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What book(s) are you currently reading?

currently in the middle of the Horus Heresy series of books from Warhammer 40K

specifically reading the Nathanial Garro stories
 
Presently I'm reading Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre. She was a German/Jewish born international spy who started spying for the Soviets during the rise of Hitler. Reads like a fiction novel and is both informative and entertaining.
 
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“The river was cut by the world’s great flood and runs over rocks from the basement of time." A classic.
"On some of the rocks are timeless rain drops, under the rocks are the words, and some of the words are theirs. I am haunted by waters"
 
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.



Congratulations, LionJim! Now you can be on the board even more...and keep the poetry flowing.
 
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I’m reading When the Lions Roared by Bill Contz. The story of the ’82 Nittany Lions which happened to be my junior year and first year at main campus. I’ve read some stories that I haven’t heard before. I’m up to Sugar Bowl week and can’t wait to find out how we do against Herschel Walker and #1 Georgia in the Sugar Bowl! Who doesn't love a happy ending?
BAGMAN by Rachel Maddow.
 
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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?
I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series. If you are not familiar with the jargon it can be difficult for some readers to get involved. However, as you progress through the novels the characters develop and a the broader story unfolds. They provide an excellent window of the naval experience and the life in general across the emerging British Empire of the late 17 to early 1800s.

For those who enjoy this type of historical fiction David Poyer's Dan Lenson novels about the modern U.S. Navy are also a good read. Poyer is a Naval Academy graduate and a Pennsylvania boy to boot.
 
"Sting-Ray Afternoons" by Steve Rushin

Truly funny for those of us who grew up in the 60's and 70's
 
I thoroughly enjoyed the entire series. If you are not familiar with the jargon it can be difficult for some readers to get involved. However, as you progress through the novels the characters develop and a the broader story unfolds. They provide an excellent window of the naval experience and the life in general across the emerging British Empire of the late 17 to early 1800s.

For those who enjoy this type of historical fiction David Poyer's Dan Lenson novels about the modern U.S. Navy are also a good read. Poyer is a Naval Academy graduate and a Pennsylvania boy to boot.
Thanks... I might stick with it. I expected to live the series but can’t get there yet.... may persist
 
It’s Christmas, so I’m reading the book by Jean Shepherd that A Christmas Story was largely based on - In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash.
 
Being born in the late 80s, I had almost no exposure to the Troubles. The book was eye opening.
I’m much more cognizant of the Irish Civil War than I am of the Troubles, and, let me tell you, reading of the atrocities of the Civil War was absolutely chilling. My blood ran cold.
 
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I just wrapped up Say Nothing. Great read about the IRA in Northern Ireland.
I just investigated this - looks fantastic. I started a lot of UK travel early in my career and can remember well the final few bomb threats from IRA on London, etc. Can remember getting pulled off a train to Oxford in early 1997 because of a bomb threat. By then, most of the threats were phoned in and warning provided to avoid loss of life. Despite being Catholic and Irish, I have always been more sympathetic to the Brits. But recognize the issue is very nuanced and steeped in history.

Sounds like this book will provide some good texture to my knowledge in the subject? And look to be a heck of a read?!
 
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I just investigated this - looks fantastic. I started a lot of UK travel early in my career and can remember well the final few bomb threats from IRA on London, etc. Can remember getting pulled off a train to Oxford in early 1997 because of a bomb threat. By then, most of the threats were phoned in and warning provided to avoid loss of life. Despite being Catholic and Irish, I have always been more sympathetic to the Brits. But recognize the issue is very nuanced and steeped in history.

Sounds like this book will provide some good texture to my knowledge in the subject? And look to be a heck of a read?!
Personally, I have trouble understanding some of it--as I am decended from both a Protestant great-grandfather from Belfast on my mom's side and a Catholic great-grandmother from Dublin on my dad's side. I expect that's not uncommon in the US.
 
Rough read. It’s heartbreaking how Solzhenitsyn names and describes random individuals who were killed.
But yet so much to learn. Most of the "prisoners" were middle class individuals. That was how they created the classless society. Eliminate the middle class, the bourgeoisie. I also read a book on Russian history. No wonder the Bolsheviks got into power to begin with. I feel bad for the ordinary Russian. Since the founding of the country they have known nothing but incompetent (highly incompetent) leaders. Lessons all should learn and be aware of.
 
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Personally, I have trouble understanding some of it--as I am decended from both a Protestant great-grandfather from Belfast on my mom's side and a Catholic great-grandmother from Dublin on my dad's side. I expect that's not uncommon in the US.
I once worked with an author from Belfast...he was very pro-British on the subject. He would wax poetic on it often.
 
This one doesn’t come out until Jan 26th, but it does look interesting. I’ve pre-ordered it.

Robert E. Lee and Me: A Southerner’s Reckoning with the Myth of the Lost Cause
Ty Seidule. St. Martin’s, $27.99 (304p) ISBN 978-1-250-23926-6

TY SEIDULE is Professor Emeritus of History at West Point where he taught for two decades. He served in the U.S. Army for thirty-six years, retiring as a brigadier general. He is the Chamberlain Fellow at Hamilton College as well as a New America Fellow. He has published numerous books, articles, and videos on military history including the award-winning West Point History of the Civil War. He graduated from Washington and Lee University and holds a PhD from the Ohio State University.
 
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Agent Sonya about a real spy for Russia after WW2.
Born to a German Jewish family, as Ursula grew, so did the Nazis' power. As a fanatical opponent of the fascism that ravaged her homeland, Ursula was drawn to communism as a young woman, motivated by the promise of a fair and peaceful society.

From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland, to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria, to preventing nuclear war (or so she believed) by stealing the science of atomic weaponry from Britain to give to Moscow, Ursula conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century.

In Agent Sonya, Britain's most acclaimed historian Ben Macintyre delivers an exhilarating tale that's as fast-paced as any fiction. It is the incredible story of one spy's life, a life that would alter the course of history . . .
 
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"The Great War in America" by Garrett Peck. Author claims it is not a Wilson biography but so far it reads like one.
 
Personally, I have trouble understanding some of it--as I am decended from both a Protestant great-grandfather from Belfast on my mom's side and a Catholic great-grandmother from Dublin on my dad's side. I expect that's not uncommon in the US.
Well, I bit the bullet, purchased this book and can not put it down. Have learned a lot already and the nuanced intrigue is fascinating. Will provide final review when complete.
 
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Just finished, The System, by Jeff Benedict and Armen Keteyian, the glory and scandal of big time college football. Good read, only two small paragraphs about jerry. Enjoyed.

The Cosmic Serpent, DNA, and the origin of knowledge, a anthy book on the use of hallucinogens, shamanism, and knowledge in the Amazonian rainforest. A treatise on how knowledge is absorbed through shamanistic practise. Intriguing and speculative on healing practices and what our dna can teach us.

And finally The Dark Net, by Jamie Bartlett, stories about the beginning and history of the web, interesting in it talks about the original boards and people that started the messenger and sales platforms and controversies of use the web as a sales and distribution platform on the early days of the web.

Currently reading, Galileo's Error, foundations for a new science of consciousness.
 
Rough read. It’s heartbreaking how Solzhenitsyn names and describes random individuals who were killed.
I spent my senior year reading Soviet camp novels, including that. Enough for one lifetime.
 
So the antidote is very good.

next up: jaroslav pelikan’s “Mary through the centuries”.
 
Why Gold? Why Now? By E.B.Tucker. I have jury duty on Tuesday. Something to pass the time.
 
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