What book are you reading right now?

Posted by: Chillkram on 23 May 2010

I thought I'd revive this classic old thread as I couldn't find the original.

I am currently reading Suetonius, 'The Twelve Caesars'.




How about you?
Posted on: 26 January 2018 by Haim Ronen
winkyincanada posted:
Haim Ronen posted:

 

 

Pity. The writing is nothing to write home about but the real events are captivating.

I just couldn't stand reading one more time about how awesome he was.

Winky, you should have gotten immune to that long time ago, after reading endless posts of NAIM owners yammering about their awesome systems.

Posted on: 29 January 2018 by Massimo Bertola
Kevin-W posted:
Max_B posted:
Kevin-W posted:

Peter Doggett's masterful account of the breakup of The Beatles:

With due respect for you and your choice of books, I have loved them too much, so I even hope to see them forgotten than become the perennial object of a mix of irrational devotion and cynic, cunning revisionism as it seems to happen to all great things gone.

M.

Have you read the book Max?

No. I was only voicing my fears. 

Posted on: 29 January 2018 by notnaim man

Found these in a charity shop -

Required reading for all forum members, in particular the chapter How to Listen in the copy of Acoustics!

Posted on: 04 February 2018 by Paper Plane

Refreshing my memory ahead of upcoming model railway exhibitions with my US outline layout.

steve

Posted on: 04 February 2018 by TOBYJUG

https://static.comicvine.com/uploads/scale_small/8/80884/3100252-8338776470-Beano.jpg

Lord Snooty being beaten up by the Bash street Kids.

Walter the softy meets Pie Face

Posted on: 04 February 2018 by TK421

Purchased earlier today. 

Posted on: 04 February 2018 by cariboukid
Paper Plane posted:

Refreshing my memory ahead of upcoming model railway exhibitions with my US outline layout.

steve

Interesting. That's a little ways south-west of my neck of the woods.

 

Posted on: 04 February 2018 by Paper Plane
cariboukid posted:
Paper Plane posted:

Refreshing my memory ahead of upcoming model railway exhibitions with my US outline layout.

steve

Interesting. That's a little ways south-west of my neck of the woods.

 

The layout is actually set in Chippewa County of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but his book has superb reference material on ore carrying in the general area.  My model depicts (a very small) part of a mining operation.

Thanks

steve

Posted on: 11 February 2018 by Jeff Anderson

Ruth Wariner  -  "The Sound Of Gravel"  The author was the thirty-ninth of forty-two children in the family of a Mormon polygamist in Mexico.  In her adult life she ultimately became a teacher and coincidentally ended up a high school Spanish teacher in the small Portland suburb where I worked for 30 years in municipal government.

Posted on: 11 February 2018 by Kevin-W

I love a good picaresque, and they don't come any better than this. Re-reading for the first time in 35 or so years:

Posted on: 17 February 2018 by Bob the Builder

Miles The Autobiography - Miles Davis with Quincy Troupe - A really excellent read thank God Miles doesn't linger on all the drug stuff and only goes into it to describe how shit it really was and the negative impact it had on his and many other carreers. A bit of social history but so far (just pre Kind of Blue) he just sticks to the music and the scene. Excellently written too.

Posted on: 17 February 2018 by nickpeacock

Chad Hardbach - "The Art of Fielding". Just finished this today. An American novel in the Franzen vein (no surprise to see a comment by him on the cover). Despite talking a lot about baseball, not a sport whose language I am remotely fluent in, it's really about the characters, and they're all to my mind well enough developed that you sort of miss them when you finish the book - always the sign of a good novel. Recommended.

Posted on: 04 March 2018 by Kevin-W

Biography of one half of cinema's greatest film-making partnership. Reading this one realises just how essential EP was to The Archers.

Posted on: 04 March 2018 by Minh Nguyen
Kevin-W posted:

Biography of one half of cinema's greatest film-making partnership. Reading this one realises just how essential EP was to The Archers.

How much have you read? Initial thoughts? Full review?

Posted on: 04 March 2018 by Kevin-W
Minh Nguyen posted:

How much have you read? Initial thoughts? Full review?

I've read about a quarter or a third so far. The author is EP's grandson so he has a lot of affection for, and knowledge of, the man. The book is confirming something that I have long suspected - P&P's pictures were products of a profoundly English imagination. They couldn't been made anywhere else but this country. Powell was from Kent, so that makes sense; but what of Pressberger, the Hungarian Jew exiled to these islands? Of course, as an outsider with an all-seeing outsider's eye, he perhaps understood the English/British better than they understood themselves. This is one of the things that gives his scripts such richness.

I am enjoying the book very much, it's very insightful; but then again I am a complete sucker for Michael Powell, P&P and anything to do with them so I kind of knew I'd enjoy the tome even before I started it.

Posted on: 04 March 2018 by Minh Nguyen
Kevin-W posted:
Minh Nguyen posted:

How much have you read? Initial thoughts? Full review?

I've read about a quarter or a third so far. The author is EP's grandson so he has a lot of affection for, and knowledge of, the man. The book is confirming something that I have long suspected - P&P's pictures were products of a profoundly English imagination. They couldn't been made anywhere else but this country. Powell was from Kent, so that makes sense; but what of Pressberger, the Hungarian Jew exiled to these islands? Of course, as an outsider with an all-seeing outsider's eye, he perhaps understood the English/British better than they understood themselves. This is one of the things that gives his scripts such richness.

I am enjoying the book very much, it's very insightful; but then again I am a complete sucker for Michael Powell, P&P and anything to do with them so I kind of knew I'd enjoy the tome even before I started it.

Sounds interesting. I would much appreciate your synopsis when you finish reading.

Posted on: 05 March 2018 by Richard Dane

I've just finished reading Frederic Manning's Her Privates We.

A brilliant yet sobering account of a soldiers life during the battle of the Somme.

The world changed markedly thanks to the Great War, and my own perspective on life has undoubtedly changed having read this remarkable book. Totally humbling. 

Posted on: 05 March 2018 by DBS-Al

The "Arduino project handbook" and "Arduino for dummies" (that's me).

Just getting started with an Arduino so need all the help I can get.

Absolutely no idea about electronics or computer programming but it's all very interesting.

Posted on: 05 March 2018 by GTB-Buckaroo

Stone Alone.

Bill Wyman.

Posted on: 11 March 2018 by Kevin-W

Fascinating survey of female movie pioneers, from Alice Guy Blaché onwards. Amazing just how prominent women were in the silent days.

Posted on: 11 March 2018 by Jeff Anderson

Cory Taylor  -  "Dying, a memoir"  (2017)

Posted on: 11 March 2018 by Bob the Builder

Art Pepper - Straight Life

Posted on: 24 March 2018 by Kevin-W

I WAS there - eleven times between 1977 and 1994. Wish I'd been around earlier, though...

Posted on: 28 March 2018 by Haim Ronen

Image result for no greater ally book

Posted on: 04 April 2018 by Jeff Anderson

Tara Westover  -  "Educated, A Memoir"  (2018)  written by a lady who was raised in a Mormon survivalist family in the deep woods of Idaho.  Received no education or schooling until she was 18 yoa and went on to graduate college, receive scholarships to Cambridge and complete PhD level education.  And subsequent reflections on the entire journey.