BOOKS THREAD

I find myself drawn to the classics lately. During our trip to Boston I discovered the basement at the Harvard Coop and went a little nuts. One of my finds was George Eliot's "Silas Marner". I had never read any Eliot and am enjoying it immensely. I've talked about it enought in fact that for my birthday JR bought me a beautiful edition of "Middlemarch".

Another serendipitous find was "The Gospel of Inclusion" by Bishop Carlton Pearson. For anyone interested in spiritual matters, especially as they pertain to Christianity, I can't recommend it enough. Agree with him or not, he'll make you think about things in a new way.

 

Thanks for the advice. I will definitely use both suggestions.

 

Currently going through Lovecraft...

I think when some people in my classroom asked me what I was reading and I said 'Lovecraft'-- I think they thought I was reading a romance novel or something.

Grin Grin If only they asked me to borrow it.

'It's really a wonderful book, where this man falls in love with a woman and it turns out that she can't because she's his second cousin on his mother's side. Tragic, really, a very sad story.'

 

Came across a cool site that list 100 must-read books. I've already checked off about a fourth of them. Keep your score.

http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/#more-183

 

I'm through about a quarter of Matt Taibbi's Great Derangement. I was expecting healthy dose of name calling and good fun, but it's not anything at all like that. This is a chronicle of the last days of the empire. A sad, sobering tale and maybe one of the most important books of the year.

 

I believe part of that book was excerpted in the Rolling Stone Best of Rock issue last month. Great stuff, he's one of my fave writers.

 

I bought it in large part to support the guy -- and I'm going to pass it along to a guy (huge right-wing friend of mine) who loves the guy's appearances on Imus.

He won't like him, so much, after he reads it.

Truth to power.

 

Interesting list. A little heavy on the Teddy Roosevelt (I think I counted three books about him and one by him), but I guess he was pretty manly.
I've read somewhere between a third and half, I'd guess.

 

I finished Die For Me. It was ok, not as good as I'm Wacthing You, but good alll the same.

I've moved straight onto Heart Shaped Box and it's started off very well. I'm already intrigued.

 

I'm intigued by "Nixonland," a new massive book by Rick Perlstein. But I (sheepishly enough) admit I'm unfamiliar with his work -- has anyone read his Goldwater book?

 

Some tableside reading for the great Fenian_Bastard, during his (hopefully brief) convalescence:



Had it killed Hamilton, which it damned nearly did, there would not have been near half the fun during the crisis of politics that had a stranglehold on the 1790s.

 

I know I'm late, but lack of time -- taken up by school and work and fiancee, etc. and so on -- has kept me out of the reading loop for a long time. But I managed to get myself back into the swing of things, thanks to Harry Potter.

I just finished the final book, two days after finishing "The Half-Blood Prince."

A great end to the series, which I thoroughly enjoyed after years of bashing the books. There was a time when I started to read the first book and couldn't get into it, then I tried again ... and now I'm done.

It's no Lord of the Rings, IMO, but a fantastic story. I came out a little disappointed in the ending, but I guess I'm morbid in that way. I just felt that Rowling sacrificed a better ending to appease to the audience -- a la the situation in "Stranger Than Fiction."

But still, two thumbs up for Harry Potter.