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What book(s) are you currently reading?

Ian Toll's final book in that trilogy "Twilight of the Gods" just came out last week. I loved the first two...a very capable companion to Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy. I may need to head to the bookstore this weekend.
Excellent point... exactly why I bought it...enjoyed Atkinson’s ‘ Atlantic trilogy’ so much and was seeking a bookend.
 
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maybe the third or fourth time reading this. absolutely love this book
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The Doctor of Aleppo by Dan Mayland - a historical novel set in war-torn Syria. Gripping, fast-paced, a gut-wrenching tale of loyalty and deceit. I couldn't put it down. This one I can highly recommend.
 
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Emmett Till by Timothy Tyson.
It is another interesting book regarding our treatment of black Americans. We do not have a great history before or after the civil war.
 
Reread Fermat’s Enigma, the story of the history and eventual proof of Fermat’s Last Theorem. The author does a good job of explaining mathematical proof to the layman through specific examples. For example, if you remove the opposite, identically colored, corners from a chessboard, prove that it is impossible to cover the remaining 62 squares with dominoes that each cover two squares. A nice read.

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Agent Zig Zag
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SPY AMONG FRIENDS A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Best Book of 2007 One of the Top 10 Best Books of 2007 ( Entertainment Weekly ) New York Times Best of the Year Round-Up New York Times Editors' Choice Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. The story takes place during WW2 as Chapman becomes a double agent working for Great Britain against the Nazis. It’s a true story
.
 
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Working my way through Hemingway in order of authorship. Currently on From Whom the Bell Tolls. His writing style changed so much between The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms.

It's beneficial and interesting to have maps present when reading his detailed travel descriptions.
 
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Just finished a jack reacher and started another. Title doesn’t matter, they’re all exactly the same.
#25 in the series is The Sentinel, with a hardcover release of October 27.

I've read the previous 24, so I'm sure I'll read this one. Author Lee Child (which is a pen name, actual name is James Grant) had a co-writer for this one, his younger brother Andrew. I'll be interested to see if this one is much different; possibly original author Child is transitioning out?
 
Agent Zig Zag
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF A SPY AMONG FRIENDS A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Washington Post Best Book of 2007 One of the Top 10 Best Books of 2007 ( Entertainment Weekly ) New York Times Best of the Year Round-Up New York Times Editors' Choice Eddie Chapman was a charming criminal, a con man, and a philanderer. He was also one of the most remarkable double agents Britain has ever produced. The story takes place during WW2 as Chapman becomes a double agent working for Great Britain against the Nazis. It’s a true story
.

Read that several years ago when I got it through my ‘book of the month’ club. A very entertaining read.

I just started Caging Skies by Christine Leunens, which was the inspiration for JoJo Rabbit.
 
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I finished this last week. It's an enjoyable read. While I knew a good deal about the families mentioned in the subtitle of the book, I didn't realize how all of them grew up in or around Braintree, in the colony of Massachusetts.

Sankovitch is not a historian. However, she's a former lawyer with a Harvard Law School degree. She does a very nice job of building her case, so to speak. Plus, she's a very talented writer, so her book is a pleasure to read.

The book doesn't unearth a lot of new information. It more shines a light on this one community, and how some that grew up there became famous patriots (and in some cases broke with others in their respective families). The book does provide a great deal of info about Josiah Quincy, Jr. -- an individual that likely would have been one of the leading Founding Fathers if he hadn't been afflicted with consumption (tuberculosis) for most of his life, and died from it in 1775 just days after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution is a book that I would recommend to anyone that has an interest in the Rev War era, particularly the events that preceded it in Massachusetts, and to lesser extent in England, as well as several other colonies.
 
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I finished this last week. It's an enjoyable read. While I knew a good deal about the families mentioned in the subtitle of the book, I didn't realize how all of them grew up in or around Braintree, in the colony of Massachusetts.

Sankovitch is not a historian. However, she's a former lawyer with a Harvard Law School degree. She does a very nice job of building her case, so to speak. Plus, she's a very talented writer, so her book is a pleasure to read.

The book doesn't unearth a lot of new information. It more shines a light on this one community, and how some that grew up there became famous patriots (and in some cases broke with others in their respective families). The book does provide a great deal of info about Josiah Quincy, Jr. -- an individual that likely would have been one of the leading Founding Fathers if he hadn't been afflicted with consumption (tuberculosis) for most of his life, and died from it in 1775 just days after the battles of Lexington and Concord.

American Rebels: How the Hancock, Adams, and Quincy Families Fanned the Flames of Revolution is a book that I would recommend to anyone that has an interest in the Rev War era, particularly the events that preceded it in Massachusetts, and to lesser extent in England, as well as several other colonies.
I'll have to take a look. Thank you.
 
Ian Toll's final book in that trilogy "Twilight of the Gods" just came out last week. I loved the first two...a very capable companion to Atkinson's Liberation Trilogy. I may need to head to the bookstore this weekend.
Just started on his second part of the trilogy; just full of facts and interesting accounts (haven't yet read the others)

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He would fly his mustang out of willow grove and buzz aunt Sally’s BR on the Paradise PA farm. Can you imagine a rouge mission like that now? Dad told me he navigated with crazy charts/calculus stuff on his lap. Those dudes were so damn tough.
 
About 5 chapters into Brave New World. I like to throw in a classic once in a while.
 
Smokestack Lightning: Harry Greb 1919. About the year boxer Harry Greb went 45-0. You read that right, the YEAR he went 45-0, that was not his career record. Written by a great boxing writer, Springs Toledo. I highly recommend his book: Murderer’s Row.
 
#25 in the series is The Sentinel, with a hardcover release of October 27.

I've read the previous 24, so I'm sure I'll read this one. Author Lee Child (which is a pen name, actual name is James Grant) had a co-writer for this one, his younger brother Andrew. I'll be interested to see if this one is much different; possibly original author Child is transitioning out?
***Reacher fans alert -- this one is not as good as previous IMO with the original author turning things over to his brother; the writing is choppy and Reacher doesn't seem quite the same; I finished it, but not sure I will be reading the next one

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Not reading it yet, but just learned that there is a sequel to The Billion Dollar Molecule called "The Antidote: Inside the World of New Pharma."

The earlier book was the about the early days of Josh Boger and Vertex Pharmaceuticals in its early efforts at rational drug design in the context of the development of what was to become Prograf, a transplant immunosuppressive. (I actually worked with a few of these characters, but it's a really fascinating book on the commercial and academic research models, which I would highly recommend.) Apparently the Antidote picks up 20 years later and explores the company's jump from research company to commercial company in the context of their CF product.

The former was a really good look at the inside of how development pharma works, and I expect that the new one will be equally telling regarding new biotech.

in the meantime I’m reading the joy of mixology.
 
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More Yeats. I'm retiring after 38 years at Gallaudet. This will tell you how much I loved teaching mathematics, the joy I got from it.

from Vacillation
W.B. Yeats
IV

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessèd and could bless.


 
I am nearing the end of Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian and really struggled with it. Do I just not "get it"? Struggled w the British/Nautical slang, but also didn't really get the plot.

Anyone else have this experience?
 
More Yeats. I'm retiring after 38 years at Gallaudet. This will tell you how much I loved teaching mathematics, the joy I got from it.

from Vacillation
W.B. Yeats
IV

My fiftieth year had come and gone,
I sat, a solitary man,
In a crowded London shop,
An open book and empty cup
On the marble table-top.

While on the shop and street I gazed
My body of a sudden blazed;
And twenty minutes more or less
It seemed, so great my happiness,
That I was blessèd and could bless.


So what, a chick walked by?

Best wishes on your retirement, Jim. I'm wrapping it up at the end of next week myself.
 
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