Last 5 books you've read?

[Flaxbee]

Here goes:

5. "My Dream of You" by Nuala O'Faolin. Story of woman coming to grips with age, life, singlehood, her Irish upbringing, the death of her mother when she was a teenager and the death of her best friend in present time (friend's death triggers her life examination). Enjoyable. There's a story within a story, though, that gets a little annoying at times (the character is a writer... kinda a subplot like in "Possession" by A.S. Byatt that gets tedious).

4. "Detective Inspector Huss" by Helene Tursten. Swedish mystery, female detective, fun to read about Swedish life, etc. Looking forward to installment #2, if there is one.

3. "Excellent Women" by Barbara Pym. Story of mid-30s woman, immediately post-WWII in London. Quietly hilarious, absolutely terrific writing. Am ordering many more of Ms. Pym's books, she is a first class writer.

2. "The Miracles of Santo Fico" by D.L. Smith. Story of a tiny Tuscan village, faith, forgiveness. Humorous and sweet.

1. "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. Just started, seems quite good.

Next up: "The Obstacle Race: The Fortunes of Women Painters and Their Work" by Germaine Greer. I'm pretty much a fiction reader, but toss in nonfiction every 5-6 books.

OK, your turn!

[FDRrocks]

1. Okay

5. Rendevouz With Destiny by Will Freidel - A good FDR biography.

4. Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick - A history of the last days of the USSR.

3. Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger - Plotless book about a young cynic. Good read, but I think it's overrated.

2. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky - A deep read about the effects of crime on a mans psyche (that's what I took from it). Best book I've ever read.

1. The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer - Amazingly detailed book about the Nazi regime. I'm halfway through it and am enjoying it.

[Lefty48197]

2. Mine's not exactly the NY Times bestseller list

1) Gung Ho
2) Josephine McCallum - Too soon forgotten.
3) Winners guide to Texas hold 'em poker by Ken Warren
4) Living History by Hillary Rodham Clinton
5) The Encyclopedia of North American birds by michael Vanner

[indepat]

3. At the Highest Levels, The Luciano Project, The March of Folly,

No Ordinary Time, Personal History

[JitterbugPerfume]

7. best I can recall---

Shogun


DaVinci Code

Robber Bride


MichaelAngelo and the Popes Ceiling

and Loving by Toni Morrison which was very disappointion NOT her best effort

[tigereye]

4. In the Midnight Hour by Michelle Spring

Brit mystery series with an interesting protagonist and all the titles are song titles as well.

Some I am in the process of reading, I've been so busy I can't get all the way through!

Endangered Minds: Why Children Don't Think by Jane Healy, PHD ( not sure I agree with the premise, but)

Hey Ho Let's Go! The Story of the Ramones by Everett True. Neat book if you love these guys and/or rock and roll.

She's a Rebel. The History of Women In Rock and Roll by Gillian G. Garr. There are more than you think!

ELizabeth George A Place of Hiding. I love her but bogged down with the plot line for some reason.

[tigereye]

5. I've been wanting to read the O' Faolin book

[Radical Activist]

6. Declarations of Independence by Howard Zinn

Loved that one

Reefer Madness by Eric Schlosser

Occidentalism by Ian Buruma & Avishai Margalit

Bound for Glory by Woody Guthrie

The Che Handbook

hmph maybe I should try reading some fiction for a change.
I wonder if John Asscrack knows how left wing my reading list typically is.

[NewHampshireDem]

8. All of them in the past 3 weeks or so ...

In reverse order ...

1. The Golden Age by John C. Wright
2. Fools and Fanatics by Arianna Huffington
3. The Great Unravelling by Paul Krugman
4. Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom by Cory Doctorow
5. The Portrait of Mrs. Charbuque by Jeffrey Ford

I'm working on about half a dozen others currently, including
--The Fabric of the Cosmos by Brian Greene
--The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
--Pigs at the Trough by Huffington

I like to read :shrug:

[Wwagsthedog]

9. Read these recently

Sorrows of Empire - Chalmers Johnson
Worse than Watergate - John Dean
House of bush House of saud - Craig Unger
Angels & Demons - Dan Brown
Perfectly Legal - David C Johnston
The Price of Loyalty - Paul O'Neill

Personally, I liked all of the above in varying degrees. Amazon or similar could give much better reviews than I'm capable of.

Now reading:
Deception Point - Dan Brown
The Oil Factor - Stephen Leeb

Tried to read Richard Clark's book (Against All Enemies) but couldn't stand it after about 25 pages. All I can say is if what he says that far is true then the government needs to reformat itself and start over.

[NewHampshireDem]

10. What do you think about "Deception Point"?

Just curious ... I'll hold my opinion until you finish it. :)

[Wwagsthedog]

21. OK.

I bookmarked this thread as a reminder. BTW, I'm not that much of a Dan Brown fan but he is entertaining.

[Emboldened Chimp]

11. Alrighty then...

5. The Great Shark Hunt, by Dr. Hunter S. Thompson - Essays and lunacy from the Good Doctor in his Prime.

4. The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind - Paul O'Neil's insider tale.

3. Lady Chatterley's Lover, by D.H. Lawrence - Lawrence's last novel, and perhaps his best. Certainly his most insightful.

2. The Spooky Art, by Norman Mailer - Thoughts and observations on the craft of writing.

1. Sexus, by Henry Miller - Three guesses what it's about...

[Book Lover]

12. The Wreckage of Agathon - reading now

It's by John Gardner and is about a demi-fascist Athens and the place of the iconoclast. I love it!

2. The Hobbit. I think you all know the details on that one.

3. Monstrous Regiment. The second-to-latest (I think) Terry Pratchett book.

4. Beowulf. The Seamus Heany edition w/ facing-page translation so I can see how far away I am from my OE classes...

5. Doorways in the Sand by Roger Zelazny

[NewHampshireDem]

16. I love Heany's "Beowulf"

And I have a story about Heany from someone I knew at Iowa's writing workshop.

This fellow I knew worked as a grad asst. and was assigned all sorts of odd tasks, one of which was to pick up visiting authors at the airport. So he picks up Heany and on the way to the university they're making small talk. Heany asks how many students are in the writing program. This fellow says to Heany, "We have about a twenty writers and a dozen poets." (I'm not sure of the numbers, exactly, but go with it.)

Heany's response: "There aren't a dozen poets in the world, young man." :)

Now Heany, he's a poet.

[Book Lover]

17. Ha :-)

Funny story :-) I remember, when I was working in the English Department back in Queens College, a chat I had with Marie Ponsot, a poet who worked as a prof at QC. She and I were proofing some program for some damn thing the dept was doing, and her listing read just "Poet." I asked her if that was correct and she replied, "Isn't that enough!?"

I also just love the page layout in the Heany book. I can't recall if it is based on the actual dimensions of the manuscript, but the rules and ornaments give a great feel to the page.

[NewHampshireDem]

18. Surely, "poet" is more than enough ...

:)

I've always wanted to be a "Ponderer" myself.

[1monster]

13. Three by Mercedes Lackey... and

Joust and Alta two in a series and The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey (a story about a young woman who was supposed to be her country's Cinderella, but the Prince was totally inappropriate, so she became a Fairy Godmother instead). Lackey, by the way seems to be one of us. She is so prolific that it is hard to keep up with her (five new books between Thanksgiving and Christmas released - oh my poor checking account!). She peppers her books with riffs regarding the subversive ways those who would take over democratic governments that could have been lifted straight from DU. She's a really terrific SciFi/Fastasy author who writes on her own and with other great authors.

And for pure escasim, the other two of the five books I've (re)read are Georgette Heyer's THE MASQUERADERS and SYLVESTER OR THE WICKED UNCLE. Heyer's books were written between 40 and 80 years ago and are still a delight to read today.

edit: grammar and puncuation

[LWolf]

27. I love both of those authors!

I've got a whole shelf of Lackey, all read more than once, and several of Georgette Heyer's as well. I haven't read the Heyer's in a few years. I'll have to pull them back out.

[1monster]

31. I have more than a shelf full of Lackey. More like two or move shelves of

her books.

AND Harlequin Romance, of all publishers, is currently reprinting all of Georgette Heyers books, for which I am grateful. Several of my old copies have fallen appart almost beyond repair, and I get to buy the ones I was only able to borrow from the library.

[LWolf]

32. That's good to know.

I'll keep an eye out for the reprints!

:hi:

[terrya]

14. Mine:

"Brideshead Revisited"

"All the King's Men"

"Giovanni's Room"

"Death in Venice"

"Gay New York"

[Catch22Dem]

15. Mine seem so mindless, but here they are

1. Up Country - Nelson DeMille


2. Valhalla Rising - Clive Cussler


3. Angels & Demons - Dan Brown


4. Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown


5. A Gathering of Spies - John Altman

I also listen to books on CD at work. Just finished listening to:
Trojan Odessy - Clive Cussler

Now I'm listening to:
The Beach House - James Patterson


Yes, I know the books I read don't exactly expand the mind, but I think that's exactly the reason I read them. Actually, Up Country was extremely insightful, come to think of it.

[Insider]

19. four for work, one for fun

terrorism and america: a common sense strategy for a democratic society by philip heymann

terrorism, freedom, and security: winning without war by philip heymann

army regulation 525-13 antiterrorism

field manual 3-19.30 physical security

a little piece of sky by nicole bailey-williams

[gold_bug]

20. here's mine

"Entanglement" - Amir Aczel

"Gould's Book of Fish" - Flanagan

"Salamander" - Wharton

"In the Hand of Dante" - Nick Toshes

and I'm still reading The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by Shirer.

[jmowreader]

22. My five

Slow Burn by Orrin DeForest. A fun tale about a CIA interrogator in Vietnam.

Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler. I'm trying to see if Bush is using it as his playbook. The jury is still out on that one.

I just recently pulled out my war-torn copy of AWPA Recommendations for Alkaline Copper Quaternary Pressure-Treated Lumber by the American Wood Preservers Association to see whether I need to be complaining that my vendor is sending me plywood without enough ACQ in it. If this retail thing goes to hell, I can always get a job discovering new ways to pickle lumber.

It's Your Move by Dom Famularo will teach you as much about life as it does about drumming...and

Ghost Rider by Neil Peart is an interesting look at how one man grieved the loss of his family.

[texas1928]

23. here is my list

5. Al Franken: Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot

4.James Carville: Had Enough? : A Handbook for Fighting Back

3. Stephen E. Ambrose: D-Day

2. Stephen E. Ambrose: Citizen Soldier

1. Stephen E. Ambose: Band Of Brothers

[truizm]

24. Mine:

The Brothers Karamazov
Crime and Punishment
Notes from the Underground
The Old Man and the Sea
A Farewell To Arms

[Minstrel Boy]

25. wow - looks like I need to lighten up:

Jonathan Kwitny, "The Crimes of Patriots"
The Nugan Hand Bank scandal, which was something of an Australian precursor to BCCI. The bank was run by "retired" US military and intelligence folks to launder CIA heroin money.

John Pilger, "The New Rulers of the World"
Collection of essays on the heavy hand of fascist conspirators behind corporate globalism.

David Ray Griffin, "The New Pearl Harbor"
Survey of 9/11 skeptism, making a case for official complicity. Disappointing, cursory. A better introduction is Ahmed's "The War on Freedom."

Daniel Hopsicker, "Welcome to Terrorland"
Investigation of the 9/11 Florida connection, which looks a lot like an Iran/Contra drug operation. Perhaps the most important book about 9/11.

David Yallop, "In God's Name"
Study of the possible assassination of Pope John Paul I by the fascist P2 lodge, which had infiltrated the Vatican and was running its bank as a criminal enterprise, which JPI was about to expose.

[AlFrankenFan]

26. All political

1. "Plan of Attack" by Bob Woodward
2. "How the Rural Poor Got Power" by Paul Wellstone (re-read)
3. "Fanatics and Fools" by Arianna Huffington
4. "Tour of Duty" by Doug Brinkley (If I recall correctly)
5. "Oh, the Things I Know!" by Al Franken (re-re-read)

Well, maybe the last one isn't that political...

[LWolf]

28. Here ya go:

I'm not really sure if these are the literal "last 5;" I've got a few large stacks of books waiting for my attention at all times, and I tend to bounce back and forth among them. Some were kids' books, checking out book gifts and recommendations for my students, some were professional, and some, both fiction and non-fiction, for personal taste.

Last 5 kid's books:

"Danger Boy: Ancient Fire" by Mark London Williams
"The Thief Lord" Cornelia Funke
"Stravaganza: City of Masks" Mary Hoffman
"The Reality Bug" DJ McHale
"Riding the Flume" Patricia Curtis Pfitsch


Personal choices:

"Life Lessons From a Ranch Horse" by Mark Rashid
"Crime School" by Carol O'Connell
"Song of the Circle" by Barry Brailsford
"Claws and Effect" by Rita Mae Brown
"Letters to the Medicine Man" by Barbara Kerr and John McAlister

[Demonaut]

29. uh, I think that's three.

but who's counting

[clyrc]

30. Right now I'm reading

Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz. It's not a bad book, but I've almost thrown it across the room in frustration at how the women were treated in it.

Before that I read a book by Elizabeth Peters, which I didn't care for, much.

Before that, I started reading a book called Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. I stopped about 1/4th of the way in because I want to read it while I fly home to the states this summer. It's about a man who escapes from an Australian prison and goes to India. Very interesting so far.

I read The Night Life of the Gods, but I can't remeber the author's name. It was funny.

I think before that I read A Place Of Hiding by Elizabeth George. I liked it ok.

Since I live in a place with many British and Indian expats, I've read a lot of British and Indian novels. I've read of few books about the Arab and Islamic world, too. Fascinating stuff.