What Are You Currently Reading?

[Moco Loco]

Cosmos update: I very much enjoy writing little notes in the margins next to any outdated science, for example
universe between 10 and 20 billion years old [ 13.7 B ]

[Pa'li Makto]

I'm just reading lecture notes.

[Ashen Key]

The All American Boys, by Walter Cunningham, on the Apollo program and NASA and things. It's fascinating, and really quite excellent. It helps that he is quite self-aware about how much their egos grew thanks to the media, and also all the human flaws involved.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by Ashen Key

The All American Boys, by Walter Cunningham, on the Apollo program and NASA and things. It's fascinating, and really quite excellent. It helps that he is quite self-aware about how much their egos grew thanks to the media, and also all the human flaws involved.

Sounds good. I really have too many books I need to get through, and you've added one

[Iknimaya]

Currently, F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I love books set in this time period; Salinger, Knowles, etc.

[Clarke]

Elephants on Acid. It's about as bizarre as it sounds.

[Impressionist]

Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich. The author describes his investigations and adventures with ravens. So far I've read the first chapter and the book seems to be quite interesting.

[Ashen Key]

Originally Posted by Human No More

Sounds good. I really have too many books I need to get through, and you've added one

Hah, I should actually take a photo of all the books by my bed, I tend to jump from book to book a lot.

But, yes, the book is really good - obviously, it's all Walt's opinion, and sadly his thoughts on his own mission (he was on Apollo Seven) aren't as long as I'd like, but it's certainly not airbrushed and whitewashed into bland, blind propaganda. It's also got a lot of points of criticism into how things were run, and mistakes that were made. But his notes on the personalities of everyone are fascinating, and also his notes on the politics, and it's occasionally quite hilarious (oh, fighter pilots. You are all so...ridiculously competitive).

And currently, depending on whether I'm reading on the computer or not, I'm alternating between The All American Boys and Tom Holland's Persian Fire: The First World Empire, and the Battle for the West. I've read it before a couple of times, but it remains so very, very excellent. To quote from the back:

In 480 BC, Xerxes, the King of Persia, led an invasion of mainland Greece. Its success should have been a formality. For seventy years, victory - rapid, spectacular victory - had seemed the birthright of the Persian Empire. In the space of a single generation, they had swept across the Near East, shattering ancient kingdoms, storming famous cities, putting together an empire which stretched from India to the shores of the Aegean. As a result of those conquests, Xerxes ruled as the most powerful man on the planet. Yet somehow, astonishingly, against the largest expeditionary force ever assembled, the Greeks of the mainland managed to hold out. The Persians were turned back. Greece remained free. Had the Greeks been defeated at Salamis, not only would the West have lost its first struggle for independence and survival, but it is unlikely that there would ever have been such and entity as the West at all.

What I love is that Holland treats both Greece and Persia as equally as he can (given the historical record is VERY patchy on the Persian side), and goes into the histories of both. And his narrative timing and turn of phrase is just wonderful.

[caveman]

Originally Posted by Iknimaya

Currently, F. Scott Fitzgerald's This Side of Paradise. I love books set in this time period; Salinger, Knowles, etc.

Wow. I just finished The Catcher in the Rye, followed by A Separate Peace and today I went out for This Side of Paradise. Unfortunately it wasn't in. Instead I got "Life of Pi", which is good so far. Still, it's crazy how we're on the same page there. I love that time period too, especially the whole boarding-school-type setting. A Separate Peace and the movie, Dead Poet's Society are good examples.

EDIT: BTW, Might I recommend The Perks of Being a Wallflower?. It's the best book I've ever read. Seeing as you enjoy the same books as I do, you might like it.

[Iknimaya]

Originally Posted by caveman

Wow. I just finished The Catcher in the Rye, followed by A Separate Peace and today I went out for This Side of Paradise. Unfortunately it wasn't in. Instead I got "Life of Pi", which is good so far. Still, it's crazy how we're on the same page there. I love that time period too, especially the whole boarding-school-type setting. A Separate Peace and the movie, Dead Poet's Society are good examples.

EDIT: BTW, Might I recommend The Perks of Being a Wallflower?. It's the best book I've ever read. Seeing as you enjoy the same books as I do, you might like it.

I've actually been looking for a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower at the used books store, but I've been so far unsuccessful. A friend of mine was recommending The Life of Pi as well, I might have to check that out!

Have you read Salinger's other works? Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey are great. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters was okay, but I liked the others better. Last Christmas, I spent most of my holiday reading all of Salinger. After break, I tracked down his other less-published short stories, but I've only read one so far. You can find them online if you search hard enough

[caveman]

Originally Posted by Iknimaya

I've actually been looking for a copy of The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Perks is a very special book. Let me know when you get a copy.

Have you read Salinger's other works? Nine Stories and Franny and Zooey are great. Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters was okay, but I liked the others better. Last Christmas, I spent most of my holiday reading all of Salinger. After break, I tracked down his other less-published short stories, but I've only read one so far. You can find them online if you search hard enough

I haven't read Franny and Zooey but it's on my list. I think next I'm reading Speak by Laurie Anderson. Since I'm off to college and I'm spending most of my time alone, I like reading about outcasts and introverts. It makes me feel less alone.

[Sacred Tsahaylu]

I'm currently struggling through the French translation of Brisingr. Trying to find a copy of The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe without just buying it off Amazon.

Caveman, if you like reading about outcasts, perhaps it isn't too much of a stretch to read about crazy people? Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky is about a man who wants to kill an old woman.
As for outcasts, House of the Dead by Dostoevsky is about an upper class man in a mainly lower class prison.

[Mika]

The intelligence of the heart, The Secret Teachings Of Plants, In the direct perception of nature! By Stephen Harrod Buhner

Well babysitting and trying to spend more time offline, pludded this book off my parents shelf!

"Mankind cannot survive without the nutritional and medicinal properties of plants. The number of plant species on earth has been estimated around 400,000, with many of these species remaining unknown to humans. While only a fraction have been identified and catagorized by western botanists ...many of the plants unknown to the west are known to indigenous people's.

All ancient and indigenous people's insist their knowledge of plant medicines comes from the plants themselves and not through trial and error experimentation.

Buhner teaches us how to learn from plants directly and to understand the soul making process that such deep connection with the world engenders!

Stephen Harrod Buhner is an Earth Poet and senior researcher for the Foundation for Gaian Studies.

[caveman]

Pride and Prejudice . . . it's surprisingly good!

[Empty Glass]

I just finished Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, complete with the final chapter that's not included in Stanley Kubrick's film.

And now I'm on to Shakespeare's Two Gentlemen of Lebowski...a bit different from my previous read.