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What are you currently reading?


kmt_sesh

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I thought it might be worthwhile to start a lighter thread. In a couple of other forums to which I've belonged, a popular ongoing discussion was about books that forum members were reading. It can be fun to learn a little about the literary interests of some of the people you've engaged in discussion or debate. I'll begin.

I'm currently reading The Buried Book, by David Damrosch. It's about the nineteenth-century excavation of the Assyrian tablets at Ninevah in present-day Iraq, the subsequent translations of them, the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and what this great tale meant to ancient Mesopotamia as well as to us today. I just started The Buried Book last night and already am liking it.

I also always try to read a book of fiction because I enjoy a good novel as much as anyone else, so right now I'm also reading one of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's novels called The Cabinet of Curiosities. Well, in truth, it's more like I'm re-re-re-reading the book. This is one of the earlier books in the Agent Pendergast series, and one of my favorites. Preston and Child are a terrific writing team.

I hope others will choose to take part and share their reading interests with us. I like to link books to internet retailers like Amazon, as I did with the above selections, but there's no rule about that. Feel free just to share what you're reading.

Jump in! :tu:

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I love the Preston-Childs books. I have 9 of the Agent Pendergast books, only missing the last one. I forget the title but it's about how Pendergast lost his wife. I need to get it. I also read Riptide. Reliquary was awesome. Loved Brimstone too.

Currently I'm rereading Journey Into Darkness by John Douglas, the FBI profiler. As soon as I finish that I'll start reading Strange Highways by Dean Koontz, another of my favorite writers.

I also found two books about the museum exhibits I saw that I told you about. One is called Cleopatra's Palace and was foreworded by Franck Goddio, who did much of the excavating. I also have one called Treasures Of Tutankhamun that lists Field Museum Of Natural History and The University Of Chicago as contributors.

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I just finished a book called "The Spartacus War". About the rebbelion he started that ended ultimately with his death and the destruction of his army (although not the way it ended in the Kirk Douglas movie). Im also in the middle of a history of Sparta, and interesting subject but not the greatest book.

My all time favorite fiction would have the be "the Count of Monte Cristo"

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I'm more a Fantasy guy and am reading right now the 6th book in the Wheel of Time series, Lord of Chaos. I started on book one sometime last summer and read about 10-15 pages a day, due to family demands and need for sleep.

I also like reading some of the 1950s and 60s Sci-Fi and Fantasy novels that my dad bought way back when.

Believe it or not, I don't actually own a single supernatural based (ghosts, fairies, bigfoot, atlantis, UFOs, aliens, magic, ect...) book that is not an obvious fantasy or sci-fi novel.

Edited by DieChecker
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beowulf,http://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf&sa=U&ei=oq_ITc79HITKswa-jamHAw&ved=0CB0QFjAB&usg=AFQjCNFbQ3ZX_OHxa6WLjZXRAv4fi9XwhA top read, also have got Njal`s saga on the gohttp://www.google.co.uk/url?q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nj%25C3%25A1ls_saga&sa=U&ei=PK_ITfaRGJCLswaHscCfAw&ved=0CBAQFjAA&usg=AFQjCNFKEhBNbdPpqwV4DLBtK746GCyD0w :tu::tu::tu::tu:

Edited by maca02
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I'm currently reading The Buried Book, by David Damrosch. It's about the nineteenth-century excavation of the Assyrian tablets at Ninevah in present-day Iraq, the subsequent translations of them, the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and what this great tale meant to ancient Mesopotamia as well as to us today. I just started The Buried Book last night and already am liking it.

I'll have to look that up.

Currently... I've got a lot to work through. ^^;

I've got a number of books through this forum, but the get put on hold when I pick up something recent I want to read for the enjoymentT.

Currently reading The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, The Panic Virus by Seth Mnookin, Realm of the Pharoahs by Zahi Hawass, and I'm rereading Carl Sagan's The Pale Blue Dot

:)

Uh... Yeah.

I don't read a lot of fiction, not many fiction authors strike me right.

Two favorites are Jim Butcher, who's next book, Ghost Story is out in late June, and Steven Brust, his most recent book was Tiassa.

Most of the fantasy I like falls in Tiassa (urban or semi-urban fantasy with a mystery bent.

Edited by ShadowSot
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i am currently reading Different Seasons by my favorite author, Stephen King. i love everything he's written that i have read except cujo.

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I just finished moby dick (I was on a classic kick) I enjoyed the book yet was set back at the graphic nature of whaling. Don't think I'll ever appreciate it. But all in all a good book. Favorite character was qwekwe (sp?)Anyways, now I am re reading the douglas adams series hitchhikers guide to the galaxy, part way through so long and thanks for all the fish. The last book before moby was robinson crusoe. Excellent read. I dabbled in dante's inferno by longfellow but to be honest it kept making my eyes shut. Determined to try one last ditch effort I ... Ahem (kinda ashamed) downloaded a version onto my blackberry to listen to while at work. Libravox. Not proud but I never would have finished that one otherwise. As far as fantasy goes I do enjoy a good fantasy novel. And though it is for young adults I really enjoyed the eragon saga by christopher paolini. I heard he is coming out with a 4th and I will eventually read it after it's release. So in conclusion. Don't leave home without a towel, a guide, a dragon, or a spear. Good night.

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Interesting thread.. refreshing.. Haven't read many novels since Tony Hillerman passed away... Miss old Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn and his faithful Jim Chee.

Otherwise I'm reading an excellent analyses of the Templar rules by Simonetta Cerrini: La Revolution des Templiers. She wrote that for her PhD thesis then enlarged it to publish a more commercial version .

I'm not sure there is a English translation. I found a Spanish translation on Abebooks.com an alternative to Amazon for books that are now otherwise available. By the way Biblio.com is also another good source.

One other book I'm reading is The Cathedral Builders by Jean Guimpel and a very old book I found about the Cathedral of L'Epine. There are no author nor publisher, the cover and cover page had been ripped away, but

http://www.france-voyage.com/travel-guide/notre-dame-epine-basilica-1069.htm

.

Since I moved to Lorraine couple years back, I had the chance to visit places I just read about while in the States. Lorraine/Champagne/Ardennes has a history going back to the Culture de la Tene, and my book business allows me to visit occasionally while I'm not caring for mother.

Edited by Paracelse
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Kingsley's Concise Textbook of Neuroscience, Gatz's Essentials of Clinical Neuroanatomy , BRS Neuroanatomy, High-yield Neuroanatomy and Haines' Neuroanatomy: : An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems . :hmm:

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Kingsley's Concise Textbook of Neuroscience, Gatz's Essentials of Clinical Neuroanatomy , BRS Neuroanatomy, High-yield Neuroanatomy and Haines' Neuroanatomy: : An Atlas of Structures, Sections, and Systems . :hmm:

:unsure2: :unsure2: :unsure2: :unsure2: :unsure2::blink: :blink: :blink: :blink: Heuuuuuuu???? :cry: :cry: :cry:

way above me

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In Non fiction I am currently reading three books :

1. Friedman, Richard - Who Wrote the Bible

2. Finkelstein, Israel - The Bible Unearthed. Archaeology´s New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts

3. Armstrong, Karen - A History of God

Among Fiction reads

1. Cussler, Clive- The Jungle

2. Patterson, James - Toys

On the reading list are the following books :

Non Fiction :

1. Sand, Shlomo - The Invention of the Jewish People

2. Armstrong, Karen - The Battle for God

Fiction :

1. Though the book series is for young readers..i have liked the Ranger's Apprentice series by John Flanagan. got a few more books to read in the series.

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Lets see, printed just one book Alexander Unzicker, Vom Urknall zum Durchknall (an amusing critique aimed at the Physical Research Institutions)

My Kindle got

(first title irrelevant, my book)

Holiday with Sundae, James T. Baker

Lunch Time Surprise, Mark Stewart

Max and Maurice, William Busch

Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha'ullah

Aesthetics as Science of Expression, Benedetto Croce

Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms, Stephen Langdon

Footnotes in History (oops that one is mine too)

Edible Art and other Flash Fiction, Roberta Beach Jacobson

Die Hauptsaechlichen Theorien der Geometry, Gino Loria

La-bas, J.K. Huysmans

Histoire de la Magie, Eliphas Levi

The Handbook of Soap Making, W.H. Simmons

The Writings of Christopher Columbus.

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Lets see, printed just one book Alexander Unzicker, Vom Urknall zum Durchknall (an amusing critique aimed at the Physical Research Institutions)

My Kindle got

(first title irrelevant, my book)

Holiday with Sundae, James T. Baker

Lunch Time Surprise, Mark Stewart

Max and Maurice, William Busch

Kitab-i-Aqdas, Baha'ullah

Aesthetics as Science of Expression, Benedetto Croce

Sumerian Liturgies and Psalms, Stephen Langdon

Footnotes in History (oops that one is mine too)

Edible Art and other Flash Fiction, Roberta Beach Jacobson

Die Hauptsaechlichen Theorien der Geometry, Gino Loria

La-bas, J.K. Huysmans

Histoire de la Magie, Eliphas Levi

The Handbook of Soap Making, W.H. Simmons

The Writings of Christopher Columbus.

Isn't the Histoire de la Magie and Handbook of Soap Making kind of the same ??? :P (just kidding)

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Isn't the Histoire de la Magie and Handbook of Soap Making kind of the same ??? :P (just kidding)

Nah, the soap making is useful.... (I got it to figure out what to do with my yearly excess olive oil).

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... due to family demands and need for sleep.

same here.

Anyways, I recently finished (fantasy) Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind. Great book. I agree with first rule.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizard's_First_Rule

And I finished The fifth mountain by Paulo Coelho. Awesome book.

http://www.paulocoelho.com/en/store.php

The Fifth Mountain is Paulo Coelho's inspiring story of the Biblical prophet Elijah. In the ninth century B.C., the Phoenician princess Jezebel orders the execution of all the prophets who refuse to seek safety in the land of Zarephath, where the unexpectedly finds true love with a young widow. But this newfound rapture is to be cut short, and Elijah sees all of his hopes and dreams irrevocably erased as he is swept into a whirlwind of events that threatens his very existence. In what is truly a literary milestone, Coelho gives a quietly moving account of a man touched by the hand of God who must triumph over his frustrations in a soul-shattering trail of faith.

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Joshua, The man they called Jesus by Ian Jones

"There's been plenty of loopy theorising, plenty of intellectual arm wrestling, some fine scholary writing, but never an accurate picture of the man we have come to know as Jesus Christ - a man who knew sexual desire, despair and anger. A man who enjoyed good company, laughter, food and wine. Acclaimed author Ian Jones has spent years researching the man Christianity re-named Jesus Christ - Joshua."

Amazon.com - Link

Jesus by A.N. Wilson

"In Jesus: A Life, A.N. Wilson spends most of his energy on such demythologizing. Like Renan, Schweitzer, and Crossan before him, this biographer strives to tell a story about the "historical reality" of Jesus' life. To that end, Wilson summarizes scads of contemporary biblical scholarship, sifts through loads of archeological evidence, liberally cites the Dead Sea Scrolls, and, most productively, attends his finely-tuned literary ear to the biblical texts."

Amazon.com - Link

American Conspiracies by Jesse Ventura with Dick Russell

"Former Minnesota governor, navy SEAL, and pro rassler Ventura has a new truTVshow investigating but not necessarily debunking conspiracy theories." Amazon.com - Link

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I thought it might be worthwhile to start a lighter thread. In a couple of other forums to which I've belonged, a popular ongoing discussion was about books that forum members were reading. It can be fun to learn a little about the literary interests of some of the people you've engaged in discussion or debate. I'll begin.

I'm currently reading The Buried Book, by David Damrosch. It's about the nineteenth-century excavation of the Assyrian tablets at Ninevah in present-day Iraq, the subsequent translations of them, the discovery of the Epic of Gilgamesh, and what this great tale meant to ancient Mesopotamia as well as to us today. I just started The Buried Book last night and already am liking it.

I also always try to read a book of fiction because I enjoy a good novel as much as anyone else, so right now I'm also reading one of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child's novels called The Cabinet of Curiosities. Well, in truth, it's more like I'm re-re-re-reading the book. This is one of the earlier books in the Agent Pendergast series, and one of my favorites. Preston and Child are a terrific writing team.

I hope others will choose to take part and share their reading interests with us. I like to link books to internet retailers like Amazon, as I did with the above selections, but there's no rule about that. Feel free just to share what you're reading.

Jump in! :tu:

I just finished "Little Gods" by Tim Pratt. A series of short stories in the Sci-Fi, surreal mode. Really fun read and great imagination. I loved all of the stories.

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im in the middle of reading a few at the moment:

The Satires of Horace and Persius

Michael Grant, The Emperor Constantine

Gillian Clark, Christianity and Roman Society

Daniel Bagur, Where the fish are: An Angler's Guide to Fish Behaviour

The SAS Survival Handbook

Terry Pratchet, Unseen Academicals

never far away from me is Geoffrey Bucknalls, Fly Fishing Tactics for Brown Trout +

Gathercoles' The Fly Tying Bible

and The Epic of Gilgamesh, for the millionth time.

it depends what mood im in, and how much time i got...Im not forced to read anything in particular at the moment so im enjoying drifting between these.

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oops x2 post

Edited by lil gremlin
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I'm reading the House of Night Series by PC Cast. It's a "vampire" series. It's NOT like Twilight, though. :P

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Wow, lots of contributions in short order. I really appreciate everyone taking part. Not only are there lots of books in these posts with which I'm unfamiliar, but quite a few of you posters, too. But of course many of the same ol' gang is here, so I feel right at home.

For anyone who's a fellow Preston and Child fan (I noticed susieice's post), the new Agent Pendergast novel, Cold Vengeance, will be released in early August. It picks up where the last one left off, in which we learned exactly how and why Perndgast's wife was murdered many years ago.

Susieice, the name of that last novel is Fever Dream. I loved it. Pendergast's deceased wife, Helen, was rarely even mentioned in the previous novels, so it was entertaining to learn all about that backstory.

I've taken a break from reading volumes about ancient Egypt while I again explore some of the other peoples and cultures with whom the Egyptians came into contact. However, Toby Wilkinson has published a new book called The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt that really interests me. Wilkinson is a noted scholar and Egyptologist but this book is a bit of a departure for someone of his standing: in it he explores the seedier and harsher background of life in pharaonic Egypt. It's true that many authors have probably portrayed pharaonic Egypt in overly idealistic terms, so I'll be buying this one soon enough. I've enjoyed everything else Wilkinson has written.

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I just finished a book called "The Spartacus War". About the rebbelion he started that ended ultimately with his death and the destruction of his army (although not the way it ended in the Kirk Douglas movie). Im also in the middle of a history of Sparta, and interesting subject but not the greatest book.

My all time favorite fiction would have the be "the Count of Monte Cristo"

Hi, vitruvian12.

I was never terribly interested in the Servile Wars of Rome but then I stumbled across a miniseries called Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I rented the first season from Netflix and gobbled it up, even if the series is a bit gratuitous and overdone (part of its appeal, I suppose). I now have a couple of books about Spartacus in my Amazon wish list. LOL Just goes to show, you never know what might spark an interest.

If you're interested in Sparta I would have to recommend Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. This is more or less an abstract of his peer-reviewed work on the subject that was published in several volumes, and is meant for a general audience. I recently read it for the first time. I don't know if you've already read it but I thought it was fantastic--I couldn't believe how quickly I blew through 500-plus pages. Like many scholars Kagan is a bit of an Athenian apologist but the account remains pretty balanced.

I recommend this to everyone, in fact.

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I'm not really a BIG reader .. but right now i'm revisiting the Complete Works of LAO TZU

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0937064009/?tag=mh0b-20&hvadid=708759841&ref=pd_sl_6f4b8fq7n7_e

It's great... a quiet break from this , beloved, place !*

Good topic kmt ,honeybunchkins, _sesh :P

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Hi, vitruvian12.

I was never terribly interested in the Servile Wars of Rome but then I stumbled across a miniseries called Spartacus: Blood and Sand. I rented the first season from Netflix and gobbled it up, even if the series is a bit gratuitous and overdone (part of its appeal, I suppose). I now have a couple of books about Spartacus in my Amazon wish list. LOL Just goes to show, you never know what might spark an interest.

If you're interested in Sparta I would have to recommend Donald Kagan's The Peloponnesian War. This is more or less an abstract of his peer-reviewed work on the subject that was published in several volumes, and is meant for a general audience. I recently read it for the first time. I don't know if you've already read it but I thought it was fantastic--I couldn't believe how quickly I blew through 500-plus pages. Like many scholars Kagan is a bit of an Athenian apologist but the account remains pretty balanced.

I recommend this to everyone, in fact.

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.

Edited by vitruvian12
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