What have you read recently? 2009 -2020

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I just finished " Water for elephants " . It was very good . I wanted to read it before I saw the movie . It is about a circus during the depression.
 
Just completed "At the Edge of the Precipice," (Henry Clay and the Compromise that Saved the Union)---superb history!
 
Just finished The Case For Mars by Robert Zubrin. It's mostly a good book, but it gets a little too speculative at times.
 
I am reading and enjoying The Bonesetter's Daughter, by Amy Tan.

Ha
 
Moemg said:
I enjoy all her books !
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This is the first one I have read, but I feel like I know the protagonist personally and closely empathize with her.

Could you recommend another for me to read next?

Ha
 
Just finished "The Confession" by Grisham. I´d say it´s one of his best novels.
 
Digital Restoration from Start to Finish by Ctein.

Okay, it's an acquired taste. A technical book about restoring old photographs, negatives and slides and getting a good photo print. Pretty neat stuff if you're into that.
 
As a follow up to The Case For Mars, I read How To Live On Mars, also by Robert Zubrin. Parts of it seem very much like Heinlein's idea of settlers on distant planets. It's made me want to go buy more science fiction books from the old grand masters of science fiction, only they tend to be less humorous than what I read here.

Here's hoping the Skylon and Gryphon projects get off the ground; a trip to Mars in my lifetime would be pretty fun. :D

I'm about four pages into The Intelligent Investor now. I can't wait to tell you how it turns out. ;)
 
I just finished The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon. It's a novel based on the teacher - pupil relationship of Aristotle and Alexander the (subsequently) Great. The character development and writing style are quite engaging and this is definitely not a boring historical description. There are some earthy references to ancient Greek sexual customs so don't read this if you are easily offended.

This is Lyon's first novel. It was nominated for several awards and won one. I like new fiction and last year ordered three of the books nominated for the 2009 Giller prize: Scotiabank Giller Prize | Past Winners My favourite was The Bishop's Man by Linden McIntyre.
 
martyp said:
I just finished "Never Say Die" by Susan Jacoby. I am glad I read it but it isn't exactly an uplifting experience. More like bad tasting medicine. It is a reality check on what it is really like to get old old. There is another thread on this at:
http://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f38/never-say-die-54763.html
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I just read it too and agree that it is a reality check. I agreed with much of what she said but the book could have profitably been pruned back by half. A lot of the material was redundant.
 
I enjoyed Kismet, by Jakob Arjouni. It is one of a series featuring wise-cracking Kemal Kayankaya, a Turkish- German private eye. 7 out of 10.
 
Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker and the Rise and Fall of the Comanches, the Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History by S.C. Gwynne

A well written account of fascinating and largely untold American history.
 
Just finished "Too Big To Fail", by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Pretty long read, but, for me at least, interesting enough to slog through in a few days.

Sort of real-life spy novel, a fly-on-the-wall telling of the financial crisis, involving all the major characters, and quite a few not-so-major players...

Somewhat short on analysis, which is mostly left to the reader, though the condensed version includes the usual suspects: easy money, easy regulation, implicit government guarantees, excess leverage, managing (and compensating) for short-term profits...

Being a bit geeky, I enjoyed the book, in all its detail and minutiae. YMMV...
 
Enough by Bogle and Quarks The Stuff of Matter by Fritzsch.

ok ok so I read two or three Nelson Demilles from the Clallam Bay library when I was out that way - it rains once in a while in the Stait of Juan De Fuca.

heh heh heh - :greetings10:
 
I have a great new recommendation: Dead Simple by Peter James. This is described as a Detective Superintendent Grace mystery, so it there must be more and I plan to order them from the library. This one features a 20 something practical joker whose 4 buddies get even by burying him in a coffin after his stag party. Unfortunately they die in a car crash before they can release him. After that it gets interesting. This one merits a 9 on a 10 scale.
 
I just finished " Don't Blink " by Patterson . I know I swore off Patterson but I got it at the library and It was much better than his last few .
 
Moonwalking with Einstein

Moonwalking with Einstein, by Joshua Foer is about memory. Foer is a twenty-something writer who covered the 2005 US National Memory Championships for Slate. There he met some of the top world champions who told him the memory feats he had seen were all tricks he could learn in a year with an hour a day practice. Foer took up the challenge with coaching from Ed Cook, a British champ, and one year later he won the US championship. This is his story and the story of the history of mnemonics, the art and science of memory. It is well written and would appeal to a science or history buff. The memory tips work but they are not the heart of the book - memory itself and the people who try to corral it are.
 
I just put in a request at the library for Moonwalking. It's on order by all the branches (so 17 on order) and I'm 170 on the list!

Just finished Heartstone by C.J. Sansom. It's the most recent in his Shardlake series which follows a lawyer in Henry VIII's England (1500's) as he solves various mysterious cases. Good historical fiction. The first book in the series was Dissolution.
 
HFWR said:
Just finished "Too Big To Fail", by Andrew Ross Sorkin. Pretty long read, but, for me at least, interesting enough to slog through in a few days.

Sort of real-life spy novel, a fly-on-the-wall telling of the financial crisis, involving all the major characters, and quite a few not-so-major players...

Somewhat short on analysis, which is mostly left to the reader, though the condensed version includes the usual suspects: easy money, easy regulation, implicit government guarantees, excess leverage, managing (and compensating) for short-term profits...

Being a bit geeky, I enjoyed the book, in all its detail and minutiae. YMMV...
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I read that and also Henry Paulson's "On the Brink", two sets of eyes on the same events. I'll agree they tend to be long on personalities and short on policy.

Still there's some interesting stuff. Paulson is proud of building a profitable relationship between Goldman Sachs and the Chinese. Later, he points out that letting F&F default on their debt would have been unacceptable in international terms because foreign gov'ts held so much F&F debt. I had to wonder who advised them to buy those bonds.
 
lsbcal said:
I just put in a request at the library for Moonwalking. It's on order by all the branches (so 17 on order) and I'm 170 on the list!
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You are better off than I. I am #522!

Ha
 
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