Tuesdays with Morrie will change your outlook on life!
Dante’s Inferno, The whole Divine Comedy is cool. You’ll need to be sure to get a copy with editorial comments otherwise it can be complicated.
I just re-read two classic Stephen King novels…The Shining and Firestarter…Excellent books, both!
Dirty Devil: When you’re done w/ Rise and Fall take a few months off then read Shirer’s Berlin Diary. It’s his diary of the years leading up to the war. It’s more emotional and less polished htan R&F, but very revealing as to the lifestyles and mindsets of the Germans and the Western reporters.
My Secret History by Paul Theroux
Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Long and very detailed on the subject of computers, hackers, and cryptography. If you’ve got a stomach for arcane detail, you’ll love it.
Just tonight finished Tower of Secrets by Victor Sheymov. Not as spicy as Victor Suvorov’s books, but the exfiltration of a KGB Section Chief from Moscow does pick it up at the end. It’s got a good anti-Commie rant in the middle, in case you need an education.
Budget being what it is, I’m delving into the re-read pile right now. Nice thing about reaching your mid-forties is being able to read another book about WWII and having to wait 'til the end to find out who won.
Books I’m fixin’ to re-attack and will recommend and enjoy are Modern Times by Paul Johnson and The Pacifac War 1941-1945 by John Costello. I’ve got a trilogy by John Keegan including The Face of Battle and The Price of Admiralty; I can’t remember the name of the 3rd one right now…(dig, dig, dig) starts out w/Phillip of Macedonia and concentrates on leaders. Anyway, good ones all.
Ya’ ever get stuck in an allright book? Tom Wolfe’s Bonfire of the Vanities did that to me. I walk away from probably ~1/100 books I start, and that was one of the few. It’s funny that it has stayed w/me; I guess I just couldn’t maintain interest in the story as it became increasingly subject to caricature, but the author’s ability to paint a picture was great. Other “great” books I’ve lost in the middle include Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time; his dismissal of determinism was less than compelling and I can’t go on with the read until I get around that. I’m no big fan of determinism, but I must be convinced to continue (a thread begs). Another I bogged on was Thomas Sowell’s Marxism wherein Mr. Sowell decimates Marxist economics. Its a great book but I was reading it as the Soviet Union collapsed and it seemed like a great release to no longer need to burden my mind with Dr. Sowell’s minute and exact examinations of Marxist math (you thought the regular kind was hard).
OTOH, Thomas Sowell’s Race:Rhetoric or Reality (must check title; dig, dig, dig, dig…I need to get some bookcases around here) is a very good read. When I go to the bookstore I sample; I grab a book and read a few pages - if it’s a good read I may buy it - if it’s crappy I know soon enough. I did read all of Mark Baker’s COPS in the aisle of the local Bookstop and felt guilty about it so I bought it. Actually wound up buying several copies for friends.
Heartfire: The Tales of Alvin Maker V, Orson Scott Card
The Callahan Chronicles, Spider Robinson (contains Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon, Time Travelers Strictly Cash and Callahan’s Secret)
Razor’s Edge, Lisanne Norman (fourth book of the Sholan Alliance series)
The Incredible Journey
Fuzzy Bones, William Tuning (sequel to H. Beam Piper’s “Fuzzy” books)
Steal the Dragon, Patricia Briggs
Currently reading: Scent of Magic, Andre Norton
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. That woman has an incredible command of the language.
Two recent ones:
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The Damon Runyon Omnibus (Guys and Dolls, Money from Home, and Blue Plate Special) : Stories set on Broadway around 1930, gangsters, night clubs, Prohibition, humour, pathos, …
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Doctor Dogbody’s Leg, by James Norman Hall (half of Nordhof & Hall, who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty) : A more-or-less retired naval surgeon from the Napoleonic wars sits in the pub and tells ten adventurous and implausible tales of how he lost his leg. He would have been right at home at Callahan’s.
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
I mean, of course, ones I’ve read recently; they’re both kind of old. Sometimes I just can’t make myself clear. 
Bob the Random Expert
“If we don’t have the answer, we’ll make one up.”
The Onion presents
Our Dumb Century
Amazing…
Brian O’Neill
CMC International Records
rockuniverse.com/cmc/cmc.html
ICQ 35294890
AIM Scrabble1
Yahoo Messenger Brian_ONeill
Just finished John Irving’s latest, A Widow For One Year. Typical Irving style, and I loved every page. Not quite on the same level as Garp, but I still didn’t leave my bed for the 2 days it took to read the 600-some pages.
Also on my literary plate right now:
the journals of sylvia plath <which i love but have to read in small doses or else i’ll stick my head in an oven too>
blue highways by williams least heat-moon. it is one of the best ‘travel’ books i’ve ever had the pleasure of laying my little eyes upon.
on the road by jack kerouac.
that’s it for now~
Currently re-reading “The Three Musketeers” by Alexander Dumas, which just gets better every time I read it. Future plans … trying to get through “Infinite Jest” by David Foster Wallace, starting “The Dark Tower” again from the beginning, and I need to do my reading of “Huckleberry Finn” again which, like Nat Hentoff does, I read at least once a year.
Saint Eutychus
www.disneyshorts.org
I just finished Fannie Flagg’s new book, Welcome to the World, Baby Girl!. She’s the author of Fried Green Tomatos at the Whistle Stop Cafe.
Great book. She writes her characters wonderfully; they’re all carefully drawn, real people, even the bad guys. Plus, there’s a mystery about the protagonist’s past, that she uncovers during the course of the book. I was up until 1 AM one night, because I wanted to find out how it ended.
I also like the Victorians - I have a shelf full of Trollope that I’m working my way through. My friends all think this is a little odd.
The Cat In The Hat
Recent books I’ve read:1)Red Alert(the names were changed so was the ending for the film version-Dr. Strangelove) 2)I Am Legend 3) The Illustrated Man…I May Not Have Gone To College But I’m Not Stupid -Mr. Ed