What are You Reading Now?

[MartyA]

"Still As Bright" by Christopher Cokinos
A wide-ranging book about the moon. Part history, part lunar topography, part geology, part Apollo, part autobiographical. VERY well written, often almost poetic.
I read it with a good lunar atlas next to me for when he discussed various craters, etc, but you don't really need that. I often read old, rather "nitch" stuff, but I highly recommend this one!

 

[huntertrw]

Mainline Steam Revival by Ron Ziel. This book feeds my love of steam-powered locomotives and railroading.

 

[Honkytonk Man]

Cakes and Ale, by WS Maugham.
I found a first edition leather bound, which I snatched up.

 

[khiddy]

Enjoyed The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch over the past few days. Fascinating to learn that Samuel “Dictionary” Johnson, James Boswell, Joshua Reynolds, Adam Smith, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon were all contemporaries and friends who met once a week for dinner and conversational drinking. What an age!

 

[Olkofri]

The Philip K Dick Reader.

 

[huntertrw]

The Ultimate Cigar Book (Second Edition, Third Printing) by Richard Carleton Hacker. I purchased this autographed copy yesterday at a local used bookstore, and I am enjoying it. It is structured along the same lines as his The Ultimate Pipe Book, and includes a chapter titled, "International Compendium of Cigar Brands," an alphabetic listing from "Absolute" to "Zino - Honduras" that is fascinating.

As I wrote to him yesterday, "I am still first and foremost a pipe-smoker, but do enjoy an occasional stick. Two that I recall with particular fondness were a Davidoff and a Cuban Cohiba, the latter enjoyed in New Jersey at the memorial service for the late sporting author Gene Hill." I had forgotten from which line the Davidoff came, but thanks to his book recalled that it was a Dominican Grand Cru.

If you enjoy cigars, then seek out this book. I believe that you will find it to be worthy of your attention.

 

[ssjones]

I thought this was a werewolf story, but it's turning into more of a sci-fi horror. I'm not sure on this one yet.

 

[Butter Side Down]

Just finished Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMarier. Quite good. I can certainly see why so many of her books and stories were adapted into films (Rebecca, The Birds, My Cousin Rachel, Don't Look Now). Very suspenseful. Claustrophobic atmosphere. People who have active minds, who are totally isolated and trying desperately to navigate their restricted reality without losing themselves.

Today, I started on some brain candy... Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. So far so good. Hiaasen is always good for a funny and fun read.

 

[LeafErikson]

Just finished Call of the Wild by Jack London. I actually think I prefer White Fang but it was still a great book. The two books are so similar in some ways and polar opposites in other ways.

 

[The Benedictine]

Just received The Rule of Saint Benedict today. It's a monastic text on how to behave. It's written in modern English to make it more appropriate and easier to read.

 

[DesertDan]

I just finished The Hobbit. It had been a very long time since I read it.
Not sure about what's next.

 

[Briarcutter]

Not sure about what's next

Did you read all four in the series or just the Hobbit?

 

[DesertDan]

It had been so long since I last read it that I really enjoyed it, and so I am content with just The Hobbit for now.
The Lord of the Rings is "comfort food" reading for me, so I have read it several times over the last couple of years.

I love that The Hobbit begins and ends with pipe smoking.

 

[instymp]

Just finished Jamaica Inn by Daphne DuMarier. Quite good. I can certainly see why so many of her books and stories were adapted into films (Rebecca, The Birds, My Cousin Rachel, Don't Look Now). Very suspenseful. Claustrophobic atmosphere. People who have active minds, who are totally isolated and trying desperately to navigate their restricted reality without losing themselves.

Today, I started on some brain candy... Bad Monkey by Carl Hiaasen. So far so good. Hiaasen is always good for a funny and fun read.

View attachment 390308

until he inflicted his political beliefs.

 

[warren99]

 

[carlomarx]

 

[cosmicfolklore]

Arrived yesterday, and excited to start reading this.

 

[brooklynpiper]

Selma Lagerlof - The Emperor of Portugallia




Lagerlof was the first woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909.

 

[MartyA]

"Life, Speeches, and Public Services of Abraham Lincoln" by J. H. Barrett, 1865.

I bought this off eBay because it was published right after the assassination of Lincoln, and gave a contemporary account of the events. 842 pages covering Lincoln's life along with the civil war and other current events... Long, but it held my attention. Many of the battles of the Civil War were a bit hard to follow, although I could get the general drift. I've picked up the two volumes of U. S. Grant's autobiography, and I intend to pick of a book of Civil War maps before I start those so that I can visualize such things better.
This book isn't rare, but if you want one in good condition you have to PAY for it. In this one, the text block was pretty solid, but the covers were a disaster, held on with degenerated scotch tape, and the spine off in several brittle fragments. I managed to make it a "readable" copy with some fabric book tape, some archival glue, and finally, I covered it with adhesive plastic. This would be a ghastly, revolting, solution to a book collector, but the book needs an entire new cover anyway. I just wanted to read it, and I enjoyed that.

 

[warren]

Three Days in January by Brett Baier. Fascinating and extremely easy to read/follow. The dichotomy between Eisenhower and Kennedy is a great historical read.