What Book Are You Currently Reading?
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Author Topic: What Book Are You Currently Reading?  (Read 396921 times)
They put it to a vote and they just kept lying
20RP12
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« Reply #750 on: May 29, 2013, 09:55:33 AM »

Currently reading The Walking Dead graphic novels. Excellent read.
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anvi
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« Reply #751 on: May 31, 2013, 04:22:34 PM »

Just started reading The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources by Michael T. Klare.  It's the kind of book that gives me the not-so-indistinct urge to commit suicide.
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Beet
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« Reply #752 on: June 02, 2013, 06:23:03 PM »

The Triumph of Christianity by Rodney Stark. Let's see... there's a bizarre chapter in the middle of the book where he goes off on an extended polemic against Islam and insisting the the Crusades were "justified", and that "no apologies are necessary" even though he acknowledges that the population of Jerusalem was massacred after its fall. The chapter is literally subtitled "the case for the Crusades."

Then there's the fact that by use of scare quotes, he implies that he thinks the Spanish Inquisitors were more enlightened than Enlightenment writers such as Voltaire.

There's the part where Stark states that, if you take all of the world's Christians and except that you assume there are no Christians in China, then Christians are about 33 percent of the world's population. Later, he calculates the number of Christians in China at about 65 million. However, in the next section, he asserts that Christians are 40 percent of the world's population. By his own account, this cannot be correct. The flap of the book also asserts that Christians are "40 percent" of the world's population, without mentioning that this figure can only be arrived at by excluding China's 1.3 billion people from the world population.

Much of the book is spent on angrily denouncing and seemingly settling old scores with academic opponents, some of whom died over 100 years ago.

One person is accused of having said something wrong during the French Revolution, even though the parentheses that appear next to his name in the same paragraph indicated that he died in 1784.

Social scientists' propensity to occasionally jump to conclusions in the face of poor historical evidence is singled out for denunciation repeatedly; Stark then proceeds to jump to conclusions in the face of poor historical evidence repeatedly.

Nonetheless, the book is highly recommended. Hidden behind the offensive parts, the obvious political agenda, poor reasoning and juvenile language is the bringing together of a number of actually quite well researched arguments, presenting convincingly. Stark, of course, is a distinguished professor who at least is familiar with an impressive array of experts and studies which he cites copiously. The book tackles central topics in the history of Christianity and through its citations and tables produces convincing and non-obvious arguments about each one. Stark thoroughly attacks the secularization theory, which asserts that the trend towards greater secularization is inevitable.
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Paul Kemp
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« Reply #753 on: June 02, 2013, 08:11:53 PM »

Gustaf wins this thread. Excellent taste.
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You kip if you want to...
change08
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« Reply #754 on: June 10, 2013, 03:01:30 PM »

Just finished this:


A good read and it has firmed up the more positive perception of Ed I've developed over the last few months. Definitely one of the cleverest politicians, who've had a chance at Number 10, in a long time and much more deserving of the top spot than his brother.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #755 on: June 12, 2013, 09:51:41 AM »

Gustaf wins this thread. Excellent taste.

Thank you! Smiley

I finished Orlando on the plane to Lisbon. A bit out there, as Woolf herself admitted. And I don't mean the transexuality or whatever you'd call it, but the lack of proper character development and weird digresses at times. Still, surprisingly funny and makes important points about gender roles. I'd say those points are a bit too obvious to a modern reader, but then I think of Atlas and I drop that comment. Tongue

Also had time to read Timequake on the way. Fantastic read. Then again, I'm a Vonnegut fan.

Now I'm reading The Plague by Camus. Liking it more than the Stranger so far.
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #756 on: June 15, 2013, 02:53:31 PM »

Seriously overrated, like all Melville.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #757 on: June 17, 2013, 10:33:10 PM »

Sonnets from the Portuguese. I'm exactly halfway through.

Seriously overrated, like all Melville.

I'd like to register my disagreement here.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #758 on: June 18, 2013, 08:10:39 AM »

I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. Tongue

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #759 on: June 18, 2013, 10:44:23 AM »



Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.


Would you be surprised if I told you that I don't like To Kill A Mockingbird?

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.
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TNF
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« Reply #760 on: June 18, 2013, 10:57:18 AM »

Socialism: Past and Future by Michael Harrington.
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #761 on: June 18, 2013, 11:23:16 AM »



Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.


Would you be surprised if I told you that I don't like To Kill A Mockingbird?

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

HP.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #762 on: June 18, 2013, 11:43:39 AM »

I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. Tongue

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!

I don't think one is supposed to disapprove of To Kill a Mockingbird. At least if one's American one's not.

What Graham Greene are you reading?
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Filuwaúrdjan
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« Reply #763 on: June 18, 2013, 12:38:30 PM »

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

You should do something to rectify this sorry state of affairs as soon as theoretically possible.
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minionofmidas
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« Reply #764 on: June 18, 2013, 01:33:40 PM »

Yeah. Reread Moby Dick. Now. Tongue

Reading through Edgar Hilsenrath's lesser works atm, interrupted by a short book on the Bikini and Eniwetok Islanders' plight and cultural reactions to it.
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Tetro Kornbluth
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« Reply #765 on: June 18, 2013, 02:56:26 PM »

It's a very long time now since I read fiction.

You should do something to rectify this sorry state of affairs as soon as theoretically possible.

Yes but Thesis, etc.
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afleitch
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« Reply #766 on: June 19, 2013, 10:11:29 AM »

Rereading the His Dark Materials trilogy for the first time in ten years.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #767 on: June 20, 2013, 05:01:59 AM »

I liked Moby Dick but it's not the greatest American novel I've read, for sure.

Really liked The Plague. Didn't know Camus could feel like some kind of atheist Victor Hugo. Tongue

Followed up with To Kill A Mockingbird. I sense that one ought to disapprove of it but I'm a sappy romantic so I just loved it.

Now I'm returning to Graham Greene!

I don't think one is supposed to disapprove of To Kill a Mockingbird. At least if one's American one's not.

What Graham Greene are you reading?

The Power and the Glory. Though after having drunk myself into a stupour at a bar called Oliver Twist I forgot it there. Tongue

So I'll have to pick it up today.

Then I may be mistaken. Then again, see Gully's post above. I think he's a decent indicator of these things, at least from a non-American perspective. Tongue
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Insula Dei
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« Reply #768 on: June 20, 2013, 11:33:43 AM »

Gide's Les Faux-Monnayeurs. I'm very taken by it. I will try to obtain a copy of Les Caves du Vatican, which I'm told is quite delightfully grotesque, next.
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Dr. Cynic
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« Reply #769 on: June 21, 2013, 07:33:43 PM »

I'm on page 397 of Game of Thrones, the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire trilogy. I just recently bought the first four books and am awaiting delivery of the fifth. I plan on reading them while waiting for the next season of the TV show.
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© tweed
Miamiu1027
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« Reply #770 on: June 23, 2013, 12:04:55 PM »

started Tolstoy's Resurrection last night to end an eight-week hiatus from fiction.
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FEMA Camp Administrator
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« Reply #771 on: June 24, 2013, 04:06:24 PM »

I read the first two books of "The Iliad" last night. Picked it up at the library today. Among other books I picked out are "The Paradiso" by Dante which I still have yet to finish, "Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription" by William F. Bucklkey, Jr., and "The Last Temptation of Christ" by Nikos Kazantzakis. I intent on at least finishing "The Paradiso" and the Buckley book before I have to return them.
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World politics is up Schmitt creek
Nathan
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« Reply #772 on: June 24, 2013, 04:49:04 PM »

I've finished Sonnets from the Portuguese. The next thing I read is likelier than not to be either Steinbeck's The Red Pony or Herrick's Hesperides, but there are other possibilities as well.
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traininthedistance
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« Reply #773 on: June 24, 2013, 05:56:19 PM »

Don DeLillo- Mao II

'Bout two-thirds through.  It's a pretty easy read but I keep getting distracted.
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Gustaf
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« Reply #774 on: June 28, 2013, 04:12:31 AM »

I've finished Sonnets from the Portuguese. The next thing I read is likelier than not to be either Steinbeck's The Red Pony or Herrick's Hesperides, but there are other possibilities as well.

Didn't like the Red Pony much but if you can find a copy which includes the short story Julius M....something, can never remember that last name, I really enjoyed that.

I finished The Power and the Glory and really liked it. Now I'm toning down and settling for a lighted read - A History of the World in 10½ Chapters by Julian Barnes.
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