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What are you currently reading?


kmt_sesh

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Thanks for the suggestion. The book Im reading on Sparta is just starting to touch on the Peloponnesian War, although it refers to it as the Athenian War since it is from Spartas perspective. I dont think it will be to in depth in it though.

I enjoyed the Spartacus miniseries also. The Spartacus rebellion was a bit different from the other slave rebellions I think. The others consisted of slaves but I believe they also had a large component of free men involved. These were trying to shake up the current order in hopes of getting more in the new one. And none had such a skillfull and charismatic leader.

Well, if in the course of your reading you find yourself engrossed by the Peloponnesian War (or Athenian War, if you're pro-Spartan), I doubt there are many books better than Donald Kagan's. This war lasted for almost thirty years so there's a hell of a lot of ground to cover, and Kagan does a marvelous job.

I've never read about any of the Servile Wars but I'd wager the Third Servile War was particularly vexing to Rome. It's amazing how much success Spartacus and his men had against professional Legions. All I really know is that it wasn't the cohesive and united front often portrayed in cinema because some of the leaders split off to fight their own fights. The miniseries Blood and Sand is really entertaining, even if it started out with too many shades of the film 300. Unfortunately the lead actor, Andy Whitfield, has had to back out due to serious health problems, so the future of the series is uncertain at best. They're launching the second season but it's actually going to be a prequel to the first season.

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Well, if in the course of your reading you find yourself engrossed by the Peloponnesian War (or Athenian War, if you're pro-Spartan), I doubt there are many books better than Donald Kagan's. This war lasted for almost thirty years so there's a hell of a lot of ground to cover, and Kagan does a marvelous job.

I've never read about any of the Servile Wars but I'd wager the Third Servile War was particularly vexing to Rome. It's amazing how much success Spartacus and his men had against professional Legions. All I really know is that it wasn't the cohesive and united front often portrayed in cinema because some of the leaders split off to fight their own fights. The miniseries Blood and Sand is really entertaining, even if it started out with too many shades of the film 300. Unfortunately the lead actor, Andy Whitfield, has had to back out due to serious health problems, so the future of the series is uncertain at best. They're launching the second season but it's actually going to be a prequel to the first season.

I was a big fan of Spartacus also , Sesh the second series has already been aired , very good as the first series was .

I will add my list of books I am reading or have just finished ...

I have just finished Matthew Reillys Jack west Series ..

The Five Greatest Warriors .

The Six Sacred Stones .

Seven Ancient Wonders .

His stories are a little far fetched but I enjoy how he infuses history with fiction .

I am currently reading two books ..

The Complete Pyramids - Mark Lehner

How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Collier and Manley

Cheers Tip.

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Well, if in the course of your reading you find yourself engrossed by the Peloponnesian War (or Athenian War, if you're pro-Spartan), I doubt there are many books better than Donald Kagan's. This war lasted for almost thirty years so there's a hell of a lot of ground to cover, and Kagan does a marvelous job.

I've never read about any of the Servile Wars but I'd wager the Third Servile War was particularly vexing to Rome. It's amazing how much success Spartacus and his men had against professional Legions. All I really know is that it wasn't the cohesive and united front often portrayed in cinema because some of the leaders split off to fight their own fights. The miniseries Blood and Sand is really entertaining, even if it started out with too many shades of the film 300. Unfortunately the lead actor, Andy Whitfield, has had to back out due to serious health problems, so the future of the series is uncertain at best. They're launching the second season but it's actually going to be a prequel to the first season.

He did have great success against the legions, who were used to defeating foes even when out numbered due to their training and discipline. His guerrilla tactics were hard for them to counter.

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I was a big fan of Spartacus also , Sesh the second series has already been aired , very good as the first series was .

I will add my list of books I am reading or have just finished ...

I have just finished Matthew Reillys Jack west Series ..

The Five Greatest Warriors .

The Six Sacred Stones .

Seven Ancient Wonders .

His stories are a little far fetched but I enjoy how he infuses history with fiction .

I am currently reading two books ..

The Complete Pyramids - Mark Lehner

How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs - Collier and Manley

Cheers Tip.

Well, I've got the second season of Blood and Sand in my Netflix queue, so maybe it won't be long until it starts appearing in my mail. I wonder what, if anything, they will do with the series next?

Ah, the venerable Collier and Manley. Anyone interested in starting to learn hieroglyphs should definitely buy How to Read Egyptian Hieroglyphs. It's a fun book and has useful exercises for the new student.

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Lol... I feel like my historical reading lately is boring compared to what other are reading. I've been reading some gardening history.

Early American Gardens "For Meate or Medicine" by Ann Leighton. Definitely a fascinating look into how our forefathers viewed plants and their needfullness. Kind of dry sometimes, but I like gardening, and I like old school stuff. We just moved, so I've been pouring over all my plant and critter books and a few years worth of old Organic gardening mags.

I've also been burning through Diane Mott Davidsons culinary mystery series. The local library happens to have the full set of it.

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Nearly finished Timeline by Michael Crichton then I am going to read the Stonehenge Legacy by Sam Christer. I usually read books by Clive Cussler, Stephen King, Matthew Reilly and Terry Brooks

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Nearly finished Timeline by Michael Crichton then I am going to read the Stonehenge Legacy by Sam Christer. I usually read books by Clive Cussler, Stephen King, Matthew Reilly and Terry Brooks

Timeline happens to be my favorite Crichton book, and I've read and liked most of them. The world lost a great writer when he died. Is this the first time you've read it? What do you think? I also rather like the movie that was based on the book.

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I just wanted to add for anyone else reading this that I'm enjoying The Buried Book, the book about the discovery and history of the Epic of Gilgamesh that I mentioned in my OP. Damrosch really brings the overall story to life, including very interesting backgrounds on the major players of the British Museum in the late nineteenth century. The discoverer and translator, George Smith, comes across as very earnest and human, a sincere and diligent scholar with no formal training but a brilliant mind. He was something like the Jean-François Champollion of the early decipherment of cuneiform. And then there's the self-serving and dubious Sir E. A. Wallis Budge, a prominent curator of his day but someone who increasingly strikes me as a scoundrel the more I learn about him.

I have to ask if anyone here is a fan of the Jack Reacher novels written by Lee Child? These are books I simply ignored for years and never even considered reading. A couple of months back, however, I was bored out of my skull as I sat in my apartment building's laundry room waiting for my clothes to dry, and I noticed a Lee Child novel someone had left in there. With nothing better to do I picked it up and started reading. And was quickly hooked. LOL Since then I've read almost all of the Jack Reacher novels, albeit in no particular order. In fact, I'm about to start another one.

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I've read One Shot by Lee Child. I rather liked it. I've also read several of David Morrell's books. Just finished The Shimmer not that long ago. I would recommend Creepers and Scavenger, especially Creepers. Excellent book. Don't read a lot of espionage type books and didn't read his Rambo series, but Morrell is also a gifted thriller novelist.

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This week is the last week of school for me, meaning testing and finals are done and over with and we've been instucted to "entertain ourselves". So, sitting in class all day is boring for me, people think I'm odd and they avoid me as if I've got the plague or something (I'm not exagerating about this, honestly) so yesterday I got a ton of local folklore books from the library to entertain myself with. Fun!

These include:

Cry of the banshee, historys and haunting in WV and the Ohio Valley By Susan Shepperd

Appalachian Gothic Tales by Jean Battlo

Coffin Hallow By Ruth Ann Musick

Telltale Lilac Bush by Ruth Ann Musick

The guide to Haunted West Virginia by Walter Gavenda

Not too terribly exciting, really but I'm enjoying them ;P

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Funny you should ask. I haven't read much in a while but right now I'm reading Our Haunted Planet

by John A. Keel. Schizophrenic little book. He starts out ridiculing ufologists and other cranks then proceeds

to go right into the same sort of arguments with the same appearance of credulousness. He states upfront that he's writing in the Fortian tradition, which is largely sarcastic, but if so, his sarcasm is much harder to recognize than Fort's.

It's a somewhat interesting read in spite of itself like so many other fringe books because he dredges up all kinds of interesting tidbits of fringe "history" I'd never heard of before. He mentions quite a few details about mainstays of early UFO lore that don't even seem to be part of the corpus anymore. Even so, he manages the usual trick of stringing together everything from ancient civilizations to paranormal phenomena to the Illuminati in one unbroken thread. I wouldn't recommend it exactly, but If nothing else, it's _almost_ worth reading if only as a sort of primer on the origins of modern fringe thinking. (and I use that term loosely.)

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What am I reading...

Anything, as long as it doesn't have "Atlantis" in the title.

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Quite a coincidence that I came across this thread tonight, as I recieved in todays mail my copy of How The Great Pyramid Was Built by Craig B. Smith. I was compelled to skip to a discussion on ramps and thought it very interesting the amount of evidence pointing that way, contrary to what I've been told.

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Quite a coincidence that I came across this thread tonight, as I recieved in todays mail my copy of How The Great Pyramid Was Built by Craig B. Smith. I was compelled to skip to a discussion on ramps and thought it very interesting the amount of evidence pointing that way, contrary to what I've been told.

Shocking when all the cards are on the table, ain't it?

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Quite a coincidence that I came across this thread tonight, as I recieved in todays mail my copy of How The Great Pyramid Was Built by Craig B. Smith. I was compelled to skip to a discussion on ramps and thought it very interesting the amount of evidence pointing that way, contrary to what I've been told.

Outstanding. As far as I'm concerned, anyone and everyone who's interested in how the Great Pyramid was built should read Smith's book. I admit some of it was a bit complex to me (I'm no engineer) but the book is extremely informative.

I hope you enjoy it, Gaden. ;)

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Quite a coincidence that I came across this thread tonight, as I recieved in todays mail my copy of How The Great Pyramid Was Built by Craig B. Smith. I was compelled to skip to a discussion on ramps and thought it very interesting the amount of evidence pointing that way, contrary to what I've been told.

If you run across a sentence containing only evidence and logic that

actually supports the contention without mentioning fill in the quarry

and cliff face I'll be very surprised. I'm also extremely interested in

hearing it since no one has brought it forth yet.

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Well, till now , there has been no book on geyser powered Pyramid Construction... :no::ph34r:

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Do you all really read 1/4 of a book then start reading another one? Then stop and start reading another one??? Everyone seems to be 'reading' 10 books at a time :)

I am reading Saigon Express atm. Last book was classic Wilbur Smith, River God. Love Taita!

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Not reading atm, because I don't really read, find it difficult for my eyes, even with glasses. But one of the books I read and love in secondary school was The Hunting of Shadroth. It was about a collosal shadowy figure that appeared in a sloped green plains/valley where a clan of people lived. It appeared shortly after a boy drew a picture of it accidentally, and so he was accused of summoning it, and was sent to destroy it, as it was killing the cattle.

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Do you all really read 1/4 of a book then start reading another one? Then stop and start reading another one??? Everyone seems to be 'reading' 10 books at a time :)

I am reading Saigon Express atm. Last book was classic Wilbur Smith, River God. Love Taita!

I read one for fun and the rest as reference for a work I started on (but haven't written a single letter yet), that is why it is 10 at once.

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I'm working through Dan Simmons' Hyperion series for about the 10th time. If you haven't read this one, trust me, it's one of the most conceptually intriguing sci fi series in the last 30 years.

Newer stuff....

Finished The Warded Man and Desert Spear, both of which are fun, but the author's near obsessive focus on sex gets tiresome. A little is good, alot getting to the pervy point. Also read Because They Hate, an Afghan woman's perspective on islamic fundamentalists. Her life was just brutal.

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I've read One Shot by Lee Child. I rather liked it. I've also read several of David Morrell's books. Just finished The Shimmer not that long ago. I would recommend Creepers and Scavenger, especially Creepers. Excellent book. Don't read a lot of espionage type books and didn't read his Rambo series, but Morrell is also a gifted thriller novelist.

One Shot was really good. I believe that's the one that's under contract right now to become a movie. Maybe. Perhaps. You know how those things go. The Reacher novel I'm reading right now is called Bad Luck and Trouble, and I'm enjoying it. Then again I've enjoyed them all. Hey, I know it's not exactly the world's most brilliant literature but I think Lee Child can weave an excellent story that keeps you guessing.

I'm familiar with David Morrell but actually haven't read any of his books, that I can recall. However, I really enjoy espionage novels or political thrillers or whatever the genre is called these days. One of my favorite authors is Vince Flynn, with his Mitch Rapp stories. Pretty intense stuff. I used to be a huge Tom Clancy fan, and even though Clancy is starting to (trying to) make a comeback, personally I think Flynn has well and truly supplanted him.

Anyone here ever read any of Stephen Hunter's novels about a good ol' boy named Bob Lee Swagger? He's a renowned sniper from the Vietnam War who can't seem to leave his old profession behind; then again, the bad guys usually push him into it. The character Swagger comes from Arkansas, and I lived there for a couple of years, so that's what attracted me at first. The books are very good. One of Hunter's Swagger novels was adapted for a movie called Shooter not long ago. It stars Mark Wahlberg and aside from some arguably necessary plot changes to "modernize" the story, the movie is pretty faithful to the book and pretty damn exciting to watch.

I appreciate everyone's contributions and I hope more will come. :)

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I read one for fun and the rest as reference for a work I started on (but haven't written a single letter yet), that is why it is 10 at once.

LOL I envy you, that. Reading ten books at once? I'm lucky to have the time to be reading two at a time; if I'm lucky, maybe three.

Maybe that's for the best. Were I to try to read that many books at one time, I'd likely get them confused and start thinking Sumerians built the Great Pyramid during the Peloponnesian War which was fought between Julius Caesar and Hammurabi near the first cataract of the Nile...

You get the idea. On the plus side, even in that state of mind, I would still not introduce aliens or Atlanteans into my befuddled memory. No one goes that far off the deep end, right? :rolleyes:

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Shooter was a good movie. And marky mark is an excellent actor. I should pick up that book.

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