What non-political book are you reading now?

[jerryman814]

I like to take breaks here and there to read something to escape society's chaos. Currently, I am reading The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith by Peter Carey and it is a great read so far. What are you reading?

EDIT: I meant no books pertaining to current politics.

[supernova]

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Great read, esp this time of year.

[cheezus]

10. if you like harry potter, i suggest Eragon next

written by some 17-yo genius; about a boy and his dragon.

I'd say it's somewhere in between harry potter and lord of the rings.

[flamingyouth]

31. I loved "Eragon"

Great book. :thumbsup:

[ClassWarrior]

2. "A Murder of Quality" by John LeCarre.

Just started it, but I love the George Smiley books. This is one of the early ones.

24.

[ghostsofgiants]

3. "House of Leaves"

By Mark Z. Danielewski

[qnr]

4. Rereading a Carl Sagan book,

The Dragons of Eden Speculations on the evolution of human intelligence.

[ulysses]

5. just about to finish up

The Disciplined Mind by Howard Gardner.

[FloridaPat]

6. I have several books on making things with wood since I have

several tons of trees down from all the hurricanes.

[jerryman814]

11. Sorry to hear that...

made anything good yet?

[FloridaPat]

21. Just got the books this week. Been spending the last 2 weekends

cutting trees up. I do that on Saturday and crash on Sunday. But I plan on builidng log birdhouses, jewelry boxes, lamps, a couple of chairs.

[deadparrot]

7. A Clash of Kings, by George R. R. Martin

Excellent fantasy writer, and a Kerry supporter.

[JimmyJazz]

8. The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

[Bok_Tukalo]

9. "Jesse James: The Last Rebel of the Civil War"

Wait ... is that political?

[jerryman814]

Well, not really.. I should have said "not pertaining to current poltiics"

[Astrochimp]

12. The Discoverers- by by DANIEL J. BOORSTIN

Great read- guessing it is my 4th or 5th time, but I still find something 'new'.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com
Perhaps the greatest book by one of our greatest historians, The Discoverers is a volume of sweeping range and majestic interpretation. To call it a history of science is an understatement; this is the story of how humankind has come to know the world, however incompletely . Daniel J. Boorstin first describes the liberating concept of time--"the first grand discovery"--and continues through the age of exploration and the advent of the natural and social sciences.

[swag]

13. "Sabotage in the American Workplace" edited by Martin Sprouse

Pressure Drop Press, 1992.

Workers' stories culled from interviews with the editor. Stories of mischief, malfeasance, and mayhem in all manner of workplaces. Lots of monkey-wrenches thrown into the works.

Of course one of my favorite tales is of a Heritage Foundation mailroom temp who put big donor checks straight into the shredder.

[bullimiami]

14. dune the battle of corrin

next up is probably a peoples history of the united states.

[Guy Fawkes]

15. Time Enough For Love (The Many Lives of Lazarus Long) by Robert A Heinlein

Robert A. Heinlein has many good books, including Starship Troopers and Stranger in a Strange Land. It is my goal to read all of his books.

[JohnKleeb]

16. hmm

One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovitch, I guess thats political though.

[jerryman814]

19. How is that book?

I have read a lot of Dostoevsky's books and I came across Denisovitch. I'll probably be reading his books soon.

[JohnKleeb]

28. excellent and short so I can still read the other stuff I want to read

[Zuni]

41. It isn't Dostoevsky, it is by Solzhenitsyn

the Nobel prize winning Soviet dissident.

[achtung_circus]

22. My grade 13 English teacher MADE us read it.

Rae Gaouette, God bless him, was one of those teachers who needs to teach- there're too few like him.

It was a stunning read for a 17 year old.

[DrZeeLit]

47. 7th grade

My 7th grade honors class used to read that. Also on the list: All Quiet on the Western Front.
I was such subversive teacher.

Denisovihc is Great. And a movie exists. Tom Courtnay.

[DrZeeLit]

48. The Egyptologist

by Arthur Phillips (who also wrote PRAGUE)
and
The Rule of Four, by Caldwell and Thomason

(and sitting here looking at The Jane Austen Club, but figured using that in the subject line would make the guys puke)

[Zuni]

39. Great Book

I recommend the Gulag Archipelago.

[starroute]

17. The Empire of Tea by Alan MacFarlane and Iris MacFarlane

Subtitled "The Remarkable History of the Plant that Took Over the World," it's by the son of a tea-planter who grew up in India, with some material contributed by his mother as well.

He sees tea as an almost magical substance whose introduction to the West in the 1600's played a significant role in triggering the rise of Western civilization.

The book -- like tea itself -- is simultaneously meditative and stimulating. It provides a great vantage-point from which to take a broader view of world events.

[sbj405]

18. Just finished "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

Nice break from the political reading.

[Twillig]

20. I'm reading Mark Twain 'Letters from the Earth'

He's really giving mankind what-for in this book, let me tell you!

[BoX o BooX]

23. "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton.

Finally. I started three other times, and my copies of the bookn kept disappearing!

[swag]

26. That's a damn funny book as I remember

Love the old baseball books and tales of life on the road.

[achtung_circus]

24. The Shipping News

by E. Annie Proulx. It was an OK movie, a much better and funnier book.

[flamingyouth]

25. Paths to God: Living the Bhagavad Gita, by Ram Dass

I took a class on the Gita yesterday and it was quite interesting. I like studying comparative religion and I have an interest in Hinduism.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

27. Rabbi Paul, An Intelectual Biography

great read.

[LWolf]

29. Just finished "The God of Small Things"

by Arundhati Roy a couple of days ago. A worthy read. Then I started in on a pile of books aquired for my classroom at the school book fair. I read them first to make sure they are age-appropriate. I finished Jane Yolen's "Sword of the Rightful King" last night; a couple of interesting twists to the familiar, with a little too much focus on "black" witchery for my taste. Ok, but not great. I started "The Great Blue Yonder," but fell asleep after a couple of pages. So far, a dead kid is reporting from the afterlife. I have no clue where he, or the story, is going.

[flamingyouth]

30. "The God of Small Things" is a great book

I read it a couple of years ago and want to read it again.

[LWolf]

35. I got frustrated

with the wandering back and forth, dipping in and out of different time periods. Obviously, something had happened to result in the damaged, dysfunctional adults the children became, and I wanted to follow that progression clearly.

But I was, at the same time, fascinated by the weaving of so many disparate threads together leading to the conclusion. And, being who I am, I wanted to send Baby Kochamma to a convent where she could happily fantasize about her priest without damaging others, and I wanted Ammu to stand up for herself, and all of the women to re-educate Chacko.

[morningglory]

32. Father Joe (delicious!) and Florida Gardening (hard! I mean hard!)

That is to say, growing any dang thing except a palm tree in Florida can be difficult, like *bush's "hard work."

[Flammable Materials]

33. "Leaving Reality Behind" by Adam Wishart and Regula Bochsler.

[alarimer]

34. The Half-Brother

By Lars Saabye Christensen. It is about a very strange family in Oslo. It kind of reminds me of John Irving's A prayer for Owen Meany.

[daddybear]

36. Marriage Under Fire

by Dobson.

[YellowRubberDuckie]

37. I just started Inappropiate Men...

It's about this woman who gets a divorce and has these affairs and such with these random men, including a married man named Geoff that she likes the best, it seems. I don't know. I'm only on page 14.
Duckie

[Zuni]

38. Public Enemies by Bryan Burroughs, about Depression era gangsters

like Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Barker-Karpis gang etc.

It is really good.

[Richardo]

40. "Florence of Arabia" by Christopher Buckley

A lot of political content, but not political per se.

Pretty funny for the most part.

[jerryman814]

42. kick... =)

[flvegan]

43. Dalai Lama, "Ethics for a New Millenium" and the last Get Fuzzy book

I forget the specific name of the Get Fuzzy book.

[skygazer]

44. A book called "Odysseus: A Life"

Very good - the author takes apart the Odyssey and the Illiad and constructs a very lucid chronological life history of the character of Odysseus, one of my favorite characters in literature.

I'm also reading a book by a forensic anthropologist who worked on UN sponsored projects in Rwanda, Bosnia and Kosovo as well as a book called "Ten Days to D-Day" which is a good read about the preparations leading up to the Normandy invasion.

Also "Autobiography of a People", a book of essays by African Americans from colonial times to the present.

I have a tendency to read multiple books at once.

[huskerlaw]

45. Love in the Time of Cholera...

by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I just started it, so far so good, but haven't read enough to recommend it.

[redqueen]

46. The Lady Vanishes by Charles Sheffield

[RebelOne]

49. Odd Thomas, by Dean Koontz.

Not one of his best, but nonetheless it's good reading.