Whatcha reading redux.

[Darrell]

Finally finished From Dawn To Decadence. Barzun gets down to the late 20th Century, and yeah, western culture is decadent. He took a dim view of "diversity", which he called separatism. Rather than pick up Wolf Hall next, I decided to read Steve Bodio's An Eternity of Eagles, a look at the bird around the world and across cultures.

[blackeagle603]

Just finished Clarence Thomas' autobiography "My Grandfather's Son."

I can't recommend it highly enough. Ya want a contempory American hero to point out to your kids? Look no further.

[308Mike]

I'm reading a great book titled: Flyboys, by James Bradley (also authored: Flags of Our Fathers).

[SeekHer]

Eric--As an early B-Day present from a great niece, I was given a historical fiction trilogy by a Swedish author named Jan Guillou (wrote the Hamilton series) about the Crusades to the Holy Land...I'm just over one hundred pages into the first book, titled "The Road to Jerusalem" and found that it's thoroughly researched, extremely well written, quite enjoyable and the plot is woven quite adeptly..."The Templar Knight" and "Birth of the Kingdom" are the other two titles.

My youngest daughter picked up a time travel series in the "young adults} section (twelve to eighteen year old) by the author Alex Scarrow that she has graciously allowed me to peruse--under penalty of bodily harm should something befall them--and finished the first book "Temerity's" and the book held my interest straight through--it's quite a page turner...I also have finished the second book titled "Timeriders: Day of the Predator" and thought it predictable but with a unique twist at the end...I had just started the third book "Timeriders: The Doomsday Code" but got some other books that I wanted to read first...I'll get back into it tonight or tomorrow...There are a few more titles out and more being published and my daughter will undoubtedly complete the collection--she takes after me the most...Temerity's: The Eternal War (Book 4), Temerity's: Gates of Rome, Temerity's: City of Shadows, Temerity's: The Pirate Kings, Temerity's: The Mayan Prophecy (Book 8)

He also has published some Y/A books that are supposed to be quite good and are written more along the lines of a first year university level then a grade eight/nine...The Candle Man -- Titanic scenario, Afterlight -- A breakdown of society, Last Light -- A breakdown of society Continued, October Skies -- 1856 space alien/monster attacks wagon train, A Thousand Suns -- WW2 Nazi plot to drop an A bomb on USA

This series is supposed to be excellent according to other females here who've read it...Ellie Quinn Book 1, Ellie Quinn Book 2: The World According to Ellie Quin , Ellie Quinn Book 3:Beneath the Neon Sky-- Y/A mystery series that according to my daughter is "the bomb" and will let me read them when I want to.

Finished these and can't speak highly enough about the research that went into them and how well written they are...Narrative just flows, drawing you in and when you've finished reading the book you feel cheated as you didn't want it to end...William R. Forstchen has been writing alternative history and time travel for decades and who I've been collecting (complete) since I read his first novel about a misplaced (in time) Roman legion back in the early 1980s.

To Make Men Free: A Novel of the Civil War centered around a Coloured Union Regiment, Pearl Harbor: A Novel of December 8th, as well as Days of Infamy are just superb and the after the SHTF One Second After deals very well with an EMP burst after effects

I've finished the John Birmingham trilogy and have to agree with one of the back cover previewers comment (that I slightly modified) where "He is a Australian version of Tom Clancy's earliest techno military!" Damn good and enjoyable read that wove many historical persons into believable scenarios.
Weapons Of Choice, and the second book Designated Targets and also the third Final Impact: A Novel of the Axis of Time

Now that I'm fully retired [yeah, right] all I've been doing is reading and copying TV stuff onto my new PVR...Its been far too cold since Xmas to do any shooting but we did have our annual Xmas Day Rodent Shoot and my four person team ((must contain one female and one youth and no more then one shotgun)) placed seventh of fifteen entered--respectable enough--with a score of thirteen--one humongous {enormous even} Grey Squirrel and ten cottontail and two jack rabbits...Nobody, on any team, got skunked and I only shot once--the squirrel--and I had one seven year old great niece on her first ever hunt (scored three) and another seven year old great nephew on his third "Rodent Shoot" (scored five) and the fourth was the spouse of one of my nieces (scored four--both of the jacks).He was using a Cooper Arms Jackson Squirrel rifle in .22 WMR wearing Zeiss optics...Damn, but that's a beautiful gun...Excellent wood to metal fitting, great balance for a full size rimfire, classic lines and deadly accurate--one hole five shot groups at forty five metres...He got both jacks at around one hundred and twenty five yards--they're too skittish on the bald prairie to approach to get close enough for a cleat shot

Five teams were using beagles --IIRC there were eight in total--and one encountered an old, very cranky, buck porcupine that had just gotten woken up...We removed sixty five quills from the face, throat/neck, chest and the offside foreleg...You just snip the ends off and yank them out with forceps or pliers and clean area with antiseptic spray,

[MiddleAgedKen]

Took a brief break from Anna Karenina to read Gerfalcon, by Leslie Barringer. Very well written; I'm going to read the other two books in the Neustrian Cycle when time permits.

[Aglifter]

Just started reading some old detective stuff. "The Big Sleep," was a bit confused, plot -wise, but pretty well written.

I'm reading "The Thin Man" now.

All of it has been vastly superior to the Jack Reacher stories, I tried. But, Chandler really could write.

[Highspeed]

I have gone through a short phase of reading books about Scientology, which has been fascinating.

Given the 'Church's attitude to criticism and litigious nature I won't say what I think of them here in case it might impact on the forum.

[dfwmtx]

I finally finished Stephen King's "11/22/63".

If you want to read a story in the vein of "I used time travel to change some important point in history and now I created an even more f'ed reality, so I must now go back and set things right again", read Stephen Fry's "Making History". Soo much better.

Also finished the latest in George R.R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" epic. Five books in, I don't see how he's going to tie up all these threads by the end of book 7. Book 9 maybe.

[Jered]

Hell in a Very Small Place

It's about the siege of Dien Bien Phu. Or...how the French High Command commits a whole series of military blunders.

[Rod]

Reading Two Years Before the Mast by Dana and The Memoirs of the Conqustador Bernal Diaz Del Castillo Written by Himself Translated by John Ingram Lockhart. They're both on my iPhone Kindle and were free. The Diaz book is supposedly the BEST description of Cortez's expedition into Mexico. I'm reading an old text for college I happened to have a copy of on the history of Mexico, that's what led me to the Diaz book. I've also got a bunch of other free Kindle stuff from the Gutenberg Project. The Man Who Would Be King, Notes of a War Correspondent by Richard Harding Davis, The Complete Sherlock Holmes, The Secret Agent by Conrad