What are you reading this month, dopers?

Cafe Society
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I just finished Spider Robinson’s Very Bad Deaths. I love Spider’s storytelling, and I’d heard him read the first chapter aloud at Necronomicon 2004 when it was still a work in progress. It’s a different genre for him - suspense more than S/F (although there is an S/F element: Spider’s favorite, telepathy) - but he pulls it off. The ending left the door open for it to be the first in a seriesanic , but it’s a complete, self-contained novel, and I enjoyed it.

I’m currently reading a fascinating nonfiction book, **Touched with Fire: ** Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Kay Redfield Jamison. As a person with Bipolar Disorder myself (as is the author), and on the “creative” side, the topic is very close to my heart, but it’s interesting reading for anyone.

22

Currently reading 1776, by David McCullough. It’s about a bunch of guys who did some stuff.

Just finished World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks (who also wrote The Zombie Survival Guide). Really impressive; the book is made up of “interviews” with survivors of a great worldwide plague of flesh-eating zombies, a couple of decades in the future. Brooks obviously did a tremendous amount of research to achieve verisimilitude in the first-hand accounts.

23

On the Metro, and other out and about errands where a book comes in handy, I’m just starting into a rereading of Asimov’s Foundation series (as in, I’m about 30 pages into Prelude To Foundation).

In the home, mostly because I am one of those people who needs something to read on the toilet (don’t judge me!), I am reading Wicked a half dozen pages at a time, and have been for about two months.

24

I just finished The Sister’s Grimm: (book 2)

Although it is a children’s mystery, I stilled enjoyed it and will read book 3. I bought it and read it because I was looking for something light to read.

I am slogging through The protector’s war I bought it on impulse at Border’s with high hopes, but it has not lived up to said hopes. It is painfully slow and I wholeheartedly recommend that you avoid it.

I just finished Ghost’s of Albion It was a mediocre read, and I would not recommend it either way. I suspect that there are much better books to be found.

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Raj, which is a history of British India.

The Plague Dogs

Turtledove’s Blood and Iron

and Vinge’s Rainbows End.

I’ve been very busy this month and my reading time has suffered for it.

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I’m more than halfway through Homeward Bound, which looks as if it might be the last book in Harry Turtledove’s now eight-book series on the War between The Race (lizardlike alien invaders) and the Humans. Overall very wwell done, with some weird alternate-history vibes (James Dean starred in “Saving Private Ryan”, although the last name wasn’t Ryan. And the aliens have a classic book whose title translates as “Gone With the Wind”)
Next I’m going to read The Da Vinci Code, because Pepper Mill had a copy of it.

I’ve got A Plunge Into Space in my bagf. Jules Verne wrote the introduction. It’s about a trip to the moon via a sphere coated with anti=-gravity material. (This book came out before H.G. Wells’ “First Men in the Moon”!), and apparently features the same situation that showed up in Goodwin’s “The Cold Equations”, but over half a century earlier.
And I notice that I keep flipping through my copy of The Moon is a Harsh Mistrress, so I must be in need of a Heinlein fix, and I’ll probably re-read it soon.

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I’m anxiously awaiting The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, a story of valueing players in the NFL, centered mainly around the rise of the status of the left tackle.

Sports Illustrated and The New York Times Magazine both ran excerpts of it this last week.

28

I can only read one book at a time. Currently I’m reading Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis. I found a great set of Sinclair Lewis books when I was on vacation for $18. They were printed in 1945 and are gorgeous. So now I’m trying to read all the ones I haven’t read yet. I’m really enjoying it so far; I’m about halfway through.

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Oh, I know what it’s like. I haven’t hung around with voracious readers in tiny apartments for nothing.

30

Haven’t read any of the other posts yet, I will, shortly. But I didn’t want to forget what I had to say first.
I just finished a book called Riot. Basically, the premise is a romance set in the middle of the Babri Masjid/Ram Jamnbhoomi riots in India in the early 90’s. The romance is secondary, though, at least to me.

I knew about the riots and thought it was eminently silly. For those who don’t know or don’t pay attention to news out of India (sadly, very common), basically the claim was that a great temple to Rama was torn down by the Muslim king Babar hundreds of years ago, and in its place, the Babri Masjid was erected. So the Hindatva - an extremist pro-Hindu India group - decided to collect thousands of sanctified bricks and march, asking the Babri Masjid to be removed and the Hindu temple to be re-erected.

The thing is, the book was written really well. I do not feel that the Muslims don’t have a place in India, I guess. At the same time I do feel like - well, you have your own country now, right? You asked for Pakistan. You tore India apart so you can get your Pakistan. So why dont’ you go there? Then, too, I understand that not all the Muslims asked for or wanted a separate Pakistan.

I also understand the Hindus on both sides. Hinduism has traditionally always been the one religion that does not claim to be the Only Way. So we should respect the Muslim viewpoint, and India is one, and should be that way. On the other side, the Hindus who want the Muslims out have some good points, too, although not concerning the Muslims. But when they stand up and say that India has always been shown to be less than what it is, I agree. When they point to people like Mother Theresa, who never fully understood our country, or to the Western media, which goes into the filthies slums of Calcutta and never shows any of the grandeur and beauty that is India, I agree, they are looking for the most dramatic points and not showing the true India.

i didn’t mean to talk so long but the whole book really affected me. Particularly the descriptions of why each side came to the riots. The Hindu boys and young men, and why the Muslims reacted so violently. All in all the whole thing breaks my heart and also puts me deep in thought.

31

Is this worth it? After my extraordinarily long post re: Riot, I do want to read more.

On the side, I am also working on SOul Mountain as well as Murder on the Orient Express. A bit light these days, since this weekend I was knee-deep in playing Okami.

32

In addition to my various textbooks, I’m reading:

American Gospel, by Jon Meacham, a very well-written history of religion in America that includes primary-source documents dealing with religion and religious freedom.

And *Folk Devils and Moral Panics* by Stanley Cohen. It’s a sociological case study of a series of incidents of minor vandalism and how the British public got worked up into a hysteria. It’s for my thesis, and it’s kind of dry, but it’s still interesting reading.

Robin

33

My most interesting reads this month have been:

Fevre Dream, by George R. R. Martin. I loved it, and I bought a copy of A Game of Thrones, but someone suggested a collection of his sci-fi stories, Tuf Voyaging, so I think I’m going to read that next.

A Confederacy of Dunces - a classic I have always meant to read, and I enjoyed it.

The Kid and The Commitment, by Dan Savage. They’re hysterically funny in spots, and really sentimental and touching in others.

Stolen, the second of Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series. The first book was very good, but I was less impressed with this one.

At the used book store the other day I found a nice copy of Mrs. Mike, a book I read repeatedly when I was a little girl. I might read that next.

Hmm, I was thinking about trying the Weather Warden series. I like Kim Harrison and Jim Butcher.

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I really loved the first three. Rachel Caine’s webpage mentions that she’s been in treatment for cancer, so I hate to be too critical of the way the series seems to have stumbled. It’s just reminding me a little of the way Laurell K. Hamilton has gone to seed(well, not so much in the hard slide into all sex, no plot) in that she’s embarked on a series and either not had a clear plan on how to get from begining to end, or somewhere along the line she changed her mind and is now floundering. Either that or she’s decided to see how far she can string her readers along(which I do think LKH is doing), and I am not quite ready to think that yet.

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A Well Regulated Militia by John Carpenter

Digital Signal Processing by Sanjit Mitra

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Well, my Amazon order came, and so I’ll add to the list:

The Worst Person in the World: And 202 Strong Contenders by Keith Olbermann. So far it lives up to the hype.

Have I mentioned how much I love Keith Olbermann?

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Talking Right: How Conservatives Turned Liberalism into a Tax-Raising, Latte-Drinking, Sushi-Eating, Volvo-Driving, New York Times-Reading, Body-Piercing, Hollywood-Loving, Left-Wing Freak Show by Geoffrey Nunberg

Conservatives Without Conscience by John Dean

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You might also like Hellfire Nation, a history of sin and American politics. It’s a very interesting read.

39

I just finished England’s Dreaming, the ultimate story of punk rock and the Sex Pistols by John Savage and just started **A Pickpocket’s Tale- The Underworld of Nineteenth-Century New York ** which so far appears to be an expanded and annotated version of an autobiography by one George Appos, a career criminal growing up in the Five Points section of New York.

I stopped in the non fiction section of the library first this time… :wink:

40

I just finished the whole of the Chronicles of Narnia, for the first time since I was about twelve. That was really very fun.

In theory, I’m also reading The Balkans, by Mischa Glenny, and The Autobiography of Henry Adams, but I haven’t progressed very far in either book lately.