What are we reading?

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

Longitude by Dava Sobel.  It's the history of the race in the 18th century to find a reliable way of determining longitude while at sea.  It's on sale on the Kindle Daily Deal for June 7.  I picked it up around midnight and got a few chapters in.  It's decent so far but it's assuming very little prior knowledge on part of the reader so if you're at all familiar with the subject, a lot of the opening chapter will seem remedial. 

[TacticalWargames]

Been looking at the Elric books. Think I will order the Stormbringer omnibus. Also the Carum omnibus looks goo too.

Thanks for the tips.

[Staggerwing]

Longitude by Dava Sobel.  It's the history of the race in the 18th century to find a reliable way of determining longitude while at sea.  It's on sale on the Kindle Daily Deal for June 7.  I picked it up around midnight and got a few chapters in.  It's decent so far but it's assuming very little prior knowledge on part of the reader so if you're at all familiar with the subject, a lot of the opening chapter will seem remedial.

This was turned into a docudrama with Jeremy Irons playing the role of the WW1 vet restoring the clocks and Michael Gambon as the clockmaker himself.

Both book and movie were quite good.

[GDS_Starfury]

Moorcock.

So you like Moorcock?
have you ever been to Morocco?

[Gusington]

Yeah MD...Glenn Cook has done some very good fantasy and scifi. I especially like The Black Company stories. Dark and not too over the top. Just how I like my...etc.

[MetalDog]

Reason I asked was, you hadn't read it a few years ago when I first brought up the Black Company.  Then I see you suggesting it.  Glad you enjoyed it.

[Gusington]

I haven't read the entire collection I have, about two thirds of ot including some stand alone Black Company books and one longer omnibus.

[Airborne Rifles]

I'm currently reading The Great War and Modern Memory by Paul Fussell as part of my research work this summer. It's an examination of how WWI vets processed, remembered, and communicated their experiences through literature, written by a WWII vet. Really good so far, I'm about 1/3 of the way through.

[BanzaiCat]

I've got more books on my Kindle than one person should reasonably have. The Mutant Cinema book that I started reading is outstanding; I just haven't had too much time to get into it too deeply other than late night moments winding down for bed. If you're into the X-Men comics, this definitely should be on your reading list; even if you're not but are engaged by the X-Men movies, you should check it out.

Because I'm easily distracted in what little off time I've had lately, I found In the President's Secret Service: Behind the Scenes with Agents in the Line of Fire and the Presidents They Protect on my Kindle (http://www.amazon.com/In-Presidents-Secret-Service-Protect/dp/030746136X). I started reading it and it caught my attention pretty quickly. I'm actually surprised the amount of stuff they're revealing, but it's probably my partial ignorance to something that's common knowledge that this is coming from. For example, everyone knows JFK was a womanizer, but I wasn't aware that Johnson was ten times worse. People talk bad about Clinton getting a BJ in the Oval Office, but apparently Johnson was one day screwing one of his secretaries (he apparently had a thing for anything with female parts, much like most of us here on GH) on a couch in the Oval Office and his wife busted him. He was so livid and upset with the Secret Service for not warning him ahead of time/stopping her, that he had them install a buzzer system, which they would engage whenever the First Lady was approaching.

[Martok]

^  Wow, I never knew (or had even heard rumors) of LBJ being being that much of a cad. 




As for myself, I just started Crown of Swords (book 7 in the Wheel of Time series) this morning.  My journey through the slog has officially begun (although it's still moving along well enough at the moment)... 

[BanzaiCat]

^  Wow, I never knew (or had even heard rumors) of LBJ being being that much of a cad. 

Me, either. Which makes me wonder if the author can be sued by Johnson's heirs for revealing that kind of stuff, so I thought it must be public knowledge already and I'm just only now learning of it.

[Gusington]

Airborne - The Great War and Modern Memory is one of my favorite all time books...read it about 10 years ago for school.

[Toonces]

I finished Tolkien's Book of Lost Tales Vol. 1 last night.  I'm going to call it a thumbs down.  I think, if you're into that kind of stuff, it would be best to just stick with the Silmirillion.  BoLT is basically just early drafts of the stories in Silm and a whole bunch of exposition by Tolkien's son. 

If you are super into Tolkien and really want to see the genesis of Silm then maybe it's worth it.

Overall I don't feel compelled to dive right into Vol. 2. 

[MetalDog]

^  Wow, I never knew (or had even heard rumors) of LBJ being being that much of a cad. 

Me, either. Which makes me wonder if the author can be sued by Johnson's heirs for revealing that kind of stuff, so I thought it must be public knowledge already and I'm just only now learning of it.

I had heard that Johnson was a womanizer.  Hadn't heard he had been caught balls deep in a sexratry though.

[Mr. Bigglesworth]

Maybe that explains the term Johnson.