What Are You Reading?

[Flumm]

You know, for several seconds, in the hope that it would be so bad it's funny kind of thing, I waa seriously considering calling this thread, Amazone...




Then I realised that would just be bad.


Anyways... Now that it's winter, with the the nights are drawing in, this will be time time of year I'm more inclined to pick up a book and read, and I figured chances are, I wouldn't be the only one...

So do you guys find any time to read anymore, now that you have the Zone as your mistress? If so, what are you reading lately?

Also, You know sometimes, when I've finished a book, I find that if I don't discuss it with friends, or follow it up by finding more about it or something, the details often become kind of fuzzy and distorted in the memory...

So I thought this could be a good place to come and chat a little about what you're reading, or discuss something you've just read, perhaps ask about a title you're interesting in, or maybe seeing as it's almost Christmas, even offer titles of things that you would recomend, or know other Zoners would enjoy.




And so I'll go put the kettle on shall I?

Lemme get this straight... so that's, a milk - no sugar, milk, milk, 2 sugars but no milk, black coffee, coffee - milk, a 4 pack of Heineken, a bucket or two of fresh human blood - warm, a pint of wheatgrass, 3 bottles of good tequila, a few ounces of the good stuff, oh no wait, that's 30 bottles of good tequila, and last but not least, a tea - milky, with maple syrup.... right.? ...Right.


OK, you guys make yourselves comfortable, I'll be right back...

[TonyWilson]

Khruschev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman


Very very good book, not drily academic but very well researched.

[Man-in-the-Box]

I'm reading this thread right now. Short, but all-in-all it's a good read. I also happen to be reading a book about the Vietnam War.

[Pacino86845]

The Dictionary. Amazing, epic, informative, and sprawling story from Aardvaark to Zodiac!

[Man-in-the-Box]

Am I wrong to guess that next on your to read list is Thesaurus?

[Flumm]

Khruschev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman?

I have no clue as to what that is Tony, feel free to clue me in there mate.

[vicious_bastard]

I am reading this at the moment. Bill Drummond (ex-KLF) is probably my favourite writer. He and Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp) co-wrote this. Manning has problems - Easton-Ellis style shock tactics for the sake of it. Doesn't work well. Not a huge fan. Drummond is my God. His autobiography '45' is his best one. Go buy it!

[Man-in-the-Box]

I am reading this at the moment. Bill Drummond (ex-KLF) is probably my favourite writer. He and Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp) co-wrote this. Manning has problems - Easton-Ellis style shock tactics for the sake of it. Doesn't work well. Not a huge fan. Drummond is my God. His autobiography '45' is his best one. Go buy it!

That actually looks really good. Thanks, I may be checking that out in the near future.

[ThisIsTheGirl]

That's pretty cool, v_b - I was well into KLF back in the day.

I didn't even know that Drummond had written stuff, I'll definitely check this one out.

I'm being boring and re-reading The First 3 Minutes by Steven Weinberg - it's a great blow-by-blow examination of The Big Bang, I think it's a little out of date now, but a lot of the stuff in there is still fairly solid, and if you've ever heard a statistic about The Universe, and wondered "how the hell did they work that out?", this is great for explaining the processes used by astronomers.

[TonyWilson]

Khruschev: The Man and His Era by William Taubman?

I have no clue as to what that is Tony, feel free to clue me in there mate.

It's a biography of Nikita Khruschev leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin died. He was brutal and ruthless like his predecessor but he was also progressive and wanted the very best for his country. The book won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for biography.
It's also a fantastic history of the soviet union and russia from the poorest peasants living in houses made of mud to the most powerful statesmentwith there villas and mansions. I can't reccommend it enough.

[Pacino86845]

Am I wrong to guess that next on your to read list is Thesaurus?

I started that one, but gave up after just a few pages.
All the characters kept changing identity, it got really frustrating and impossible to follow!

[Flumm]

That's a great call VB, tis going straight onto the wishlist. Cheers mate.

And TITG, don't worry about being boring mate. If you were into reading knitten patters, without actually doing the knitting, then perhaps I might concede that you weren't persuing the most bloody pumping of reading material. But choosing to try and understand the creation of the universe, does not constitute a personality rife with inaquacey.

[ThisIsTheGirl]

Haha! Cheers, Flumm - I still don't understand half of it!

My dad is a politics teacher/writer, so reading a book on Kruschev would make me feel like I was dishonouring my family! I just ask pops if I wanna know something about any 20th Century politics, and any South-East Asian politics from the last 5000 years. It was quite nice when I became an adult and finally realised that my dad had a use!

[TonyWilson]

Haha! Cheers, Flumm - I still don't understand half of it!

My dad is a politics teacher/writer, so reading a book on Kruschev would make me feel like I was dishonouring my family! I just ask pops if I wanna know something about any 20th Century politics, and any South-East Asian politics from the last 5000 years. It was quite nice when I became an adult and finally realised that my dad had a use!

LOL, I'd love someone like that in the family. My dad's a social worker so I can get a good understanding of sociology, the state and such like. Plus he can have people sectioned at will.....which is useful.

[Flumm]

Hey are any of you guys still using a library on a regular basis?

I'd love to, especially now I'm older but I've completley screwed myself over on this one. You see, I lent out a big hardbook compendium of Steinbeck for use at school, about 8 years ago or something now. And for most of those 8 years it lay completely untouched in the corner of a bookshelf, and it's only recently that it's been promoted - still unfinished - to my bedside table.

Don't get me wrong btw, I'm totally guilt ridden about it too, it's just I'd have to start selling tickets to midget boxing matches or something, to pay for ever how much that fine must be now.

I'd give it back, and start using the library properly if I could, it feels all the more of an interesting an essential place to me now that I can't use the bloody thing.

[lyra belacqua]

Just finished The Tender Bar by JR Moehringer. [Pretty good for a memoir. I was hooked by the men at the bar, not so much by the narrator-I don't think I really liked him by the end. B-]

Will be starting Cinnamon Kiss by Walter Mosely once I go back upstairs to my bedroom. [Mosely's works get A+ across the board. I look forward to every one.]

Reading "The Crucible" and "A Raisin in the Sun" in class. [Solid A for both.]

Start The Old Man and the Sea next week. [I read it for the first time last year along with my class and it wasn't as bad as everyone kept telling me. Not the greatest Hemingway, but can he ever top his short stories? (the answer to that is no).]

And not only do I live at my library, I'm on the board of whatever we're called-the people that make decisions and policies. I couldn't love my library more. The little old ladies that work there all have my library card number memorized! This will be a topic that I'll update regularly.

And Flumm, just go in and tell them you lost the book and pay the reatil price for it. Most libraries will just let you pay for a replacement instead of excessive fines. Libraries are poor but we're not mean.

[DennisMM]

Hey are any of you guys still using a library on a regular basis?

I'd love to, especially now I'm older but I've completley screwed myself over on this one. You see, I lent out a big hardbook compendium of Steinbeck for use at school, about 8 years ago or something now. And for most of those 8 years it lay completely untouched in the corner of a bookshelf, and it's only recently that it's been promoted - still unfinished - to my bedside table.

Don't get me wrong btw, I'm totally guilt ridden about it too, it's just I'd have to start selling tickets to midget boxing matches or something, to pay for ever how much that fine must be now.

I'd give it back, and start using the library properly if I could, it feels all the more of an interesting an essential place to me now that I can't use the bloody thing.

Most libraries top out a fine at the replacement cost of the book. Some even waive a substantial portion of that if you actually return the book. The Colorado State University Libraries have a top fine of $100 except in unusual circumstances (very pricey books, etc.), and if the book is returned or replaced after the fine is imposed all but a billing fee and (if replaced) a cataloging fee are waived.

Right now I'm reading Blinded By the Right by David Brock, a one-time conservative journalist who specialized in smear jobs such as The Real Anita Hill. Eventually he realized he wasn't practicing responsible journalism and that the far-right groups and publications that surrounded him were hypocritical and hateful of his closeted homosexuality.

I just re-read V for Vendetta while discussing the movie. I've got more than 50 books out from my library and next may read a study of Japanese media twisting history. My journalistic roots show through.

Oh, and I've read about 300 comic books (mostly related to The Flash and The Crisis/Zero Hour) in the past six weeks in preparation for my writeups on those characters/events, which I finally start this weekend.

Lyra, I second your "no" as to whether Hemingway ever topped his short stories. The 1927 collection Men Without Women, while essentially juvenilia, remains astounding.

[Adam Balm]

Hey Dennis I'm curious. Since you work in a university library, do you have access to EBSCO and so I can basically bug you to look up papers in academic journals for me?

[DennisMM]

Hey Dennis I'm curious. Since you work in a university library, do you have access to EBSCO and so I can basically bug you to look up papers in academic journals for me?

I have full database access but no idea how to use most of them. A quick check of the library site reveals seven pages when the site is searched, four when the catalog is searched. Page one of the site search:

CSU Libraries: Black Issues Forum 2003 - Affirmative Action in ...
EBSCO Academic Search Premier - Partial full text - Includes periodical articles on a variety of subjects.. Education Index - Leading publications in the ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/divandarea/bif/archives/bif03/affirmative_action.htm - 18k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Black Issues Forum 2004 - Affirmative Action in ...
--Connects through CSU Databases - EBSCO Business Source Premier--; "Affirmative
Action" --Found on American Civil Liberties Union - Issues/Racial Equality ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/divandarea/bif/archives/bif04/affirmative_action.html - 18k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: AM250 Clothing Adornment and Human Behavior
Check Sage for holdings.[EBSCO]. Article First (1990-present) Multidisciplinary
database indexing research journals and popular magazines. ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/design/am250.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Using MLA Bibliography
image of limit screen in EBSCO's MLA Bibliography ... EBSCO, the vendor, claimed
they were going to fix this problem in June, but still have not.) ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/english/usemla.html - 20k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Indexes to Dumbledore
EBSCO has many products packaged with varying title content. EBSCO products
include: The Advocate (1995-present, fulltext 1996-present), ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/gnl/indexes.html - 12k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Truncation
EBSCO (Academic Search Premier/Business Source Premier and many others). * ?
replaces that number of character(s). comput* ...
lib.colostate.edu/howto/others/trunc.html - 29k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Library Lingo: E
Earth Access to EBSCO is available through the CSU Libraries Databases. EDITION.
All the impressions of a work printed at any time or times from one setting ...
lib.colostate.edu/lingo/e.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: Business Databases
Business News (EBSCO) Regional business news. Business Source Premier (EBSCO)
Business Source Premier contains the full text for over 8300 periodicals and ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/business/db.html - 13k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: BI365 Introduction to Research
CAB Abstracts * (Ebsco) - Offers abstracts and citations to a wide range of
research in agriculture, veterinary medicine, earth sciences, natural sciences, ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/bioag/BI365.html - 22k - Cached - Similar pages

CSU Libraries: BI308 Introduction to Research
A good database for general articles is: Ebsco Academic Search Premier ...
CAB Abstracts * (Ebsco) Offers abstracts and citations to a wide range of ...
lib.colostate.edu/research/bioag/W308.html - 21k - Cached - Similar pages

I don't know what you'd find useful. Go to lib.colostate.edu to take a look for yourself.

Remember, I have only so much time in my day, and much of it is spent loafing. I've no time to play bird dog for intellectuals!

[Adam Balm]

So I can't give you a citation or anything and you could go out and find the paper in question?

Normally I use arxiv, but it's surprisingly limited, especially the older the paper is....

[DennisMM]

So I can't give you a citation or anything and you could go out and find the paper in question?

Normally I use arxiv, but it's surprisingly limited, especially the older the paper is....

What can I say? I'm not an academic, not a librarian and so know what I've been taught, which is damned little. There are classes, but I've no time for them. I know how to find hard copy, but electronic is new to me.

[Adam Balm]

Alright. I suppose if I'm ever up-shit-creek I can ask you to xerox the hard copy and send it to me, and pay you for the costs...

Of course I could actually do that from my library actually....

Anyway, end threadjack.

[DennisMM]

Alright. I suppose if I'm ever up-shit-creek I can ask you to xerox the hard copy and send it to me, and pay you for the costs...

Of course I could actually do that from my library actually....

Anyway, end threadjack.

Absolutely end threadjack: If you request a sample and give my lazy ass time to look, I'll try.

[Adam Balm]

Okay, back to topic. What I’m currently reading-

Astrobiology: A multi-disciplinary Approach by Jonathan I. Lunine

The chapter on thermodynamics got me on a thermo kick, so I’m reading

At Home in the Universe by Stuart Kaufman

The Touchstone of Life: Molecular Information, Cell Communication, and the Foundations of Life by Werner R. Loewenstein

And Completely unrelated but sitting on my night table waiting to be read is The Computer and the Brain by John Von Neumann.

[Eric G]

Currently reading 3 books, which really equates to about 12 books. (I think)

(Douglas Adams) The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy - a Trilogy in Four Parts. (Re-Reading)

(Stephen King) The Gunslinger Series - (Re-reading the re-release)

(J.R.R Tolkien) The Silmarillion

[doglips]

I am reading -

Books:

Easter Island by Alfred Metraux
The Order Of The Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

Comics:

Revelations by Paul Jenkins & Humberto Ramos (Dark Horse)
B.P.R.D. The Black Flame by Mignola, Arcudi and Davis (Dark Horse)
The Ring Of The Nibelung - Vol 1&2 by P. Craig Russell (Dark Horse)

[Adam Balm]

[doglips]

[magicmonkey]

Just finishing off "Down and Dirty Pictures: Miramax, Sundance and the Rise of the Independants" (Peter Biskind). Great book, thoroughly recommended and crammed full of bitching, rumour and gossip. Also, a great insite into some of your/my favourite filmmakers from the early ninties period stretching up until around Soderbergh's Traffic.

Ben Mezrich's "Ugly Americans" and "Bringing down the house".

Franz Kafka's "Great Wall of China and other short stories".

Just starting "Remote Control" (Andy McNabb).

Also Viscious, I loved Drummonds "Bad Wisdom" and "45", is he working on anything else do you know? 45 was like the cursed videotape in the Ring to me when I first read it, I survived tho...

[vicious_bastard]

Also Viscious, I loved Drummonds "Bad Wisdom" and "45", is he working on anything else do you know? 45 was like the cursed videotape in the Ring to me when I first read it, I survived tho...

He has a few 'projects' on the go, dunno about new books. 'Wild Highway' is on my Xmas list - released a few months ago. The pair take another trip:

Their second trip was to Zaire, a jungle hell on the verge of bloody civil war, where they travelled up-river in search of the ghost of Conrad's Kurtz. With trusty adjutant Gimpo, they underwent all manner of adventures and ordeals before finally fleeing the country the very day before rebels blew up the only international airstrip.

Check out his website. Do you remember the bit in '45' about the Richard Long photo he paid £25,000 for? He has cut it into 20,000 pieces and is selling them for £2 a throw, along with a load of other crazy crap. He will come and make soup for you if you live on his 'soup line'. I love the guy.

[wonkabar]

I'm working on 7 right now...

The Golden Compass

Pawn of Prophecy

The Long Emergency

Generation Hex

my humanities school-book

Introducing NLP

The Earth Will Shake

[Flumm]

And it seems as if there's a really broad cross section of reading habbits here doesn't it? Ah, I don't think anyone is going to benifit more than me from the sheer cross section of knowledge that is gradually pooling, in all the different threads, from all the minds in the PZ....

Wait a minute that sounds a little sinister when I read it. ! Erm, what I mean to say is, I'm humbled, impressed, and extremely gratefull that I get to learn so much from all of your combined wizdom. If I could pay you in anything other that smileys guys, you know I would.





Dennis and Lyra, thanks a lot for the advice, I appriciate it. It didn't even occur to me that that there's people here who had library insider knowledge, when I posted. So now it's as if I've made some accidental confession, and a horrible guilty tome has been unburdened from across my shoulders.

Now all I have to do is repent...

Actually, now that I think about it, I'm pretty sure they have a good selection of DVD's there too, and at a cheaper rate that my local Rental store.

This may well be the begning of a beautiful friendship.



I'll let you now how it turns out.

[vicious_bastard]

DVDs at the library?!? I don't think I've been in one since the days of VHS. I am there.

[magicmonkey]

DVDs at the library?!? I don't think I've been in one since the days of VHS. I am there.

Yeah, the place I used to go you could pick them up for a quid a week.

On the Drummond books, cheers for the info, will look forward to reading the new book by those masters of zen! The guy is a legend, and it is with great respect that I see him continuing to age disgracefully.

[lyra belacqua]

So, one, I love all you guys that have read/are reading His Dark Materials. Seriously, those books have changed my life (sound too pretentious?).

Finished Cinnamon Kiss, which was as awesome as predicted.

Reading The Colorado Kid by Stephen King, which is tons of fun. If King does more of these "Hard-Boiled Mysteries" I will so be reading them. And it'll take me about 45 minutes to finish cause it's they're short.

[Bean]

I'm reading Tucker Rex's stories. Easily the funniest stories published on the internet.

http://tuckermax.com

[DennisMM]

Shamed into it, I'll be starting Unpopular Essays, by Bertrand Russell, any day now.

[Adam Balm]

Shamed into it, I'll be starting Unpopular Essays, by Bertrand Russell, any day now.

Dennis, are you trying to be my favorite person in the world?

Because today, you are.

[DennisMM]

Shamed into it, I'll be starting Unpopular Essays, by Bertrand Russell, any day now.

Dennis, are you trying to be my favorite person in the world?

Because today, you are.

And tomorrow you'll be looking for someone else to whore himself out so you can skip SciFinder.

I feel so used.

Seriously, I am looking to get into some heavier reading soon.

[Adam Balm]

Seriously, I am looking to get into some heavier reading soon.

Good idea! I recommend Nature, Science, Physical Review Letters.... (hint, hint.)

Okay, I'm just being a bastard now. I promise I will only call upon you in my greatest hour of need, sir.

[Adam Balm]

I'm finishing up At Home in the Universe so last night I started Ten Plays by Euripides. I've been wanting to read Euripides for a long time. Of the three greek tragedians, he seemed like the only one that was worth a damn. He was kind of a 4th century BCE Emile Zola. He wrote about regular people, flaws and all, and he wrote with an eye toward social issues, unlike his contemporaries which mostly just retold the same epics and myths. He was a naturalist. It's because of this that he was famously underappreciated in his time, winning only three competitions in his whole life. So last night I read Aclestis, and I have to say HOLY SHIT! Here's my mini review:




"Cry, O land of Pheres, and groan, for the noblest of women; disease is wasting her down to Hades below earth..."

Aclestis, wife of King Admetus, lay dying in her bed. When the play opens, we learn that Admetus was fated to die, but Apollo intervened and tricked the fates into letting him go. But in return, someone else must take his place. And so out of love, Aclestis steps forward and has pledged to go to Hades for her husband. Death creeps into the house and is stopped by Apollo with his bow drawn. Apollo tries to reason with him not to take Aclestis, whose time has not come, who has done nothing wrong, nothing worth dying for. He fails. But he leaves Death with a prophecy:

A man will come to the house of Pheres, sent by Eurestheus to fetch a team of horses from the wintry regions of Thrace. He will be entertained in the house of Admetus, and he will wrest this woman from you by force. Nor will you have any thanks from me; you will do this thing notwithstanding, and you will have my hate....

Admetus weeps and blames everyone else for his wife's death but himself. His mother, his father, everyone who wouldn't step forward and let him have a beer and cheet death. If he lived today, he'd probably start a livejournal over this, he's so self-absorbed and self-pitying. It's only his father who chastizes him for being such a coward.

Eventually, Hercules arrives. He is on his way to fetch a team of horses, in that whole 12 labors thing he has to do. So he stops by to have a drink. Admetus, not wanting to turn away his friend, doesn't tell him that his wife has just died. But he eventually finds out, and pledges to set out and rectify the situation.

In the end, he returns to Admetus with a veiled woman, who he says he won in a contest. She looks like Aclestis, but she doesn't speak. Hercules directs him not to speak to her (I.e., ask her anything that could prove that she's not the real thing) for three days, until she's been purified from Hades.

Admetus lets himself believe this is her, he takes her hand. But we remember Apollo's words, that Death will have her soul in the end, notwithstanding. We are left to decide for ourselves to make of this a happy ending or not.

[magicmonkey]

Greek women are nice. Those mysterious eyes. Death has all our souls in the end...

[Adam Balm]

I just started Medea tonight. Holy crap Euripides is amazing. Medea isn't as good, despite the fact that it's better regarded, but still damn fine. It's a little melodramatic for my tastes... (Medea totally should get a livejournal, or be a suicide girl.)

So, what's everybody else reading?

[docfalken]

Winning by Jack Welch.

What can I say? I'm a business book whore sometimes.

[Mimekiller]

Im reading the fourth book in the "song of fire and ice" series. Best.Fantasy.Series.Ever.

[Ribbons]

I've heard good thing about that series. Maybe someday I'll get off my ass and pick it up.

[RapedByKong]

Currently rereading "god Knows" by Joseph heller. Great read.

[Mr.Eko]

Ender's Game, and I'm lovin it so far. Can't wait for the movie next year from Wolfgang Petersen.

[SpamwiseHamgee]

This week I am currently reading The Princess Bride by William Goldman. It swashes my buckle and buckles my swash on every level

[Thunderbuns]

Mother of Christ, that´s good! I´m totally new to the Ultimate Universe. (Haven´t read "Super" hero stories for years. Stuck to the Punisher, Yeah!) But this is fantastic. Hope in 10 years time that digital effects will be cheap enough, so that this can actually be made into a televison series (One of those with balls). Although I suspect we will never get to see The Hulk actually eat people. Or horny for Betty Ross for that matter..