May, 2016 Non-Fiction Titles we are reading
DiscussãoNon-Fiction Readers
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1Jacksonian
Just finished Reading the OED by Ammon Shea. Learned lots of new interesting words I may not be able to work into a conversation.
2AnnaClaire
Linkity-link: Reading the OED by Ammon Shea. (It's an interesting book: I read it a year or three back.)
3Jestak
I've just finished The Struggle for Sea Power: A Naval History of the American Revolution by Sam Willis and The Price of Thirst by Karen Piper and am currently reading The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown and The Obama Victory by Kate Kenski, Bruce Hardy and Kathleen Hall Jamieson.
4LynnB
I'm reading 59 Seconds: Change Your Life in Under a Minute by Richard Wiseman
5Jacksonian
Finished Virgin: The Untouched History by Hanne Blank
6Jacksonian
Finished The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs
7Jacksonian
Just finished The Poisoner's Handbook by Deborah Blum
9LynnB
I'm reading The Interloper: Lee Harvey Oswald Inside the Soviet Union by Peter Savodnik.
jillbone, sounds like some gruesome reading!
jillbone, sounds like some gruesome reading!
10paradoxosalpha
I wrapped up Natural Right and History and posted my review.
I've now started Architecture and Nihilism along with Isaac Newton's Freemasonry.
I've now started Architecture and Nihilism along with Isaac Newton's Freemasonry.
11LynnB
I'm reading It Happened to Nancy.
12TooBusyReading
A couple of days ago, I finished Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and I loved it. Now I'm listening to The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts, and while the story is heartbreaking, the telling of it is not especially engaging.
13vpfluke
Our local library book group in North Bellmore is reading David Maraniss's book Once in a Great City: A Detroit Story. I also have read "The Library: a world history" by James W P Campbell
14snash
Finished my LTER. Rogue Justice: the Making of the Security State is a blow by blow, person by person, case by case accounting of the on going conflict between security and constitutional rights after 9/11. What particularly impressed me was how readable it was despite its detail and thoroughness. It is a disturbing story and an extremely important one for American citizens to be aware of, hopefully to prevent the erosion of American and international rights.
15Polite_Society
BONKERS: My Life in Laughs by Jennifer Saunders
16Jacksonian
Just finished Packing for Mars by Mary Roach
17Jacksonian
Finished The Clockwork Universe by Edward Dolnick
18TooBusyReading
I finished The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts a couple of days ago. While the story was interesting, although so, so tragic, the writing seemed just a bit meh to me.
20Thrin
I Met Lucky People by Yaron Matras is The Story of the Romani Gypsies. Enthralling.
21Jacksonian
Just finished NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman. An excellent read for anyone whose life is touched by the autism spectrum
22wester
I finished Gulp which was a disappointment as it was quite one-dimensional. I also finished The Checklist Manifesto which was a pleasant surprise as it was less one-dimensional than I expected.
Now reading Us and Them. A study of "human kinds", the categories we use for people. Very good.
Now reading Us and Them. A study of "human kinds", the categories we use for people. Very good.
23TooBusyReading
I started The Boys in the Bunkhouse, and I think it is going to break my heart.
24Jacksonian
>22 wester: Sorry to hear Gulp was lackluster. It's on my TBR pile as well as Checklist Manifesto
Finished The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
Finished The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean
25LyzzyBee
I've give up on Roy Jenkins now - his lifestyle with multiple affairs, dinners with posh people and a country house didn't sit well with my ideas of how a Left politician or a decent man in a position of responsibility should act and I just found it all tedious. Now reading an excellent and lively biography of Edith Sitwell.
26Jacksonian
Just finished Smoke Gets In Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
27lesmel
>26 Jacksonian: She was interviewed for a tiny segment on NPR the other day.
28Jacksonian
>27 lesmel: Was she? I gotta be honest. I found her more than a little creepy at times.
29lesmel
>28 Jacksonian: http://www.marketplace.org/2016/05/13/world/americans-are-not-so-great-talking-a... -- She can be a little creepy; but she has some valid points about how Americans have scrubbed death out of the daily consciousness.
30TooBusyReading
>26 Jacksonian: >27 lesmel: I really enjoyed reading Smoke Gets in Your Eyes, and I liked the author's attitude towards death and bodies. But yes, I can see that she can seem a bit creepy. Before I read her book, I read Nine Years Under, about a young woman who worked in a funeral home, and I didn't care for it. Her attitude was superior and snarky, but not in a good way, and disrespectful.
31Jestak
I am still reading The Rise and Fall of Communism by Archie Brown and am also reading One Nation Under God: How Corporate America Invented Christian America by Kevin Kruse, The Green and the Black: The Complete Story of the Shale Revolution, the Fight over Fracking, and the Future of Energy by Gary Sernovitz, and The Secret War: Spies, Ciphers and Guerrillas by Max Hastings.
32paradoxosalpha
I've just started to read Running with the Devil, a scholarly study of heavy metal music.
33rocketjk
I'm now reading When Tenants Claimed the City: the Struggle for Citizenship in New York Housing by Roberta Gold.
34paradoxosalpha
I found Running with the Devil: Power, Gender, and Madness in Heavy Metal Music to be a sufficiently fascinating read that I blazed through it in a few days and have already posted my review.
35Bookmarque
Am about 1/3 through Bunker Hill by Nathaniel Philbrick. Fascinating and so much I didn't know.
36Seajack
I've just finished Head Case, about a young woman with a huge hole in her brain, which was fine at first, but didn't really hold my interest consistently.
I've been absent for a bit, but since my last appearance here are some I can recommend as worth looking into:
Under Another Sky
The Emperor's River
This Victorian Life
I've been absent for a bit, but since my last appearance here are some I can recommend as worth looking into:
Under Another Sky
The Emperor's River
This Victorian Life
37LyzzyBee
I'm on An astronaut's guide to life on earth by Chris Hadfield which is funny and engaging at the moment, but I'm not sure when and how the life lessons bit will come in.
38snash
I finished a LTER, Pilgrim Spokes which is a description of a bicycle trip from Kansas to Maryland, not focusing on the details of the trip but rather on the author's musings prompted by the experience. While I enjoyed it through the first half, by the second half I could just about predict what his thoughts would be and his insistence on positivity especially in terms of other people began to grate. Pleasant enough but perhaps longer than necessary and better for a less cynical reader than I
39Jacksonian
Just finished Galileo's Middle Finger by Alice Dreger
40framboise
>39 Jacksonian: I read Galileo's Middle Finger when it was first published last year. I've since seen the author Alice Dreger speak a few times, most recently in NY 2 wks ago. She is absolutely brilliant. What did you think of the book?
I just started Guns, Germs, and Steel.
I just started Guns, Germs, and Steel.
41Seajack
Currently working on The Trip to Echo Spring, a hybrid biography/travel narrative, with a bit of the author's own story thrown in as well. Top notch writing!
42Jacksonian
>40 framboise: I gotta be honest, I found her a little too self-righteous for my taste.
43Jacksonian
Finished Outwitting History by Aaron Lansky
44wester
>24 Jacksonian: (a bit late to react, sorry)
Lackluster is not quite the word, there were plenty of juicy bits there. It's just that in the end it was no more than a pile of interestingly disgusting factoids. I actually didn't know until I read this book that some kind of message underneath the facts matters that much to me.
Lackluster is not quite the word, there were plenty of juicy bits there. It's just that in the end it was no more than a pile of interestingly disgusting factoids. I actually didn't know until I read this book that some kind of message underneath the facts matters that much to me.
45wester
Oh, and I finished Us and Them, about all the ways we categorize other people, which was really brilliant. The kind of book where you keep on noticing things that the book applies to and that you understand a bit better now you've read the book.
46JulieLill
>7 Jacksonian: American Experience produced a TV program on the Poisoner's Handbook. I found it on DVD through my library and it was a pretty fascinating show.
48framboise
Exactly halfway through Do No Harm by British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh. Very interesting anecdotes and written well for the lay person.