What are we reading - January 2013

I'm about halfway through War Underground by Alexander Barrie and it's absolutely excellent. It was written in 1961 and is about the tunneling operations during WWI.

The writing style is that lovely stereotypical British, mid-century history sort which always makes me a bit happy on its own.

Am in the middle of What The Dog Saw, a collection of The New Yorker essays by Malcolm Gladwell, author of The Tipping Point, Blink, and Outliers (none of which I've read). The author was recently interviewed on The Colbert Report.

I just started The Defining Decade by Meg Jay and am really enjoying it. Great food for thought for twentysomethings.

I'm reading Caesar's The Civil War (Oxford edition with John Carter, translator), having just finished The Conquest of Gaul and with Tom Holland's Rubicon on tap.

Probably the most interesting thing is recognizing this or that detail that were picked up or embroidered upon in later works of fiction & film. Also, as I'm now in the part of the book dealing with the "anonymous" extensions (The Alexandrine War, The African War, The Spanish War) to Caesar's account, it's striking how little of the fighting took place within Italy.

hmajor - Always so glad to see someone reading Caesar's commentaries. I found them immensely interesting (and fun), and Rubicon was just a joy all the way through.

In addition to some calendar quarter-killing fiction, Infinite Jest, as well as all the requisite study guides...

I am listening to an unabridged version of The Worst Hard Time. There have been nothing but great reviews about this dust bowl page-turner, over here at this Group.

I've read about 50 pages of The End of Your Life Book Club. It has some quirkiness (not many guys call their mom at 8 a.m. every day). But I think this book will touch a lot of people and it's always fun to read what serious readers have to say about books.

I'm reading Skating to Antarctica - part memoir and part travel tale. It's a re-read but I'd completely forgotten about the (somewhat harrowing) memoir aspect!

Lyzzy 8: I've read a few of Diski's books ... strange, but compelling.

I think I've only read this one and none of her novels ... it is good, though.

I just finished Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail and am now working on Seabiscuit. Wild was very good. I am liking Seabiscuit, but not as much as Unbroken.

I'm just starting The March of Folly by Barbara W. Tuchman. I always really enjoy her books.

I'm reading Right Hand, Left Hand by Chris McManus, about the concepts of "right" and "left" and handedness. Slow going, as it is very technical, but interesting. The wide range of disciplines covered is impressive. From philosophy and literature to biology and chemistry, and more. The chemistry was beyond me, but so far everything else has been engaging.

#2: I love Malcolm Gladwell and have read all his books so far. I will have to look for the interview you mentioned.

Am halfway through Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother: Stories of Loss and Love by Xinran. It is a heartbreaking collection of numerous Chinese mothers' stories about giving up their daughters.

My current reading includes Empire of Liberty by Gordon Wood, Rites of Peace by Adam Zamoyski, Predator Nation by Charles Ferguson, and Commanding the Army of the Potomac by Stephen Taaffe.

Started Rez Life today. So far interesting.

I just started reading Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz. It's a good twist on the traditional Civil War books with a more modern spin.

I've just begun Lost At Sea: The Jon Ronson Mysteries by ever-so-investigatively intrepid Jon Ronson, author of The Psychopath Test, The Men Who Stare At Goats, and Them: Adventures With Extremists. At this point I would prefer to have never heard of the group Insane Clown Posse, but alas............................

Finished The Possible City: Exercises in Dreaming Philadelphia last evening. My experience is with Center City and the book looked at the whole city.
While I may not have been enamored with all of his suggestions, many were good and all inspired thought.

>18 tropics:

I've really got to read some (most) of Jon Ronson's works!

They would definitely take top priority over my TBR-owned book pile. 'Time to hit the library.

This Lost at Sea: The Ron Jonson Mysteries touchstone should work better.

#20 - Thanks, Sandydog1. I edited the title in #18.

Finished It's Game Time Somewhere which I enjoyed since it explained to me why my sports enthusiasm was waning. It's not just an age thing. The author found the joy of sports still prevalent in all the "second tier" sports played for the mere joy of playing.

I enjoyed It's Game Time Somewhere too although I didn't understand all the details of the rules of some of the games!

As part of my goal of reading more science-related books this year, I've begun physicist Richard P. Feynman's The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out.

I'm about 3/4 through Am I a Jew?, with conflicted feelings about whether I "like" the book or not.

My first non-fiction book of 2013 is Cahokia: Ancient America's Great City on the Mississippi by Timothy R. Pauketat.

26 - Hope you like it! I really enjoyed it myself.

I'm reading The Nazi Officer's Wife by Edith Hahn Beer, and about to start an ER, Toms River by Dan Fagin.

Present on one of my shelves for several years, but inexplicably neglected until now, reading The Daily Coyote by Shreve Stockton. An inspiring story of an adventurous young urbanite who moves to Wyoming and quite unexpectedly adopts a 10-day-old orphaned coyote. Her bog spot is here:

http://www.dailycoyote.net/

Toms River was absolutely amazing. It comes out March 19th, and I predict a swift rise to the best sellers list. Highly recommended. I was really not in the mood to read that kind of book, but read the first 130 pages in one sitting.

I'm about to start on American Nations by Colin Woodard, which I got through SantaThing.

I'm frantically trying to finish my Early Reviewer book Gold Coast Madam so I can write a review and move on. It wasn't what I expected when I requested it but now I feel compelled to finish it because that's all part and parcel of the ER program.

Flamingo, depending on the length I think if you read at least 100 pages of it that's good enough. It's nice that with those you don't have to give a star rating, so you can just explain where the disconnect was and comment on the quality of the writing.

Started Heads in Beds a couple of days ago and am now 3/4 through with it. The beginning was a bit slow for my taste, but he gets right into the thick of the hotel business and all the stuff they don't want us, the public, to know. Very entertaining.

Leningrad- by Anna Reid, was a great read, personal and factual.

Mayflower- Nathaniel Philbrick I read earlier this year and liked it a lot, but felt bogged down by the battle scenes which were repetitive, the nature of the situation it seems.

Only 2/10 of my books read this year so far have been non-fiction.

32 Framboise -- I found the author rather ... immature, shall we say.

Yesterday, I started One Dry Season, a historical footsteps journey following Victorian adventuress Mary Kingsley in Africa.

I am still reading Predator Nation, and I am also now reading Over the Edge of the World by Laurence Bergreen, In the Name of Rome by Adrian Goldsworthy, and have just started Sloan Rules by David Farber.

Remembered I had a library book out, so I'm in the middle of Message from an Unknown Chinese Mother by Xinran. I'm on the fence about it so far, due to the writing style and the fact that the author comes across as rather narcissistic so far (that's not really the right description, but her own life and story are getting in the way of hearing about the birth mothers).

31-
Thanks mabith. I have just about 15 pages left so the end is near. I just hate giving up on a book, especially an ER book. After this it's on to The Paris Wife, technically fiction but with real people....

#34, I agree with you. There were definitely parts that were meant to be funny that weren't to me, but I ended up really enjoying the book and going back to reread my favorite bits.

#36, I am in the middle of Message From an Unknown Chinese Mother as well. Have been for about a month. I do want to finish it, it's just that all these other books keep getting in the way.

My first non-fiction of the year is a history, The Abolitionists: the Growth of a Dissenting Minority by Merton Lynn Dillon. The first few pages are promising.

Just finished Guitar Zero by Gary Marcus, a cognitive psychologist's book on learning music as an adult. It was pleasant, but I didn't feel like I learned very much and there was a fair amount of repetition. There's an extensive bibliography, but I don't know if I feel like digging into actual lab reports & such.

Similarly, A Geography of Time by Robert V. Levine was mildly interesting, light nonfiction reading. It came out in 1998, and I'd be interested in whether some of the generalizations about "pace of life" in different places still seem accurate today. (Of course, Levine is clear about what his experiments use as proxy measures for pace of life and the fact that a great deal isn't measured.)

I'm currently reading McMafia by Misha Glenny and contemplating Sam Kean's The Disappearing Spoon.

I enjoyed The Disappearing Spoon though it was SO much information. I wish I'd taken my time with it, just reading a few chapters at a time in between other books.

A Geography of Time sounds incredibly interesting.

I'm reading a memoir of a man who recovers from amnesia, My Life, Deleted by Scott Bolzan

I'm reading Spice: The HIstory of a Temptation about how the quest for spices has driven exploration, imperialism, and economies. I should probably report this one over in the Commodities group too.

Varielle, that's on my TBR shelves! Let me know (in the commodities group or here) what you think of it.

Associated Press Haiti correspondent Jonathan M. Katz was present in Port-Au-Prince when the massive earthquake struck there on January 12, 2010. The Big Truck That Went By: How The World Came To Save Haiti And Left Behind A Disaster clearly explains the difficulties associated with rendering immediate aid and long-term assistance in this unfortunate country.

Agh, too many excellent sounding books! Looks like we're all reading a lot of excellent stuff this month!

I'm about half-way through Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America by Melissa V. Harris-Perry. It is excellently written and researched.

42 LynnB -

I found the memory aspect of Bolzan's book interesting, but his personal life, not so much ...

Chugging along with volume 2 of Origins of the War of 1914. I'm at page 500 and then there's volume 3.

I'm reading and looking at all the photos in the Arcadia Images of Rail, Norfolk and Western Railway by Nelson Harris. this isn't as sophisticated as many of the items above but it is a fun read and a fun series. The N&W is a very neat RR and it really started interesting me after I looked at the photos of it by O. W. Link and after visiting the museum in Roanoke. I dream of the steam going by and I was lucky enough to be at the end of it both in Virginia and Pennsylvania. Enough of my dreams. I'll have to be satisfied with the rumble and hum of juice and diesel motors!

I'm reading A good horse is never a bad color which is really enjoyable, full of anecdotes and really useful information (not that I will ever have a horse ...), very enjoyable. I think I picked it up in Amazon's 12 days of Kindle promotion. And A Lot to Ask which is a bio of Barbara Pym that I started for my Month of Re-reading ...

I finished The Abolitionists: the Growth of a Dissenting Minority by Merton Lynn Dillon. My review is on the book's work page. My short reaction: this is a nice, readable introduction to this topic. I'm sure there are more in-depth accounts of these people and events, and perhaps more recent scholarship as well (this book was published in 1974). But for a clear, straightforward account, especially for someone relatively new to the subject matter, as I was, this book is still quite valuable, I think.

A few chapters into Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo.