What are you reading these days?

[playahata1]

I am reading THE PACT, by Sampson Davis, George Jenkins, and Rameck Hunt three young African American doctors from Newark, New Jersey, best friends since high school. In their junior year of high school they made a pact to become doctors. They would attend/graduate from college together, they would attend/graduate medical school together, they would push and encourage and help each other, and they would practice medicine in their home community.

It is the story of three young black men beating tremendous odds. Drs. Davis, Jenkins, and Hunt tell a powerful, inspiring story without being preachy. I bought THE PACT on Monday, and already I am on my second reading.

What's on your current reading list? :)

[MissMillie]

1. Toni Morrison

Song of Solomon

[playahata1]

How far are you into that?

The first time I read it (for an Af Am lit class), it took me THREE WEEKS to get through it.

The second time I read it (for my doctoral examinations), much faster. Still, a tough read.

[BurtWorm]

29. I'm glad I wasn't the only one who found SoS tough to read

I had a headache practically the whole time I read it. I've never had an experience quite like that. I thought the writing was so surgically precise and brilliant, the meaning so dense and pervasive, reading it was like staring into the sun.

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. Currently reading "Prague"

A new book by a new author - it's pretty cool, and it's about a bunch of 20-something american and canadian ex-pats hanging out in Budapest. Pretty good.

Also reading World Council of Churches Faith and Order Committee Paper No. 171

[kayell]

10. Just finished reading Nickel and Dimed

and now reading a junk mystery novel to decompress.

oops, meant to reply to original poster

[trof]

19. pretty depressing, hunh?

It conflicted me.
Now I don't want to support Wal-Mart by shopping there, but what about all the poor bastards who work there?
????

[WillParkinson]

3. Usually just the obits...

I want to make sure I'm not in them!

[eyesroll]

4. I am reading "Essential Ellison,"

a book of Harlan Ellison's work.

I am sneaking peeks of "How To Win A Local Election" and "You Won. Now What?" which are actually my husband's (he's running for Congress, not a local office, but there's still some useful stuff in there).

I read an absurd amount of business books for my job, but usually nothing worth talking about.

I plan to read Harry Potter IV on the plane from Milwaukee to Denver to Salt Lake City (Yes, I'm that fast. Hey -- I can't kick a soccer ball or hold a tune to save my life; I need one talent.)

[sirshack]

5. My list

Just finished "The Long Walk" by Slavomir Rawicz. The story of a Polish cavalry officer captured by the Soviet Union and sentenced to labor in a Siberian gulag. He escapes with some other prisoners and WALKS to British India (over 2000 miles). True story.

Reading "Heaven on Earth: The Rise and Fall of Socialism". Only about 50 to 60 pages in at this point. Pretty interesting read though.

[greatauntoftriplets]

6. Three books

Gullible's Travels by Cash Peters.

Wherever Green Is Worn -- the Story of the Irish Diaspora by Tim Pat Coogan.

Gilligan's Wake by Tom Carson.

[trof]

7. "The Woman Who Wouldn't Talk"

by Susan McDougal.
Although the first (her childhood & growing up, etc.) part was interesting, skip to the middle for the "good(?) parts" about Ken Starr and the OIC (Office of Special Investigations).
Suspicions confirmed: The king of all sleaze bags. There are not words vile and descriptive enough to show what this man did to her and her friends and family.

Now reading "Carry Me Home", about the civil rights movement, especially in Birmingham. I grew up there in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, know "of" the author's family, and remember many of the players, especially the baddies like Eugene "Bull" Connor. If you'd like to learn what really went on, in front of and behind the scenes, this is a riveting book.

[Momof1]

26. its not at all political....but

Kate, Remembered
I loved watching her movies on AMC while growing up, and I love the fact in the book, Scot Berg mentions the reason why she didn't accept the one award was because she didn't want to recieve anything from the Reagans.

[NJCher]

8. this book almost got me banned from the bedroom!

Merry Hall by Beverley Nichols. It's a reprint of a classic in garden literature (even has the black and white line drawings) and is about how the author restores the gardens at an old estate (something I'm doing myself and have been for the past five years). This book is hilarious. I was reading it in bed and kept bursting into laughter. I was literally shaking my side of the bed because I was laughing so hard.



Cher

[kayell]

12. Beverley Nichols is great

be sure to read his other garden books too. He was a fabulous observer of humans, and or cats. Not to mention a deliciously catty writer.

"Most of us rather like our cats to have a streak of wickedness. I should not feel quite easy in the company of any cat that walked about the house with a saintly expression..." B.N.

[Droopy]

9. I'm trying to read "The Federalist"

By Alexander Hamilton and James Madison. I just thought I'd try to get a feel for what the founding fathers originally wanted our government to be like. I'm having trouble getting started on it, it's really dry.

[RandomKoolzip]

11. Studs Terkel's "Hard Times"

It's an oral history of the Great Depression. Fantastic; has brought me to tears twice although I'm only halfway through it. Very relevant advice should Bush continue to dry-hump the economy.

[Enraged_Ape]

13. "Gateway" by Frederick Pohl

The worse things get, the more I delve into the most escapist science-fiction I can find.

I just finished "Archangel" by Sharon Shinn, another good escapist read with a vaguely liberal bent, and about as far removed from tax cuts and WMDs as anything ever written.

[noonwitch]

14. The Western Canon by Harold Bloom

I love his books. I read "Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human" a few years back. Dr. Bloom is a "bardolator", in that he views Shakespeare's writings as almost a scripture to a religon. "The Western Canon" is an older book that discusses great literature at lengths. I have been reading "The Divine Comedy" off and on for years and was looking for some insight other than my own.

[T Roosevelt]

15. Just picked up "Inside the Third Reich"

by Albert Speer. Not too far in but I'm already seeing some parallels...

Also grabbed "What Liberal Media" by Alterman.

[dofus]

16. Two books.

"Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer about the Mormon Church. I'll also be seeing him speak here in KC on August 13. For you KC area DU'ers, go to or phone Rainy Day books to get tickets to see him.

Also "The Forever Year" by Ronald Anthony, a first novel about a young man whose 83 year old father comes to live with him, and the dad starts telling the son (who's fifty years younger) about his great romance, the one he let get away. Great read.

[On the Road]

17. "Route 66 A.D."

A travel book covering the Roman empire, blending a modern account with historical information on ancient tourists and travellers. Very lurid and interesting.

Also started "The Turn of the Screw" by Henry James, which I had never read, but is quite chilling. (The sentences are so long, though, that I have to keep backtracking.)

[Interrobang]

18. I just finished...

"Children of the Black Sabbath" by Anne Hebert, which is actually a very literary novel (translated from French) about nuns by a Canadian writer who won the Governor-General's award for fiction. I haven't picked up another book yet. I'm too busy working and writing a story (tentative title "A Dark Dream Upon Her Head") right now.

[UrbScotty]

20. Several books, including "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

Also:

The Emerging Democratic Majority
Joined At The Heart
Rush Limbaugh Is A Big Fat Idiot
The Bible

[sangha]

27. "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy."

.

[pansypoo53219]

21. bwa ha ha

i am reading a 1903 ecyclopedia-the Fs. 7 bloody pages on ferns. 40+ on fortifications(ok, only skimming some parts). The Bio's are very interesting. 9 pages of ferdinands-did you know that Isabella was Ferdinand's SISTER?

[catpower2000]

22. Hey Playa!

I just finished Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Macguire. It's not at all what you might think--it's very much a "thinking person's" novel. I loved it--it's kind of a cross between John Updike and John Irving. Great humor, great philosophy. I was very impressed with it.

I am about to start a new novel co-written by Neil Gaiman called Good Omens , which looks really interesting. :)

Cat

[gonefishing]

23. An email about a new book I just sent to some good friends

Subject: The divine and felonious nature of the human being

I just finished another great book by Bill Bryson book "A Short History of Nearly Everything". I think I will understand if I read it 5 more times. However, at the end of the book Bryson tries to explain a dichotomy of humans by using the stories of our careless extinction of the dodo bird and the creation of Isaac Newton's Principia. Here is a snip from the book I thought you guys would lke...

"We don't know precisely the circumstances, or even year, attending the last moments of the last dodo, so we don't know which arrived first, a world that contained a Principia or one that had no dodos, but we do know that they happened at more or less the same time. You would be hard pressed, I would submit, to find a better paring of occurrences to illustrate the divine and felonious nature of the human being-a species of organism that is capable of unpicking the deepest secrets of the heavens while at the same time pounding into extinction, for no purpose at all, a creature that never did us any harm and wasn't even remotely capable of understanding what we were doing to it as we did it."

If you want to get a travel writers explanation of everything from black holes, DNA, giant squid, java(as in java man), mitochondria, plate tectonics, quantum theory, and a few more topics, this is a excellent book to read.

[BurtWorm]

24. "A Dog's Ransom" by Patricia Highsmith

I saw "Plein Soleil" with Alain Delon as "The Talented Mr. Ripley." on a big screen a couple of weeks ago, which put me in the mood to read Highsmith. This is just barely keeping my attention. I tend not to read fiction as much as I used to. I have two other works of fiction--Omon Ra by Victor Pelevin and Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin--waiting for me to come to finish them.

I'm also reading "The Red and the Blacklist" by Norma Something, a memoir about, well, guess what: Hollywood and HUAC. It's written like a bad screwball comedy script. It's supposed to become more like film noir as McCarthy and Nixon come onto the scene.

[Esurientes]

25. The Sea Wolf

By Jack London, circa 1903-4. My daughter's new bf recommended it (and that fact does a lot to recommend HIM).

[monkeyboy]

28. That's a great story, just read it a few months back

And if you like Jack London, one of the best short stories ever written is The Sundog Trail.