What book are you reading?

The Cost of Liberty: The Life of John Dickinson
by William Murchison
http://www.amazon.com/The-Cost-Liberty-Dickinson-Founders/dp/1933859946

A biography of John Dickinson, who is considered by many to be the most brilliant and articulate of all the Founding Fathers. Dickinson is the author of Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies, one of the most widely read and influential pamphlets published in pre-Revolutionary America.

http://www.thefederalistpapers.org/.../12/Letters-From-A-Farmer-In-Pennsylvania.pdf

In Letters from a Farmer, Dickinson exposed the insidious motives of the British Parliament when it passed the Townshend Acts of 1767 and called on the Colonists to stand for their rights.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Townshend_Acts

Dickinson also correctly argued the necessity of investing the power to tax in elected bodies that were the closest to the people. In America, this principle led to the investment of that power in the House of Representatives.

 

Catching up with missed Terry Pratchetts. "Good Omens" has a running gag about any music left in a car too long turning into "Best of Queen".

 

Old Man's War, by John Scalzi. Great, funny military sci-fi. Only started it because Scalzi wrote the forward for The Forever War, by Haldeman, and that book was an amazing, if depressing, look at what a war with aliens in the future might end up like.

 

If you like (fictional) courtroom high drama from the perspective of a coroner, check out titles by M R Hall.

 

I've just finished re-reading all four volumes of Mr. Donald Burgett's excellent war memoirs.

 

Just started Cartel, one of the Art Keller series of books by Don Winslow. While I loved some of Winslow's earlier work (California Fire and Life, The Death and Life of Bobby Z), I am hoping this book is better than the earlier ones in the series.

 

I'm rereading "Hyperion" by Dan Simmons. They're making it into a Syfy miniseries, and I just wanted to reread it before they either ruin it forever or add to the science fiction codex.

Prior to that I read "The Stars My Destination" and Bram Stokers "Dracula".

"The Stars My Destination" was written in 1956 by Alfred Bester and is a classic that flavors many of the sci fi works today.

I wanted to read "Dracula" because I don't think I've ever read an unabridged version, like many of the classics that I've read as a part of school curricula.

Next on my plate: "Ubrik" by Phillip K. Dick another groundbreaking sci fi classic written in 1969; it also is a base for many of the mythos in the sci fi genre.

 

I read Bram Stokers Dracula when my wife bought me a Nook a few years ago. It was one of the free books on nook. I read a lot, and I think it is the best book I have read in years.

 

That's very funny since I came to read Dracula in a very similar way: I was given for birthday money a few years ago and bought myself an ereader (the Canadian KOBO). It was the first eBook I had ever downloaded (yes for free as well) and read. It's a great novel. My next one was Frankenstein, another great novel.

Currently finishing up Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

 

If you like the story you'll love the movie - the version with Klaus Kinski in the title role.

 

Hell of a science fiction streak here. Good taste.

 

The last book I read was "Go Set A Watchman" by Harper Lee. I read the book in one day. I liked it.

 

I'm rereading Eisenhower: Soldier and President by Stephen Ambrose.

I think Ike is often overlooked because he was pre-baby-boomer. He is somewhat of a forgotten man who lay between the FDR era and the post-1960 baby boom era. I grew up knowing little about him other than that he was that old bald guy who was a general in WWIII.

Ike was really a very significant figure in 20th century US history and was a precursor of Reagan and modern conservatism.

 

[video=youtube;KTzyVlWmRQ4]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTzyVlWmRQ4[/video]


Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalisation of Democracy: Amazon.co.uk: Francis Fukuyama: 9781846684364: Books

 

I just started Dan Simmons the Fifth Heart. I have really like a few other of his historical fictions.

 

I read Dick's The Disappearance a while back and liked it a lot. Very dated - it was like Masters of Sex but without the sex. But, for the same reason, very interesting.

I usually read non-fiction, love history but just started The Martian. Its not bad and the movie should be good.

BTW, I really really REALLY like your sig.

 

In Cold Blood by Truman Capote

 

I've picked up three books recently that I have already read several times, but was thinking of reading them again: Decoding the Message of the Pulsars (fascinating), The Odyssey, and a book on etymologies.

 

[video=youtube;heOVJM2JZxI]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heOVJM2JZxI[/video]

The French economist Thomas Piketty (Paris School of Economics) discussed his new book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century at the Graduate Center. In this landmark work, Piketty argues that the main driver of inequality—the tendency of returns on capital to exceed the rate of economic growth—threatens to generate extreme inequalities that stir discontent and undermine democratic values. He calls for political action and policy intervention. Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University), Paul Krugman (Princeton University), and Steven Durlauf (University of Wisconsin--Madison) participated in a panel moderated by LIS Senior Scholar Branko Milanovic. The event was introduced by LIS Director Janet Gornick, professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center.

 

P.J. O'Rourke - Eat The Rich

Great book, a bit dated however it gives an insight into and personal observations to all kinds of socioeconomic models through travels through the world.

 

Ragged Trousered Philanthopist.

Appropriate.

 

I just finished reading "Relentless Strike" which is an absolutely fascinating and well-researched book about JSOC, the Joint Special Operations Command. Written by Sean Naylor, this is a truly fascinating book describing the evolution of JSOC from it's roots in the failed rescue attempt of the embassy hostages in Iran in 1979 right up to the present.

 

Записки из подполья, or Notes from the Underground, which I've just started and already love.

I would marry Dostojevski if he were alive. Scratch that; I'd marry his corpse. He was a genius.

 

I am currently reading several. Most actively would be An Economic History of the United States 1607 to present. Other subjects include the minimum wage, ectogenisis (the growing of a human embryo in an artificial womb), gun control, tax policy, and various economic theories.