What's everyone reading these days? Need some book recommendations.

[hiaasenrocks]

Fiction, non-fiction, humor, serious...all subjects. Let's hear them.

[MrCoffee]

1. Random Acts of Senseless Violence by Jack Womack

Incredibly powerful story written in the form of a 12 year old girl's diary in dystopian future New York City.


The only book that ever made me cry. And that includes Where the Red Fern Grows.

[LynzM]

2. Oh man....

Lotsa stuff.

The Belgariad Series
The God Delusion
The "Bone" series (graphic novels, my first ever, I like 'em!)
Even Cowgirls get the Blues
Black Bodies and Quantum Cats
On the Road

There are 15ish more on my to-read list but I can't remember all the titles...

:)

[Bill McBlueState]

3. cool

The Belgariad is awesome -- I read that several years ago, but it really stuck with me. The God Delusion is up next on my list, but right now I'm reading the last book of Philip Pullman's "His Dark Materials" trilogy.

[LynzM]

6. Yeah, I'm enjoying it!

I'm listening to it as mp3s on my way to and from work... unfortunately, the next book is "checked out" right now (which is silly, they're audio downloads from the library's website, but I guess they probably have to do that to not have to pay more).

The God Delusion is very good. I also want to read God is not Great after I finish TGD.

I enjoyed His Dark Materials, as well! :)

[geardaddy]

4. Bagombo Snuff Box

by Vonnegut.

[azmouse]

5. The Jekyl Island Club by Brent Monahan

[Bill McBlueState]

7. "His Dark Materials"

It's the trilogy by Philip Pullman that starts out with "The Golden Compass," which was made into a movie and came out in December. I'm starting the third book, and it's getting really good. (No spoilers, please, to anyone who's read it!) I hear the series is influenced by "Paradise Lost," which makes me want to check that out, too.

I heard they're not making the last two movies in the series. I'm thinking that's just as well -- they'd have to make some pretty serious edits to keep the movies friendly to their intended audience.

[applegrove]

8. A Fairwell to Alms. About the industrial revolution and productivity.

[krispos42]

9. "World War Z"

An Oral History of the Zombie War
By Max Brooks

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_Z



It is awesome, and entirely captivating! The breadth and scope of the stories is great.

:thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[trackfan]

10. I'm reading War & Peace.

I'm about 700 pages in. Although reading a translation is never like the original, I have to say it seems to me that Tolstoy must be among the top 5 literary geniuses the world has seen.

[GirlinContempt]

13. Very true

Anna Karenina was beautiful.

[Beer Snob-50]

11. The Second Dream of the Iroquois by Robert Leve

it is historical fiction based on the nordic people coming to north america and the formation of the iroquois nation. it is violent in parts but it is good writing.

[GirlinContempt]

12. Enders Game - Orson Scott Card

Friday - Robert A Heinlein
The Other Boleyn Girl - Phillipa Gregory
Hip: The History - John Leland
Game Over: Press Start To Continue - David Sheff
The Kitchen Gods Wife - Amy Tan
Don Quixote - Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Autobiography of Josef Stalin - Richard Lourie
The Bolivian Diary - Ernesto Guevara
Feuerbach the Roots of the Socialist Philosophy - Friedrich Engels
Please Kill Me - Legs McNeil
The Bolsheviki and World Peace - Leon Trotsky
The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette - Carolly Erickson
The Diary Of A Nobody - George Grossmith
The Princess Bride - William Goldman
Naked Pictures of Famous People - Jon Stewart
The English Governess at the Siamese Court - Anna Harriette Leonowens
The Devils - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
First World, Ha Ha Ha!: The Zapatista Challenge
Tevyes Daugthers - Sholem Aleichem




How's that for a start?

[mitchum]

14. "No Speed Limit"...it's a history of methamphetamine abuse and hysteria

[Bake]

15. Al Gore's "The Assault on Reason"

IT's very good so far.

Bake

[JoePhilly]

16. The Shock Doctrine

[femmocrat]

22. What do you think of it?

I got it for Christmas, but haven't opened it yet. It looks very serious!

[JoePhilly]

34. It is VERY serious ...

Tons and Tons of data ... I usually fly through the various political science books that come out ... but this one is very different.

She puts forth a very well researched and compelling argument.

[SCantiGOP]

17. Boom, by Tom Brokaw

it's about how 1969 changed the country. Hits close to home as I was 17 then and would, in the next year or two, turn from a Republican Catholic to a hippie radical.

[Richard Steele]

18. I just finished "The Dream Life of Sukhanov"; I'd recommend it to anyone who likes fiction.

http://www.amazon.com/Dream-Life-Sukhanov-Olga-Grushin/dp/0399152989

[WritingIsMyReligion]

19. THE KITE RUNNER.

Really fascinating.

[CBHagman]

20. "The Meaning of Night" by Michael Cox.

And Overcoming Life's Disappointments by Rabbi Harold Kushner.

[Highway61]

21. Two..

I just finished ...The Road...by Cormac McCarthy (No Country For Old Men) Dark novel but very good...in movie production as we speak

Last Night At The Lobster...Stewart O'Nan (got great reviews and it IS good!...not done yet)

[Dr. Strange]

24. Orrex is making me read The Road.

But I'm currently reading Infernal by F. Paul Wilson. Once that's done, then I'm reading The Road.

[femmocrat]

23. "Fair Game" by Valerie Plame.

It's just OK. She isn't really a writer, and the long redactions definitely interrupt the flow!

[Dr. Strange]

25. If you like Hiaasen,

you might like Christopher Moore:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=105&topic_id=7440072

[suninvited]

26. Give us a hint to what you like

I have just finished reading David Sedaris.. Naked.

Was brilliant and refreshing.

But, it might not be what you like.

[ReformedChris]

27. Boom by Brokaw was good. von Braun: Dreamer of Space Engineer of War was phenomenal

the von Braun book was a phenomenal look at a man that contribute so much to our modern society but had such a dark underside with the Mittlework. I strongly recommend it for anyone that has any enjoyment of space travel or Cold War history.

[spindrifter]

28. Three Cups of Tea by Greg Morenson and David Oliver Relin

This is a fantastic book about a guy who failed to summit K2 but managed to change the lives of thousands of Pakistani and Afghan children through his dedication to building schools for them. He has done this in the face of political and religious turmoil. The book truly has everything--the mountain scenery of Northern Pakistan, a taste of ethnology, and insight into a truly purposeful life. Please read it!

[Zoigal]

29. "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson

[applegrove]

30. I'm reading Sisters: The Sage of the Mitford Family by Mary Lovell. Very good.

Very funny. I'm just at their childhoods and the book just breezes by.

[Xipe Totec]

31. ISBN: 13-978-1-55860-901-3

Data Mining: Concepts and Techniques

:hi:

[terrya]

32. "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers.

Apparently, it was her first book. My God, what a debut. An amazing bit of writing.

[sarge43]

33. The Seven Daughters of Eve, Bryan Sykes

Quote from a review: .... Sykes reveals how the identification of a particular strand of DNA that passes unbroken through the maternal line allows scientists to trace our genetic makeup all the way back to prehistoric times ... Fascinating stuff.

[Flaxbee]

35. Currently reading "Housekeeping" by Marilynne Robinson

truly a beautifully written book. She uses language extremely well; the entire book is lyrical and captivating.
Here's an excerpt from a review: "Considered a modern classic, Robinson's novel enjoys a sustained popularity. The story of Ruth and her sister, Lucille, HOUSEKEEPING speaks eloquently of displacement, loss, and longing."


Recently finished "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger:
"This clever and inventive tale works on three levels: as an intriguing science fiction concept, a realistic character study and a touching love story. Henry De Tamble is a Chicago librarian with "Chrono Displacement" disorder; at random times, he suddenly disappears without warning and finds himself in the past or future, usually at a time or place of importance in his life. This leads to some wonderful paradoxes. From his point of view, he first met his wife, Clare, when he was 28 and she was 20. She ran up to him exclaiming that she'd known him all her life. He, however, had never seen her before. But when he reaches his 40s, already married to Clare, he suddenly finds himself time travelling to Clare's childhood and meeting her as a 6-year-old. The book alternates between Henry and Clare's points of view, and so does the narration. Reed ably expresses the longing of the one always left behind, the frustrations of their unusual lifestyle, and above all, her overriding love for Henry. Likewise, Burns evokes the fear of a man who never knows where or when he'll turn up, and his gratitude at having Clare, whose love is his anchor."


I HIGHLY recommend Barbara Kingsolver's nonfiction "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle" if you're even slightly interested in food:
"Michael Pollan is the crack investigator and graceful narrator of the ecology of local food and the toxic logic of industrial agriculture. Now he has a peer. Novelist Kingsolver recounts a year spent eating home-grown food and, if not that, local. Accomplished gardeners, the Kingsolver clan grow a large garden in southern Appalachia and spend summers "putting food by," as the classic kitchen title goes. They make pickles, chutney and mozzarella; they jar tomatoes, braid garlic and stuff turkey sausage. Nine-year-old Lily runs a heritage poultry business, selling eggs and meat. What they don't raise (lamb, beef, apples) comes from local farms. Come winter, they feast on root crops and canned goods, menus slouching toward asparagus. Along the way, the Kingsolver family, having given up industrial meat years before, abandons its vegetarian ways and discovers the pleasures of conscientious carnivory.This field—local food and sustainable agriculture—is crowded with books in increasingly predictable flavors: the earnest manual, diary of an epicure, the environmental battle cry, the accidental gardener. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle is all of these, and much smarter. "


And also recently read Jimmy Buffett's "A Salty Piece of Land" - escapist fiction, but I was really pretty disappointed. Was hoping it would be Hiassen-esque, (and Buffett does mention Hiassen in passing). Hiassen is just so damn smart and observant, whereas Buffett's fictional alter-ego just was sort of "la de da, I did this, then I did that, blah blah blah".

[Starbucks Anarchist]

36. Reading "Syrup" by Max Barry right now.

Recently finished "All the President's Men," and I'm also reading "The Onion Field."

After that, I'll probably finish "Dreams from my Father," Barack Obama's first book.

[bif]

37. "Pigeons" by Andrew Blechman and "Memoir from Antproof Case"

By Mark Helprin. I heard the author of Pigeons on NPR and it sounded interesting. It's subtitled: The fascinating saga of the world's most revered and reviled bird. Absolutely fantastic. And "Memoir" was a beautifully written piece of fiction. A little bit like Marquez.

[bertha katzenengel]

38. _Catch 22_

I never did read it. I just got it and will start it next Saturday. (Was my dad's favorite book, always told him i would read it. not being maudlin, just realizing i do have some regrets. shit.)

I also recommend Truman by David McCullough. It's a tome, but reads SO well.

[RetroLounge]

39. In the last few weeks I've read or am reading:

Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood (Amazing!)
The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Dark, disturbing, weirdly hopeful)
Children's Hospital by Chris Adrian (Oddly beautiful)
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd (emotionally wrenching)

:hi:

RL

[Critters2]

40. My book group has finally chosen a book I'm looking forward to:

_My Antonia_ by Willa Cather. Somehow, I've never read this, but _O Pioneers!_ is in a neck and neck contest with _Huckleberry Finn_ for title of my favorite novel.

I'm also reading _I see Satan Fall Like Lightning_ by Rene Girard.

And this fascinating tome: http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/419oKSglDML._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_.jpg

[Reverend_Smitty]

41. I'm re-reading "A People's History of the United States"

by Howard Zinn

If you've never read it, you must at some point in your life, or else your liberal credentials will be revoked :P

[billyskank]

42. Children Of Dune

by Frank Herbert. The second sequel to Dune.