Books you're reading now...or then...

I bought Jesse Ventura's "Don't Start The Revolution Without Me" sometime ago and just started reading it last week. He is quite a character but I am finding I appreciate his view on a lot of things and I really like the insider view on others about the goings on in government.

His frank honest no holds barred take is refreshing after listening to all the BS for the last 24 months building up to the election.

STR
 
Well my girlfriend couldn't get Faust from Borders (it was recommended to me earlier in this thread by Wintermute, and my girlfriend works at Borders), so I'm going to have to order it with my next amazon order. I the meantime here are some of the more notable books I've read:

Beowulf - translated by Seamus Heaney, an excellent translation. I haven't read any other translations but that one is quite readable and he seemed to keep the flow of the poem quite well.

I just read Villans of All Nations - Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age by Marcus Rediker which is very good if you feel like learning about Pirate culture in the early 18th century. Less random stories about pirates, more about their culture, lifestyle, and why they became pirates.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson, it had been years since I'd read it (I think I had it on tape when I was a small boy). Fantastic short story that is really well written. Would've been better if I didn't know how it ended before I started :p.

I'm just 50 or so pages into the Táin and it's shaping up to be a nice epic tale (Translated by Thomas Kinsella). Due to it's nature though, it can be a little hard to follow in places - keeping up with the names and the places - I'm sure it will come easier as I read more though.


Grim/Don - I'm still debating with myself whether or not it is worth reading the Twilight books :D. Amazon has it for 5 bucks, but says it's 500 pages long, not sure I want to read 500 pages of high school drama! It's such a center of pop culture at the moment I feel I ought to at least give it a try, maybe I'll use it for my next filler item :)
 
I confess I'm not a prolific reader. I'm slowly working my way through Don Quixote. It's the enormous unabridged translation. But i keep finding myself gravitating back to forums and such instead. :-/

Prior to that was the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom... not for the squeamish! :(
 
Just finished Bernard Cornwell's newest Agincourt, a historical fiction about the events leading up to, and including, the English victory over a French army with tremendous numerical advantage on St. Crispin's Day in 1415.
It was told from the view of an accomplished archer, and reads just like one of the Grail Quest series. Since I had no idea "Agincourt" was the name of the battle/field, at first I was looking for a connection to the character in those other books.

Trivia:
There's a scene in the movie Tombstone where the actor(he ain't wearin' no pants!) quotes a short excerpt from Shakespeare's Henry V that refers to this battle.
Google...our friend.
"And Crispin Crispian shall ne'er go by from this day until the ending of the world but we in it shall be remembered. We few, we happy few, we band of brothers, For he today who sheds his blood with me shall be my brother, Be he ne'er so vile, this day shall gentle his condition, and gentlemen in England now abed shall think themselves acursed they were not here, and hold their manhoods cheap whilst any speaks, that fought with us upon St. Crispin's day!"
 
C.S. Graves said:
I confess I'm not a prolific reader. I'm slowly working my way through Don Quixote. It's the enormous unabridged translation. But i keep finding myself gravitating back to forums and such instead. :-/

Prior to that was the Marquis de Sade's 120 Days of Sodom... not for the squeamish! :(
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Woah, I've been wanting to check some Sade out for a while now. How was it, other then the squeamish thing?

Don Quixote looks to be a hugely influential book that I had not heard of. On it goes to the list :).

Owen, I vaguely remember learning about the battle of Agincourt at school. How closely does historical fiction usually follow the true events?
 
There is a 10-12 page historical note after the epilogue describing the author's sources, and the controversy about actual numbers, discrepancies, etc. He seems to have done the best he can to keep things real.
I remember my dad calling me from vacation on his cell phone, touring Civil War battlefields, and telling me he was standing on a battlefield with a Bernard Cornwell book in hand that exactly described the scene(well, geographically) that he was looking at in person.
 
Just finished Michio Kaku's Physics of the Impossible followed by Jon Ronson's The Men Who Stare at Goats From time travel, teleportation, and a unifying model of physics to explain everything to the First Earth Battalion's psychic warriors, I was ready for something in a classic vein so started Flaubert's Madame Bovary last night.



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c00per said:
Woah, I've been wanting to check some Sade out for a while now. How was it, other then the squeamish thing?
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There were some interesting profanities and ol'-fashioned words, though overall easily the most vile thing I've ever read... and yet I had to go back and read it a few more times. :D
 
Don't Laugh...but Ana Rand.

I think Anthem is the best book I've ever read, and I'm working on the Fountainhead.
 
I just finished:The Last Shot : The Incredible Story of the C.S.S. Shenandoah and the True Conclusion of the American Civil War

I bought some artifacts from an old ship when I was on St St Lawrence Island last fall. I was told they were from a whaling ship sunk during the Civil War.I am in the process of making a dagger out of the lance and one of the brass spikes

This is a very good read if you are interested in whaling or or civil War History.

Shenandoah" had remained at sea for 12 months and 17 days, had traversed 58,000 miles (carrying the Confederate flag around the globe for the first and only time) and sunk or captured 38 ships, mostly whalers. Waddell took close to a thousand prisoners, without a single war casualty among his crew: two men died of diseases. The reason the vessel did not have any war casualties was because it was never involved in a battle against any Union Naval vessel, as was the CSS "Alabama", but instead took unarmed United States merchant vessels.

.

I am rereading Wolfkiller: Wisdom from Nineteenth-Century Navajo Shepherd

This book was written by my great grandmother Louisa Wetherill ( wife of John Wetherill one of the discoverers of Mesa Verde) in the 20s . My brother Harvey Leake found the manuscript and published it a few years ago.
I have found very useful wisdom from the stories told by this man who was a plant gatherer for the medicine men.




http://wetherillfamily.com/harvey_leake.htm
 
C.S. Graves said:
There were some interesting profanities and ol'-fashioned words, though overall easily the most vile thing I've ever read... and yet I had to go back and read it a few more times. :D
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:D
Did you look into what translation to get before you bought it? Which one do you have? I heard some are pretty terrible, leaving a lot out (sometimes whole chapters!). My girlfriend has Justine but said it was an awful translation, making it quite boring.

Owen - It's good that the history was somewhat kept :)
 
c00per said:
:D
Did you look into what translation to get before you bought it? Which one do you have? I heard some are pretty terrible, leaving a lot out (sometimes whole chapters!). My girlfriend has Justine but said it was an awful translation, making it quite boring.
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Mine is the Austryn Wainhouse translation... if they left anything out, I'm not sure I'd want to read it! :eek:
 
Currently re-reading Stephen King's The Dark Tower series. About a quarter through The Drawing of the Three. Such an amazing series. Even though I have most of the events and people memorized, it is still fun to re-read again and again and reconnect with those characters.
 
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