What are you reading, Chapter 2

[aborgman]

Currently reading:

Pygmalion - George Bernard Shaw

Recently finished:

Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869 - Stephen Ambrose

Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America - John Barry

 

[Bongolation]

Starting this, a mind-boggling read, simply by the author's style [edit: see later post]:

Eventually, he must get around to the Aborigines, but in the meantime his view of the world is like nothing you've read, I'm sure.

Wow!

 

[hbarcat]

I read it today - it was a pretty fast paced, post cyberpunk, action novel from 1992 about the Internet pseudo-reality and computer viruses that can kill people.

 

[Gomeztool]

America Alone by Mark Steyn

 

[crucislancer]

I read it today - it was a pretty fast paced, post cyberpunk, action novel from 1992 about the Internet pseudo-reality and computer viruses that can kill people.

This is one of my favorites. I felt it was better, in some ways, to Neuromancer.

 

[Big_Daddy]

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It's, like the image says, about the psychological cost of learning to kill/killing. On top of that, I'm reading On Combat (the physiological and psychological effect of combat. Sensory exclusion, PTSD, stressful responses, how combat/interpersonal human agression affects your parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous system, all that stuff).

When I don't feel like reading either of those, I'm reading:

 

[Bongolation]

This is coming in:

 

[Bongolation]

This one too, eventually (lot of previous requests). I have great suspicions about its accuracy in portraying the Dodds:

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[Bongolation]

This...

 

[Bongolation]

This, good overview, but rambles. Has a bit of background on the Dodds (above):

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[Bongolation]

This is on its way:

 

[Bongolation]

I've also been reading the remarkable books of John Greenway, a truly unique character who was a great many things, including a heavyweight professor of Anthropology, a cop and a cultural provocateur.

His Down Among The Wild Men is a classic:

While most of his academic works concern his vast expertise in legend and folk music and the culture of Australian aborigines, his The American Tradition -- A Gallery of Rogues (1976) is a meandering collection of his mordant views on everything from the then-current social movements to George Patton.

If you can find extant copies of his books in your library system, you should check them out. Greenway had a rare, truly brilliant mind that obsessively collected facts about everything that interested him or riled up his sense of the stupid and hypocritical -- which in 1976 was nearly everything.

 

[Ursus Tyrannus]

The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brothers Grimm (Third Edition) - Translations by Jack Zipes
Very cool book, has a section on the brothers, their history, and how they got into collecting and translating all these oral folk tales and began publishing them beginning in 1812 over the next 45 years. This book has not only translations for 250 of the tales collected and published originally in German by the Grimm brothers but stories collected and never published by them as well. Also, a few of the original stories as originally collected by the brothers are printed in this book next the Grimm's published versions to illustrate how they reworked and stylized the tales they published. Plus there are 29 stories collected but never published by the Grimm brothers in this book. 279 Grimm fairy tales in all.

My Life Among the Serial Killers - Helen Morrison M.D. and Harold Goldberg.
Dr. Helen Morrison is one of the first to profile the mind of a serial killer. She was called in to work on the Richard Macek case for the prosecution and as John Wayne Gacy's psychiatrist for the defense before there was any serious academic study of serial killers. A retrospective of her work with the more than 80 serial killers she has worked with over the last 30 years. Not very impressive, this book purports to be more academic and less sensationalist, but it is pure sensationalism and Dr. Helen reports on the psychological mind set of ancient killers like Vlad Tepes and Elizabeth Bathory with equal authority as those she interviewed personally. More fascinating for its look into the process of diagnosis done in a incarceration/trial setting than on the killers themselves.

 

[KsToaDangr]

Clan Novel: Ravnos. It's book #8 in a 13 book series about vampires and werewolves.

 

[Ziltoid]

 

[Bongolation]

This is on its way:

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[Kaleidescapist]

I'm reading this:

Just finished re-reading one of my favourite books in the world:

 

[Fassa Albrecht]

I'm currently interested in Marxism and so I've been reading a lot of online philosophical journals and critiques. I've also just startedL

 

[Lucky Strike]

Hey Fassa, you might also enjoy Max Weber's book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Weber was a economist/sociologist like Marx. He kind of took Marx's theories a step further. Marx had some interesting ideas but the industrial revolution had not yet fully matured for him to really understand how his theories would play out. Weber kinda helps expand upon that type of study

 

[TJ55]

Just finished this one a few minutes ago. Thanks for the recommend Matticus. It was fantastic! Link Removed


This one arrived recently too and I'm going to start it this weekend. Not sure if it's an uninterrupted cover to cover type but we'll see. Even if I knock it out a chunk at time between other reads I'm sure it's good.