What's on yer current reading list?

Wormdiet · Post by **Wormdiet** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:15 pm

Hadn't seen this topic for a while so what the heck.

I'm reading a fascinating history of the Taiping Rebellion called God's Heavenly Son. The rebellion was a millenarian Christian movement in China in the mid 19th century. It apparently cost 20 million lives but no one has ever heard about it. I myself was ignant until I encountered it in the course of teaching world history this past year.

It's a well-written book that reads like an adventure novel in some respects, even though the scholarship appears to be solid. The author does a wonderful job of not imposing Western prejudices on the subject matter. Good stuff.

The other one on the nightstand is a Gene Wolfe sci-fi novel.

So whatcha reading?

Redwolf · Post by **Redwolf** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:29 pm

I'm currently re-reading the Mitford series, by Jan Karon. In preparation for our trip to England, I'm also reading "A Winter's Tale," which is what we'll be seeing at the Globe.

Redwolf

avanutria · Post by **avanutria** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:52 pm

I've got about eight books on autism and asperger's syndrome in a pile on my desk at the moment; I'm through about half of them. I also occasionally nick one of Martin's books when he's left it lying around, a historical study on the evolutionary, geographical, social etc factors that made the world the way it is today. Think it's called "Guns, Germs and Steel" but I forget the subtitle and author at the moment.

Cynth · Post by **Cynth** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 12:58 pm

Guns, Germs, and Steel is by Jared Diamond. I thought that was a really interesting book which I hope will make up for the fact that I am currently reading a murder mystery my dad sent me by Martha Grimes called The Five Bells and Bladebone. I am never reading anything the least bit edifying when someone asks this question.

Post by **Nanohedron** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:01 pm

Dusting off and re-reading Italo Calvino. Right now it's t-zero.

dubhlinn · Post by **dubhlinn** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:06 pm

Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes.

Breathtakingly intense and emotional.

Slan,
D.

MarkB · Post by **MarkB** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:16 pm

Good question! My list for the summer is:

Collapse, Jared Diamond
Blink: The power of thinking without thinking; Malcolm Gladwell
Lessons in Terror; Caleb Carr
Wisdom of Crowds; James Surowiecki
World is Flat

I'm halfway through; Paris 1919: Six months that changed the world by Margaret Owen MacMillan. Also a few books on the coming freshwater shortage in the world and the trouble it will bring.

MarkB

jsluder · Post by **jsluder** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:25 pm

Currently, I'm re-reading The Lord of the Rings, because my wife gave me this:

Next on my list is A Pirate of Exquisite Mind : Explorer, Naturalist, and Buccaneer: The Life of William Dampier.

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:30 pm

Ryszard Kapunscinski-The Shadow of the Sun
Orhan Pamuk-Snow
Carleton Jones-the archeology of the Burren and the Aran islands

bradhurley · Post by **bradhurley** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:34 pm

dubhlinn wrote:Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes.

Breathtakingly intense and emotional.

That's funny, a friend of mine gave it to me when it first came out some years ago, and I never sat down to start reading it until last week.

Recently read Haruki Murakami's latest (well, the most recently translated of his novels), "Kafka on the Shore." Even more surreal in some respects than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and equally unforgettable.

Wombat · Post by **Wombat** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:36 pm

Student essays and a thesis on Kant. Actually, I just finished both so I can do some reading for pleasure again.

First on my list is Dylan's Chronicles and Charles Taylor's Multiculturalism. I also want to read Keith Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic.

moxy · Post by **moxy** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:58 pm

bradhurley wrote:Recently read Haruki Murakami's latest (well, the most recently translated of his novels), "Kafka on the Shore." Even more surreal in some respects than The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle and equally unforgettable.

I loved the Wind-Up Bird - not sure if that was the name of the book itself, or just one of the stories in a book of short stories that I read a few years ago. The whole book was quite bizarre, but I couldn't put it down at the time.

I'm working on reading this book on Gödel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter called The Eternal Braid. I haven't picked it up in the last two weeks, but what I've read so far is quite fascinating to me. Gödel is a mathematician, Bach is (of course) a composer, and Escher (also of course) is an artist. Hofstadter combines all of their points of view on life, and their contributions, and comes up with something that has interested me forever. Imagine, someone else has actually considered the links between music, art and mathematics, and has written extensively on this concept!! I just knew there was a mathematical way of looking at everything. I need to get back to this book and see what other mind teasers are waiting for me. Teasers, because my mind loves this kind of stuff...

emmline · Post by **emmline** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:06 pm

In the middle of a couple things, but I have trouble doing much reading if I'm not between writing projects. And I'm currently not.

chas · Post by **chas** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:09 pm

I'm re-reading Sense and Sensibility. I loved it the first time, which was 20 years ago, and remember it being very amusing. However, now I'm finding it one of the most hilarious books I've ever read. It helps being a little older and more up on the 200-year-old language and customs.

In five days I'll be on vacation, at which point I might try to attack something a little more challenging, or at least longer.

Wormdiet · Post by **Wormdiet** » Fri Jun 24, 2005 3:18 pm

moxy wrote: I'm working on reading this book on Gödel, Escher and Bach by Hofstadter called The Eternal Braid. I haven't picked it up in the last two weeks, but what I've read so far is quite fascinating to me. Gödel is a mathematician, Bach is (of course) a composer, and Escher (also of course) is an artist. Hofstadter combines all of their points of view on life, and their contributions, and comes up with something that has interested me forever. Imagine, someone else has actually considered the links between music, art and mathematics, and has written extensively on this concept!! I just knew there was a mathematical way of looking at everything. I need to get back to this book and see what other mind teasers are waiting for me. Teasers, because my mind loves this kind of stuff...

I got about 1/5th of the way into that. What I could decode was great, but it was definitely a trudge for my liberal-arts non-mathy mind.

If you see a book called "Einstein's Violin," which purports to be about the relationship between physics and music, don't bother. It's really a self-congratulatory memoir by a symphony conductor. Very long on pontification and very short on substance.