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royalfan5
1/4/2009, 10:17 PM
I'm reading The Wages of Destruction by Adam Tooze about the Nazi's economic policies and the Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon. Up next is a history of US foreign relations and Roots by Alex Haley.

OU_PhD
1/4/2009, 10:25 PM
I'm reading

Takeyuki Tsuda, Strangers in the Ethnic Homeland: Japanese Brazilian Return Migration in Transnational Perspective. New York: Columbia University Press 2003.

Leo R. Chavez, The Latino Threat, 2008, Stanford University Press.

Liliana Suarez-Navaz, Rebordering the Mediterranean, 2004, Berghahn Books

Jonathan X. Inda, Targeting Immigrants, 2006, Blackwell

Susan Coutin, Nations of Emigrants, 2007, Cornell University Press.

Kamal Sadiq, Paper Citizens: How Illegal Immigrants Acquire Citizenship in Developing Countries.

royalfan5
1/4/2009, 10:30 PM
Is the Mediterranean one good?

JohnnyMack
1/4/2009, 10:43 PM
American Creation by Joseph Ellis

and

Death Star. Yes. Death Star. What? Dean can read Harry Potter but I can't read the occasional Star Wars book? Eat me.

Curly Bill
1/4/2009, 11:13 PM
Just finished: Valverde's Gold, The Last Great Inca Treasure
by: Mark Honigsbaum

Just started: Brutal, The Untold Story of My Life Inside Whitey Bulger's Irish Mob
by: Kevin Weeks

salth2o
1/4/2009, 11:15 PM
I'm reading

Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of The Twenty First Century, 2006.

Edward Cornish, Futuring: The Exploration of the Future, 2004, World Future Press.

Philip Altbach, American Higher Education in the Twenty First Century, 2005, Johns Hopkins University Press.

Michael Paulson, The Finance of Higher Education, 2001, Agathon Press.

Curly Bill
1/4/2009, 11:18 PM
So...let me ask you peeps that have named multiple books --are you reading them simultaneously? I've known a few peeps that did that, but as for me I have to finish one before I can start another.

Veritas
1/4/2009, 11:29 PM
Gosh darn it, I tried to start a thread like this a few weeks ago:
http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125712

Anyway:
The Brenner Assignment (thanks for the steer, Johnny Mack)
About a behind the lines mission during the War. Absolutely riveting.

American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures (Robert Hansen)
History of Hirohito, MacArthur, and the involvement of both in pre, mid, and post war Japan.

Sick Puppy (Carl Hiaasen)
Silly pulp fiction about an envirowacko and his vendetta against a lobbyist.

Also, over the holidays I got to meet a gentlemen who'd served with MacArthur in 45-46 during the SCAP in Japan years.

Frozen Sooner
1/5/2009, 02:08 AM
Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon.

Excellent choice.

Just finished Invisible Monsters by Chuck Palahniuk. I think I'll read Diary next.

Also reading Planet Law School 2.

salth2o
1/5/2009, 09:55 AM
So...let me ask you peeps that have named multiple books --are you reading them simultaneously? I've known a few peeps that did that, but as for me I have to finish one before I can start another.

I am having to read them simultaneuously because they are required reading for the doctoral courses I am taking.

BillySims
1/5/2009, 10:20 AM
A Boy Name BOOMER!

by BOOMER Esiason

http://www.amazon.com/Named-Boomer-Hello-Reader-Level/dp/0590528351

Kels
1/5/2009, 01:31 PM
A. J. Jacobs, The Year of Living Biblically, Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2007.

Damon Gause, The War Journal of Major Damon "Rocky" Gause, Hyperion, 1999.

You guys might want to check this one out. He's an OU alum and ATO. We went to High School together. (http://www.amazon.com/Mission-Hussein-As-Soldier-Masterminded-Capture/dp/006171447X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231180174&sr=1-1)

C&CDean
1/5/2009, 02:50 PM
Sojourn - R.A. Salvatore

Tales of Beedle the Bard - Runes translated by Hermione Granger

soonerboomer93
1/5/2009, 03:35 PM
Arctic Drift - Clive Cussler

I have Watchmen and Legend of Drizzit box set all next in line after that.

OUMallen
1/5/2009, 03:56 PM
Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

SoonerStud615
1/5/2009, 03:56 PM
I Am America and So Can You
By Stephen Colbert

Frozen Sooner
1/5/2009, 04:05 PM
Instead of Diary I started Haunted instead.

There is something deeply wrong with Chuck Palahniuk. Deeply.

Veritas
1/5/2009, 04:13 PM
Arctic Drift - Clive Cussler
Clive Cussler...there's an author I'd really like to get into but I just can't suspend my disbelief long enough. So bombastic.

But then, I've read everything WEB Griffin has written so good grief, I should be able to buy into anything. :)

C&CDean
1/5/2009, 04:37 PM
Legend of Drizzit box set all next in line after that.

You'll dig it.

soonerboomer93
1/5/2009, 04:51 PM
heh, I bought it on a whim after I saw you discussing it. For some reason, I've never read any D&D lore/books like that.

NormanPride
1/5/2009, 04:54 PM
Gosh darn it, I tried to start a thread like this a few weeks ago:
http://www.soonerfans.com/forums/showthread.php?t=125712

Anyway:
The Brenner Assignment (thanks for the steer, Johnny Mack)
About a behind the lines mission during the War. Absolutely riveting.

American Shogun: A Tale of Two Cultures (Robert Hansen)
History of Hirohito, MacArthur, and the involvement of both in pre, mid, and post war Japan.

Sick Puppy (Carl Hiaasen)
Silly pulp fiction about an envirowacko and his vendetta against a lobbyist.

Also, over the holidays I got to meet a gentlemen who'd served with MacArthur in 45-46 during the SCAP in Japan years.

You'll dig Sick Puppy. Hiassen is aswesome.

I'm on A War of Thrones (I think) right now. Biggest undertaking I've had in a few years. I go on reading binges, and I think it's about time to start one. :D

soonerboomer93
1/5/2009, 04:57 PM
Clive Cussler...there's an author I'd really like to get into but I just can't suspend my disbelief long enough. So bombastic.

But then, I've read everything WEB Griffin has written so good grief, I should be able to buy into anything. :)

That's the odd thing, you do have to suspend disbelief about the situations that htey get into and escape from, but the underlying story around the artifact/history is just barely off the edge of plausible

Curly Bill
1/5/2009, 05:09 PM
I am having to read them simultaneuously because they are required reading for the doctoral courses I am taking.

Nice, good luck with that. :)

SPuL
1/5/2009, 06:55 PM
"Writing the TV Drama Series" by Pamela Douglas

and

"Crafty TV Writing: Thinking Inside The Box" by Alex Epstein


books i'm reading right now

NYC Poke
1/5/2009, 07:22 PM
Anyone who's interested in current events should read Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World (http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X). I've loaned out my copy several times, and as soon as I get it back, someone notices me with it and asks to borrow it. I can't recommend it highly enough.

I just finished Les Liasons Dangereuses (http://www.amazon.com/Liasons-Dangereuses-Garnier-Flammarion-French/dp/2080700138/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231201103&sr=1-1) by Pierre Laclos. As an aspiring roue and cad, I found it inspirational. I've seen the movie several times, but this was the first time I'd read the book.

I just started Cormac McCarthy's The Road (http://www.amazon.com/Road-Movie-Tie-Cormac-Mccarthy/dp/0307472124/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231201260&sr=1-1). I haven't read enough of it to make much of an assessment, but I've greatly enjoyed his other books. Those who are not inclined to read can rest easy -- the movie version is coming soon.

OU_PhD
1/6/2009, 01:45 AM
I'm reading

Thomas L. Friedman, The World is Flat: A Brief History of The Twenty First Century, 2006.


I've read that book. It doesn't take much prodding to poke a lot of holes in that guys books, but they are interesting to read.

You read Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber? It's a classic in the same vein.

Frozen Sooner
1/6/2009, 02:38 AM
Re: The Road.
I consider Stephen King to be underedited and overtrite, so when I say he covered the same ground in Cell that McCarthy does in The Road, but does it in the framework of an actual coherent story...well, let's just say I was pretty unimpressed by The Road.

Veritas
1/6/2009, 11:06 AM
Re: The Road.
I consider Stephen King to be underedited and overtrite, so when I say he covered the same ground in Cell that McCarthy does in The Road, but does it in the framework of an actual coherent story...well, let's just say I was pretty unimpressed by The Road.
Yup. I get what McCarthy was trying to do, making the writing style and even the layout of the book mirror the sparse world about which he was writing, but...I don't thing I would call it "good" or even "worth reading."

Also. I finished The Brenner Assignment. Man did that guy take a story that could have been absolutely spellbinding and focus on the boring parts. Five pages on traveling and meeting up with partisans and then one sentence on destroying a bridge on the second attempt. Great research however.

Veritas
1/6/2009, 11:19 AM
Anyone who's interested in current events should read Fareed Zakaria's The Post-American World (http://www.amazon.com/Post-American-World-Fareed-Zakaria/dp/039306235X). I've loaned out my copy several times, and as soon as I get it back, someone notices me with it and asks to borrow it. I can't recommend it highly enough.
I can't recommend highly enough that you throw it in the trash. The first 10 pages contain enough straw men and ridiculously ungrounded historical comparisons to expose the writer as a complete hack.

salth2o
1/6/2009, 11:43 AM
I've read that book. It doesn't take much prodding to poke a lot of holes in that guys books, but they are interesting to read.

You read Jihad vs. McWorld by Benjamin Barber? It's a classic in the same vein.


I have not read the Barber book yet.

Will you elaborate a little on the Friedman text? I am going to start reading it tonight.

OklahomaTuba
1/6/2009, 11:45 AM
They used to call crap like that propaganda.

Ike
1/6/2009, 03:51 PM
I'm getting around to reading books I should have read a long time ago, but didn't because I didn't have a lot of time on my hands.

Currently in the queue:
Going Postal By Sir Terry Pratchett
Cryptonomicon By Neal Stephenson

NYC Poke
1/6/2009, 05:30 PM
I can't recommend highly enough that you throw it in the trash. The first 10 pages contain enough straw men and ridiculously ungrounded historical comparisons to expose the writer as a complete hack.


If it's not your cup of tea, that's fair enough, but to call Zakaria a hack goes a bit far. I'm curious -- which parts do you disagree with?

NYC Poke
1/6/2009, 06:30 PM
Re: The Road.
I consider Stephen King to be underedited and overtrite, so when I say he covered the same ground in Cell that McCarthy does in The Road, but does it in the framework of an actual coherent story...well, let's just say I was pretty unimpressed by The Road.

In that case, I don't feel too badly about leaving it at the bar last night. :O

Veritas
1/8/2009, 01:04 PM
If it's not your cup of tea, that's fair enough, but to call Zakaria a hack goes a bit far. I'm curious -- which parts do you disagree with?
Zakaria tries to imply that modern-day Iran is somehow analagous to 1938 Rumania. He says that America is the greatest empire since Rome. The two guys that I personally know that thought this book was just amazing are both America-is-the-problem leftish types who seem to just get giddy over any book that trumpets the diminution of America. One man's hack is another man's Galbraith.

In other news...books I'm now reading:
Inside Delta Force: The Story of America's Elite Counterterrorist Unit (http://www.amazon.com/Inside-Delta-Force-Americas-Counterterrorist/dp/0385336039) by Eric Haney
Fantastically interesting read from one of the founders of Delta force. Not real deep, but that's not the point...it's the story of a guy who put his *** on the line for the rest of us.

Skinny Dip (http://www.amazon.com/Skinny-Dip-Carl-Hiaasen/dp/0446615129/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1231437699&sr=1-1) by Carl Hiaasen
Yup, Hiaasen's books are silly and fun.

Empire of Wealth: The Epic History of American Economic Power (http://www.amazon.com/Empire-Wealth-History-American-Economic/dp/0060505125)
I read it when it came out but I'm re-reading it under the cloud of the current economic cluster****.

NYC Poke
1/8/2009, 05:56 PM
Zakaria tries to imply that modern-day Iran is somehow analagous to 1938 Rumania. He says that America is the greatest empire since Rome. The two guys that I personally know that thought this book was just amazing are both America-is-the-problem leftish types who seem to just get giddy over any book that trumpets the diminution of America. One man's hack is another man's Galbraith.

That wouldn't describe me. I consider myself a moderate, though I acknowledge that I would probably be considered liberal by Oklahoma standards (and no, I'm not some sort of East Coast elitist -- I've had pretty much the same views when I lived in Oklahoma, Houston, and rural Virginia, and I've only been in NYC a few years).

I kinda think Zakaria's provocative titles turn off some conservative readers, which is too bad. I remember the great backlash over his post-9/11 article, "Why They Hate Us," which seemed odd to me because they sure didn't fly airplanes into buildings because they love us. I don't consider it America-bashing to ask these sorts of questions.

At any rate, Zakaria's book is not about the decline of America (I believe the books starts out, "This is not a book about the decline of America"), but about how other countries -- India, China, Brazil -- are catching up, and how that will present new economic and political challenges. Great Britain was once the dominant world power, and while they still wield influence, it is hardly anything compared to what it was at the dawn of the twentieth century, or ours is currently. When Zakaria compared the US to the Roman Empire, he specifically stated he wasn't talking about imperialism in the political or military sense, but in terms of the amount of influence we're able to exert over world events.

Strokes, folks, I guess. That book on the Delta Force sounds interesting. Check out Masters of Chaos: The Secret History of the Special Forces (http://www.amazon.com/Masters-Chaos-Secret-History-Special/dp/1586482491) by Linda Robinson. It was pretty interesting to read about all the training these guys undergo. They're machines.

Snrborn
1/9/2009, 05:44 PM
Currently reading:

Brave Companions by David mcCullough. No better biographer/historian in my opinion. Upon finishing this, I will have read all of his books....

Up next:

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Gulag: A History by Anne Applbaum

Just Finished:

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers - Highly recommended, Thought Provoking

Plainsong by Kent Haruf - Had moments where I though it was beautifully written, but couldn't maintain itself.....

Frozen Sooner
1/9/2009, 06:07 PM
I'm about halfway through Bonfire of the Vanities right now.