What are you reading over the holidays?

[ashling]

All the reading I do these days is pretty much for graduate school.

I just finished CONSCIENCE OF A LIBERAL by P. Krugman and SUPERCAPITALISM by R. Reich

I just started CREATED UNEQUAL by James K. Galbraith

all are excellent

[leftyclimber]

1. I'm rereading Dune for the zillionth time.

I don't get to read a lot of "don't have to read it" stuff during most of the year. Haven't read Dune in a while. Jessica and Paul just got kidnapped by the Harkonnens. I know what's going to happen next.

It doesn't matter. I'm hanging out with an old friend.

[harmonicon]

3. that's why I asked for the new DVD version of Dune for Christmas

I can watch it a million times and still enjoy it (and don't give me crap about how it's not such-and-such that the book is - I know. One is a movie, and one is a book).

[leftyclimber]

23. The David Lynch one or the miniseries?

There's no way to "reproduce" on film a book that goes on in people's heads as much as that one does. It's interesting to see how people interpret it.

[harmonicon]

36. David Lynch

I saw bits of the miniseries, but I didn't like it. A friend was telling me that someone is making a new movie of it, but I'm skeptical.

It can be very interesting to see how people interpret books into film. I also really love "Blade Runner", even though it covers only about 10% of the concepts from the book, and screws with the story of that 10% an awful lot - doesn't matter.

[Aristus]

2. I finally cracked David McCullough's "John Adams". Astonishingly well-written.

Definitely deserving of its Pulitzer Prize. :thumbsup:

[intheflow]

11. That's how I felt reading his book on the Jonestown Flood.

Took me forever to start it, but once I did I couldn't put it down. So now you're going to make me read his Adams book. Oh, how I suffer!

:P

[femmocrat]

44. That's JOHNstown.

Not Jonestown.

[harmonicon]

4. nothing yet

I brought two books home with me, and didn't even crack into either of them.

Cornelius Cardew Reader (a collection of his writings, and writings about him)

and

Against the Day, by Thomas Pynchon - I planned to read it over the last Christmas holiday, got a few hundred pages into it, and haven't picked it up since. I have to start over now... who knows when that will happen now.

[Chan790]

10. Against The Day...

take notes. I started reading it, got about 300 pages in and realized I didn't remember who the people being talked about were and had to start over so I could take notes and keep things straight.

[harmonicon]

13. I've read some of his other novels...

I find that you have to read them quite quickly - a few dozen or hundred pages every day, otherwise you'll lose track. What is a little paradoxical is that I often find that it will take a long time to get through a bit of it, because I'm thinking so much about how these things are or possibly could be related, but if you sit on it for too long... however, I also find that I can just breeze through passages as if I were reading stream-of-consciousness poetry; the language is so beautiful.

Have you read his other books? So far, Mason & Dixon is my favourite - incredibly strange, but also deeply emotional.

[Chan790]

25. I'm working on Gravity's Rainbow.

I just started it...pretty good so far.

[harmonicon]

37. it's fantastic

That's what got me hooked on Pynchon. I'd heard about that book for years, and one summer when I was unemployed, there it was sitting on my girlfriend's bookshelf. A month or so later, my life was changed (not too greatly, but a little, none the less).

[blueraven95]

5. I'm reading "The Feminine Mystique" by Betty Friedan

and oh lord, am I furious. At the things I am reading and at the fact that no one ever taught it to me. I'm 26...I can't be expected to know or remember this point in history without someone teaching it.

In college I took at least a half dozen American history courses which should have taught it...including US history of the 20th century, US history through political protest, and The 60s. I also took women studies courses, women in film and the intellectual heritage classes (courses designed to give a solid grounding in all of western thought, but were in reality awful). I also went to an all female public school - you would have thought someone along the way would have made us read this. Hell, it should be required reading for everyone.

For me it isn't just explaining women and society on a large scale, it's giving me an amazing amount of insight into my mother and grandmother's choices and decisions, both those in the past and the ones they make today...and I wish I wasn't obtaining that understanding so late in the game.


Sorry, didn't mean to rant...everyone around me has been hearing it for the last few days. :rant:


I guess I'm saying it's an excellent book.

[intheflow]

12. I totally felt the same way when I first encountered it.

Never read the whole thing, but have read parts of it along with with some of her other stuff, plus I heard her give a lecture at Smith College once (her alma mater) and also giving speeches at a couple of different reproductive rights rallies.

I can't remember how I first encountered it, but at the time I was a high school drop out, stay-at-home mom with a two-year-old. Maybe I read something in Time or Newsweek, or saw something on PBS--I was a drop out but I have been a news junkie and bookworm my entire life. Anyway, she described the depression I was feeling as a homemaker to a "t". I'd say she changed my life, because it wasn't long after that that I got my GED and enrolled in the local community college so that I could do something other than live the marginalized and lonely life of a stay-at-home teenage mother. You are so right, it's vital history, and I can't believe they never taught it to you in your women's studies courses. That's criminal!

I'm glad you're finding it now, though. :hug:

[blueraven95]

16. I'm glad it changed your life

I think it would probably change a lot of people's lives if they were told to read it. :hug:


And I'm glad I'm reading it now. And you are right, those women studies courses were criminal...but that's not news to me. It wasn't until a year or two out of college that I stumbled, by accident, on some real gender theory discourse and I felt vindicated, because I had known that the women studies courses I'd taken were a load of bull and I suddenly had proof.

Sorry, I'm on a bit of a rampage about this. It's what happens when I'm on vacation - I don't know quite what to do with myself so I start thinking a whole lot more.

[tigereye]

15. that's amazing - it was revolutionary to a lot of women when it came out

Kind of sad that it isn't read more frequently now... but better late than never!


:thumbsup:


A lot of the feminist "mothers" are gone now, all the more reason to read books from that time.

[justabob]

6. I have been on a binge

for a couple of months.... about 6 books on the Nazis (and/or surviving the Nazis) and the eastern Front. The only two titles I can think of right now: Moscow 1941 and A Life in Secrets. I reread 4 of the Harry Potter books, the Bourne Trilogy books and now I am reading Agatha Christie :)

Not much from the current bestseller list, but it keeps me from going completely insane.

[BarenakedLady]

7. Just finished "Just After Sunset" by Stephen King

Bunch of short stories. I got it on Christmas morning and finished today. Twas good.

[libodem]

8. Deception Point

by Dan Brown. I read, Demons and Angles, (which was a page turner) just prior and hopped on this one when I saw it at a second hand store.

[LynzM]

9. Billy Bryson's 'Shakespeare' and 'Outliers' by Malcolm Gladwell

The Bryson was fun entertainment for a couple short afternoons.

Outliers is fabulous, can't wait to pick it back up when I'm not actively reading it. I'm almost done, and will be rather disappointed (and seeking out his other books) when I'm done.

[tigereye]

14. a tai chi classic

a mystery or 2 (Ann Purser) and just finished the new Reginald Hill

and Chekhov.

[intheflow]

17. Well, after not reading anything new for over three years

(long story, suffice to say I was totally burnt out on reading from 8 straight years of undergrad and graduate school, combined with a very stressful and depressing home and work life), I have read 23 books since December 1st. Honestly! I've been averaging almost a book a day! It's all brain candy, including a number of young adult novels (which I often prefer to adult fiction). I tell ya, I have to stop reading ghost stories and mysteries because I can't put them down which means I'll read them all in one sitting, up until as late (or as early) as 4 a.m.

So here's the list of what I've read since the beginning of December:

Meg Cabot

The entire 1-800-WHERE-R-YOU series (young adult):
When Lightning Strikes
Code Name Cassandra
Safe House
Sanctuary
Missing You

The entire Mediator series (young adult):
Shadowland
The Ninth Key
Reunion
Darkest Hour
The Haunting
Twilight

Her adult fiction:
Size 12 Is Not Fat
The Boy Next Door
Boy Meets Girl
She Went All the Way

Heather Graham

Haunted
Ghost Walk
The Dead Room

Other books

Anna Quindlen: Good Dog. Stay.
K.K. Beck: A Hopeless Case
Kurt Vonnegut: Slaughterhouse Five (re-read)
Jane Austen: Sense and Sensibility (re-read)
Julie Hearn: The Minister's Daughter (young adult)

Currently Reading

John Greene: An Abundance of Katherines (young adult)
Mark Doty: Dog Years: A Memoir

Currently checked out of the library pending time to read

J.A. Jance: Bark M for Murder
Tom Holt: Little People
Heather Graham: Deadly Night
John Green: Looking for Alaska (young adult)
Mary Stewart: Thornyhold
Meg Cabot: Avalon High (young adult)
Meg Cabot: Big Boned
Webster Campbell: Lost in Austen: Create Your Own Jane Austen Adventure
Dean R. Koontz: Bliss to You

[Adsos Letter]

19. I haven't read ANY of those...

but I am glad that you are finding the time to enjoy them. :D

There are just too many books...no, wait...there just isn't enough time.

Every time I look at the bibliography of a particularly good history or philosophy work, I get overwhelmed with a desire to read them all... :rofl:

[intheflow]

22. Like I said, it's all fluff.

Like cotton candy for the brain, mostly doses of paranormal mysteries mixed in with chick lit. Kind of embarrassing stuff, really. :blush:

Of course, during the eight years of my over-education I was reading stuff like Michael Parenti's "Democracy for the Few"; Chomsky's "Year 501: The Conquest Continues"; "Critical Race Theory," edited by Richard Delgado; France Moore Lappe's "World Hunger"; Karen Armstrong's "The Battle for God"; and other light-hearted tomes. All my class work through that time was equally heavy reading. My brain was so full when I graduated, I think it's really taken all this time just to start to digest and integrate what I learned, never mind relax and read again for pleasure.

BTW, in another thread you mentioned you're reading the Transcendentalists? I did a whole independent study on the Transcendentalists! :rofl: But if you're interested in religious philosophy and ethics, may I recommend reading some James Luther Adams? He taught at the Harvard Divinity School in the mid-twentieth century. Definitely the greatest (and perhaps only) 20th century UU theologian, he most notably influenced Chris Hedges who wrote War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and shared a Pulitzer with a team of NY Times writers in 2002 writing about global terrorism. Here are my favorites of among JLA's collected writings and lectures:

Voluntary Associations: Socio-cultural Analyses and Theological Interpretation. Edited by J. Ronald Engel. Chicago: Exploration Press, 1986.
The Essential James Luther Adams: Selected Essays and Addresses. Edited with introduction by George Kimmich Beach. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1998.

His voluntary associations stuff is particularly interesting, having grown, in part, out his direct experiences traveling in Nazi Germany at the beginning of Hitler's rein.

[Adsos Letter]

27. My reading on Transcendentalism has been more about its influence...

...on American thought and culture, something I hadn't been aware of until I went through the study on it. I will check out James Luther Adams' work; I have Chris Hedges' American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America, and I am very interested in tasting the thought that influenced him. :)

Hey, no need for :blush: . When I really want to do some relaxed, just-for-pleasure reading I usually go to Jean Sheperd's books, or Tom Clancy's first two novels, or some of Mark Twain's short stories. It is a different and necessary (in my view) pleasure than reading simply for knowledge. :D

I know what you mean about digestion and integration. It is only as I go further in the History studies that things I "learned" years ago actually begin to integrate themselves into a larger pattern.

What was your primary field of study? Sounds like it may have been some form of Sociology.

BTW: I read about your angst regarding an upcoming date. Go be yourself, enjoy yourself, and be safe. I think you sound like someone with a lot to offer. :thumbsup:

[Adsos Letter]

18. "All the reading I do these days is pretty much for graduate school."

Same here...so I took a rest from it for a couple of weeks over the winter break, although An Essay on Crimes and Punishment by Beccaria is cooing softly to me from the bookcase...

I choose to ignore it a bit longer, and am re-reading Orwell's Homage to Catalonia and Down and Out in Paris and London.

[ashling]

45. Here is my "assigned" reading list for this semester

A few of which I have already read, some for myself,some for this same professor (3 classes, all under the same prof- one of which is actually Maymester)

John Adams, David McCullough (read)
Alexander Hamilton, Ron Chernow (reading this one now)
Founding Brothers, Joseph Ellis
The Failure of the Hounding FathersBruce Ackerman
Slavery and the Founders, Finkleman (read)
James Madison,Ralph Ketcham (read)
The Hemingses of Monticello, Annette Gordon-Reed
New York Burning,Jill Lepore
Jefferson's Lost Cause, Roger G. Kennedy (read)
Kingfish, Richard White
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain (read)
In the Spirit of Crazy Horse, Peter Matthiessen
Shades of Hiawatha, Alan Trachtenberg
Custerology, Michael A. Elliot
and probably a couple of others I can't remember right now ...his courses also include a plethora of handouts from various sources

[Robeson]

20. The Ruin of the Roman Empire by James J. O'Donnell....

...a very good read. Totally relevant to modern times. I especially like his take on immigration. Lou Dobbs is probably having seizures over this book.

[rockymountaindem]

21. Unequal Democracy by Larry Bartels

I'd recommend it, I'm learning a lot.

[NewJeffCT]

24. Holly the Christmas Fairy

with my daughter.

I don't have much time for reading for myself, though I have been flipping through "Svimozhia: The Ancient Isle" recently.

[TZ]

26. Some Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett.

"Witches Abroad" at the moment.:)

[hobbit709]

28. Just finished "Thud"

[TZ]

30. Did you like it?

I also just finished "Good Omens" which was hilarious...

[hobbit709]

33. Yep.

All his books are hilarious. The Light Fantastic, Witches Abroad and The Last Continent are my faves.

[spinbaby]

29. Harry Potter

Again.

I'm in book four.

Also, I've got "Kanji in Mangaland" going on the side but that's more browsing than reading.

[applegrove]

31. Which did you like the most? How about the Created Unequal.. was it any good?

[ashling]

47. I liked them all and am writing a review now for

one of my professors - it will be the basis of a more extensive paper for another professor
an possibly a thesis

They all offer their own pespectives on inequality and political polarization. I really liked Krugman, Reich says a lot of stuff that gets me upset with him, but he makes a good point: we are not having the right conversations, I really, really like what I have read of Galbraith, but I am stil reading his book. They all have a lot of common ground, but, as I say, present their own perspectives I think I liked Supercapitalism least of the three.

[applegrove]

50. I loved Krugman's book.

[ashling]

51. Me too

I also love Galbraith's book - I really want to read his new one,The Predator State: How Conservatives Abandoned the Free Market and Why Liberals Should Too

[applegrove]

53. I want to read that one too. I cannot wait for a pile of new books to come out that

tell it like it is under the Obama administration.

[JitterbugPerfume]

32. I have been reading lit of the middle ages

Beouwolf, The Romance of the Rose,The Divine Comedy , Canterbury tales etc


yes< I am taking a course and it is pretty interesting

[mvd]

34. Tales Of Beedle The Bard

Only one more tale to go. Rowling has a talent for this; perhaps she should pursue it.

Next is the book Marley And Me.

[Forkboy]

35. World War Z:An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks.

So far, so very cool.

[Blue_In_AK]

38. I just bought Family of Secrets

which I'm really looking forward to.

[mainegreen]

39. The 'His Dark Materials' trilogy. Got it for christmas.

:D

[bif]

40. "Fall Down on your Knees"

[Rising Phoenix]

41. just read Letter to My Daughter today

next I will finish Women, Trauma, and Visual Expression..... I also just got the new Suicide Girl book and Erotic Painings volume 2

[hippywife]

42. I'm re-reading

The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. I read it a long time ago, before she became one of my very favorite authors. Have read all of her other stuff since and came across my old copy of this one last week.

[femmocrat]

43. "Animal, Vegetable, Miracle"

I am getting all psyched for spring planting. I want to increase the garden and plant some asparagus and silverbeet chard! :)

[whistler162]

46. DUH.... this message!

how else do you think I answered it.

GEEZ!!

Actually just rereading a J. A. Jance mystery novel, Birds of Prey.

[peacefreak]

48. Re-reading an old one

Gift Upon the Shore by M K Wren. Written in 1991, eerily prophetic of these times. Violence, out of control viruses, religious fanatics & nuclear winter. I mean, really. How can you go wrong with a book like this. What drew me back to it was the main character took it upon herself to save as many books as she could for future generations.
Next up is Loving Frank by Nancy Horan

[Jamastiene]

49. DU. n/t

[Sisaruus]

52. Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein and

Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose.
So far...

[soleiri]

54. Freaking instructional manuals!!!!!11!!

}( :evilfrown: :evilgrin: :mad: :mad: :mad: :wtf: :argh: :spank: :grr: :nuke: :banghead: :banghead:





:cry:

[bluethruandthru]

55. The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb.

I'm about halfway through. So far, it's great.

[Rhythm]

56. Two books... one important, the other brain candy

David Brock's The Republican Noise Machine

and

Dan Brown's Angels and Demons

[NoPasaran]

57. "The Rise And Fall Of The American Whig Party"

Almost two hundred pages to go and the damn thing still isn't dead!

[ashling]

58. I felt that way when reading

James Madison by Ralph Ketcham. He starts out with a whole chapter on Madison's first trip to Princeton. He takes you e-v-e-r-y step of the way. Every wagon rut, every mud hole ...... and that sort of sets the pace for the whole 728 pages. Some good stuff buried in there, by GAWD! its long and tedious.

[RFKHumphreyObama]

59. I'm trying to do some research on the Kennedys for my own personal interest

So I've dragged out some of my old books
An Unfinished Life: John F Kennedy 1917-1963 by Robert Dallek
A Thousand Days: John F Kennedy in the White House by Arthur Schlesinger Jr.
President Kennedy by Richard Reeves
Robert Kennedy: His Life by Evan Thomas