What's on your bookshelf?

Discuss your favorite books, stories and other literary matters here. Recommend reading material to other forum users. What's on your bookshelf?
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lance
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Post by lance » Jan 4th 2005, 11:49 pm

Nostradamus wrote:I've been spending a lot of time gaming online, so my latest read is smallish with lots of pictures.

:oops:

War Stories -- Reporting in the Time of Conflict From the Crimea to Iraq by Harold Evans.

It's fairly up-to-date, published just last year. A lot of interesting stories-behind-the-stories that don't ordinarily make it to the front page.
Speaking of which...

:oops:

In preparation for the eventual arrival of my copy of World of Warcraft :evil: I have been rereading my Warcraft novels. Two are actually pretty good: Day of the Dragon and Lord of the Clans.

At the moment I am just not in the mood for anything meatier.

-LanceMan

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wicked
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Post by wicked » Jan 5th 2005, 11:08 am

Well I just finished the unabridged verion of The Stand by Stephen King...for the 5 time LOL :lol:
My hubby cannot understand why I would read a book more than once.
snerk.
"So this is hell. I'd never have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire and brimstone, the "burning marl." Old wive's tales! There's no need for red-hot pokers. HELL IS - OTHER PEOPLE!"

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starbug
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Post by starbug » Jan 5th 2005, 11:28 am

wicked wrote:Well I just finished the unabridged verion of The Stand by Stephen King...for the 5 time LOL :lol:
I loved that book! I've read it once, and I tried to make Mr. S read it but he despises anything SciFi or Fantasy and particularly dislikes Steven King (although when pressed as to why, fails to come up with a sufficient reason, as far as I can tell).

I got the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency for christmas, and two of the other books in that series... due to essay writing constraints I've been reading mainly academic stuff over the holiday, but they are an easy read so now I'm back and forth on the tube to work again, I imagine they'll last a week or so, collectively.

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lance
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Post by lance » Mar 24th 2005, 10:19 pm

I am by nature a moody reader. I have to get into the mood before I go on good book read.

I happened to be wandering the library here in Vegas about a week ago looking for a good fantasy read when I stumbled across an incredible work of non-fiction:

Hitler's Jewish Soliders by Bryan Mark Rigg (2003)

Mark Rigg apparently saw a screening of Europa, Europa in Germany and found out to his surprise that some in the audience were Jewish veterans of the Wehrmacht. He went on to find out that apparently 150,000 Jews served in the Wehrmacht during the Third Reich. Some did not know they were Jewish, some did and lied about their status, others gained exemptions from superior officers or from Hitler himself. Many had protection from superiors who simply refused to discharge them from their units.

The book goes into definations of what it is to be Jewish: according to the Orthodox, the Conservative, the Reform and the Nazi Regime. Often those who served did so trying to help their families avoid deportation and work camps. Some were unsuccessful, others were.

Two dramatic pieces I will share with you:

"Walter Hamburger would vist the Gestapo and Gauleitung dressed in his uniform to ensure that his parents would be allowed to remain in thier apartment and that his father would not be persecuted...Hamburger described a time when the Gestapo did not arrest his father because when they entered the house, the mother pointed to picture of him in uniform. They challenged the Gestapo, who were about to arrest the father of a solider. When a Gestapo offical asked his mother how that was possible, she answered that they "must ask the Fuhrer" to find out. The Gestapo left."

and...

"Half Jewish Veterans caused a new type of problem when Nazis deported them. When half Jew Werner Eisner was caught sleeping with an Aryan, who was pregnant with his child, the SS sent him to Auschwitz on 7 December 1942 for Rassenschande. After he got off the train at Auschwitz and stood in line for the gas chamber, he pulled out a picture of himself in uniform and screamed, "Now you will exterminate a Wehrmacht solder." After inspecting the phot, an SS man saved his life by pulling him out of the line. These SS guards did not feel comfortable gassing a veteran."

:shock:

Very powerful read.

-Lance

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Post by TooCool4Skool » Mar 27th 2005, 11:17 am

Wow! That sounds extremely interesting. I have just finished reading a quick autobiography named I Have Lived a Thousand Years, which too is about the Jewish struggles in the Holocaust times. It is so heart-wrenching how it is told. Elli and her family are sent to concentration camps just like so many other Jewish familles, and it writes about her struggles to keep it that way. It doesn't sugarcoat anything.
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Space Goast- (Turns to Thom Yorke) Is that right?
Thom- ...No.
Space Goast- Cuz it sounds like a good idea... so do it.

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Natasha (candygirl)
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Post by Natasha (candygirl) » Mar 27th 2005, 8:40 pm

Although The Diary of Anne Frank is one of the most well-known books to depict the Holocaust era, I read The Hiding Place by Corrie ten Boom when I was 13 and it has stuck with me to this day.
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Post by emmie » Mar 28th 2005, 1:01 am

I read Night by Eli Wiesel my freshman year of high school. it's only one hundred pages, but the most powerful hundred I've ever read. he goes into great detail of what it was like in the concentration camps and how he survived. very powerful and eye-opening, at least to me at that age anyway.

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Post by Nostradamus » Mar 30th 2005, 8:09 pm

Now getting into Parliament of Whores and Give War a Chance, both by P. J. O'Rourke.
I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.
-- Clarence Darrow

I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.
-- Mark Twain

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starbug
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Post by starbug » Mar 31st 2005, 5:38 am

I heard P.J. O'Rourke on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday - he was both interesting and entertaining. I wasn't aware he'd written any books, but since I liked his sense of humour I may just pick one up. Please keep us posted on what you think of them 8)

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Natasha (candygirl)
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Post by Natasha (candygirl) » Mar 31st 2005, 4:12 pm

My boyfriend loves P.J. O'Rourke and has read most of his books, but I haven't gotten around to reading any of them (I have a mountain of books to read in my house :oops: ). My boyfriend went to one of P.J. O'Rourke's book signings a few years ago and said he was a really nice guy.
Natasha aka candygirl :: MSCL.com

Look, if this is weird for you, being tutored? I don't mind helping you a little longer.
You could have sex with me if you really want to help...I guess that's a "no"?

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lance
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Post by lance » Apr 3rd 2005, 11:00 pm

candygirl wrote:My boyfriend loves P.J. O'Rourke and has read most of his books, but I haven't gotten around to reading any of them (I have a mountain of books to read in my house :oops: ). My boyfriend went to one of P.J. O'Rourke's book signings a few years ago and said he was a really nice guy.
He often appears on the NPR radio program "Wait, wait don't tell me."

-LanceMan

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lance
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Post by lance » Aug 31st 2005, 10:48 pm

Just finished Scattered Suns by Kevin J Anderson.

This is part of the Saga of Seven Suns series. As far as I know this the first original piece of sci fi done by him. He has done some really great books in the Dune and Star Wars Universes.

-LanceMan

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Post by Jody Barsch* » Nov 16th 2006, 1:15 am

1. I just finished I Am Charlotte Simmons, and enjoyed it. It's not really typical of the books I usually read, but it was so close to college reality it was a mix between being fun and painful to read. I kept wondering how it was possibly written by a middle-aged man and not a fifteen-nineteen year-old girl. Charlotte's tendency to will herself into dramatic situations and thereby place herself in the path for male heroics seems to me to be so privately engrained in the adolescent female, that I kept being shocked by how right Tom Wolfe seemed to be getting things. The whole book seems like an index of accurate college lifestyle, from Ben Harper CDs to freshman ‘packs’ -- the man is REALLY into describing EVERYTHING. This is the first book of his that I've read. Readers who like young adult novels but who are looking to move beyond that genre (at the very least in terms of page numbers--it's a fatty of a book) will most likely enjoy reading this one.

2. The most SOMETHING book I've read in, well, since I don't know when. I don't know what to say about this book except that it totally blew my mind, and at the same time confirmed things I've known for a long time. There are a few grammatical errors, and twice he incorrectly refers to the Beastie Boys' album as License to Kill, but those are the only negative things I can say. I am definitely going to read his other books as soon as possible. The book is called OUR BOYS, and it is a nonfiction report of a gang rape case in the 1980’s that occurred in a prosperous New Jersey suburb in which several of the town's high school Jocks sexually assaulted a mentally retarded teenager. The author interviewed over 200 people for the book, and followed the case for something like 5 years. He takes an in-depth look at the town's value systems, as well as the schools', the families', the community's, and the local police's interactions with the boys throughout their lives, looking into what may have contributed to their actions. The second half of the book takes you through the Grand Jury and the initial trial. It's ... it was an experience reading this book. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
Sometimes I write a little MSCL fanfiction: https://www.fanfiction.net/u/1039807/Jody-Barsch
Also, after multiple V. Mars reiterations, and finally a Deadwood movie, still wishing for some continuation of The Riches !

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emmie
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Post by emmie » Dec 6th 2006, 11:23 am

I just read this new book called Winkie. it's about an old teddy bear that comes to life, and is wrongly arrested for being a terrorist. the book is great because it has a lot of sentimentality to it as he recounts his life as a childhood toy. but it also is a commentary on the US and it's judicial system. it has some pretty funny moments too, I mean, can you imagine a teddy bear on trial?!

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Post by Nothingman » Dec 6th 2006, 4:57 pm

I'm reading Stuart Wilde's Silent Power for the 4th time in as many months. It's short and empowering. I love short books from authors who just get to the point because they have something to say and are just going to come out and say it.

I've also been listening/reading anything I can find by Alan Watts. He is endlessly facinating and enlightening. Everytime through I pick up something new. I hightly recommend his Game Theory of Ethics in particular.
"To come to your senses, you must first go out of your mind." - Alan Watts

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