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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 11:17am | IP Logged | 1 post reply

Brad -

"Inspired by The Bible" looks interesting.

You could also do what I do: go to synagogue every week! In a year you will hear the whole Torah, a little closer to how it was experienced by our ancestors!


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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 11:19am | IP Logged | 2 post reply

(hmmm, probably would be pushing it to add The Torah to my list of 100 books read this year, even if I am including Audio Books...)
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 11:35am | IP Logged | 3 post reply

6) Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

I've read and reread the Bond books several times since I was a teenager, back when I picked up the whole paperback collection at 10 cents a piece.

This, the first in the series, is a great thriller: in this slim book, several life and death situations, quite a few tense moments, gun play, torture, cross and double-cross. However, maybe a trifle tame by modern standards: the international intrigue is played down, and it all happens within a single locale (with the exception of a flashback to Bond getting the assignment in London).

An interesting aspect I had forgotten is that we get a glimpse of Bond's emotions, especially at the end.

Looking forward to rereading more in this series.
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Andrew Hess
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 11:41am | IP Logged | 4 post reply

7) "Coraline" by Neil Gaiman, read to me by Neil Gaiman hisself (recorded)

Maybe my favorite of Gaiman's books, and truly a classic in juvenile fiction.

An adventure tale of a girl who finds a doorway into a twisted, frightening realm of magic, made personal by the fact the lives of her parents are held by this realm's master.

Gaiman is also a great narrator, and I love hearing writers read their own works; adds a very specific turn on the prose that might be lost in reading to oneself or in hearing someone else read it.
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Steve D Swanson
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 1:40pm | IP Logged | 5 post reply

Just finished;

The Physics of the Impossible by Michio Kaku.

Enjoyed it very much but probably should have let some distance pass between this and the other two books of his that I've read recently. As it was, it felt like parts of the book were just repetition of points from the other two books. Which is useful as a reminder if six months or so had passed, but a week or so wasn't quite enough.

Mutineer's Moon by David Weber.

I always like David Weber, and I liked this novel a lot, though I felt like the main character was too often shunted aside and didn't really do anything until the end.

In progress:

Space Chronicles by Neil Degrasse Tyson.

Love this book, love his writing style, his moments of gentle 'dad' humor, and agree with nearly all of his arguments for expanding the space program.

The Armageddon Inheritance by David Weber.

The sequel to Mutineer's Moon. So far it's good and seems to have more of a focus on the main character (in the first book the main character instigates the action and then lets someone else plan the action and other people carry out the action until the end, in this one he is planning his own actions and acting on them himself. So far).

There was a Star Trek book I read a while back where it said the Captain would be a fool if he lead away missions and the Captain was too important to risk like that. Which might have influenced the first couple of seasons of TNG where Picard kind of looks weak and uninspiring. Not coincidentally the show got much better when they got rid of that philosophy (which absolutely makes sense in a real world setting but not as much sense in a story telling world).

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Valmor J. Pedretti
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 7:16pm | IP Logged | 6 post reply

Just finished "Religion for Atheists" by Alain de Botton, quite fascinating.

Moving on to finish Gaiman's "Fragile Things".
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Wallace Sellars
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | 7 post reply

Walter Mosley's ON THE HEAD OF A PIN
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Brad Brickley
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | 8 post reply

You could also do what I do: go to synagogue every week! In a year you will hear the whole Torah, a little closer to how it was experienced by our ancestors!

***

Do you hit the New Testament also?  

Kidding aside, I'm looking at it from the perspective of Western Literature and how much of it's basis is from the biblical source .

I don't feel I can say I'm reading Classics, but not having read, or in this case listening, to the Bible.
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Brett Stuart
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Posted: 28 May 2012 at 8:05pm | IP Logged | 9 post reply

Thanks Wallace.  I had no idea Walter Mosley had another book out.  Amazon should be sending it my way shortly.

Just finished The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.  Really enjoyed the whole Millenium trilogy far more than I thought I would.  

About to start Greyhound by Steffan Piper.  
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Matt Reed
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 10:38am | IP Logged | 10 post reply

Just finished THE LAST GUNFIGHT by Jeff Guinn.  Fantastic book.  Highly recommened to anyone with any interest in the Old West in general, Tombstone, the Earp's and the O.K. Corral specifically.  Guinn does a wonderful job of setting everything in context, giving the reader a broader understanding of just what led eight men to face each other down on that cold October day in 1881.  It's one of the best books I've read on the subject and one of the best books I've read over the last several years, period.  

Not quite sure what I'll pick up next.  Might just let this one sit for a day or two before embarking on the next subject.
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Ryan Maxwell
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 11:03am | IP Logged | 11 post reply

I've been rereading a lot of Byrne comics lately (in the middle of Hidden Years now), around HULK Essential 1 and Amazing Spider-Man Essential 2.  I also just started The Time Machine by Wells on my Kindle. I started reading that as a teenager after seeing the movie and didn't get far.

Heading over to Amazon to check out The Last Gunfight. Thanks, Matt!

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Matt Reed
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Posted: 31 May 2012 at 11:14am | IP Logged | 12 post reply

If you pick it up, I guarantee that you'll enjoy it.  It's a page turner.  I couldn't put it down.  The build up to the gunfight in Tombstone is so well told, so perfectly paced and puts everything in context, that I was completely and utterly enthralled (not to mention a little nervous) reading it.  It's the best kind of narrative non-fiction; well researched with very little speculation on the part of the author other than to draw conclusions based on varying accounts. It reads like a novel, which really lends credence to why I love this genre; real life is much more fascinating than fiction. 
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