What are you reading now? - Page 74

dodie53 · August 19th, 2008, 04:55 AM

monster island by david wellington

Zeno · August 20th, 2008, 08:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dodie53

monster island by david wellington

Good book. Monster Nation...not so much.

Brian in Mesa · August 20th, 2008, 10:08 PM

Just finished "The Ruins." Pretty decent. Huge fan of Smith's "A Simple Plan" ever since I read a pre-release copy many years ago. Probably still the best "first novel" I remember reading by an author.

Back to Vince Flynn for me - reading "Consent to Kill."

dodie53 · August 22nd, 2008, 12:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zeno

Monster Nation...not so much.

how so?

Zeno · August 22nd, 2008, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dodie53

how so?

Just didn't hold my attention the way Monster Island did, moves at a slower pace.

Pariah · August 23rd, 2008, 09:49 AM

"The Sex Lives of Cannibals," by J. Maarten Troost

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amazon

From Publishers Weekly
At 26, Troost followed his wife to Kiribati, a tiny island nation in the South Pacific. Virtually ignored by the rest of humanity (its erstwhile colonial owners, the Brits, left in 1979), Kiribati is the kind of place where dolphins frolic in lagoons, days end with glorious sunsets and airplanes might have to circle overhead because pigs occupy the island's sole runway. Troost's wife was working for an international nonprofit; the author himself planned to hang out and maybe write a literary masterpiece. But Kiribati wasn't quite paradise. It was polluted, overpopulated and scorchingly sunny (Troost could almost feel his freckles mutating into something "interesting and tumorous"). The villages overflowed with scavengers and recently introduced, nonbiodegradable trash. And the Kiribati people seemed excessively hedonistic. Yet after two years, Troost and his wife felt so comfortable, they were reluctant to return home. Troost is a sharp, funny writer, richly evoking the strange, day-by-day wonder that became his life in the islands. One night, he's doing his best funky chicken with dancing Kiribati; the next morning, he's on the high seas contemplating a toilet extending off the boat's stern (when the ocean was rough, he learns, it was like using a bidet). Troost's chronicle of his sojourn in a forgotten world is a comic masterwork of travel writing and a revealing look at a culture clash.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

CorporalCardinal · August 24th, 2008, 09:57 AM

Once an Eagle by Anton Myrer. Really good book

Heucrazy · August 25th, 2008, 11:38 AM

The Tears of Artamon by Sarah Ash.

Fanatastic trilogy, I'm on the second book right now.

dodie53 · August 30th, 2008, 06:42 PM

The Bourne Sanction

Eric Van Lustbader - [Jason Bourne 6] - The Bourne Sanction (html).rar

Louis · August 31st, 2008, 07:46 AM

Picked UP

1. Rant - Chuck Palahlniuk (sp?)

Quote:

Buster “Rant” Casey just may be the most efficient serial killer of our time. A high school rebel, Rant Casey escapes from his small town home for the big city where he becomes the leader of an urban demolition derby called Party Crashing. Rant Casey will die a spectacular highway death, after which his friends gather the testimony needed to build an oral history of his short, violent life. With hilarity, horror, and blazing insight, Rant is a mind-bending vision of the future, as only Chuck Palahniuk could ever imagine.

2. Generation Kill - Evan Wright - The HBO series is based on this book

3. Lone Survivor - Marcus Luttrell/Patrick Robinson

Quote:

If you're looking for a true story that showcases both American heroism and Afghani humanity, Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor: The Eyewitness Account of Operation Redwing and the Lost Heroes of SEAL Team 10 (Little, Brown, $24.99), written with Patrick Robinson, may be the book for you. In June of 2005, Luttrell led a four-man team of Navy SEALs into the mountains of Afghanistan on a mission to kill a Taliban leader thought to be allied with Osama bin Laden. On foot, the team encountered two adult men and a teenage boy. A debate broke out as to whether the SEALs should summarily execute the trio to keep them from alerting the Taliban. Luttrell himself was called upon to make the decision. He was torn between considerations of morality and his survival instinct, and he points out that "any government that thinks war is somehow fair and subject to rules like a baseball game probably should not get into one. Because nothing's fair in war, and occasionally the wrong people do get killed."

Luttrell opted to spare the Afghanis' lives. About an hour later, the Taliban launched an attack that claimed nearly a hundred of their own men but also the lives of all the SEALs except Luttrell, who was left wounded.
Not long after that, the Taliban shot down an American rescue helicopter, killing all 16 men on board. Luttrell is sure that the three Afghanis he let go turned around and betrayed the SEALs.
But if nothing is fair in war, neither is anything foreordained. Luttrell was found by other Afghanis, one of whom claimed to be his village's doctor. Once again, Luttrell had to rely on his instincts. "There was something about him," Luttrell writes. "By now I'd seen a whole lot of Taliban warriors, and he looked nothing like any of them. There was no arrogance, no hatred in his eyes." Luttrell trusted the man and his colleagues, who took him back to their village, where the law of hospitality -- "strictly nonnegotiable" -- took hold. "They were committed to defend me against the Taliban," Luttrell writes, "until there was no one left alive." The law held, and Luttrell survived, returned home and received the Navy Cross for combat heroism from President Bush.

4. Stiff - The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach

Quote:

Uproariously funny" doesn't seem a likely description for a book on cadavers. However, Roach, a Salon and Reader's Digest columnist, has done the nearly impossible and written a book as informative and respectful as it is irreverent and witty. From her opening lines ("The way I see it, being dead is not terribly far off from being on a cruise ship. Most of your time is spent lying on your back"), it is clear that she's taking a unique approach to issues surrounding death. Roach delves into the many productive uses to which cadavers have been put, from medical experimentation to applications in transportation safety research (in a chapter archly called "Dead Man Driving") to work by forensic scientists quantifying rates of decay under a wide array of bizarre circumstances. There are also chapters on cannibalism, including an aside on dumplings allegedly filled with human remains from a Chinese crematorium, methods of disposal (burial, cremation, composting) and "beating-heart" cadavers used in organ transplants. Roach has a fabulous eye and a wonderful voice as she describes such macabre situations as a plastic surgery seminar with doctors practicing face-lifts on decapitated human heads and her trip to China in search of the cannibalistic dumpling makers. Even Roach's digressions and footnotes are captivating, helping to make the book impossible to put down.

5. Super Crunchers - Ian Ayres

Quote:

An international sensation—and still the talk of the relevant blogosphere—this Wall Street Journal and New York Times business bestseller examines the “power” in numbers. Today more than ever, number crunching affects your life in ways you might not even imagine. Intuition and experience are no longer enough to make the grade. In order to succeed—even survive—in our data-based world, you need to become statistically literate.

Cutting-edge organizations are already crunching increasingly larger databases to find the unseen connections among seemingly unconnected things to predict human behavior with staggeringly accurate results. From Internet sites like Google and Amazon that use filters to keep track of your tastes and your purchasing history, to insurance companies and government agencies that every day make decisions affecting your life, the brave new world of the super crunchers is happening right now. No one who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Ian Ayres’s engrossing and enlightening book.

Zeno · September 1st, 2008, 06:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Louis

Picked UP

1. Rant - Chuck Palahlniuk (sp?)

2. Generation Kill - Evan Wright - The HBO series is based on this book

3. Lone Survivor - Marcus Luttrell/Patrick Robinson

I've read each of those 3...Rant is the worst of that bunch by a wide margin (worst of the 4 Chuck P. books I've read). The other 2 are great reads.

swd1974 · September 3rd, 2008, 07:26 AM

Augustus

The life of Romes first emporer. Probabaly has never been a more powerful, intelligent man to lead a nation. A great read.

Pariah · September 7th, 2008, 09:59 PM

"Out Stealing Horses," by Per Petterson

I'm literally only 3 pages in and it might already be one of my favorite books ever. Not by virtue of what's happened, but by the terse language and the idea of living a hermit-esque life in old age.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Amazon

From Publishers Weekly
Award-winning Norwegian novelist Petterson renders the meditations of Trond Sander, a man nearing 70, dwelling in self-imposed exile at the eastern edge of Norway in a primitive cabin. Trond's peaceful existence is interrupted by a meeting with his only neighbor, who seems familiar. The meeting pries loose a memory from a summer day in 1948 when Trond's friend Jon suggests they go out and steal horses. That distant summer is transformative for Trond as he reflects on the fragility of life while discovering secrets about his father's wartime activities. The past also looms in the present: Trond realizes that his neighbor, Lars, is Jon's younger brother, who "pulls aside the fifty years with a lightness that seems almost indecent." Trond becomes immersed in his memory, recalling that summer that shaped the course of his life while, in the present, Trond and Lars prepare for the winter, allowing Petterson to dabble in parallels both bold and subtle. Petterson coaxes out of Trond's reticent, deliberate narration a story as vast as the Norwegian tundra. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Donald · September 8th, 2008, 11:41 AM

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer.

Mulli · September 8th, 2008, 11:44 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Donald

Twilight
Stephenie Meyer.

Vampire book?