What Books Are We All Reading?

[mawnansmiff]

As a voracious reader of books I thought it might be interesting to see what forum members are currently reading.
My favourite topics are history (both social and industrial), anthropology, modern science, the occasional biography and anything on philology/lexicography.
I invariably have several books on the go at any one time and currently I'm reading 'Charles Dickens: A Life' by the excellent biographer Claire Tomalin (her biography of Samuel Pepys I have read three times!), 'Freedom Just Around The Corner' by Walter A. McDougall and 'The Making Of The Oxford English Dictionary' by Peter Gilliver who is currently working as an editor for the OED. Of all the books I have read on this subject (and there are many) this is the most academic.
So folks, what books do you like to read whilst enjoying a bowl of your preferred leaf?
Regards,
Jay.

 

[yaddy306]

http://pipesmagazine.com/forums/topic/what-are-you-reading/page/20

 

[grouchydog]

"Without Remorse" by Tom Clancy.
In the queue are "Truman" by David McCullough and "Churchill" by Martin Gilbert.

 

[mso489]

Oh boy. I'm glad you asked. My great aunt, who I remember in her nineties when I was a child, was married for a time to the writer and friend of the Blackfeet tribe James Willard Schultz. He wrote a whole shelf of books about his life with the Blackfeet and their lives. I'm reading one of his books, Bird Woman, about Sacajawea, a member of the Snake tribe who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their expedition. I think Schultz had much innate writing talent but also trained well with the Blackfeet as a storyteller in the oral tradition, so he gets ahold of the reader and puts you in a trance. If you'd like to take a look, I'd recommend My Life as an Indian, by James Willard Schultz.
My Aunt Celia was somewhat slandered in a biography of Schultz, because the biographer was using Schultz's third wife as a resource, and of course she wouldn't think much of his second wife. His first wife was a Blackfeet and bore him a son who was a successful artist, painter and sculptor. The biography had it that Celia was kind of a shop girl adventurer who married up. She was actually the daughter of a successful real estate developer and first mayor of a lake shore suburb of Chicago; she was spoiled, married late, but as much as I admire Schultz as a writer, I'd say she married down. I published an article defending my long-deceased Great Aunt pointing out this discrepancy.

 

[Chasing Embers]

"Dragon Teeth" by Michael Crichton

"Chasing Embers" by James Bennett

 

[didache]

I am slowly but surely working my way through the Maigret novels by Georges Simenon. I have read about 15 now with many more to go. Simenon, as well as being a great pipeman, was an exceptionally prolific writer.
Mike

 

[hobie1dog]

MF Horn- autobiography of Maynard Ferguson..

 

[tbradsim1]

Short Nights of The Shadow Catcher, by Edward Curtis, epic book and pictures of the American Infian.

 

[sablebrush52]

The Millionaire and The Bard, about Henry Folger's pursuit of the First Folio. Just finished The Gilded Dinosaur a history of the dinosaur wars of the 1870's and the rise of American science.

 

[bluegrasspipe]

"Insomnia" by Stephen King..

 

[drennan]

A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe.
Next up will be The Mayor of Casterbridge by my favourite author Thomas Hardy.

 

[saintpeter]

American Gods

 

[cosmicbobo]

Haunted Bookshop. Trying to read more classic and Victorian Lit.

 

[grue]

Brent Weeks' "The way of shadows"
I read 2-4 books a month and they are my No1 money burner. Can't live without them. Usually they are fantasy, sci-fi, social psychology studies, crime thrillers or horror. :P

 

[Sjmiller CPG]

The Good Years - From 1900 to the First World War by Walter Lord

 

[aldecaker]

Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose.

 

[Chasing Embers]

American Gods is a book? Love the series, now I have to get the book!

 

[bluegrasspipe]

Haunted Bookshop.

Cosmic, I started that one just to get a taste of what it was about recently, but didn't get back to it yet. I am sure you know the reason for my interest. Are you enjoying it?

 

[jpmcwjr]

The Perfect Smoke by Fred Hanna

Sherlock Holmes- A.C. Doyle, on audio books.

Dead Wake (re: Lusitania)- Eric Larson- also audio.

 

[cosmicbobo]

Cosmic, I started that one just to get a taste of what it was about recently, but didn't get back to it yet. I am sure you know the reason for my interest. Are you enjoying it?

Bluegrasspipe, yes, I am not far into it, but I am enjoying it. Very easy reading.