What are you reading?

#53
Hatcher's Notebook would be a goon non-fiction to read (IMHO).

If you like SciFi, I'd recommend registering at baen.com and visiting their free e-book library: Baen Ebooks - Free Library

Jim Baen was one of the early/first supporters of epub/ebook formats and pushed for less drm control (some of his writer's hardback books even use to include previous books on CD in the back cover). As such, before his passing, he broke away from the "Big 5" publishing houses and started to offer his writer's books (with their permission) in epub format as well as offering some books free to spur interest. Many of the series' first few books are available free at the link above, so it should provide for some intersting reads...at no cost.

I highly recommend the Honor Harrington series if you're into military SciFi and want something like C.S Forester's "Horatio Hornblower" but set in space, with more of an emphasis on how new weapons change tactics and politics... I'm a fairly big David Weber fan ("Off Armageddon Reef" is another good read if your into the history of warfare, but also like SciFi).
 
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#54
This thread has been has quiet for a month.... No Holiday readers?

I can't get through this time of year unless I can say "Sorry, I can't make it, got a previous commitment," and that "commitment" is of course going to the range, reloading, drinking some Pappy's if I can find it, or reading a good spy novel. I'm a grinch so so fucking what.

My latest read was The Matarese Circle, by Robert Ludlum. Made me want to change my User Name here to "Beowolf Agate"!

Also just re-read Le Carre's The Looking Glass War - Depressing, about the abandonment of an agent in a bad place. Very sad, but seemed real to me...... But, it's fiction, right? Who knows....
 
#55
Oddly, I read Less than Zero around Christmas most years. It's ostensibly a Christmas story. This time of year I also re-read a Raymond Chandler or two; got through The Long Goodbye the other day and then watched the Eliot Gould adaptation. It was a pretty good day. Read The Killing Floor and though it was okay but then was put off by the change to third person in One Shot and stopped reading.

Started We Have Never Been Modern by Bruno Latour today. Really interesting work, so far.
 
#56
Power and Principle by Zbigniew Brzezinski. I heard the man's name mentioned in two interesting conversations, on the internet of all places, and decided to learn more.
 
#57
Just got done with Lone survivor by Marcus Luttrell. Am half way thru American Sniper. The rest of the books for this week are Glock by Paul M. Barrett & Gun Fight by Adam Winkler. This will be the only time I have as I start back to night school to finnish my course to be a welder.
 
#58
Maggot said:
Looking for a copy of The Chrysalides by John Wyndham.

For those who love Heinlein, try one of his earlier works, and my personal favorite, 'Have Spacesuit Will Travel'.
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When Heinlein started his career he needed to pay the rent so his target market was high school librarians. He would contact them and explain how his books would help them to interest boys in reading, and turn them into library customers. In turn the librarians now that they were checking out more books to more students would have justification for bigger budgets. Heinlein's plan worked very well. He sold books and paid his rent. A generation of boys was hooked on Sifi, and when they got older they moved on to his adult books. For me his best books are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Glory Road, and Time Enough for Love.
 
#60
diverdon said:
When Heinlein started his career he needed to pay the rent so his target market was high school librarians. He would contact them and explain how his books would help them to interest boys in reading, and turn them into library customers. In turn the librarians now that they were checking out more books to more students would have justification for bigger budgets. Heinlein's plan worked very well. He sold books and paid his rent. A generation of boys was hooked on Sifi, and when they got older they moved on to his adult books. For me his best books are The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, Glory Road, and Time Enough for Love.
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Don, great story, I dint know that. That's where I found Heinlein...in the high school library. Glory Road is one of the best reads ever.
 
#61
Yes, and my HS Librarian told me that Stranger in a Strange Land was not permitted in her library, by order of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ, under whose jurisdiction my school resided. Not even a speed bump on my reading path...
 
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#63
Greg Langelius * said:
Yes, and my HS Librarian told me that Stranger in a Strange Land was not permitted in her library, by order of the Archdiocese of Newark, NJ, under whose jurisdiction my school resided. Not even a speed bump on my reading path...

Since I was Library Staff myself, I quietly added an entry for it in the card catalogue and slipped it into the stacks in its appropriate location. Already a subversive by the age of 14...
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"Stranger in a Strange Land" was after Heinlein felt well enough established to break away from the Librarians and begin selling primarily to adults spending their own money. Given it's multiple themes of Open, and group marriage together with attribution of supernatural powers to the Martian "old ones" and then to Michale as he approached his death I can see why your Archdiocese may have thought it not suitable.
 
#64
I've been on a huge non-fiction kick the past few months. Here is what I have read lately:

Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety - Eric Schlosser
Civilian Warriors: The Inside Story of Blackwater and the Unsung Heroes of the War on Terror - Erik Prince
An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth: What Going to Space Taught Me About Ingenuity, Determination, and Being Prepared for Anything - Col. Chris Hadfield
Failure Is Not an Option: Mission Control from Mercury to Apollo 13 and Beyond - Gene Kranz
Annapurna: The First Conquest of an 8,000-Meter Peak -Maurice Herzog
No Shortcuts to the Top: Climbing the World's 14 Highest Peaks - Ed Viesturs
Into Thin Air - Jon Krakauer

Right now I'm currently reading:

Seal Team Six: Memoirs of an Elite Navy Seal Sniper - Howard E. Wasdin

I got it recently for Christmas. You can tell that the book wasn't written by a professional author. With that said, the stories that are inside the book are very entertaining, some borderline unbelievable!

Great thread, I just bought a couple of kindle books based on the recommendations in this thread, can't wait to start reading them!
 
#66
diverdon said:
"Stranger in a Strange Land" was after Heinlein felt well enough established to break away from the Librarians and begin selling primarily to adults spending their own money. Given it's multiple themes of Open, and group marriage together with attribution of supernatural powers to the Martian "old ones" and then to Michale as he approached his death I can see why your Archdiocese may have thought it not suitable.
Click to expand...

I just started "Stranger in a Strange Land" It's been good so far. Very interesting premise.
 
#68
diverdon said:
If it is your first Heinlein book, and if your tastes are similar to mine then this should be a good year.
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I finished Starship Troopers last week. I'll finish Stranger in a Strange Land either today or tomorrow. Then onward to Russian literature? I've heard the Brothers Karamazov is a good one.
 
#69
SHOTS FIRED IN ANGER BY Lt. Col. JOHN GEORGE. Get the NRA edition, not the recent reprint of his shorter version. He was a new 2nd Lt. when the war started and had been a High Power competition shooter before the war. His evaluation and comparison of Jap and American weapons is the best. His experience with Merrills Marauders in Burma during WW II is amazing. He had a high opinion of the M1 Carbine, one of the few who liked it and he explains why. Jap banzai attack against dug in American Infantry with complete Jap destruction!!!! He carried his NM 03 with him to Guadacanal and made some kills. He's a good writer also.
 
#76
Finished "Hitch-22". Reading "god is not great" and "Gods and Generals". After I'm done with the latter I will be reading more on the American Civil War (non fiction). Any recommendations would be appreciated.
 
#83
I'm surprised I haven't seen mentioned any of Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series books, very interesting fiction stuff. I recommend reading the series in order, but it's not necessary.

Keeping on the fiction side, I love anything by John Grisham, as liberal as he may be.
 
#84
aur0ra145 said:
I finished Starship Troopers last week. I'll finish Stranger in a Strange Land either today or tomorrow. Then onward to Russian literature? I've heard the Brothers Karamazov is a good one.
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Great to see Heinlein fans out there - SST is probably his best. In my opinion, the second best he wrote was "Space Cadet." It's a story aimed at a teenage audience, but darn if it doesn't have a message there for all of us. I think I have read every published novel/short story he wrote. It was a sad day when I went searching online and couldn't find anything else of his I hadn't read. Sure, there are some weird aspects to his point of view, but take the bad with the good.

I'm starting the second book, "Judas Unchained" in a Peter Hamilton series. I recently read his Night's Dawn trilogy - if you want a set of books that will last a while, each one is probably about 1500 pages. Very interesting take on existence.

Also, for anyone who wants a single novel that's a relatively light read, pick up "Fuzzy Nation" by Scalzi. Witty, sarcastic main character that has some great moments.
 
#86
Not a big O'reily fan but "Killing Lincoln has been informative. Marginally unbiased. Lots of conversational history.
The Harbinger- (read this every coupla months)
 
#87
Darkside-Six said:
same here, just picked it up. so far so good.
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Finished reading it and like it a lot. Then I got the audible version in Kindle where Erik adds more info on the third agency that hired him: CIA (in addition to DOD and State). He explains he was not allowed to disclose it on his print edition.

Others in my favorite list:

Atlas Shrugged, of course
Lone Survivor
American Sniper
Road to Serfdom
New Road to Serfdom
The Liberty Amendments to the Constitution (Mark. Levin)
Black hawk Down
Free to Chose (Friedman)
Things that Matter (Krauthammer)
Killing Jesus
Killing Kennedy
America the Beautiful by Ben Carson.
No Easy Day
Socialism (Von Mises)
Marine Sniper (about Carlos Hatchcok)
The Ultimate Sniper, by Plaster (reading now)

I would recommend everyone of these.
 
#88
Ultimate resurrection!

I have had this for a while but just started reading through it. Good read so far.

B96D9178-2DE6-4EB4-B30A-E1132F5D3CDE.jpeg
 
#89
In the spirit of what is going on in Virginia and the current raping of the Constitution by our political "representatives" across the nation, I just finished reading the book Term Limits. It's a great fictional read, with some premise rooted in current reality with our current crop of politicians and their motivators (hint: it's not serving us).

Just started another book, called El Narco, which is a book which Chronicles the history of the narco industry in Mexico. Early in, but it's pretty interesting so far. The narco terrorism that's occuring in Mexico is fascinating to me, as it only occurs a few hundred miles from where I live.
 
#92
I'm currently reading Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee. It's a eye-opener to what kind of abuse the average human being will tolerate before retaliating, if at all.

In the context of our current politics and culture, we're far too comfortable and complacent to ever reach the point that the Sioux and Comanche reached to say "enough" and to start defending themselves from the US Army. even after repeated murder, starvation, torture, rape, kidnapping, and American Indians still insisted on peace with the white man. And this all happened 150 years ago! That's 2 lifetimes ago!
 
#94
Recently finished Extreme Ownership (third time throught it) and half way through The Dichotomy of Leadership. Next at bat is Leadership Strategy and Tactics FM-02.

Anyone interested in leadership studies should check out this series by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Outstanding information and very relatable.
 
#95
mattharper said:
Recently finished Extreme Ownership (third time throught it) and half way through The Dichotomy of Leadership. Next at bat is Leadership Strategy and Tactics FM-02.

Anyone interested in leadership studies should check out this series by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. Outstanding information and very relatable.
Click to expand...

I've got FM-02 sitting right here by the couch, just awaiting its turn in the queue. I'm sure that it will kick ass, just like Willick's other books.

I'm currently reading Oren Klaff's Pitch Anything, which I highly recommend to anyone that has to interface with other human beings. It's a fascinating look at human psychology, and is a nice compliment to any leadership book (since Willink himself frequently states that leadership is basically manipulation, but we don't call it that).
 
#96
David McCullought 1776 (and most of his other stuff)
Rick Attkinsons Liberation Trilogy. Im on the first one An Army at Dawn and its fantastic- it won a Pulitzer so guess other thought so too

Just saw Matt Brakens stuff is on Kindle. Plan on doing a few of his next
 
#98
Re-reading The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek. British Austrian economist and if you enjoy topics about finance and politics you will think this book was written yesterday.....it's from the early 40's.

Also reading Ike's Spies.....holy smokes Tom Clancy novels have nothing on this book it's a fun read.
 
#99
Crang said:
David McCullought 1776 (and most of his other stuff)
Rick Attkinsons Liberation Trilogy. Im on the first one An Army at Dawn and its fantastic- it won a Pulitzer so guess other thought so too

Just saw Matt Brakens stuff is on Kindle. Plan on doing a few of his next
Click to expand...

If you enjoyed Rick Atkinson's Army at Dawn, I would highly recommend his newest, book one in the revolution trilogy, The British are Coming.
 
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#100
I've been reading a lot of business/leadership books lately. Here are four that I have found to be very helpful:
  • Extreme Ownership & The Dichotomy of Leadership (Jocko Willink & Leif Babin)
  • Start with Why (Simon Sinek)
  • Leaders Eat Last (Simon Sinek)
The best non-fiction book I have read in a long time is a book on negotiating titled Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, an ex-FBI hostage negotiator. I use the concepts from the book all the time and they work.

Fiction - I'm starting my annual re-read of The Walking Drum by Louis L'amour.
 
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