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.

[Slainte]

2 Biographies on 2 comedians:



and Harry Thompson's book on Peter Cook...

[Sam Hall]

Waylon Jennings' autobiography

[Reaper16]

Originally Posted by Sam Hall

Waylon Jennings' autobiography

Have you ever read George Jones' autobiography? It is hilarious and profoundly sad. Here's an AMAZING excerpt:

Originally Posted by George Jones' 1996 book "I Lived To Tell It All"

No one could any longer deny the descent of George Jones because I often refused to be George Jones. I took on two additional and dominant personalities. I even named them. One was “Dedoodle The Duck,” and the other was the “Old Man.” I quacked like the duck while speaking English, and I moaned like the old man, again in English. I went on for hours and occasionally days, unable to speak in my natural voice. I instead spoke only as Dedoodle and the Old Man. I was a person possessed. The duck sounded like Donald Duck, and the Old Man something like Walter Brennan. They had personalities and passionate convictions of their own. Neither would take shit off of the other.

Sometimes I drove down the road and the duck’s voice began to come forward, antagonizing the old man. He’d call him a bad name and the Old Man would fire back.

“What the hell do you know?” the old man would say. “You’re only a young duck.”

“I’d rather be a young duck than a useless old fart.” The duck would insist.

Their voices would rise until they were shouting at each other. Their language was hard and aggressive. I’d try to steady the wheel. At times the car would veer under my shaking hand because the two voices were screaming so loudly and violently. They leaped out at me, and I trembled in vain to contain them.

My sanity was regularly taking a leave of absence. On more than one occasion, I struggled to pull the car to the side of the road, crying because I couldn’t make the voices stop. The duck and the old man made fun of me.

“So you’re the great George Jones,” one might say. “Wonder what people might think if they could see you now, dirty and stinking and bawling like a baby. World’s greatest country singer my ass. You ain’t nothing but pathetic shit.”

I couldn’t make that stop.

[Reaper16]

I'm about to start reading my favorite annual anthology's release for this year: Best of Food Writing 2009.

[keg in kc]

I'm just about to finish up The Steel Remains by Richard K. Morgan.

Now, I'm not sure how many of you are familiar with Richard K. Morgan, but for those of you who've read his Takeshi Kovacs books, you're familiar with the more...hardcore aspects of his writing. His stories are dark and dystopian, graphically violent and sexual. And The Steel Remains is no different. Except for one thing: this time around his protagonist is homosexual. So it's dark epic fantasy with probably the most agressive language (his characters may say '****' more times in a page than you'd see in an entire Joe Abercrombie novel, which, if you're familiar with Abercrombie, is saying something) and graphic hardcore homosexuality.

It's well-written, as all of Morgan's work is, and the world and characters are very well fleshed-out, but with the graphic man-on-man scenes, I found it to be really, really (,really, really, really) difficult to read at times. We're talking cringe-worthy, and I'm somebody who's always considered myself to be very open and tolerant sexually. But with that said I think I'll keep going with the series once the sequel hits. I'd recommend it to anybody who thinks they can handle the graphic parts, but think they should get a fair warning going in...

Just started reading Abercrombie's fourth novel, Best Served Cold, need to finish up The Vor Game by Bujold and I'm about to start reading Joseph Campbell's The Hero with a Thousand Faces.

[mikeyis4dcats.]

finish Where Men Win Glory last night about the Pat Tillman debacle. Disgusting what this country's army and government did to attempt to cover it up.

[CosmicPal]

Almost done reading "Devil in the White City" by Erik Larson. This is a fascinating book about the 1893 World's Fair and our country's first prolific serial killer who preyed on young women before and during the fair.

I know we had a "Villain" thread, but I don't think anyone ever mentioned H.H. Holmes as a villain. From reading this book, H.H. Holmes certainly deserves to be mentioned as one of the most prolific, if not the most terrifying serial killer in our country. He killed his victims and sold their cadavers to doctors and universities. That's one way to get rid of your victims. Damn.

The book was a National Book Award finalist and deservedly so...

[keg in kc]

Just picked-up Connie Willis' latest, Blackout, but I'm not sure when I'll get to it. It's the first in a two-novel series described as:

In her first novel since 2002, Nebula and Hugo award-winning author Connie Willis returns with a stunning, enormously entertaining novel of time travel, war, and the deeds—great and small—of ordinary people who shape history. In the hands of this acclaimed storyteller, the past and future collide—and the result is at once intriguing, elusive, and frightening.

Oxford in 2060 is a chaotic place. Scores of time-traveling historians are being sent into the past, to destinations including the American Civil War and the attack on the World Trade Center. Michael Davies is prepping to go to Pearl Harbor. Merope Ward is coping with a bunch of bratty 1940 evacuees and trying to talk her thesis adviser, Mr. Dunworthy, into letting her go to VE Day. Polly Churchill’s next assignment will be as a shopgirl in the middle of London’s Blitz. And seventeen-year-old Colin Templer, who has a major crush on Polly, is determined to go to the Crusades so that he can “catch up” to her in age.

But now the time-travel lab is suddenly canceling assignments for no apparent reason and switching around everyone’s schedules. And when Michael, Merope, and Polly finally get to World War II, things just get worse. For there they face air raids, blackouts, unexploded bombs, dive-bombing Stukas, rationing, shrapnel, V-1s, and two of the most incorrigible children in all of history—to say nothing of a growing feeling that not only their assignments but the war and history itself are spiraling out of control. Because suddenly the once-reliable mechanisms of time travel are showing significant glitches, and our heroes are beginning to question their most firmly held belief: that no historian can possibly change the past.

From the people sheltering in the tube stations of London to the retired sailors who set off across the Channel to rescue the stranded British Army from Dunkirk, from shopgirls to ambulance drivers, from spies to hospital nurses to Shakespearean actors, Blackout reveals a side of World War II seldom seen before: a dangerous, desperate world in which there are no civilians and in which everybody—from the Queen down to the lowliest barmaid—is determined to do their bit to help a beleaguered nation survive.

[Pants]

Bout to start Plato's Symposium for the 3rd time.

[Reaper16]

Finished Chuck Klosterman's latest collection of essays, Eating the Dinosaur, last night.

[RedThat]

Finished reading "the way of the peaceful warrior" by Dan Millman.

Going to read another one of his books called "The Life you were born to Live."

[Slainte]

Originally Posted by RedThat

Finished reading "the way of the peaceful warrior" by Dan Millman.

Going to read another one of his books called "The Life you were born to Live."

Millman = Castaneda rippoff...


p.s. Charlie Castaneda = rippoff...

[thecoffeeguy]

Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath58

I'm getting my Secondary Ed. certification along with a History major and plan to teach HS History/Psychology/Justice/Econ etc.

I'm enjoying the hell out of it so far, but IMO, it really comes down to your professors - and I've been really lucky.

Thats funny. I also have a degree in History and have strongly considered getting my teaching credential to teach history.

[thecoffeeguy]

Finishing up, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" by William L. Shirer




Also picked up the following books:

"Russka" by Edward Rutherfurd.




"The Monuments Men"



Also, re-reading:

The Great Gatsby
The Count of Monte Cristo (Awesome book)
1776

Also have a bunch of Jeff Shara books.

Being a history major, I keep collecting books.

[KC Dan]

I'm reading about our future....

The Russian Century: A History of the Last Hundred Years