Any readers? - Great books!

[OD*]

About 3/4s of the way through James Lee Burke's latest, "Creole Belle."



Everything's copacetic noble mon'.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[Jeanlouise]

I have read and re-read all of the "Clan of the Cave Bear" series , also the series beginning with "People of the Wolf".

The Clan of the Cave Bear series deals with a mixing of Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon early man. The People series deals with very early North American Indians.

Also really like Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series of books ( Hunt for Red October, Executive Orders, etc. )

Read, I think, most of John Jakes' books ( The Blue and the Gray, all of the Kent Family Chronicles)

I read "Clan of the Cave Bears" and "Valley of Horses" which were both good. I read the 3rd one too but I can't remember what it was. After the first two I thought the author was just rewriting the book over and over.

Same with Kent Family Chronicles. "The *******" was the first in the series and IMO the best one. The second one was very good two...then started going downhill.

"The Hunger Games" was really good.

If any of you are pilots, Air Traffic Controllers or just interested in the events of September 11th...read, "Touching History" by Lynn Spencer.It's a behind the scenes account of what was happening in the air with all the airlines, military and ATC during the 24-36 hours of Sept. 11, 2001. It's fascinating. It sometimes gets technical though so it helps if you have some background in aviation. I don't so I had to slog through some of it. Amazing stuff though.

[yz9890]

The latest books I've enjoyed,

World War Z, by Max Brooks
-a great zombie book.

Marching Toward Hell, by Michael Scheuer
-an interesting critique of US foreign policy by a former CIA analyst.

A History of the English Speaking Peoples, by Winston Churchill
-very interesting. great info and insight. pretty long and sometimes long winded but worth it.

Undaunted Courage, by Stephen Ambrose
-a very interesting biography of the Lewis and Clark expedition based on info from their journals.

One Hundred Days, by Sandy Woodward and Patrick Robinson
-a great biography of Admiral Woodward about the Falklands conflict.

Russka and Sarum (2 different books) by Edward Rutherford
-historical fiction. great books.

All the Vince Flynn novels have been great.

Both The Presidential Agent and Honor Bound series by W.E.B. Griffin are also awesome.

[higgy1911]

The Spenser series by the late great Robert B Parker. Decent gun stuff, good mysteries, but really they are just modern westerns. Its all about a man and his code. Great reads, and easy reads, tackling complex subjects the way only a guy who understands the simple realities of life can. And if you like those topics, but with literary quality writing try the Amos Walker series by Loren D Estleman. To quote that character "The world is black and white, good and bad, no matter what you hear. The people who say it isn't have already chosen black."

[lchamp]

That sounds great! I'm going to download that to my Kindle today. For some reason I thought his book was non-fiction...which I like but your description sounds really interesting.



I'm a big Vince Flynn fan. I think I've read almost all his books. They're like crack though, if I start reading one I can't put it down.

It's all your fault! I started "Term Limits" by Vince Flynn yesterday...can't put it down. He reminds me of Clancy without all the subplots. And that book, written in 1997, is so applicable to today's politics...the national debt is tripled, but the same corruption is extant.

[MJClark]

Anything from Oliver DeMille. His work on teaching people to truly understand constitutional history is phenomenal. Looking forward to his new book Leader Shift coming out on tax day.

[R040607]

I just finished Killing Kennedy by Bill O' Riley. I really enjoyed the read, as the book mainly chronicles the events leading up to the tragedy.

Serving less than one term, JFK saw defeating failures (Bay of Pigs Invasion) and soaring triumph (Cuban Missile Crisis) and was never as popular as he is today. Although his personal life was riddled with indiscretion and reality counter to that which his advisors, and family, let on, JFK led our nation through an incredibly turbulent time in our history.

I highly recommend the book for those that have mild interest and appreciate our history.

By the way... I have found that reading makes it easier to move through my days. The alternative, watching TV, numbs the mind and puts me in a terrible mood. - Work hard. Make money. Enrich your life and those around you.

[PEF]

Last several months:

I again read Light In August by Faulkner recently. My favorite of his novels.

Been on a Cormac McCarthy kick lately. In the last month I read The Orchard Keeper and Outer Dark. I enjoyed both very much, but I must admit these were not easy reads for me. If anyone can explain the three strange villains and the brutal ending in Outer Dark please enlighten me.

I also like the Day By Day Armegeddon series by J. L. Bourne.

Apocalypse Z was pretty good (for what it is).

Wool Omnibus was pretty good, as was First Shift.

I've decided to read the recent Pulitzer Prize winners in fiction, and today I just downloaded Tinkers. I'll chime in once I'm finished.

[GunsAndViolince]

I like ccw9mm's list. +1 on The Brother's Karamazov. I re-read that thing once every few years and never get tired of it. I also like that Bram Stoker's Dracula is on that list. I once read that in a little resort town in the Carpathian mountains. It wasn't what you'd think: it is green and beautiful there with lots of good food, birds chirping out the window, etc. But I was there for a week to decompress after a lot of work and it really did the trick. It's a really good book.

Personally, I'd also recommend anything by Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche or Jane Austen. A favorite by Nietzsche is "The Genealogy of Morals." Love it or hate it, you will encounter a different man than you expected if your opinion of him is based on what you've heard people say about him (especially Baeumler). Oh, and we shouldn't neglect "Jane Eyre" by Charlotte Bronte. Bronte is the Guarnerius to Jane Austen's Strad. Powerful work.

Aw, jeez. I just re-read what I wrote. Oh, well. We're here to be ourselves, right?

Sherry, Niles?

[BamaT]

I really enjoy reading Clive Cussler and David Baldacci. I've just finished The Forgotten by Baldacci,really enjoyed it. His series featuring Oliver Stone, beginning with The Camel Club have all been fantastic. I've recently read Killing Lincoln by O'Reilly, and prior to that Chris Kyle's American Sniper. Both were excellent reads.

Currently have about ten books in que, including Killing Kennedy, Flynn's American Assasin, and David Stone's The Skorpion Directive. If you haven't read David Stone, you really need to do so, and start with The Echelon Vendetta. This is an action packed as well as psychological thriller

A book I read and really enjoyed several months ago was One Rough Man, by Brad Taylor. I wasn't optimistic based on the title, but it was a really well written book with a lot of twists and turns.

Yet another great book is The Investor's Manifesto: Preparing for Prosperity, Armageddon, and Everything in Between. A great book about investing by William Bernstein that is an easy read. Bernstein has written several books, including The Four Pillars of Investing that is a very technical read. Manifesto is written for the average person and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in reading about and taking control of your investments. At one time I held an NASD series 7 brokers license, and I promise you if you have investments you need to read this book.

[ANGLICO]

Patton's Princibles - very short read and well worth it. I own an origional first edition leather covered..................

General Patton's Principles: For Life and Leadership: Porter B. Williamson: 9780918356062: Amazon.com: Books

[lchamp]

I just finished Killing Kennedy by Bill O' Riley. I really enjoyed the read, as the book mainly chronicles the events leading up to the tragedy.


I highly recommend the book for those that have mild interest and appreciate our history.

I'm currently reading "Killing Lincoln" while waiting for the latest in the Vince Flynn series to arrive in the mail.

[R040607]

I'm currently reading "Killing Lincoln" while waiting for the latest in the Vince Flynn series to arrive in the mail.

I really liked Killing Lincoln. Tell us what you think when you're done.

[detective]

I know that the art of ink on paper is becoming lost, and that words put together into one complete thought in the form of a book may seem antiquated to some, but I have an appreciation for such things. I'm a young guy, 32, and I was never really in to reading, or studying for that matter, as a kid. School came fairly easy to me, and so I never cared to invest in something as time-consuming as a book.

But as I have become older reading is something that I have really learned to enjoy. It is a way to keep my mind active while still diverting myself from the stresses of life. Is there anyone else like me here?

If so, I thought it might be nice to start a conversation about great books that we have read recently. Now when I say great, I mean great; a book that would get four or five out of five stars if you were to rate it. The book must have no particular topic, just be something that most people, whether they are readers or not, would find interesting.

Reading has been a salvation for me in times of trouble. One of my all-time favorites is Tolstoy's WAR AND PEACE, he creates a whole world seemingly with real people involved in both everyday life and also the great events of the time. I completely lose myself in it.

[detective]

I really liked Killing Lincoln. Tell us what you think when you're done.

I've read that, excellent, you see a great tragedy unfolding in slow motion.

There's another I read: think it's called "APRIL 1865", the story of the assassination but also details how America almost lost it's Democracy right after. Curiously, it was Secretary of War Stanton, who used to refer privately to Lincoln as a monkey when Lincoln first became President, but appreciated his greatness by the time he died, that saved the country as we know it. He insisted the Constitution would not be suspended, as some powerful men wanted: and it wasn't.

(I think it was Stanton who, upon Lincoln's last breath, said in the small bedroom: "Now he belongs to the Ages")

Fascinating reading (just hope I got the title right)

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And then for a short read there's Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, the most moving and sublime political utterance of our history:


"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."