What are you reading?

[Andrew]

@ kimo wires that does look like a gripping read. It got a lot of 5 star Amazon revues too.

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[missydog1]

Andrew, I love the Paperwhite Kindle.

Unabridged Count of Monte Cristo is the way to go with that story, for sure. Reading Dumas always takes me to a happy place.

The reading group a few of started recently read "The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt. We each had a mixed reaction. I'm glad I read it, but it took a long time for it to grab me.

I've been reading "Song of Ice and Fire" a second time, and like it better now that I'm not reading for plot and have characters straight. I'm seeing things I missed.

punafish, your book sounds as if I would like it.

[Punaperson]

Non-fiction: ' Spark: the Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain ' / Ratey. I downloaded it from the library, and wish I could get a copy into the hands of every person who works for the DOE.

Fiction: I just discovered the snarky humor of Simon Green's Novels of the Nightside series when I picked up ' Just Another Judgement Day ', and have requested earlier titles from the library.

[1voyager1]

I've got two books going right now.
I usually try to do only one at a time, but the titles and descriptions sucked me in.
So, I read one for a while and then switch over to the other.
------------------------------
James Barrat - Our Final Invention

A seemingly well done exposition on the dangers that we may be facing from the headlong rush to develop artificial intelligence.
It makes the development of atomic weapons look like child's play.
And, it's not too far off at the rate they're moving on it.
Scary!
--------------------------------
Malcom Potts and Thomas Hayden - Sex and War: How Biology Explains Warfare and Terrorism and Offers a Path to a Safer World

It offers some very reasonable sounding explanations as to why war is such a fixture in human behavior.
I've heard many of their observations made elsewhere.
It keeps an upbeat feeling that there may hope for us despite our failings.
--------------------------------
I'm going to add a third book that I have recently finished.
It ties in loosely with the Potts and Hayden book:

Steven Pinker - Better Angels of Our Nature

The rate of violence experienced by humankind is at an all time low and has a very good likely-hood of coming down even more.
Few people live in abject fear of who is going to be doing physical harm to them when compared to mankind's history of violence.


I've gotta finish these two books and get back to some lighter fiction for a change of pace.
I got started on these because I was reading too much fiction.

[VancouverIslander]

I've finally gotten around to starting reading "Still Point" by my friend Colin Mallard. Very interesting so far, but I keep hearing all of the narrative and at least the dialogue of one character in his voice in my head.

[snorkle]

"Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanche" by SC Gwynne. (available as a free audiobook from the Hawaii State system; downloadable)

"Towards the end of S.C Gwynne’s mesmerizing "Empire of the Summer Moon," Quanah Parker explains to a friend named Miller how “the white man had pushed the Indian off the land.” Quanah, a Comanche warrior who had surrendered to the U.S. government in 1875, directs Miller to sit on a cottonwood log. "Quanah sat down close to him and said 'Move over.' Miller moved. Parker moved with him, and again sat down close to him. ‘Move over,’ he repeated. This continued until Miller had fallen off the log. 'Like that,' said Quanah."

[Frankie Stapleton]

Into Peter Matthiesson's The Snow Leopard. He's an incredibly excellent writer, only person to have won the National Book Award for both fiction and non-fiction (No, not the same book!) The Snow Leopard is nonfiction, somewhat of a memoir as the author died not too long ago.

Also want to recommend Joyce Carol Oates' The Falls, a fictional novel that refers to Niagra Falls but the storyline is Sooo pertinent today, what with the chemical companies and the GMO fallout. Awesome book and an author I'm really just getting into. Also read her book of short stories about Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Heminway entitled Wild Nights....her fictionalized account of each author's last days as told in each of their writing styles. She's another amazing writer!

Love this line of inquiry...

[rainyjim]

Just reread Vonnegut's Man without a country

About halfway through Foma, Wampeters, and Granfalloons.