What Are You Reading?

[pointman]

I just finished

From Publishers WeeklyWhat do you get when you mix a couple of booze-guzzling, Valium-addled, 20-something slackers from urban America with centuries-old sectarian hatred and a dubious war? Well, you get this alternately lame, alternately compelling tale from the first year after the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. At loose ends, T-shirt merchants (selling "Yankees suck" at Fenway) Lemoine and Neumann decide to head out to Iraq by way of Israel. Having passed on an opportunity to go to Baghdad earlier in the war???"During Iraq's looting, the thought of loading up a stolen Lamborghini with Persian rugs and Baathist booty had crossed our minds. Stupid, I know"???these scalawags quickly find themselves in the middle of the Green Zone in Baghdad, scamming their way into jobs managing an NGO, dodging angry mobs in Sadr City and partying with just about everybody in town. Along with the boozing ("Jeff and I awoke at the NPR house with searing hangovers from a night of booze and pills"), there's a lot of name-dropping (among many others, Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker). Not entirely without merit, the book does capture a sense of the madness of postwar Iraq. (Aug.) Was an interesting story or adventure and different perspective from the inside. A quick read but now I'm looking for what's next and I'm thinking I might want it to be some more nonfiction but I don't know.Strutters come with the suggestions!

 

[bassie]

 

[HarveyCanal]

Don't Call it a Comeback (a re-read)...

I also just picked up a book about Willie Stargell called "Out of Left Field" that looks

Can't wait to start that one...

 

[soulmarcosa]

The old translation, but..

I just read this passage last night and it's definitely one of the most affecting similes I've experienced in awhile:

"Before the enemies who surrounded him could be driven off, a spear was buried just below Kukubenko's heart. He sank into the arms of the Cossacks who caught him, and his young blood flowed in a stream, like precious wine brought from the cellar in a glass vessel by careless servants, who, stumbling at the entrance, break the rich flask. The wine streams over the ground and the master, hastening up, tears his hair having reserved it in order that if God should grant him, in his old age, to meet again the comrade of his youth, they might over it recall together former days when a man enjoyed himself otherwise and better than now. Kukubenko cast his eyes around, and said, "I thank God that it has been my lot to die before your eyes, comrades. May they live better who come after us than we have lived; and may our Russian land, beloved by Christ, flourish forever!" and his young spirit fled."

Also reading this on work lunch breaks:

And this in the bathroom at home:

Confessions of a cultist: ON THE CINEMA - 1955/1969 by Andrew Sarris

 

[m_dejean]

A friend of mine lent it to me. I'm only 1/4 through it, and I was told that it kind of loses it's focus later on, but so far I find it really enjoyable.
What's up with that ugly cover though?

 

[keithvanhorn]

I just finished

Focus of the book is on Lincoln's cabinet, which as the title alludes to, was made up of people who ran against him in the 1860 election. You get a good sense of Lincoln as a man and the tremendous amount of weight he carried on his shoulders. Made me want to learn more about him. I'd recommend it. Its not a slow read either.

I am a few chapters into Isaacson's biography of Benjamin Franklin. So far, so good. I tried reading this a few years back and didnt get very far, so I'm listening to it on my ipod.

 

[CousinLarry]

I have been reading the wall street journal everyday since my wife started getting it for one of her classes. I feel like I may be turning into Saba....

for real though, their op ed section isn't even worthy of lining the cat box.

 

[iron_monkey]

 

[Tabasko]

about a journalist in the middle-east. The cover picture pretty much says it all.

 

[DocMcCoy]

Recently finished these;

An astonishing and at times barely believable account of the heights of incompetence which characterised the short life of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, and it will make you hair curl. I'd be surprised to see even the most trenchant supporter of the Iraq war try to defend some of the shit Rajiv Chandrasekaran documents in this.

A novel based on a very brief period in English football during the mid-1970s, so it'll therefore mean very little to most of you. It's a fictionalisation of the 44 days in 1974 during which one of the English game's legendary figures, Brian Clough, held the manager's job at Leeds United, then the current English League Champions. Even if you've no interest in football, it's worth a look, as it's superbly written. If you are a football fan, and you've any familiarity with the events and the characters involved, then it's essential reading.

 

[pointman]

I have been reading the wall street journal everyday since my wife started getting it for one of her classes. I feel like I may be turning into Saba....

for real though, their op ed section isn't even worthy of lining the cat box.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the WSJ either. But I highly suggest reading the Financial Times. Nothing like the journal, it's more a misleading name as it's mostly international news. Good Op Ed too.

 

[VeeEight]

The books talks about the history of sugar as well as the impact it has had on the world and our health. I had always been ineterested in the chemical effects and social history behind sugar. There are a lot of boring chapters (for me, at least), but the bulk of the book is definitely interesting.

 

[DrJoel]

I'm actually not done what i was reading the last time one of these popped up. But once i finish Kitchen Confidential (20 pages or so left)...I'll be moving on to:

And then taking my ass directly to Mark Twain to be then followed by my main man Dylan Thomas. I usually read something from him during the winter and always look forward to it.

 

[yeahdef]

Zodiac by Robert Graysmith
My Symbolic Processing class in computer science is attempting to decode one of the previously undecoded messages the zodiac killer would send police and the media.

 

[pppp]

Oh man...that's my favourite book of all times. I even have a half sleeve on my left arm dedicated to the scene where Bandini is fighting the crabs on the pier. That book is tattooed on me.

What do you think of it?

 

[CousinLarry]

I have been reading the wall street journal everyday since my wife started getting it for one of her classes. I feel like I may be turning into Saba....

for real though, their op ed section isn't even worthy of lining the cat box.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the WSJ either. But I highly suggest reading the Financial Times. Nothing like the journal, it's more a misleading name as it's mostly international news. Good Op Ed too.

I really don't mind the WSJ reporting, obviously they focus on business but that is their readership so it is understandable. the non op ed sections have some very solid reporting.

 

[dextah]

japanese tales by/translated by royell tyler

 

[Gamble]

Just Read

Why I didn't read this in high school is a mystery to me.

Just re-read this. One of the most interesting books ever. Super-highly-califradgilistically recommended.

 

[CousinLarry]

I will have to check for this. I love their beer.

 

[pppp]

I've been devouring all of those "new intellectual athiest" books. Right now, I'm on this one:

Which I'm really enjoying, but not as much as:

And I posted a Christopher Hitchens appreciation thread which no one responded to, so I'll post up the same clip again here to bask in his awesomeness (of being a really entertaining jerk):