WHAT IS EVERYBODY READING NOW? Showing 2,751-2,800 of 2,886

[Livresque]

I have been currently reading The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Author is very articulate about understanding human misery. I am halfway now. It's really going good.

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

by Matt Haig

The above is the way to cite any book so that the powerful goodreads software will cross populate across our group site.

I am delighted Livresque that you are appreciating the book on such an important subject.

[Mary Ellen]

Thulani, did you read books by Antonia Fraser or Alison Weir?

A number of years ago I read by Antonia Fraser and thought it was great. I've been meaning to read another one of her books.

[Thulani]

Hi Mary,
The books I read are by Antonia Fraser
If you're looking for a good biography on Mary Queen of Scots, I'd also recommend by John Guy

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Good job guys on the posts

[Jeff]

I have heard about this book for years. Of course it was published long before I was born. While it is an awfully scary book and perhaps not everyone should read it as some might find the subject matter upsetting, it is just one of those books that from what I have heard should be read and read often lest we as a society allow that sort of thing to happen again. As the author states early on, he did not have the benefit of being able to look back on it several generations after it took place. On the other hand he wrote it while it was still fresh in everybody's mind. Certainly, at over 1200 pages it is going to take me a while to get through.


by William L. Shirer

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Yes, it certainly is a scary book. But a classic.

[Jeff]

I was just a kid, only 7 years old, when the disaster at Chernobyl happened. It's hard to believe it's been almost 35 years since that day. I just started reading the book this morning. It's very early but this book was highly rated and I think I will like it as it combines 2 of my interests, science and history.


by Adam Higginbotham

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Jeff that looks like a great choice. Hard to believe that Chernobyl was 35 years ago. Where does the time go.

[Curtis]

Letters and Papers from Prison

[Curtis]

Jeff wrote: "I was just a kid, only 7 years old, when the disaster at Chernobyl happened. It's hard to believe it's been almost 35 years since that day. I just started reading the book this morning. It's very e..."

I have a keen interest in Chernobyl and how the environment surrounding it is recovering from the disaster. I'm adding this to my "to-read" list.

[Shell]

Jeff wrote: "I was just a kid, only 7 years old, when the disaster at Chernobyl happened. It's hard to believe it's been almost 35 years since that day.

Thanks Jeff. I will add that to my list. I do remember it happening.

[Glynn]

I recently finished this book. It's over 600 pages and it took me a while to get through it. I knew nothing about our 31st president when I started. The author has a great way with words and I learned a whole lot from this book. He goes into great detail about Hoover's life and the whole state of the world during his lifetime. I highly recommend it.

by Kenneth Whyte

[Jeff]

I just started reading this book this morning. Admittedly, I really don't know much about the principal subject of the book. Mainly, only what was provided in the title and cover. Specifically, that he was: a Quaker, a Dwarf, and a fierce 18th century Abolitionist located in Philadelphia. I had never heard of him before until the book was suggested in a book club that I'm a part of. One thing I've realized as I've started reading this is that the Quakers were not always against slavery. The author makes clear very early in the book that many prominent Quakers at the time had slaves in their possession. Lay, makes his position against slavery very well known to other Quakers, despite especially strong criticism from some of these fellow Quakers.

by Marcus Rediker

[Jeff]

I started reading this the other night and I think that given the current state of affairs in the USA and the world at large, it's long overdue for me to read a book of this sort. Reading this book is giving me an opportunity to see things from a different cultural perspective. Here, I'm seeing things from the perspective of someone who was forced to go through the hell of slavery in the North American continent. In Equiano's biography here, he tells of being born and raised in Africa, forced into slavery and transported across the Atlantic.. I'm not really sure at this point in time how Equiano got his education by western standards, but the book is written in a manner that is very easy to read. I'm only on the third chapter, but so far the book has kept my interest and I like what I have read up to this point. I hope to read other books of this sort in the future.


by Olaudah Equiano

[Jeff]

I came across this book a little while ago and as fascinating as I found the movie, I had to pick up the book. I'm interested to see how the book differs from the movie. For those not familiar with the movie, it tells the story of a problem of some sort with the nuclear reactor aboard a Soviet submarine. I don't remember exactly what the problem was or maybe it wasn't made quite clear to me in laymen's terms. However, the end result of the reactor's problem was a radiation leak, exposing all on board to varying degrees of radiation. Many did not like the movie, but as that sort of movie is right in my wheelhouse I loved it and I'm sure I will love the book as well. As I remember the movie, the K19 disaster was in the 1960s. It's tough for me to compare the K19 and Chernobyl disasters as they were in different eras. I never heard of the K19 disaster until the movie came out in the early 2000s and I probably never would have heard of it had the movie not been released. As I think about it, even those who were adults in the 1960s probably never heard of K19 simply because the media coverage for that sort of thing was so minimal at the time. Things in regards to media coverage had certainly changed by the 1980s for the Chernobyl disaster.

by Peter A. Huchthausen

[David]

After a string of books about War and Politics, I'm back to a little light reading!
by Kyle Mills

[Curtis]

Returning https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4...

This book is really two memoirs. One is that of Ovadya, a Holocaust survivor wanting to atone for things he was forced to do by the German Nazis. The other is of Yael, the author who is impacted by helping Ovadya tell his story. I haven't gotten far in it yet. Some of Ovadya's memories are very hard to take.

[Jeff]

This is one area of history or maybe I should say one individual from history who while of course I'm familiar with him, there is a lot of details of which I'm just not too familiar. The book is quite detailed, I'm roughly 80 pages through it and while I certainly want to finish it, as I attempt to finish all books that I start reading, I'm feeling that I will have a very hard time finishing it. The reason I say this is that I'm just finding it very hard to follow. The point of time that I'm at in the book is roughly 1915. I'm hoping that the book will get better during the Second World War or in the beginning of the Cold War. I just feel that as there is so much information out there on Stalin that it could have been written better, more specifically in a way that held my interest better.

by Edvard Radzinsky

[Thulani]

I'm currently halfway through which is the debut novel of Stacey Halls
This follows Fleetwood Shuttleworth who lived at Gawthorpe in Padiham, Lancashire which now belongs to the National Trust. Her midwife Alice Gray gets caught up in the witchcraft accusations of 1612 (this is not a spoiler; it's written in the blurb!) Although it's fiction, I'm really enjoying reading about my local history. I wish we had been taught about the Pendle Witch Trials at school. I'm now looking for non-fiction books about the events.
This has definitely become one of my favourite novels! If you're interested in early 17th century Britain and/or the history of witchcraft, this book is for you!

[Jeff]

I recently started Barack Obama's first volume of his presidential memoirs, A Promised Land. While I waited for Santa to deliver it, I read Obama's Dreams from My Father, which focused on his life prior to government, and explored his African heritage and racial identity.

A Promised Land provides a decent pre-presidential biography in its first 100 pages, but I was surprised that he did not even mention his first trip to Kenya for readers who have not taken up Dreams, a wonderful book itself. Also neglected is his half-sister Auma, who played a key role in that trip, until her name finally comes up briefly in A Promised Land.

I am about 130 pages in. Obama is a brilliant writer, and I am told the audiobook is terrific, too.


by Barack Obama

by Barack Obama

[Kaniraj]

I am about to finish reading The Penguin History of Early India: From Origins to 1300 by Romila Thapar. It is a scholarly work of great value. Highly informative and educative. Comprehensively covers developments in politics, belief systems (religions) and trade in the Indian subcontinent over millennia. Of course, Thapar's explanations are not increasingly palatable to certain segments of people in India nowadays. School history books authored by Thapar, used for decades, have already been discarded. That is current Indian history in making,

I have always wondered how people of different trades, religions and castes (Caste is a must in India.) are clustered together in an orderly pattern in my medium-size native village in the Dravidian Tamil Nadu. After reading the book I am able to discern, though somewhat hazily, the historic evolution of my village. Now, I think that my village didn't happen just over a few centuries; it could have been around since first millennium AD. I am planning to write my own tentative, brief account of the historic evolution of my village; try later to seek records and evidences; scrutinize them; and see how far my hypothesis holds good. That's how, as Thapar has explained, the study of history has been raised to the level of science.

by Romila Thapar

[Martin]

THE OSPREY MILITARY HISTORY QUIZ BOOKHitler's Mountain TroopsSparta at War: Strategy, Tactics and Campaigns, 950 - 362 BCTeddy Suhren, Ace of Aces: Memoirs of a U-Boat RebelRorke's Drift: The Zulu War, 1879

I like to work on a few at a time...

[Lgonzalez]

I’m reading two books: When Christians were Jews and The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs.

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Curtis, thank you for your interesting post #2775. However, to be consistent with our guidelines, your citation should be as follows:

by Yael Shahar

Thank you.

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Martin, thank you for your interesting post about the books you are reading. However, to be consistent with our guidelines, the citations should be as follows:

by Osprey (no photo)
by Ian Baxter (no photo)
by Scott Rusch (no photo)
by Teddy Suhren (no photo)
by James W. Bancroft (no photo)

Thank you.

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Lgonzalez, thank you for your comment about the books that you are currently reading. They both sound interesting. However, to be consistent with our guidelines your book citations should like so:

by Paula Fredriksen
by Katherine Howe

Thank you.

[Jeff]

I recently started this book, a short yet detailed book about a very isolated region of southern New Jersey. I have lived not a terrible distance. away my entire life. However, I never knew that the area of the Pine Barrens was so isolated. The author describes the history of the area, by going back to the era of the American Revolutionary War, as well as going into the sort of people that have lived in it throughout history. A remarkable job of researching the topic.


by John McPhee

[Kaniraj]

I have read about two-thirds of Becoming by Michelle Obama, reached the point of Barack Obama having won the presidential election. Surely a very well written book. Since I have visited Chicago a few times, I am able to have a feel of the places Michelle Obama has described in the book. I am not quite familiar with the Southside though.

What I find interesting is the use of the terms race and racial in the book; I have counted about 15 times so far. Isabel Wilkerson says in Caste that race is not real, it's a social construct which is true. So, caste is the apt word than race. It will be interesting to watch whether this suggestion becomes acceptable and a change in terminology takes place in the future, colloquially and in literature.

by Michelle Obama

by Isabel Wilkerson

[Marc]

just finished by Sue Roe (no photo)

just starting (wanting to read this after finishing the HBO series)
by Matt Ruff

[Meredith]

Just finished "The Twenty-Six Words That Created the Internet." Excellent research. Well written. Disappointing conclusion by the author.

[Jeff]

I started this a few weeks ago as I'm trying to get into more Pulitzer Prize winners. This book is about the Vietnam War. So far, I'm only about 15% of the way through the book and so consequently it is very early on in the United States involvement in the war. I find it interesting how things are playing out so far during the early part of the war's depiction in the book and how things would eventually develop in regards to the United States later on in the decade.


by Neil Sheehan

[Jeff]

I also started this book on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Sure, I always heard of the expedition, but I didn't really know the great details of it. I only knew some of the principle characters in the tale.; mainly, Sacajawea, Lewis, Clark, and I think someone with a French sounding last name that I cannot recall. However, I might be imagining that last individual; I'll find out soon enough. The book started out with a bit of a biography on Lewis' younger years. It then proceeds to tell of Lewis' selection by Jefferson to be Jefferson's personal secretary. That's about where I am in the book at this point in time


by Stephen E. Ambrose

[Patricia]

Clouds Across the Sun by Ellen Brazer by Ellen Brazer Ellen Brazer

[Thulani]

I didn't particularly enjoy the first chapter as it contained a lot of geology describing the formation of Scotland over billions of years. It felt like I'd been reading it for billions of years and eventually I decided to jump to chapter 2.

It also contains errors. It says that Henry VIII's marriages to Anne Boleyn and Jane Seymour were invalid because he was still married to Catherine of Aragon in the eyes of Catholics. By the time Henry married Jane, Catherine had been dead for several months (Anne, 11 days) making Henry free to remarry! In one chapter it says Elizabeth Stuart, aka the Winter Queen, was the daughter of James VI and I and then in another chapter it says she was the daughter of James VII and II. She was the daughter of the former! I'm a bit concerned there are errors in other sections that I've not picked up on as I'm not as familiar with other eras. Also, there isn't a bibliography, only a 'further reading' section. The way it is written is a bit all over the place as the author flits back and forth in a way which doesn't seem entirely logical.

I realise I've given this a terrible review. The book isn't all bad, though. I'll probably give it 3 stars when I'm done. It's a good starting point for anyone wanting to get into Scottish history but is unsure which period or which person to study, and the further reading section, from what I've skimmed so far, seems good too.

by Neil Oliver

[Jeff]

I had read these two books back in the 1990s and I'm rereading them now (not at the same time, more on that later). These were really the first nonfiction books that I had read relating to the Cold War. The first book chronicles the two main individuals Christopher John Boyce and Andrew Daulton Lee. Boyce worked for a company that if my memory is correct did work with spy satellites. He would get the secret information out of the company premises. Lee then acted as a courier who would get it into the hands of the Soviets. I don't want to say too much more as I don't want to ruin the fun of reading it for anyone. Read the first one as that should be read first. If you like it read the second one as that will then complete the story, that's why I’m not reading both at the same time. Lastly, those of you who are old enough; might remember that there was a 1985 corresponding movie to the first book starring Sean Penn.


by Robert Lindsey

by Robert Lindsey

[Cheri]

I'm currently reading by Mark Edward Lewis (no photo)

Covering the rise and fall of China's golden dynasty, the Tang dynasty.

[Gary]

I am reading Unworthy Republic by Claudio Saunt about how Native American tribes were moved off their lands and pushed westward.
Unworthy Republic: The Dispossession of Native Americans and the Road to Indian Territory
Claudio Saunt

[Mark]

Just started The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey which was delivered to my postal box yesterday; also reading the article by John Joseph Wallis and Naomi R. Lamoreaux "Economic Crisis, General Laws, and the Mid-Nineteenth-Century Transformation of American Political Economy" in the current issue of the Journal of the Early Republic.

[Kathy]

I’m reading Who we are and how we got here by David Reich. It’s about the new genetic analyses being done on both current populations and on ancient hominid bones in order to understand human history. The author is a well known geneticist in this area. It’s quite fascinating what’s being done. Much more is known about Europe than about other parts of the world, so the book focuses on that area. He does try to cover other populations but the stories are pretty incomplete at this point. Since he is a scientist in this area, the book can be quite technical. But since I’m not taking a test I’m not getting bogged down in it. And am learning a lot about our current knowledge. The book was published in 2018 so it’s fairly up to date.

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Interesting post, Gary. It sounds like a very interesting book. You were close in the citation but we need to have the bookcover followed by the author's photo and link like so:

by Claudio Saunt (no photo)

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Mark, thank you for your interesting post. In order to be consistent with our guidelines, the books you mentioned should be cited as follows;

by Candice Millard

[Lorna, Assisting Moderator (T) - SCOTUS - Civil Rights]

Thank you for your post, Kathy. However, to be consistent with our guidelines your citation should look like so:

by David Reich (no photo)

[David]

I recently married a woman from Brazil and in addition to learning Portuguese, I decided to start a book about the history of Brazil.

by Michael Reid

[Bentley, Group Founder, Leader, Chief]

Very good David

[Christine]

Currently reading: by Malcolm Gladwell

[Andrea]

Christine, Malcolm Gladwell has written several interesting books … Have you read his “David and Goliath?”
Regards,
Andrea

by Malcolm Gladwell

[Christine]

Andrea,
I have not as this is my first book by him. Should be done with the book by tonight. Thanks for the recommendation tho.

[Andrea]

You’re Welcome!

Andrea

[Laura]

The Dawn of Detroit: A Chronicle of Slavery and Freedom in the City of the Straits
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

Familiar with Detroit or not, this is an interesting read about slavery and the indigenous population in the midwest.