1 The Northwest's Barefoot Bandit punk caught in the Bahamas.

2 Good Morning Monty;

Ah in the bag "to be read". I recently got Weber's new Honor Harrington book and it is standing by waiting to be cracked.

I had started on a series by Piers Anthony that starts with "Isle of Woman". It is an interesting concept in which he follows a few fictional characters from the dawn of man down through the ages. After I had got 3/5 of the way through the first book I noted that he had skipped many thousands of years between chapters to I cheated and looked at the last chapter to see what he was doing there. The supposed time frame was 2021 and described a Malthusian tragedy where the world's resources have been plundered to death and the "rich go richer and poor got poorer". I threw the book down in disgust. When they start talking Democrap talking points verbatim it is no longer a book.

So after that I started the Orson Scott Car Empire series (second book recently out). I rereading Empire and have the second in the series that the library obtained for me from another library in the State system.
 

3 On the conflict of 1861 theme I still recommend this book for a more neutral standpoint.

http://tinyurl.com/22kq9va

His position was that when the South lost control of the major rivers (Ohio, Mississippi etc) that was essentially the end of the war long before Sherman's infamous march to the sea. (he also credits the micro-management of the war by Davis as a major factor)

I have always felt that the lack of a Southern Navy probably killed the South. The blockade starved them while the North had literally hundreds of thousands of new recruits pouring in every year from Ireland etc.

4 It's been so long since a piece of fiction was worth 2 shits, that I no longer read fiction.

5 I'm readomg "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple.  England is doomed, not only because of Islamization, but because of the stupification of their working class that Dr. Dalrymple describes.  By the way, everything he talks about is his book is happening in America's inner cities.

6 Monty,
The fifth book of C. McCullough's "Masters of Rome"...Caesar is probably the best but they are all good.  I had never heard of Gaius Marius and Sulla, their contribution to the downfall of the Republic and their connection to Julius Caesar.  There is a lot of historical information in the books.

7 Monty I think you get the title, "Hardest Working Moron". 

Does Ace post at his own blog any more? 

Oh, wait it not even noon, WTF was I thinking.

8

Just finished re-reading (4th time) Dan Simmons 'Hyperion Cantos' series. That set of books never ceases to capture me for 5 nights of serious "i really should go to sleep now" reading.

Working on the last of Jack McDevitt's 'Academy' books, Cauldron. Like the rest it grabs you about 100 pages in and won;'t let you put it down.

In the midst of David Weber's newest series "Safehold'. Finished the newest book last month now the long wait for the next one. =/

 

The only non-fiction I have read recently is Levin's 'Men in Black' and Sowell's 'Intellectuals and Society'.  The latter I highly recommend.

 

 

9 Hugh Hewitt interviewed C. J. Box, who wrote a series about a Wyoming game warden, Joe Pickett. I ordered the first one from Amazon, and was hooked. I've read all of them in the last month. IMHO, it's a fiction series that IS worth 2 shits (so that ahem at 8:38 might reconsider), as he takes on the Endangered Species Act and shows what happens when bleeding-heart liberals interact with reality. Check out Open Season by C. J. Box. Of course, I'm from Idaho, and just enjoy reading the words Wyoming, Idaho and Montana. So, YMMV

10

Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies

http://amzn.to/93pZ8H

A great book

11

Last book that I read that impressed me was The Lost City of  Z. Not only interesting, but it pretty much makes you want to NEVER venture into the South American rain forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

z

12 8 - I have just started The Rise of Endymion, isn't that a coincidence!

13

I am reading the classic children's novel The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgson Burnett. I have seen two of the three movie versions, but never read the book.

My "to read" stack is quite lengthy also. Among the titles in that stack are: A Walk Across America by Peter Jenkins, Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, Emma by Jane Austen, No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy, The Return of the Prodigal Son by Henri J.M. Nouwen, An Elegant Madness: High Society in Regency England by Venetia Murray, The Reason for God by Tim Keller (got the book signed by the author last year and still haven't read it) and many others. It would probably take me a year to get through all mine as well, at the pace I'm going.

 

14

With my son, I'm reading Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson series.

I have read a few of his mysteries for grown ups, set in San Antonio, and just loved them. Link to the first one. The snark is strong and funny and his descriptions of the place and people are wonderful.

15

Posted by: navtechie at July 11, 2010 08:50 AM (5CC0n)

Ah, someone else who likes McDevitt! I think I've read all of his books, except the one you just mentioned.

Gonna have to go to the bookstore next weekend!

16 I intend to read some Thomas Pynchon after I finish carefully annotating my large collection of 1970s "Juggs" magazines.

17 Somewhat trivial, I've just started "The Fallen," an attempt to track down every musician who played in The Fall.  If you know anything about The Fall, you know that's a ton of ex-members.

"The Golden Age of Crap" by Nathan Shumate is a book of movie reviews, largely of long-forgotten b-pictures from the 80's.  You're likely never to have heard of most of them, but Shumate's writing is superb.

18 I think Farragut actually said, "What's a damn torpedo? Full speed ahead!"

19 I have just started The Rise of Endymion, isn't that a coincidence!

Posted by: BlackOrchid at July 11, 2010 08:53 AM (SB0V2)

 

Is this y our first time through the series? I guarantee it will keep you up too late trying to finish them.

20

"... best navy in the world at the end of it..."

Maybe for coastal defense.  Hardly any of the Northern ironclads were seagoing.  The Brits, and maybe the French (who launched the first seagoing ironclad with the Gloire) could have handled the North on the high seas.      

21

I just finished "The Passage" and it's a very good read. Similar to the Stand only in it's apocalypitic setting and the "vampires" are far removed from the Anne Rice, suave, handsome, well dressed blood suckers. These are the result of a military experiment gone wrong; creatures called "virals" who escape and reduce the American population to some scattered bands who have managed to survive by reforming their whole society around guarding against the night.

22 Like I said, I have so many books underway and on my "to read" stack that it'll probably be a year or more before I get through them all.

Wait 'till you retire. They will not be able to write them fast enough.

23 Reading Mexifornia by VDH; Liberty & Tyranny by Mark Levin.

24

"Annotating" is what the morons are calling it these days?

I'm still reading "Stuff Jefferson Said" by Christopher Hitchens.

I'm still in a fiction rut.

I read fast, I'd rather have a series than just one book.

Any recommendations for a mystery/PI series?

25 I am working thru GEB, Pilgrims Progress, & Paradise Lost. I have Clavells Whirl Wind on deck.

GEB has sparked a few concepts that I am hashing out.

In the book, the paper, scissors, rock discussion is re-framed in the chess argument of A beats B, B beats C, C beats A.

My argument involves Drilling, Spilling & Cleaning. In a sane world, Cleaning would trump both Drilling and Spilling. But not under Obama, Spilling beats Cleaning. Amazing.

26 I just stopped by to watch Jennifer Connelly ride the horse.

http://ace.mu.nu/archives/245134.php

27

What are you all reading?

This thread...unfortunately

28 Thanks Monty... all those are going on my reading list. I'll come up with my capitalized recommendations after some breakfast.

29 The fifth book of C. McCullough's "Masters of Rome"...Caesar is probably the best but they are all good.  I had never heard of Gaius Marius and Sulla, their contribution to the downfall of the Republic and their connection to Julius Caesar.  There is a lot of historical information in the books.

This is gonna be soooo geeky but here goes:

If you want to have fun learning about the Romans getchou-self a Penguin Classics version of Livy (translated by Aubrey Whothehellcares - Itsafriggenpaperback) The Early History of Rome.

It's an incredibly trashy read!

Perfect for the beach.

In a way that Tacitus will never be...

30 Those of you who are into Vampire type stuff may like this new one by S. M. Stirling.

http://tinyurl.com/23myb2p

It is the start of a series and has an interesting twist to an old venue.

31

Any recommendations for a mystery/PI series?

Posted by: Mama AJ at July 11, 2010 09:03 AM (XdlcF)

If you haven't already hit the Vince Flynn series.

32

I used to live right nexty to Cormac McCarthy here in El Paso.

He lived in a ratty-ass house in Kern Place and had old pickup trucks parked in the tiny front yard.

We had a passing aquaintence at the Barnes and Noble, where he'd sit and read all of the truck magazines. One time I caught him peeking in a copy of "Allure". This was during the time he was writing "No Country for Old Men". I remember telling him about all the little crappy oil towns I had lived in in West Texas back in the early 80's, including Sheffield, which, coincidentally, is a big part of that book.

His son is almost exactly our daughter's age and we spoke a few times about that as well. Very nice guy, as anyone from El Paso can tell you.

When he got his movie money from that awful "All the Pretty Horses" he moved up the mountain to a gated community and his wife, who is from a well-to-do and very well-known family here, finally made him give up the funky beat-up trucks and they moved up to Santa Fe, which is a bright blue shithole.

33 Monty -
A new Civil War history by a devoted AOSHQ reader and published by the University of Alabama Press  is out this summer. I left the link at the URL section.

Hope it makes your reading list.

34 Robert Service's new biography of Trotsky. Thank God the One isn't as competent as Leon was.

35 I belong to paperbackswap. com, a marvelous trading site on which many out-of-print gems can be found, and upon registration I was able to unload four books I never thought anyone would ask for.  That's the good news.  The bad news is that I haven't read them yet.  I have until Friday to plow through:

None Died in Vain:  A Saga of the American Civil War, Robert Leckie
Born Again, Chuck Colson
Our Sacred Honor, William J. Bennett
The Hidden Stream, Ronald Knox

I don't see it happening.  English major scanning skills, away!

And I just finished Hilaire Belloc's The Path to Rome, which was a delightful, quite unexpected treat.  Highly recommended. It made me feel better about not being nearly as inventive as Dave Barry, because this guy is a true precursor. 

I suppose this forced march is a good thing, since I've been dragging several boxes of books with me in move after move--ones which I've committed to reading, but newer, shinier ones always jump the line.In the case of the Civil War one, I've had it, no shit, in my possession since high school.  It's big and fat and it's time for it to grace someone else's closet once it's taught me whatever it has to teach me.

All the moving has made me far less clutchy about books--since there was little for me to read when I was a kid (I was reading above my grade level, to the point that my teacher mother had trouble finding something with age-appropriate content and langauge) I read the same ones over and over.  Not so much the situation anymore, although I am sorely tempted to hang on to The Path to Rome.  There are some I will never part with, but I've quite learned my lesson about passing them on for others to enjoy.

36 Mama @24 "Any recommendations for a mystery/PI series?" That's the Joe Pickett (game warden) series by C. J. Box. Lots of mystery, high body count, game warden winds up outside his area of expertise investigating stuff that doesn't look like a problem to anyone else, because they don't want to look. Give it a go! My first recommendation is posted above, #9

37 Colleen McCullough's series of novels set at the end of the Roman Republic

I blasted through those a few years ago.  I liked them, but sometimes had trouble keeping track of the eighteen billion characters.

38 For Roman historical fiction you absolutely must read Robert Graves' I, Claudius and Claudius the God.  I also have The Passage on my stack to get to as I finish up The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Have you tried Guillarmo Del Toro's The Strain?  The director of Pan's Labyrinth  wrote the first of a trilogy approaching vampires through biotechnology.  It's lots of fun.  No metrosexual vampires allowed.   The second installment is due in September.  In nonfiction I'm reading The Ghost Map about Dr. Lister's epidemiological investigation into a cholera outbreak in 1854 London.

39 I read Bradley Birzer's American Cicero: The Life of Charles Carroll from ISI's "Lives of the Founders" series of biographies.  It's a terrific and insightful biography of the longest-surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, and the only Catholic to do so.  It provides some fresh insights into the years leading up to the American Revolution, and a good idea of what the Founders had in mind with respect to religious liberty, not a "wall of separation between church and state" but rather the creation of a political system in which Catholics and Protestants alike might participate fully in the American republic.

40 You bastards!!

41 What?  Nobody reads morally edifying graphical fiction anymore?

42

Any recommendations for a mystery/PI series?

Posted by: Mama AJ at July 11, 2010 09:03 AM

If you haven't read all the Travis McGee novels (John D MacDonald) you should. If you have, read 'em again. They make all that phony, touchy-feely Spenser crap read like "Dick & Jane."

Elmore Leonard always rocks, too.

I've recently discovered Lawrence Shames. His novels set in South Florida are brilliant. A writer friend calls Shames "Hiaasen without the snark."

43 Halfway through Michael Slade's <i>Red Snow</i>, the latest in the Special X series; <i>The Reformation: A History</i> by Patrick Collinson; and I'm partway through John Gardner's translation of Gilgamesh and my daughter's copy of <i>Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret</i> by Liz Kessler. On deck is a copy of <i>Consolation of Philosophy</i>, which I haven't read in a few years.

44 Sorry for all the tags: Loose shit.

45 I had started on a series by Piers Anthony that starts with "Isle of Woman".

Huh.

I got really into Piers Anthony when I was in Jr. Hi with the Xanth series, read some other stuff that I ought not have at my age and basically forgot about him for about 10 years.

I remember being very disappointed when I picked him back up for a book in a new "adult" series.

I don't know what it was, or what particularly I was reading but he just rang 5 out of 7 on my "bullshit" bells and I've felt kind of bad about how thoroughly I enjoyed the Xanth books ever since.

Why would you recommend Piers Anthony?

46 @MrScribbler #42 (and Mama)

Ditto Travis McGee and Elmore Leonard.

47 I read the advance reader copy of Cronin's Passages (I work for a bookstore) and that is exactly how I described it to a friend that I recommended it to - It is very much The Stand but with vampires. Keep in mind as you read it that it is a trilogy so there is some "setup" in the first book. I would give it a solid B+. The First Man in Rome is not a bodice ripper - much more like Gary Jennings The Journeyer than any romance novel out there.

48

Sorry for all the tags: Loose shit.

Happens. Just wanted to say though, I clicked on your link. Pretty cool. Good job.

49 ...most only know the tale of the ironclads Monitor and Merrimac.


Monty, it was the Monitor and CSS Virginia. the Virginia was originally the Merrimac, but was captured by the Confederacy when they took the Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Portsmouth, VA. they renamed it, rebuilt it to that distinctive shape, and attempted to run the blockade and cause general mayhem. the monitor arrived and they fought to a standstill during the next few days. But a standstill was good enough.

Interesting thing that the battle, and the bridge/tunnel named after it, are called Monitor and Merrimac. It's an object example that the winner gets to write history.

50 Monty and all, Thank you so much for the book thread. I look forward to this every Sunday now, and with two morons-in-training home for the summer, you are providing me with wonderful titles to suggest to them when I hear the dreaded "I'm bored." (I also suggest washing baseboards when they say that, and miraculously, they aren't bored anymore.) I am currently reading Virus Hunters of the CDC, by Joe McCormick. If you enjoy virology/epidemiology, it's pretty good, although the author and his co-author/paramour are anti-Reagan. I tend to skip over their yammering on politics, and stick with the science. To read list this sumer includes: The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad Guests of the Ayatollah by Mark Bowden History of the Second World War by B.H. Liddell Hart and for something completely different, Saving Faith by David Baldacci. There are more, but we haven't unpacked them yet. I so very much hate moving. Praying this is the last, but I've said that the last four tours. I wager there's one more ahead.

51 Why would you recommend Piers Anthony?

If you go back re-read what I wrote you'll find there was no "recommendation" there. I said I started it and threw down the first book when I found him talking straight Dem talking points.

I picked up that series because I had liked some of his other earlier stuff, particularly the "Incarnations of Immortality" series.

I didn't care for the Xanth series. Note that he is still pumping those out but they get very repetitive after a while.

52

Thank y'all for the recommendations.

Why doesn't Amazon make it easy to see a series in chronological order?

Well, I know the answer is that it's a database acting as a store, but it still really bugs me.

I still haven't read "No Country For Old Men" despite some of it being set in Del Rio. Oh well, I guess I need some Louisiana fiction now!

53

When he got his movie money from that awful "All the Pretty Horses" he moved up the mountain to a gated community and his wife, who is from a well-to-do and very well-known family here, finally made him give up the funky beat-up trucks and they moved up to Santa Fe, which is a bright blue shithole.

Posted by: TexasJew at July 11, 2010 09:18 AM (mY03/)

Dear God in heaven, All the Pretty Horses is imo by far the worst of his books (writing about any sort of romance is *not* his strong suit) but strangely enough was the first book of his I read and enticed me to his superior other stuff.  I think he's an outstanding writer although I understand he's not for everybody's tastes (although The Road surprised a lot of his non-fans with what an engrossing page turner it is).  I'm not surprised that you find him to be a good guy because at his website he comes off that way in interactions with commentors.  I wish somebody would do good movie versions of Blood Meridian, Child of God and Suttree.

Regarding Pynchon:  I know lots of people absolutely fawn over it, but I've never been more disappointed by a book than Gravity's Rainbow.

54 It's time for the World Cup and you're reading?

I'm waiting for Matterhorn to show up at the library, it's supposed to be an excellent book about Vietnam.

For a different slant on the Mystery/PI genre, the Donald Westlake writing as Richard Stark "Parker" books are not to be missed.  The bad guy wins.  Robert Crais's books about Elvis Cole and Joe Pike are very good, as are Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books. 

55 Posted by: Vic at July 11, 2010 09:48 AM

I liked the early Incarnations of Immortality series, but they got noticeably weaker as the series wore on. On a Pale Horse and With a Tangled Skein were great, but the last two (concerning the Devil and God), were terrible. It was obvious he was stretching a bit too much and had run out of good ideas.

56

Just finished an excellent account of the Battle Of Gettysburg, The Killer Angels, by Michael Shaara.

 

Currently reading Round In Circles by Jim Schnabel, a hilarious insider account of British crop circle hoaxers and the loons who fall for it.

 

On deck: The State Of The Art, by Iain M. Banks.

57 I'm on a trashy Military Sci-fi kick. John Ringo and his Aldenata series.

58 Mama AJ:

I posted some more fishing advice for you at the top headline thread.

59 but the last two (concerning the Devil and God), were terrible. It was obvious he was stretching a bit too much and had run out of good ideas.

Yes they did start getting weaker as they wore on. I have noticed that with a lot of authors as well. As to the last two my library didn't have them and I haven't read them.

The library stopped at 6 and he is up to 8 in that series. I have not purchased the last two because, as you said, they were getting pretty weak.

60 The Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America

I read this a while back and it has some really good stuff in it. I lent it out and I am still trying to get it back.

One of the lines from memory is: One of the failures of modern psychology is that it failed to prevent the civil war.

It goes thru the politics of slavery, the birth of modern psychology and the development of jurisprudence in the US supreme court.

61 Sunday Book Thread: Miscellaneous —Monty

Miscellaneous:

a shout out to all the Morons.

The only thing I'm reading these days are children's books, for the Wee Pitch, and  since we're early to bed, early to rise folks, I usually  miss the ONT or anything posted later in the day. With that being said, I start Sunday mornings reading what I missed...and I haven't laughed this hard, in a LONG time. Referencing Ace's essay, against the MFM's talking head, I'd like to say THANK YOU to all who posted at the Hill..  My favorites were Raykon, Double Rainbow guy, Charles Johnson, Mel Gibson, the  chicken , Hobo Seeking Respite, and Will Folks.    Blazer, and RDBrewer, you guys rock, and the rest of you using the above names, thank you for this. I think I broke a rib laughing.

 

62 I'm on a Stackpole reading jag. Have been for about the last 10 years.

63 I'm on a trashy Military Sci-fi kick. John Ringo and his Aldenata series.

ALL of his stuff is good. His Paladin of the Shadows stuff his really trashy bordering on porn, but still neat.

64 Thanks, Ed! I'll check back. I'm actually going to have to do this, aren't I?

65 and they moved up to Santa Fe, which is a bright blue shithole.

Truer words never spoken...

Although, at that altitude, you can't really fault every newcomer for turning into Double Rainbow dude for a day or two.

You can however fucking fault every healthy adult walking around a couple of years with bones and marrow capable of generating extra red blood cells for not using them.

66 Monty, you should have Ace join Amazon's associate program and link your book suggestions to Amazon. 

Depending on how much the link sells Amazon pays form 5% to 15% of the sale to Ace. 

Instapundant is always linking to Amazon, now you know why. 

Ace should get in on that, he needs the Valu rite! 

A hat tip for this tip??

67

Our My Sacred Honor, William J. Bennett Will Folks

FIFY.

68

I rarely read fiction any more, but my SIL gave me a book to read on the fourth of July, "Firefly Lane" by Kristin Hannah.  It was pretty fast, fluff reading, a nice diversion, and I actually read it in a day and an half.

I also just started "The Survivor's Club:  The Secrets and Science That Could Save Your Life" by Ben Sherwood.  After I got it home, I read the endorsements in the flyleaf.  Glenn Beck wrote the first one calling it a "must read."  (If you're interested in this sort of book, "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin De Becker is really good too). 

My moonbat cousin just leant me "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" by Rebecca Skloot.  I just started that too.  It's about a black woman who died of cervical cancer in the 1950's and who's "HeLa"  cells "were the first immortal human cells grown in culture and still alive today".   They were "vital for developing the polio vaccine; uncovered secrets of cancer, viruses, and the atom bomb's effects; helped lead to important advances like in vitro fertilization, cloning and gene mapping; and have been bought and sold by the billions."

On the half-read still unfinished pile:  Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue", Amity Schlaes "The Forgotten man" and Mark Levin's Liberty and Tyranny."  In the bought but never started pile:  "American Soldier" by Tommy Franks and "Lone Survivor" by Marcus Luttrell.

So many books, so little time!  Thanks for another great book thread, Monty!

69 The Fight for Conservation by Gifford Pinchot.  A different type of conservation, rational, patriotic.  Like something from another universe when read today.  And the Field and Stream Reader in two volumes.  Kermit Roosevelt, Zane Grey, Nash Buckingham.  Good stuff.

"Hell, I was there!" No, not him.  Though I do need to read some Jeff Cooper some time.

70

PI/mystery with a twist:  Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko novels - set in the Soviet Union. Read them in order, starting with Gorky Park and you'll see a character arc for Arkady Renko and the Soviet Union, too.  The early books give you a hint of what we have in store for us if Jughead gets his way. The newest one, Three Stations, comes out August 17. I can't wait.

For Roman history/fiction, try Pompeii; wonderful look at how important aqueducts were in Ancient Rome and how sophisticated their engineering skills were.

For Roman history, yes, Livy is fabulously trashy. So is "The Lives of the Caesars."

For art history that's trashy and informative, Georgio Vasari's "Lives of the Great Painters" and find out who among the famous painters of the Renaissance was a sorehead, who was a skinflint, and who never washed.

 

 

71 #66

Boy I am a fucking idiot, I see you already have the links to Amazon.  Guess that shows me for not clicking on any of them. 

I assume Ace is getting the kickback from the associates program.  If not, get his ass signed up.

72

Kemp, people have been yelling at him to do that for years. I don't know if there's any reason he doesn't bother.

A Kindle here, a Kindle there, seems like it could add up.

 

73 Books?  I don't read books, I am famous!

http://tinyurl.com/2fhyu3o

74 A hat tip for this tip??

Posted by: Kemp at July 11, 2010 10:03 AM (2+9Yx)

Monty might give you a tip for your suggestion, but it may not be the kind of tip you were looking for IYKWIMAITYD.

75 On another note check out this site.  It is run by a friend of mine, just getting it up.
www.bookbias.com.

76

OT: The barefoot dickweed was caught today in the Bahama's

77 I know this is OT, but damn the sky has turned dark and ugly over KC.

78 #75
Try this link for book bias.

http://tinyurl.com/2bxlthz

79 moma AJ @24:

If you are into light reading who-dun-its:

James Patterson
Mary Higgins Clark
Janet Evanovich (freaking hilarious) (woman pi with a crazy ass family that reminds me of my own)
Kay Hooper (FBI special crimes unit)
Catherine Coulter (trouble shooters group - security, FBI)
Lisa Jackson
Tess Gerritsen
Sue Grafton
Harlan Coben

80 If you were a fan of Pressfield's Gates Of Fire I don't know why you haven't read his other books which just as good. Tides Of War Virtues Of War Afghan Campaign Killng Rommel And for golfers he wrote one of my favorites, The Legend Of Bagger Vance. For scifi fans, I can't recommend enough the book Armor. Guaranteed you won't put it down until you're finished.

81 Dog on It: A Chet and Bernie Mystery

We just listened to this on a 13hr road trip to Maine. This is a story told from the perspective of the dog. It helped pass the time and it also has the endorsement of Stephen King, not that that means anything.

82

Try this on for size, morons: The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea. Korea blasted out of arguably the most abject poverty on Earth in 1953 to be the tenth largest economy in the world today. Know how they did it? Hard work, no-nonsense education, import substitution and closed markets, an "export or die" philosophy, lots of government help for successful businesses and beating/jailing/"disappearing" any Alinskyesque types that got mouthy.

We're going to need to do some of those things soon because we can no longer, as a nation, afford to be as stupid as we have been. The Koreans think, "Korea first, Korea last, the rest nowhere." They don't give a damn what everyone else thinks about them, either. It's time for us to dump the H1Bs, deport all the illegals, restrict entry to the U.S. for foreign-made goods, only allow goods in that come from equal social competitors (No, China, with your prison slave labor and dollar a day workers, you needn't apply.)

In short, they look at economic competition as war and they fight to win. We've been far too long acting like we had enough money to buy everybody's lunch and we didn't need to protect our own businesses. Those days are over. We need to tell the world their share of the U.S. market is going to be only exactly reciprocal to what our share of their market is. They don't play fair, we don't play with them at all. Of course, this will require electing a real American with balls as President, so forget having any of this stuff happen until the slimy son of a syphilitic slut in the WH is gone. However, we'll either do the things I've listed here or we'll go under as a nation because our options are down to those two courses. As far as I'm concerned, the rest of the world can go screw itself. Charity begins at home.

83 Hey Monte:  I love your book threads but you oughta start some music threads as well.  Ah fuck it, I'll just hijack this one (maybe):  Any Sarah Borges fans out there?

84

O/T but:

The first family will spend next weekend vacationing on Mount Desert Island, according to U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree.

President Barack Obama and his family are scheduled to arrive Friday, July 16, and stay through Sunday, July 18.

 

I wish one of Barry's trusted insiders would flip and write a book....

85 John Grisham is one of those authors who I think has gone far downhill. After "A Painted House" I gave up on him. My wife still gets a few of his books when they are in the bargain bin.

86

#10: Blacklisted by History: The Untold Story of Senator Joe McCarthy and His Fight Against America's Enemies

There's hope. Someone on Fox News (O'Reilly, I think) used the term "McCarthyism" to mean the goal and practice of ridding the government of communists. Ann Coulter offered a good primer about Senator Joe in one of her books (Treason, I think).

As for me, I liked Robert Ferrigno's Prayers of the Assassin enough that I might start Sins if the Assassin today. There's a third in the series, and I'm reluctant to get sucked in. I guess I'll see if I do.

Oldie but goodie: Chaos by James Gleick. Anyone thinking that they ought to read Hawking's A Brief History of Time but hasn't gotten around to it yet might want to read Chaos instead.

87 Oh, as for non-fiction, try anything by George MacDonald Fraser, but particularly the McAuslan books or the Flashman novels. Light's Out at Lamppost is a great read but if you're an Anglophile it will just piss you off mightily at all the political pygmies in British politics since the end of WWII. Churchill and Thatcher are the only two worth a damn. The rest? Worthless at best.

88

By the way this

http://www.literature-map.com/

is a neat tool if you're looking for a new author.

89

 

The last 3 books I read were Brad Thor's The Apostle, Arturo Perez-Reverte's The Fencing Master, and Mark Bowden's Black Hawk Down.  I highly recommend each of them.  The Fencing Master is the best novel I have read for a while.

I hesitate to (mildly) disagree with someone named Polynikes over Gates of Fire.  But I think it is not only Pressfield's best book, but one of the best novels I've ever read.

I have greatly enjoyed other Pressfield novels, however, ncluding Last of the Amazons.

90

Admiral Farragut, you may remember, uttered the famous "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" in the battle of Mobile Bay.

My old man was a career Navy officer, so I've always had an interest in naval history:  What they called "torpedoes" during the ACW is what we would call tethered mines today.  The self-propelled torpedo was not invented until the end of the 19th Century.

I'm currently reading The Road to Serfdom (the newest, "definitive" Univ of Chicago Press edition with extra annotations).

91 I liked the early Incarnations of Immortality series, but they got noticeably weaker as the series wore on. On a Pale Horse and With a Tangled Skein were great, but the last two (concerning the Devil and God), were terrible. It was obvious he was stretching a bit too much and had run out of good ideas.

I remember those from Jr. High. (card catalogue works just the same in the "adult" section as "childrens")!

Looking back, I don't think that he "ran out of good ideas" so much as not being up for the challenge.

'Tho, I still wonder what the hell Milton was doing making Satan such a suave, charming, character like Monty...

And I'm pretty sure that for every one who has read Dante's Inferno, only a third of them read the Purgatorio and that pretty much no one reads his Paradiso.

*whispers*

Because it's boring as all get out!

92 I would take issue with your comment that the Union had the best navy in the world by the end of the Civil War. It certainly had the navy with the most recent combat experience, and the Union ironclads, especially the double turreted monitors mounting 15" Dahlgren smoothbores and 150 lb Parrot rifles, were the best coastal defense warships in the world, with only two exceptions (USS New Ironsides - a broadside battery ship rather under-protected by 1865 standards  - and USS Roanoke - a three turret ship built on the cut down hull of the 1855 steam frigate) we did not have ironclads capable of fighting at sea as opposed to in protected coastal waters, and even the exceptions were not regarded as good sea boats and did not long survive the end of the War.  We had nothing capable of facing any of the French or British seagoing ironclads such as the Gloire or the Warrior, and it would be the 1890s before the US Navy built any number of truly modern warships (the three steel protected cruisers and the despatch boat of the mid-1880s ABCD ships notwithstanding).

93 . . . and the Civil War Naval Museum in Columbus, Georgia, where the remains of 2 recovered Confederate ironclads are on display.

Don't forget me!

94 Hey Monte: I love your book threads but you oughta start some music threads as well. I've thought about it -- I'm a musician myself -- but the intertubes are chockablock with music stuff (Amazon's ChordStrike is occasionally interested). I'm a bluegrass guy, blood and bone, though, and I haven't followed popular music in years and years. I wouldn't even know where to start. You'd probably need to convince someone more in tune with the popular gestalt to get on the music scene. All I'd do is rhapsodize about how good or bad the guitar player was.

95

Any recommendations for a mystery/PI series?

Posted by: Mama AJ at July 11, 2010 09:03 AM

Julia Spencer-Fleming has a series about a former Army helicopter pilot turned minister -- female -- who teams up with the local sheriff when she's assigned to a small town in upstate NY and the mysteries start happening.  All of the books are named for Protestant hymns. The first is In the Bleak Midwinter.  Couldn't put it down.  The latest one, about seven into the series, is One Was a Soldier.

Currently reading One Second After by Wm. Forstchen, which describes life after the US is hit by an EMP, electromagnetic pulse bomb, and we're catapulted, for the most part, to life before electricity.  It kept me up till 4:30 this morning, and I still could've kept going.  Good info for the zombie apocalypse and reminder of the timeline of societal breakdown.

Any visitors to the ONT would be shocked to see a book thread after last night's foray of sock comments at The Hill.  You want to talk about comedy gold?  It will no doubt be scrubbed Monday morning.  The linky comes fairly early in last night's ONT.   this is the link.  The Moron horde descended full-tilt on the hapless blog-off about the longevity of the Tea Party and did Ace proud.

96 Just finished  Ayn Rand book "We are living".  I wish it would be mandatory reading on college campuses

97 Janet Evanovich (freaking hilarious) (woman pi with a crazy ass family that reminds me of my own)

One of my favorite light reads.  I plan on being Grandma Mazur.

Currently reading Thomas Sowell's 'Intellectuals and Society'.  I don't usually have trouble finishing his books, but for some reason this one is taking me waaay too long to complete.

On tap:  Nelson DeMille's 'The Lion' (I've read all of his books...he's my favorite fiction author), Brad Thor's 'The Apostle', Beck's 'Overton Window' and a couple of Evanovich's books.

98 Just finished  Ayn Rand book "We are living".

"We THE Living" for those who wish to search for this.

99

Robert Littell spy novels. Just finished "The Company, " and am on "Legends" now.

May go back and read McCarry's "Shelley's Heart." and Allen Drury's "Advise and Consent."

100 Thanks for the response Monty.  Most music sites are teh suque.  I'm more a jazz/improv guy myownself (please don't get me started on that Charles Johnson garbage) but I love bluegrass and have caught a number of classic shows in Wadsworth, Ahia's OJ Work auditorium (Jim & Jesse, Doyle Lawson, Jimmy Martin [what a cocksucking prick he is to his band and audience; complete fucking white trash with an incredible undeserved musical gift], Osborn Brothers, Del McCourey and lots I can't recall at the moment) so any time you want to hold court on that genre, I'll be ready...

101

Posted by: mac at July 11, 2010 10:19 AM (gSYTw)

That's an impressive recommendation and sounds like music to moron ears -- but will the doofuses in DC read it?  Meh.

102 Speaking of Civil War, there are a couple guys who want to use technology to spruce up interest in historical sites I came across on Kickstarter: http://kck.st/db72ed

103 immy Martin [what a cocksucking prick he is to his band and audience; complete fucking white trash with an incredible undeserved musical gift] True story: I once had a BBQ lunch with Jimmy Martin back in the early 1990's at some bluegrass show (I think it was the Bean Blossom festival). I'd heard of his enormous prickishness and so was a bit apprehensive. He was a gent! Funny and nice and talkative. And more than a bit drunk. He signed the back of the guitar I was playing back then (an old D-18 that I sold off like a dumbass), and even banged out a quick tune on it. Plus I think Jimmy had the best vocal line in bluegrass history until Tony Rice came along. "Freeborn Man" is now, and will forever be, my favorite song.

104

Just finished--somehow--Tree of Smoke--big award winner, all these accolades. It's about Nam from a guy who probably burned his draft card. It's the biggest piece of shit I ever spent money on. At one point he mentions F-16s. It's sooo overhyped. The story is almost unitelligible.

 

At some point modern authors got away from story and focused on style.

105

Jayzus, that's a side of Jimmy Martin I've never seen any evidence of existing in this world; I'll tell one of my buds who will be incredulous at that.  I've witnessed him badmouthing his band for not being up to his standards and dumping on an audience for not being respectful enough (saying he felt like he was in a pool hall); both major faux-pas in the family-centric bluegrass genre.  Maybe the liquor makes him affable.

Without a doubt he's a great song writer.

106

The latest one, about seven into the series, is One Was a Soldier.

RushBabe: Do you actually have a copy of that? I thought its publication was pushed back again.

107

Try this on for size, morons: The Economic and Social Modernization of the Republic of Korea. Korea blasted out of arguably the most abject poverty on Earth in 1953 to be the tenth largest economy in the world today. Know how they did it? Hard work, no-nonsense education, import substitution and closed markets, an "export or die" philosophy, lots of government help for successful businesses and beating/jailing/"disappearing" any Alinskyesque types that got mouthy.

We're going to need to do some of those things soon because we can no longer, as a nation, afford to be as stupid as we have been. The Koreans think, "Korea first, Korea last, the rest nowhere." They don't give a damn what everyone else thinks about them, either. It's time for us to dump the H1Bs, deport all the illegals, restrict entry to the U.S. for foreign-made goods, only allow goods in that come from equal social competitors (No, China, with your prison slave labor and dollar a day workers, you needn't apply.)

In short, they look at economic competition as war and they fight to win. We've been far too long acting like we had enough money to buy everybody's lunch and we didn't need to protect our own businesses. Those days are over. We need to tell the world their share of the U.S. market is going to be only exactly reciprocal to what our share of their market is. They don't play fair, we don't play with them at all. Of course, this will require electing a real American with balls as President, so forget having any of this stuff happen until the slimy son of a syphilitic slut in the WH is gone. However, we'll either do the things I've listed here or we'll go under as a nation because our options are down to those two courses. As far as I'm concerned, the rest of the world can go screw itself. Charity begins at home.

Posted by: mac at July 11, 2010 10:19 AM (gSYTw)

Great comment.

108 I am reading Churchill's six volume work on WWII. It is very comforting to read about the thought process of a competent chief executive dealing effectively with crisis after crisis -- even if he connived with FDR to get us into the war and bent over for the commies.

109 59 but the last two (concerning the Devil and God), were terrible. It was obvious he was stretching a bit too much and had run out of good ideas.

Yes they did start getting weaker as they wore on. I have noticed that with a lot of authors as well. As to the last two my library didn't have them and I haven't read them.

The library stopped at 6 and he is up to 8 in that series. I have not purchased the last two because, as you said, they were getting pretty weak.

Posted by: Vic at July 11, 2010 09:57 AM (/jbAw)

Late to the thread. I presume you are talking about "Piers Anthony". As near as I can tell, the man LOST HIS FUCKING MIND! Just like Robert Heinlein, At some point, something seemed to snap, and the guy went off into weird psycho land.  Read any of the Tarot Series or his book "Firefly" (where he defends child molestation) and it become apparent that Piers Anthony went over the edge.

IMO

110 "Bible Mystery and Bible Meaning" by Thomas Troward. Very interesting book, though it seems that in practice, churches that teach his kind of ideas sooner or later end up going down the path of airy left-wing feel-goodism -- which is not at all what he seems to be advocating.

111 I didn't care for the Xanth series. Note that he is still pumping those out but they get very repetitive after a while.

Posted by: Vic at July 11, 2010 09:48 AM (/jbAw)

Yeah, book two. "The source of Magic"

It's the same formula throughout the series, the only thing that changes are the people, the scenery and the talents. They are all just a bunch of glorified boy meets girl stories with some plot twists. 

My favorite though, was "Castle Roogna."

112 Why doesn't Amazon make it easy to see a series in chronological order?

I agree Mama AJ. I wanted to start the Oz series on my Kindle (they're free) and had to use Bing to find the series order.

113 Just finished--somehow--Tree of Smoke--big award winner, all these accolades.

Its up for a Pulitzer. That should tell all you need to know about that book.

114

Three recent thrillers I enjoyed and made for fun summer reading:

 

Glenn Beck's "The Overton Window"

- surprisingly good thriller and lays out the elitist case and the tradtional small gov't case as prescriptions for ordering a society.

 

Brad Thor's "Foreign Influence"

 - ex-Seal Scot Harvarth's ongoing war on Islamic terrorists that wish harm to America and her allies.

 

Nelson DeMille's "The Lion"

- the follow-on to Demille's "The Lion's Game" as smart-ass, anti-terror operative John Corey re-engages a diabolical Lybian terrorist known as The Lion.

 

Looking forward to Vince Flynn newest Mitch Rabb thriller this call as well.

 

Sadly, wasted a number of days slogging thru "The Dead Hand" (recent Pulitzer non-fiction winner) which lays out a partisan version of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union. Of course it portrays Reagan as a militaristic sare-rattler who almost scared those poor Russians into starting WW3.  Not worth your time. 

115 Read any of the Tarot Series or his book "Firefly" (where he defends child molestation) and it become apparent that Piers Anthony went over the edge.

A lot of his stuff is into that. Even that Isle of Woman series was heavy into rape and 13 year old child sex and it was written in the 90s.

As I said, I threw it down and that is rare for me in a book.

116 I was traveling last week so I needed easy reads: an early Hillerman and John Mortimer's Rumpole stories.

And maps.  I was reading lots of maps! 

'Hope everyone is having a nice Sunday. 

117

Its up for a Pulitzer. That should tell all you need to know about that book.

Yeah the hell of it is, they used to give those to books that were actually, you know, good reading. Killer Angels got one, and that's a desert island book.

118 Sadly, wasted a number of days slogging thru "The Dead Hand" (recent Pulitzer non-fiction winner) which lays out a partisan version of the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Anything that wins a Pulitzer should be automatically discounted as liberal crap and avoided at all costs. I avoid Pulitzer books and Academy Award movies.

119

I'll be adding these all to my reading list!

Currently working on The Last Lion:Winston Churchill :Visions of Glory,1874-1932, which I somehow never got around to reading. The latest Gabriel Alon book from Daniel Silva, The Rembrandt Affair, drops in a couple of weeks, so that will have to be squeezed in with the next Manchester tome. Hugh Hewitt got me hooked on this particular series.

I'm also going to be listening to the audio version of Glenn Beck's The Overton Window. Any comments on it?

Have you read the Edmund Morris books on Theodore Roosevelt? His third book will be released later this year and as they are each substantial tomes it may take until them to get through, but they are worth it. Roosevelt apparently has a bad rap with some conservatives, but I beg to disagree.

120 Monty,

Through my Kindle and free classics I discovered a short story by Jules Verne, The Blockade Runners. A nice fictional take on blockades.

121 Monty, OT, but I thought of you and your econ threads when I saw this.  Thought you might like to incorporate it and get our Monday off to a rollicking start.  Seems like someone's doing okay in this depression.  http://tinyurl.com/d666kb

122

Have finally been able to catch up on all of Vince Flynn. Just finished London by Edward Rutherford, a great historical novel like his Sarum I read years ago. Am in the process of reading more by Greg Iles, read one a year or so ago and now going through more. Good mystery/action reads so far.

Read Grass Crown a long time ago and loved it, but never found the others and forgot about them. Thanks for reminding me.

Love reading but not had much time for years (job, kids, etc.) but thanks to Dear Leader have plenty of time now.

Funemployment and Half-Priced Books.... life is good. 

123 I received a Nook for my birthday two weeks ago.  I had mentioned that I thought it might be a good idea because I read more than one book at a time and hate to carry them around. I now have 85 books on it to be read. I am reading The Passage because it was a sample and it hooked me. I have never read  The Stand, but it is now in the pile. You all have given me more ideas to check out. My husband is retiring and we are going to be full time RVing, so this little machine is great.

124

Ugh, my mouse is crippled and I can't copy and paste what anybody wrote.

But, yes, Tami, Grandma Mazur is hysterical. Janet E. does a wonderful job of making her characters ridiculous and yet somehow almost believable.

DSkinner, even authors' web sites don't always make the chronological order clear. I cursed James Patterson up and down for listing the Alex Cross in reverse chronological order without bothering to explain that or put publication years there to make it obvious.

RushBaby, that Julia S-F one sounds great. I can't believe my mom hasn't found it and told me about it already...

125

I wish one of Barry's trusted insiders would flip and write a book....

Posted by: runningrn at July 11, 2010 10:22 AM (CfmlF)

...they will...$$$$

126

The latest one, about seven into the series, is One Was a Soldier.

RushBabe: Do you actually have a copy of that? I thought its publication was pushed back again.

Posted by: FireHorse at July 11, 2010 10:58 AM (cQyWA)

No, I don't have it, and I worded my post the way I did because I wasn't sure if it had been released yet.  I get all my books from the liberry, and I noticed on their new materials screen that the order date was a while ago but there are no copies circulating.  Can't wait.

127 Oh, and momma, great list. I've read about half of those authors and will check up on the others...

128

 The Moron horde descended full-tilt on the hapless blog-off about the longevity of the Tea Party and did Ace proud.

Heh. Thanks for the link, Rushbabe. I've only gone through 6 pages but it is effing hilarious.

Ace should be proud...

129 HMS Warrior
HMS Viper

130 "PI/mystery with a twist:  Martin Cruz Smith's Arkady Renko novels - set in the Soviet Union. Read them in order, starting with Gorky Park and you'll see a character arc for Arkady Renko and the Soviet Union, too.  The early books give you a hint of what we have in store for us if Jughead gets his way. The newest one, Three Stations, comes out August 17. I can't wait."

If you can, listen to the Renko novels read by Frank Muller his voice  was perfect for Renko.  If  you liked those, Stuart Kaminski series of Inspector Rostnikov mysteries might be  for you

131

132 I finished The Passage about a week ago. I really enjoyed it and will definitely pick up the second book in the trilogy when it's published in a couple of years, but one major flaw in the book drove me nuts. The author seriously underestimates the effect of time and the elements on the detritus of civilization left behind. His characters are constantly found using or stumbling upon items (particularly clothing) which would have had no chance of surviving in any usable fashion after 100 years.

133 By all means pick up a biography of Admiral Farragut.  What a man!

His family rafted down the Mississippi when he was a kid, where his mom died of a tropical disease.  He then gets an appointment as a midshipman at age 12 and goes to fight the War of 1812.  His ship is captured by the British off Peru and he gets into a huge fight with a Brit midshipman over Farragut's pet parrot.  He fights so well that the British officers let him keep his damn parrot and try some rum to boot.

The battle of New Orleans was even more impressive than taking Mobile.  He had a good war and lived to be an honored old man.

I gave my copy of the biography to by 14 year old grandson.  "Here, read this, and see what a hero's life was like.  Act accordingly."

134 Okay, just for fun...

Every once in a while, I am left jonesing for a "popcorn" book at 10pm and my only venue is the Book/Magazine section in a local Supermarket.

Here's the rules:

Grisham sucks, has sucked and will always suck.  I've read two of his novels (took me 45 min. total for both) over the course of 10 years and I am irretrievably stupider for the experience.

Patterson can be an excellent diversion when you are trying not to die of acute dehydration caused by dysentery. But his later works kind of pale and the crap being published now under his name make me alternate between rage at the retarded monkeys being flogged to produce this barely copy-edited shit and self loathing for having participated in this barbaric exercise by buying a unit.

No Female Authors  Sorry.  I just can't have a fun read with you people, without being irritated by practical details.  You won't let me.  None of you is a Patricia Highsmith much less an Agatha Christie.  Also, Dean Koontz. Included for being an hysterical pussy.

Ludlum No more needs be said.

Tom Clancy branded Derivatives?  Slot them right next to the Harlequin Romances for all I care.

Sooo...

What's left?

Actually, a pretty good action flick that lasts at least 7 hours, in my grubby paws, by Steve Martini called Guardian of Lies

I call them "pop-corn books" but I still want something that satisfies...

This was good.

I wouldn't rate it so much a mystery as a thriller.

The stakes just keep ratcheting up in a very believable way...

135 I'm a junkie for all things Roman, so I read several of McCullough's books some time ago.  For my tastes, they read too much like romance or John Grisham set in Republican Rome.  I don't like dialogue that's essentially contemporary with historical references clumsily dropped in to make it "period."  I also don't like the romance-novelesque focus on "celebrity" characters and their gossipy intrigues while taking little time to paint the picture of their world by giving us a look outside the palace.  McCullough uses whacking gobs of expository dialogue by her "wise" characters to paint her world-setting rather than something less obvious and pedantic.  I prefer my setting in small, consistent doses rather than chunky tracts delivered all at one in a dialogue.

If you've ever read Saylor's Gordianus mystery novels, he's an example of how to write Rome properly, IMO.

136 For the Mark Bowden fans: He also did one called, "Killing Pablo" about how the US and Colombia dealt with the notorious drug lord.

137

Heh!  I just finished reading the comments at The Hill.  If it weren't for the moron invasion, there would have only been an handful of them.  Doesn't that make Bill Scher even more irrelevant than the Teabaggers that he claims only constitute 18% of the right winged fringe of the Republican Party?  Methinks so!  Well done all you morons!  (And fabulous socks!)

138 133:

MCS is a great writer and the Renko books are some of the best I've read (just read Stalin's Ghost).  Renko's a non-stereotypical hero but not a tired, stale "anti-hero."  The plots are convoluted and challenging to figure out, but not Ludlum-esque (complex for the sake of being so, for all that I like Ludlum), and he doesn't leave loose ends.  Cruz Smith's writing is a great example of how to paint a foreign setting without committing the sins I griped about above.

139

 McCullough uses whacking gobs of expository dialogue by her "wise" characters to paint her world-setting rather than something less obvious and pedantic

 

I'm down with it if they are wise and Latina!

140

No Female Authors  Sorry.  I just can't have a fun read with you people, without being irritated by practical details.  You won't let me.  None of you is a Patricia Highsmith much less an Agatha Christie.  Also, Dean Koontz. Included for being an hysterical pussy.

 

Why you sexist and most definitely probably racist pig!  You will be hearing from my people pronto!

141 WAY OF KINGS by Brandon Sanderson comes out in August. Until then I'm filling my reading time with MONSTER HUNTER INTERNATIONAL by Larry Correia, SERVANT OF A DARK GOD by John Brown, and THE NAME OF THE WIND by Patrick Rothfuss.

142 What... no comix???

(Read at least the first three panels)

143 Wow, Gorky Park was a long time ago and I didn't know the author was still writing. Will have to start that series over and watch the changing times.

144

Monster Hunter International was a really fun read. There is a sequel coming in October.

Baen has a lot of books that are pretty good, and with the webscriptions allowing you to buy 6 for 15.00, you have a hard time beating the value.

I just finished the first two Dresden files novels, and they are not bad either.

I would also recommend Harry Turtledove. His Videssos stuff is first rate. I was not as happy with some of his later alt. history fiction, but the early stuff is pretty nifty. He has the only really good re-realization of the battle of Manzikurt I have ever read.

145 Tom Jones  by Henry Fielding  LINK

For the joy.

146 Last Call:  The Rise and Fall of Prohibition by Daniel Okrent.  Lileks stoked my interest and hasn't disappointed.

147 Read my books, CONS!!!!

148 Right now, I'm half-way through "Finding Chandra" which is all about the Chardra Levi murder case (remember Chandra and Congressman Condit?). Interesting subject, something about the writing style turns me off. But I'm reviewing it so I'll keep slogging away. The book before that was great! "Lost to the West" (which I called Byzantium for Dummies) is an introductory general history of the Byzantine Empire. Or, as they called it at the time, the Roman Empire. Hung in there for over 1,100 years with many boom and bust periods. Impressively condensed in to 300 or so pages. The writer focuses on the emperors and some of the more important generals. I like the one who the Moslems called "The Pale Death of the Saracens"! Tidbit about the Byzantines. Did you know that their elite imperial guard were a few thousand Vikings?

149 > 57 I'm on a trashy Military Sci-fi kick. John Ringo and his Aldenata series. Posted by: Jeff Weimer "This is what you get for letting rednecks play with antimatter, boss"

150 I'm still reading Stephenson's 'The Confusion'.  Got the third book in Stross' 'Laundry' series last week, so I'm busy rereading 'The Atrocity Archive' and 'The Jennifer Morgue' now so I can read the new one. 

'Monster Hunter International' is awfully fun, I've met Larry a few times shooting at the UDPL matches in Utah County and he's a really nice guy.  We spent a couple hours BSing about guns one day when he was still part-owner of the FBMG gun shop.  I'm looking forward for the new one

151 "The Forgotten Man" by Amity Shlaes.

Great book; points out what a truly abysmal president FDR was.  If you replace "FDR" with "Obama" throughout the book, you'll be stunned at the way history is repeating itself.

152 Not a book, but a product, I bought my wife a Kindle, since she is a voracious reader, mostly of fiction. Got her the 6" model, huge price drop plus free 3G network included with the price. I have to say that it is a pretty amazing product. $189 bucks, with free shipping. She loves it.

153 I've been enjoying Courtney Friel's reading of Beck's Overton Window which began on Friday's Red Eye. Not sure what the book is about, but forget about audio books and give me video books any day.

154

I just finished reading John Williams <i>Stoner</i> which has re-emerged in popularity lately. Yep, it deserves the resurgence. Incredibly good.

 

His <i>Butcher's Crossing</i> is almost as good, one of the first reimaginings of the American western. I'll need to check out <i>Augustus</i> now...while I can't believe Williams has been all but ignored, I'm glad his books are being rediscovered.

155 Courtney Friel???

She going around reading to people now? Where do I sign up?

156 just finished Roger Zelazny's "Damnation Alley", and then watched the movie again, and am now reading Harry Harrison's "Make Room! Make Room!", later turned into the movie "Soylent Green".

157

Monty, I agree with Budahmon, Caesar was my favorite of the six I read.  That's likely just due to my interest in the Gallic Wars, which are mostly covered in that novel.  They have all been good, however.  I have yet to read the seventh, Antony and Cleopatra.

I'm currently trying to force my way through Jean Raspail's The Camp of the Saints, which I bought over 20 years ago and have never read.  I'm finding it a bit tough to read; he made his point in the first few chapters, and since then it's been a fairly monotonous repetition of wince-inducing descriptions of the swarthy and brown as being deformed and filthy, and in all ways inferior to the white.  He's fairly obviously confused culture with melanin levels.

His depiction of the self-loathing, anti-Western collectivists is very telling, however, and that--along with the hopes that story develops into something a bit more compelling--are keeping me pushing on through.

158 Speaking of the Roman Empire, I just started that second book of Orsan Scott Card's Empire series.

IN the lead in to the first chapter he makes the statement that there were 2 major plagues that hit the Roman Empire and that each one killed off about 30% of the population. He further stated that the second plague occurred a century after the first and that is what reduced the size of the legions and the farmers.

He postulates that those plagues are what caused the collapse of the empire because that is why they had to invite in the barbarians to fill the legions and till the farms.

I don't recall reading about these plagues before.  Any of you history oriented Morons got any light to shed on this?

159 That's silly. Everybody knows it was the Joos.

160 I'm very big on adventure series from before WWII, especially British. They're fun but forgettable, natural breaks make them great as bathroom reading, you can read them out of order without spoiling or missing too much, and rarely does an episode hinge on a doomsday bomb ticking down to zero, as modern adventurers face way too often.

Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels are all over the nets as free text files, so I assume they're now public domain. The Kindle store has the whole bundle for a couple of bucks. Fu's antagonist, Nayland Smith, is one of the better imitation Sherlock Holmeses. Sadly, used dead tree editions are scarce and therefore pricey. The Yellow Peril in all its race-obsessed glory.

The H. Rider Haggard Alan Quatermain stories are likewise free or cheap online. He's considered the model for Indiana Jones. Much better than any of the movie versions of the character. Used paperbacks seem to be easy to find.

John Gardner's series of  the adventures of Prof. Moriarty are my favorite Holmes spin offs. Written in the '70s, I believe, but they read like 1890.

161 I'm currently listening, while level grinding in an RPG, to Christopher Moore's 'Bite Me.' This is the third in his vampire series that started with 'Bloodsucking Fiends' and continued with 'You Suck.'

Very funny, like all of Moore's stuff.

162

 Little Miss Spellcheck at July 11, 2010 03:16 PM (a5ljo)

 

Look for the Charlie Chan mysteries (much better than the movies, although still politically incorrect).

Probably have to go to Alibris for used copies. They were last reprinted in paperback in the 1970s.

163 Already Dead, by Charlie Huston. A vampire novel for people with testicles. Anything written by Huston will do, actually.

164 The Passage was good. Finished it last week, and kind of miss it. Better than The Stand , I thought.

As far as authors: Bernard Cornwell...good stuff

165

The Masters of Rome books are some of the best I've ever read. yeah, they are doorstops in their own right, but the shit I learned from reading them will stay with me forever. Murder, sex, politics, war, this series has it all. Some of my favorite passages involve a certain faction of senators showing up for a vote with paid goons in tow, with the express purpose of intimidation, or failing that, beating the shit out of any senator who doesn't "go along" Awesome political action

166 Those interested in the vampire theme should read the original by Braham Stocker. It scared the crap out of me when I read it in the 7th grade.

No bodice ripping metro-stuff there.

167 Fortune's Favorites and Caesar's Women are the best of the lot, though the first two are great as well. I've actually got the entire series, which goes on Caesar, The October Horse and Antony and Cleopatra. The series goes downhill about when Caesar is assassinated, but even missing its titular character, whom McCullough did awesomely, it's still better than most of the crap historical fiction being peddled these days.

Cato the Younger is one of her best characters surprisingly, a complex and troubled fanatic.

Read them all, it's worth it.

168 I don't recall reading about these plagues before.  Any of you history oriented Morons got any light to shed on this?

He may be referring to the Justinianic Plagues if you want to go a Googling, though I seem to remember plague being noted by Thucydides as contributing to the moral decline of the besieged Athenians and giving the (largely unaffected) Spartans sort of a leg up.

As to which two major plagues Card is referring to, I'm not all that up to speed but this is one guy that I trust to do his homework (note to self, go get Card's Empire series) although it's looking like plague tended to wash all over the Mediterranean world every 30 years or so in Ancient times.

169 I did do some research and found two plagues around the time frame he mentioned did occur. But no one blames these plagues for the eventual decline.

I think a lot of the liberal historians have glomed on to Gibbon's the Christians did it meme and will never turn lose of it. 

170 170 Those interested in the vampire theme should read the original by Braham Stocker. It scared the crap out of me when I read it in the 7th grade.

No bodice ripping metro-stuff there.

 

Gosh, bodice ripping.  That's way too angry and sexually charged than we care to participate in.  We prefer gently unbuttoning with great care...

171 By all means pick up a biography of Admiral Farragut.  What a man!

Suggestions???

172 North by Northwestern, by Captain Sig of The Most Dangerous Catch.  I only started watching the show recently.  I fished cod on the Bering for one miserable season back in 1978, and I  had no desire to bring back bad memories (ever been seasick for three weeks while working 20-hour days?).  But once I started watching, I couldn't stop, bad memories or not.  Sig describes the show as a "soap opera for men" and he's pretty much correct.  But it's fascinating far beyond that.  These guys are damn good at their job and mentally tough in a way most of us only wish we were.  (Not to mention they have huge, clangin' iron balls--watch the show where the Time Bandit goes through a narrow strait.  Hollywood couldn't keep you on the edge of your seat any better.)  Reading the book also reminds me of the old saying that it takes twenty years to become an overnight success. Sig earned his position the hard way.
I recommend the book, definitely, even if you don't watch the show.  I think most men won't be able to read it without thinking, at least somewhere deep inside, that this is the sort of work a man was meant to do.

(R.I.P., Captain Phil.)

173

If you've ever read Saylor's Gordianus mystery novels, he's an example of how to write Rome properly, IMO.

Just finished Roman Blood and hope to read more of the series - excellent. Pompeii is even better and  less "formulatic".

Can't recommend Pressfield's Afghan Campaigne - Gates of Fire is good - but Afghan Campaign tries too hard upon itself to have a modern anti-American anti- war in Afg. tone.

OT - if  the islamic invasions and conquering of formally tribal or Hellenic cultures changed them (for the worst) then  why ;  and whose to say they cant be changed again ? There are no absolutes of history, including and especially so called  islamic lands that we as Americam should respect. 

174 Americans

175 For anyone looking for top quality historical novels, please allow me to recommend the works of Gillian Bradshaw. Specific titles, just off the top of my head, include "The Beacon at Alexandria", "The Island of Ghosts", "Render Unto Ceasar", The Alchemy of Fire", "The Wolf Hunt" and "London in Chains". She has real gift for producing characters who are both credible and sympathetic; unlike so many historical writers whose characters are just moderns dressed up in togas or chainmail. Donald Westlake was mentioned above. If you can find a copy, I highly recommend his novel "Kawaha". The plot involves mercenaries recruited to steal a train load of coffee out of Idi Amin's Uganda.

176 I did do some research and found two plagues around the time frame he mentioned did occur. But no one blames these plagues for the eventual decline.

No one except Orson Scott Card, you mean!

Heh.

I think that in some ways, he's kind of a crank but he's an engaging crank and even if you don't come out agreeing with his implicit conclusions you will always want to check out his premises!

Plus, technically, he's a helluva story-teller.

One of the masters IMHOP.

177 Ahh...

That's what I was trying to get at.

Orson Scott Card is provocative.

178

http://tiny.cc/dwpt8

Jack Hinson's One-Man War, A Civil War Sniper

179 I think a lot of the liberal historians have glomed on to Gibbon's the Christians did it meme and will never turn lose of it.

You may be onto something and this would fit very well into Card's agenda, so far as I understand it.

180 There was NO SUCH FUCKING SHIP AS THE IRONCLAD MERRIMAC!!!

The battle of the ironclads took place between the US Navy ship USS Monitor and the CS Navy ship CSS Virginia.  There never was an ironclad called CSS Merrimac (although there was a paddle wheeled steamer by that name), so it would have been quite impossible for it to be involved in any battles, much less the famous battle between the ironclads.

Monster Hunter International is the vampire book that you are seeking.

181

The McCullough books are not bodice rippers.  She did fantastic research and you will be immersed into ancient Roman politics which does not differ too much from ours except they really drew blood.  However, after Gaius Julius Caesar enters the scene, you will realize that McCullough is in love with him. 

And any woman with brains would be too.

182

188- spot on comment. Colleen writes the most sympathetic Caesar ever, and probably the least sympathetic Cicero.

I think the six novels are fascinating.  I bogged down in the latest one with Antony and Cleopatra, however, despite it being one of the shortest.

I thought the Grass Crown was the most difficult to get through. 

183 I loved the Masters of Rome series.

I think I liked it best because it really illustrated what made Rome the mightiest power of the Ancient World:  It had a political system that allowed great men to co-exist to a better extent then the competing societies.

If you killed a roman leader, so what?  They would just send another, and another, and another until they crushed you.  The enterprise wasn't held together by the will and talent of a single man, like Jugurtha or Mithradaties.

Never, NEVER liked Peirce Anthony.  Blech.  My brother did, but they just seemed like silly, unfunny time wasters.

184

Piers Anthony does indeed suck as does Grisham.  Just for the record.

Now, for a really spectacular and profound Civil War historical read "Sea of Gray" by Tom Chaffin.  It covers the history and outcomes of the Confederate raider "Shenandoah."  Truth is indeed stranger than fiction.  Read it now, thank me later.

I love historicals and another terrific book is "Skeletons on the Zahara" by Dean King.  Has to do with a merchant ship that cracks up on the shores of Africa adjacent to the Sahara Desert in the early 1800s.  Reinforces one's views on Islam for sure.  Not much has changed in 200 years from that perspective.

If you haven't already read Dana's "Two Years Before the Mast" and "Admiral of the Ocean Sea" by Morison, there's not much help for you

Otherwise, I'm reading a series of Scandinavian potboilers, the Botswana-set #1 Ladies Detective novels and the odd Jack Reacher thriller.  I go through moods.  The early part of this decade I worked my way through dozens of books covering the Revolution or biographies of Franklin, Washington, Adams and the rest of the Founding Fathers.  There remains a large stack on my nightstand that have gathered dust since the Kindle acquisition.

 

185

The plagues in question are around the time of Marcus Aurelius (166-170 AD) and Claudius "Gothicus" (271-272)

The first plague came about from a Roman campaign into the heart of the Parthian Empire, and devastated the eastern parts of the Mediterranean. It caused a lot of problems, not least of which was the elevation of Commodus to his fathers heir. He sucked. Enough said.

The second plague happened after a titannic battle where the Roman army wiped out the Gothic raiders so thoroughly the survivors had to take up polygamy to avoid being another Germaic road bump. It made them a non factor for over a hundred years. Combined with 30+ years of constant fighting, raiding, and general disarray, the plagues helped set the stage for an acute manpower shortage. One they did not have the technology to overcome at the time.

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