What Are You Reading 2013 - Page 77

2013 Reading Log
Just Finished:


I thought the poetry was really beautiful. Apparently tolkein discarded the works to write LotR (since the general public wanted more action) and I find that really tragic.

I'm in the middle of:


which is a really amazing book. As the author walks you through, you essentially start from batteries, wires, and electromagnets, and you end up building an entire computer. Its really crazy and I can't wait to finish it.

Just finished Code

And I must say its one of the best books I've ever read. I'm now going to go back to reading


which I was about halfway through when I inexplicably stopped it. Its a very interesting book about how the practice of wargaming has developed from its inception in the 1950s to the time the book was written (I believe '85). Its a bit dated, but still a pretty insightful look at how predictions and foreign policy go hand in hand.

Finished War Games
After finishing War Games I decided to pick up a flashy spy novel


I really like Dan Silva books, and I actually finished this one in a single day (oops). If anyone is looking for a quick read and is into the suspense/spy novel type of books I can recommend this quite highly.

finished The Confessor
After that I picked up


Which I've heard is quite a good book. I would have gotten another spy novel but I need to wait until just before my flight on friday so I'll have something to read on the plane.

EDIT: I've realized that the picture I chose was actually for the CD version, but it was the nicest picture I could find :/

Finshed When You Are Engulfed In Flames
It feels weird to post again so soon, but I've actually just finished When You Are Engulfed In Flames. I hope to be able to read some more stuff by Sedaris soon, as these short pieces were particularly good. I really enjoyed the descriptions he gave of everyday experiences and feelings and the way that he jumped from topic.

I've decided to go from there and revisit an author that I liked a lot in high school, and thus I'm reading


which I think I should like quite a bit.

Finished Hemmingway Short Stories
Finished Hemingway on the plane. I find that his style of writing for the short stories is really excellent. He doesn't have to write a lot but he can pack a lot of meaning into a 4 page story.

I picked this up in case I needed something else to read on the plane


I really like these kind of cheap thrills paperback novels so I'll be glad to have another one to read.

Finished Prince of Fire
I finished prince of fire relatively quickly. I thought the overall plot for the series took an interesting turn with this book, but we'll see how it goes. Once again I highly recommend silva.

For a nice read on vacation I decided to pick up


because I've always liked the idea of the hardboiled detective genre and I figured I should start from the beginning.

I also just feel like mentioning, I really love this thread. So many people sharing good books.

Finished Maltese Falcon
Posting with an anddroid is hard so i'll keep it short. Finished the maltese falcon and it was great, I'm looking forward to exploring the genre.

Travelling again so I picked up the next silva book on my list



Should be good!

Finished The Messenger
Dan Silva as usual did not disappoint, although it seems like hes kind of running himself into a corner with the series. It will be interesting for me at least to see how he resolves some of the tensions he's built up in the storyline.

Since I liked the first freakonomics I decided to pick up the second book



which seems like it should be good.

Finished Superfreakonomics

Welp, I finished up Superfreakonomics. Excellent book, but it really wasn't terribly long. I found the discussion on the cheap and easy methods of preventing the adverse effects of global warming extremely interesting.

Given that I liked the Hemingway short stories I read before I decided to check this out of our uni library


I found it kind of funny that for some reason there are about 7 missing copies of this in the library records. Hopefully it will be good.

Finished For Whom the Bell Tolls
I finished For Whom the Bell Tolls and I think its one of the best books I've ever read. I thought that the descriptions and mindsets of war that Hemingway used were really amazing and I would highly recommend it (although it was quite long).

Decided to pick something up because it looked good in the school library.


Should be good.

Finished Much Too Promised Land
I finished The Much Too Promised Land and I think it was a really excellent analysis of US diplomacy with regards to the Middle East Peace Process. I would recommend it to anyone who was interested in the US role in the matter on a sort of personal education level, as it was detailed, but not so much that it seemed overly academic or inaccessible. I think that while it probably falls short of a rigorous academic analysis of the issues at hand its a great set of memoirs, combined with a real message and discussion of what actually went down.

In what I think will be a short read I'm going to pick up


because I know someone who is going to be in the play, and I've known about it for quite a while but never looked into it.

After this, perhaps something about programming... any suggestions?

edit: image failed -_-

Finished Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead
I thought it was a really interesting take on some existentialist ideas, as well as a pretty funny and thought provoking play. I would definitely recommend it, and at ~130 pages its short enough to read in an afternoon (if that).

Picked up in my library


Because it was just sitting there on the new arrivals shelf for today. University of Michigan has a huge library system, and the amount of books that they add to it each day is approximately equal to the amount of books that I own. I got pretty interested in middle east politics from the last book that I read so I'm eager to check out another view.

edit: fixed my archiving.


Finished: Power and Policy in Syria
I found the authors take on the issues surrounding current syrian politics to be really interesting. I t was sort of fresh outside view of the history given that the author is a syrian expatriate (who cannot actually return to t syria for fear of arrest there). I think that his take on the current regime and the past was very balanced especially for someone that has a history with them. While he was critical of the regimes approach to controlling domestic politics and limiting civil engagement in syria he seemd to be somewhat supportive of a foreign policy that ensured that syria could protect some of its interests without becoming the next iraq. I would definitely recommend the book to anyone that wanted to learn about the details of inner politics in syria

I decided to pick up


given how much I liked the last 2 Hemingway books that I read I think I'm in for a treat.

Finished: A Farewell to Arms
This was an excellent book. I found that Hemingway managed to create a war novel that included both the tension and drama that one would expect from the type of cheap paperback that one reads in the airport. He also included all of the heartfelt emotion that I expect from a writer of his class. I highly recommend this book to just about anyone, really good.

This was also a surprisingly fast read so I just decided to pick up something that looked good on the shelf


Should be interesting.

Also @ sam!zdat: Is arednts writing pretty easy to understand? That book looks pretty interesting, but I only know of arendt as a heidegger scholar, and trying to read heideggarian stuff usually makes my head hurt...

Finished: Thermopylae
I found the book to be a pretty interesting take on a story that has become very well known recently. I like that the author didn't gloss over the faults of the Greeks, but still managed to cast them as fighting in defense of freedom and rule of law vs the (albeit benign) tyranny of the Persian Empire. Its a good look into the event itself and the surrounding bits of history that made it important.

After that I decided to pick up


I think it ought to be pretty interesting, since I've heard a lot about the event (used to live in CO) but never really gotten a good grasp of what really happened.

also @farvacola, I think the book club is a cool idea as long as there is enough time provided to actually acquire and read the book.

Finished: Columbine
I thought that this book had a really interesting take on the event and I like the way that it followed the relevant parties all the way through the event as well as their later rehabilitation. It seemed very much like Capote's In Cold Blood but with a more modern event as the background. I particularly liked the way that the book attempted to dispel some of the myths of the school shooter profile (bullying drove them to do it, they targeted specific groups, etc). I also was pleased that the author tried his best not to place the blame too much on any party (including the killers themselves) and that he tried to highlight those victims and survivors who pushed for forgiveness. I would highly recommend the book to just about anyone, just be ready to tear up a bit at times.

Given my new found love of Hemingway I decided to pick up


I've heard that its has some really excellent descriptive passages, and given how short it looks it shouldn't take too long to read.

Finished: Old Man and the Sea
This book was a pretty quick read as I had expected, but even then Hemingway delivers. I found his descriptions of the fish and the sea itself to be really beautiful. I also thought the way that the old man has a continuing monologue between himself and his body parts made for a really good effect. Entirely through the old mans eyes we see the fish and the sharks as separate, fully formed characters. I would highly recommend this for a good short read. Also this is not the first time after reading Hemingway that I feel a strong desire to go fishing.

Given that it looks like several other people are reading it I decided to pick


Off of my shelf. A friend gave it to me a while ago but I've never read it. Should be good!

Finished: Lolita
... Wow ...
This book was quite good. First of All I found the general style of the writing really pleasant. Th amount of wordplay and literary illusions that Nabokov uses give the text a pretty lighthearted feeling. There were times when I found myself actually laughing out loud at Humbert Humbert's blunt imagery and wordplay. I also found that the way in which the reader ends up empathizing with HH is really well done by Nabokov. There were parts of the book that I found really disturbing, but even then I found the "love story" elements of the novel to be quite beautiful even though they were incredibly creepy. I would highly recommend this book and I really enjoyed it myself.

On the recommendation of a friend I decided to pick up


Its been a while since I've read any Asimov but I've really enjoyed the previous works I've read from him (Foundation and I Robot) and I could use a good sci-fi novel. Should be good!

Finished: The Gods Themselves
This was quite a fun read. I really like the way Asimov sets up his stories and I think the tale of academic revenge was pretty interesting. The only part that I found confusing was the way that the para-men were never fully resolved. I would have liked to hear more about them. Overall it was a good, relatively quick read.

Since it looked good on the library shelves I decided to pick up


Its a collection of essays about the recession, and it looked pretty good. Might not have too much time to read given finals though...

Finished: The Great Hangover
Finals be damned, I suppose I always have time to read. I found this book to be really interesting and informative. I like a lot that it went past the surface level on a lot of the issues for example explaining exactly how a company like Bear Stearns can simply run out of money. That said I also appreciate that they kept the explanations simple enough that someone like me with no real background in finance can understand whats going on without having to look up a lot. This was a collection of essays so the topic areas were really diverse but I have to say I really enjoyed the essay's about the collapse of Bear Stearns and the rise followed by meteoric fall of Icelandic finance. I would reccomend this book to anyone looking to do some interesting reading on stories regarding the recession.

First I have to shout out to the Team Liquid Book Club (which you should all join). For that I've started reading


I've already read the first story and it seems like the book as a whole ought to be good.

Also now that I'm on holiday I'll be traveling with my family to Malta. Travel of course means another Daniel Silva novel so I decided to pick up.


Given that I've liked the last the last 6 of his novels I'm going to go ahead and infer that I will like this one too because I believe (without good justification Mr. Hume) in the fundamental uniformity of the universe. See you all in a week or so.

Oops I killed the thread. I'm travelling so I'll fix the formatting later.

Finished: The Secret Servant
It was quick. I thought that this book was very much like the others in that while the plot wasn't that deep it had pretty good action, so I cant complain. Good read for am airplane.

Decided to pick up

Since I've heard its quite good and its something I've been wanting to read

BTW Can anyone recommend a good history of the Iraq war?

Also, posting on tl with an android is hard any tips?

edit: Fixed the formatting

Still reading beowulf, but as I was sitting next to the poll yesterday I decided to pick up a book that looked interesting since it was just sitting on the table.


Finished: Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal
I thought this book was quite interesting. Its the perspective of an adopted child being raised in a home with a Pentecostal and somewhat abusive mother (emotionally, but to her credit not physically). It turns out that the author is a lesbian, and that she become a feminist when she studied at Oxford She has a really incredible story from going to being kicked out of the house for sleeping with a girl to studying at oxford and becoming a writer. The fact that she found solace in books made it a particularly touching book to me. I would highly recommend it.

One thing interesting I found about it was the idea that Nabokov hated women. She came to this conclusion after reading lolita and finding HH's characterizations of women to be pretty degrading to all of them over the age of 15. While I agree that HH is not exactly kind to middle age women, I never really read that as something Nabakov himself felt at heart. Any perspectives from people who have read more than this kind of thing (I'm looking at you farvacola)? Its just that when i got to that part I was really surprised.

Anyway, still have to finish beowulf, should be good.

Finished: Beowulf
This book was pretty interesting. It was denser than I expected, but I really enjoy that kind of style. The oral history format has always been a format tat I've enjoyed and I found the heroism of beowulf quite compelling. One of the things that surprised me were the mentions of the Christian god. I'm not the most educated on the subject but I guess I had assumed that the heroes of the time would have believed in norse mythology. All in all it was quite a good story though

On the recommendation of a friend I picked up


I really liked Sula and Beloved so I think I will probably enjoy this book too. Should be good!