What Are You Reading?

[Dave70]

Tackling 2 books at the moment, 3 if you count the dictionary to see what a lot of the words mean that these two conjure up.

Waking up -Sam Harris
Thomas Jefferson Author of America - Chris Hitchens

I downloaded the audio book of Waking Up. Learning that patience is a skill that can be trained has come in handy waiting for my hardcover copy to arrive from the book depo..

The chapter that deals with severing of the brains hemispheres via cutting the corpus callosum and the subsequent studies I found astonishing. When we say we're in 'two minds' about something, we really are.

Yep. wiktionary getting a sound workout at my end, thats for sure.

 

[Forever Wort]

 

[wide eyed and legless]

The Hand of Captain Danjou.

Five Legionnaires left, out of ammo, surrounded by 2,000 Mexicans, do they surrender ? **** off! Fix bayonets and charge.

 

[wide eyed and legless]

After reading a shit load of crime novels someone suggested that I try a true crime novel, purchased The secret life of Herman Rockefeller, what an eye opener, can't believe someone worth $400 million would be behaving the way he did, scraping the bottom of the barrel for a cheap thrill.

 

[bullsneck]

Reading this at the moment (not this cover unfortunately - one of the Penguin Classic covers).
It's a killer. I'd give it my highest endorsement.

 

[warra48]

Been on a bit of a classics trip lately.

Read 5 of the 6 Jane Austen published books. Will read the last one soon.

Currently reading Mansfield Park by George Eliot.

Then it will be time to get back into some action and fill the gaps in the Jack Reacher series by Lee Child.

Apart from that, I read AHB each day. Does that count?

 

[Ditchnbeer]

I recommend the Mistborn trilogy by Brandon Sanderson. It's an epic fantasy that is deep with a great ending - I couldn't see it coming with 100 pages left. In recent years I have read lots of 'Book 1's' and not continued on with the rest of the books. The first book of Mistborn is called The First Empire and it is fantastic, a great book by itself. So I continued on with book 2 and glad I did.
Sanderson completed the last few books of the Wheel of Time series which I am reading book 1 now.

 

[philmud]

Just finished The Grapes of Wrath - excellent! I really like Steinbeck and this one appealed to me politically as well as being a good story.
Also reading "Bad Characters" by Peter Stanley, which is about poorly behaved AIF members. So far it's shite - just vague anecdotes about privates getting the clap or deliberately copping a whiff of mustard gas to get the **** away from the front. It's frustrating because the stories are presumably well researched, just poorly relayed by the author. Hoping it improves.

I also just finished "The Prince" by David Marr. It's about George Pell's involvement in the Melbourne archdiocese's response to child sex abuse and it made me really bloody angry.

 

[Dave70]

Pell's a slimy obscurantist ****. To put it mildly.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-20/cardinal-george-pell-tried-to-bribe-paedophile-victim-inquiry/6484420

 

[philmud]

Pell's a slimy obscurantist ****. To put it mildly.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-20/cardinal-george-pell-tried-to-bribe-paedophile-victim-inquiry/6484420

No argument here. I grew up in a very catholic household. While I'm not religious myself I've previously been less than hard on the church around child sex abuse because my own experience didn't reflect the heinous things that have gone on. Reading this essay made me realise what a cop-out that was, and that the church divides the laity this way, and that's why the abuse can occur. Amazing when a book can change you profoundly, but this one made me see that you cannot be on the fence.

 

[madpierre06]

Haven't done a lot of reading in years, fell away from at one time almost living in books. I loved the Sven Hassel series, the Les Norton books by Robert G. Barrett (especially the not so subtle factual references, and one book went to Dirranbandi, near St. George where I grew up), Asterix, Robert Ludlum, Freederick Forsyth.....these days all my reading is background to and specific to my studies. Primarily Christian personal and spiritual development and growth, particularly for practical use in the counseling field and my own personal trek through desert country.

 

[lost at sea]

i work away offshore and taking enough books to sea was always a struggle, buying a kindle when they first appeared was a defining moment, now i read flat out when im away at work, its my escape really, i normally only read non fiction/history/bio's or nautical themed books but i do sometimes enjoy a novel if its based on actual history,

some of the top titles i highly recommend to check out are:

the ghengis khan series by Conn Iggulden: as someone said earlier, that the mongols were bad bad peeps, i disagree and say they were pretty fair for the time in history, they gave you a good chance to surrender, and if you didnt....well thats unfortunate.

1984 and animal farm by orwell, scary to read in this era,

diary of a young girl, by anne frank

mawson and the ice men: by peter fitzsimons

GIRT, the unauthorised history of australia: a humours look at australian history.

Things bogans like: side splitting look at our favorite class of aussies

endurance: shackletons incredible voyage (such a crazy story)

Dont tell mum i work on the oil rigs she thinks im a piano player in a whore house: one of my favorite books ever, i can read it in a single flight to work.

Shadow warrior: true story about Australia's most wanted man in the 90s, dangerous dave. ex SAS soldier turned bank robber and jungle fighter. brilliant read.

Cruiser: by mike carlton

Master and commander: its a 22 book series to which the movie master and commander with russell crow was based on, took me several years to read them all.

 

[Droopy Brew]

Shantaram was a good read but see it has been discussed early on. Big ******* but good yarn and great characters.

 

[Dave70]

Buckled a third of the way through and downloaded the audio book. True story. Chilling how a simple robbery can turn into a slaughter.

Never even bothered with the paperback. I enjoy Hitches whisky and Rothmans inflected vocal timbre.