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

[mlewis78]

I'm reading What Would Jefferson do? A Return to Democracy by Thom Hartman. Also just downloaded Eugene Robinson's Disintegration: The Splintering of Black America ebook from the NYPL.

[Jcas]

Currently reading Still Alice, a good read that i'm finding hard to put down, about a lady's experience with early onset of alzheimers.

[bevdeforges]

Originally Posted by Jcas

Currently reading Still Alice, a good read that i'm finding hard to put down, about a lady's experience with early onset of alzheimers.

I really liked that one. Thought it was really well written and touched on many of the family and human issues.

[kainne]

Finished Something wicked this ways comes. Started Farenheit 451 but lost interest partway through & stopped. Started Shadows Edge by Brent Weeks slow reading due to school. Also reading CompTIA A+ Compete study guide for school.

[bjones6416]

I don't think I ever mentioned that I finally finished "Third Wish" by Robert Fulghum. I WANTED to like it -- I thought it had kind of a hook, what with the accompanying music and pictures and such. Although the story was fairly interesting, though, it came across as a bit pretentious and full-of-itself. Did anybody else read it?

[thinkpad]

Finished Stones Fall by Iain Pears which was an interesting read although it won't end up amongst my favourites. I would probably give it 3 stars out of 6.

Starting on: Paladin, by CJ Cherryh, http://www.webscription.net/p-312-the-paladin.aspx

I'm choosing this one because I want to read a standalone Fantasy and this one seemed to be on many peoples lists over good Fantasy books.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

Finished Stones Fall by Iain Pears which was an interesting read although it won't end up amongst my favourites. I would probably give it 3 stars out of 6.

Starting on: Paladin, by CJ Cherryh, http://www.webscription.net/p-312-the-paladin.aspx

I'm choosing this one because I want to read a standalone Fantasy and this one seemed to be on many peoples lists over good Fantasy books.

I'm trying to read Stones Fall - but got bogged down - may return to it - just can't hold my interest.

[jgaiser]

Just finished Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein. A Jewish boy from the mid-west gets hired as a police reporter for the Japanese language newspaper The Yomiuri Shinbun and gets himself involved with loan sharks, Hostesses, Yakuza and human trafficking.

An interesting look at the seamier side of Japanese culture and the sometimes uncaring attitude of both Japanese police and government.

[thinkpad]

Originally Posted by jgaiser

Just finished Tokyo Vice: An American Reporter on the Police Beat in Japan by Jake Adelstein.

I read this book a couple of months back and was quite amazed of how he succeeded, as a foreigner, to become a journalist in Japan, which doesn't strike me as easy. Good book

[jgaiser]

Originally Posted by thinkpadx

I read this book a couple of months back and was quite amazed of how he succeeded, as a foreigner, to become a journalist in Japan, which doesn't strike me as easy. Good book

There's a partial interview with Jake on the Amazon link in 'Editorial Reviews'.

Jake Adelstein: The Yomiuri Shinbun runs a standardized test, open to all college students. Many Japanese firms hire young grads this way. My friends thought that the idea of a white guy trying to pass a Japanese journalist’s exam was so impossibly quixotic that I wanted to prove them wrong. I spent an entire year eating instant ramen and studying. I managed to find the time to do it by quitting my job as an English teacher and working as a Swedish-massage therapist for three overworked Japanese women two days a week. It turned out to be a slightly sleazy gig, but it paid the bills.

There was a point when I was ready to give up studying and the application process. Then, when I was in Kabukicho on June 22, 1992, I asked a tarot fortune-telling machine for advice on my career path, and it said that with my overpowering morbid curiosity I was destined to become a journalist, a job at which I would flourish, and that fate would be on my side. I took that as a good sign. I still have the printout.

I did well enough on the initial exam to get to the interviews, and managed to stumble my way through that process and get hired. I think I was an experimental case that turned out reasonably well.

[lilac_jive]

I just finished "The Lies That Bind" by Kate Carlisle (love this series!) and now I'm trying to decide what to read next. Contenders are "Side Jobs" by Jim Butcher, "The Beautiful Cigar Girl" (book about Poe and a murder, possibly inspiring Rue Morgue), "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis (book about economic collapse) or finally finish "Catch 22" by Joseph Heller. Oh decisions decisions..

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by cassidym

Just finished Rain Fall by Barry Eisler and it was an excellent and very interesting read. Recommended to me by lilac_jive who NEVER gets it wrong.

Now about 60 pages into Lee Child's latest (Worth Dying For) and , so far, it is very good

Yesterday I finished Die Trying (also by Lee Child) and found it to be very good.

I'm about to start Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by FlorenceArt

Geoff is fine, thank you! When are you joining us, Kenny? You'll soon be the only one that is not assimilated, you know.

I'm not going to be assimilated. I will not read Ulysses. Then again, I won't read War & Peace either.

[Cyclops]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

I'm about to start Rendezvous with Rama by Arthur C. Clarke.

Oh excellent choice sir!
Just don't get hung up on the sequels. Maybe read Rama II but after that, forget it. There's very little Clarke in them to be honest!

[GraceKrispy]

Life is still super busy these days, and I've been a slow reader. I just finished and reviewed John Brinling's "Ghost of a Flea." A good read, overall.