just finished “Out of the Crisis” and “the New Economics” by W. Edwards Demming. (thanks Dopers that guy is a friggin genius)
and the Necronomicon by Tyson. its a decent read if you like Lovecraft and stays very very true to the source material. its not nearly as freaky as you would hope but not bad.
current, “People of the Lie” by M. Scott Peck. I am still not 100% sure what to think of this book, it is very well written and his arguments are very very strong and for a clearly christian author he doesnt preach at you or try to mask anything.
current “the Satanic Verses” Salman Rushdie. very strangely written and a bit hard to read due to its style its a good book and funny in a strange way.
next? no idea, I will have to take a look at this thread for some ideas and see what I can find
Okalie-dokalie. Here’s where you can find my reviews of
[ul]Cambridge Studies in Medical Anthropology #1: Social Lives of Medicines (Whyte, Geest, & Hardon) [/ul]
[ul]The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (Chabon)[/ul]
[ul]The Leap (Stroud)[/ul]
[ul]Knock Yourself Up: No Man? No Problem. A Tell-all Guide to Becoming a Single Mom (Sloan)[/ul]
[ul]Not the Thing I Was: Thirteen Years at Bruno Bettelheim’s Orthogenic School (Eliot)[/ul]
[ul]Survivor (Palahniuk)[/ul]
[ul]Survival of the Sickest: A Medical Maverick Discovers Why We Need Disease (Moalem & Prince)[/ul]
Plus reviews of 95 other books I’ve read recently.
Sadly Marvel has yet to announce a Howard vol. 2. I wish they’d finish off the Gerber run at least but it doesn’t seem likely at this point. Fortunately they have Defenders vol. 2 and 3 which feature the entirety of his run on the series which is well worth reading for people who like his brand of strangeness.
Currently reading The Atrocity Archives by Charles Stross, based on a recommendation here. A lot of fun. Sort of like Dilbert meets Cuthulhu, only with Nazis.
Will our hero get the girl? Will he get a promotion, or be drowned in office politics? Will his mind be scraped across unknown dimensions and used as a beach-ball by entities from beyond?
I put Summer of Night aside in favor of Eifelheim by Michael Flynn. It’s part SF/part historical, and I think it’s wonderful. It reminds me a bit of Doomsday Book by Connie Willis, although I’m not sure if there’s going to be any time travel. (I haven’t read any reviews for fear of spoilers.)
It’s about a scientist (a “cliologist”) investigating the disappearance of a Bavarian village in the 1340’s. The area was never resettled, although it should have been.
The story moves between then and now, and in the then, an alien ship crash-landed in the area. The aliens are accepted as God’s creatures and communication ensues. It sounds silly as hell, but Flynn makes it work. It’s fascinating on several levels.
Just finished: The Girls Who Went Away: the hidden history of women who surrendered children for adoption in the decades before Roe v. Wade, by Ann Fessler. Very touching. I had to keep wiping away tears as I read. It’s hard to believe this is such recent history.
Also just finished, one of those books I’ve always meant to get around to someday: She, by H. Rider Haggard. I absolutely loved it. Not the greatest book ever written, but fast-paced and riveting. I could have picked up another book the day I finished this, but I didn’t…I just wanted to enjoy the afterglow for a while. When you read a lot, you have to slog through a lot of dreck, but then it’s all worth it when you find one perfect jewel such as this.
Next up: *Day of the Triffids * by John Wyndham. Apparently Spazcat and I are getting our recommendations in the same place!
Thanks for the review of Not the Thing I Was, Shoshana. Based on that, I’m going to set it aside, guilt-free. I think I’ll go get some Ira Levin instead.
Partway though the second Malazan Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. Rather awesome fantasy series so far.
Finished Scar Night by Alan Campbell, which was rather stunning. (Fantasy revival going on here)
Also loved The Interpretation of Murder. An unusual twist to the detective story with the emphasis on psychoanalysis. Makes me think about grabbing Freud’s Interpretation of Dreams…
I finally read Freakonomics, which was good but less substantive than I expected. Currently I am almost done with Impotence (it’s a cultural history, thankyouverymuch, not a self-help book, despite the looks I get reading it at the gym). Next up is The T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agent Archives, Volume 4, and then I want to get to A Kiss Before Dying.
Heh, I’m a long time H. Rider Haggard addict. He wrote tons of stuff, some of it very good, and much of it little known these days. If you haven’t already, read King Solomon’s Mines and one of my favorites Nada the Lilly.
I just started Tree of Smoke, by Denis Johnson and was destroyed by the first scene. Maybe I’ve hit my death and destruction saturation point, I dunno, but I’m putting it aside, for now.
I need something facile, sweet and optimistic to scrub it out of my brain and I need it right now. Any suggestions?
I don’t do sweet, but The Widows’ Adventures by Charles Dickinson is close. It’s about two widows from Chicago who take a road trip to California. Once you accept the premise – that the one driving is blind and the other is giving her directions – the book is a lot of fun.
Dickinson is one of my favorite writers. He also wrote a nifty little time travel story – A Shortcut in Time – which could also qualify as kinda sweet.
Haggard basically invented many of the aspects of fantasy still recycled today - and he is compulsively readable.
I read somewhere that Haggard wrote King Solomon’s Mines on a dare - someone bet him that he could not write a book as engrossing as Treasure Island. I’d say he won that bet.
Just finished up Guns of Normandy and Guns of Victory by George Blackburn
Fascinating and quite an eyeopener on a chunk of WWII that is pretty much glossed over (well so far as I know it is glossed over). It is the memoirs of a forward observation officer with the Canadian artillery.
Up next, trying to get going with Angel on the roof, a collection of short stories by Russel Banks. Hopefully it will be slightly less depressing.
I’m reading “Cheyenne Autumn” by Mari Sandoz. It’s about a group of several hundred Cheyenne Indians who, starving on the reservation in Oklahoma to which they had been sent, slipped out under cover of darkness to try to get back to their homeland in South Dakota.
It’s similar to the book “Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee”.
Sort of like Dilbert meets Cuthulhu, only with Nazis. 
