What are you reading?

[Rick and Roll]

Originally Posted by zvinki

I am currently reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett recommended by my wife (and I believe Oprah )

You believe your wife is Oprah? She wasn't too bad when she was in baltimore

I'm surprised you don't have a Canadian counterpart, but I guess Oprah is everywhere

[Methem]

The last book I was reading but unfortunately didn't have time to finish was a biography of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summers (if I remember correctly). I was visiting my grandmother (who doesn't really read books, but my late grandfather did), needed to kill some time during evenings, and thought that one could be an interesting read. The previous time I was there I read a book about Gorbachev, by some Indian author, methinks. It was a little dry to go through.

Haven't really been reading too many books in recent years...


-Methem

[zvinki]

Leave it to you Rick to exploit an awkward phrase.

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by Lellu

Yaaah!

Could you be a bit more precise? No science or not fiction?!

Yes.

Huxley's Brave New World is set in the future but is more a social commentary and satire of serious contemporary issues of Huxley's time. The book is a hyperbolical view of utopian socialism run amuck. Fahrenheit 451 too depicts a society -- again set in the future but rooted in issues of the day -- which has eroded.

Many of my favorite Sci-Fi movies (Day the Earth Stood Still, This Island Earth, Collosus: The Forbin Project, etc.) were deeply satirical of the issues of the cold war.

"The real danger is not that computers will begin to think like men, but that men will begin to think like computers." -- Sydney J. Harris

[Rick and Roll]

True, most science fiction is social commentary in a different time and place. Star Trek was one of my favorite shows because it never pretended to be sci-fi. They had episodes on the cold war, robotics, race issues, all kinds of things.

It helped to have a Vulcan who could have inner eyelids and things like that to get them out of impossible situations...

Sci-fi to me was never special effects, etc...

[Giloeada]

Peace of Soul - Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
The Happiness of Heaven - A Father of the Society of Jesus
Travels - Michael Crichton
Cold Mountain - Charles Frazier

[KingRat]

On the serious side.



Last book: The Religion by Tim Willocks
Currently: Barbarians by Terry Jones
Next up: God's War by Christopher Tyerman
or Devil's Peak by Deon Meyer

In between this all: The Holy Bible need I say by Who.

[VAXman(Admin)]

Originally Posted by KingRat

In between this all: The Holy Bible need I say by Who.

I didn't know the Who wrote the bible.

[KingRat]

Originally Posted by VAXman

I didn't know the Who wrote the bible.

Ta Vax. Needed that. I would say there are some who would say so, Tommy what' his name for example

[Yesspaz]

Originally Posted by VAXman

Attachment 337You couldn't have just googled it?

That's pretty dang funny.

[mailotron]

1974 by David Peace ( french translation of course)
La fille de nulle part /The far cry Frderic Brown
Memphis aux racines du rock et de la soul by Florent Mazzoleni ( in french only , Memphis, roots of rock and soul music)

[roger]

Originally Posted by KeithieW

To be serious (for a moment)....I'm taking another stroll down memory lane reading Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda again.
In fact I've taken a number of books off the shelves and piled them up to tackle in a few days. So far I've chosen:
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Richard Bach

hey! I think I saw you rummaging through my bookshelves!

[Yesspaz]

I read Jonathan Livingston Seagull about a year ago (one of the most hairbrained New Age ascend-to-a-higher-plane pieces of watsit I ever came across). Yesterday, I was in the used book room at the library, buying some cheap paperbacks (5/$1 or $0.25 each). I bought lots of classics I haven't read, blah blah blah, and something caught my eye. "Jonathan Segal Chicken," a satire of the original, by the same people who wrote the Oddfather. I read it last night (it's about as long as the original). It was quite funny in places. When Jonathan Segal Chicken flew for the first time, the hens were so startled they went ahead and squarely laid four eggs, some laid square eggs, and some were so shocked they went ahead and laid cheese omelets.

That kind of thing. Worth $0.25, but not much more.

[Yesspaz]

Originally Posted by Yesspaz

AUTHOR/EDITOR - TITLE (GENRE)

I finished Candide and Jonathan Segal Chicken, so I just started:

H.G. Wells - The Invisible Man (Novel)

[woodchuckvt]

Just finished The Prince of Providence by Mike Stanton

1/2 way through Power, Faith and Fantasy by Michael Oren

Barbecue Nation by Fred Thompson

[RogorMortis]

Nothing - When I read I fall asleep and when I wake I can't remember a word. So I don't really read books very often. I have a stock of John Le Carré ready to read. In my youth I read tons of Sci-Fi. Hopefully I'll take that up again when I've time to read.

But I will recommend "Copius Notes" - The inside story of Egg, Uriel...It gives a very good insight (and funny) to being a musician in the very early days.

[DamoXt7942]

Sorry, recently I read my technical note or prog books...

I live in my technical world, or prog rock dimension.

[progdirjim(Admin)]

moving on to:
Flatland by Edwin Abbott (read it about 22 years ago, fun thought provoker)
Villa Incognito by Tom Robbins (novel)
Dune: House Atreides by Brian Herbert (sci-fi)

all of these on my new Amazon Kindle, which is a damn cool toy...

[Borfus]

Matter by Iain Banks

[Yesspaz]

Originally Posted by progdirjim

all of these on my new Amazon Kindle, which is a damn cool toy...

I'm sure it's a damn cool toy, and the Apple equivalent, whatever it's called, but I just can't get the feel of curling up with a small screen. I'll take the good old "analog" book. Of course, even Jean-Luc Picard waffles back and forth!