So... What are you reading? (Volume V)

That happens a lot more than it should, too.

I've been reading a lot about classical music and things like that. Just finished this...




Which was pretty damn good, and I just started this...

 

I plan on reading that soon.

 

A Personal Stand: Observations and Opinions from a Freethinking Roughneck, by Trace Adkins

 

I'm reading Seabiscuit. I never saw the movie, so I figured I should read the book first and then watch it.

 

Highly recommended. Adams is a pretty decent writer. I've read memoirs by journalists and poets that aren't this well-written.

Up next:

 

Halsey's Typhoon: The True Story of a Fighting Admiral, an Epic Storm, and an Untold Rescue, by Robert Drury


Very good account of a story I had never heard before.

 

I just finished:



I just started:

 

I just finished the above pictured book and it was fantastic. A 200ish page biography of "The Frontier Gandhi" as he was called by his contemporaries. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan was a Muslim Pashtun from what is now the Northwest Frontier Province in Pakistan (though he lived in exile in Kabul, Afghanistan for several years.) He died when 98 years old and spent 52 of those years in prison or in exile. He worked closely with Gandhi for nonviolence in the Indian independence movement and also fought against partition. Fascinating book about a fascinating man I knew nothing about but that was a significant force in Indian independence.

I'm currently reading...

 

Except, not the kindle edition.

 

Geek Love, an old favorite I put on the syllabus of a Contemporary American Fiction class this semester. Man, it's good.

 

Readable memoir for those who find counterinsurgency interesting.

 

just finished this... still taking it all in... I instantly thought of a cross between Samuel Beckett's worlds and Stephen King's Dark Tower series...

think i will start this tonight:

 

I read (some of) that for some American Studies class back in undergrad though I don't remember the class name. Like most college students, I remember resisting reading anything forced on me (though I do have to credit a Japanese History class with making me love Mishima's work) and I probably only skimmed it. Anyway, I've seen a ton of people bring this up over the years, so I maybe I should go back and read it.

 

I really like his and Louise Erdrich's books.

 

Yep. You won't be sorry if you do.

 

I decided to go on a "recently deceased great American authors kick."

I just finished:


And I'm currently reading:


I'll probably re-read the entire Rabbit series, then get back to Vonnegut after that.

 

Then on to Fear and Loathing, Nocturnes, Bob Dylan: Chronicles, and a few others.

 

For a lighter read from another author, try Sacred Clowns from the recently departed Tony Hillerman.

 

I just bought this one to get another perspective on this time period before teaching it to an 11th grade US History class. I like the way it is presented with no commentary so the reader can form his own conclusions.

 

Escape From the Deep: The Epic Story of a Legendary Submarine and Her Courageous Crew, by Alex Kershaw.

The story of the USS Tang, a WWII sub that was the scourge of the Japanese in the war.

Ironically, it was a defective torpedo that looped around and sunk the sub! A number of men managed to escape the sub from 180 feet down, but only 9 survived.

 

Good call, Hillerman's stuff is great.