What are you reading currently?

[Mr. Lothario]

     The old crowd is getting older, so I'm thinking this topic will be more successful now than it would have been years ago. Talk about what you're reading now, or what you've read recently, or what have you.

     I'm currently reading Conquistador, by S.M. Stirling. A soldier returns from WWII and takes up residence in San Francisco, where he begins tinkering with a war-surplus shortwave set while he recuperates from a battle wound. He accidentally opens a portal to the same location in space and time but on an alternate Earth where Europeans never came to the New World. He gathers his war buddies and they start a country over there, and manage to keep the secret for sixty years. Stirling's quite the author, and I'm digging it.

     I'm also reading Slave Species of God, by Michael Tellinger. It's nonfiction, about ancient Sumerian tablets which show that humanity was created through genetic manipulation and crossbreeding by an advanced alien culture to be slave labor in gold mines. Very tinfoil-hat, and very obviously written without the help of an editor, but when Tellinger gets on-topic instead of linguistically wandering, it's eerily compelling.

     I'm also rereading Transmetropolitan, the best American comic book I've ever read. Five years of nearly unadulterated genius. I loves it, and you should too.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

Loth, youre becoming a hero of mine..i will absolutely respond to your thread..i just need sleep right now.

Thanks for opening what ive wanted to open for months now,
yet balked at the prospect of an entirely empty thread.

[*DAMN Hazard]

Loth has always been a hero of mine 12 orgasms doesn't come easy... but I did when he... erm.. nevermind!

I'm workin on a giant stack of books I wanna read before I die. But right now I'm reading...

Mother Night, Kurt Vonnegut- Big Vonnegut fan always a great satire on why we all suck.

The Assassins A radical sect in Islam, Bernard Lewis- The story of history's first terrorists. Really interesting background especially with present day issues.

The Life of Pi, I don't remember- I have to read this book for college... apparently its about a double major of zoology / religion gets stuck on a lifeboat with a 450 pound bengal tiger I haven't got to that part yet but we will see I guess.

Alamut by Vladimir Bartol- GREAT BOOK. I haven't even really cracked into it but its a fictional novel about a young man who trains to become an assassin. I really can't put it into words better than the inside flap so here ya go:

Written on the eve of WWII partly as a political allegory of the fascism that was engulfing Europe (Bartol originally dedicated Alamut with irony to Benito Mussolini) Alamut reaches a thousand years into the past to tell a story that is as relevant to today's post-September 11 America as it was to HItler and Mussolini's Europe.
       But much more than a prophetic treatise or political allegory on terrorism, Alamut is a gripping story of one man's unmanacled drive to play God and the human price paid by the innocent to fuel that drive.

I recommend it to all and I'm gonna add those books to my stack Loth.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Oo, Alamut sounds really good.

     And FYI, I've been improving my technique. 

[BTs_FahQ2]

Here are some of my recent tops


Freakanomics
Basically an economist analyzes data and numbers to come to conclusions to everyday things.  For example, he used data to determine the structure of drug dealing in chicago is very similiar to McDonalds or other fast food corporations. Violent crime has gone down in recent years not due to better policing or effectiveness, but it's actually directly correlated with roe v. wade. Also schools that base teacher performance on student scores actually just help their students cheat.

 Just read it and be a bit amazed at how a different approach at looking at problems can actually find better answers.


Gangs of Chicago
Basically the follow up book to gangs of New York which the movie was loosely based.

Armarillo Slim in a World Full of Fat People
Basically a biography of the worlds best gambler. The guy never had a real job and is now a rich rich millionaire. He got most of his earnings by making bets he couldn't lose. The man was smart as shit and good at poker. A great read, he beat world class tennis players by forcing them to play with frying pans as raquets and ping pong champions by playing with coke bottles.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Oh crap, I've been meaning to read Freakonomics. I've heard nothing but good about it.

[Ein]

Life of Pie: I finished reading this book for the third time just recently. It is easily on of my favorite books. Its about, as mauti said, a boy (not double major in anything while story takes place) who is stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger, a hyena, a zebra, and an aringateng(spelling?). Word to the wise while reading this book... Pay close attention to what the author says before getting stranded, especially in terms of animals having human characteristics and outlook on religeon. It will make you appreciate the ending so much more. When reading it a second time, I caught so much more that I had missed in the first reading.

Freakonomics: while I don't agree with some of the authors conclusions on some subjects it is still an interesting read. I just didn't like all the figures but what can you expect from a book that deals with the economics of everyday life.

Books I'd like to suggest would be anything by Chuck Palaphniuk. Chuck would be best known for authoring Fight Club. I have read all his works and enjoyed both  Survivor and Lullaby the most, though I consider Chuck to be one of my favorite authors.

Survivor tells the story of the last survivor of a religeous suicide cult whose survivng members are forced to go into hiding when they start dying off one by one.

Lullaby is about a group who discovers the "culling song" which is a lullaby that causes those to hear it to die and the groups journey to find all the copies of the song and to destroy them.

Both books show aspects in the writing that you will notice even if you have only seen the movie Fight Club and not read the book.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

AMEN on the Chuck books..my wife and i just finished Choke.

Son of an insane mother grows up, neurotic as all fuck, getting by in life earning money from pretending to choke on food so people can save him..thereby becoming obligated to him..

Has bizarre friend, with bizarre job (recreates colonial life in small real-time colonial village) while visiting his insane dying mother in an Old Folks Home..Has bizarre and grandiose delusions..
bizarre ending..Chuck has s styly Id imagine would be a bit surprisng for most...raw as hell...brilliant.

[theweakspot]

my current reading selections aren't as good as yours, but in an attempt to keep this thread going...

the cyborg's handook  a collection of articles on cybernetics, A.I., technology and how humans show signs of becoming more mechanical, and technology begins encroaching on humanism.

Moneyball .... for the 4th time.  A introspective and economical and statistical view of major league baseball from the lens of the General Manager genius, Billy Beane.

Using Analytical skills and Reasoning to forge Content Standards  Yes... I'm a teacher.

[Ein]

Choke was a great read and was the book that got me turned onto Chuck P as an author. I love his darkly humourous style that continues on through all of his books.

[Cossack]

Gulag Archipelago-By Solzhenitsyn
Author's existence in the Gulag archipelago

The Great Game- By James Hopkirk
Academic book regarding the geopolitical games undergone in Central Asia during the nineteenth century.

[c| Lone-Wolf]

Mud, Blood, and Poppycock - Gordon Corrigan  - An interesting take in Britain's involvement in WWI.  Corrigan argues that for Britain (note, just Britain), the war was not as destructive and demoralizing to the country as it was for the other nations involved (particularly France and Germany).  An interesting statistic he gives is that 1.5% of the British population was killed in the war, whereas 3.7% of France's population, and 3.23% of Germany's population was killed during the conflict. 

Interesting reading, if a little dated.

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

Aryan Christ by richard Noll-

A novel look into the real life and historical influences behind C.G. Jung, and his popularised concepts of anima, animus, collective unconscience, personal, national and religious archetypes and what they actually meant to him as a personal religion, not a sanitized psychological practice... Contrasts his private personally held beliefs with the views and language he presented to the public concerning his poineering of personal analysis. Publically he pretended to be a christian for mass consumption, but privately, he was an avowed pagan, (with an PASSIONATE dislike of Christianity and Judaism) with a tower built at his home within which he would practice pagan renewal rituals for over forty years...with sexual rituals and strict polygamistic adherance..

Helped a lot to explain how germany was so suceptible to the Historical/Mythological imagry of the Nazi party, and its origins..(including the swastica) which surprisingly, merely originated as a development of the ideals of a Germanic mythology of Wotan, and a biologically, genetic myth structure that merely served (before Nazi Hijacking) to help unify the germanic tribes that previously had been scattered in purpose and hsitory. (circa late 1800s) HEAVILY influenced by ancient anglo saxon religions that worshipped the sun as actual God. He later regretted the embrace of HIS symbolism by the Nazi party..realizing that he (unwittingly) helped them rise to prominence..

Highlighted Jungs private Cult-leader status among his believers, and the ways in which he grabbed and wrested control away from the Freudian schools of thought that proceeded him.

Summary was that (according to Jung himself) he was actually a reincarnation of an ancient God known as the Mithraic "Deus Leontocephalus"...a specifically Aryan christlike redemption figure with a lions head. Jung heavily relied upon a spiritual advisor whom he met with in his mind over the second half of his life by the name of Philemon..a crippled wise man who along with  Salome, provided the path to his God Realization and pre-eminence. He consulted with both figures as a formal practice, claiming that they gave him secret knowledge that made him aware of his GOD-hood...
He publically presented as an enlightened psychologist, but demanded to be revered as a redemptive historical ressurection figure..

Amazing stuff..not a complicated read.

[smoke.aHa!]

kama sutra in the house

[KoS.Rebel]

Reading a book called "The Mental Game of Baseball". Great insight into the mental aspects of the sport I love.

[*DAMN Mauti]

Walter Moers:

Die Stadt der träumenden Bücher (the city of dreaming books)
Rumo
and currently the 13 1/2 Leben des Käpt'n Blaubär (13 1/2 lives of captain Bluebear)

Fantastic phantasy books! If they are available in english I can only recommend it to everyone.

[Mr. Lothario]

     Sheix, that sounds crazy and fascinating. Mauti, those books are available in English, and the Amazon summaries sound really cool.

[cookie]

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn, and the new Noam Chomsky book!

[(SiX)Sheixhundt]

lol, no Title cookie?
Noamie is the schnizzle..

[Mr. Lothario]

     I finished Conquistador. Solid ending; I am pleased. I'm now reading Time Storm by Gordon R. Dickson. The Earth is suddenly thrown into chaos as moving walls of temporal discontinuity appear, disappearing virtually all of humanity in one fell swoop. A band of survivors struggle to cope with the changed world and figure out wtf is going on.