What Are You Reading? (continuation...)

[Joe Beamish]

Originally Posted by rdeane

I'm reading the complete works of HG Wells. I am enjoying the novels and his short stories. I actually didn't know he wrote short stories, but I think I enjoy them as much and maybe more than the novels.

His stuff is tremendous, including his non-sci-fi work. Now I want to go check out his short stories, which I’ve overlooked.

[Nymuso]

The Wisdom of the Bullfrog - Leadership Made Simple (But Not Easy), Admiral William H. McRaven

[RP]

Mack McCormick's Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey has finally been published, albeit eight years after McCormick's own passing...

[Jim Owen]

Emma. I’m teaching an Austen seminar.

[FrankHudson]

Originally Posted by RP

Mack McCormick's Biography of a Phantom: A Robert Johnson Blues Odyssey has finally been published, albeit eight years after McCormick's own passing...

What's your reaction to what you've read so far?

[Glennwillow]

My wife and I started reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver. We had just finished Dickens' "David Copperfield" and our middle daughter recommended that we might be interested in this modern take of Dickens' novel, "Demon Copperhead."

My wife and I are both finding "Demon Copperhead" more depressing than "David Copperfield," probably because particularly my wife, who worked as a primary grade teacher for some years, dealt with a lot of this stuff in real life. So for her, there is a fair amount of upsetting stuff in "Demon Copperhead" and we are only 20% into the book.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting book.

- Glenn

[Jim Owen]

Originally Posted by Glennwillow

My wife and I started reading "Demon Copperhead" by Barbara Kingsolver. We had just finished Dickens' "David Copperfield" and our middle daughter recommended that we might be interested in this modern take of Dickens' novel, "Demon Copperhead."

My wife and I are both finding "Demon Copperhead" more depressing than "David Copperfield," probably because particularly my wife, who worked as a primary grade teacher for some years, dealt with a lot of this stuff in real life. So for her, there is a fair amount of upsetting stuff in "Demon Copperhead" and we are only 20% into the book.

Nevertheless, it's an interesting book.

- Glenn

Glenn,
I forget. Did I recommend to you and your wife the Dev Patel film “Copperfield”? It’s quite an enjoyable interpretation. If you get a hankering for some more Dickens, drop me a line.

[RP]

Originally Posted by FrankHudson

What's your reaction to what you've read so far?

I haven't gotten too far into it so my comments are guarded. That said, the book is as much about McCormick's "research methods" as it is about Robert Johnson. It was also written without access to other books about RJ that have come out since McCormick's death in 2015. He seems to hang on RJ's lyrics for a window into the performer's soul, but I've heard a lot of similar, if not identical, lyrics in songs that were recorded prior to Johnson's death. Let's face it, players on the Chittlin Circuit did a lot of copying each others' music of the time...

[Cypress Knee]

Recent reads:
John Grisham - The Whistler
David Baldacci - End Game
Louis L'Amour - Callaghen
Adam Rutherford - A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived
John Sandford - Ocean Prey
Michael Connelly - The Law of Innocence
C. J. Box - Storm Watch
Zane Grey - The Trail Driver
Chase Hughes - Six Minute Xray
Reid Lance Rosenthal - Uncompahgre

I tend to binge read fiction, then lay off for long periods.
(Not that it counts, but I am constantly studying lesson books by Steve Kaufman, Pete Huttlinger, Norman Blake, and others)

[Bob Womack]

Re-re-re-rereading We Were Soldiers Once... and Young: Ia Drang - The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam by Hal Moore and Joseph Galloway. Every once in a while I feel a need to go back and be reminded that "The Greatest Generation" was a term coined by a sensational journalist. By contrast, this book reminds us that whenever our country has needed them, young men have stepped forward to answer the call to carry out her military actions, and have done so valiantly and through great struggle and loss.

Incidentally, the fellow on the cover above, Rick Rescorla, was a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army, originally from Wales, who at night during the battle sang Welsh and Cornish songs to his troops to calm them. Later, before the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, as security head for Morgan Stanley, he predicted that terrorists would blow up a bomb-laden truck at a spot in the parking garage of the Towers. The terrorists did, thirty feet from the spot he pointed out. At that point he initiated monthly evacuation drills for all the employees on Morgan Stanley's twenty-two floors of the South Tower.

He stepped forward again on 9/11. When the Port Authority told him to shelter his people in place after the first plane hit, he refused and initiated his evacuation plan. He got nearly all of Morgan Stanley's 2700 employees out of the South Tower, watching over and directing the evacuation via the stairwells and once again singing Cornish songs. This time, however, he included "Men of Harlech." He was told to evacuate himself but demurred, saying, "As soon as I make sure everyone else is out." He re-entered the tower for a last check and lost his life when the tower came down around him.

Bob

[tinnitus]

Introduces iconic photographers and explains some of the thousands of photos. As an aging boomer, I recall many of the images when they were newly featured in large-format Life magazine weekly. 605 pages and profoundly good photos. Your library should have it.

[Matthew Sarad]

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

[Jeff Scott]

I started reading this book this morning.