what do you read?

Norm said:
Imagine if you were a marketer of food products to people locked in your basement. I bet you'd be really good at it.
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That's what my wife does.

I recently read 10 points by Bill Strickland (bic mag editor) It was actually pretty disturbing actually the "abuse" he endured as a kid but was really well done the way he weaved that experience in with his adult quests regarding cycling and life in general.
 
So far this year I have read...

To Your Scattered Bodies Go - Absolutely fantastic and can't wait to read the 2nd in the series. Sci Fi and/or fantasy but not really either. By Philip Jose Farmer.

Lisbon Crossing - Meh, don't waste your time. I enjoyed The Berlin Conspiracy much better. Your standard spy novel.

Hard Eight. This is my trash reading. Enjoyable series but not a great book.

The Plot Against America - by Philip Roth, considered a master. I didn't love the book. It was good enough but really read like the tale of a Jewish child's fears who grew up in Newark during WWII. Though it is touted as "alternate history" it is hard for me to see this as anything but a sort of biography by Roth.

The Stars My Destination - I just finished this last night. Sci Fi written in the 1950s, possibly one of the top 10 Sci Fi novels ever written. I was blown away. From page 1 it was gripping and it holds you through the end. Short at 250 pages, this took me 2 days to read.
 
Whole Earth Discipline is a great book that bucks the whole " Go Green" movement... Embrace urbanization, nuclear power, bioengineering, etc etc etc...
 
Cyclopath said:
That's a great one and has been credited for saving lives. Keep reading.🙂
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Yea, theres alot to be taken from it. It's more of an interactive read than anything, one that I seem to be coming back to on a more frequent basis. With any luck I can pull down some of the work and build some serious time. After my last stint I made the mistake of taking the dare in chapter 3, it did not work out in my favor; but then again it was par for the course.
 
Spencer the Kalmyk said:
Whole Earth Discipline is a great book that bucks the whole " Go Green" movement... Embrace urbanization, nuclear power, bioengineering, etc etc etc...
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I cannot tell for certain what this book is about but the "Embrace urbanization, nuclear power, bioengineering" seems closely tied to some of the books I've read. I started with a couple from James Kunstler after reading an article about him in Outside. Good stuff, but man, they are pretty depressing.

I'm almost done reading $20 Per Gallon which tells what would happen if a gallon of gas went up to $20. He breaks the chapters out by different price levels and what would happen. Much more on a positive note. One bike related theme is that there would be much more bicycle use with higher fuel prices. Along with closer communities, more rails, more local food sources, nuclear power, wind power & more.

http://www.amazon.com/20-Per-Gallon...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1265061606&sr=1-1
 
lost symbol

back on the knowledge train which is nice. two books so far this year and i've got three titles in waiting...just need to pick them up.

anyway, on to the lost symbol. if you didn't know dan brown released another book you must have been living under a rock. this book, the lost symbol, is his fourth and follows the exploits of professor/symbologist robert langdon on a quest to save his friend from the certain death at the hands of a mad man. i really enjoy dan brown's books as he eloquently stings together urban ledged, myth, fact, and reality all with a fantastic story line. it helps tremendously that the last three books he has written have all had religious/mystical ties in them. i'm by no means a devout <insert religion here>, but i am a diest and pull from quite a few different philosophies to get where i need to be.

regardless of where you stand on Masonic theories, conspiracy theories or religious theories, this book does not disappoint at all and i never saw the final twist coming. actually there are two, one major, one minor. the minor one was set up and explained perfectly and brown masterfully hid the main twist. looking back, he did hint at it a couple of times and never directly...and in retrospect it made perfect sense but one needed the final piece to really figure it out.

so, in conclusion, if you like to read the lost symbol won't disappoint.

next up, another book from koontz followed by joe torre's book (when my dad is done with it), freakanomics two and let my people go surfing. after that, i have no specific title in mind only a direction.
 
Currently reading Game Change, its about the 2008 Presidential Election.

Since I'm totally obsessed with politics, I like it so far.
 
So anyway Jake, my mom happened to have a copy of The Lost Symbol laying at her house and I asked to borrow it. I'm not done yet, maybe 180 pages left, but you're right, it really is a page turned. I almost missed my subway stop the other day.

Last week I finished 100 Years of Solitude. It's intense, and I kinda burned my momentum picking up that book. It's good but jeez if you're not ready to invest yourself 100% into the book it becomes a difficult read. The first 250 pages were amazing, the last 200 really dragged and I couldn't find myself caring anymore. Same sort of feeling as when I read Umberto Eco a while ago.

In February I read Kafka on the Shore which was nothing short of amazing, one of my favorite books in a long time.

Brooklyn Follies was so so. I like Auster but this wasn't a great effort by any stretch

Caves of Steel which is one of the SciFi classics, of course.

The Metamorphosis by Kafka was eh. Yeah yeah, classic, blah blah blah. I find most of the classic work hard to get through or suicidally depressing. Consider this one the later of those 2. I think the greatest contribution to society is the line in Spaceballs referencing this book.

Wishson of Shannara which is your standard fantasy fare. I'm starting to lose a little interest here.

I Heard You Paint Houses - about Jimmy Hoffa, or rather the guy that offed him. I don't doubt that this is the real story, because it's not sensational. The book is more about the guy who did it, and more or less what brought him to that point in time. It's interesting but at the same time you realize this lifestyle is just brutally inhumane.
 
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