What are you reading?

[Fire_Moose]

Got these from Goodwill, paid about $9 for em. Figure i have sometime before i'll need books 4 and 8....time to start em!

[theCryptofishist]

Virgins of Venice... Interesting, she does pull out stuff from archives that are completely unaccessible to me, but sorta annoying as well. Not particularly challenging thesis. (Am I so jaded that every history book has to be revolutionary? if so, that's pathetic.) And thin. I can't help thinking that this is someone's Ph.D. thesis and that on some level she was phoning it in.
*sigh*

[lucky420]

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak. Enjoying so far...

[ygmir]

Got these from Goodwill, paid about $9 for em. Figure i have sometime before i'll need books 4 and 8....time to start em!

These are great FM!!! perhaps my favorite series ever. A couple get sort of "slow", but necessary for later action.
I went out and bought a .45 Colt revolver, after reading the first!!
eta: are you missing #4?

[Fire_Moose]

Good to hear! Yes, I was not able to find number 4 or 8.


gratz on the 45 LC!

[^Rhino!]

"Kennesaw Mountain" by Earl Hess, professor of history at Lincoln Memorial University. It's the result of 20 years of on-the battlefield and in-the-archives research on what might be considered the final time that the Confederacy was able to hold its own on high ground during the Civil War. Sherman finally had to bypass it in the drive towards Atlanta.

It was one of the last battles in which Maj. Gen. George Thomas and Maj. Gen. Sherman's corps fought side by side, the Army of the Tennessee and the Army of the Cumberland arrayed north of the granite monadnock known as Kennesaw Mountain. One surgeon there on the Union side later had the battle name given to the first commissioner of Baseball, his grandson.....Kennesaw Mountain Landis.

[ranger magnum]

Got these from Goodwill, paid about $9 for em. Figure i have sometime before i'll need books 4 and 8....time to start em!

These are great FM!!! perhaps my favorite series ever. A couple get sort of "slow", but necessary for later action.
I went out and bought a .45 Colt revolver, after reading the first!!
eta: are you missing #4?

I just read "Under the Dome". Excellent. Much better than the TV show by the same name.

[MyDearFriend]

I am finally reading "Annals of the Former World," by John McFee, got it for xmas and I have to say

Thank you, ^Rhino!

for recommending this book. it is wonderful.

[unjonharley]

Today I received the new catalog of talking books..Its hard to pick..

[goathead]

NDEP environmental protection, of which I have to write an O&M manual to fucking comply to this fucking shit.
Of course if I was good with writing, and or sucking dick, because lets face it blow jobs are the way forward.
This would be a pleasure. And while I do believe in the EPA overall, who does want to drink shit in their water?
Some of this crap is legalize fucking overkill.

I haven't been able to read anything for the last two years for enjoyment.
other then here and FB….sort of, and I feel I have lost my sense of humor for a long time now.

[fernley1]

Reading another west coast/great basin geology book.
"rough-hewn land, a geologic journey from California to the rocky mountains" by Keith Heyer Meldahl.
Pretty good read.

[Bless]

Just finished reading "The Zealot." Absolutely incredible if you like a combo of religion and history.

[theCryptofishist]

goathead--
You haven't been able to read because you're dealing with these laws and manuals, or is it another issue?

[^Rhino!]

I am finally reading "Annals of the Former World," by John McFee, got it for xmas and I have to say

Thank you, ^Rhino!

for recommending this book. it is wonderful.

You're welcome. I gave it to a fellow geologist for his birthday a few years ago, and he was incommunicado for several days at his home. His wife said he had a perpetual smile on his face.

I hope you too get a smile or two from reading it.

I know personally a couple of the characters in the books, or have met them at professional meetings. For others, like David Love and Anita Harris, alas, I never had the chance to meet. Anita Harris was (as my former micropaleontology prof. put it.... "high science meets Susie Homemaker and done right" Their contributions to the science have made the world a better place and the geologic thought more accessible to all.

[unjonharley]

The Climate War: true believers, power....the fight to save the earth..... Eric Pooley..

Ya, I know its a waste of time.. Even if all the worlds daily damage were to stop on this day.. It would be thirty years before climate damage would start to slow.. If your mortality is farther away than mine.. I suggest you start to adapt to the changes.. (as in) how you get and keep your food and shelter..

Comes to mind.. The story of the Grasshopper and the Ants..

[theCryptofishist]

Color: A Natural History of the Palette. It's pretty interesting if you've ever been involved in painting or drawing or otherwise using pigments. I guess dying, too. It's amazing to realize that rather like spices, and gold and silver and gems, pigments were highly valued and traded over long trade routes; and they tie into things like colonialism. I was afraid that it was going to be like A Natural History of the Senses, so I avoided it for years, but am enjoying it now.

[lucky420]

Escape from Camp 14. True account of political prisoner born in one of N.Koreas toughest person camps. Believed to be the only person born in a camp who also escaped from a camp in N. Korea. He recently wrote a letter to Dennis Rodman in regards to him going to N. Korea to coach basketball.

Fuck you Dennis Rodman!

[theCryptofishist]

Fuck you Dennis Rodman!

Just not as famous as he used to be. Remember the 90s when we actually talked about his gender presentation? I bet that's part of the attraction for him, being with the powerful (if demented) and getting press, even bad press...

[unjonharley]

There are words lower than pig fucker in my opinion of Rodman..

North Korea is long ago and far away in my life.

But not for the 6300 MIA.. That will never come come..

[Bless]

Escape from Camp 14. True account of political prisoner born in one of N.Koreas toughest person camps. Believed to be the only person born in a camp who also escaped from a camp in N. Korea.

Was that the author who turned in his own mother for execution?

[lucky420]

Yep, pretty much. It's the world in which he was raised. There was no love in this camp whatsoever, no familial feelings of loyalty. It's quite amazing what these people are subjected to.

[^Rhino!]

Reading another west coast/great basin geology book.
"rough-hewn land, a geologic journey from California to the rocky mountains" by Keith Heyer Meldahl.
Pretty good read.

Yo, fernley.....please keep us posted on what you think. I value your opinion, and the subject matter is a favorite.

[BeeWeeDee]

Quite a read here... on how money and privilege can be used to exploit cheap, desperate, and abundant labor.

[BeeWeeDee]

To pass the time at my volunteer gig I came across the following....

“The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had a feeling, even when it was quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling about any action. It was a fiesta and it was on for seven days.”

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemmingway


Thought it was apt for this group.

[^Rhino!]

**(hears the groans - not ANOTHER Civil War book?)**

Just finished the latest book by Earl Hess - 'The Knoxville Campaign - Longstreet and Burnside in East Tennessee'.

After reading this little gem, my understanding of the East Tennessee campaign of 1863 opened to appreciate just how tough things were in Knoxville in those days. Burniside did the best he could with limited resources, and Longstreet had a commander (Bragg) who just wasn't up to the task of a corps command. Giving orders from Chattanooga that couldn't be followed due to his lack of understanding of the terrain and the units involved.....sheesh! No wonder he got pasted at Nashville in 1864.

[MyDearFriend]

Currently reading Lee Gilmore's "Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man." Very interesting, though quite an academic style and can be dry at times, her thesis is quite well argued. The ideas and themes she addresses are really wonderful and (in my experience) quite valid. A really good read. And the DVD that comes with the book has fascinating old footage of Burns going back to 1996, filmed by the author and her husband (both long-time Burners).

Perfect for dark-of-the-Year musings...

[theCryptofishist]

In between and around other books, I'm working on Robert Fisk's Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the MIddle East. It's hard going. I read the chapter on the Armenian genocide most recently. (Both the terms "Crime Against Humanity" and "Holocaust" were coined to describe this slaughter.) It's heavy going. Two chapters on the Iran/Iraq war. Just grime stuff.
One interesting thing. I heard the thesis that WWII was more or less created by the circumstances and burdens of the Treaty of Versailles, Fisk also thinks that the boundaries arbitrarily drawn in the middle east at the end of WWI, lead to the series of wars, etc., that have been taking place there ever since. (I"ll say that oil and isreal are also factors.)

[BoyScoutGirl]

I'm liking Heinlein's "Job: A comedy of Justice" so far, but not being terribly familiar with the "original" story of Job, I feel like maybe I'm missing something?

[Savannah]

To pass the time at my volunteer gig I came across the following....

“The fiesta was really started. It kept up day and night for seven days. The dancing kept up, the drinking kept up, the noise went on. The things that happened could only have happened during a fiesta. Everything became quite unreal finally and it seemed as though nothing could have any consequences during the fiesta. All during the fiesta you had a feeling, even when it was quiet, that you had to shout any remark to make it heard. It was the same feeling about any action. It was a fiesta and it was on for seven days.”

The Sun Also Rises – Ernest Hemmingway


Thought it was apt for this group.

I love it.

Currently reading Lee Gilmore's "Theater in a Crowded Fire: Ritual and Spirituality at Burning Man." Very interesting, though quite an academic style and can be dry at times, her thesis is quite well argued. The ideas and themes she addresses are really wonderful and (in my experience) quite valid. A really good read. And the DVD that comes with the book has fascinating old footage of Burns going back to 1996, filmed by the author and her husband (both long-time Burners).

Perfect for dark-of-the-Year musings...

Intriguing! Thank you.


. . . I've finally cracked open Sic Pup's recommendation of I Wear the Black Hat: Grappling with Villains (Real and Imagined) by Chuck Klosterman, and am enjoying it quite a bit.

[Sic Pup]

I saw Patti last month in what amounts to a bar. It;'s been a few years since the last time. Good music, good drink, loved the between song banter, just a really genuine person free of all pretense (despite being on a stage). Rough year for her with the loss of Fred, Lou and Allen Lanier, but she remains upbeat. She's advocating a less political and more personal brand of rebellion nowadays (but not so much that she didn't give Pussy Riot it's due). Just a really enjoyable evening.

Anyway, that led me to "Just Kids" her memoir of her early life with Mapplethorpe, a remarkable story about a remarkable relationship. Well written behind the scenes view of the Village in the late sixties told as only a poet can.Highly recommended.

It seems I've been, unconsciously, on a string of non-fiction with central characters comprised of strong women bucking trends making their mark on the world (I'm addicted to heroine in a way that no rehab can cure).

Not veering far from that path I'm currently on "Fairlyland: A Memoir of My Father" by Alyssa Abbot. The story of a little girl growing up in San Francisco in the 70's/80's and her life with her single-parent, gay, poet father. A candid glimpse of a rather unique Bohemian upbringing, warts and all, that simultaneously leaves me envious and wincing.