Ok for the high brow crowd what books you are reading

[big nasty kcnut]

I'm reading The New American Revolution by tammy bruce. She is a great thinker and funny.

[Baby Lee]

Originally Posted by NJChiefsFan

I agree about Inferno. I was comparing it to Angels and Demons more so on structure and it being fast paced while DaVinci Code was more about cool revelations and Lost Symbol was just average.

Funny, the thing that stands out most to me about DVC, which I read back when it was only in hardback was how so many chapters were just a page and a half, . . . and often ended in EXCLAMATION MARKS!!!!

[Great Expectations]

Originally Posted by NJChiefsFan

Where have I heard that before...

if I wasn't a fan of the book the movie would have sucked.

[Great Expectations]

I'll finish of Atlas just because I have to much time invested in it to quit now, but Lost Symbol sucked. Maybe I know too much about masons, but that made Stephen King look like a master at finishing his story

[NJChiefsFan]

Originally Posted by Great Expectations

if I wasn't a fan of the book the movie would have sucked.

That's what really got me into books. I didn't get into them until after high school. I don't remember what book it was but I read it and then saw the movie. After that I really started to appreciate how great books can be.

I like the small chapters in the respect that it really invites you to keep reading. I don't like to end mid-chapter, but in a book like Atlas Shrugged for example you really don't have a choice sometimes. But with the Langdon novels you say you will read one more and then you read another because it's just two more pages.

[PunkinDrublic]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I think I gave up on Atlas Shrugged after about 2 pages.

I don't blame you. Rand was a horrible writer.

[Frosty]

Originally Posted by Halfcan

I have been reading this.

Previews are now available.
http://www.amazon.com/Queen-Annes-Re...s+Revenge+book — with Jeff Wilson.

That looks really boring.

[NJChiefsFan]

Originally Posted by PunkinDrublic

I don't blame you. Rand was a horrible writer.

I liked Atlas Shrugged. The beginning is a little rough, I will give you that. I thought she developed the characters very well.

[patteeu]

Originally Posted by NJChiefsFan

I liked Atlas Shrugged. The beginning is a little rough, I will give you that. I thought she developed the characters very well.

The only part of Atlas Shrugged that I didn't like was the tendency toward long-winded, repetitive monologues. In particular, iirc, one of them was a few dozen pages long. Good story and good characters though.

[NJChiefsFan]

Originally Posted by patteeu

The only part of Atlas Shrugged that I didn't like was the tendency toward long-winded, repetitive monologues. In particular, iirc, one of them was a few dozen pages long. Good story and good characters though.

Spoiler!

The first long one with Fransisco D'Ancosca was good. It was a few pages. John Galt's speech at the end is enormous. I read it on the kindle so my perspective on the pages is off but google says it was about 70 pages. It took me about an hour and a half to read it I think. I read it in two parts so I don't know how long it really took. It was the toughest read of the whole book.

[stonedstooge]

Just finished Part III of Stephen King's Gunslinger The Dark Tower series. Got the whole set from my son so I can read them all consecutively. WHAT A TALE!

[Kaepernick]

Originally Posted by PunkinDrublic

I don't blame you. Rand was a horrible writer.

It is a great book, great theme, characters larger than life, but she was badly in need of an editor. You can never tell when she has switched settings or characters. I've been constantly backtracking trying to make heads or tails after sudden changes of scenes or viewpoint characters, with NOTHING to denote the change. Not even a space between paragraphs. NOTHING.

I've just got to the part with John Galt's speech after over-riding the TV and it seems it would have taken 4 hours on TV to recite that speech. She is brutally laborious in her writing, but this takes the cake. That single speech must run to 70 pages (I'm on a Kindle, so I can't tell how many actual novel pages it takes). But it is agonizing slogging through the bog of this one speech.

Great book, though. Everything she warns against in the book has already happened in America. Everything. We are past the tipping point where the parasites are over-consuming everything the producers create.

Just today I read that 101 million Americans receive some form of government food aid. Add all of the welfare recipients and SSI disabled and I am sure 60% of this nation is getting handouts from the Federal government.

There used to be 15 workers for every person collecting Social Security. Now there are only 13 workers for every person collecting DISABILTY alone.

It is not sustainable.

We are heading for a social/financial collapse. It is coming.

[Kaepernick]

Originally Posted by NJChiefsFan

Spoiler!

The first long one with Fransisco D'Ancosca was good. It was a few pages. John Galt's speech at the end is enormous. I read it on the kindle so my perspective on the pages is off but google says it was about 70 pages. It took me about an hour and a half to read it I think. I read it in two parts so I don't know how long it really took. It was the toughest read of the whole book.

D'Anconia's speech about money is the best rant on money I've ever read. It was brilliant.

[Kaepernick]

Originally Posted by Red Beans

This thread reminded me that I'm going to the library today. I just graduated with my Master's this weekend and for the first time in 3 years I'm going to read for my own enjoyment.

That was the worst part about college. There was just no time to read for pleasure with all the solids.

[Kaepernick]

Originally Posted by scott free

The Men of Waterloo: Sutherland - Extremely enjoyable read on a subject i didnt know much about until now, i feel like a real smartass now. But yeah, just learning about this and the men involved was really cool. Wellington, while brilliant, was a bastard of a man to his men, loved to dole out very harsh punishments for minor infractions, despised most of them to his core, thought "most enlisted for the drink (booze)", same feelings went for many of his officers, particularly artillerymen, though he depended heavily on them.

This man was quite the elitist snob and in later years hated and opposed pretty much any kind of modern reforms, both for the military and civilian govt... absolutely hated the thought of the hoi polloi having access to a ballot box.

Napoleon in contrast, wasnt just popular with his men, he was practically worshipped as a god, just the sight of him would rouse his men to extreme acts of bravery... he personified charisma. But what got him at Waterloo, though he felt a genuine affection for all of them, was a kind of disregard for the lives of his men... instead of working complicated flanking maneuvers that had won him so many battles in the past, he had started to rely on full frontal charges that wasted huge amounts of his manpower, his men would charge ahead more than willingly, but too many were wasted for no reason.

snip...

Sounds like a good book.

I always respected Napoleon. He is very much misunderstood, mostly because he lost and the winners write the history.

I have always believed that Napoleon's ultimate goal was less megalomania, and more an ideal vision to create a United States of Europe - under French Imperial dictatorship of course. But everywhere he conquered, he built roads, founded schools, improved sanitation and water delivery, and supported the arts. He cared about Merit above all else, which is why he had the first black General - Thomas-Alexandre Dumas.

Meanwhile, you know that the British were all about Monarchy and station. The officers bought in to the army and bought their own uniforms and arms. So it was all about station for the officers of the British army. No wonder they looked down their noses at the conscripts. For them it was all about the Divine Right to command and the only world they knew was one of class stratification, the way the French Revolution tried to emulate the American Revolution.

I'll have to add that book to my Kindle list. It sounds compelling. Thanks.

[Graystoke]

Originally Posted by stonedstooge

Just finished Part III of Stephen King's Gunslinger The Dark Tower series. Got the whole set from my son so I can read them all consecutively. WHAT A TALE!

Dude...Stop now while you can. The end is a huge cop-out. I was sorely dissapointed.