What are you reading?

[MrsBackRoads]

I just read this entire thread, taking notes of course

I just started a re-read if the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. The 9th book comes out in November. I struggle to accurately describe this series. War, science/early medicine, family drama, and a touch of romance, the author has a PhD in research lol. I also love the audio books.

If you have watched the series on Starz , don’t judge lol. Each book averages 900-1200 pages. The TV series does not do justice to the books.

 

[user 30781]

^^ I think I read Harry Potter 1-4 straight through years ago but that's as far as I got. I may give the whole set a go sometime.

I finished a small stack of books and have another stack coming from the library this week.

Rough house : a memoir by Tina Ontiveros

Season of the witch : enchantment, terror, and deliverance in the city of love by David Talbot

Ramp Hollow: The Ordeal of Appalachia by Steven Stoll

Where I come from : stories from the deep South by Rick Bragg

What you are getting wrong about Appalachia by Elizabeth Catte

Walk till the dogs get mean : meditations on the forbidden from contemporary Appalachia - Author Blevins, Adrian; McElmurray, Karen Salyer

While I'm waiting for these to get here I'm reading Affinity by Sarah Waters. I love her books but they're definitely not to everyone's taste. lol

 

[Calaverasgrande]

The Codebreakers:
the Story of Secret Writing
by David Kahn
It's a comprehensive history of cryptography, codes and encipherment. With a lot of info about code and cipher breaking.
Starts off with some interesting stuff but gets dry in the last couple hundred pages. Its just shy of 1200 pages long.

 

[LERCA]

Did you read Code Walker? Fascinating book. I loved it. I will read it again someday.

 

[travelaround]

Code Walker sounds good. I'll look for that.

Today I'm reading Whittington by Alan Armstrong - a children's novel about a cat.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

Did you read Code Walker? Fascinating book. I loved it. I will read it again someday.

Have not. Will check it out.

 

[user 30781]

I'm still going through a stack of books about Appalachia and am currently
reading Night Comes to the Cumberlands by Harry Caudill. The book was
written in the early 1960s and is absolutely dense with history. It's a little
harder read than I was expecting, but very interesting. And depressing.

https://jsfbooks.com/product/night-comes-to-the-cumberlands/

 

[eDJ_]

I just finished this amazing book.  It deals with  Religion and it's involvement with Politics and provides so many answers regarding how we find ourselves in the USA we now have.   And it may provide insights as to why the Van Nomad lifestyle has become so attractive to so many.

Read this book and then look at the world around you.  

Jesus and John Wayne

 

[brollins]

I just started reading Airline Conspiracy by Capt. John Gallagher.

 

[Calaverasgrande]

Starting The Hobbit.
Last time I read this was over 30 years ago. Interested to see what I think now.

 

[user 30781]

^^It's been years since I read Tolkein. I think it's about time.

Here's an article from the Berea College newsletter in 1990 about the book I'm currently slogging
through, if anyone's interested. I am always interested in mining history, my Italian grandfather was
a coal miner in the Cascades east of Seattle.

https://www.berea.edu/appalachian-c...s/sites/20/2016/04/Vol-19-Iss-4-Fall-1990.pdf

 

[user 30781]

I got through all the books about Appalachia and am currently reading Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot. It's a history of San Fransisco from the early 60s (and a bit from earlier) to the early 1980s. Very interesting. I was a little too young for the Summer of Love and Woodstock, sadly.

 

[user 30781]

Season of the Witch went from hippies to politicians and I lost interest.

Now I'm reading The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases From a State Hospital Attic and it's very good. I couldn't put it
down last night to go to sleep and ended up reading until after 1:00.

https://blpress.org/books/the-lives-they-left-behind/

 

[travelaround]

Currently reading Wolf: The Lives of Jack London... a biography.

 

[gsfish]

I recently read a biography of London, actually part of it. I was disappointed because I was expecting Jack to be more of an adventurer than he was in reality. Too much society and politics for me before I got to the half way point.

That said my most recent book to be finished was Louis L'Amoore's "Education of a Wandering Man". This was more like it writings on his philosophy on self education (only reached 9th grade), reading, and short stories about segments of his life. Louis had had done a little bit of everything from working on ships in the orient, in Europe during WWII and overseeing a mine in the wilderness to chopping wood and skinning dead cows during a drought. A very rough life of survival, counting pennies and going hungry many times but always reading voraciously. He ended up with a library of 10,000 'select' books.

I'm now reading "Devils Gate", about the Mormon "handcart migration". Another amazing survival story that is little known.

Guy

Non-Fiction or No Way! HA!

 

[user 30781]

Waiting for a few books from the library to get here so I'm re-reading Dune. I'd sure like to see the new movie on the big screen but there's no way I'm going to a theater.

Maybe with an N-95 on. Nah.

 

[travelaround]

Jack London - apparently there are many biographies each emphasizing different parts of his life and interests. I just finished chapter 6 of Wolf: The Lives of Jack London - it was about his Klondike adventure.

The cabin he lived in there now is at Jack London Square at the waterfront in Oakland... and Heinhold's First and Last Chance Saloon is part of that - I've been in it. Strange place! Actually only half the cabin is there (from the Klondike) and the rest is a reproduction... they put the other half elsewhere - I don't know where.

He was a strange mixture of working man, socialist, student, adventurer, and writer. I needed to read this because he's a great writer and because most of it takes place in California, a place I've lived most of my life, and a state I'm still learning and reading about.

 

[GypsyJan]

Mormon "handcart migration" had many that were not survivors, so the experiment was shortlived. Those with handcarts had no protection from severe weather. I think a tornado wiped out a few.

 

[txmnjim]

"Waiting for a few books from the library to get here so I'm re-reading Dune. I'd sure like to see the new movie on the big screen but there's no way I'm going to a theater.

The cabin he lived in there now is at Jack London Square at the waterfront in Oakland... and Heinhold's First and Last Chance Saloon is part of that - I've been in it. Strange place! Actually only half the cabin is there (from the Klondike) and the rest is a reproduction... they put the other half elsewhere - I don't know where."


maybe the other half is in Dawson City as i remember seeing a cabin of his there in the 80's?
i sure would like to go see it again!
jim

 

[txmnjim]

i'm almost finished with "The Assassination of Hole in the Day" by Anton Treuer. really interesting Ojibwe chief who was like a real politician in his day! i cant get over how much he is like today's political leaders...