Just finished up Dune and Dune Messiah and want to read something totally different before getting stuck into Children of Dune

Reading a book called The Crusades: War for the Holy Land by Thomas Asbridge.

Only 100 or so pages into it so far but is a pretty entertaing read that gives a fairly balanced and comprehensive overview of the Crusades and the circumstances that led to them. Haven't read any non-fiction for a while and I definitley find this era of history fascinating and brutal.

Great books - the BBC were suppsoed to be filming them with Kenneth Brannagh as Shardlake.

Just finished Keith Richard's book, which was good. The press picked out the bitchy bits about Jagger, but missed the good stuff Keef says about him. Also surprised how little Bill Wyman got mentioned in it, goven that he was in the band 30 years!

Now reading Our Kind Of Traitor by John Le Carre.

Thomas Harris - Silence of the Lambs.

I'm on page one.

GERMS, GUNS and STEEL. Won a pulitzer in the mid 90's I think. The girl gave it to me to make me marginally less dumb. It shows how enviroment has shaped the world. Ie. If you don't have large animals you can tame into working you can't bust enough sod to have big farms; ergo you can't get large stores of food to feed a standing army. Lotsa stuff like this.

Just about done with the Michael Shaara book "The Killer Angels" they made the "Gettysburg" movie out of. Also in the midst of a few others, China Mieville's "Perdido Street Station" for one. I do most reading on my lunch break, and I usually stick with biographies and historical stuff at work so I don't totally lose my grip on reality. I can save that for the apartment.

Did you watch the vid for Guns, Germs, Steel too? Not bad. Collapse is less engaging but as interesting.

Since I the time I originally read Guns, they keep revising the number of people (upwards) that lived in the Americas and the extent of their civilization (vast and upwards). It's interesting to see what stuff we learned in school in the 60s & 70s that is no longer accepted as truth.

Over the last few months I've been reading just books I have to study for university exams, now I'm about to finish a book about everyday life in ancient Rome. Some parts are kinda boring, others funny, everything is written in great detail!

Anyway, a book I'd really like to read next is Survivor by Palahniuk.

Yeah I read that somewhere..but will they be as good as Cadfael?

Yay books. I like real shit.. I can't do fiction. Anyway...

Recently finished:
Here, There, and Everywhere: My Life Recording the Beatles by Geoff Emerick
Whick One's Pink? - Phil Rose
Behind the Glass, vols I and II. - by Howard Massey


Now reading:
A Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey - Nicholas Schaffner
Sessions With Sinatra: Sinatra and the Art of Recording - Charles Granata
Follow the Music: The Life and High Times of Elektra Records - Jac Holzman


Next up:
Life - Keith Richards
Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards - Al Kooper

I've become one of those people that starts books and doesn't finish them. Still partially read, but unfinished:

The Grand Design, by Stephen Hawking
Before the Big Bang, by Brian Clegg
The Brothers Karamazov, by Doestoevsky

gotta get that George Jones one! L. Ron mentioned.
I'm on a Autobiography kick at the moment:
Life- Keith Richards. 1/2 way thru, so far a very tame tale (well, maybe he's just being a gentleman) but a good read.
Decoded by Jay Z is up next.
Miles Davis Reader - a collection of Downbeat magazine articles and interviews.

Just got in to preview:
The Master and Margarita - by Bulgakov. This author was mentioned in the book thread at the collapsed Stonerrock site.

Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky

I've been on a classic kick recently. Just finished To Kill A Mocking Bird (bit late on that one) Before that Was Nick Mason's Floyd biog "Inside Out". Am starting Call Of The Wild/White Fang tomorrow.

I'm reading the new improved sr.com 'light', it goes by the monicker 'theobelisk.net'.


;-)

Nothing right now. Preparing for my Kindle on Xmas.

Plan on reading a lot of gutenberg.org (who knew Steve Gutenberg* was so into public domain books?) books.

I think I might read Moby Dick first...Just so I can say I read it.







*that's what I call a joke, a reference to Police Academy star Steve Gutenberg. Can't wait to figure out how to reference that human noisemaker Michael Winslow!

Finished these in the past week or so.

Slaughterhouse Five
Idiot America
I Am America (And So Can You!)
Into the Rising Sun

Just started an old X-Men novel (Empire's End) that I've had around for over a decade but never got very far in. It's too early to really form an opinion, but it seems to be a bit unnecessarily heavy on the space jargon.

Hey Jam, I am reading Moby Dick these days, in bed. Heavily annotated 150th anniversary edition. Most of the notes are a complete waste of time, kind of like: The Andes*


* A mountain ridge in South America.


Well, duh. I had geography in school.

I had so much trouble getting into it that I gave up. But I loved the first one so much that it was my favorite book for years. Maybe I'll give it another try.

Read that around 7 or 8 years ago. Great book, will have to re read sometime soon. The Devil's sidekick, Behemoth (a giant cat) was fucking hilarious.

Nuh-uh, the Andes are those mints you get at restaurants on the way out, at the counter. Thems good mints!

I recently saw a two part TV-movie on the Riverworld series. It was incredibly disappointing. The only good thing was the hot chick from V.

[quote="Pure Rock Casey"][/quote]
shut it, I got something for yuu, oops, howdy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzJw65JK3A0&feature=related

Just finished "House of Leaves" by Mark Danielewski.


Dude.