***Book Club***

[Fourier]

I just finished reading "Kitchen Confidential" by Anthony Bourdain. It gives great insights into the underworld of the food business but it is also interesting to see his path through addiction and how it influenced his decisions.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Guys I try to read as much as possible, anyway pretty dissapointed that all these book stores are closing here in melbourne. There are very little stores left with decent selection (not near me anyway).

So naturally I'm considering getting an ereader or an ipad.

But I dunno, feel like reading of a screen could become pretty annoying. Anyone can share thier opinion or experience with this??

 

[The Hitch]

For my type of fiction - Organized Crime, drug trade, espionage IR kind of books, I think Don Winslow is the best new author.

Frederick Forsyth is the absolute king of the genre and still writing but Winslow, whose focus on the Northern Mexican cartels and US mafias, (an issue of great interest to me atm with what is going on in Mexico), will hopefully keep churning them out for many many years to come.

Anyone read these 2?

Guys I try to read as much as possible, anyway pretty dissapointed that all these book stores are closing here in melbourne. There are very little stores left with decent selection (not near me anyway).

So naturally I'm considering getting an ereader or an ipad.

But I dunno, feel like reading of a screen could become pretty annoying. Anyone can share thier opinion or experience with this??

Don't I pads (and all other tablets) have like a thousand different functions and cost 5 times as much.

The e reader is cheaper but is specifically for books.

I think the screen on the ereader is a lot better for reading than tablets. If you read a lot it would hurt your eyes less, or thats what I heard anyway, maybe its not true.

Also what about buying online? I buy all my books second hand of Amazon for like £0.01 + £2 shipping.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

Don't I pads (and all other tablets) have like a thousand different functions and cost 5 times as much.

The e reader is cheaper but is specifically for books.

I think the screen on the ereader is a lot better for reading than tablets. If you read a lot it would hurt your eyes less, or thats what I heard anyway, maybe its not true.

Also what about buying online? I buy all my books second hand of Amazon for like £0.01 + £2 shipping.

well I already buy online, but I hate waiting. e-readers is like buying and reading.

I heard the galaxy was a decent tab to read on, but yeah I'm not sure I like the idea of reading from a screen.

I like books and gathering a collection.

 

[ultimobici]

All-time favourites are, in order of preference:
-The Monkey Wrench Gang, Edward Abbey
-Touching the Void, Joe Simpson
-The Road, Cormac McCarthy
-Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer
-Perfect Storm, Sebastian Junger
-Power of One, Bryce Courtney
-Angels & Demons, and Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown

I have been on a bit of a history and classics kick recently. Just finished Gallipoli: The Fatal Shore, Catch-22 and Fightclub, and have 1984 and To Kill A Mockingbird up next. Also bought Born to Run on the advice of TFF, but that's sitting third on the book shelf with another Gallipoli book.

+1 for Grapes of Wrath.

Catch 22 - if ever there was a book to prove the theory that some writers have just one book in them this compared to Heller's Something Happened is it. I love Catch 22 and pick it up every once in a while and still find it fresh. With Something Happened I can't get past the first page or two. I don't know why, I just can't for some reason.

At the moment I've just finished Geoff Drake's Team 7-Eleven and am wandering through Olympic Gangster about José Beyaert. The former was a two day job, the latter improving harder work but still interesting.

 

[The Hitch]

well I already buy online, but I hate waiting. e-readers is like buying and reading.

I heard the galaxy was a decent tab to read on, but yeah I'm not sure I like the idea of reading from a screen.

I like books and gathering a collection.

Yeah, call me old fashioned but i like the idea of books and hope they dont get replaced buy technology.

Also since my dad reads a lot too, he often just buys some books online and I just read them when hes finished or vice versa,

Wouldn't be able to do so with ereaders.

 

[El Pistolero]

I don't really like reading but lately I've been reading La Divina Commedia to see what the big deal was about. It's actually quite good.

"Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita mi ritrovai per una silva oscura che la diretta via era smaritta." Brilliant.

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond is also a pretty decent book. I love stuff like that.

As for fiction books, "The name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco is a pretty good book which I recomend to everyone.

 

[The Hitch]

I don't really like reading but lately I've been reading La Divina Commedia to see what the big deal was about. It's actually quite good.

Wasnt your signature from Dante like a year ago

Also, why don't you like reading

 

[auscyclefan94]

Wasnt your signature from Dante like a year ago

Also, why don't you like reading

Why does someone disliking reading shock you? I know lots of people who don't like reading and personally I don't like reading fiction novels.


But I do agree with you that I hope books are not replaced by e-readers.

 

[Timmy-loves-Rabo]

I love fiction.
Call me nerdish but I do love fantasy books (to a degree).

I'm not big on non-fiction to be honest.

 

[Ferminal]

Guys I try to read as much as possible, anyway pretty dissapointed that all these book stores are closing here in melbourne. There are very little stores left with decent selection (not near me anyway).

So naturally I'm considering getting an ereader or an ipad.

But I dunno, feel like reading of a screen could become pretty annoying. Anyone can share thier opinion or experience with this??

Use BookDepository, takes a bit over a week to deliver.

I buy a stack at a time so there's always something on the shelf I haven't read.

I'm sure reading off a screen is fine, I just like hard copies, I still buy CDs too

 

[El Pistolero]

Wasnt your signature from Dante like a year ago

Also, why don't you like reading

Yeah, I liked the quote, but didn't read the book until now

I don't like reading because I can't concentrate myself on doing just one thing for a few hours. And usually by the time my exams are over I don't touch any book anymore till they start again

Though some books are definitely worth reading. After Dante, I'm thinking of reading the Odyssey. It's the only book in the world that you should read before you die. So I've been told at least. I also like reading texts from ancient writers, but you can't really call that books. Stuff like Xenophon, Demosthenes, Plinius the Elder, Tacitus, Thucydides, Lysias, etc

 

[VeloCity]

Been reading Mahfouz a lot lately - "Arabian Nights and Days" is excellent. The Cairo Trilogy is good, too.

Anyone read Murakami's "1Q84"?

 

[elapid]

Anyone read Murakami's "1Q84"?

Not yet, but it's next on my list. I would be interested to hear of other's opinions. I went on my usual holiday fiction binge and read the new books by Michael Connelly and John Grisham, and am currently half way through Stephen King's novel of time travel and JFK. I like a trashy read to break up the non-fictions, but have a whole pile of bike and military non-fictions to read in the near future.

For those that enjoy reading military history and have not done so already, I would highly recommend Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. I don't have much interest in the Vietnam War, but this was an excellent read.

 

[LeakyBoat]

Been reading Mahfouz a lot lately - "Arabian Nights and Days" is excellent. The Cairo Trilogy is good, too.

I've read Akhenaten; recommended.

 

[LeakyBoat]

For those that enjoy reading military history and have not done so already, I would highly recommend Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes. I don't have much interest in the Vietnam War, but this was an excellent read.

How does someone who reads military history not have much interest in Vietnam?

 

[More Strides than Rides]

I forgot about this thread.

Just finished Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandlebaum's That Used to be Us.

I'm now on Charles Payne's So Much Reform, So Little Change about urban educational reform in the US. I attended a lecture by him in the fall, and finally got around to reading his book. Fascinating stuff,

EDIT: not to mention the dozen or so books I'm paging through for different classes.

 

[VeloCity]

Has anyone read the new book about Gino Bartali? Just came out this week, I think, so might be a bit premature to ask

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Valor-Cy...&qid=1340384614&sr=8-1&keywords=road+to+valor

Looks interesting and has received good reviews so far.

 

[Christian]

My favourite authors right now: Thomas Bernhard and José Saramago.

Currently reading: "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins (bought it at the airport 3 years ago, never got around to it, suddenly picked it up and now really liking it)

Planning to read next: "The name of the rose" by Umberto Eco (Everyone has been telling me it is a must-read, plus I am interested in medieval history)

Planning to buy/find: "A little yes and a big no" (George Grosz autobiography), biographical works on Jaroslav Hasek, Biography of Salazar, "Confieso que he vivido" by Pablo Neruda

 

[Christian]

Well I just finished "The Name of the Rose"! Luckily I had some time on my hands so I was able to read it pretty fast without much distraction. Though some parts of it can be pretty dense and philosophical, in a whole I found it agreeable to read though.

I am sure I missed many of the intertextual allusions and so on that Eco hid in there. I read that some people compare it to the political situation in Italy in the 1970's - that is of course difficult to grasp for us today who are not familiar with it. But in any case it is an enjoyable read, even on a more superficial level.

One thing I have to say though. People have recommended this book to me by saying "You learn a lot about life in the Middle Ages". Here I disagree. You learn a lot about life in a monastery in the Middle Ages. To me there is a difference - it is a sheltered microcosmos, to use an anachronism I guess you could call them the "1 %". The non-clerical farmers who work for the monastery and the villagers only appear very marginally. Of course there is the episode of the village girl, but this is also rather a side-note of the story. You also learn a lot about the political and philosophical debates of the time, but again - this tells me nothing about life itself during that time. The most interesting part of the story in that sense is to me the story of Salvatore and Remigius, who joined Fra Dolcino and later reveal their motives for doing so.

In school I have been studying the Middle Ages in Spain through worldly documents and found it much more interesting and revealing. Poems such as "El cantar de mio Cid" or the collection "El Romancero Viejo" reveal a great deal between the lines about all different parts of society, even if they are usually set in a noble situation. In another class we studied chronicles that certain kings had ordered to be written about their kingdom, law texts and "court rulings". But of course these are real documents from the time and "The Name of the Rose" is a fiction novel from 1980, so they shouldn't be examined by the same standards.

So while I agree that it is a great novel, I find it misleading to say it reveals a lot about "life in the Middle Ages"

 

[Hawkwood]

Well I just finished "The Name of the Rose"! Luckily I had some time on my hands so I was able to read it pretty fast without much distraction. Though some parts of it can be pretty dense and philosophical, in a whole I found it agreeable to read though.

I am sure I missed many of the intertextual allusions and so on that Eco hid in there. I read that some people compare it to the political situation in Italy in the 1970's - that is of course difficult to grasp for us today who are not familiar with it. But in any case it is an enjoyable read, even on a more superficial level.

One thing I have to say though. People have recommended this book to me by saying "You learn a lot about life in the Middle Ages". Here I disagree. You learn a lot about life in a monastery in the Middle Ages. To me there is a difference - it is a sheltered microcosmos, to use an anachronism I guess you could call them the "1 %". The non-clerical farmers who work for the monastery and the villagers only appear very marginally. Of course there is the episode of the village girl, but this is also rather a side-note of the story. You also learn a lot about the political and philosophical debates of the time, but again - this tells me nothing about life itself during that time. The most interesting part of the story in that sense is to me the story of Salvatore and Remigius, who joined Fra Dolcino and later reveal their motives for doing so.

In school I have been studying the Middle Ages in Spain through worldly documents and found it much more interesting and revealing. Poems such as "El cantar de mio Cid" or the collection "El Romancero Viejo" reveal a great deal between the lines about all different parts of society, even if they are usually set in a noble situation. In another class we studied chronicles that certain kings had ordered to be written about their kingdom, law texts and "court rulings". But of course these are real documents from the time and "The Name of the Rose" is a fiction novel from 1980, so they shouldn't be examined by the same standards.

So while I agree that it is a great novel, I find it misleading to say it reveals a lot about "life in the Middle Ages"

I have a book that might interest you, I haven't read it yet, but others say it's very good. The book is `Montaillou' named after a Languedoc village, and it was written by Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie. He used accounts of an inquistion to piece together the lives of the inhabitants of Montaillou over the period 1294 to 1324. Look it up there's loads about it online.

 

[ebandit]

favourite Cycling Book

http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Round_the_World_on_a_Wheel.html?id=h2JwfeowoXsC&redir_esc=y

this is great............Round the World on a Wheel - John Foster Fraser

Cycling Round the World before there were Todays Roads in the 19th Century

I recall one Section..............in a Far Off Land Our Travellers wanted to Buy Something with UK Currency............the Trader wanted Local Currency

Our Indignant Travellers quipped 'You Must Accept Our £.....it's the Queens Currency'

those were the Days

 

[nvpacchi]

Has anyone read the new book about Gino Bartali? Just came out this week, I think, so might be a bit premature to ask

http://www.amazon.com/Road-Valor-Cy...&qid=1340384614&sr=8-1&keywords=road+to+valor

Looks interesting and has received good reviews so far.

Perhaps this has been discussed elsewhere already on the forum, but I am slightly disappointed in the 80% I have read so far.

As far as his wartime heroics go, it was very informative (more so about WWII in Italy than Gino's life).

In terms of the cycling aspect, very basic and nowhere near as detailed as I would have liked. Almost zero mention of his Giro victories, two pages tops of his rivalry with Coppi (as opposed to Fotheringham who devoted a whole chapter to the rivalry in his Coppi bio), limited mention of one day races ignoring the significance of MSR and GdL.

The book reads more like a WWII history focusing on Bartali and Florence, instead of a Gino Bartali history with WWII being an integral part of the book.

 

[meat puppet]

I've been reading Philip Mirowski's More Heat Than Light from 1989. It is a book about the parallel histories of neo-classical (mainstream) economics and physics. Mirowski comes from the heterodox camp and is an established scholar in the field of economic history.

In this book, his basic claim is that the forefathers of economics borrowed heavily from 19th century physics, namely from classical mechanics, and put the concepts and laws utilised in physics mostly to metaphoric use. The objections that some physicists raised were mainly ignored, and so on. The underdeveloped notions that borrow from a dated paradigm of physics is, for Mirowski at least, the main source why mainstream economics does not fare very well in explaining its object. Personally, I find people like Steve Keen and Yanis Varoufakis more convincing since they tackle economics head on.

Yet I find it an enlightening read, though it is also rather burdensome at points, being an academic study and all. It is also a doubly tough nut for poor old me who hasn't studied physics since secondary school.

However, anyone interested in the development of sciences during the last 150 years will get somethinn out of it for sure.

Mirowski's writing style is biting and full of sarcasm, which lightens the load at least a bit.

For laughs, I've been leafing thru Jäniksen vuosi (The Year of the Hare) again. Dunno if the humour carries over to other languages, but in Finnish the book is rather funny, especially in our current political climate.

 

[SafeBet]

I'm into Asimov at the moment. Going for the Foundation Trilogy next.