’t watch, but I did catch a lot of the promo pieces and now Gillian Anderson is stuck in my head as Lady Dedlock; not necessarily a bad thing). I haven’t read any Dickens for quite a while, and I was ready.

My last book was OUt of the Deep I Cry, a pretty engaging mystery by Julia Spencer-Fleming, although I found the relationship between the two principal protagonists a bit cliched.

My next book, maybe, inspired by the recent release of a movie (which I also haven’t seen) is Tristram Shandy. I understand it is a bit difficult to get through, as it reportedly rambles and jumps around, which is a nice trick. Apparently one of the main themes is procrastination, so I should feel right at home. Anyone who’s read it care to give it a review?

If that’s a bust I will probably jump in a completely different direction, perhaps Tad Williams’ War of the Flowers, which has the advantage of being perhaps his only book that is complete in one (very large) volume. Also soliciting reviews of that, sans spoilers please.

Roddy

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The voice-over and music from the opening is William S. Burroughs reading from The Western Land. Link here and here .
Brilliant.

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Phooey. Wrong thread. If someone wants to report that post to a mod, go ahead please.