Hey!! Let's get some action going! What are we reading?

[ravenne]

Re-read some stories by Franz Kafka, finished The Kite Runner and Karl May´s Winnetou I (thanks, mtravellerh); just downloaded the Hound of the Baskervilles.

Well, and there´s still a Japanese Animé by Clamp to read and Bill Bryson´s Shakespeare biography. Both are pbooks which means manual pageturns I´m not quite used to anymore

[BookishDreamer]

I've just finished the Scarlet Pimpernel series. I'd read "The Scarlet Pimpernel" while in high school but never realized it was part of a much longer series. HarryT and Flogiston, thank you for compiling the 18 volumes!

Dreamer

[splanchnic]

Hi,

I'm reading and enjoying Blindsight by Peter Watts on eReader on my iPod Touch (while I wait for my Sony 505). If you had told me I would find something to like about a Sci-Fi novel about vampires in space (among lots of other things, admittedly) I would not have believed you. I am looking forward to reading his trilogy that has been made available through a Creative Commons license. If he wrote another book and it was distributed commercially, I would probably buy it having had the opportunity to experience his previous work (for free).

[BlackVoid]

Garet Garret - The Bubble that Broke the World

Available for free from here:
http://mises.org/literature.aspx?act...garet%20garret

It is a book about the Great Depression. What is striking, that the cause was almost identical to the current situation: a gigantic credit bubble. When you read it, you sometimes think it is about the present, but not, it is the 1920s and 1930s.

[Peadar Ó Guilín]

Originally Posted by BlackVoid

What is striking, that the cause was almost identical to the current situation: a gigantic credit bubble. When you read it, you sometimes think it is about the present, but not, it is the 1920s and 1930s.

It's truly amazing how we, as a species, keep falling for the same old snake-oil.

[Elsi]

Originally Posted by LazyScot

What are your thoughts on Once a Hero -- I've not read it. Should I add it to the wish list pile... errr... mountain? (Must learn to read faster.)

I enjoyed it very much -- both times I read it. While it can stand alone, it's best read in its proper sequence. It's the 4th book in Moon's Serrano Legacy series.

1 - Hunting Party
2 - Sporting Chance
3 - Winning Colors
4 - Once a Hero
5 - Rules of Engagement
6 - Change of Command
7 - Against the Odds

If you buy the eBooks from Baen's Webscription site, you can take advantage of inexpensive packaging and bundling.

#1-3 are available in an omnibus edition called Herris Serrano which sells for $4. #4-5 are available in an omnibus edition called The Serrano Connection for $6. It's also available in the October 2008 Webscription bundle which sells for $15.

[Elsi]

It's been almost a month since my last post, and in November, I completed fewer books than I had expected. I've actually completed 5 books in December, though I'm not going to be able to sustain an average of a book a day!

• 120. Once a Hero by Elizabeth Moon (10 Nov, Blackberry)
• 121. Hunting Party by Elizabeth Moon (13 Nov, Kindle/Sony)
• 122. Sporting Chance by Elizabeth Moon (17 Nov, Kindle/Sony)
• 123. 4th of July by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (19 Nov, MMP)
• 124. Winning Colors by Elizabeth Moon (27 Nov, Kindle)
• 125. Girl's Guide to Witchcraft by Mindy Klasky (1 Dec, TP)
• 126. Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris (2 Dec, MMP)
• 127. Rules of Engagement by Elizabeth Moon (3 Dec, Blackberry)
• 128. Hunting Fear by Kay Hooper (3 Dec, MMP)
• 129. 5th Horseman by James Patterson & Maxine Paetro (5 Dec, MMP)

I'm still reading Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson (Sony), Club Dead by Charlaine Harris (Kindle) and A Passage to India by E M Forster. But, I'm not actively engaged in any of these right now. All are good, but none are captivating.

For the next week or two, I'm going to concentrate on the bookring books that I need to read and get on their way to the next readers. The Girl Who Stopped Swimming by Joshilyn Jackson, Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult, and the Fear Trilogy by Kay Hooper (Hunting Fear, Chill of Fear, and Sleeping With Fear.) These are, of course, paper books.

[bbusybookworm]

Just Finished


Davis, Kenneth C. - Don't Know Much About History



And Am Partway through

Friedman, Thomas L. - The World Is Flat A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century

The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Television by Jeff Alexander

The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman

The Complete Sherlock Holmes By Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by bbusybookworm

A TV Guide to Life: How I Learned Everything I Needed to Know From Television by Jeff Alexander

how did you like that one ? i read his blog sometimes. he's pretty funny when he wants to be.

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

how did you like that one ? i read his blog sometimes. he's pretty funny when he wants to be.

Well, I'm partway through and I'm enjoying it quiet a bit.

I'm taking it in small bites, a chapter at a time, as while they are connected each one can and does stand on its own.

While I've never read his blog (but will definitely check it out now) I'm really enjoying some parts as I finished Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson a short while ago, and some of examples mentioned there make some of the humour here even funnier.

So in the end Its well worth the price as its only $12-14 eventhough I Got it during a sale for even greater Micropay

[pshrynk]

I'm reading through the Lensman Series, then will read Eric by Pratchett, then start LOTR again, since it's been a few years. Somewhere in there I have to read Hound otB and finish Count of Monte Cristo. Good thing I'm on vacation in a week, eh?

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by bbusybookworm

Well, I'm partway through and I'm enjoying it quiet a bit.

I'm taking it in small bites, a chapter at a time, as while they are connected each one can and does stand on its own.

While I've never read his blog (but will definitely check it out now) I'm really enjoying some parts as I finished Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter by Steven Johnson a short while ago, and some of examples mentioned there make some of the humour here even funnier.

So in the end Its well worth the price as its only $12-14 eventhough I Got it during a sale for even greater Micropay

thanks, i've added them both to my wishlist.

his blog is here in case you didn't know : http://www.velcrometer.blogspot.com/ however he mentioned recently that he's been blogging on a site about parenting so for a while he wasn't posting much. personally i found it a bit more interesting before he had his kid as the subject of his posts has become fairly child-centric since then (damned kids... isn't that always the way ) but even so it's fairly well-written and usually amusing.

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

thanks, i've added them both to my wishlist.

his blog is here in case you didn't know : http://www.velcrometer.blogspot.com/ however he mentioned recently that he's been blogging on a site about parenting so for a while he wasn't posting much. personally i found it a bit more interesting before he had his kid as the subject of his posts has become fairly child-centric since then (damned kids... isn't that always the way ) but even so it's fairly well-written and usually amusing.

Thanks for the link.

From the quick glance it looks intresting. I've added it to my list of blogs to check every 2-3 weeks (Which is really getting a bit too long but what the heck)

As for the other book, I picked it up as Counterpoint for The Dumbest Generation By Mark Bauerlein whose conclusions I quiet disagreed with.

I've got Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott on my wish list as its on a similar vein.

[zelda_pinwheel]

Originally Posted by bbusybookworm

Thanks for the link.

From the quick glance it looks intresting. I've added it to my list of blogs to check every 2-3 weeks (Which is really getting a bit too long but what the heck)

As for the other book, I picked it up as Counterpoint for The Dumbest Generation By Mark Bauerlein whose conclusions I quiet disagreed with.

I've got Growing Up Digital by Don Tapscott on my wish list as its on a similar vein.

heh, it sounds like you do the same thing i do : read 15 books in a row about the same theme... i will take a look at those ones as well.

my list of blogs is far too long as well, i've had to give up on quite a few of them, i can't possibly keep up with everything. *sigh* too bad there isn't more time (for reading blogs... ). actually i had sort of forgotten about velcrometer until you mentioned that book, i haven't read it in a few months. i'll have to take a look at the latest posts and catch up.

[bbusybookworm]

Originally Posted by zelda_pinwheel

heh, it sounds like you do the same thing i do : read 15 books in a row about the same theme... i will take a look at those ones as well.

my list of blogs is far too long as well, i've had to give up on quite a few of them, i can't possibly keep up with everything. *sigh* too bad there isn't more time (for reading blogs... ). actually i had sort of forgotten about velcrometer until you mentioned that book, i haven't read it in a few months. i'll have to take a look at the latest posts and catch up.

That's the problem of New Media isn't it so much good content, so little time.

And RSS really doesn't help

I Try to keep it down a little bit by getting a lot of info from Podcasts, which I can play when I'm doing something else, but its difficult. I'm pretty backed up on them as well, with being busy with my studies.

I've also recently fallen in love with Audiobooks, after stumbling onto a few CD's from the Teaching Company. Those lecturers are really good, but they are pretty expensive. I got lucky and got some at a great price second hand.