What are you reading?

[otto]

Switched to audiobooks this year so "reading" is an odd term. Walked off 25+ pounds on the Craig Johnson Longmire series (around 25) of books. The last 10 or so books have been westerns. Music related books have only been the John Hiatt bio, Dave Grohls "Storyteller" and a great book "Guitar" by Tim Brookes. In this book he chronicles the history of the guitar while having a custom guitar made with updates on the process!

[Glennwillow]

I just started reading Jon Meacham's new book on Lincoln ("And There Was Light"). My wife gave me this book for Father's Day.

I have read so many books about Lincoln, I am curious to see whether I learn anything new. I imagine I will. I like Jon Meacham's very quiet approach to things.

My son also gave me an interesting book about J. Edgar Hoover that I need to read. ("GMan" by Beverly Gage.) That should also be interesting. This book won the Pullitzer Prize recently.

- Glenn

[rdeane]

I'm reading the collected works of Thomas Hardy. I have a sneaky suspicion he didn't trust women very much. A lot of his female main characters are very mentally scattered, emotionally manipulative and untrustworthy. Some of the male characters seem to be easily manipulated.

[birdsong]

American Ramble - Neil King Jr. - great trek and read

The Birth of Loud - Ian S. Port - history of Leo Fender and Les Paul etc.

Bertram Travels - father /son early naturalist explorers. I wish could have seen this area 300 years ago. Read a different volume first which was more of father and son. Current one is the son.

Glass House - Brian Alexander - on deck. Wife just finished it. Sounds a bit sad but another fascinating bit of American history. This in Ohio, where I grew up.

[Bob Womack]

I'm in the fifth volume of Winston Churchill's The Second World War. The first volumes were riveting but Churchill lost his primary ghost writer and the replacement was a bit drier. For relief I tend to branch off to small-unit narratives from WWII.

I just finished re-reading James Hornfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors about the WWII Battle off Samar in the Philippines, that pitted America's smallest ships, the destroyers, destroyer escorts, and Jeep carriers against a superior Japanese force of cruisers and battleships, including the largest battleship in the world, the IJN Yamato. This is an excellent narrative of what happened when you pit a vastly inferior American force with a mission against a vastly superior foe. It filled with plenty of detail and is hard to put down once you get into the battle.

Bob

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by otto

Switched to audiobooks this year so "reading" is an odd term. Walked off 25+ pounds on the Craig Johnson Longmire series (around 25) of books. The last 10 or so books have been westerns. Music related books have only been the John Hiatt bio, Dave Grohls "Storyteller" and a great book "Guitar" by Tim Brookes. In this book he chronicles the history of the guitar while having a custom guitar made with updates on the process!

Audio books are great while doing something else that is repetitive and a bit monotonous so you can give most of your attention to the audio. I usually download podcasts.

[Mycroft]

Originally Posted by Bob Womack

I'm in the fifth volume of Winston Churchill's The Second World War. The first volumes were riveting but Churchill lost his primary ghost writer and the replacement was a bit drier. For relief I tend to branch off to small-unit narratives from WWII.

I just finished re-reading James Hornfischer's The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors about the WWII Battle off Samar in the Philippines, that pitted America's smallest ships, the destroyers, destroyer escorts, and Jeep carriers against a superior Japanese force of cruisers and battleships, including the largest battleship in the world, the IJN Yamato. This is an excellent narrative of what happened when you pit a vastly inferior American force with a mission against a vastly superior foe. It filled with plenty of detail and is hard to put down once you get into the battle.

Bob

"The Last Stand" is an excellent read. I can also recommend "Neptune's Inferno," by the same author, about the five major night actions and two carrier battles in the waters surrounding Guadalcanal in the early part of the war, when the US and Japanese navies had near parity. I just picked up "The Fleet at Flood Tide," about the last year of the Pacific war, but have not yet read it.

[Jim Owen]

Originally Posted by rdeane

I'm reading the collected works of Thomas Hardy. I have a sneaky suspicion he didn't trust women very much. A lot of his female main characters are very mentally scattered, emotionally manipulative and untrustworthy. Some of the male characters seem to be easily manipulated.

Have you made it to Tess yet?

Tip—don’t read Jude the Obscure when you’re feeling sort of low. It ain’t cheery.

[Gryf]

"No Country For Old Men" by Cormac McCarthy. After that, it's probably time for something by Steinbeck.

[rdeane]

Yes, did read Tess. I just finished Jude the Obscure last night. Wow. Those folks had rotten lives.

[K20C]

Re-reading Horatio’s Drive. First trip across country by automobile in 1903.

Bunch of guys at the club argued whether the automobile would never catch on and replace horses. Horatio was the only one who thought it would.

He accepted a $50 bet that he couldn’t drive a car across country, starting in San Francisco. He kept a journal and took a camera. He made it. And, spoiler alert…automobiles caught on.

[jmagill]

Originally Posted by rdeane

I'm reading the collected works of Thomas Hardy. I have a sneaky suspicion he didn't trust women very much. A lot of his female main characters are very mentally scattered, emotionally manipulative and untrustworthy. Some of the male characters seem to be easily manipulated.

If you like Hardy, try George Eliot's Middlemarch, in many ways, the quintessential English Romantic novel.

.

[Bob from Brooklyn]

Enjoying reading about the early days of Leo & Les in "The Birth of Loud"

[Mycroft]

As a change up from "The Second World Wars" (I often work on two books) I started "The Subtle Art of Not Giving a ****: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life" by Mark Manson. So far a very good book about caring about what actually matters.

[Jeff Scott]

Back to reading more of this.