What are you reading in July/August 2008?

[Dianne]

I've been reading (slowly as I haven't had much time to spend with my book) 'World Without Women' by Sean McElgunn. It's a fiction which is largely based on his own experiences as an Irish priest in the Phillipines during the 1960s and 70s. While it is a fiction, because it is based on his life, it can really be seen as a social history of a group (ie missionary priests). I'm not a religious person at all but this book fascinates me because it is about a world so different from my own. It was barely 50 years ago but Ireland and the Phillipines were so different than they are now. The more I read of this fiction, the more I want to know about the author's own life.

Dianne Ascroft,
'Hitler and Mars Bars'

[Terence]

This month the three I have to get through 'cuz they're library books are:

Endless Universe by Paul Steinhardt, a book on cosmology.

The Horse, The Wheel, and Language by David Anthony, about the Indo-Europeans.

The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory by Cynthia Eller, a corrective (purportedly) to the idea that there was a matriarchal "golden age."

I'm nearly finished with Arthur Cotterell's Imperial Capitals of China, an otherwise interesting look not only at China's capitals but also many other aspects of the empire marred by terrible editing (a sore point with me as I'm a copy editor by trade).

If I can, I'd like to squeeze in Simon Montefiore's Young Stalin, which has been sitting on the shelf lo these many months.

[Annette]

I'm reading The Slaves' War. I'm a little disappointed as I expected more of the civilian side, more from the slaves' point of view, but as with most books by men about the the Civil War, there seems to be more information about troop movement, battles, etc.

However, I'm only about 1/2 way through and others have said that it gets less military and more civilian as it goes along.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

I read The Horse, The Wheel, and Language a few months ago.

I found it interesting, but somewhat boggy in the middle.

The Myth of Matriarchal Prehistory sounds interesting.

My current history is David McCullough's The Great Bridge, which is about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge.

[Tim]

I'm reading No Ordinary Time by Doris Kearns Goodwin and loving it. It had about two paragraphs about Operation Torch and the invasion of North Africa. I wanted to know more, so I got Army at Dawn out of the library and started reading it. I accidentally stayed up until 2:00 am reading that one. What a contrast. While No Ordinary Time is all about relationships and the very delicate feelings of people in the white house, Army at Dawn is about charred corpses hanging out of tanks and fuel shortages.

[Tim (Mole) The Gunslinger]

im readig John Adams at the moment

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

Oh yes, and I've been re-reading Life in a Medieval City, which I'm almost finished with.

[George]

currently reading A Terrible Glory on Custer's Last Stand by James Donavan.

[Mike]

July:
Stalingrad by Antony Beevor
Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Plans for August:
Isaac Newton by James Gleick
Legacy of Ashes by Tim Weiner
Body of Lies by Iris Johansen

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

Finished Life in a Medieval City last night. A nice little re-read.

[Jim]

just starting MONSTER OF FLORENCE
FINDING NOUF

FINALLY FINISHED A PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG LADY by HENRY JAMES

LIKED IT BUT LONG

[Alan]

I am going to try to finish 'Retribution' and 'Union 1812'and then 'Iron Tears'.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

I just started a historical mystery - Steven Saylor's A Mist of Prophecies.

I read His Majesty's Dragon (the first volume in that Temeraire series) about a month ago, Kelley, and really enjoyed it.

[Heather]

Just finished The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II and Harriet Tubman: Imagining a Life: A Biography (placed both on the group "read" shelf.)

Currently reading a biography about Gandhi, and next in line in the pile o' library books is a biography about Sojourner Truth, and an autobiography by Frederick Douglas. (I put the last two onto the group "to read" shelf).

[Old-Barbarossa]

Ferguson's "Empire" (rise and fall of the British Empire...East India company, opium and tea, that kind of thing) and Tyerman's "God's War" (Hx of pretty much all the Crusades...everything from Peter the Hermit to Teutonic Knights in Prussia etc).
Both very good so far.
Having said that, "God's War" is about the size of my head and may take a while.
Then I think some light fiction to allow a re-boot of my brain.
Possibly something with monkeys.

[Susanna - Censored by GoodReads, Crazy Cat Lady]

Yeah, I'm feeling the need for some nice dragons after The Selfish Gene!

[Old-Barbarossa]

After "God's War" I'll need to read something where there is NO-ONE called Roger, Raymond, or Robert...always a problem with any Hx involving Normans.