So read any good books recently

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Lieutenant JAK

Lieutenant JAK

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Mar 10, 2010
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So I was just wondering if any of you had read anything you found immensely interesting recently...

For instance, today I finished reading The Stand by Stephen King.
Long book+Good book= 5 days of entertainment. 😀
 
I can heartily NOT recommend Dan Brown's latest - The Lost Symbol. First of all, some moron in Sam's Club (where I bought it) ripped out a page in the middle of the book, then put it back & I happened to be the unlucky person buying that copy. But my daughter got a Kindle for Christmas and this was one of the e-books she ordered, so I skimmed over the missing page - didn't add much value to a trite, predictable and ridiculous premise story that I could see.

Spoiler warning...






The "Lost Symbol" turns out to be the Bible, probably King James version, that the Masons buried in the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. I guess after hiding all that accumulated wealth from Egypt & the middle ages in the church on the corner of Wall Street in NYC, as in "National Treasure", them pesky Masons were due for a letdown & all they could come up with was a copy of the Bible to stick under George's pyramid-shaped monument.

Now as to why the Masons would go to all the trouble of creating tons of hints, magic decoder boxes, etc etc etc just to lead to a Bible, is something only they or Dan Brown would know... His work has been steadily declining ever since he wrote The Da Vince Code. I just bought the BD version of Angels & Demons, and while watching the extra features, had to laugh when director Ron Howard said that they had to write out of the script the scene where Prof. Langdon jumps into the helicopter piloted by the Pope wannabe character, to keep the movie believable...
 
^ PS - my office building is about 4 blocks away from the Masonic Temple here in Alexandria, VA, so naturally a buttload of us are somewhat bemused by all things Masonic, at least on our lunch hour 😛..
 
I would recommend Christopher Brookmyre's latest (or any of them really) offering Pandaemonium.

A lot of his books make reference to computers and gaming (Doom seems to be there a lot), and playing music or being in a band and a healthy dose of God and how woeful it can be for some people.

They are crime novels and he is a Scottish author so be prepared to read in an accent!

 
Like said, I too have read Lost Symbols and though of it as not that great compared to his other books like Angels & Daemons,etc.

I've been reading a bunch of random books from A.C. Clark, and currently reading Rendezvous with Rama. Read Sun Tzu's Art of War translation for like the 10th time a while back.
 
Some books are worth rereading. I reread Samuel Huntington's A Clash of Civilizations every couple years.

My favorite Arthur Clarke short story collection is Tales from the White Hart.
 
It was a good movie, but having just watched the entire extended edition set of Lord of the Rings (again), I've started rereading the trilogy again to re-experience the story "done right." The barrow wights are an important part of the story, and the Scouring of the Shire was one of my favorite chapters. I also much prefer Faramir portrayed as noble from square one.
 

You should check out:
Guns, Germs & Steel
Collapse (by the same author, J. Diamond)
Moby Dick (If you have never read it or read it a long time ago, read the original text not some of the new "translations")
Art of War (Has any one here read it at all? Many politicians, business men, leaders,etc have claimed to have read it)

I will check out The Clash of Civilizations, seems like a good read.
 
Wow, all you guys appear to be a lot more high brow than myself. My recommendation is filled with fart jokes, murder and dismemberment. Ahh well, each to their own!

EDIT: On the Lord of the Rings book, I tried (and i mean really tried) to read it, but the language was way too complicated for me (I'm no idiot by any means, but my concentration wavers fairly easily), so I found the movies to be a godsend (Heresy! Burn the heathen!) and they did allow me to enjoy Tolkien's world (as i then went on the get the Battle for middle earth series, I found them quite enjoyable.) And Raymond Fiest's trilogy "Mistress of the Empire/Servant of the Empire/Daughter of the Empire" is a very good series (You should read Magician prior, just to give you some background, but is not essential)
 
It took me 4 tries to read the first Rings books. Boring. Nothing much happens in the first half of the book except character introduction. The pacing in the second book is about average. The third book rocks.

That's what I liked about the movies. They didn't suffer from that problem.

Shadow, I am working through Guns, Germ, and Steel. Good content. Don't like Diamond's writing style.

The P.I.G. books (Politically Incorrect Guide to ...) are kind of fun also. I have three: U.S. Constitution, U.S. History, and Islam.

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything is also very good.
 
I tried reading a Harry Potter book. Once. Waded through about 20 pages before I gave it up as a lost cause, despite my then-young daughter's hearty recommendations. So yes the movie versions were a good deal for me as I didn't have to wade through clumsy prose and obscure references, plus I could nod off during the boring parts 😛.
 
The Role of Postnatal Growth Pattern in the Production of Facial Morphology. J. K. Rowling. A powerful read involving a collection of sacred scripture of Judaism and Christianity. This is the first tale in the ongoing series picturizing the powerful drama that won the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 1937. The story is set in Clayton County, Georgia and Atlanta, Georgia during the American Civil War and Reconstruction and depicts the experiences of Scarlett O'Hara, the spoiled daughter of a well-to-do plantation owner. The novel is the source of the extremely popular 1939 film of the same name.
 
If you are into natural disaster type novels, I just read "The Rift" by Walter Williams. It is a novel about a massive 8.9 earthquake that hits the American midwest and the resulting anarchy, racism, and other societal oddities that occur in its wake. It is incredibly well researched scientific wise and even though it is roughly 930 pages, it is a fast, exhilarating read.
 
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