Team of Rivals is a great read, Goodwin's great at popular history. I have been reading Our Lincoln, edited by Eric Foner. It has series of essays by leading current historians that give an examination of wide variety of aspects of Lincoln's life and actions.
Also been reading Richard MacGregor's The Party: The Secret Life of China's Communist Rulers. The story of a true privileged class and how they combine capitalism and communism.

Since I'm a huge history fan (not just dates, events regiments/battles and the like - more like how people lived, what they wore, what they ate, where they lived, etc.), I've been reading two historical books I bought last week.

The Housekeeper's Tale: The Women Who Really Ran the English Country House
Tessa Boase

An Intimate History of The Home: If Walls Could Talk
Lucy Worsley

Finishing up the last of 4 books I got over the holidays: Killing Patton
other 3 were:
Polk: The Man Who Transformed the Presidency and America
Lone Survivor
Legends and Lies: The Patriots

They have all been really good reads!

Al Shabaab in Somalia.

Very deep and interesting....

Just finished World Gone By, which is the follow up to Live By Night. I thought it was a fitting conclusion to the Joe Coughlin story.

Here are some I've finished since year began:

Defying Hitler by Sebastian Haffner: A memoir of a writer's experience in Germany between 1914 and 1933 at which time he emigrated to England. Helped me to understand the mentality of the Germans who supported Hitler.

The Association of Small Bombs by Karan Mahajan: A novel looking at a terrorist's actions and its consequences from the terrorist's perspective.

Fool Me Once by Harlan Coben: Typical Coben plot with a couple of interesting twists. A B- for him.

Everything You Want Me to Be by Mindy Mejia: Solid thriller based in Minnesota involving a relationship between a HS teacher and his student.

In a Dark, Dark Wood by Ruth Ware: Another solid thriller set in England involving temporary amnesia.

Behind Closed Doors by BA Paris: Weak psychological thriller. Unrealistic and drawn out far too long.

The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson: Great novel centered on the life of a young man coming of age in North Korea. Highly recommended.

I started The Apache Wars by Paul Andrew Hutton and Starship Troopers yesterday. Both have started strong.

Just ordered two books...hopefully will get back into reading after a decent hiatus.

One is Das Reboot and the other is a book by a friend of mine that not many people would probably be interested in, both are soccer books.

After the second Jack Reacher film came out, I started checking out Lee Child books from the library. So far have read about 7 of them, including the two that were made into films.

Thought about going through the Repairman Jack series again by F. Paul Wilson, but they're so dark it might not be as much fun. I just re-read the "Nightworld", which effectively concludes the timeline. All of the scenes with the plethora of chew wasps and other creatures coming out of the holes at night are tough to enjoy, but at least the bad guys get their just desserts.

Audible has Slaughterhouse Five on sale for $1.95 today so I grabbed a copy. I've never read Vonnegut, I am looking forward to listening through this this weekend.

Also been reading the jack reacher series, only on 2nd book though.

Read 2 books from the "book of the month" mail order company (wife bought me a trial).
First one was called "All the ugly and wonderful things" and the other was called "Behind her eyes". First one was a weird relationship story about a 25 year old and a 13 year old, and the second was a girl on the train/ gone girl type book. Both were decent.

Some of you guys make me feel dumb reading all of this mindless crap instead of historical or "real" stuff.


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justincredible;1838929 wrote:Audible has Slaughterhouse Five on sale for $1.95 today so I grabbed a copy. I've never read Vonnegut, I am looking forward to listening through this this weekend.

This is an outstanding book. If it's your first Vonnegut, it is a great way to start.

If I like it, what would you recommend next?

justincredible;1838958 wrote:If I like it, what would you recommend next?

My next recommendation would be Cat's Cradle and then Breakfast of Champions.

Just read 13 Hours, which is about the Benghazi attack from the perspective of the special operators who were involved. Really enjoyed it.

The movie follows the book almost exactly.

Just finished "Snake: The Legendary Life of Kenny Stabler", by Mike Freeman. Very oddly written - almost one anecdote after another. I guess it's a more modern style of sports-biography writing, reminds me of autobiographies of rock stars, like Slash or Flea.

Working on "Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe", by Mike Massimino, robotics engineer who flew two Space Shuttle missions, including Columbia in 2002, one year before it disintegrated on re-entry. Pretty interesting, including an exercise where he and nine astronaut trainees were helicoptered to a remote part of Alberta, Canada in the winter for two weeks of cold-weather stress training, given gear, tools, and clothing, dropped off and had to follow a map and move their camp each day in 20-below or worse weather while maintaining discipline.

iclfan2;1838931 wrote:

Some of you guys make me feel dumb reading all of this mindless crap instead of historical or "real" stuff.


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Reading should always be FUN-damental.

Guilty pleasure - also just finished revisiting "Alfred Hitchcock & The Three Investigators in 'The Mystery of the Green Ghost' ". I remember finding that series in the Bookmobile when I was in middle school. Not quite as thrilling as it was over 45 years ago, but still fun seeing an old friend for an hour.

I'll have to see the library still carries the old "Freddy The Pig" series. :laugh:

I finished up Apache Wars and Starship Troopers this weekend. I would recommend both.

Started The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand last night.

isadore;1837699 wrote:Team of Rivals is a great read, Goodwin's great at popular history. I have been reading Our Lincoln, edited by Eric Foner. It has series of essays by leading current historians that give an examination of wide variety of aspects of Lincoln's life and actions.
Also been reading Richard MacGregor's The Party: The Secret Life of China's Communist Rulers. The story of a true privileged class and how they combine capitalism and communism.

Finished Team of Rivals the other day. Very, very good. It was really researched and shed light on aspects of the Lincoln Presidency I did not really know. Long read, but enjoyable.

I cracked open Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond today. I've read parts of it for class years ago, and enjoyed it. Figured I would get around to reading the whole thing.

Godwin's The Bully Pulpit about the T.Roosevelt-Taft, friendship and feud and also the Muckakers is another good read.

I started reading Dark Matter yesterday, which has been great so far.

I also found this subscription service yesterday and bit the bullet and signed up today: Book of the Month Club. One of the selections for this month is Stranger in the Woods, which I've been wanting to read, so I decided to give it a shot. Use the link and you can get your first month for a buck.

Just started reading Devil in the White City. So far it's slow, but I'm only one chapter in. The fact that it is non-fiction is pretty chilling.

A co-worker (female) recommended that book a while back, I haven't got around to it though. I'll be curious to find out what you think.

justincredible;1843053 wrote:A co-worker (female) recommended that book a while back, I haven't got around to it though. I'll be curious to find out what you think.

My girlfriend read it before me and said it was unbelievable. The author used all real interviews, letters, and other factual pieces of information to write it.

Finished Dark Matter yesterday. I highly recommend it if you're into science fiction.

justincredible;1843053 wrote:A co-worker (female) recommended that book a while back, I haven't got around to it though. I'll be curious to find out what you think.

Found it a really easy read. It's really creepy how HH Holmes was able to do the things he did. I'd recommend it.