What book is everyone reading at the moment?

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Snow said:
I should be reading Robert Rankin's new novel The Da Da De Da Da Code which was due to be published yesterday but isn't in bookshops yet. :(

I blame that meddlesome Potter kid.
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Oooh... do I need to have my mom hand-carry me some new Rankin from the Old Country? He doesn't seem to be available in the USA...
 
Selling Your Story In 60 Seconds by Michael Hauge.

I just finished a screenplay and early readers are using the U-word. Fine. Now I have to sell it and I need all the help I can get.

Just purchased a special book for more than $60 (I cannot reveal title at this time) because I need it for research for the next screenplay. A thriller. Damned well better thrill somebody or I'm goin' back to the TeeVee.
 
Neal Stephenson's The System of the World. It's been years since I finished The Confusion, so I'm kind of catching up.
 
"Beyond Freedom and Dignity" by B.F. Skinner. Insightful, in a Satanic kind of way, sort of like Bertrand Russell.

Cpl Ferro
 
I've finished 'Death by Black Hole' by Neil D. Tyson,
started 'Origins' by N.D. Tyson as well.
 
I've got literary ADD at the moment and am slowly working on several different books.

The Universe in a Nutshell by Stephen Hawking
The Social Atom by Mark Buchanan
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72 by Hunter S. Thompson
Generation of Swine by Hunter S. Thompson
And soon...
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

I recently finished:
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
American Gods by Neil Gaiman
 
I should be reading Robert Rankin's new novel The Da Da De Da Da Code which was due to be published yesterday but isn't in bookshops yet.
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A new Rankin! Excellent! I once talked to him about Zombie Flesh Eaters in the Crown Posada in the 'toon you know. Do I get brownie points?

Currently reading GB84 by David Peace, The Science of Discworld, Mrs Dalloway, The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis (well it's next to my bed - that counts!), just finished The Cave by Jose Saramago, which was unexpectedly brilliant, The Damned Utd (which was absolutely gripping, and I say that as someone who hates football), and The Magic Christian by Terry Southern. An unexpectedly brilliant few weeks actually, although I am paying for it with the incredibly turgid Dalloway...
 
The Accidental Mind by David Lidzen (sp?)
The Lucifer Effect by Philip Zimbardo
Mistakes Were Made (but not by me) by Carol Tavris
The Canon by Natalie Angier
The Trouble With Testosterone by Robert Sapolsky
Brain Fiction by William Hirstein

These are all non fiction science books... most have to do with mental aspects of neurology, consciousness, the brain, genetics, and biology to some degree since that is my area of interest right now. (I like true crime too...and just finished Ann Rule's latest book). I like knowing the weird things humans think and do... mental errors and the way we've figured things out about evolution, life, consciousness, motives, etc.

I tend to like non fiction or "true stories" or reality better than fiction or sci fi or romance etc. It's intriguing and "useful" information.
 
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Yes I'm behind its only book 4 as my daughter keeps telling me.
 
U. S. Grant's Personal Memoirs. For most of my life, I've been reading about what a fine book it is. At last I bought what appears to be a good one-volume edition, and started it.

It's more engrossing than any novel could ever be. You simply can't put it down. When I finish, I'm going to find that new bio of Grant. I already respected him for whipping Bobby Lee, and now I envy him for his style.
 
I was re-reading Max Hasting's 1985 Overlord; I'd run out of new books. It's popular, and attempts to be a revision of common assumptions about Allied fighting power in the Invasion. Nothing really new in it -- and for some reason I keep thinking that I heard somewhere that the Germans lost that war.
 
sacket, you'd "love" "Mud, Blood and Poppycock" by Gordon Corrigan.

It overturns several myths about WWI.

The first day of the Somme offensive was not a pointless waste of 20,000 allied lives, despite the fact that no ground was captured. This was because the BEF had been destroyed as a fighting force, so raw, semitrained troops could only walk towards the machine guns. It was the only option, and thus not pointless. (IIRC)

It was a myth that the slaughter was massive, after all 75% of British troops in the Somme were not killed or injured.

Only 12% of all french men born in 1899 were killed in the war.

Of the 8-million British Empire (?) troops mobilised during the war "only" 1 milion were killed or disabled*

*the figures seem high for mobilisation, but the fraction was right, and he was arguing that this showed how benign it was compared to the myths.

I seem to recall some statistics, which he claimed showed how great a chance for survival there was, and you would have been better off playing russian roulette once.

This might have been a slightly harsh review from my recollection of the book (borrowed, not bought), but a quick google search shows me that others think similarly....


"A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam" by Neil Sheehan is a history book that is well worth the read; a biography of an outstandingly brave, able, humane, mysogonistic general...

Jim
 
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The late Ian V. Hogg, when quite a young sprout, authored the volume Gas in the Balantyne Books series, "The Violent Century." If you can come at a copy that isn't falling in flinders, give it a read. He opines, with some evidence, that the gasses used in WWI made a fairly non-lethal, almost humane weapon. Certainly more men were temporarily incapacitated than killed by it. Of course, at the time Hogg wrote a lot of modern gasses were just coming on the market, and I don't think you could write a very upbeat second volume on the topic.

Martin Middlebrooks' The First Day at the Somme is my principal source for the battle (I don't like to read too much on that topic). If I recall correctly, he confirms the figure of ~50,000 total British casualties on July 1, 1916. Deaders would be about 20,000.

Nowadays, military men assume (Darth Rotor will correct me if I'm wrong) that 10 percent casualties in a single engagement will render an infantry unit hors de combat for a considerable period.

In the U.S. Civil War, 40 percent casualties in one fight were pretty common. Seventy percent occurred on occasion. One North Carolina regiment never came back from Pickett's Charge at all. Yes, 100 percent casualties.
 
Just finished "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane," "Peter and the Star-Catchers," "The Italian Secretary," and "The Unbinding."

Starting in on "Thumbsucker" by Walter Kirn now.
 
"The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. Wonderfully imagined and beautifully written thought experiment of what the planet would be like without people.
 
Dawkins, The God Delusion
Peter Irons, God on Trial:Dispatches from America's Religious Battlefields
Richard K. Morgan, Thirteen (SF)
 
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