Reading Is Sexy: Books Part III

[onebloodonelife]

Read two books over the weekend...400+ pages total, by choice rather than assignment. I can't even remember the last time that happened. Both were excellent, and I think it's safe to say that J.M. Coetzee is now officially one of my favorite authors.

And started another today:

 

[Moser]

Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I'm reserving time in my life to restart the trilogy. Classic dorky science fiction.

 

[corianderstem]

Heaven: Our Enduring Fascination With the Afterlife by Lisa Miller

Really enjoyable and informative read about how the idea of heaven came to be and how it's changed in the Christian, Jewish and Muslim faiths.

 

[Pearl]

The Greatest Generation, by Tom Brokaw

Very good. It really made me appreciate what the older generation went through.

Now I am onto Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. Its supposed to be how some countries succeed and others don't. I am hoping to learn a lot from this.

 

[Carek1230]

Just finished Michael Pollan's "Food Rules". Wow. Everyone should read this. It will make you think twice about the food you eat.

 

[A_Wanderer]

Collapse ~ Jared Diamond

Six Easy Pieces ~ Richard Feynman

History of Australia (Abridged) ~ Manning Clark

Hitch 22 ~ Christopher Hitchens

 

[Pearl]

Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond.

An excellent book that explains why some societies evolved and others remained in the Stone Age. It also explains why some countries today are more successful than others. This book does it by using evolution, biology, geography, topography and many other sciences. Plus, its easy to read and is not done in some dry, technical style that many history books have.

Now, onto Angel Time by the great Anne Rice.

 

[corianderstem]

Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond.

That's been on my "to read" list for ages. I need to get around to it one of these decades.

I'm stuck about halfway through The Omnivore's Dilemma. It's really fascinating, but I have just not been in reading mode the past week or so.

 

[lazarus]

Foundation by Isaac Asimov. I'm reserving time in my life to restart the trilogy. Classic dorky science fiction.

Aren't there five books? Plus a prequel?

 

[No spoken words]

Aren't there five books? Plus a prequel?

I thought there were seven total...the original trilogy, two subsequent books written years later....and two prequels.

 

[beegee]

I just finished American Eve; Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, The Birth of the "It" Girl and the Crime of the Century.

It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a book this much. It's the true story of a young model and chorus girl who finds herself involved with some pretty powerful men in New York in the early 1900's. It all goes very much downhill for her after that.

It's incredible how one single event in a person's life can define the rest of it.

 

[lazarus]

I thought there were seven total...the original trilogy, two subsequent books written years later....and two prequels.

The later two of the original series, Foundation's Edge and Foundation & Empire, were both fantastic. And I loved how they tied into the two later Robot novels, which are also great. The Robots of Dawn is probably my favorite of his books.

 

[No spoken words]

The later two of the original series, Foundation's Edge and Foundation & Empire, were both fantastic. And I loved how they tied into the two later Robot novels, which are also great. The Robots of Dawn is probably my favorite of his books.

I need to revisit them, methinks.

Read then all in HS (Asimov was the speaker at our graduation, as it turns out).

I read some of his robot short stories but not all of them.

 

[The Sad Punk]

Guns, Germs & Steel by Jared Diamond.

I'm a big fan of that book. Some of it should be taken with a grain of salt, but overall I'm definitely on the side of Diamond's theories, and have used them plenty of times in debate.

Reading all sorts of shit right now, but I picked up Cormac McCarthy's The Road yesterday, I've been meaning to read it for a while.

 

[corianderstem]

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Now that I've learned that I'm practically a corn chip with legs, I'm hoping this will help me in my quest to eat healthier. If nothing else, I will consider the food on my plate and try and think about where it came from.

Love the idea about trying to eat more locally.

 

[onebloodonelife]

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan

Now that I've learned that I'm practically a corn chip with legs, I'm hoping this will help me in my quest to eat healthier. If nothing else, I will consider the food on my plate and try and think about where it came from.

Love the idea about trying to eat more locally.

Have you seen Food, Inc.? Pollan is a narrator, along with Eric Schlosser (the author of Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness). The Virginia farmer from the book also stars heavily in the documentary.

Both that book and the documentary certainly made me feel better about being vegetarian, but I also liked that they point out the importance of eating locally, like you mentioned, and other things like that. Remembering that the problems with the food industry are wider than simply the industrial meat complex is a good thing to keep in mind, I think. Also, Food, Inc. does a great job of pointing out the MASSIVE legal protections that the food industry has (ex. the woman who had her 2 year old son die of E.coli poisoning, and she can't even talk about many aspects of the situation on camera for fear of prosecution for libeling the meat industry...how fucking ridiculous!).

 

[corianderstem]

Ha, my aunt just asked me about that movie on my Facebook after I mentioned reading this book. It's in my Netflix queue - I'll have to move it up, because the bits about Polyface Farms were the best things about the book for me.

Loved Fast Food Nation.

 

[Total U2 Nut]

Having read American Psycho a few months back, I'm pretty excited about this; Guardian Review book club with Bret Easton Ellis | Books | guardian.co.uk Should be interesting, and for less than a tenner

Started this a couple of days ago;

I've not read it before, though I did read Of Mice and Men a number of years back at school (god I feel old). Anyway, so far so good, I'm really enjoying it

 

[Pearl]

Just finished two books over the past week:

Angel Time by Anne Rice

It was OK. Anne Rice is a masterful writer, but the bizarre storyline that didn't make sense. But then again, it appears there will be a sequel to this, so maybe in the second book, everything would make sense.

Veronika Decides to Die by Paulo Coelho.

Meh. It was OK. I wish Coelho would get more into the minds of his characters. I keep expecting to be blown away by Coelho ever since I read The Alchemist, but it doesn't seem that any of his other books live up to it. That doesn't mean I will stop reading his works cold, but I am no rush to read another of his books now.

As I mentioned in FYM, I will now be reading God is Not One by Stephen Prothero.

 

[No spoken words]

Having read American Psycho a few months back, I'm pretty excited about this; Guardian Review book club with Bret Easton Ellis | Books | guardian.co.uk Should be interesting, and for less than a tenner

Started this a couple of days ago;

I've not read it before, though I did read Of Mice and Men a number of years back at school (god I feel old). Anyway, so far so good, I'm really enjoying it

One of my all-time favorite books.

So good even dirty, commie, Midwestern hippies would enjoy it.

Hope you keep enjoying it!

 

[cobl04]

just bought my first non-sports/music/non-fiction book in years.

can't wait to read it.

 

[onebloodonelife]

One of my all-time favorite books.

So good even dirty, commie, Midwestern hippies would enjoy it.

Yes, fool, it's on my list. Next up, in fact.

just bought my first non-sports/music/non-fiction book in years.

can't wait to read it.

COETZEE!! He's in my top three authors of all-time. Can't believe somebody else is reading him (though, it makes sense since he's an Aussie now and all). Hope you enjoy it, and let me know how it goes, as I've heard pretty good things about Summertime, but haven't read it yet.

At the moment, I'm switching between two:

 

[No spoken words]

I read the latter, suck-o.

 

[onebloodonelife]

And how did you find it, schmuck?

Personally, I'm finding it a bit distracting, just because of how beautiful his language is. All the damn time. But, it's incredibly written so far.

 

[martha]

I loved that book, but I haven't read it in many years.

 

[No spoken words]

I loved that book, but I haven't read it in many years.

This reply represents my sentiments as well. I read it in HS, which was like 59 years ago or something.

And, yeah, I found that I became more enamored of the flow and use of words more than the story itself. I should re-read one day.

 

[maycocksean]

I just finished Up in the Air by Walter Kirn.

For the first time that I can ever recall, I'd say the movie is WAY better than the book. It has a heart that I feel the book really lacked. Kirn absolutely nailed the isolation that can come with air travel. But reading about an isolated, disconnected person is not very appealing. I didn't find I cared much about any of the characters in the story, including Ryan Bingam, the protagonist. Most of the characters feel somewhat flat, with the possible excepton of Alex, the main romantic interest if you can call her that--she's absent for much of the book. The film added a lot of warmth to the story (not to mention changing virtually all of the plot) that the book lacks. Even worse the book gets worse the further you get, becoming almost inchoherent in the later pages (there's a legitimate reason for that but it doesn't make it any more enjoyable as a read). I'm actually surprised someone decided to option it because I wouldn't have immediately seen a great Hollywood film in the story. Maybe an indie film. . .

 

[beegee]

Just finished reading Animal Farm.

 

[meegannie]

I finally finished cataloguing all of my books on Goodreads (apart from the ones I've loaned out since I can't remember what they are!), and it's quite daunting to see how many hundreds of books I have to read.

I'm reading Troubles by J.G. Farrell, which won the Lost Booker Prize this year. I really love it so far, but I'm eager to finish it soon. I'm reading it for a book club I recently joined, and I'm also reading some books for a summer book club my husband is running through his work (actually, the next book they're reading is Summertime, but I'm skipping that one), and I want to be able to read at least a few books of my own choosing this summer.

 

[martha]

I want to be able to read at least a few books of my own choosing this summer.

Which is why I don't join book clubs. They have one where I work, and the person who got to choose the book for April chose one because it was on sale at Target. I have 100s of books I'd like to read; I don't want to waste my time reading a book because it was on sale at Target!