What book are you reading, and what do you think of it?

[ZLoth]

Finished Stranger which has some of it's origins based on the book Strangers On A Train (and yes, I have seen both versions of the Alfred Hitchcock Movie). The twist is the development of a app called "Stranger", with a interesting twist ending that I didn't see coming, but didn't feel unexpected. I felt it was a so-so book. One of the issues I have is with the narriator. When he voiced the (annoying) programmer, it was MUCH LOUDER than the regular speaking voice.

I'm now on Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens which covers the eruption of Mount St. Helens from 1980.

[ZLoth]

I had to punt out of listening to The Lufthansa Heist: Behind the Six-million Dollar Cash Haul That Shook the World with my mom. My mother had trouble understanding the narriator, so I decided to move onto another book while I put this on my own reading list.

The substitution book was The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking[/url]. I had previously purchased this book and listened to it in 2013, but I thought it did a pretty good job of covering the airline hijackings that occurred from 1968 until 1973. Flying on a airline was dramatically difference (not to mention more expensive) during that era, and there were no security checkpoints between the curb and the airplane, and the hijackers certainly exploited that. Yet, the airlines were hesitant to put in additional security measures.

Since the forum was offline, I also completed Eruption: The Untold Story of Mount St. Helens. While not a bad book, I felt that the book concentrated too much on the background and history of Weyerhaeuser and it's key players and not enough on Mount St. Helens and the eruption itself.

[ZLoth]

From The Conversation:

Why You Should Revisit the Classics, Even if You Didn't Like Them at School
School can turn classic books into a chore. Rereading Austen or Shakespeare as adults, we can see how we have grown.
FULL ARTICLE HERE

[ZLoth]

I completed The Lufthansa Heist: Behind the Six-million Dollar Cash Haul That Shook the World this afternoon. This book is told in a "Narriative Non-Fiction" format that goes beyond the 1978 Lufthansa Heist, but covers other criminal acts as well including an act involving the fixing of college basketball games so that they were under the spread. There is a full Wikipedia article on this book.

Now, I'm off to another universe with the first audio dramatization of the Tangent Knights trilogy Caprice of Fate. This has serious Tokusatsu vibes.

[kphoger]

I recently started reading The Consolation of Philosophy by Boethius (in the 520s), as translated by Victor Watts.  I haven't actually started in on the text yet, because the foreword is quite substantial and rather dense.  I had asked for the book for Christmas.

I had stopped reading for a while, for no real reason.  But with the recent warm weather, I got back into reading on the front porch after work.  I just finished Book II of The Consolation of Philosophy, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.  Not knowing very much about Greek philosophy and mythology hasn't been too much of a hinderance, fortunately.

There has been debate in modern times about whether Boethius was truly a Christian or not:  this book, which he wrote while awaiting his impending execution by Theodoric the Great, seems to suggest he found pagan philosophy more of a comfort than the tenets of the Christian faith.  But he also lived in an age in which many prominent thinkers believed that, when properly understood, secular philosophy was complementary to and even supportive of Christian theology.  This view of philosophy and religion comes through, especially in Book II, and it has been an interesting exercise to try and figure out if certain passages (a) represent Christianity as seen through the veil of Greek philosophy or (b) represent a merely theist worldview that isn't necessarily Christian.  I have also already detected Neoplatonist/Gnostic influence, especially as it relates to the division of mind and body, which I suppose isn't all that surprising.

Anyway, it has been enjoyable to read.  As the personified Philosophy seeks to answer Boethius' complaints, it has been fun to sift her answers through my own Christian filter, to anticipate Boethius' possible counterarguments, and then to ponder whether my modern mind would benefit from integrating the endorsed truths into its own worldview.  Hopefully, Books III through V will be just as enjoyable.

I finally finished reading The Consolation of Philosophy.  While I do consider it worthwhile to have read, that was quite a bit more Plato, Aristotle, and Greek mythology than I was prepared for.  Thank goodness for well-written footnotes!  I didn't feel like the book came to much of a resolution, and I especially expected it to come back to the particular issue of Boethius' unfair suffering.  But that's probably a product of my modern mind being used to novels and movies.  One of the most meaningful parts to me was, in fact, the very end, wherein Philosophy resolves the paradox of God's foreknowledge on the one hand and man's free will on the other.

[ZLoth]

My mother and I finished The Skies Belong to Us: Love and Terror in the Golden Age of Hijacking (also Wikipedia article). As stated previously, this book covers the airline hijackings that occurred from 1968 until 1973. The big hijacking focus is the Western Airlines flight 701 hijacking that took place on June 2, 1972 by Willie Roger Holder and Catherine Marie Kerkow where the flight ended up in Algeria and it's aftermath. However, other highjackings were also touched upon, along with the airlines resistance  on additional security measures because it would add inconvenience. Quite a good listen.

The next book we listened to was Stephen Fry's English Delight a four-part humorous series on the English language covering Puns, Metaphors, Quotations, and Cliché.

The next book is to be determined.

As for me, I finished the the first book of Tangent Knights trilogy Caprice of Fate. It is a fun, escapist book, but I'm not going to recommend it to others under most circumstances unless they are familiar with the material that this book series is based upon. I'm now listening to The Zimmermann Telegram which has been on my book list for quite a while. This telegram was only briefly touched on in history class, and I wanted to know more.

[vdeane]

I'm now listening to The Zimmermann Telegram which has been on my book list for quite a while. This telegram was only briefly touched on in history class, and I wanted to know more.

Which is odd, considering that it's the reason we entered World War I in the first place, not the much more famous Lusitania - which happened years earlier.

[ZLoth]

My mother and I had to do a trip today, so we ended up listening to The Wicked Wit of Queen Elizabeth II. Unfortunately, this book didn't live up to the title as it covered more of the royal family than the Queen herself, and provided more insights into the royal family than actual laugh-out-loud moments, although a couple were a chuckle.

[ZLoth]

I'm now listening to The Zimmermann Telegram which has been on my book list for quite a while. This telegram was only briefly touched on in history class, and I wanted to know more.

Which is odd, considering that it's the reason we entered World War I in the first place, not the much more famous Lusitania - which happened years earlier.

My memories of high school history class was from the 1980s, while college history class was the 1990s. My memories of those is a bit fuzzy. The audiobooks are effectively a way for me to go back and get more details.

[ZLoth]

I'm now listening to The Zimmermann Telegram which has been on my book list for quite a while. This telegram was only briefly touched on in history class, and I wanted to know more.

Which is odd, considering that it's the reason we entered World War I in the first place, not the much more famous Lusitania - which happened years earlier.

My memories of high school history class was from the 1980s, while college history class was the 1990s. My memories of those is a bit fuzzy. The audiobooks are effectively a way for me to go back and get more details.

In process of completing the book The Zimmermann Telegram. As noted, the sinking of the RMS Lusitania on May 7, 1915, while the Zimmerman telegram was transmitted on January 17, 1917 and released to the American public in February. The book highlighted more of the details of the German efforts to turn Mexico against the United States as well as have Japan switch sides as well as more details on the key players. Needless to say, I learned more facts than I knew privously.

[ZLoth]

Just finished Tangent Knights trilogy Tempest Tossed. Same as before... if you aren't familiar with the source material (e.g. Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, etc), then give this book a skip. I'm now listening to Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster.

Meanwhile, my mother and I are listening to Printer's Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History. So far, it's interesting on some of the history revolving around printing and some books that were printed centuries ago.

[kphoger]

I raided the bookshelves this afternoon after work, decided to start reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.  I've never read anything like it before, although I've seen the movie a few times.  I only made it partway through the editor's introduction so far, though.

Any thoughts, if you've read it before?

[Scott5114]

I'm late to the Fourth Wing party. I just got to that scene. All I can say is, wouldn't being a Navarrian meteorologist be the worst job ever?

[ZLoth]

All I can say is, wouldn't being a Navarrian meteorologist be the worst job ever?

Yup.

[english si]

I raided the bookshelves this afternoon after work, decided to start reading Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin.  I've never read anything like it before, although I've seen the movie a few times.  I only made it partway through the editor's introduction so far, though.

Any thoughts, if you've read it before?

The film adaptations (but not the sublime BBC TV series) tend to smoosh over a lot of the more interesting features in favour of the main romance plot - perhaps due to having little Pride in the source material, perhaps due to trying to meet people's Prejudice, mostly due to run time.

The book is rather different to the moody* Keira Knightly film, with a lot of really funny stuff. The focus in the book is a lot more on the funny side characters and societal comment with tons of side-eye and bantz from Lizzy than the ennui of that film (that would be French and terrible in Regency Britain!). Austen is a satirist first-and-foremost and she is amazing at creating characters that stand out.

She's also incredibly funny. You can read P&P and without much care about whether Darcy is the one for Lizzy or not.

*Despite trying to cling to Austenmania a decade after 1995 with Firth's wet shirt, Clueless, and Emma Thompson's Oscar winning Sense and Sensibility, the vibe of that film seems much more Bronte.

From The Conversation:

Why You Should Revisit the Classics, Even if You Didn't Like Them at School
School can turn classic books into a chore. Rereading Austen or Shakespeare as adults, we can see how we have grown.
FULL ARTICLE HERE

I'm very glad I ignored my teacher tell us not to read on in Of Mice and Men because finishing it that night meant I learnt it was enjoyable, as we proceeded to take weeks to read it in class as we sapped the life out of it while playing the game of 'literature'. TBF, we had big important exams and it was our novel that we had to write essays on at the end of two years (Macbeth, War Poetry, and some surprise stuff were the other texts we had essays on).

I was a very avid and varied reader of books until school sapped the life out of them in my mid-teens. I got back to it, until the internet distracted me. But yes, English Literature at school has had as much of a negative effect on my book reading as the internet has.

Go back and read the classics you read at school - because they were written for adults, not teens. And, typically, they were written for the pleasure of reading, rather than study (though I'm sure some classics were written for people to study and go 'look how smart this person is' - normally the ones where they don't make TV adaptations of the book, but have 'allusions to' so critics/reviewers can feel smart if they've seen it).

[wanderer2575]

I'm listening to Elevation by Stephen King, read by the author.  It's fairly interesting so far; not at all a horror novel.  His voice is not at all the deep baritone I thought it might be.

[ZLoth]

I'm listening to Elevation by Stephen King, read by the author.  It's fairly interesting so far; not at all a horror novel.  His voice is not at all the deep baritone I thought it might be.

While I have several Stephen King novels in my "to be read" stack, the only one I have completed is The Running Man by his alter-ego Richard Bachman years ago. As expected, it is massively different from the 1987 film, although Richard Dawson and Arnold Schwarzenegger both steal the show. 

As for Elevation, it was $8.52 including tax, so an easy purchase.

[kphoger]

I'm not sure this really fits the thread, but I couldn't think of a better place to put it.

During my morning Bible reading time lately, I worked my way through the Apocalypse of John (Revelation), along with a commentary of sorts.  I finished this morning and then, because it's the last book in the Bible and I had a few minutes to spare, I flipped ahead through the supplemental material in the back—you know, that stuff that the editorial staff probably worked really hard on but nobody ever really looks at.  Anyway, I've had this copy of the NJB translation (New Jerusalem Bible) since the late 1990s, but today was the first time I noticed a half-page section recognizing the contributions of what it called the 'original collaborators' on the first edition of the earlier JB translation (Jerusalem Bible).  Besides the editor's name, I counted 27 others, but one name immediately jumped out at me:  J.R.R. Tolkien.

I had no idea before today that Tolkien had had a part in translating the Bible.  Since then I've learned that, by his own admission, he only finished translating the book of Jonah before resigning from the rest of what was assigned for him to translate.  And of course, his translation was edited plenty before publication.  So he considered being mentioned in that short list of 'collaborators' as an undeserved gesture.  But still.  Learn something new every day!

[ZLoth]

I completed the audiobook Truth, Lies, and O-Rings: Inside the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster which was written by Allan J. McDonald who was one of the executives from Morton Thiokol. Since he was an involved party, I expected bias in his presentation, but it was very detailed in the events leading up to the disaster, how he was against the launch, how he testified in the Presidential Commission investigating the accident, and the redesign of the rocket boosters. From his perspective, it was NASA and the Marshall Space Center that pushed for the launch despite the low temperatures and the rough seas of the recovery vehicles. Because it is very detailed, it is also a bit technical.

[ZLoth]

Just finished Tangent Knights trilogy Tempest Tossed. Same as before... if you aren't familiar with the source material (e.g. Super Sentai, Kamen Rider, Ultraman, etc), then give this book a skip.

Just finished Gemini Ascendant of the Tangent Knights. Opinion still unchanged about this series.

[kphoger]

The film adaptations (but not the sublime BBC TV series) tend to smoosh over a lot of the more interesting features in favour of the main romance plot - perhaps due to having little Pride in the source material, perhaps due to trying to meet people's Prejudice, mostly due to run time.

The book is rather different to the moody* Keira Knightly film, with a lot of really funny stuff. The focus in the book is a lot more on the funny side characters and societal comment with tons of side-eye and bantz from Lizzy than the ennui of that film (that would be French and terrible in Regency Britain!). Austen is a satirist first-and-foremost and she is amazing at creating characters that stand out.

She's also incredibly funny. You can read P&P and without much care about whether Darcy is the one for Lizzy or not.

*Despite trying to cling to Austenmania a decade after 1995 with Firth's wet shirt, Clueless, and Emma Thompson's Oscar winning Sense and Sensibility, the vibe of that film seems much more Bronte.

I'm still working my way through the editor's foreword.  And it actually goes into some of what you're saying, and not necessarily even criticizing the adaptations—but rather using them as an example of how different sorts of people in different time periods might enjoy the book for different reasons.

[ZLoth]

I just finished Queen of Cuba: An FBI Agent's Insider Account of the Spy Who Evaded Detection for 17 Years. This covered the spy case of Ana Montes who was nicknamed "the Queen of Cuba" within the Defense Intelligence Agency... but also was providing information to Cuba. There were some interesting things... she only did it because she felt it was the right thing to do, and both her bother and sister also worked for the FBI. Very interesting listen.

Now onto The Martian read by R. C. Bray. Funny thing is... I haven't seen the movie yet.

[Big John]

Bridging the Dutch Landscape - My sister thought I would like it. Some interesting points and stuff you would not see in America.

[ZLoth]

Just finished The Martian as narrated by R.C. Bray then the extra material read by Wil Weaton. I'm coming from the perspective of "I've heard the movie, have both versions on my media server, but haven't watched it yet." Yes, I'm a geeky engineer type, so this Apollo 13 meets MacGyver-type story really appealed to me. A little bit of a language issue, but this book did keep me engaged.

Next up... The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.

[ZLoth]

My mother and finally completed Printer's Error: Irreverent Stories from Book History. This is a nice look back at some of the most interesting periods of history involving printing told in a fun manner. Funny how little we know about Johannes Gutenberg who is recognized as the father of Western printing. Plus, some of the fun twist and tales of the printing business. My mother and I are now listening to Tradition! The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical. Funny how my mother commented how I found this "interesting channel", and I had to explain to her that I was streaming the book from my home server.

As for me, I decided to try a short dramatization of Christmas Eve, 1914 which is a 75 minute dramatization of the Christmas truce during the first World War. It was pretty good.

I'm just started to listen to The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work.