Current book being read/just finished

[dodint]

Speaking of great war books that aren't written well, Flags of Our Fathers is a great story that is kind of hard to slog through with the quality of writing.

[eddysnake]

American sniper is easy to get through and it's really badass so far, but at times you can tell the author is speaking and then the "Co authors" are cleaning things up.

From the trailer, it looks like Clint is making some art out of it. Here's hoping he does a better job than Peter berg and lone survivor.

[eddysnake]

American Sniper was a pretty cool book. The book kinda played out like a best of his career, I would have liked to read more details regarding each mission. I'm really not sure how they are going to squeeze this all into a movie. The guy was a badass, no question about it, but he came across as a bit of a dick as well. I didn't get the same thing out of it as I did Lone Survivor which I thought was a much better story. Also didn't help that the book felt like it was written by a 12 year old.

[columbia]

This was some quality television:
http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/the-50-year-argument#/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Admin]

Currently reading 1984.

[Gaucho]

I like historical novels.

[PensFanInDC]

Currently reading 1984.

Currently living it. Amirite?

[dodint]

I liked 1984. If you like it, give Brave New World a whirl. Similar, but not.

[Troy Loney]

Can also read more Orwell. Homage to Catalonia should be a must read for all.

[KennyTheKangaroo]

Currently reading 1984.

Are you in 10th grade English class or something?

Side note, this gentleman finished reading a book on the savings and loan crisis of the 80s. It was an affirmation of all the good and bad aspects of capitalism.

[columbia]

neilbush.jpg

[eddysnake]

Anyone ever read Zeroville by Steve Erickson?

A film-obsessed ex-seminarian with images of Elizabeth Taylor and Montgomery Clift tattooed on his head arrives on Hollywood Boulevard in 1969. Vikar Jerome enters the vortex of a cultural transformation: rock and roll, sex, drugs, and-most important to him-the decline of the movie studios and the rise of independent directors. Jerome becomes a film editor of astonishing vision. Through encounters with former starlets, burglars, political guerillas, punk musicians, and veteran filmmakers, he discovers the secret that lies in every movie ever made.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/921569.Zeroville

[Digitalgypsy66]

Just finished Stalingrad by Anthony Beevor. Good read, if you're into that sort of thing.

What a terrible waste of humanity though. I know it was Nazi invaders (yes, not every Wehrmacht soldier was a Nazi), but the abandonment of 90,000+ human beings is pretty brutal. Not enough food, water, and then Russian forces bombing you endlessly in -20-30 F weather. All to feed Hitler's ego. Of course, the Russians were colossally inept and didn't plan to transport/feed/house the 90,000 captured at Stalingrad. Only about 5000 returned to Germany, Romania, or Hungary following the war...and some didn't get home until 1955.

[shafnutz05]

Finished Doctor Sleep (Stephen King)

Spoiler:

I thought as a standalone book, it wasn't bad. I just felt the references to The Shining were often forced and dumb. Especially towards the end, when the ghost of Horace Derwent takes care of Sarey in the woodshed. As well as the gratuitous wave to Jack Torrance after they kill Rose the Hat.

I guess I just never really felt that the True Knot was ever a legitimate threat to any of the protagonists. In most of King's books, someone dies (whether it is to the antagonists, cancer, whatever), but this was a completely happy ending. Felt kind of mailed in, I guess.

[dodint]

Yup.

[Froggy]

I read Leprechaun in the Hood: The Musical: The Novel. Pretty good, actually. Fun little book about how the Leprechaun comes to life in the real world, New Nightmare style, and attacks a group of people staging a play based on the movies. Instead of stealing his pot of gold, the theft of the Leprechaun's intellectual property is what he's after, here. It's a silly short read, and a decent amount of fun.

[Letang Is The Truth]

i am jealous of people that have time to read books

[Troy Loney]

Finished Naked and the Dead. First thing i've read by Norman Mailer, very entertaining pacific WWII story. He makes the platoon come to life and made some really interesting back stories for all the characters that he interjects after about every other chapter.


Just started the important economic book that recently came out, Piketty's Capital in the Twenty-First Century". Been heralded as the best description of inequality and the real life dynamics that create inequality. I think it's really important, and especially thinking about inequality and how people tend to look at the post war period and how that's held up as the ideal scenario and equates economic growth with greater economic equality. It's a really easy concept, if the rate of return on captial is greater than economic growth, then inequality rises. This has been the market case in basically every period of life absent of several few (the post war period the most recent).

If you think about it in terms of income, the total income for a country is based on income from wages and income from capital (rents from RE, return on investments..etc). If the return on capital is greater than the economic growth the income from capital's share of income raises in proportion to income from wages. That leads to the growth of the capital stock and the share of income that comes from capital..and thus inequality.

[Digitalgypsy66]

Naked and the Dead is excellent.

I'm reading Restless, by William Boyd. Spy thriller, very well written.

[Troy Loney]

Naked and the Dead is excellent.

I'm reading Restless, by William Boyd. Spy thriller, very well written.

Spoiler:

War sucks, I couldn't believe the platoon could go on business as usual after croft essentially murdered Hearn.

[eddysnake]

picked up the slow regard of silent things by Patrick Rothfuss and Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (did someone on here talk about it, I can't get the search to work).

[eddysnake]

Highly recommend "ready player one". It's the not so distant future and the 80s are back in style and everyone connects to a virtual world ala warcraft to do everything. The creator left an Easter egg in the program and whoever finds it gets his fortune. Mayhem ensues. Very geeky pop culture throughout.

[eddysnake]

Patrick Rothfuss The Slow Regard of Silent Things is very slow. I don't think I'll finish reading it and I think it's only 150 pages. I really like Name of the Wind and Wise Mans Fear, so I though this (which is all about a character "Auri") would be on the same page. Alas, some things are best let alone. Very well written, but nothing happens.

My wife read Horns and because she literally read it in one sitting and could not put it down, I think I'll be moving to that next.

[eddysnake]

HBO (Jonathan Nolan) is making Isaac Asimov's Foundation series. Has anyone read these?

[Shyster]

Now reading Takamiyama: The World of Sumo by Takamiyama Daigorō, aka Jesse James Kuhaulua. Hawaiian-born Jesse Kuhaulua was the first foreign-born sumo wrestler to win the top-division championship (in 1972), and the book came out shortly after his win. Unfortunately, he only won that single tournament, but he had a long career extending into 1984. Jesse took Japanese citizenship in 1980 so that he could become a sumo coach after retirement, and as the head of the Azumazeki-beya training stable he coached fellow American and Hawaiian Akebono (aka Chad Rowan), who became sumo's first foreign yokozuna.