What are you reading?

Meditations on Hunting
Ortega y Gassett
 
draco88 said:
Im starting this one. A couple of members have told me that some of my statements line up with a few of Heinleins quotes. @RetiredUSNChief told me if I wasn't a Heinlein fan, I should be. Well, Chief, all I can say is it better be good lol

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I just finished listening to it and Starship Troopers recently. I had read both as a teenager and ST more recently. Listening to them was as enjoyable as reading.
 
Red Marley said:
Did you read Chernow’s Washington? I have it but not started yet. It’s a big book 😐
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No I haven't. I stumbled on Grant when I was looking for an audio book for my commuting and walking. I'm limited to what the library systems have. So far it is pretty interesting.
 
Fight Club, because I never actually got round to reading it
 
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The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Shirer.

through half of it: page 624.
Poland is the next chapter.
 
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well, 2034 was a short read.
not that good, though.


i could recommend it for an airline flight to Dallas
because you would probably finish it by then.
it definitely would not last until LAX.
 
Something 'Blue' from Ambrose. Same author whose specialty was WW2, did the Band of Brothers books. I just cant recall the title, sorry. It's about bomber pilots during the European Theater.



Now, lets talk about two that I finished in the past week.

-Adam Carolla, "Not Taco Bell Material"

I got this one for 25c at a used media store and didnt know what to expect. I know who he is, but couldnt tell you much more than 'Loveline guy'

Holy smokes it was hilarious. Just a lot of stories about his life, but he's a FUNNY guy.

He told stories from youth to today, and Im sure many of us gentlemen on here could relate to a lot of it. He's a smart guy willing to get his hands dirty (his 'current' - this was 2012 - home was 1.6M but in rough shape and he did ALL the work on it, also for years he spent his time doing construction etc).

This book was interesting because each chapter starts with a picture of one of his residences through the years and the stories line up to that time point. I dont know, doesnt sound like much, but I think seeing the condition(s) of the places he lived is...'inspiring' - just because you come from nothing doesnt mean you have to stay there. And that's how the book ends, he's hoping that beyond you laughing a lot that you got some sort of motivation to go after what YOU want and need.

And, personally, I like his opinions on things. He leans more conservative, and, well, so do I. He doesnt care if gays marry or people do drugs (he did/does them himself), but he's also against the PC bullcrap we've seen come up. He addresses things like Affirmative Action in the book with humor, how it's wrong to not get an opportunity because of what you are....or, in some cases, GET that opportunity because of what you are.

Here's a guy that I barely heard of (I did know he was a car fan, though!), and now Im figuring out what else he's written because I loved the book that much.

While offensive and vulgar, he's no-nonsense about life and doesnt hide what he's been through.

I'll update you as I read more of his works.





-"Raw" by U-God of the WuTang Clan

Not a Wu fan (not against them, just never got very into rap), but I like a good [auto]biography, four bucks at Ollies.

I did not like this book. I held my nose and swallowed it down, just keeping up the hopes that the book would 'redeem' itself at some point. No. It just wasnt good. Maybe it's my lack of undertanding 'hood' culture and praising it. Or maybe he's not a good writer. Or just not that exciting/important. Sorry, just being honest.

Again, not a Wu fan, so I dont know much of their group, but the more I read the book it seemed like he was a B-string member, not really doing a lot with them on the albums, unlike Method Man, RZA, or ODB. I think because of his role he tried to just fill pages with nonsense. Like, did you really need a whole paragraph on some brother of two girls you knew and how he looked/dressed like Prince? Seriously, that happened, a whole paragraph on a guy with no name but dressed like Prince. He was never brought back up and never spoke about until the writing of how he dressed.

And that's how the book went

-Childhood struggles/culture (project living, the people who 'ran' the area), and then some random tidbits about random people whose name may or may not even be given.

-Adolescent years - getting involved in the street life and drugs. Then more random people and stuff like, "xxxxxx (forgot names, not important) was a good fighter, he had knowledge of the old style of 52 fists streetfighting..." Like, W T F?

-Late teens/Early 20s - hustling drugs and spending money so others can write raps...then he goes to jail.

-Wu years... "I walked out of the hotel and instantly picked up this white b***** in a droptop bimmer....I couldnt believe how fast I bagged her" That was, basically, exact words used and a whole paragraph.

-Last bit was trash talking RZA.
 
HMP said:
Something 'Blue' from Ambrose. Same author whose specialty was WW2, did the Band of Brothers books. I just cant recall the title, sorry. It's about bomber pilots during the European Theater.
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"The Wild Blue"
 
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Some great books mentioned above!!!! I have read One Second After as well and thought it was a real groundbreaker for the "preppers."

My wife and I host a book club and our current "club" book is Joan of Arc by Mark Twain. Twain considered it his best and I have never read it. The club gets me out of my head a little and forces me to read books I would not otherwise pick up.
We are reading the Tolken LOTR series to the Kiddos right now as our family read aloud. We are in the "Fellowship" right now

I'm dabbling in
JADAM Organic Farming by Youngsang Cho
-I have been an advocate of no-till for years now adding compost, rabbit and goat manure with straw etc as soil ammenders and am looking to up my game with the corn and other heavy feeders. I am wondering if this natural fermented liquid fertilizer "fetid swamp water" would be a good way of activating biochar. Which brings me to the next book I have just ordered.
and
Biochar for Home Gardeners by Jeff Fry
-Still looking for info on Biochar and have come up with a way of making it this winter in my big outdoor wood-stove. It is a way that will allow me to improve burn efficiency and capturing all the heat from the process. Super pumped about this!!! I'll update this on my bio-char thread when I get to it.

And when I need something substantial:
The Gospel of Mark: The New Christian Jewish Passover Haggadah by John Bowman
Mark's Gospel has been a passion of mine for a while now and am always interested in a commentary that employs a hermaneutic that is textually and canonically driven. I find that OT Hebraists do better with NT narrative than most NT scholars because they understand the literary conventions and theology they were born out of and belong to. I like to say that the NT may have been written in Greek but it was thought in Hebrew. I have been working 15+years on a commentary on the Gospel of Mark which I hope to publish one day....this was one of the books I have only recently come across that held some intrigue for me. So far it has been compelling....
 
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This one is fun, a LITRPG/Super Hero/Post Apoc/Magic mashup. Good for the Correia fans.

www.royalroad.com

Industrial Strength Magic | Royal Road

Perry Z has a Magical Destiny.Born to a Magical Fantasy Princess and a nine-to-five Supervillain, Perry's never felt...adequate. He's completely magically dull, and without a scrap of superpowers.When The System boots, he's forced to follow in his father's footsteps, but he'd rather take after...
www.royalroad.com www.royalroad.com
 
I'm about to start reading John Lovells "The Warrior Poet Way: A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well" as it is showing up in the mail today.

Also need to start/finish the latest Jack Carr novel "Only the Dead". I've really enjoyed the series and have read every one up until this latest release that is currently sitting on my bookshelf.
 
I've been reading LitRPG lately, currently reading Dawn of the Void and it has kept me interested. Gist is demons invade and people have to level up and gain skills to fight them. Has a very catholic apocalypse/Constantine vibe to me. Enjoying it so far. Most LitRPG is free if you have amazon prime. I typically read a few books a week so free is always nice.
 
I started Mark Gearney Gray Man series this week. I have read all of Jack Carr’s sequels to the Terminal list and I enjoyed them alot
 
Just finished A Canticle for Leibowitz

It had it all!!! It grabs you from the start, has an extremely creative plot, great characters, clever prose and raises very meaty philosophical questions about science, culture, truth, reality. Published in the Cold War 1959 during the nuclear arms race, this book may become relevant yet again. There was something reminiscent in his writting that reminded me of CS Lewis in how he could get you to look at something familiar and make it seem other worldly.
 
JustKeepSwimming said:
I'm about to start reading John Lovells "The Warrior Poet Way: A Guide to Living Free and Dying Well" as it is showing up in the mail today.

Also need to start/finish the latest Jack Carr novel "Only the Dead". I've really enjoyed the series and have read every one up until this latest release that is currently sitting on my bookshelf.
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That wasn’t the best of the series but it was good.
 
“In the Kingdom of Ice” by Hampton Sides

About the Ill-fated polar expedition of the USS Jeannette in 1879

A little dry with some of the background story but amazing once it gets into the details of the expedition
 
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The Pledge to America: One Man's Journey from Political Prisoner to U.S. Navy SEAL by Drago Dzieran
 
I’m reading “World Breakers”, an anthology of short stories revolving around sentient tanks, in the spirit of Keith Laumer’s Bolo stories. (One of the contributing authors, by the way, is Larry Correia.)

Anyway, one of the stories is “Anvil”. It revolves around a tank that rebooted to damaged/missing data and had to figure out what his purpose was and fill in the blanks along the way. Eventually, he decides his purpose is to build a village, plant crops, gather livestock, and ultimately populate the village with villagers.

In the process of doing all this, he gathers a rather large following of chickens…which he eventually figures out were attracted to him because his treads were stirring up the ground exposing night crawlers, killing the occasional mouse/snake, etc.

Anyway, after constructing the village, he figures out how to trap his huge following of chickens in the village so he can go in search of villagers. All, that is, except for 5 chickens who end up going along for the ride. He eventually names them “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, and “Dammit”.

During his trek in search of villagers, with his 5 extra chicken riders, he came to the conclusion he needed to work on his fire control. He knew he was running only 89% efficiency but hadn’t found anything to fight. He had test fired his guns, but hadn’t been able to test his reflexes with them.

Then he comes across a herd of llamas, or something very like them. Here’s the story from there:


He sat idle, trying to determine if he had any mission parameters that included llama. There was a badly defined “collect animals” that he’d been ignoring since the entire chicken epidemic. He noticed that the llamas had decided to drift in his direction. He had scanned them and determined that they were completely harmless. They were less than two meters tall with spindly legs and a long neck. Their eyes were limpid pools of black. As they ambled up to Anvil, they worked their bottom jaws, chewing.

Dammit decided he didn’t like the llamas. He hopped up onto Anvil’s main cannon and started to cluck loudly.

The lead llama didn’t like Dammit. Its ears went back.

“Hostile detected,” his targeting subsystem reported.

“What…?” Anvil started to query since he hadn’t picked up anything in the area.

The llama spat at Dammit.

The main cannon fired at the llama. Point blank.

Anvil sat at the edge of the smoking hole.

He needed to work on his firing control system.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
I’m reading “World Breakers”, an anthology of short stories revolving around sentient tanks, in the spirit of Keith Laumer’s Bolo stories. (One of the contributing authors, by the way, is Larry Correia.)

Anyway, one of the stories is “Anvil”. It revolves around a tank that rebooted to damaged/missing data and had to figure out what his purpose was and fill in the blanks along the way. Eventually, he decides his purpose is to build a village, plant crops, gather livestock, and ultimately populate the village with villagers.

In the process of doing all this, he gathers a rather large following of chickens…which he eventually figures out were attracted to him because his treads were stirring up the ground exposing night crawlers, killing the occasional mouse/snake, etc.

Anyway, after constructing the village, he figures out how to trap his huge following of chickens in the village so he can go in search of villagers. All, that is, except for 5 chickens who end up going along for the ride. He eventually names them “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”, and “Dammit”.

During his trek in search of villagers, with his 5 extra chicken riders, he came to the conclusion he needed to work on his fire control. He knew he was running only 89% efficiency but hadn’t found anything to fight. He had test fired his guns, but hadn’t been able to test his reflexes with them.

Then he comes across a herd of llamas, or something very like them. Here’s the story from there:


He sat idle, trying to determine if he had any mission parameters that included llama. There was a badly defined “collect animals” that he’d been ignoring since the entire chicken epidemic. He noticed that the llamas had decided to drift in his direction. He had scanned them and determined that they were completely harmless. They were less than two meters tall with spindly legs and a long neck. Their eyes were limpid pools of black. As they ambled up to Anvil, they worked their bottom jaws, chewing.

Dammit decided he didn’t like the llamas. He hopped up onto Anvil’s main cannon and started to cluck loudly.

The lead llama didn’t like Dammit. Its ears went back.

“Hostile detected,” his targeting subsystem reported.

“What…?” Anvil started to query since he hadn’t picked up anything in the area.

The llama spat at Dammit.

The main cannon fired at the llama. Point blank.

Anvil sat at the edge of the smoking hole.

He needed to work on his firing control system.
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Just read an excerpt of that book on Baen's website.... "a tank called bob" by correia...

Now I have to get the entire book. Thanks for the suggestion. I love the Bolo stories.
 
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