739 posts 7/26/2021 1:57 pm
Last Read:
4/15/2024 9:16 am
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What Are You Reading?
I haven’t posted one of these lists for quite a while. I find that my reading choices have changed since the new year started. I suspect yours have too. I imagine we could have quite a conversation about why that is, but that’s not what this post is about. Instead it is about what kind of community we have here on Alt. What kind of people are we when we’re not here? I suspect that our lists, incomplete though they may be as portraits of who we are, may make us more transparent and possibly even open up new acquaintances.
Anyhow here’s my list since late February. What’s yours?
Rules of Civility
__Amor Towles
The Fire Next Time
__James Baldwin
Becoming
__Michelle Obama
Suspicion
__Joseph Finder
The Cairo Affair
__Olen Steinhauer
Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific 1941-1942
The Conquering Tide: War on the Pacific Islands 1942-1944
Twilight of the Gods: War in the Western Pacific 1944-1945
__Ian W. Toll
Rosa, Shadow and Light
__Jonathan Rabb
Think Again
Grant
__Ron Chernow
Sapiens
__Yuval Noah Harari
__Adam Grant
The Value of Everything
__Mariana Mazzucato
The Man Who Ran Washington:
The life and times of James A. Baker III
__Peter Baker and Susan Glasser
Younger Next Year
__Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge M.D.
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8694 posts 1/21/2022 5:48 am |
haven't seen you in a while. hope all is ok.
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8694 posts 9/13/2021 12:37 pm |
thx for the Grant recommendation. The Nicolay Hay Lincoln is hard to find in hardcover (and maybe digital too it has been a while since I last checked). alibris has it if you search for Lincoln Nicolay and Hay. 10 volumes!! : )
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115 posts 8/1/2021 10:31 am |
Also Christopher Buckley: Florence of Arabia, Make Russia Great Again. 
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 8/1/2021 10:48 pm:
Christopher Buckley sounds like he might be worth a read. I take it his Thank You For Smoking was turned into that movie I didn't get around to seeing.
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115 posts 8/1/2021 10:27 am |
Read most of the Int’L Booker List, a few were more anthology than true novels. ‘At Night all blood is dark’ a wrenching account of war and what we know now is PTSD. On a lighter note ‘the perfect nine’ was a fun read, suitable for young readers.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 8/1/2021 10:48 pm:
Evidently my ignorance knows no bounds. I'd never heard of the International Booker Prize List. I did check out their 2020 list. Looks interesting. Unfortunately my reading table is in danger of collapsing from the weight of unread or partially read books. I will keep it in mind, however, should I become bedridden. (Lovely term, bedridden; so susceptible of double entendre). 
Sadly, PTSD is not high on my list of fun topics. The perfect nine sounds like a title that might have interested me when I was still an active golfer. |
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5764 posts 7/28/2021 10:51 am |
Thank you for your suggestion, found Lara Prescot's book, placed the order so will be in line for reading it soon enough... seems to be a good choice, and I hope you will like Freud's Mistress if you decide to read it...
Douglas Vaughan's books are easy to find on Amazon, both poetry or if you prefer prose books... that's where I got my books and ordered some for a friend as a gift 
I am sure you won't find him in any library
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/31/2021 10:32 am:
I just picked up Freud’s Mistress from the library up the street. Hope to find time to read it soon. I’ll post my reaction here when (if  ) I finish it (not that I don’t think I’ll like it… just that I have a very demanding project to finish and a stack of books to get to, but I am really looking forward to this one).
Hope you’ll enjoy The Secrets We Kept. |
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5764 posts 7/27/2021 2:00 pm |
Its been a difficult and challenging year in many ways so hadn't much time to focus on reading, and at times it was hard to focus at all.. but I read and enjoyed 3 poetry books by Douglas Vaughan ("Conversations with the heart", "Musings of a darker mind" and "Unashamed emotions"), and completed "Freud's Mistress" by Karen Mack and Jennifer Kaufman last weekend... I got a delivery today, Gabor Mate's "When the Body Say's No, The Cost of Hidden Stress".. so this is about to start reading these days...
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 3:11 pm:
I'm chagrined to admit I've never heard of Douglas Vaughan. I tried to remedy that deficiency by getting a copy from my local library, but apparently they've never heard of him either. Ignorance abounds. 
Perhaps I can compensate by reading Freud's Mistress. I read something else about a mistress recently, but forgot to put it on my list. Have you read The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott? It was on everybody's best-seller and summer-reading list just over a year ago. The story is intertwined with the decades-long affair between Boris Pasternak and his mistress and muse, Olga Ivinskaya, who was sent to the Gulag and inspired Zhivago's heroine, Lara... an interesting juxtaposition with Lara Prescott. |
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7/27/2021 1:09 am
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My current reading is the blogs on this site. They often give an insight into some hidden depths of peoples minds and desires and fantasies. Often amusing, sometimes thought provoking, occasionally interesting.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 2:41 pm:
Sadly, this site, the occasional blog notwithstanding, is a major reason why I have done so much reading elsewhere. I've even been avoiding my watched blogs lately. I must be going through a phase. Thanks for joining in the fun. |
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8920 posts 7/26/2021 10:42 pm |
I just started "The Dude De Ching" By Oliver Benjamin. It' was a birthday gift from my younger son, and its a pretty good book if you're into the Big Lebowski and Tao Te Ching
"Men need to hunt. She obviously understands this. She’s offering herself as prey. Not easy prey. But willing.”
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 2:38 pm:
You seem to have quite a thing for the Dude, M.  Should I be jealous? I'm afraid I've avoided His Bigness. Pissing on carpets never appealed to my sense of humor.
I do enjoy an occasional romp with the Tao the Ching, however, so maybe I can overlook my aversion to the Big Lebowski and give Oliver Benjamin a go. On rare occasions I can be open minded. |
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7/26/2021 8:50 pm
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Reading "The Seville Communion" by Perez-Reverte. I love all his stuff.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 2:32 pm:
I'll have to give Perez-Reverte a try. Historical crime novels can be intriguing and sometimes educational as well. Eco Umberto made if work pretty wel with The Name of the Rose. I'd like to find an interesting Spanish writer. So far the best I've been able to do is a Portuguese writer, Jose Saramago. His novel A History of the Siege of Lisbon is brilliant. I see most of Perez-Reverte's work is available in Spanish. It might be interesting to get both the English and Spanish versions of the same book and see how much Spanish I can remember from High School. My Portuguese is still passable, and helps with Spanish, but I lived in Lisbon for four years. I've never lived in a Spanish-speaking country. |
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1217 posts 7/26/2021 7:40 pm |
American Marxism-Mark Levin
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 2:16 pm:
Thanks for the contribution. I didn't realize you took such an interest in economic theory.
You'd probably like The Value of Everything. It's much more up to date than Marx and you'll doubtless be pleased to know that the author is not American, given your apparent aversion to America. I tried to look up Levin, but he doesn't seem to have a reputation as an economist. |
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7/26/2021 4:35 pm
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Madelaine Albright's books (Still working on the last one.); Various and sundry fiction books (Crime dramas are my favorite, especially Jonathan Kellerman); Just finished Douglas Vaughan's fiction books (Haven't read his poetry). They are an easy read and a good mix of crime drama & BDSM.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 1:50 pm:
Interesting choice. I've never written anything Albright's written, even though I was nominally one of her senior advisors and she lives just below my mountain retreat in the Blue Ridge mountains of Virginia. I do like the way she thinks. I'm more of a foreign intrigue rather than a crime drama fan, though the two categories do overlap. I have, however read pretty much every crime drama that Harlan Coben has written and I recommend his work highly. I'll have to give Douglas Vaughn a look. Thanks for the suggestion. Crime drama and BDSM sounds like an unbeatable combination. It certainly worked in Stieg Larsson's The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. |
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26095 posts 7/26/2021 4:26 pm |
Nice list ! My reading habits have changed considerably. I have become interested in some home remodeling so I typically find myself watching HGTV for ideas.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 1:36 pm:
I am doing everything I can to avoid reading about remodeling. I've been building a combination guest suite and dungeon in the English basement of my cabin in the Blue Ridge since March and it's driving me batty. The price of lumber is insane and supply chains are chaotic. It's going to be January before I can install an emergency generator if I'm lucky. Of course there's always an upside. I've been planning this project in various iterations for decades. I started out wanting to build an indoor waterfall and pool in the basement, like the one in the first house I lived in briefly when I moved to Hawaii when I was 19. Even put the drains in before I laid the concrete floor, but I never could make it work. I finally realized that I had the perfect alternative to my vision in the form of the back of a beautiful dry-stack stone chimney I had built in the place in '97. So I'm putting in a shower with a stone wall instead. I may actually post some photos of it here when I'm done. Maybe I'll be able to entice a nubile beauty on alt to come inaugurate it with me. |
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7/26/2021 4:24 pm
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Anything by Tim Dorsey. Guy is a floridian. Funny as hell. If you kknow Florida and like a good laugh, these are goid quick reads
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 1:14 pm:
Thanks for the contribution to the conversation. I do know Florida, though I can't say I"m fond of it. Two of my favorite writers, Leonard Elmore and Carl Hiaasen are Floridians. I particularly like Elmore's flair for dialog. I try to imitate it whenever I write erotic fiction, which sadly I haven't done much lately.
Despite my aversion to Florida, I do enjoy a good laugh at the place's expense, so I'm going to give Dorsey a try. I appreciate the recommendation. Hiaasen is very funny too. I think you'll like his stuff if you haven't already come across it. |
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949 posts 7/26/2021 3:28 pm |
Reading Douglas Murray's 'The strange death of Europe' How immigration kills countries. Enough said.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 12:58 pm:
Thanks for joining the conversation.
It doesn't surprise me that a conservative British writer would have trouble with immigration. I do sympathize with the Europeans. They've had much less success dealing with immigration than the US has, and even we can't pass a serious immigration law, or even acknowledge that we need one. I think I'll give Murray's book a pass, however. I've had a belly-full of the culture wars. |
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8694 posts 7/26/2021 3:19 pm |
great list! i've been working through Nicolay and Hay's biography of Lincoln. So well written and fascinating.
Dreamcatcher__ replies on 7/27/2021 12:43 pm:
I tried to find that book, but couldn't. I did find an oral history of Abraham Lincoln by Nicolay, but it doesn't mention Hay as a co-author. Do you have a full title? I may have been hampered by limiting my search to our public library system since I don't buy books any more. I don't have enough space to keep any more books.
If you enjoy reading history, you may like Grant by Chernow. It's not as good as Hamilton, but it's close... and it is very relevant to the Black Lives Matter movement. |
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7021 posts 7/26/2021 2:07 pm |
I’ve noticed that my reading habits have changed and the volume has gone down so far this year. I suspect that’s partly because politics has become less consequential and partly because I have more options now. I should add that almost all of my reading of erotica takes place in a couple of online erotic literature sites and is not in my list.
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