books: what are you currently reading?

[vacapicker]

Latest by Charles Fergusen(Inside Job).."Predator Nation"...how the players in the collapse of 2008 have avoided prosecution and the unbridled greed that has come to be the real power within the U.S. and the whole world.   "The Magic of Reality", by Richard Dawkins.  How we know what is true and real in the universe thru the eyes and mind of a scientist.   

[Danny]

  "Red Badge of Courage"

I found this as a freebie from Kindle

[Caleb]

  "Red Badge of Courage"

I found this as a freebie from Kindle

Tried it about five years ago and put it down (doesn't happen very often).  I think I was just coming off a pretty serious classic lit kick and should've taken a break with a modern book before trying it.  I recommend this, by the way.  Staying too long in one genre and make it dull, as can staying in one time period.  Good to mix things up and keep reading fresh.

[Danny]

Tried it about five years ago and put it down (doesn't happen very often).  I think I was just coming off a pretty serious classic lit kick and should've taken a break with a modern book before trying it.  I recommend this, by the way.  Staying too long in one genre and make it dull, as can staying in one time period.  Good to mix things up and keep reading fresh.

I can understand putting Red Badge down, it is extremely wordy and concentrated with intellectual pictures of feelings and rationalization. It has seemed tedious and like I was wading through a slough of discarded words and meanderings of the writer. But since Audie Murphy liked it, ONWARD thru the slough of despond.

[rockstar_not]

Just added Red Badge of Courage to my Goodreads 'to read' list....

[Danny]

Just added Red Badge of Courage to my Goodreads 'to read' list....

I have been unable to put it down, almost finished.

[rockstar_not]

I have been unable to put it down, almost finished.

Two different versions available electronically on manybooks.net   which one is recommended (if there are any differences), 1st or 2nd verison?

http://manybooks.net/authors/craneste.html

[Danny]

I just downloaded from Amazon to my Kindle. It was free.

[rockstar_not]

I just downloaded from Amazon to my Kindle. It was free.

I use a Nook Color and the Nook app on iPhone.  I guess I could get the Kindle App for my iPhone as well - but I usually just use the Nook Color for the larger format.

[Danny]

I use a Nook Color and the Nook app on iPhone.  I guess I could get the Kindle App for my iPhone as well - but I usually just use the Nook Color for the larger format.

Check if nook has it free as well.

[jeremy3220]

I read the red badge of courage in high school and decided to read it again a couple years ago. I couldn't finish it. I wasn't getting anything out of it.

[Danny]

 I finished it and liked it.

[Danny]

  Just started THE WILD BLUE by Stephen E. Ambrose. It's about the B-24 LIBERATOR which was more prolific than the B-17 in WW II. It was also harder to fly and extremely uncomfortable for all the flight crew. A bunch of these were made by Ford in Flint, Mi. I believe. They definitely helped stop the Nazi war machine sooner.

I found this for $1.99 at Goodwill. Along with two other books I want to read, all are brand new. I had "The Wild Blue" in my hand at a book store a week or so ago and would have paid about $10 for it. (And that was a discount)

    Stephen Ambrose is one of my favorite authors and an excellent historian.

[Caleb]

Goodwill is a great place for books.  Recently I found a first edition of The Wayward Bus by Steinbeck for $1 there. 

[ncognito]

The Call of the Canyon--Zane Grey

[Danny]

 TO BUILD A FIRE,  JACK LONDON

"Day had broken cold and gray, exceedingly cold and gray, when the man turned aside from the main Yukon trail and climbed the high earth-bank, where a dim and little-traveled trail led eastward through the fat spruce timberland."

   I read this short story every now and then. It is surely a classic of classics. I hope I don't sound too dumb. This story always churns and moves inside me as I read it. LIFE and DEATH, solitude or better said isolation at a time when only one companion would save your life, easily.
   I think more highly of this very short story than even "Call of the wild".

   You can read it online for free here http://www.jacklondons.net/buildafire.html





               He travels fastest who travels alone . . . but not after the frost has dropped below zero fifty degrees or more.—Yukon Code.

[Danny]

The most pleasant surprise arrived in the mail this morning.
                                       A book from an elderly WWII vet whom we met in Oamaru, New Zealand.
We had spent an evening in his home enjoying his reminiscing of time spent in the English army. He would read from notes he had made into a manuscript and then embellish with stories and tid bits of amusing or more serious items.
    Since I knew so much about the European theater of war I could keep right up with Mr. Rocker. He was amazed that I had such a head full of facts.
I told him that I would love to have a copy of his book if he ever published one and he promised to send me a copy.

                              Well today I got a copy of MY EXPERIENCE IN WORLD WAR TWO, by  F T ROCKER.

[Tuba Mike]

Recently read Clapton's Guitar, Of Mice and Men and just finished Michelle Alexander's "The New Jim Crow".  Getting reading to read Edward P. Jones' "The Known World".  Also reading Karl Sabbagh's "Palestine: A History of a Lost Nation" as a pre-cursor to Jimmy Carter's "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid".  A play guitar to lighten the mood.

[Caleb]

Enjoyed Clapton's book a lot. 

[peachlander77]

My wife is currently reading "The Lover's Dictionary" by David Levithan.