What are you currently reading?

[Ataraxia]

.[asin]1608190552[/asin]

[Bogey]

Finished the above in only two days....that good.  Tried some non-fiction, but just is not grabbing me, so on to the second novel in this series from the folks at Black Lizard:

[Brian]

Finished the above in only two days....that good.  Tried some non-fiction, but just is not grabbing me, so on to the second novel in this series from the folks at Black Lizard:

I love that series, Bill!

[Bogey]

I love that series, Bill!

My first round with it.  Neat to read some detective novels that are set in this time period of the 60's and 70's.  Just gives it a different feel to the way the investigation has to be approached without our recent technology....part of the charm of our Columbo, don't you think?

[Brian]

My first round with it.  Neat to read some detective novels that are set in this time period of the 60's and 70's.  Just gives it a different feel to the way the investigation has to be approached without our recent technology....part of the charm of our Columbo, don't you think?

Goodness, yes. Forensic investigation is set to kill a good contemporary mystery - all the killer has to do is leave a hair at the crime scene and it's no fun anymore.

[Zizekian]

I recently finished reading:


I'm currently reading:

[jwinter]

I've been renewing my acquaintance with Shakespeare over the past few months, as I do every few years -- revisiting old favorites, and chipping away at the dozen or so of the plays that I haven't yet read (just started King John).  I've been reading some decidedly old-school criticism as I go along, notably William Hazlitt and Harold Bloom (amusingly curmudgeonly, but a lifetime of insight and love on the subject)...

[jwinter]

Re-reading David Copperfield on my Nook.

If it were anything but Shakespeare I'd probably be reading it on my Nook as well.  For the Bard, I've been gathering up the Arden series paperbacks over the years.  More notes and commentary than one could ever hope to shake a stick at, in a whole lifetime of stick-shaking.  Although the RSC Shakespeare ebooks are pretty good, I've tried a couple and would recommend them.

[Zizekian]

I've been renewing my acquaintance with Shakespeare over the past few months, as I do every few years -- revisiting old favorites, and chipping away at the dozen or so of the plays that I haven't yet read (just started King John).  I've been reading some decidedly old-school criticism as I go along, notably William Hazlitt and Harold Bloom (amusingly curmudgeonly, but a lifetime of insight and love on the subject)...

The Bloom book is a great read, as is his book on the Western Canon. He's equal parts Andy Rooney and Falstaff!

[jwinter]

The Bloom book is a great read, as is his book on the Western Canon. He's equal parts Andy Rooney and Falstaff!

Yes; I read somewhere that Bloom actually played Falstaff on a couple of occasions -- that must have been a hoot!

[Bogey]

Re-reading David Copperfield on my Nook.

What chapter are you on, Karl?

Decided to join you in your Copperfield plights, Karl.  The young "shaver" was just sent off to boarding school.

[Ataraxia]

MAN PLUS

[Karl Henning]

What chapter are you on, Karl?

Decided to join you in your Copperfield plights, Karl.  The young "shaver" was just sent off to boarding school.

"Take care of him. He bites."

Here, he's just rejoined his mum, Peggotty — and a new character.

[jlaurson]

Taking a slightly distant, rational perspective, no law should be necessary to "command individuals to purchase insurance" because health care ought to be paid for from general tax revenues.  This is the case in many developed nations and those nations tend to have the most effective health care systems in terms of outcomes, and the most efficient health care systems in terms of % of GDP per resident.

Pulling numbers out of thin air won't make it so. Health care ought decidedly NOT be paid for by general tax revenues. Not because it wouldn't be in theory a nice and desirable thing, but because it would achieve the exact opposite of that which the underlying motivation desires.
Having lived in countries like the US, Germany, and Norway, I would suggest that although universal healthcare is probably desirable, and a mandate perhaps a necessary evil (Germany didn't have one until 2006 or 2007 -- and such laws do entail unintended consequences that undermine the very effect they propose to have), only more free market and more competition among doctors will help reduce the ever increasing burden on society that is health care cost.

But enough on the politics of health care: What am I reading?



Ian Fleming
James Bond
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Penguin



P.G.Wodehouse
Bachelors Anonymous
Everyman Library

[jwinter]

 Quote from: jlaurson on Today at 01:48:36 PM

But enough on the politics of health care: What am I reading?

>

Ian Fleming
James Bond
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Penguin

  Ah, I love Fleming, the original novels are so much better than the movies (though I like most of the movies as well -- a shame that they couldn't get Connery to stick around for OHMSS).  The books always make me hungry; it's fascinating how Fleming always goes through every meal Bond eats in great detail.

[Ataraxia]

Quote from: jlaurson on Today at 01:48:36 PM

But enough on the politics of health care: What am I reading?

>

Ian Fleming
James Bond
On Her Majesty's Secret Service
Penguin

  Ah, I love Fleming, the original novels are so much better than the movies (though I like most of the movies as well -- a shame that they couldn't get Connery to stick around for OHMSS).  The books always make me hungry; it's fascinating how Fleming always goes through every meal Bond eats in great detail.

And the first book taught me to play...whatever that card game was. 

[Karl Henning]

Authors?

[jwinter]

And the first book taught me to play...whatever that card game was. 

Baccarat.  I actually had a Hoyle CD-ROM game that I used to play back in the day (before I was allowed to have martinis...)   

[jlaurson]

Baccarat.  I actually had a Hoyle CD-ROM game that I used to play back in the day (before I was allowed to have martinis...)   

Ah, yes... Casino Royale with Baccarat (in the movie they play Texas Hold'em instead -- oy!) -- and, to a lesser extent, Moonraker with Bridge. Moonraker, incidentally, the story upon which Die Another Day is based to a large degree (minus the many unsalvageably idiotic bits of the film), rather than the film of the novel's title.

  Ah, I love Fleming, the original novels are so much better than the movies (though I like most of the movies as well -- a shame that they couldn't get Connery to stick around for OHMSS). The books always make me hungry; it's fascinating how Fleming always goes through every meal Bond eats in great detail.

I know. That's one of the aspects I really like. And it's a window into a culinary world that's changed, considerably since then.

I would love to see a series of films that treats the Bond novels as period pieces, with excruciating attention detail in dress and drink and decor and behavior (the Mad Men advisers might be able to help); fairly unknown but talented actors (who won't distract from the story though personal fame, thus breaking the 4th wall the way cameos do)...

[jwinter]

 Quote from: jlaurson on Today at 02:14:08 PM

I would love to see a series of films that treats the Bond novels as period pieces, with excruciating attention detail in dress and drink and decor and behavior (the Mad Men advisers might be able to help); fairly unknown but talented actors (who won't distract from the story though personal fame, thus breaking the 4th wall the way cameos do)...

   
I agree -- that would be spiffy.  I like the current run of Bond movies as action flicks, but they just don't feel very James Bondish, if you know what I mean.  Yes, they have the theme music, and he's got a fast car and all that, but it's not the same.  They're too brutally violent, for one thing -- yes, the books definitely have a harder edge than the films, but these last few seem modelled more on Hong-Kong style action movies.  They badly need a sense of style -- more escapist fantasy, less video game.  Bond should be violent when he needs to be, but there should be an elegance about it, he should be suave, with a bit of humor (just a bit -- I'm not big on Roger Moore's last few movies, which degenerated into extreme camp).  I seem to remember Judi Dench at one point calling the current Bond a thug -- nobody would have ever thought to apply that term to Connery or Moore, or to Fleming's character in the novels.

Sorry to go off on a movie tangent on the book thread.  Umm... I have the new Bond novel Carte Blanche on my Nook, but I haven't read it yet.  Any opinions?