What books are you reading this summer? Any good enough to recommend?
Books I have to finish and GET. OUT. OF. MY. LIFE. ALREADY. or at least off my bedside table
1. G.K. Chesterton’s The Man Who Was Thursday
2. Denis Leary’s Why We Suck
3. Kevin Baker’s Dreamland
4. Best American Short Stories of 2009 – two measly stories left
Books Purchased That Have Yet To Be Cracked Open
1. Stieg Larsson’s The Girl Who Played With Fire
2. Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother
3. Hunter S. Thompson’s Kitchen Readings – for shame
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Books To Re-Read
1. Robert Heinlein’s Stranger In A Strange Land
2. James Gleick’s Genius
Books To Buy
1. Neal Stephenson’s Anathem
2. China Mieville’s Kraken
3. Alex Bellos’s Here’s Looking at Euclid: A Surprising Excursion Through the Astonishing World of Math
4. Walker Percy’s Love In The Ruins
5. Cory Doctorow’s For The Win
6. Amitava Kumar“s Passport Photos
7. John Brandon’s Citrus County
Have any of you read Charles Stross’s Laundry Files series? What do you think? (Attention, D&D fiends, this is the dude who invented the githyanki and githzerai).
Also must get over book-owning obsession and germophobia and get myself a library card.
The Laundry files are great – I’ve just ordered the Fuller Memorandum. Move For the Win up the list as it is very good and you should probably add Makers by Cory Doctorow as it is a fun read (and is actually aimed at adults too). Anathem – OK but not his best work.
“Seeing Further”, Bill Bryson (Ed.). A series of essays on science and the the Royal Society.
“One Minute to Midnight”, Michael Dobbs. Cuban Missile Crisis.
“More Twisted”‘ Jeffrey Deaver. Short stories with twists. (also “Twisted”)
You’ll adore Love in the Ruins. Candice got me to read it and it’s now one of my favorite books.
Starting “Belching Out the Devil” all about Coca-Cola today and all the world craziness it’s been involved in.
In the middle of “Oil”, aka, “The Squeeze”, by Tom Bower, about the shenanigans the oil industry has been involved in from approx. 1989 to just before the Gulf oil disaster.
Finished up “American Women” by Gail Collins.
Must finish Michael Lewis’ “The Big Short” and then reread it just to make sure I really understand it.
Keep trying and failing to start and finish a book on the Iraq war by Dahr Jamail.
Reading Kathleen Norris’ “Acedia & Me”.
Once my number comes up in the reserve queue, I want to read Stieg Larsson’s “Hornet’s Nest”, the last of the Millennium trilogy.
Going through Laura Lippman’s Tess Monaghan mysteries like there’s no tomorrow.
And that’s just off the top of my head and the piles of books I still have to get through.
Candice has also gotten me off of reading so much nonfiction. This is what I just finished:
http://www.amazon.com/Yellow-Jack-Novel-Josh-Russell/dp/039332110X/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1277812452&sr=1-2
It’s about New Orleans’ first daguerrotype photographer who slowly goes insane from the mercury fumes. Great portrait of 19th Century New Orleans, filled with more sex and violence than any Xbox game…
Clay, ain’t nothing wrong with a bunch of nonfiction. I’ve been reading all that for years now.
I enjoyed “Love in the Ruins.”
Recently finished and very much enjoyed :The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Recently started and quickly discarded in utter disgust at the gimmick: Mr. New Orleans: The Life of a Big Easy Underworld Legend by Frenchy Brouillet and Matthew Randazzo V
Recently read about three quarters of the way through but had to return to the library due to high demand and am eagerly waiting to finish: Nixonland by Rick Perlstein
Recently started and liking very much: The Big Short by Michael Lewis
Checked out and eager to get to: American Radical: The Life and Times of I.F. Stone by D.D. Guttenplan