Anyone Reading A Book This Summer?

Gonna have the dog down the ocean with me in three weeks, so I'll need something while we sit out on the porch. Gonna take a few magazines with me, hopefully Backwoodsman will have come in before I leave. Probably going to stop at a used book store on the way down the Ayshun hon.
 
I go from one book to the next, sometimes having 3-5 going at once, but my current one that I am determined to finish by the end of summer is "The Idiot" by Fydor Dosteyevsky
 
I also read several at once. the best one that I am currently reading is The Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne. It's a great history of the city.
 
Reading The Forgotten Soldier by Guy Sajer. The story of a seventeen year-old German Infantryman in WWII on the Russian Front. It's a grim, but fascinating story and well written. If you're a WWII buff, this is a good one.
 
I just finished the four CHarlaine Harris Southern Vampire Novels to which I referred in a prior thread and am currently reading Full Cry by Rita Mae Brown, a Virginia fox hunting mystery.

Since I will be goring to Ottawa later this moth, I think that I shall read an older copy of The Loyal Americans: The Military Role of the Loyalist Provincial Corps and Their Settlement in British North America, 1775-1784, by Robert Allen that I found. The history of the Tories in the American Revolution has always interested me.
 
Just finished: Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami
Next up: The Information - Martin Amis or Down Under - Bill Bryson, depending on mood :)
 
I have Tom Robbins' "Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates" at work, for passing away some of the slow midnight-watch hours, and also reading Charles Stross' "The Atrocity Archives", a great stew involving high-tech espionage mixed with magic, the Cthulu mythos, trans-dimensional Nazis, Gorgonism, and more... :D
 
I recently finished Geoff Thompson's Watch My Back for the second time. One of the few books I ever read more than once. It's his autobiography, focusing on his work as a bouncer. The guy's experienced several lifetimes worth of violence and he definitely has a way with words. Both educational and very entertaining. Highly recommended.
Just started reading another of his books, Fear: The Friend Of Exceptional People.

Plan on reading Tom Clancy's The Bear And The Dragon soon, the usual Cold War Clancy stuff. ;)

Some books I recently read include Marc "Animal" MacYoung's Pool Cues, Beer Bottles, & Baseball Bats (all in all a fairly basic guide to improvised weaponry, but not too bad), Fight At Night by Andy Stanford (a comprehensive book on low light tactics and equipment) and Infantry Combat by John Antal.
The latter is an interactive exercise in infantry tactics. Great idea, but I'm not too convinced by the dice rolls that are sometimes necessary to determine the character's fate. Not too sure about the author's assessment of different infantry tactics, but then again he's obviously more experienced in employing them than I am.
 
About a week ago, there was a thread about Larry Niven. A few of the fellas posted about liking 'Footfall' and 'Lucifer's Hammer,' so I latched onto them both from eBay. Just finished a string of Clancy and Crichton novels, so Larry's next. After that it's some real crazy science. I found a couple of Emmanuel Velikovsky classics at the second hand book store recently, 'Earth in Upheaval' and 'Worlds in Collision.' I know I'm late, but just thought I'd give 'em a try.
 
Just started "the Defeat of the Spanish Armada" by Garrett mattingly.
Before that, "The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul" by Douglas Adams (again!). Before that "Thinner" by Stephen King.

Andy
 
Currently reading "Sophies World" by Jostein Gaarder. A kind of a history of philosophy for dummys. Great read.
 
NeedleRemorse, you might actually find yourself enjoying "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn".

I'm currently re-reading "Collected Ghost Storys" by M.R. James. This is the classic stuff, considered by many (including me) the best ghost stories ever written. I don't think it's been out of print since it was published early in the last century.

Next in line is "Lurulu" by Jack Vance. I almost don't want to start it as this will probably be the last book Vance will write. He's in his 90s and nearly blind now.
 
Needle,

The Great Gatsby's not a bad read. You might like it.

tortoise,

How was Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe ? I've seen that in Borders the last couple times I've been in there, and have been tempted to pick it up.

I keep trying to begin Gavin de Becker's The Gift of Fear, but keep getting sidetracked. One book I have to wholeheartedly reccomend is A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. It's pretty much a history of everything, from the beginning of the universe to now, with Bryson's humor interspersed throughout. Another one some of you would probably enjoy is Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly. The title's self explanatory :p
 
Anyone else looking forward to reading the newest Harry Potter book (#6)? Does that make me a geek? :p

~ashes
 
ROBERT LUDLUM IS MAY FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER!!! IVE READ ALMOST ALL OF HIS BOOKS!!! GO ROBERT LUDLUM!!!

oh yeah, read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian--- awesome read

A Confederacy of Dunces by O'Toole

Catch 22

The Aquitane Progression

Native American Bows and Arrows

and plenty more where that came from! Plus a few more Ludlum books. (yay!)

im depressed that he died though. and that the bourne movies are so terrible.

read them all i command you!

*** just in case you didn't realize i LOVE reading. its my favorite past time.

maybe ill get around to writing alot of book reveiws....
 
Slaytanic said:
I'm just about done with "Are You there God? it's me Margaret" one from my Judy Blume collection.
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OK, I just gotta say it. With a name like Slaytanic, I would have expected you to be reading something much more sinister. :eek:
 
Lost In Shuffle said:
ROBERT LUDLUM IS MAY FAVORITE AUTHOR EVER!!! IVE READ ALMOST ALL OF HIS BOOKS!!! GO ROBERT LUDLUM!!!

oh yeah, read The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brian--- awesome read

A Confederacy of Dunces by O'Toole

Catch 22

The Aquitane Progression

Native American Bows and Arrows

and plenty more where that came from! Plus a few more Ludlum books. (yay!)

im depressed that he died though. and that the bourne movies are so terrible.

read them all i command you!

*** just in case you didn't realize i LOVE reading. its my favorite past time.

maybe ill get around to writing alot of book reveiws....
Click to expand...

Ludlum gave his characters dimension. For a "action" author that is what can
seperate the good from the bad. I almost can forgive him for writing the less
than good "Road to Omaha" that is not recomended. I haven't read the sequal to "the Matarese Circle" is it any good?
 
Reading Notabene '45 by Erich Kaestner- (trying to keep my German up)- It's a diary by a "forbidden" German writer from the final days of WWII. Amazing insights into the lives of "ordinary" folks at the end of the war.
Also rereading Gargantua & Pantagruel by Rabelais. It's a hoot. drunkenness & codpieces. Amazingly funny.
 
TorzJohnson said:
I'm currently re-reading "Collected Ghost Storys" by M.R. James. This is the classic stuff, considered by many (including me) the best ghost stories ever written.
Click to expand...

:D

I can't recommend these stories too highly.

maximus otter
 
Currently re-re-reading Cryptonomicon, by Neal Stephenson. Excellent book. After I'm done with this, I have Aubrey/Maturin book #s 15 and 16 on the way from the library.

I've almost always got a book in the works.
 
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