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Golden Oldies out there...what books are you reading right now?


Guest Jetsun Milarepa

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On 10/9/2017 at 1:10 PM, chandrakirti said:

Now I'm on 'Quiet' by Susan Cain, which is about the power of introversion, which is so overlooked in a noisy , empty society. The history of how society stopped being thoughtful and considerate in favour of the loud and charismatic is very interesting.

I'm gonna have to dig that one up.

 

Right now, I'm working my way through the Song of Ice and Fire (book 3 of 5) by George R.R. Martin - which is what the Game of Thrones series was based off.  I binge-watched seasons 1-5 throughout the summer, watched season 6 as it revealed in the fall, and decided to jump into the books after the season ended.

I'm a sucker for dragons.  Toss some scaly beasts into a novel, and I'm right there.  I'm also an addict of any literature with an Egyptian tie-in or hints of classical mythologies and/or magic.   

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I just got "The Stranger in the Woods" out of the library this morning. The book was mentioned a while back--a true story about a guy who lived for 27 years in a tent in the woods in Maine, stealing what he needed from summer cottages. Finally got caught....

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On 12/9/2017 at 8:57 AM, teatree said:

I just got "The Stranger in the Woods" out of the library this morning. The book was mentioned a while back--a true story about a guy who lived for 27 years in a tent in the woods in Maine, stealing what he needed from summer cottages. Finally got caught....

Hmm. "The Stranger in the Woods" sounds interesting! I just reserved a book, "Ada Blackjack: a true story of survival in the Atlantic" by Jennifer Nivens. It's about a young Inupiat seamstress who wound up on an expedition with four men in Siberia and was the sole survivor. 

 

I am currently reading "Adventures of a Female Medical Detective" by Mary Guinan. It's several short stories about Dr. Guinan's career stint with the CDC. 

 

 

 

 

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On 12/9/2017 at 6:13 AM, chandrakirti said:

@EarthMama, people keep telling me that the Ice and Fire books are much better than the series. As I've seen neither, I'll probably read the books. as I never got into the series at all.

The books are good, a lot more depth to them vs. the show (which is usual with screen adaptations of written works) - the only thing I question on the author's narrative is the lengths he goes to describe what people are wearing...again, and again, and again.

 

the fun part about this is...I watched the show first, then jumped into the books after the last season aired...so I'm 'reading' the books with the characters 'show' faces and voices.

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4 hours ago, EarthMama said:

so I'm 'reading' the books with the characters 'show' faces and voices.

I have the Game of Thrones books but I'm waiting until after the series ends to read them - partly to get the actors out of my head! Also waiting for the last book - if George R R Martin ever finishes it. I grew up reading fantasy writers like Michael Moorcock, Anne MacCaffrey and Poul Anderson. All the books I read in the 80s and early 90s seemed to be rehashes of these and I became bored with fantasy. However, seeing the GoT series on TV piqued my interest in Martin's work. Interesting characters, lots of strong women. complex political story.

 

I'm currently reading "Imajica" by Clive Barker. It's been sitting on my bookshelves for years but it is huge and not easily transportable. Now that I am having a break over Christmas, it seems like the perfect time to read it. When I'm working, I tend to read on trains using my Kindle but I refuse to buy a Kindle version of "Imagica" when I already have the hard copy.

 

At the moment when travelling, I'm reading "Woolgathering" by Patti Smith and "Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories" a collection of horror stories, many by well known writers like Neil Gaiman and Clive Barker. The latter is a Kindle book and the former is a size you can easily carry in a handbag.

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5 hours ago, EarthMama said:

the fun part about this is...I watched the show first, then jumped into the books after the last season aired...so I'm 'reading' the books with the characters 'show' faces and voices.

This is the part I don't like! I don't want someone's else's idea of the characters in my head when I read the book. So I try to always do it the other way 'round. (Or don't watch the movie at all, as in "Gone Girl"--Ben Affleck is NOT who I pictured as the husband!)

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Always looking for answers

I began reading both Sleeping Beaties (by Stephen and Owen King) and Dead Simple (by Peter James) several weeks ago, but haven't gotten to reading for 3-4 weeks due to finals. I guess I'll be picking one of them back up next weekend so I can finish my Goodreads reading challenge for this year :) 

 

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On 12/12/2017 at 12:20 AM, ABryonJ.maybe said:

Anyone else so full of self loathing that they torture themselves by reading philosophy?

Plato is one of the topics in my module. :) 

 

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On 17/12/2017 at 5:15 AM, chandrakirti said:

Marcus Aurelius is a favourite Stoic writer of mine!

I'm rather fond of Marcus Aurelius. I went through a stage of reading philosophy in my 20s, but rarely read non-fiction books nowadays unless I need to do so for a research project.

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My last was "Borrowed Time" by Robert Goddard. His specialty is stories either set in the past or investigating events of the past (or sometimes both). His early works are much better than his latest offerings (IMHO) and I'm filling in the gaps rather than reading the new ones.

 

Some of the action in Borrowed time is set on Hergest Ridge, a ridge that forms part of the Offa's Dyke path which runs the length of the England/Wales border. I happened to be planning to do a walk on the ridge, so I took the book with me and read a few pages 'in situ'.

 

 

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Always looking for answers
On 17-12-2017 at 4:19 PM, Blitzentan said:

Plato is one of the topics in my module. :) 

 

Yeah I'm thinking about reading a book by David Benatar :) People tell me my view of humankind comes close to the one Immanuel Kant has written down, so maybe I should read something written by him as well.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Guest Jetsun Milarepa

I have just had a ton of books from my daughter, ones she is passing to me , having read them herself, so when I sort them all out, I'll list the next reading material!

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Just started Nomadland, about transient older Americans, living in vans or campers, traveling around working as migrant laborers ("workampers") to survive financially.

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Always looking for answers

Yay I've got some new book shelves so I'm getting my books out of the storage bit by bit :D All my Stephen Kings, Mo Hayders and Dean Koontz books are back in my room. 

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Just catching up on this thread, and I see that my most recent book is also one that @chandrakirti read - "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. I definitely recommend it, so @EarthMama, if you end up reading it, I'd be curious to know what you think. Otherwise, catching on the current issue of Asimov's sci-fi magazine.

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Perilous Poozer

Neal Stephenson’s ”Cryptonomicon”, good fun if a little visceral at times.

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Perilous Poozer
On 12/12/2017 at 11:15 AM, Kazbe said:

 It's been sitting on my bookshelves for years but it is huge and not easily transportable... I tend to read on trains using my Kindle

Preach! Took me months to read Murakami’s 1Q84 ‘cos I had the three books in one volume version and it was maaaasive! I was commuting at the time and just didn’t have time to read it at home. My eReader is a mental lifesaver! 

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Just finishing up Alan Alda's If I Understood You, Would I Have This Look on My Face? My Adventures in the Art and Science of Relating and Communicating. It's a smooth and quick read, and he writes it mostly from the perspective of trying to get scientists to communicate better, but it's really applicable to any industry and anyone.

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imnotafreakofnature!

Fat and Cholesterol Are Good for You by Uffe Ravnskov. Also concurrently reading Kenn Day's Post-Tribal Shamanism: A New Look at the Old Ways. I don't generally read two books at the same time, but these both looked so good, I couldn't decide which to read first. 8)

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imnotafreakofnature!

Up until late April or early May, I was actually on track to read fifty books last year (and then I could have posted that in another thread on the site! :D). Then last spring I visited the Yiddish Book Center in MA and got sidetracked by an interest in Yiddish. So I've been learning that the last several months (starting with transliterated things and now finally moving into learning the Yiddish alphabet) and have seriously slowed down on the reading. I'm not sure I even read twenty books last year! :o

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Always looking for answers
41 minutes ago, imnotafreakofnature! said:

Up until late April or early May, I was actually on track to read fifty books last year (and then I could have posted that in another thread on the site! :D). Then last spring I visited the Yiddish Book Center in MA and got sidetracked by an interest in Yiddish. So I've been learning that the last several months (starting with transliterated things and now finally moving into learning the Yiddish alphabet) and have seriously slowed down on the reading. I'm not sure I even read twenty books last year! :o

Yeah I get how that works. I read a lot until October, but after that I haven't read one book. My target was 24 books and I almost didn't make it. It was that I found out about 'Order of the Stick' (a comic) that I could finish my Goodreads-challenge just in time. 

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@chandrakirti and @Blitzentan come on you guys I'm talking about the real philosophy, like Nietzsche and Heidegger! I'm kidding, really though. One of my favorite British philosophers, Alfred North Whitehead, said all philosophy was one long footnote to Plato, so starting from there is really good for understanding all Western civilization. 

I just started reading Tobacco Road by Erskine Caldwell. Its about the Southern US during the period just after WW2. Its going to be a tough one I believe. Really dark.

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Probably not a very Ace friendly book, and definitely not for the squeamish/repulsed, but

 

The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis 

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