What Have You Been Reading Lately?

In the last occurence of a thread similar to this, I got some good tips. I think it is time to revive an oldie but goodie.

I've been reading Stephen Ambrose's works, D-Day, Pegasus Bridge, etc. It was very interesting and I highly recommend them, if you are at all interested in that kind of stuff.

Most recently I read Stephen Hawking's more recent work The Universe in a Nutshell. It was okay but not nearly as interesting to me as his previous work, A Brief History of Time. The new work is probably more entertaining with a large dossage of Hawkings delightful wit but, it was a little superficial for my tastes.

What have you been reading lately?

 

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich

 

I am reading two books at the same time. I am reading Where the Domino Fell by Randy Roberts and James Olsen and April 1865 by Jay Winik. Both books are great. I just read Warriors Dont Cry by Melba Patillo Beals which was quite good. My books that are next are My Life by Bill Clinton and The American Political Tradition by Richard Hofstadter.

 

The Coming of Post Industrial Society, Daniel Bell. Excellent book.

 

Dworkin. Hart. Austin. Even Hobbes. What else??

 

Just finished Freakonomics by Steven Levitt, about to start rereading Colin Wilson's "A Criminal History of Mankind", picking up my copy of the Punisher Max Vol 3 Mother Russia Trade Paperback at the comic store tomorrow, whoo hoo I love Garth Ennis!

 

The Hidden History of the Human Race.

Michael Cremo & Richard L. Thompson

 

OK, here are the titles of the books piled on my work table:
Asylums - Erving Goffman
Stigma - Erving Goffman
Essential Papers on Suicide - Maltsberger & Goldblatt (eds)
Suicide - Durkheim
Death and the Quest for Meaning - Strack
New Meanings of Death - Feifel
Graceful Exists - Blackman (ed)
The Social Construction of Reality - Beger & Luckman
The Psychology of Death - Kastenbaum & Aisenberg
Death, Philosophical Soundings - Fingarette
Fear and Trembling - Kierkegaard
The World As Will and Representation - Schopenhauer
Is it any wonder that I sometimes have an attitude?
At the bottom of this pile are two novels, unread,
The Time Travelers Wife - Niffenegger
Quicksilver - Stephenson
Jack

 

Josephus... for Jewish History...

 

Right now my reading is strictly academically related.

I am reading my locksmithing texts and Geisler's and Garrett's volumes on systematic theology in addition to trying to finish Dr. Grover's disseration.

 

I have also been doing some academic reading. I recently finished "Online Learning: Concepts, Strategies and Application" by Dabbagh and Bannan-Ritland, which I was asked to review for a distance ed journal. I just started "Degree Mills" by Allen Ezell and John Bear, which is quite interesting thus far. My family and I also try to read and discuss at least one chapter from the scriptures each day.

Tony

 

That's very kind of you but shouldn't you let Dr. Grover finish his own dissertation?

 

Open Christianity: Home by Another Road
by Jim Burklo

See: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0933670052/qid=1116016472/sr=8-1/ref=pd_csp_1/102-7306982-0436952?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

See also: http://www.openchristitanity.com

 

(1) Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.
How could one resist a book about which the Times of London wrote, "A cornucopia,an elegiac, radiant festival of prescience, meditation and entertainment..." and the Washington Times wrote that "Mitchell's exuberant, Nabokovian delight in word play; his provocative grapplings with the great unknowables; and most of all his masterful storytelling. All coalesce to make Cloud Atlas an exciting, almost overwhelming masterpiece," and the Evening Standard wrote "A remarkable book (which) knits together science fiction, political thriller and historical pastiche with music virtuosity and linguistic exuberance."

But what really enchanted me is the unique model. It is six novels, each utterly different from each other. The first novel stops suddenly in midsentence, and the second, in an entirely different style, begins. It stops suddenly, and the third begins, and so on.The sixth is uninterrupted, then it goes to the second half of the fifth, then the second half of the fourth, and so on. It sounds a bit contrived, but apparently he brings it off. (I'm only halfway through the first of the six and having a fine time.)

(2) Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell.

 

What an amazing book! As soon as I read her Mr. Simonelli story, I realized what an amzing writer Susanna Clarke must be, and I bought Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell about the very second it came out. My favorite bit is what happens to the minor character Stephen Black. Although he spends about 500 pages or so stuck in an increasingly horrible and hopeless situation, the payoff... well I won't spoil it.

 

The Craft of Comedy Writing, Sol Saks

Not too bad. The guy wrote the pilot episode of Bewitched. I have to put that one on pause for Stephen Covey's 7 Habits. Going to a workshop soon.

 

Good to Great
Dance of Change
Managing Transition
What does it all mean (Philosophy)
Some Security+ study guides

 

The Sweet Hereafter

Russell Banks novel and the Atom Egoyan screenplay in comparison for a new screenwriting class this residency.
What a tear jerker!

 

Just read A. B. Simpson's Christ Our Healer (short, sweet 15-page pamphlet). Hope to read Roscoe's collection of aticles on F. F. Bosworth: the Man Behind Christ the Healer and F. F. Bosworth's Christ the Healer after Christmas gifts arrive and get opened.

 

Just finished The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Very satisfying. I can see why it has been a bestseller for a year, although a bit more in the 'chicklit' direction than I usually read. And yet another case (there have been a surprising number) where the author died shortly before her book reached #1 on the NY Times list.