Author Topic: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?  (Read 189747 times)

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #870 on: May 12, 2010, 11:29 AM »
I've got about three more weeks before I start my next Masters class so I'm cramming in this book and maybe one more if I can get the time.  Working on my masters sucks because I've lost a ton of my reading time.



I thought that is what you do as you work on your masters. Read.

When my wife was working on her masters, it completely turned her off from reading for ten years. Now she is back and going thru twenty books on average a month!
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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #871 on: May 12, 2010, 11:42 AM »
You know what I mean.  ;)

I probably should have said pleasure reading.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #872 on: May 18, 2010, 09:05 PM »
Two new books I'm starting. The first is "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" by Mark Twain.



“Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life.”

So starts Mark Twain’s classic tale about a boy’s life in a small town on the Mississippi, which has become an all-time favorite both in America and around the world.

Tom Sawyer’s mischievous and by now famous exploits—venturing into a nighttime graveyard with his friend Huck Finn, getting lost in a bat cave, tricking his friends into whitewashing a fence—make thrilling reading for all ages. Behind the escapades, though, are darker themes, as young Tom learns some difficult lessons about the often hypocritical rules that govern adult society.


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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #873 on: May 18, 2010, 09:08 PM »
Also starting, "Cell" by Stephen King.



What if a pulse sent out through cell phones turned every person using one of them into a zombie-like killing machine? That's what happens on page six of King's latest, a glib, technophobic but compelling look at the end of civilization—or at what may turn into a new, extreme, telepathically enforced fascism. Those who are not on a call at the time of the pulse (and who don't reach for their phones to find out what is going on) remain "normies." One such is Clayton Riddell, an illustrator from Kent Pond, Maine, who has just sold some work in Boston when the pulse hits. Clay's single-minded attempt to get back to Maine, where his estranged wife, Sharon, and young son, Johnny-Gee, may or may not have been turned into "phoners" (as those who have had their brains wiped by the pulse come to be called) comprises the rest of the plot. King's imagining of what is more or less post-Armageddon Boston is rich, and the sociological asides made by his characters along the way—Clay travels at first with two other refugees—are jaunty and witty. The novel's three long set pieces are all pretty gory, but not gratuitously so, and the book holds together in signature King style.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #874 on: May 26, 2010, 08:23 PM »
Now reading, "His Excellency - George Washington" by Joseph J. Ellis.



As commander of the Continental army, George Washington united the American colonies, defeated the British army, and became the world's most famous man. But how much do Americans really know about their first president? Today, as Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph J. Ellis says in this crackling biography, Americans see their first president on dollar bills, quarters, and Mount Rushmore, but only as "an icon--distant, cold, intimidating." In truth, Washington was a deeply emotional man, but one who prized and practiced self-control (an attribute reinforced during his years on the battlefield).

Washington first gained recognition as a 21-year-old emissary for the governor of Virginia, braving savage conditions to confront encroaching French forces. As the de facto leader of the American Revolution, he not only won the country's independence, but helped shape its political personality and "topple the monarchical and aristocratic dynasties of the Old World." When the Congress unanimously elected him president, Washington accepted reluctantly, driven by his belief that the union's very viability depended on a powerful central government. In fact, keeping the country together in the face of regional allegiances and the rise of political parties may be his greatest presidential achievement.


Based on Washington's personal letters and papers, His Excellency is smart and accessible--not to mention relatively brief, in comparison to other encyclopedic presidential tomes. Ellis's short, succinct sentences speak volumes, allowing readers to glimpse the man behind the myth.
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #875 on: May 29, 2010, 03:10 PM »
Now reading "The Scarlet Pimpernel" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy.



In 1792, during the French Revolution's Reign of Terror, an English aristocrat known to be an ineffectual fop is actually a master of disguises who, with a small band of dedicated friends, undertakes dangerous missions to save members of the French nobility from the guillotine.

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Offline Nathan

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #876 on: May 29, 2010, 08:36 PM »






Hitting all the geek bases here, though not really intentionally.
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Offline Nathan

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #877 on: May 29, 2010, 11:13 PM »
Also just finished this:

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Offline Mikey D

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #878 on: June 7, 2010, 11:22 AM »
Finished:



and



Up Next:



and

Common sense isn't so common

Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #879 on: June 9, 2010, 10:59 AM »
Finished the George Washington book. Now on to a book about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith.



Indiana, 1818. Moonlight falls through the dense woods that surround a one-room cabin, where a nine-year-old Abraham Lincoln kneels at his suffering mother's bedside. She's been stricken with something the old-timers call "Milk Sickness."

"My baby boy..." she whispers before dying.

Only later will the grieving Abe learn that his mother's fatal affliction was actually the work of a vampire.

When the truth becomes known to young Lincoln, he writes in his journal, "henceforth my life shall be one of rigorous study and devotion. I shall become a master of mind and body. And this mastery shall have but one purpose..." Gifted with his legendary height, strength, and skill with an ax, Abe sets out on a path of vengeance that will lead him all the way to the White House.

While Abraham Lincoln is widely lauded for saving a Union and freeing millions of slaves, his valiant fight against the forces of the undead has remained in the shadows for hundreds of years. That is, until Seth Grahame-Smith stumbled upon The Secret Journal of Abraham Lincoln, and became the first living person to lay eyes on it in more than 140 years.

Using the journal as his guide and writing in the grand biographical style of Doris Kearns Goodwin and David McCullough, Seth has reconstructed the true life story of our greatest president for the first time-all while revealing the hidden history behind the Civil War and uncovering the role vampires played in the birth, growth, and near-death of our nation..
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #880 on: June 9, 2010, 07:48 PM »
Also starting, "Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey" by Trenton Lee Stewart.



The daring foursome from the well-received The Mysterious Benedict Society (2007) returns in a second perilous adventure. As the book opens, the children reunite at Mr. Benedict’s home, where he has arranged a treasure hunt. Alas, they discover that Benedict and his assistant are being held captive somewhere, and dire consequences will result if Benedict’s evil twin doesn’t receive the information he desires in four days. The children undertake a worldwide journey to save Benedict and find the duskwort that will cure his narcolepsy. Lots of backstory is needed to set up this sequel, which makes for a choppy beginning. In the previous book, the protagonist’s personal stories provided heft, but this is pure adventure—lots of racing, scheming, fighting. Punches are pulled on the violence front, but the threat is always there, creating page-turning tension. It’s this roller coaster, along with the essential goodness of the characters (except, perhaps, for Constance), that will draw kids to this breathless follow-up.
« Last Edit: June 9, 2010, 07:50 PM by Master_Phruby »
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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #881 on: July 2, 2010, 09:44 PM »
Need to update my books since being on vacation.

First was "James and the Giant Peach" by Roald Dahl.



When poor James Henry Trotter loses his parents in a horrible rhinoceros accident, he is forced to live with his two wicked aunts, Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker. After three years he becomes "the saddest and loneliest boy you could find." Then one day, a wizened old man in a dark-green suit gives James a bag of magic crystals that promise to reverse his misery forever. When James accidentally spills the crystals on his aunts' withered peach tree, he sets the adventure in motion. From the old tree a single peach grows, and grows, and grows some more, until finally James climbs inside the giant fruit and rolls away from his despicable aunts to a whole new life. James befriends an assortment of hilarious characters, including Grasshopper, Earthworm, Miss Spider, and Centipede--each with his or her own song to sing. Roald Dahl's rich imagery and amusing characters ensure that parents will not tire of reading this classic aloud, which they will no doubt be called to do over and over again! With the addition of witty black and white pencil drawings by Lane Smith (of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs fame), upon which the animation for the Disney movie was based, this classic, now in paperback, is bursting with renewed vigor. We'll just come right out and say it: James and the Giant Peach is one of the finest children's books ever written.

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Offline Phrubruh

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #882 on: July 2, 2010, 09:46 PM »
Now reading "Next" by Michael Crichton.



Bestseller Crichton (Jurassic Park) once again focuses on genetic engineering in his cerebral new thriller, though the science involved is a lot less far-fetched than creating dinosaurs from DNA. In an ambitious effort to show what's wrong with the U.S.'s current handling of gene patents and with the laws governing human tissues, the author interweaves many plot strands, one involving a California researcher, Henry Kendall, who has mixed human and chimp DNA while working at NIH. Kendall produces an intelligent hybrid whom he rescues from the government and tries to pass off as a fully human child. Some readers may be disappointed by the relative lack of action, the lame attempts to lighten the mood with humor (especially centering on an unusually bright parrot named Gerard), and the contrived convergence of the main characters toward the end. Still, few can match Crichton in crafting page-turners with intellectual substance, and his opinions this time are less likely to create a firestorm than his controversial take on global warming in 2004's State of Fear.


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Offline Chris M

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #883 on: July 3, 2010, 09:00 AM »
More masters work.  At least this class is really good and I get to chose a lot of the books myself.  I will be writing a book review of this one later and then the bottom book is the class "textbook" and is very interesting.



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Offline Morgbug

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Re: JD Book Club: What Are You Reading Now?
« Reply #884 on: July 3, 2010, 02:13 PM »


Manuscript found after his death.  Not sure if I feel creepy about that or not. 
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