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What're yer reading proclivities?

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Anything by Stephen Stahl, George Gamow, or C.S. Lewis. Also medieval history in general. Lots of technical stuff that doesn't count.
D
 
Dave Russell said:
...Lots of technical stuff that doesn't count.
D
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Yepp. My point, prezactly!
 
I recently donated my entire military history collection to our local high school (took 3 pickups to haul them over there)...they gave me a letter to the IRS for a big deduction - $10 per book - & my tax guy says it'll fly with no questions!!
 
Last time we moved, I was "shocked" at how many cardboard beer-cases were full of books !! Also, no doubt, the heaviest (literally and figuratively) component of the whole move!!

PS: Last thing I read was an essay titled "Importance of Knowledge to the Mechanic" by G. B. Emerson, published in 1826!! ( from my old "Commonplace Book of Prose") What a hoot! I am sure most of you would enjoy the article...I mean, what were "mechanics" working on in 1826? I tried scanning it to include in this post, but the font is so small it was totally illegible! Maybe I should transcribe it!
 
Well over 60 feet of book shelves in my house and they are full and not paperbacks. More shelves, lets hear it for a place to keep old friends and new.

I know my son has even more.
 
I grew up in a reading family, we're all fairly voracious readers. Drives my wife a bit nuts -- I tend to get lost in books, especially novels, and tend to read very quickly (a good weekend could see a trilogy put away). I love books, could even see myself turning into a collector some day. I'm already trying to gather up a copy of all the Sprite related books out there.

Dad's been reading Sci-Fi since he was a kid, and has a very large collection. When I was young, he used to hand me a stack of a dozen or so at a time. When I got out on my own, I tried to remember all the stories I had read so I could add them to my library. Our new place has a nice front room with a bay window, sort of a sitting room of sorts. I convinced my wife that bookshelves make nice decoration, and now have pretty much covered every wall in that room with book space. It's the closest to a home library room that I'll ever get.
 
anthony7777 said:
william, if you enjoy "serious fiction" check out "proteus operation" by james p. hogan, also his "code of a lifemaker". /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/savewave.gif
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Funnily enough, I don't enjoy "serious fiction". It's a snotty way we at the bookstore describe fiction books that don't fall into the mystery, sci-fi, or romance genres. Mostly because we occasionally get snobby tweed jacket and half glasses Lit-Major types who ask us where the "serious fiction" is....as opposed to mystery, sci-fi, or romance, all of which have their own sections in the store, and can be as serious as Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha or as lighthearted as Kill Two Birds and Get Stoned by Kinky Friedman.

By the by, I'm a big fan of the Kinkster-his mystery novels are recommended, as long as serious profanity and at least three of the dirtiest jokes I've ever heard don't upset you. Any of our Texan members vote for the Kinkster?

The closest I get to "serious" fiction is some of the works of late twentieth century authors, like Paul Auster or Martin Amis. But these are books that I read cause they sound interesting, not because I feel I "need" to read them.

-William
 
Mostly fiction, Jeffery Deaver, Clancy, Sanford, Grishom, Diehl, Crais; to name a few authors. I read constantly, have since I was in elementary school, a long time ago. My wife isn't a reader, and doesn't understand my need to keep books; and is constantly trying to rid the house of "clutter". So far I'm winning, but it's a hassle to dig through boxes to find a novel I want to read again. Maybe subliminal massages that reading is enjoyable will help :^).
 
DrEntropy said:
Geez!!! you'd think because "us guys" fuss about with LBC's we're ~unread~... couldn't be further from the truth! Evidence this thread so-far.
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Oh No, just the opposite...I would figure anyone who fusses with these cars would have to be well read. No way to do this hobby without being able to read tech manuals, specs, history of etc. which are all forms of reading that require much higher literacy skills. And where do we hone those skills? On lots of other books...Reading is improved in only one way..read.
I am not at all surprised by the eclectic and interesting libraries of this crowd. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif
 
Speaking of eclectic, a few years ago I bought a complete set of Charles Darwin, from "On the Origin of Species" to "Animals Under Domestication", circa 1897, at my local library. Evidently from some local Doctors bookshelf, and appeared to have never been opened. I paid the princely sum of $1.00 for the nine volume set.
It makes for very interesting reading, as there have been just a <u>few</u> discoveries since they were written. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/grin.gif
Jeff
 
DrEntropy said:
A curiosity:

Last book read? Subject matter favorites? Authors?
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Another compulsive reader here /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smile.gif I have stayed up all night more than once to find out what happens on the next page.

Last book: Far from the Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy.

In my neighborhood, lots of people "recycle" books by leaving them out in front of the buildings. I have picked up all sorts of interesting books that way. A pamphlet but out by the British ministry of war on technological innovations which helped win WWII, a biography of Truman, Chaim Weizmann's autobiography.. and a whole bunch more.

I also like fiction, action, history, technology, history of technology....... the back of the cereal box, graffiti
No real interest in science fiction though.

Some interesting recommendations : A thread across the Ocean John Steele Gordon A history of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.

The Ice master: the doomed 1913 Voyage of the Karluk Jennifer Nevin

Yisrael
 
70herald said:
Some interesting recommendations : A thread across the Ocean John Steele Gordon A history of the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable.
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If you haven't already, you may want to check out Thunderstruck by Erik Larson, the author of Devil In The White City. Same concept-a dual history of something fantastic (in this case Marconi's struggle with establishing wireless communications) and something gruesome (Dr. Crippen's brutal murder of his wife). In this case the "tie in" is the fact that Crippen was caught because the police had communicated with the ship Crippen was escaping on via wireless.

-William
 
70herald.in my neighborhood i have near by a gas station that always has a neat metal rack with all sorts of books they offer for free and also a body shop that puts out a large bin on wheels (weather permitting) with a sigh "free books" puts a different light on us "gear heads" /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/yesnod.gif
 
William,
Both of the books I mentioned are actually very well researched histories. Sometimes the truth is even stranger than fiction!
I will look for the Larson books next time I have some spare time. Right now most of my reading (and all other time)seems to be topics like Semiconductor Physics various article on tunneling microscopes.
Yisrael
 
I've already responded, but just remember what truly hooked me on reading: Scholastic Books in grammar school. These were the .30 and .40 books you could order in class, and they would be mailed to your home. I used to save my lunch money so I could order several.

One book I ordered also got me hooked completely on British sports cars - The Red Car, by Don Stanford. I must've read that thing a dozen times, beginning in fifth grade in 1960. I lost my copy long ago, but found one on Amazon a few years back. Read it two or three times since then, and it still "works" for me!

From there, it was The Black Tiger series by Patrick O'Connor - similar theme, but about a rear-engined twelve cylinder race car of the same period (mid-fifties).
 
Mickey,

I also remember reading "The Black Tiger at LeMans",
along with the original.
Man,it was hard to find many books about sports cars
back in those days,although our Junior High library sub-
-scribed to Autoweek & Competition Press.

- Doug
 
"Red, Red Roadster" about an Alfa driving school teacher... I was a third-grader. That was Scolastic Books also. Mickey an' me are within a few weeks of one-another in age. /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/smirk.gif


Wow, Doug! I had to wait for me Ol' Fella's buddies to pass A&CP down to me. At least I was last in th' "chain" and got to keep 'em! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/wink.gif
 
AngliaGT said:
Mickey,

I also remember reading "The Black Tiger at LeMans",
along with the original.
- Doug
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Yep - read that one, too. Isn't that the one where Woody walked the course to get a better sense of it?

Also read the one where he took the Black Tiger to Mexico for that race. Would love to get copies of them to go with the one I have.
 
Re-read of one of the Aubrey-Mautrin series by Patrick O'Brien. I've enjoyed the entire series immensely, I've read the Hornblower series by Forrester, but really found the writing and complexity quite a bit lighter than O'Brien. I'm more classical literature than modern stuff, which, even when non-fiction, I sense as revisionist. I've re-read everything I was "made" to read as a youngster, like most of the classics that are published and some that are not. I like O'Brien, whose probably not considered classic, yet, Cooper and Melville.
 
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