what are you currently reading?

[LSK]

I am reading:

Fiasco by Thomas Ricks
http://www.amazon.com/Fiasco-American-Military-Adventure-Iraq/dp/159420103X/sr=1-1/qid=1168038343/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/102-1430326-0425731?ie=UTF8&s=books

and

John F. Kerry: The Complete Biography By The Boston Globe Reporters Who Know Him Best (Publicaffairs Reports) (Paperback)
http://www.amazon.com/John-Kerry-Biography-Reporters-Publicaffairs/dp/B000H2N7P6/sr=1-7/qid=1168038302/ref=sr_1_7/102-1430326-0425731?ie=UTF8&s=books

[idgiehkt]

1. I was reading

"The Epidemic" by this Engel guy but I think it's biased to the right so I lost interest.

I'm starting on "Deep Ancestry" by Spencer Wells

[querelle]

2. Children Of Men

By P.D. James. I want to get a jump on the book before the movie comes out, which I believe is very soon. An interesting concept for a novel. A virus renders the human race infertile and all civilisation breaks down. I just picked it up today and will start to read it later tonight. Seems quite promising as I have heard some very good things about it.

Q

[grace0418]

4. I read it years ago in a book club. I quite enjoyed it.

I wish the movie was getting better reviews.

[querelle]

7. Is The Movie Already Out?

I thought it was slated for a late January release. At any rate, I will read the book before seeing the film.

Q

[grace0418]

11. I don't know for sure, but I have read a review that said it was cliched

Maybe they were at an advance screening?

[LibraLiz1973]

37. It came out today

cant wait to see it, I lurv me some Clive Owen

[querelle]

38. Oh Yes

He is a grade A specimen of hunk.

Q

[ghostsofgiants]

48. It opened in limited release on Christmas day.

Wide release today.

[Blue-Jay]

3. "The Possibility of an Island" by Michel Houellebecq

Good novel so far, and yes, I'm reading the English translation instead the original French. I'm about 1/3 into it.

[grace0418]

5. Dave Eggers. What is the What?

I just bought it, haven't started it yet. I'm also reading the Best American Non-Required Reading 2006, which Dave Eggers edited. I love him, can you tell?

[InternalDialogue]

28. Eggers is fantastic.

McSweeney's (though it's not all him, I know) is one of my favorite "have it within arm's reach" kind of book by the chair.

Such a great sense of humor and humanity in that man. I think You Shall Know Our Velocity was one of my favorite reads in 2005. Think it might have come out before then, but such is my reading life.

[huskerlaw]

6. State of Denial

Bob Woodward
http://www.amazon.com/State-Denial-Bush-War-Part/dp/0743272234/sr=8-1/qid=1168038950/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/104-6711072-8068737?ie=UTF8&s=books

It's taking me forever to get through because it keeps pissing me off so much that I slam the book shut and walk away.

[LSK]

10. I finished that one about 2 weeks ago

Fiasco is better but its worth finishing.

[huskerlaw]

14. Fiasco is also on my list

and thankfully I'm almost done with SoD.

I think I'll take a break in between and read something non-political though.

[trof]

22. Listened to it on audio books on recent road trip.

Kind of "suspicions confirmed".

[huskerlaw]

26. Yes, that's true

it's not like there are any earth-shattering revelations.

It's more like, "oooooh! so THAT is what happened! AHHHH. I get it now." But somehow that doesn't make it less frustrating.

[Capn Amerika]

8. An Act of State

By William Pepper

[Left Is Write]

9. Green River, Running Red by Ann Rule. I'm almost done, though -

only about 60 more pages or so.

[Broken_Hero]

12. GD nt

[LSK]

13. Im sorry

:rofl:

[Broken_Hero]

15. it happens...

:D Novel/book wise...I haven't read a book since March/April of last year. I need to spend more time reading, and less time offline, but the internet(s) are rather, addicting....:D

[LSK]

16. I know what you mean

I get caught in GD quite often too.

[WeRQ4U]

17. "Take This Job and Ship It" by North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan

Not bad. I'm not that far. I only started reading it. Easy going style so far.

[LSK]

18. thats on my list to read this year

I have so many books to read, so little time.

[Broken_Hero]

20. interesting

I've been wanting to read up on Dorgon for a few months now. I saw him on cspan back in...June or so, talking about how the Fed Government spends more money, per prisoner for their health care, than they do for American Indians. I think the Fed Govt, allots 1900 for each American Indian, while the fed govt allots 3999 per prisoner(my numbers may be off, these are approximates).

[WhollyHeretic]

19. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

by Douglas Adams

Learning Windows Server 2003

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins

[Goblinmonger]

21. Ring

the Japanese novel that the Japanese film Ring-u was based on and then we bastardized.

[WhollyHeretic]

23. I didn't realize it was based on a book

Is it any good?

[EFerrari]

24. Murder in Amsterdam and rereading collected Didion nonfiction.

[Book Lover]

25. The unfilmed script to the second Buckaroo Bonzai movie

Lotta fun!

[BarenakedLady]

27. Lisey's Story by Stephen King

Though I'm having trouble getting into it atm.

[querelle]

31. I Saw That At The Book Store Today

But didn't have time to read the summary on the dust jacket. What is it about? I'm not a huge fan of King, but I did enjoy Dolores Claiborne and his short stories alot.

Q

[BarenakedLady]

32. Not quite sure yet

It's about a novelist's wife after he dies (before the story begins). She is sorting through his things. That's about it so far. :shrug:

[LSK]

33. wait till she finds the sex threads he posted

:rofl:

[Kerrytravelers]

29. The Hounds of the Baskervilles.

I'm a mystery lover.

[InternalDialogue]

30. Fiasco is on my breakfast counter right now.

I work through a chapter each morning.

In the evening, I'm reading Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy, thanks to many glowing recommendations from DUers. I finally had to open them up.

[Dangerously Amused]

34. Your thread. On the internets. By you.

Duh.

[Shell Beau]

35. I am actually kind of scared to say because of his last book, but

I am reading Michael Crichton's Next. Very interesting look at embryonic stem cell research.

[bluethruandthru]

64. I was just looking at my overcrowded bookshelves

and thinking how I needed to do a little weeding out. I hate getting rid of books but I think I'll take my Crichton collection and donate it to the library. Good writer/die-hard righty. The last book really irritated me.

[mike_c]

36. Blood Meridian....

I somehow left it out of my Cormac McCarthy collection.

[LibraLiz1973]

39. Cross by James Patterson

http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/0316159794.01._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-dp-500-arrow,TopRight,45,-64_OU01_AA240_SH20_SCLZZZZZZZ_V34608301_.jpg

[Shell Beau]

42. Just read that one last week! His books are such easy reads which

is why I enjoy them. I just bought another today but can't remember the name right now, but it is about ALex Cross!

[SeattleGirl]

43. I love Patterson, and love Det. Cross!

I got a $50 gift card to Borders Books for Christmas.....hmmmmm. Looks like I might have to pick that one up.

[BrotherBuzz]

40. King Leopold's Ghost

by Adam Hochschild. All I can say is WOW!

A Congo lesson for Bush

An author points out similarities between King Leopold's disastrous invasion of Congo and the war in Iraq.

December 22, 2006

DEAR MR. PRESIDENT:

Your interview in the Washington Post made headlines across the country Wednesday because you continued to talk about "victory" in Iraq — a hint that you may increase the number of American troops there.

But it caught my eye for a different reason. In it (after expressing some "befuddlement" at the suggestion that you do not read books), you explained that the most recent book you read was "King Leopold's Ghost," about the plundering of Congo a century ago. This pleased me because I wrote that book.

Sometimes college history classes that read "King Leopold's Ghost" invite me in for a seminar. Before you ask Karl to call me, however, let me just say that I regret that I'm not going to be able to do that in this case. The Christmas season is a busy time, after all, and I'm going away for a while. Instead, let me just raise a few follow-up questions with you here.

First, as you now know, the long effort by King Leopold II of Belgium to bring Congo under his control was driven by his avid quest for a commodity central to industry and transportation: rubber. Does that remind you of anything?

What's more, the king justified his grab for Congo's natural resources with much talk about bringing philanthropy and Christianity to darkest Africa. Now what did that remind you of?

Leopold cleared at least $1.1 billion in today's dollars during the 23 years he controlled Congo, and his businessmen friends made additional huge sums. Much of the money flowed into companies with special royal concession rights to exploit the rain forest. Final question, for extra credit: Do those companies remind you of anything? If you mentioned Halliburton or DynCorp, you're right again.

As a reader of history, you must have been interested, I'm sure, in something else in the Congo story: the case of another world leader facing his own Abu Ghraib scandal.

As you noticed, Mr. President, King Leopold II was a master of public relations. He was really his own Karl Rove — which saved money on staff salaries at the royal palace in Brussels. For years the press at home and abroad dutifully praised his efforts to bring "civilization" to Africa; a whole shipload of Belgian journalists went to Congo in 1898 to enthuse about the opening of a new railroad.

But, like you, he got into big trouble through photographs. These were mainly taken by a British missionary named Alice Harris, and they showed Congolese being whipped, chained as hostages and with their hands cut off by Leopold's soldiers. Through the efforts of a British journalist named Edmund Dene Morel, whom the king liked about as much as you like Seymour Hersh, these photos were splashed on front pages all over the world.

ARE THERE OTHER similarities between your situation and Leopold's? That's for you to decide. I hope you don't end up like him. Statues of Leopold in Congo have long been toppled, one in Belgium was recently mutilated, and streets named after him there are having their names changed. And all this despite the fact that his family remains in the monarchy — something that may well be the case for your family here as well.

If you send those additional troops to Iraq and don't swiftly withdraw the ones now there, I suspect that even the efforts of the twins, when their turns in the Oval Office come, or of Jeb's kids, when they get there, will not be enough to stave off a similar judgment on you 100 years from now. It's true that you've not slashed the population of Iraq in half, as Leopold and those who immediately followed him did in Congo, but that's small comfort.

For your next assignment, Mr. President, how about a different sort of reading? Ask Laura to stuff your Christmas stocking with books about people who've had the courage to change their minds. One former tenant of the house you live in, Lyndon B. Johnson, entered politics as a traditional segregationist but ended up doing more for civil rights than any American president of his century. Another, Dwight D. Eisenhower, spent half his life in the U.S. military but gave us (a little late) an eloquent warning about the military-industrial complex.

Another ex-military man, Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler of the U.S. Marine Corps, won the Medal of Honor twice, but then ended up denouncing the oil companies and agribusiness corporations he realized that he had been fighting for in U.S. interventions in Central America.

History is filled with such people, and I wish you many inspiring hours reading about them. And, in the coming two years, I hope you'll act on their example.

Adam Hochschild

[SeattleGirl]

41. "Dreams From My Father", Barack Obama

It's quite good.

[LostinVA]

44. Mysteries of the Middle Ages: The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Euro

by Thomas Cahill

[YankeyMCC]

45. The Aeneid

[cwydro]

46. I'm on an Everest kick

and so I just read The Climb by Anatoli Boukreev and am now rereading Into Thin Air. Just checked out a book from the library today on the Mallory/Irvine expedition of 1924. Some people think he beat Hillary to the top.

Also rereading Out of Africa, thanks to the Africacam, lol.

[SeattleGirl]

47. Into Thin Air is a great book.

If you like books about climbing expeditions, I would suggest "Annapurna", about an all-female climbing group.

[cwydro]

49. Hey thanks!

Yes, I had read Into Thin Air some time ago and then recently I think it was Maddy McCall with an Everest thread and someone mentioned that The Climb gave a different perpective. So now I can't stop. Reading Into Thin Air again...Thanks for the tip...heading over to Amazon here soon...

[wildhorses]

50. ashamed to admit to reading a trashy novel by julia quinn

the last in the series of eight

[likesmountains 52]

51. We wish to inform you that tomorrow we will be killed with our families

...stories from Rwanda. Chilling..

[otherlander]

52. My Century

by Gunter Grass. One short story about each year, 1900-2000, centering around Germany. Fiction, but it gives a pretty acurate picture of the 20th century through the eyes of ordinary people. Interesting, but kind of depressing.

[sniffa]

53. "the sinner's guide to the evangeLicaL right"

great book! i'm on my second time through (i read constantLy, but i usuaLLy read the same coLLection of books over and over - damn my overdue Library fines!!!) and this time i thoroughLy enjoying the ted haggard chapter. :rofl:

[SPKrazy]

54. ...

State of Denial by Bob Woodward

the first Castaneda book, Tales of don Juan

[Danger Mouse]

55. I just finished 'Martian Chronicles'

by Ray Bradbury and 'Of Mice and Men' by John Steinbeck...my first time reading this fantastic book...
Now, I have to finish this big collection of Bradbury stories that I made it more than halfway through...

[EvolveOrConvolve]

56. One With Nineveh by Ehrlich & Ehrlich

[NNadir]

57. I don't actually know how to read, but I'm planning on doing so soon.

[femmocrat]

58. State of Denial

It's slow-going, though.

[stuntcat]

59. Man Without A Country

I read it yestaday in one 6-hr plane ride :o

[bluethruandthru]

65. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[peacefreak]

60. Upstairs book--Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

downstairs books--You Suck--Chris Moore
The Cell--Stephen King

[MichiganVote]

61. The Making Of The President/Theodore White

[gr8dane_daddy]

62. Audacity of Hope

by Sen. Barack Obama

[orleans]

63. imperial life in the emerald city (inside iraq's green zone) by

rajiv chandrasekaran

it's very good.

[TOhioLiberal]

66. I'm reading...

Fiction:

Brother Odd by Dean Koontz

Non-Fiction:

The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins