Non-fic Reading for January 2010

I am in the middle of Hot , Flat and Crowded . Its interesting , but agree with some reviews that there is some repetitive writing .

I've just about finished The Last Generation - How Nature Will Take Her Revenge for Climate Change by Fred Pearce.

I won't say I'm enjoying it because it really is a depressing read, but I think it's much better written and researched than Six Degrees: our future on a hotter planet, a book on climate change that I read last year.

This is my first post on a LT forum: I hope I've done it properly.

You did a fine job, ramblingivy, and welcome.

I am still reading Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller. A trip through Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Mozambique with an old white African soldier who has demons to confront.

I'm enmeshed in Raven: The Untold Story of Rev. Jim Jones and His People.

Yesterday I finished A Romance on Three Legs by Katie Hafner. It's about Glenn Gould and his quest to find a piano that suited his playing style, and also about the piano technician who maintained and adjusted his pianos for him. It is a fascinating read. I had no idea that grand pianos were such delicate instruments.

I'm reading What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew. The title sounds like it would be a "light" read but its actually dense with information about the period of 1800-1900.

Just started Wilderness Warrior this morning. Some heavy reading needing my dictionary at times. We will see if I make it through all 900 pages!

I have The Big Burn sitting here to. Some sort of TR kick I guess. Egan's The Worst Hard Time was a great read!

Just finished Failure Is Not An Option and loved it.

Andy

Yesterday I finished Castles of Steel by Robert K. Massie. It concerns the British and German navies in World War I. I found it well-written and fascinating.

I read it because I liked his Peter the Great which my daughter recommended to me.

I'm reading Arctic Front: Defending Canada in the Far North by Ken Coates et al.

FicusFan, Scribbling the Cat is on my wish list. I read Ms. Fuller's first book, Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight and am wondering how her perspective has evolved since she was a child.

I never read the first book, and so know very little about her.

Everything is seen through her eyes, and yet she is mostly absent from Scribbling the Cat. You may appreciate it more having read the first book, but it was a pretty unsatisfying book for me.

I have done a review if you want to know more, though it is not spoiler free.

This afternoon I started reading The History of God by Karen Armstrong, a look at 4000 years of monotheism. I got as far as chapter one before falling asleep, but that probably isn't Armstrong's fault.

thanx, FicusFan.

jfetting, I am also reading about religion: Lost in the Sacred: Why the Muslim World Stood Still by Dan Diner. Just started this morning. The intro is very dry and academic, but Chapter 1 is shaping up well and I think it'll be a good read.

edited to fix a typo. While a book about the Muslin world may have been interesting, it's not what I'm reading!

I've started tackling the many books given me by a friend moving out of state, beginning with The Civil War: Fort Sumpter to Perryville by Shelby Foote. This one ought to keep me off the streets for a while.

I started off the New Year by finishing My Father's Paradise: A Son's Search for His Jewish Past in Kurdish Iraq, by Ariel Sabar, an outstanding book that I was unable to put down until finished. I'm now wending my way through another Jewish narrative, this time an autobiography from Iran: Journey from the Land of No: A Girlhood Caught in Revolutionary Iran, by Roya Hakakian.

Oops, edited to add: Welcome to ramblingivy. :)

Essa! What a coincidence! I just borrowed Journey from the Land of No from the library yesterday. I haven't started it yet, so would be interested to know what you think of it.

I've finished my climate change book and am now reading The Great Feminist Denial by Monica Dux and Zora Simic. I'm not really enjoying it - it's a bit too glib and grubbily sexual for my liking - so am only reading it out of duty, to keep my knowledge up-to-date.

I'm looking forward to finishing it and starting something else, to be honest.

Editing too: Thanks for the welcome, Essa :-)

Well I'm supposed to be reading Life in the Undergrowth by david Attenborough but I keep getting distracted by science fiction!
I'm also part way thru Chaos by J.Gleick, for the second time. Its not always an easy read!

Just completed The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, it was a great read!

Picked up Nine Parts of Desire at the library. I had the book on my Bookmooch wishlist (it's still there) but I walked into the tiny local branch of our city's library and there it was, a brand new paperback copy that still has that new-paperback smell. I just have a short time to read it so I'm starting right now.

Not done with Integrity yet but that shouldn't take too much longer. I only have a couple more chapters to read I think.

Are you enjoying Nine Parts of Desire, Grogotte? I loved it, and read it in almost one sitting.

I'm reading my way through The Horse Boy and finding it to be a fascinating and captivating read. The bookstore classes it as a biography, but it's also got a lot of travel writing to it as well.

I'm really getting drawn in by the highs and lows the family goes through on this journey.

ramblingivy, I finished Journey from the Land of No last night and will be interested to hear your thoughts on it when you have read it, if you are willing to share them. For my part, I enjoyed it very much -- Hakakian is a gifted writer, especially considering she wrote the work in English, which is not a native language for her. It was interesting to contrast her views of the Revolution with, say, Shirin Ebadi's, as Hakakian was only a girl when the Revolution took place so her memories of that time are a child's memories. I also enjoyed the epilogue that provided some follow-up on what became of the people we "met" during the memoir.

I'm now switching gears entirely for a different sort of memoir, The Elfish Gene: Dungeons, Dragons, and Growing Up Strange, an autobiography of a British gamer geek. :)

Ramblingivy, I just read the prologue yesterday, but I do think it will be a great read. I love Brooks' style, too. I'll keep you posted!

I am reading Founding Brothers. I was really looking forward to it, but I am not enjoying it quite as much as I hoped. I had outsized expectations.

Tackled Part 2 of Churchill's History of the English-Speaking Peoples on audio after New Years. The English Civil War details got quite bogged down, though the narrator tried his best to remain enthusiastic.

Essa, I just read Girl from Foreign: A Search for Shipwrecked Ancestors, Forgotten Histories, and A Sense of Home by Sadia Shepherd, which I highly recommend. I want to read My Father's Paradise as a sort of follow-up.

In other nonfiction reading, I am about to start El Monstruo: Dread and Redemption in Mexico City.

>23 jlelliott: I had the same feeling about Founding Brothers. American Creation is in my TBR pile and I'm a little hesitant to give it a try.

I've just started Last Lecture . I'm only 35 pages into it and already getting weepy .

Just found this thread. AquariusNat, how are you finding Hot Flat and Crowded? I'm 130 pages in and finding it long winded, overloaded with name-dropping, yet really interesting and readable. And it's making me turn off all the lightbulbs in the apartment!

Just got Snakes and Ladders Glimpses of Modern India from the library. I've read a couple of books, White Tiger and Begums, Thugs, and White Mughals, and was interested in some more.

cmt > I have a similar opinion as you . I've actually put it aside to read The Last Lecture which is on loan from a friend .

I had to set aside Shelbe Foote's Civil War for an inter-library loan book that turned up: Europe's Physician by Hugh Trevor-Roper. I've only read the introduction, but it seems promising.

I just started Legend: the Story of Poco, the history of the 70s rock band. It seems relatively amateurishly written, but I'm hoping to learn something, anyway. Poco was a favorite group of my high school crowd back in the day.

The World Guide to Whisky by Michael Jackson (the one that died two years before the king of pop). It's a nice casual read that's still comprehensive. I'm a fan of Jackson's writings on beer, and this one reminds me of what a great and culturally observant wordsmith he was.

#26 - I liked Founding Brothers and American Creation is written in the same style except I thought not as well. If you didn't like the first book, I would recommend you skip the second. Just my opinion though.

ReadingHaunted Heart by Lisa Rogak A biog of Stephen King. A nice easy read with no surprises.

I just finished reading Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson by Geoffrey C. Ward. Fantastic read 5 of 5 stars.

I'm starting The Landmark Herodotus. I think it's nonfiction.

I'm reading The Unfolding of Language by Guy Deutscher. It's described as an evolutionary tour of mankind's greatest invention.

My husband and I are reading The Ascent of Money by Niall Ferguson on our daily commute.

Earlier this month I read Wilhelm Hohenzollern, The Last of the Kaisers by Emil Ludwig and while I found it a fascinating look at a part of history I know little about, I did find Ludwig's style heavy, repetitious and someitmes hard to follow because he leapt back and forth on the time line.

I have just finished The Sumerians by Samuel Noah Kramer and though I feel he sometimes pressed too hard to link the Sumerians and their civilization with every good thing invented in the ancient (and modern) world, I still found it fascinating and exciting to read.

I started Patience and Fortitude by Nicholas Basbanes today.

I'm about halfway through The Time Traveler's Guide to Medieval England by Ian Mortimer, a bit more scholarly than these other faux-Fodor's I've enjoyed ...

Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak

Ancient Rome on 5 Denarii a Day by Philip Matyszak

Shakespeare's London on 5 Groats a Day by Richard Tames

I'm reading Good Time Girls of the Alaska-Yukon Gold Rush by Lael Morgan.

I'm reading Buried Alive by Roy Hallums.

I finished Under a Cruel Star by Heda Margolius Kovaly -- a devestating and uplifting autobiography of a woman who survived the concentration camps of the Nazis and then the horror of the Stalinist purges. This book can put all your own petty little problems into perspective.

I just read The Blind Side and although it had some technical football discussions that we lost on me, Michael Aher's story was kept me wanting to read more.

Just started Letters From Iwo Jima, after reading a book on a similar theme earlier this month: Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese student soldiers. This one, so far, is a lot more accessible and just as interesting.

UPDATE: Finished Stones Into Schools and posted a review. Great read.

Started The Good Soldiers, wow, very real.

Andy

Just finished Gloria's Miracle by Jerry Brewer. Jerry Brewer is a sports columnist with the Seattle Times and followed the Strauss family with several newspaper stories and a reporters blog. The book contains different writing than what was in the articles and reporters blog.

I am enjoying Frankly, My Dear, about the making of the movie "Gone With the Wind" by Molly Haskell. Short read, but plenty of detail about Selznick, Mitchell, and Leigh.

Last night I began The Incredible Mets by Maury Allen. This is the story of the Mets' amazing 1969 Chamionship season, as told by Allen who was a beat writer following the team all season. The book came out only a month after the conclusion of the '69 Series, so the observations are first-hand and fresh. Happily, Allen is also a good writer.

Well that's one I don't have to worry about. 1969 was the first year the Cubs broke my heart.

I am reading Reason for Hope and Beautiful Minds: The Parallel Lives of Great Apes and Dolphins.
i am an animal geek.

#51> Funny thing is, jennieg, that at the time (I was 14 in 1969), I hated the Mets, too. I grew up in New Jersey as a Yankee fan, absolutely despising the Mets, especially during the '69 season when all the fair weather fans around me hopped onto their cutsie pie bandwagon. Over the succeeding decades, however, I've become more interested in the season simply from a baseball history point of view.

I'll grant you that aspect, but I'm still sulking. I admit it's not becoming.

Just finished reading Confessions Of A Radical Industrialist this morning. I don't normally read business books at all, but this was a really good read.

I just finished the very short (actually only three lectures and an afterward) Discontinuity in Greek Civilization by Rhys Carpenter. It starts with a nod at Thera as the likely location of Atlantis, but then goes on into a fascinating discussion of climatology, drought and the Dorian 'Invasion' of Greece. Only 85 pages long, but filled with interesting ideas.

Sunsetsurfshop, recalling the original meaning of "geek" -- "an animal geek" is quite a coinage!

ha, keigu! i had to look it up, but you are right!

I just finished with the Physics of Star Trek...nice read especially if your a trekker..

Edward Heath, still... and just finished Blue Latitudes - review to come some time today. A bit of a struggle to be honest...