Read A Good Book Lately?

[Draggon]

I found Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead to be intellectually stimulating. I'm trying to make my way through Hayek's "The Road to Serfdom" but dang that things tough. Must be written for Mensa members.

Harry, you've gotta read Killing L:incoln. Great book. Made it through in only 4 sittings. Hard to put down.

I'm going to have to pick up Decision Points.

Edited October 2, 2013 by Draggon

[Ace-Garageguy]

I just look at the pictures.

[FASTBACK340]

The last book I read was Musclecar Confidential by Joe Oldham. The last fiction I read was Swan Song by Robert McCameron. I read too much tech BLAH_BLAH_BLAH_BLAH at work to make reading an enjoyment these days. Although I do subscribe to 3 automotive magazines and just one modeling magazine.

Guess which one?

[Draggon]

What about Henry Gregor Felsen?

[futurattraction]

I just finished a book entitled FDR Goes To War, by Burton W. Folsom Jr. and Anita Folsom. Learned lots of interesting things about FDR and politics at the time - much of which set the table for where we are now...

Oh - one I finished not to long ago was entitled What Cops Know. It was written back in the late 70s about various facets of crime as seen by a variety of law enforcement people in the Chicago PD. Some stories were sad; some funny, but all of them were intriguing in some way or another.

[mk11]

Great topic. brings to mind a line from a L'Amour novel:

'A mind, like a home, is furnished by it's owner. If one's life is cold and bare. he has no one to blame but himself. You have a chance to choose from some pretty elegant furnishings'

mike

[Bigjeff]

Not really original but I just finished "A Storm Of Swords" and started "A Feast For Corws" books 3 & 4 in the " A Song Of Ice And Fire" series (Game Of Thrones)...love those books!

[DPNM]

As one of my top 5 movies, I recently finished reading Cormac McCarthy's "No Country for Old Men". The book could have been handed out to the actors as it was pretty much spot on to the movie.

I am also reading Ron Smith's "Advanced Drawing of Scrolls" trying to learn how to draw them. I have an older post in the Off Topic Lounge section on this forum where I was looking for pre-drawn scrolls. We'll see if I can learn how to do them myself.

[forthlin]

I just got Mat Irvine's Scale car modeling the other day. Lots of good articles & lot's of pictures..

[Rob Hall]

I read a lot of e-books on my Kindle Fire....currently reading the new James Bond novel, 'Solo'. Recently finished John Sandford's 'Storm Front' (long time writer of Minneapolis-area crime fiction). I read a lot of crime fiction (Michael Connelly, Robert Crais, James Patterson, Elmore Leonard, Carl Hiassen, etc), racing biographies (have ones on Gilles Villeneuve and Juan Manuel Fangio in the queue), auto industry-related histories/biographies (recently read Bob Lutz's Icons and Idiots), etc. As a long-time Amazon.com customer, I love Kindle e-books...though I do miss having good local print bookstores--Barnes & Noble is ok, but I was 20 year Borders customer. I read a lot of technical books related to my career, though the books tend to be out-of-date compared to what's on the internet in blogs.

[ZTony8]

I just finished reading a book about the Chrysler Turbine car and I'm about halfway through a book titled "Who,Me?" written in 1940 by Christopher Sensibaugh who was,in the 1930s, the editor of Automotive News.He talks about the auto industry's formative years and the people involved in it-many of whom were still alive when the book was printed.

[Jantrix]

I just finished Stephen King's "Doctor Sleep" which is the sequel to his early work, "The Shining". It's about the boy from the first story, now a grown man. It was quite good. His best since Duma Key, in my opinion.

[Tom Geiger]

Cool responses. Tony, do you know the title of the book about the Chrysler Turbines? That sounds like a good read.

And that was my intent of this thread, to share some book info in the hope of getting some good recommendations.

My current read? River Horse - William Least Heat Moon. This is a follow up to the book in my first post, Blue HIghways, which was about his travels around the USA in an old Ford van. In River Horse, he is attempting to travel the length of the country, from New Jersey / New York Harbor across the entire country on inland water routes. I'm only a few chapters in so far, but it's his same eloquent writing style that kept me riveted to the last book!

[Rob Hall]

My current read? River Horse - William Least Heat Moon. This is a follow up to the book in my first post, Blue HIghways, which was about his travels around the USA in an old Ford van. In River Horse, he is attempting to travel the length of the country, from New Jersey / New York Harbor across the entire country on inland water routes. I'm only a few chapters in so far, but it's his same eloquent writing style that kept me riveted to the last book!

I've read both of those..great writing. Have you read any of the travelogues by Bill Bryson? An American who has lived in the UK for years...great stuff.

Edited October 17, 2013 by Rob Hall

[Tom Geiger]

I've read both of those..great writing. Have you read any of the travelogues by Bill Bryson? An American who has lived in the UK for years...great stuff.

Thanks Rob I will have to look into his work. Blue Highways was recommended to me by Dean Milano. I believe he wrote a song about it.

BTW- I've always wanted to write the great American novel. I'm about two chapters into an interesting tale. Don't know how this will work out, or if it will be another of my unfinished projects... like half my models!

[charlie8575]

I recently started my introduction to Clive Cussler with Atlantis Found. I'm in about 8 chapters, and it's really good. His writing style reminds me a little of mine, so perhaps I have a bit of a bias.

Charlie Larkin

[JollySipper]

I recently finished a book titled "Genesis Revisited" by Zecharia Sitchin. It's a very interesting book. I won't go into what it's about, but you should do a Google search and read up on it. He has a very interesting take on Science, Human History, and the Bible..............

[High octane]

I recently started my introduction to Clive Cussler with Atlantis Found. I'm in about 8 chapters, and it's really good. His writing style reminds me a little of mine, so perhaps I have a bit of a bias.

 

Charlie Larkin

I've been a big fan of Clive Cussler for many years now and have read many of his books. I used to read a lot of novels when I first retired, but then remembered that I have a lot of model kits to build. I usually read novels when I go on vacation and have a new Cussler novel (Havana Storm) for the next upcoming trip. When I'm at the airport shops looking for a novel to read on the plane, Cussler is right on the top of my list along with Patterson.

[charlie8575]

Two more books I've read/am reading at the moment.

Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates by Brian Kilmeade. A very good, very well-written book that foreshadows a lot of the troubles we now have with the Middle East and why we should never have stuck our noses in any of it.

The other book is very interesting- Operation Nemesis is real. It reads like an espionage movie, but it isn't. 

Written by Eric Bogosian, it chronicles how a group of Armenians in America exacted revenge on the Ottoman and Young Turk governments by assassinating several of their top leaders in the early 1920s for planning and causing the Armenian Genocide. 

I won't give the ending away- read the book and be amazed.

Charlie Larkin

[Snake45]

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thompson

Okay, this one I really didn't get. I bought it out of curiosity after the title came up a few times within a week. If you saw Pawn Stars, Corey bought an autographed copy of the book because it was his favorite book. Then I saw it on a friend's Facebook page as one of their favorite books. It's just a drugged out mess without any real plot or redeeming values. Maybe someone can explain why this is a cult classic?

 

Oh, you got it perfectly. Thompson's first book, Hell's Angels, a Strange and Terrible Saga, was a masterpiece, but he went downhill from there. If you were a doper or other "fringy" person you thought he was great (and I admit, there was a period in my life when I fit into this category, more or less), but the truth is that he was extraordinarily self-indulgent and often just doesn't make any sense.

But the thing is, he was capable of writing an absolutely brilliant sentence or even paragraph every now and then. The problem is you have to slog through hundreds of pages of dreck to find them. One of my sig lines on other forums is a HST quote from a Rolling Stone piece he did rather late in his life: "We will march on a road of bones." Isn't that just magnificent?

[1972coronet]

Please Kill Me : the Uncensored Oral History of Punk ( 1996 , ad seq.)

The Soft Machine

Nova Express

Naked Lunch ( the book which lent Steeley Dan their name )

Airtight Willie & Me

[Lunajammer]

Non-fiction: Jon Krakaur's "Into Thin Air."

Jon does a superb job of telling an a amazing story and sorting out the complexities in a clear and understandable way. Last year's movie "Everest" is based on the same story, but a movie simply can't help the viewer keep track of what's happening to each player in the story or relate the significance of their actions.

[Jantrix]

I'm on the second book of the Game of Thrones and have Stephen King's, Finders Keepers next.

[Rob Hall]

Currently reading 'Sophistication & Simplicity:The Life and Times of the Apple II Computer' by Steven Weyhrich. An excellent history of an important computer and the people behind it.  Also just finished 'Trigger Mortis' by Anthony Horowitz, a fun James Bond novel set right after 'Goldfinger'.  

[blunc]

Lately I've been reading just about anything written by David Weber ("Honor Harrington series, Safehold series) and Eric Flint (Ring of Fire "alternate history" series).

Occasionally I will reread just about any of my Heinlein books.