What are you reading?

[roggae]

I just finished "catch a fire" a bob marley bio and before that i read "exodus" about the making of the bob marley album of the same name. I highly recommend the latter.

[gah]

I just finished "catch a fire" a bob marley bio and before that i read "exodus" about the making of the bob marley album of the same name. I highly recommend the latter.

Ooohhhh! I didn't even know about this book! Added to my amazon wishlist for future reading, thanks for the heads up!

[phuzzyfish12]

I just finished "catch a fire" a bob marley bio and before that i read "exodus" about the making of the bob marley album of the same name. I highly recommend the latter.

Ooohhhh! I didn't even know about this book! Added to my amazon wishlist for future reading, thanks for the heads up!

Same here, it'll be my next read after I'm done with my current book.

[Multibeast12]

Every Borders has to sell everything.They are going out of business. Everything is 10% off some shit even more.

[mbw]

I just finished "catch a fire" a bob marley bio and before that i read "exodus" about the making of the bob marley album of the same name. I highly recommend the latter.

wait, if you read exodus before catch a fire, which one is the latter?   :crazy:

currently reading:

[Mr Minor]

Just started the third in the Girl With the Dragon Tattoo trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest.

Great story all the way through all three novels.

[blatboom]

if I was still single I'd have finished this by now.  instead I'm on page 70

[khalpin]

Re-reading The Hobbit now in anticipation of the movies next Christmas.

[cactusfan]

if I was still single I'd have finished this by now.  instead I'm on page 70

finished it yesterday. great stuff. enjoyed it more than the last one. although since it's really just the other half of the last one, it's similar in that it's all about bringing us to new lands and new characters and setting things up for the big push to the end (however damn long it takes him to write it).

if i ever re-read this one and the last one, which might happen whenever the next book is published, i think i'll try to flip back and forth and kind of read them as one book.

[rowjimmy]

if I was still single I'd have finished this by now.  instead I'm on page 70

finished it yesterday. great stuff. enjoyed it more than the last one. although since it's really just the other half of the last one, it's similar in that it's all about bringing us to new lands and new characters and setting things up for the big push to the end (however damn long it takes him to write it).

if i ever re-read this one and the last one, which might happen whenever the next book is published, i think i'll try to flip back and forth and kind of read them as one book.

I'm midway through this as well... Digging it.

[Mr Minor]

Re-reading The Hobbit now in anticipation of the movies next Christmas.

Nice.  I am teaching a class on The Hobbit second semester next year.  Lot's of cool activities and projects to extend the comprehension and enjoyment of a fantastic story.  Looking forward to the movies as well!

[Mr. Natural]

I started once and didn't get far. The second time, I read the Introduction, where Zukav encourages the reader to persist even if the physics is outside our comprehension. So that's what I did and it was a richly rewarding read. Often, I would be unable to grasp simpler concepts, but the more complex ones would make sense. Although, when I looked up S-matrix theory on wikipedia, it seemed a lot different than the concept I felt so in tune with in the book.
A few cool quotes: "Time irreversibility is an artifact of the measurement process."
"A subatomic particle [quantum] is a set of relationships, or an intermediate state."
"Non-substantial fields are the substance of the universe, not matter. Matter is simple the momentary manifestations of interacting fields."
"At the subatomic level, there is no longer a clear distinction between what is and what happens, between the actor and the action."
"What we experience is not external reality, but our interaction with it."
"True love of all dances is dancing."
"If we accept the mechanistic determination of Newtonian physics, - if the universe really is a great machine - then from the moment the universe was set in motion, everything that was to happen in it already was determined."
"Don't confuse the type of dance they are doing with the fact that they are dancing."
"Languages are useful for conveying information, but if we try to communicate experiences with them, they simply do not work."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B001SRQNUK/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

[khalpin]

Re-reading The Hobbit now in anticipation of the movies next Christmas.

Nice.  I am teaching a class on The Hobbit second semester next year.  Lot's of cool activities and projects to extend the comprehension and enjoyment of a fantastic story.  Looking forward to the movies as well!

I'd love to take that class!

[gah]

I started once and didn't get far. The second time, I read the Introduction, where Zukav encourages the reader to persist even if the physics is outside our comprehension. So that's what I did and it was a richly rewarding read. Often, I would be unable to grasp simpler concepts, but the more complex ones would make sense. Although, when I looked up S-matrix theory on wikipedia, it seemed a lot different than the concept I felt so in tune with in the book.
A few cool quotes: "Time irreversibility is an artifact of the measurement process."
"A subatomic particle [quantum] is a set of relationships, or an intermediate state."
"Non-substantial fields are the substance of the universe, not matter. Matter is simple the momentary manifestations of interacting fields."
"At the subatomic level, there is no longer a clear distinction between what is and what happens, between the actor and the action."
"What we experience is not external reality, but our interaction with it."
"True love of all dances is dancing."
"If we accept the mechanistic determination of Newtonian physics, - if the universe really is a great machine - then from the moment the universe was set in motion, everything that was to happen in it already was determined."
"Don't confuse the type of dance they are doing with the fact that they are dancing."
"Languages are useful for conveying information, but if we try to communicate experiences with them, they simply do not work."
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/images/B001SRQNUK/ref=dp_image_0?ie=UTF8&n=283155&s=books

This sounds incredibly difficult, but ultimately rewarding.

I'm actually reading the Healing Anger: The Power of Patience from a Buddhist Perspective, by the Dalai Lama. It's incredibly slow going, as I only read 5-10 pages a day, then re-read them the next day, contemplate, read them once more before starting the next few pages...good news is, I think it's working  :-) I think I'll have to send it to bvaz next.  :hereitisyousentimentalbastard

[phuzzyfish12]

Recently finished:

2030: The Real Story of What Happens to America by Albert Brooks
Comedian and filmmaker Brooks welcomes the reader to the year 2030 in his smart and surprisingly serious debut. Cancer has been cured, global warming is an acknowledged reality, people have robot companions, and the president is a Jew--and oy vey does he have his hands full with an earthquake-leveled Los Angeles and a growing movement by the young to exterminate the elderly. And when the Chinese offer to rebuild L.A. in exchange for a half-ownership stake in Southern California, President Bernstein is faced with a decision that will alter the future of America. Brooks's sweeping narrative encompasses a diverse cast of characters, including an 80-year-old Angelino left homeless by the earthquake, a trust fund brat with a grudge against the elderly, and a teenage girl saddled with debt after her father's death, all of whom get brought together just in time for a climactic hostage crisis. Brooks's mordant vision encompasses the future of politics, medicine, entertainment, and daily living, resulting in a novel as entertaining as it is thought provoking, like something from the imagination of a borscht belt H.G. Wells.

Recommend this book. While reading it I could see the storyline playing out in real life. Not sure how I feel about the ending though.

A Secret Kept by Tatiana de Rosnay
De Rosnay's U.S. debut fictionalizes the 1942 Paris roundups and deportations, in which thousands of Jewish families were arrested, held at the Vélodrome d'Hiver outside the city, then transported to Auschwitz. Forty-five-year-old Julia Jarmond, American by birth, moved to Paris when she was 20 and is married to the arrogant, unfaithful Bertrand Tézac, with whom she has an 11-year-old daughter. Julia writes for an American magazine and her editor assigns her to cover the 60th anniversary of the Vél' d'Hiv' roundups. Julia soon learns that the apartment she and Bertrand plan to move into was acquired by Bertrand's family when its Jewish occupants were dispossessed and deported 60 years before. She resolves to find out what happened to the former occupants: Wladyslaw and Rywka Starzynski, parents of 10-year-old Sarah and four-year-old Michel. The more Julia discovers—especially about Sarah, the only member of the Starzynski family to survive—the more she uncovers about Bertrand's family, about France and, finally, herself. Already translated into 15 languages, the novel is De Rosnay's 10th (but her first written in English, her first language). It beautifully conveys Julia's conflicting loyalties, and makes Sarah's trials so riveting, her innocence so absorbing, that the book is hard to put down.

HIGHLY recommend this book. Book has been made into a movie being released this month.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana: Five Sisters, One Remarkable Family, and the Woman Who Risked Everything to Keep Them Safe by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon
The life Kamila Sidiqi had known changed overnight when the Taliban seized control of the city of Kabul. After receiving a teaching degree during the civil war—a rare achievement for any Afghan woman—Kamila was subsequently banned from school and confined to her home. When her father and brother were forced to flee the city, Kamila became the sole breadwinner for her five siblings. Armed only with grit and determination, she picked up a needle and thread and created a thriving business of her own.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana tells the incredible true story of this unlikely entrepreneur who mobilized her community under the Taliban. Former ABC News reporter Gayle Tzemach Lemmon spent years on the ground reporting Kamila's story, and the result is an unusually intimate and unsanitized look at the daily lives of women in Afghanistan. These women are not victims; they are the glue that holds families together; they are the backbone and the heart of their nation. Afghanistan's future remains uncertain as debates over withdrawal timelines dominate the news.

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana moves beyond the headlines to transport you to an Afghanistan you have never seen before. This is a story of war, but it is also a story of sisterhood and resilience in the face of despair. Kamila Sidiqi's journey will inspire you, but it will also change the way you think about one of the most important political and humanitarian issues of our time.

HIGHLY Recommend this book. Talk about opening up my eyes to what's going to the women in Afghanistan.

Room: A Novel by Emma Donoghue
In many ways, Jack is a typical 5-year-old. He likes to read books, watch TV, and play games with his Ma. But Jack is different in a big way--he has lived his entire life in a single room, sharing the tiny space with only his mother and an unnerving nighttime visitor known as Old Nick. For Jack, Room is the only world he knows, but for Ma, it is a prison in which she has tried to craft a normal life for her son. When their insular world suddenly expands beyond the confines of their four walls, the consequences are piercing and extraordinary. Despite its profoundly disturbing premise, Emma Donoghue's Room is rife with moments of hope and beauty, and the dogged determination to live, even in the most desolate circumstances. A stunning and original novel of survival in captivity, readers who enter Room will leave staggered, as though, like Jack, they are seeing the world for the very first time.

Don't recommend - I am still trying to figure out this is on the best sellers list. This was a book club read and only one girl in my group enjoyed it. Another couldn't get past page 40.