Summer Reading

[[AK]Bribo]

What are you reading?

I'm reading Stephen King's fifth installment of the Dark Tower series called The Wolves of the Calla.

You haven't really read Stephen King until you've read the Dark Tower series (according to King himself anyway).

[[AK]Hylander]

I'm reading PHP and TCP/IP books that Stitch sent me.

<caveat>

Well, I've been MEANING to read anyways.

</caveat>

[Richie]

I am reading Plato - Complete Works. I bought it last year in June but I am barely just finishing up.

[[AK]DiscoStu]

Staying with Plato, I'm reading philosophy for dummies. It has a lot of good information and is definitely very interesting.

[[AK]The Beast]

-I managed to...ahem..."sneak a peek" at an advance review copy of Song of Susannah, the sixth book in the Dark Tower series. I liked it, but I can see where some fans of the series may not. (And yes, I'm convinced that it was the real deal and not a fake, a la the "advance copy" of the last Harry Potter book found on the 'net that turned out to be nothing more than a fanfic written by someone with too much time on their hands. King has a writing style all his own that's easy to recognize and almost impossible to duplicate.)

-The House of Sand and Fog by Andre Dubus. Great book, and a great movie as well (with Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly). A rare movie that is basically 100% true to the book, but I'd still recommend reading the novel before seeing the movie--while the movie follows the plot beautifully, there are thematic elements that take place inside the characters' thoughts and thus are lost in the translation to screen.

-Douglas Coupland - Microserfs and Girlfriend in a Coma. The first one is to computer geeks what High Fidelity is to music geeks. The second defies description, but is a good read.

-Richard Yancey - Confessions of a Tax Collector. Far more interesting than the title implies. The book focuses on the interpersonal relationships between the people who seize the assets of delinquent taxpayers, rather than simply being a book about number crunching. (The author's degree is in English, not accounting.)

[[AK]Palooka]

Currently reading:

Miles Gone By by William F. Buckley, Jr.
Why Courage Matters: The Way to a Braver Life by John McCain
Memorial Day by Vince Flynn

[The Purchaser]

Winds of War by Herman Wouk (Just finished War and Remembrance)
and using my copy of "The Complete History of World War II" as a compendium.

doesn't anyone read comics anymore?!?

[[AK]Choozoo]

I'm reading the instruction manual to my new TV.
Also, a lot of real estate websites.

Plus, Black Hawk Down, some old German literature(in German of course), and brushing up on my C++ for some squadengine projects.

[[AK]Rocks]

Battle Ready --- Clancy
tigers in the mud -- stockpole books (otto Carius)

[[AK]Palooka]

Stu, if you want to read a good philosophy survey that won't grossly underestimate your intelligence, try The Story of Philosophy by Will Durant, who, I might add, possessed one of the great minds of the 20th century. I read it when I was about your age.

When you're done with that, you can try tackling his The Story of Civilization -- all eleven volumes of it. Alas, I have yet to work up the courage to do so, myself.

[[AK]Palooka]

I also intend to read Anne Applebaum's Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag: A History this summer, but I have a feeling that it will continue to gather dust on my bookshelf, as it has done since last summer.

[[AK]Faxman]

Enemy at the Gates: The Battle for Stalingrad by William Craig
The Johnstown Flood by David McCullough

[[AK]DiscoStu]

Thanks Palooka, I'll check it out the next time I go to the book store.

[[AK]Abaddon]

So Beast ... where can I find that copy of "Song of Susannah?"

I am an avid Dark Tower fan.

[[AK]Leonidas]

Re-reading The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand.

Fax, I thought that the book for Enemy at the Gates was called War of the Rats.