# What book are you reading now? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [April 3, 2000, 2:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872 "2000-04-03T02:20:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2000, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/61 "2000-04-08T03:14:00Z")
Canthearya said: > [@](#): > > A co-worker loves Pratchett’s Discworld series so I’m reading the first one, The Color of Magic… not impressed so far. **Blasphemy!** Somebody get the stake. I’m getting the kindling… ---
**Author:** ![Lawrence](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/2bfe46/32.png) [@Lawrence](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lawrence)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2000, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/62 "2000-04-07T03:33:00Z")
David and beatle rock! Gerald Posner is the man who goes out and finds the facts and doesn’t listen to any BS along the way. Case Closed is the book that explains the Kennedy assassination and exposes the fallacies of those who ignore Occam’s Razor. His book Killing the Dream is also the definitive work on the King assassination; Posner proves that Ray did it and throws strong evidence upon the possibility that his brothers were his co-conspirators. I read an interview with Posner recently; he’s investigating Gulf War syndrome and thinks that it really exists and that it was caused by exposure of American soldiers to poison gases and suchlike. If he actually comes up with something, it’ll be devastating, since Posner is not an “against-the-government” kind of reporter looking to embarrass the USA. In fact, his books on Kennedy and King prove that he does not just discount the official story, he investigates it and if it’s true, he’s willing to say so. So if he comes up with an instance in which the official story is a lie, I’m willing to believe him. OK, I hijacked the topic. The last books I read were: Andersonville, by McKinlay Kantor All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren England, England by Julian Barnes High Fidelity by Nick Hornby I highly recommend all of them. Others before mentioned John Keegan’s books and Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. Damn good stuff. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2000, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/63 "2000-04-07T14:39:00Z")
For bookclub - Girl, Interupted by Susan Kaysen For myself - Posession, by AS Byatt and Mansfield Park, Jane Austin For my brain - Eleanor of Aquataine, by Alison Weir For my job - Resolving Critical Server Issues - Novell Press (Everyone in bookclub LOVED The Sparrow, except me - I couldn’t bring myself to finish it, rare for me and a bookclub book.) ---
**Author:** ![Nightingale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecae2f/32.png) [@Nightingale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightingale)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2000, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/64 "2000-04-07T16:41:00Z")
I just finished _Dolores Claiborne_ last night, and will probably start _The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon_ in the next few days. _Les Miserables_ is languishing on the bookshelf, half finished, but I really haven’t been in the mood for it lately. I also reread \*Callahan’s Crosstime Saloon \* recently, and ROFLMAO the entire time. * * * “There are more things you don’t know than there are things that I do know. I despair of the imbalance.” – Dr. Morgenes, _The Dragonbone Chair_ ---
**Author:** ![Vestal\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/5e9695/32.png) [@Vestal\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vestal_Blue)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2000, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/65 "2000-04-08T05:37:00Z")
Dune, House Atreides. Thank you Brian Herbert, Thank you! * * * VB Some people say that cats are sneaky, evil, and cruel. True, and they have many other fine qualities as well. ---
**Author:** ![G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c67d28/32.png) [@G.B.H.Hornswoggler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G.B.H.Hornswoggler)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2000, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/66 "2000-04-07T18:17:00Z")
Finished in the last week or so: **The Year’s Best Science Fiction, 17th Annual Collection** edited by Gardner Dozois **Mortalis** by R.A. Salvatore **Fantasy Art Masters** by Dick Jude **Star Trek: Preserver** ostensibly by William Shatner Ah! the life of an editor! Almost done with right now: **Man With an Axe** by Jon A. Jackson On tap for the weekend: **Animist** by Eve Forward **The Great War: Breakthroughs** by Harry Turtledove * * * I’m your only friend I’m not your only friend But I’m a little glowing friend But really I’m not actually your friend But I am ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2000, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/67 "2000-04-08T03:44:00Z")
David Herbert Donald’s _Lincoln_. ---
**Author:** ![Sentinel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sentinel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sentinel)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2000, 9:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/68 "2000-04-08T09:13:00Z")
Where to begin. I read like a book every two days. Currently, I’ve read all of Stephen Kings – and found some of them lacking. I’ve finished all of Koontz – and found some of his lacking. I read all of the ‘Myth Conception’ books – and got real pissed at the last several because his style became weak, which is a clear indicator that the writer is being pushed to produce while the iron is hot. I read all of Larry Niven. (Loved every one.) Read all of Robert Heinlein. All of Author C. Clarke. All of the ‘Sten’ books. (Science Fiction) by Alan Cole and Chris Bunch. Read the ‘Ice Rigger’ series. (sci-fi) Read all of the usual classics: Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, Oliver Twist, A tale of Two Cities, Little Women, the Three Musketeers, The Man in the Iron mask, Great Expectations and Two Years Before The Mast. I read most of Edgar Allen Poe. ‘Up the Amazon’ (A factual story from the late 1800’s by a writer called Updegaff.) Kicking Canvass. (A true autobiography based in the late 1800’s.) The Vagrant Viking. (A true autobiography about a great polar explorer based in the early 1900’s.) Sybil. (Loved it.) The Three Faces of Eve. Up the Down Staircase. To Sir With Love. Misses 'Arris Goes to Paris. The Deer Hunter. The Haunting of Hill House. (EXCELLENT. It is now made into a slightly ‘creatively altered’ movie called the Haunting.) The Alien series. I’ll trade you an Elk. Perry. Cook. The lovely Ambition. Trustee From the Toolroom. Village of Stars. To Kill A Mockingbird. Ring of Bright Water. A Fall of Moondust. Melville Goodwin, USA The Cruel Sea. A Genius In The Family. The Plunderers. To Catch A Thief. Once Upon An Island. Bush Baby. Ice Station Zebra. Leafy Rivers. Jack the Ripper. The Titanic. (Before it became a movie.) The Boy in the Model T. (My home town – then a spot in the road, is mentioned in it.) Roosevelt. Davie Crockett. Plus assorted books written about WW2 both fiction and fact. Assorted UFO books. And, roughly, a couple of thousand more. (They include many Tom Swift and Tom Swift Senior books from years ago. Along with the Hardy Boys.) Sinking the Bismark. The Interrupted Journey. (That started the whole ‘abduction’ thing by UFOs.) Hundreds of National Geographics. The Red Badge of Courage. The Alamo. Buffalo Bill. MacAuthor. Daniel Boone. Edison. Bell. (You know, the telephone guy.) Lincolin. Washington. Ben Franklin. (Naughty! Naughty!) Theodore Roosevelt. Digging the Panama Canal. Einstein, Albert. The U Boat. The Island. Paradise Lost. The Bounty. Pitcarins Island. Blackbeard. Cortez. The Inquisition. The Muck Rakers. Of Mice and Men. Wheels. The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Time Enough for Love. The Andrometer Strain. 2001 2010 Men on the Moon. (BEFORE men GOT on the moon.) Journey to the Center of the Earth. The Vikings. King Author and the Knights of the Round Table. Starship on Saddle Mountain. The Egg and I. And … many, many more. I currently have a personal library of 2000 assorted books. I even made it through War and Peace – but it basically bored me. ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2000, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/69 "2000-04-08T16:54:00Z")
No, no, Sentinel, we want to know what you’re reading _now_. ---
**Author:** ![Anti\_Pro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Anti\_Pro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anti_Pro)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/70 "2000-04-09T01:19:00Z")
## I’m about half finished with ‘The Stand’ by Stephen King. ‘Race and Culture’ by Thomas Sowell is next. Judy * * * “Muck should replace ‘suck’. For ‘muck’ is yucky, while ‘suck’ feels very lucky. So, don’t stay stuck on suck, switch to MUCK, today.” ---
**Author:** ![Sentinel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/fbc32d/32.png) [@Sentinel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sentinel)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/71 "2000-04-09T04:16:00Z")
OH! Sorry. Right now I’m plodding my way through ‘Thinner’ by Stephen King and ‘The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon’ also by Stephen King. (I frequently like to read two books at one time.) The GWLTG is turning out to be not all that exciting, though amusing, displaying some research into facts but lacks quite a bit in his usual style of horror. ---
**Author:** ![TaleraRis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@TaleraRis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TaleraRis)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/72 "2000-04-09T04:38:00Z")
I agree, David B. I’m sharpening the stakes right now. Although I do have to say after having read every Discworld book finally except Sourcery that the Color of Magic isn’t my favorite. Rincewind is at the bottom of th e four main stories of the Watch, witches, Death and Rincewind, but he’s still good. As for books I’m reading - I just finished The Fifth Elephant. Definitely one of the better ones, and it’s got Vimes to boot, so it has to be good. In the past couple of weeks I finished Humans, an apocolyptic story told from the instigator’s point of view, The Black Swan, Mercedes Lackey’s great retelling of Swan Lake, Firebird, another Lackey retelling of a classic fairy tale, Reaper Man - Pratchett and Moving Pictures, another Pratchett I rather liked, but others didn’t. Sitting on my shelf half read is the Anita Black series minus Obsidian Butterfly. I really do need to get back around to reading that. And I’m plowing through Bullfinch’s Mythology online, plus an encyclopedia of mythology Jophiel got me for Christmas. And I have a new book by Matt Ridley called Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters coming soon. I heard it’s a really great look at genetics. * * * I rode Omni in Springfield, IL ---
**Author:** ![Nanno](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Nanno](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanno)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/73 "2000-04-09T05:05:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by bedboy4: > **you guys read boring shit** Moth Smoke * * * hey ---
**Author:** ![MysterEcks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f475e1/32.png) [@MysterEcks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MysterEcks)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 5:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/74 "2000-04-09T05:52:00Z")
I’m currently rereading “Footfall” by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle, which is their second best novel. (“Lucifer’s Hammer” is their best; “The Mote In God’s Eye” comes in third.) Others I’ve read recently: “Time Enough For Love” by Robert A. Heinlein. (The novel that got me hooked on science fiction, back in the mid-'70s.) “Rainbow Six” by Tom Clancy. (I’ll bet environmentalists just LOVE Clancy after this one.) The HAB Theory" by Allan W. Eckert. (Eckert’s not a good writer, but it’s an interesting book anyway.) “The Dogs Of War” by Frederick Forsyth. “The Hot Zone” by Richard Preston. (Not for the weak-of-stomach.) “About Three Bricks Shy Of A Load” by Roy Blount, Jr. (I’m a Steeler fan, for whatever good it does me.) ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/75 "2000-04-09T06:16:00Z")
_Robbins Fucking Pathologic Fucking Basis of Fucking Disease_. Although, oddly enough, the cover of mine seems to have omitted the "fucking"s. (I’m really tired of this book.) But at least it’s not organic chemistry! Good luck, TheUnforgiven! (BTW, the MCAT wasn’t as tough as I expected it to be. You’ll be fine.) Dr. J * * * “Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera ---
**Author:** ![Zico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a88e4f/32.png) [@Zico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zico)\ **Post date:** [April 9, 2000, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/76 "2000-04-09T13:11:00Z")
Marx / Engels - Communist Manifesto It’s part of my college course, and I promise not to start an uprising to overthrow America. Not this week, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Yankee\_Blue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/7ea924/32.png) [@Yankee\_Blue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yankee_Blue)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2000, 5:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/77 "2000-04-10T05:24:00Z")
The Fallen Man by Hillerman Martha Washington’s Book of Cookery by Hess Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (we’re on ch. 2) * * * All you need to start an asylum is an empty room and the right kind of people. ---
**Author:** ![Amazingrace](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8edcca/32.png) [@Amazingrace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amazingrace)\ **Post date:** [April 10, 2000, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/78 "2000-04-10T22:50:00Z")
I just got off spring break and I can rarely bring myself to read more than one book at a time, so right now I’m in the process of: _Timequake_ by Kurt Vonnegut _Animal Farm_ by George Orwell _Pleading Guilty_ by Scott Turrow I started _The Street Lawyer_ by Grisham, but I just couldn’t finish it. The guy is trying to do something to help others, but he’s not going to save the world like he thinks he is. Just finished: _To Kill a Mockingbird_ by Harper Lee for English. _The Catcher in the Rye_ by J.D. Salinger (also for English) ---
**Author:** ![Falcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/49beb7/32.png) [@Falcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falcon)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2000, 2:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/79 "2000-04-11T02:34:00Z")
Just started “Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets,” by David Simon. Books I’ve recently finished: reread the Tamuli series by David Eddings Bitter Harvest, by Ann Rule A Rose for Her Grave, Ann Rule Dead by Sunset, Ann Rule (went on a true-crime kick recently…) Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler And the next book on the list is “Perfect Murder, Perfect Town” about the Ramsey killing. * * * Homepage: [www.tiercel.com](http://www.tiercel.com) Occupation: Culling slow moving vermin Location: The wild blue yonder. Interests: Thermals, updrafts, downdrafts, air currents in general. (Profile by UncleBeer.) ---
**Author:** ![monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monster)\ **Post date:** [April 11, 2000, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872/80 "2000-04-11T14:46:00Z")
The Dead Zone by Stephen King, for about the 5th time… I am going through my SK collection AGAIN, and I think I need to switch to another author for awhile. Mr. King is my favorite, but I also like Elizabeth George and Patricia Cornwall. I’ve already tried Dean Koontz and Peter Straub and they just don’t work for me. Any ideas? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-book-are-you-reading-now/15872.md?page=5)