Rise To Rebellion the first of two volumes on the American Revolution written by Jeff Shaara. I have to admit I am quite impressed with Mr Shaara’s work. I loved the bookend novels he did on his dad’s The Killer Angels. After this one I may read the book he wrote on the Mexican War.
I just finished “Why Don’t Zebras Get Ulcers?” by Robert Sapolsky. Excellent specialized medical arcana with a good narrative voice, so non-doctors can read it and learn something. (the answer to the question posed in the title, BTW ,is that since they’re under different, specialized stress, they never have the chance to develop non-specific stressors that contribute to secondary stressor response, like hypertension.)
Originally posted by Tretiak:
I just finished The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer, which taught me that Bart is not the Nietzschian ideal of the ubermensch.
I read that last month and loved it. Just sold my copy online, too. I especially liked the chapter on the anti-intellectual bias of Americans.
Originally posted by Montfort:
My bedtime book is Is My Armor Straight? by Richard Berendzhen, a diary of a year in the life of a university president. He was my astronomy professor at American University and used to be the president there, too. The book is his diary of the '83-'84 academic year,as he struggled to raise the money to build the student/athletic center that I graduated AU in in 1995.
I took Dr. B’s class in 99 in my senior year. Great guy-he got invited to our wedding. Really nice guy and always had time to talk to any of his students. Makes you wonder what was up with his having to leave office, doesn’t it? I’ve read the book as well, and it’s great.
I’m in the middle of The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara, which shockingly, I’m only just reading for the first time.
Also reading Serendipities: Language and Lunacy by Umberto Eco, which is good stuff, and I have The Return of Tarzan, which I got free from Project Gutenberg, on my Visor.
This is actually a really good book, it a touch on the intuitive side. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about glucocorticoids.
I’m starting Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings trilogy for the first time.
Stephen King’s Four Past Midnight: Just finished The Langoliers, which I really enjoyed, although for some reason the ending was a let down. I’m not sure why. I currently have skipped to The Sun Dog because I love his Castle Rock stories.
Well today I just finished Pride and Prejudice. It’s now one of my favorite books. I’m such a sucker for romatic books with happy endings. 
Now I’m off to the LOTR books because I haven’t actually read them yet, and I’m going to die if I don’t get to them soon!
Two books right now. Michael Shermer’s How We Believe, which is an interesting look at why humans have religion, and Harold G. Moore’s Vietnam classic, We Were Soldiers Once…and Young.
Nonfiction:
Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes From The American Indie Underground, by Michael Azerrad.
Low Life by Luc Sante, about pimps and small-time hustlers in NYC in the late 1800s.
Fiction:
The Insult by Rupert Thomson.
How To Be Good by Nick Hornby.
The Nine Billion Names of God byt Arthur C. Clarke, probably the best collection of short stories by a single author, at least in science fiction.
Black Star Rising by Fred Pohl
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy, makes the movie pale in comparison (no small feat, that).
Be Cool by Elmore Leonard, Chili Palmer is soooo cool.
Haruki Murakami ‘A Wild Sheep Chase’ - surreal humour of the highest order. Anyone else read this guy?
The autobiography of Richard Dunwoody - very successful British jump jockey, now retired.
Robert Hughes ‘The Fatal Shore’ - follows the fate of the 160,000 men, women and children transported from Britain to Australia between 1787 and 1868. Grim reading.
Several travel brochures prior to a September visit to Barcelona - looks good.
Instruction manual for a recently purchased vibrator, bought on behalf of an unnamed friend of Mrs. Dr. Schadenfreude (In Waiting) - highly complex.
Right now my bus book is Waterloo by Bernard Cornwell, “Sharpe’s final adventure”, and I’m partway through “G” is for Grafton by Natalie Hevener Kaufman and Carol McGinnis Kay, all about Kinsey Millhone. (Hi, TV time!)
Next, probably Family Honor by Robert B. Parker (not a Spenser book), and The People v. Clarence Darrow by Geoffrey Cowan, about his bribery trial.
And somewhere in there I’ll be going through The Art of Giancarlo Impiglia to look at the pictures - nice stuff, if you like his style.
Best of all, every book here came from either the remainder table or the Vancouver Public Library book sale!
Just finished Practical Demonkeeping courtesy of this thread -http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=73119
Have now read The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove and *Bloodsucking Fiends *
I am now working my way through all his books. Just picked up Coyote Blue over the weekend
I too just finished Pride and Prejudice. In addition to enjoying this for the romance and the writing, I enjoyed reading what is basically the source novel for the romance sub-genre called regencies, of which I am an afficionado. I sent the following quote to rjk and told him he needed to take it to heart:
Elizabeth to Darcy
Oddly enough, he declined to comment 
To lower the tone a bit, I also just finished a regency romance called The Painted Lady by Barbara Metzger. The story is about a duke who is also an excellent painter, and one of his paintings starts talking to him: “I’m a pigment of your imagination”. The dukes patrynomic is Cartland, which I suspect is an in-joke, since Barbara Cartland was a rather prolific hack in the genre, and teased about creating more dukes that were ever found in Debrett’s Peerage.
The Bes of James Blish, the last in the wonderful Del Rey series “The Best of…” that they published from 1974 to 1979. I’ve read all but three of them now. Regrettably, onl one of them (The Best of Lester Del Rey) is currently in print.
I just bought Word Freak for my mom (a book about diehard Scrabble players) but I started reading it myself as I was waiting for the bus today and was hooked by page 5. I think the “for my mom” thing may end up being a little off.
I just finished yet another Elinor Lipman novel (I love all her stuff) and another Ken Haruf (ditto). I loathe them both for ending their books because they coulda had me for another 1000 pages with their characters.
I have now started Bread Alone (Can’t remember author) which my Mother in Law lent me. I can tell I’m gonna love it. I leave on vacation tomorrow and will also take along my Roland Merullo novel Revere Beach Boulevard that I just got from the library. I’d never heard of him before, but he wrote a novella that was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education last spring and I really liked it.
I got The Battle for God on the recommendation of several dopers. It’s been sitting by my bed since December. I plan to read it…does that count?
Oh, and in case my committee chair is reading this, I am giving Braxton & Hargens’ lit review on academic disciplines another good look-over, too.
Just finished Experience, Martin Amis’ autobiography, for probably the 23rd time. The man can write.
Now I have ** Heavier Than Heaven**, a Kurt Cobain biography, to read.
And I dip into The Divine Comedy by Dante, every so often.
Lessee, in the last month or so . . .
Three of George MacDonald Fraser’s Flashman novels: Flashman and the Redskins, Flashman at the Charge, and currently Flashman’s Lady); I have trouble finding them here in Atlanta, but I lucked out on my next-to-last trip to my company headquarters in Campbell, CA – the Barnes & Noble around the corner from the office had several in stock, and I’ll pick up a few more next trip out.
Patrick O’Brian’s The Ionian Mission; I’ve done the whole Aubrey/Maturin series once as unabridged books on tape from the library (I’d almost rather listen to Patrick Tull read than sit down with the books myself), but since my first pass their copy of The Ionian Mission has disappeared, so when I reached that point in my second pass (number eight of twenty) I had to get the dead-tree version. I also have a copy of O’Brian’s biography of Sir Joseph Banks that I’ve started but have set aside for the time being.
Four Tom Sharpe novels: Riotous Assembly, Indecent Exposure, Vintage Stuff, and The Throwback.
Evelyn Waugh’s The Loved One.
Other non-fiction stuff: Matt Ridley’s The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature and Jared Diamond’s Why Is Sex Fun?: The Evolution of Human Sexuality; I had the hardest time finding a copy of the Diamond book, despite looking everywhere for it since reading The Third Chimpanzee several years ago. Once again, the Barnes & Noble in Campbell came to my rescue. Next up in the non-fiction pile: Antonio Damasio’s Descartes’ Error: Emotion, Reason, and the Human Brain. And I still have Steven Pinker’s Words and Rules to get to sometime soon, among other things I’ve bought but not yet read.
Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, for the fourth time. It’s the only novel I have in my dorm room.
Just finished “Blue Angel” by Francine Prose. Now reading “Jane Eyre” and will read “Black Flower” by Howard Bahr next.
Just finished Hit Man by Lawrence Block
The entire Dune Series. Heretics of Dune is my current bedtime reader.
Also recently read the Fourth Hand by John Irving