What Non-Fiction Are You Reading Now - July 2007

I hope no one minds, but I was wondering if we could try breaking the "What Non-Fiction Are You Reading Now?" threads up by month, going forward. Since we're only two days into July, I decided to just go ahead and start one for the month.

I am still reading How Language Works bit by bit. The earlier entries are not as interesting to me as the later ones, so I am struggling.

I have just finished The Nine Emotional Lives of Cats: A Journey Into the Feline Heart, which had a lot of cute stories about the author's many cats plus some musings on the emotional world of cats.

My main non-fiction for this month is probably going to be some combination of Backlash and Food Politics. I am having a lot of difficulty reading one book exclusively right now.

Again, I hope no one minds if I try to start a monthly thread. :)

I just finished The Six Wives: the queens of Henry VIII by David Starkey.-a very detailed account of almost a day by day accounting of the movements of the court and the negotiations by Henry to divorce or marry. I was fascinated by the overwhelming detail but found the book a little uneven in regards to the discussion on the trial and death of Anne Boleyn.

I've just started The Fight for English: How the Pundits Ate, Shot and Left. I thoroughly enjoyed Eats Shoots and Leaves so I thought I'd try this rebuttal.

still working my way through an abridged version of herodotus; about halfway through john dewey's democracy and education; and still "claiming" to be reading jean-paul sartre's being and nothingness, although i've all but given up on it.

>1 fannyprice:: fannyprice, monthly threads are just fine by me! Thanks for starting this one.

I may have mentioned on the original thread, so sorry if this is a repeat. I'm reading Alice Sebold's memoir, Lucky, which deals with rape and its aftermath. The first thing I learned is that she and I are the same age. Thus, as I was finishing my freshman year at university relatively pleased with my academic and social survival, she was literally fighting for her life. Somehow that makes the reading even more powerful for me.

I just finished, in quick succession, Jason Burke's On the road to Kandahar : travels through conflict in the Islamic world, and The Struggle for Iran, by Christopher de Bellaigue, which for some reason loads into the Touchstone as some other book entirely, so I've made it a link to Amazon.com instead. Both books were excellent.

Current book is Among Muslims : everyday life on the frontiers of Pakistan, by Kathleen Jamie. Lovely travelogue and very interesting portrait of northern Pakistan and the disputed Kashmir region and its people.

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali - she writes well. There's a sizeable Somali community here in Seattle, so I find the book particularly fascinating.

>7 Seajack:, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Infidel when you've finished. I've not read the book but I have seen the author interviewed a number of times and read a lot about the various controversies surrounding her.

I'm currently reading Fire by Sebastian Junger and Return to Treasure Island and the Search for Captain Kidd by Barry Clifford.

>4 philosojerk:, How are you enjoying Democracy and Education? I rather liked it...

I'm about half-way through Susan Wise Bauer's The History of the Ancient World. She's a good writer, and the book flows fairly quickly despite the massive amount of content it covers. It's got a little more about the ancient Near-East than I was originally looking for; but since I have no background in that area's history, I'm finding it interesting.

I'm working on Imagined Communities by Benedict Anderson right now - a fascinating look at how the sense of "nationality" came to be (and it's a more recent phenomenon than you might think), and I just ordered A Problem from Hell by Samantha Power, which looks just fascinating and won a Pulitzer Prize a few years back, so that should keep me busy a while.

By the way, good idea to break up these posts.

>11 waitingtoderail:, I read A Problem From Hell a couple years ago - it was a really strong treatment of a really terrible subject. I hope you will enjoy it.

I'm currently reading The Heartless Stone. Both fascinating and appalling. Along with Flower Confidential which I recently finished, I wonder why people keep demanding these supposed tokens of love when there is so much greed, environmental destruction, and human suffering behind their production.

Finished Infidel just now - fascinating book! Author must have a four-digit IQ! Her basic point is that dismissing/making excuses for "miltant" Islamic expression (for lack of a better term) only makes the situation worse for those trapped within. Rather than go on, I'd strongly encourage folks to read the book for themselves.

My next selection is far less weighty: The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz.

I'm about 3/4 through Double Fold by Nicholson Baker. He goes a bit over the top but makes some strong points about trying to preserve paper 'reading' materials. Some of the subjects he mentions are new to me but some I was familiar with from other books about books.

VisibleGhost, I really like Baker's fiction -- have you read any? It seems people either love or hate him. I've read Checkpoint and A Box of Matches

I'm reading The Truth About Hillary by Edward Klein and finding the book *extremely* annoying. I'm listening to it on CD. At some points, I've already had to pause the CD and scream out in anger! Luckily I was in my car with the windows tightly shut, and no one could hear me. It made my commute to work very interesting. :-)

It's hard to read a book by such a well-respected author only to find the contents to so negative and one-sided.

Has anyone else read this book? What did you think of it?

>9 capnk8: i'm not really sure where i stand so far. i'm not loving dewey's writing style, but i didn't expect to. the ideas presented, though, seem to be syncing up fairly well with my own opinions, and some of what he's saying about the interaction of education & society's modes of living is actually striking me as an interesting justification for perfectionism. hmm... not sure yet, honestly. i'll let you know where i stand on this one after it's done, though :)

Squeak:

I did listen to that book, though a while back. I viscerally dislike the Clintons, so its being "one sided" probably didn't bother me as much as it did others. I'm on the library queue for the new (print) Hillary book Her Way: the hopes and ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton.

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Seajack,

I'm just curious. If you dislike the Clintons so much, why are you interested in reading the new book about Hillary? (...or so many books about Hillary?)

There are things I like about her and things I don't. I'm sorry that the book I'm reading now doesn't even try to say anything nice about her. It reads like a National Enquirer article. :-(

The new book is supposed to be fairly well written; I'm not keen on Emmett Tyrell-style ranting screeds. It's tough to find "balanced" books about controversial, polarizing figures though - good luck to you on that!

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Hehe! I don't usually read book about politicans. This just happened to be an audiotape that was available in my library. I thought it might prove to be interesting, but was not expecting what I am hearing now.

On audio, I'm considering starting Animal, Vegetable, Miracle byBarbara Kingsolver soon. In print, I've judst started The Great American Bus Ride by Irma Kurtz, probably to be juggled with How Would a Patriot Act? by Glenn Greenwald.

#16 >LynnB, re: Baker

The only Nicholson Baker fiction I've read, or at least skimmed, was Vox because it was mentioned in the news when the Bill/Monica thing was happening and the uproar caused by Starr trying to get records of books bought by some of the people involved.

I finished Double Fold and though it was the last thing in the world I expected it provided one belly-laugh. A Library of Congress staffer was going thru the stacks and found a book with a piece of bacon ( yep, that's right, BACON) that had been used as a bookmark. Didn't say if it was cooked or raw. Nobody had any idea how long it had been there. I've heard of strange things being used as placeholders but never a piece of bacon!

#2 > toronotoc .... Thanks for mentioning The Six Wives: The Queens of Henry VIII. I wasn't familiar with it.

I just finished The Other Boleyn Girl (historical fiction) for my book group, and now I'm re-reading portions of:

* The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
* The Wives of Henry VIII by Antonia Fraser
* Henry VIII: The King and His Court by Alison Weir

I'm reading James Frey's A Million Little Pieces, but I don't know whether to classify it as non-fic or not.

Currently working on Mayflower, by Nathaniel Philbrick. I've gotten about two-thirds of the way through since Sunday, though it helped having yesterday off and five days of no internet at home.

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You can classify it as both! ;-)

I just finished Eats Shoots and Leaves and am about to start Girls on the Stand: How Courts Fail Pregnant Minors by Helena Silverstein

katiekins, I loved Eats Shoots and Leaves and also enjoyed The Fight for English: How the Pundits ate, shot, and left.

I'm about to start Time Traveler by Dr. Ronald L. Mallett which someone mentioned in the earlier thread (before we started this new one). I get a lot of suggestions from this group!

I just finished Bob Woodward's State of Denial For most of the book he managed to keep his state of objectivity, but I think he lost it towards the end.

Just finished Is Heathcliff a murderer? : great puzzles in nineteenth-century literature by John Sutherland. Next up is the first of the book's two sequels: Can Jane Eyre be happy? : more puzzles in classic fiction.

I just this minute finished Michael Holroyd's Lytton Strachy - excellent, proper biography of the old school - even though it was nearly 1100 pages, it was entertaining and energetic and never dull.

I'm trying to read as much non-fic as fiction this year, so next up is one called The Intellectuals which is about the modernists' attitude to the masses (which I probably won't read yet as there will be overlap with the previous read) and Minus nine to one by Jules Oliver which is a warts-and-all pregnancy diary. Not pregnant, no kids, but it interested me in the charity shop.

Took off the touchstones as they gave me all sorts of wierd stuff.

Have just returned to David Levering Lewis`s book on W E B Du Bois.

Was making good progress till I got called for jury service, when I had to switch to lighter and more portable books (by David Gemmell and John Creasey if you want to know.

I do find with non-fiction, if you get interrupted, it`s much harder to pick up where you left off. DLL`s book is particularly hard going for me as there are a lot of unfamiliar American terms which don`t appear in UK dictionaries.

It is a good book, and I think it deserved it`s Pulitzer, but I think as it goes on the wealth of incidental detail sometimes interrupts the flow. i can understand why another LTer some time ago thought the level of detail was excessive.

THANK YOU for splitting up the thread!!! I see lots of threads around LT where I have to scroll down b/c the first responses are from MONTHS ago... drives me nuts.

Anyway, I'm currently reading How I Learned to Cook: and other writings on complex mother-daughter relationships which is about scary mothers.

brewergirl, how would you compare the three Henry VIII books you mentioned? I read the Antonia Fraser one and liked it a lot, but I haven't been able to get into Alison Weir.

>32 Seajack:, What a neat idea for books! I had never heard of these before but I am totally going to buy them now. They sound really fun.

Have just bought -

The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby
The Art of Fiction by David Lodge

The first one to introduce me to authors I might never have tried otherwise and the second to enable me to discuss a novel more adequately than I can now.

I tend to read in thematic binges. Right now I am on my anti-religion binge that was prompted by God is Not Great. So, I just finished Letter to Christian Nation and have begun to read End of Faith.

32: This sounds like a brilliant idea. I will definitely have to pick up these books!

Regarding #15 and Nicholson Baker's Double Fold: When this first came out, it caused a relatively big uproar from archivists/librarians who strongly disagreed w/Baker's arguments ... I don't have any expertise on the matter, but you might want to take the book w/a few grains of salt.

I just finished The world is flat by Thomas L. Friedman ... a ton of interesting ideas, but a lot of his "solutions" to problems caused by globalization seemed overly idealistic.

>41 KromesTomes:: KromesTomes, I agree with you about The World is Flat. I found after a while it got kind of repetitive, too.

I've recently started The Diary of H. L. Mencken by, well, H. L. Mencken. It's a rather large and unwieldy book. I checked it out from the library, though I'll have to get myself a copy ASAP. I can't stand not being able to write in my books.

I'm also looking forward to some hypochondriac entries. I am one myself, so that is of interest.

I'm glad it has some photographs in the middle. I love photographs of my favorite authors.

::Rambles::

#36 > carlym ... Gosh, it's been a while since I read each of the Henry VIII books (see post #25) ... I'm just re-reading the Anne Boleyn portions of them right now ... so I'm not sure I could compare them very intelligently.

Overall I enjoy both Alison Weir's and Antonia Fraser's books, although I tend to think of Fraser's as more substantive and Weir's as more readable. I know that's an incredibly simplistic statement ... and possibly unfair ... but that's my imperfect impression.

I'm struggling a little through the first chapters of London: The Biography by Peter Ackroyd. I'm not really one for "pre-history" so the start of the book has a bit of a slog. Chapter two ends in the year 1066, though, so we're starting pick up steam. This book has gotten a lot of positive feedback, so I'm hoping the diligence pays off!

> 2, 25, 36 -- i've read Alison Weir's The Six Wives of Henry VIII twice, actually... kind of embarrassing -- i went back to re-read the Anne Boleyn portions and ended up doing a complete re-read. but i've not read Fraser's version... thanks for the recommendation. i love this era, and i'll have to check that one out.

i agree with you that Weir was very readable. it will be interesting to see how she compares to Fraser.

I am reading Mirror Mirror: A history of the Human Love Affair with Reflection by Mark Pendergrast - very interesting, but seems to drag on in spots. Who knew mirrors were so interesting!

Now I'm reading Dude Where's My Country by Michael Moore. It's a funny and irreverent look at the policies of George W. Bush. It's such a relief to read something like this after reading The Truth About Hillary by Edward Klein. I guess the truth lies somewhere between the two extremes, but I feel much more comfortable with Moore's view of things. Perhaps others laughed at Klein's book as much as I did at Moore's book.

I also got to see the movie Sicko by Michael Moore this weekend. Sadly, I think he's telling the truth in this film. I loved the part where he takes... (Oh, go see the movie. It's excellent. No spoilers here!)

I'm about halfway through The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. Here's my thoughts on these kind of books. Publishers love them whether they are pro or con on the existence of God or gods. The debate has been going on since humans learned their larynxes could warble forth words. Line up the authors from both sides. Tell them to jazz up their arguments with all manner of insults both clever and stupid. Laugh all the way to the bank. Year after year. The debate that never ends is a cash cow.

I found a free copy of "FDR'S Last Year," by Jim Bishop (1971) on my library give-a-way shelf. I love history, and this is a page turner, interspersed with personal history (marriage, health, relationships), etc, the decision to go for a fourth term, the new VP selection process and his method of dealing with the multitude of catastrophic world events that were taking place at the time. (I had no idea how difficult it was for the three Allied leaders to agree on a date and location for a summit. It's interesting to me to note that so much of the same rhetoric used by politicians today, were spoken, almost word for word, by some of our leaders back then.

Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs and Steel." I have been wanting to read it for a long time and it is slow going, as I am also reading two other books, but it is quite interesting.

I find that I "resonate" with VisibleGhost's assessment of the books on God. I haven''t read the latest books, Dawkins' and also Hitchens's book on the topic, and I am sure that they'll be rife with clever turns of phrases, ripostes, etc. It is impossible to actually prove, in an incontrovertible way, the existence of God and for those that want to believe, it is not all that difficult to argue for his existence. Those books will always sell because people just love to read books that will support their point of view on such a controversial and seminal topic, be it for or against it, so I'll read the book reviews, to be informed of what's going on, but I'll seldom read the whole book ...

WRT message 4, I guess Herodotus is nonfiction, at least it was in his time. There are some really wild natural history word-of-mouth descriptions, especially in the Egypt chapters. I only got through about a third of it the book. It is time to try again.

I just finished a really good essay on Darwin. "Darwin"s Origin of the Species, a Biography", by Janet Browne is a quick summary of the influence of Darwin and his writings.

To enter the debate on books about religion....I've only read one, The End of Faith and although I'm not a religious person myself, I was shocked by some of Mr. Harris's statements. It certainly provoked the most combative discussion my book club ever had.

I think Yann Martel put it best in Life of Pi when he said that those who believe and those who are athiests actually have a lot in common. The existance of God cannot be proven nor disproved. Therefore, both the believer and the athiest assess the "evidence" and take a leap of "faith". It is the agnostic that has least in common with the other two.

>52 Sandydog1: yes, there's definitely a fair bit of mythology in herodotus. i'm actually regretting having gotten this abridged thing - it was only $4 at a used book store, but it's only what the editor considered relevant to the greek wars, and now that i've read (most of) it, i'm realizing that i'm going to have to get the whole histories and fill in the random gaps. *sigh*

>49 VisibleGhost:, too true! I wonder if anyone from either camp ever reads the other camp's books and changes his/her opinion about the matter. So many of these books seem like preaching to the choir.

Are you enjoying The God Delusion?

>53 LynnB:, I think that is a really good assessment of the situation, but I always get shouted down when I bring that point up in conversation. :)

Enjoying Rescuing Da Vinci by Robert Edsel

In the past few weeks, enjoyed: The Mistress's Daughter, by AM Homes - if you've ever wondered what it's like to have been adopted; well written; Animal Architects, by James R Gould and Carol Gould - super explanation of how animals shape their space, how spiders build, how nests are constructed, etc; Uncommon Carriers, by John McPhee - esp the chapter entitled "In the Sort", about how UPS gets that package to you; and Crashing Through, by Robert Kurson, about a man who regained his vision after loosing it as a young child. and how he had to learn how to see. All, worthwhile books.

#55-

I did enjoy The God Delusion even if a lot of the contents were repeated from earlier Dawkins books which is why I checked it out from the library instead of plunked down cash for it. Checking the LT numbers for the book, I find it interesting that there are already more copies of this book on LT than there are for The Selfish Gene which is thirty plus years old now while TGD is not even a year old. I did see that the new Michael Behe is out. The Edge of Evolution. I'll probably read it later this year to see what the latest argument against Evolution is. I'll check that one out too.

Currently, I'm 1/4 through Holding Back the Sea by Christopher Hallowell which is about South Louisiana's Gulf Coast. It was written pre-Katrina and thus the warnings in it are prescient. Hallowell is a reporter so there is lots of good descriptions of the people that populate this region.

I'm halfway through The Vanishing Map by Stephen Barber. It's a short book, but not one to be gone through quickly; Barber is quite erudite. Esp recommended for those with an interest in modern (Central) European history.

I'm reading Midnights: A Year with the Wellfleet Police which was recommended by someone on LT. It's humourous and I plan to send it to my brother who is an RCMP officer.

Just finishing The Selfish Gene and starting up Portrait of Dr. Gachet, a book about Van Gogh's famous painting. I plan to follow that with Strapless another book about a painting.

I have good intentions of reading Black Swan, Forgotten Man, and Brutal Journey, all due to CSPAN moments.

Swan is about chance, the Forgotten man about the 1930s depression (what was so great about it?) and Brutal Journey about Spanish crossing of North America. All of these were to be found at the library.

I just started Reclaiming History: the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy by Vince Bugliosi. It's enormous. And heavy. I've made it through the introduction and into the first chapter, which is a detailed timeline of the day of the assassination and the subsequent three days. It's going to be interesting deciding how to rate this one...

I just picked up Black Swan and a new one, The Political Brain.

I hope I actually get a chance to read them.

I've just started Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil because I liked City of Falling Angels so much.

I just began The road to Ubar by Nicholas Clapp ... a modern-day search for the "Atlantis of the desert" ...

Halfway through The Thumpin': How Rahm Emanuel and the Democrats Learned to Be Ruthless and Ended the Republican Revolution by Naftali Bendavid (gave up partway through and returned it to the library) and just started Driving to Detroit : an automotive odyssey by Lesley Hazleton (on hiatus after first half).

As I read Mayflower in a week, I'm already several hundred pages of Alison Weir's Mary, Queen of Scots, and the Murder of Lord Darnley. Both are pretty interesting.

There are some interesting titles here, as always. :-) I finished the Pakistan book and am finishing up a slim but thoughtful volume called Against Islamic Extremism, by Egyptian jurist Muhammad Said Al-Ashmawy.

I just started Ross King's The Judgment of Paris The Revolutionary Decade that gave the World Impressionism. I really like his historical fiction and find that King's information and writing style describes the climate of Paris and the Impressionist movement in a very compelling way.

Just beginning The Writing Life by Ellen Gilchrist.

I just delved into I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofstadter who penned Godel, Escher, Bach 28 years ago. Yikes! 28 years? I am getting old. I'm sure this one won't be a quick read as human consciousness is one of the great slippery subjects of all time. Hopefully, I'll get through without a brain explosion.

I just finished reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, which I loved (I was already on his side before I started it, but I found it thought-provoking nevertheless and there were parts of his argument that had me thinking, 'No, that's a step too far'. I'd like to read it again at some point to fully register his arguments.

I'm now reading The Fifties by David Halberstam, which I'm finding very difficult to put down. Such a fascinating decade. (Although I will be stepping away from it today as soon as the postman delivers my copy of Harry Potter 7!

I'll be starting The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat this weekend for a book club.

Partway through Her Way: The Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham Clinton by Jeff Gerth. I'm finding it critical, yet balanced, view of what one might expect of a President Hillary based upon her past ... activities.

Behind the Curtain: Travels in Eastern European Football by Jonathan Wilson. Part travelogue, part soccer history, part politics. It's great so far. I've finished the chapters on Ukraine and Poland and can't recommend it enough for soccer fans or those interested in Eastern Europe.

Maps of Time: an Introduction to Big History by David Christian
Mathematics for the Nonmathematician by Morris Kline
A Philosopher Looks at Science by John Kemeny
Language in Action by S.I. Hayakawa

I'm reading all those at once. ADHD works like that.

I'm new here, so I thought this would be a good thread to start with. I'm currently reading the following:

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris
Fatal Shore by Robert Hughes
Benjamin Franklin by Walter Issacson
Under the Black Flag: the romance and the reality of life among the pirates by David Cordingly

Welcome, Bibliophool!

Well, I started another book. This one caught my eye because I've done the thought experiment myself. What would happen to the earth if all humans disappeared? The World Without Us by Alan Weisman is a book that comes up with some answers for that very question. Really interesting book.

I'm reading Evolution's Captain by Peter Nichols, about the captain of the Beagle, and the circumstances that led to Darwin being involved in an expedition with the British Navy. It's pretty fluffy but compelling to read.

VisibleGhost: I've been looking forward to reading The World Without Us ever since hearing the author being interviewed on The Alan Colmes Show. Until now I hadn't had occasion to think what would happen if hundreds of nuclear plants were suddenly left unattended - no one manning the pumps to keep the cooling systems operational. Too horrifying to contemplate.

Tropics: I'm not done with The World Without Us but this book is going to vie for a spot on my best reads of the year. I'm not quite sure what to compare it to but I am enjoying it immensely.

Coincidentally, the July-August issue of Audubon Magazine features the chapter from The World Without Us relating to birds (available on line at
http://audubonmagazine.org/features0707/portents.html)

#63 drneutron:
I you really get into the JFK thing, please leave me a message. My husband is a JFK junkie. We have over 30 books in that category. He has not signed on here yet so just let me know.

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#85 Gertrude -

I highly recommend the Bugliosi book on the Kennedy assassination. It's huge, but extremely thorough. I'm just about halfway through it - 800 pages or so in. I haven't gotten to the part where he responds to the various theories yet, but it's clear from the start that he's come to the conclusion that Oswald acted alone. Anyway, let me know what he thinks of it if he reads it.