Where have all the books gone?

Currently in the middle of a few books at the moment;

Unspeak by Stephen Poole - Very interesting read about the use of persuading people by stealth and rhetoric.

No Logo by Naomi Klein - Very very good but feels very heavy to read, I will finish it someday !

Just finished Ways of Seeing by John Berger, going to start into Swiss Graphic Design by Richard Hollis and Ferdinand Porsche - Design Dynasty 1900-1998 once I get thorugh the others !
 
It took me some time to find this thread. Anyway, I heard some great things about the "Personal Memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant" (published by Mark Twain)

Has anyone read it? I'm thinking of picking it up later today.
 
Recently Finished Books:
Empire by Niall Ferguson
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^ Great, great great book. Really enjoyed it! And you read about such interesting things as how homosexuality was common practice amongst the British officers stationed in India and why!


Now Reading:

Bernard Cornwell's Azincourt.
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The British Museum Maritime History of Britain and Ireland
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I just finished (after a couple months of on and off reading) "In The Hot Zone" by Kevin Sites.
Then the next week I read "No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy.
Over break I plan on reading "Brotherhood of Warriors" by Aaron Cohen.

The past couple years in college, I haven't really had the time to read for pleasure.
But I love reading and have always loved it, I must have got it from my mom, cause my Dad and brother never read.
 
I don't typically read a lot of fantasy (a lot of it just gets way too weird for me) but I'm currently reading "The Well of Ascension." It's the second book in the "Mistborn" series by Brandon Sanderson. He's a newer author but quite talented.

If you like psychological thrillers try Greg Iles.
 
ptobaby late to the party and probably pretty "generic" in taste but i just read the entire Watchmen comic/graphic novel and am now reading George Orwells 1984. actually enjoying it though i only manage a few pages a night.

being an engineer and having not really done any kind of english language skills type lessons i havent read a full book since i was 15. (bar jeremy clarksons books...which arent really books per se). i tend to get bored quite quickly with reading, and reading numerous journals and reports (i.e. SAE papers) that puts me off reading as well, last thing i want to do after trawling through SAE papers is to come home and read a book!

but yeah, getting back into it now... im finding 1984 pretty interesting i must say. but so far i fail to see why a lot of people refer to our society as heading toward, or being close to what orwell puts forward... im guessing a lot of people who say these things havent actually read the damn thing. for example, in the arts department here at loughborough one of the guys calls the computer room 1984 (or some similar reference to the book)... but its just a room full of computers, its hardly anything like whats described in the book.

i know our societies are slowly becoming less free with all the H&S and PC stuff, all the CCTV cameras and knob heads telling us what we can and cant do etc... but i have a hard time seeing it culminate in something similar to 1984.

still, good book.... its kinda sci-fi, so i like it.
 
I've always been such a bookworm :lol: But lately I haven't found the time to plop down and just read, and read, and read...like I used to do. I used to stay up all night over the summers trying to finish books, especially Harry Potter back when Harry Potter was brand new. I'd lie on my little futon bed with some Christmas lights strung up around my bunk bed ladder and just read until I passed out.

I don't do that so much anymore, mostly because I'm always so busy...either that or I'm spending my nights up late on the computer instead.

Some of my favorite books are by Ann Rule. I love true crime novels and believe it or not I enjoy reading biographies - if its the bio of the right person, anyway :lol: I also love me some sci-fi and a lot of medical thrillers, murder mysteries, horror and the like.

A few of my favorites:

Whispers by Dean Koontz
The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule
Sweet Blood by Pat Graverson
I'd list more but I've read so many books in my lifetime that I can't remember them all. I'm trying to recall one I read a few years ago that was so insanely good, I finished it in one night. It was bigger than the biggest Harry Potter book! But it was just...amazing...

Right now I'm working on a couple books. Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes, something I picked up from the school library. Its non-fiction, about some freaky, super-deadly virus that I can't remember the name of because I'm only on like the 10th page of the book. XD then, I've been working on finishing Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule for quite some time now, and I'm almost done with it. I really really love Ann Rule's work because its all true, for one, but also, she's a local Seattle writer and she usually only writes her books about murders that occur in this area. Its really chilling to be reading a book about real events that happened so close to where you live...

Oh! And I started reading Dune, a loooong time ago, and I've still never finished it....:cry:
 
Just finished The Illustrated Red Baron: The Life and Times of Manfred von Richtofen by Peter Kilduff. Its basically just a big photo album with a lengthy description and background of each photo in chronological order from the Baron's entry into the army to his death on April 21 1918. Very informative.
 
I'm not really much of a reader, but when I find a good book, I'm hooked. Recently I've been reading the memoirs of Frank McCourt, with Angela's Ashes and 'Tis. I mean, I didn't think it was going to be that good and a bit dull, being in set in the earlier half of last century, but man Frank McCourt really does have a great sense of humor. I mean, you'd have to, if you wanted to survive his childhood.

Quite a good series, have to track down the last in the series, Teacher Man.

Need to find some good books for the summer when I've got nothing good to do. I really like stories with interesting characters in horrible situations. Guess I'm a sucker for all that underdog stuff. Also anything that can send me to another, really interesting and capturing world. Just lie in bed, late at night and read all night, being lost in a good book.

@kEv H if No Country for Old Men is like The Road, sounds great. I wasn't much interested in the movie, just way to slow - not so much for that in a movie, but not bothered about it in a book.
 
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Dsemaj, The movie follows the book almost to the letter. They did cut some stuff out for the movie to same time obviously, but just minor scenes. I thought the books pace was perfect, I wasn't expecting it, but once I started I didn't want to put it down (even though I had already seen the movie)
 
I'm attacking two historical tomes by Robert K. Massie, "Peter the Great" and "Nicholas and Alexandria". His first work that I read, "Dreadnought", was massive and epic, just what I needed after studying too much social movement-focused history in undergrad. If anyone is looking for a good history book that isn't too heavy but still keeps you interested, Sidney Mintz's "Sweetness and Power" is an awesome survey of how sugar influenced and was influenced by historical currents.
 
Looks like my taste is a bit childish among you "scholars" :p

I usually read detective and fiction novels.. I have read all the novels by Agatha Christie, Enid Blyton, John Grisham and over 500 novels by a local detective writer.... not to mention books in languages other than English...
 
I enjoy reading but I usually read about what I am interested in at any given time. About a month ago I was interested in what some well known great minds had to say about religion and Christianity in particular after having a long discussion with a friend. I did a quick search online and found CS Lewis had written a book called "The Problem of Pain". I just wrapped up this book after chipping away at it for the last month here and there in the mix of school work and finals. It was an interested read to here someone's take on Christianity and them try to explain in there own words instead of just reciting from the Bible.

Just started a new book called Present at the Future written by Ira Flatow. It caught my eye in the book store a couple of weeks ago so I snatched it up. It is mostly about physics and he makes an attempt to explain particular phenomenons and correct beliefs that we currently live by and explain why they are incorrect. Interesting so far although I am not that far into it.
 
This is a little embarrassing. I read "Twilight"...the first half (or so) is extremely slow, but it gets a lot better. I read almost half of the second book in 2 days ("New Moon") and it's great so far.
 
This is a little embarrassing. I read "Twilight"...the first half (or so) is extremely slow, but it gets a lot better. I read almost half of the second book in 2 days ("New Moon") and it's great so far.

I have read all the twilight books except the last one... I just found they started getting repetative by book 2 and by book 4 i couldnt; handle it anymore that being said the first one was great.

Currently I am reading:
Player of Games, Ian M. Banks I am only 25 pages in so i cannot really give a review but so far so good

Making of a Chef, Michael Ruhlman If you liked Heat by Bill Buford then you will like this as well.

1634: The Baltic War, David Weber and Steven White it's Speculative fiction specifically what would happen if a hick coal mining town from kentucky was transported back intime to Germany circa 1632... it's fucking great

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, Rachel Cohn and David Levithan quit laughing it's fucking great i love it also the movie was boss.... stop laughing... seriously... guys... fuck...
 
When the wife and I visited my parents, I took back a half dozen books by Bill Bryson, acquired from my father (who is an avid book reader) and volunteers at the local library. He either got them free or for less than 25 cents. They are:

Neither Here Nor There - travels in Europe.
A Walk In the Woods - walking the Appalachian trail.
In A Sunburned Country - Travels in Australia.
The Lost Continent - Looking for small town America.
Notes From A Small Country - traveling from South to North Britain.

Pretty funny books!
 
I have the Australian one, although its called Down Under here (assuming its the same book) and its very very funny. Had to read it for school but I have read it a few times since!
 
I have the Australian one, although its called Down Under here (assuming its the same book) and its very very funny. Had to read it for school but I have read it a few times since!

i think in the US the Australian one is "a sunburned country"
 
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