What Book Are You Reading?

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

And with one more, that brings my total of books read in 2018 to 32. Admittedly, the last five were really short, but on the other hand, I didn't count the Bible (which is pretty long) because I couldn't remember if I technically restarted it a few days before 2018. And there were other books I either started earlier of didn't read all of because it was for research.


Harry Truman Slept Here: A Glimpse at the Trumans' Private Life in Independence Missouri
by Laura Vernon

[Tazer That Evil, Yellow Bastiche Find all posts View Profile Close Tazer]

Yo.

wow, that last book was actually pretty chewy; but now, its time to dig into this:

Tazer

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Started 2019 with a book partly for research and partly for fun.
[Bitesize Biographies] George Whitefield
by Michael A.G. Haykin


Not only read that last biography, but another (before taking another break to catch up with magazines and other reading).

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Just received my like-new copy of The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, big-ass hardcover complete with a nice dust jacket. But since that bastard weighs in at ~1100 pages, I'm setting it aside for later.

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Wiseguy: Life in a Mafia Family
by Nicholas Pileggi


Very fun, pretty quick read. I was surprised by how whole portions of narrative including Henry and Karen quotes were taken wholesale for Goodfellas.

Just received my like-new copy of The Complete Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft, big-ass hardcover complete with a nice dust jacket. But since that bastard weighs in at ~1100 pages, I'm setting it aside for later.

Awesome. I have the complete works on Kindle. I haven't read them all, but I'm pretty sure I've read the vast majority of it. Only problem is when I start looking at short stories to read from it, I often can't tell if I've already read it until I'm halfway through (especially since HPL is admittedly repetitive) largely because I've read them from multiple sources. BTW: I made a silent nerd squeal when I was watching Aquaman yesterday and saw Dunwich Horror on the Currys' coffee table.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

What was a bit surprising to me was when I checked the table of contents and saw how short his stories usually were, literally just a handful of pages (one was even a single page). I mean yes, he churned out a load of work, but it never occurred to me that the entries would predominately be low in page-count.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

Still reading magazines and such, but will probably start a new leisure book in the next day or so.
In the meantime, I started a new book for a church group.

True Spirituality
by Francis Schaeffer

What was a bit surprising to me was when I checked the table of contents and saw how short his stories usually were, literally just a handful of pages (one was even a single page). I mean yes, he churned out a load of work, but it never occurred to me that the entries would predominately be low in page-count.

Yep. They were almost all published in SF/horror lit mags. He did write one novella (The Strange Case of Charles Dexter Ward) and Herbert West-Reanimator is novella length though it was published in installments (which means you have to bear with recap narrative when reading it through). Otherwise, there's the occasional story over 20 pages, but many 10 and under.

[Tazer That Evil, Yellow Bastiche Find all posts View Profile Close Tazer]

Yo.

Tazer

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Finished (partly for fun and partly for research for a class I'm teaching Wednesday):

Hudson Taylor: Gospel Pioneer to China

by Vance Christie

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Yo.

Tazer

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The Winter's Tale

by William Shakespeare

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Finished "Victories of the Space Marines" anthology (various authors), part of the Warhammer 40,000 library of novels.

I really only bought this for one particular tale, C.L. Werner's "Black Dawn," but at ~$4.50 with free shipping, it was an absolute steal even if I only cared about the one story. Overall I was pleased with the collection, seeing a variety of Space Marine Chapters represented and with a wide range of villain. I think the only real issues I had were: one, the repeated mention of the "God-Emperor" when very few Chapters revere him as a deity; and two, the "Long Games at Carcharias" story is a crushing defeat, and so does not really belong in this collection.

Other than that we see a lot of material, all of it worth checking out (including "Long Games," which is well written).

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I put the Shakespeare on temporary hold after act 1 so I could re-read Thomas Cahill's How the Irish Saved Civilization for a class I'm teaching on St. Patrick's Day. I recommend it to anyone Irish and/or anyone interested in the roots of Western civilization since the central premise is that while the Roman empire fell the monasteries of Ireland preserved classical culture/literature/education.

[Tazer That Evil, Yellow Bastiche Find all posts View Profile Close Tazer]

Yo.

I just finished:

.....and now Ive moved on to the following series:

Tazer

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The Book of the Kells: Selected Plates in Full Color

Edited by Blanche Cirker

Checked this out from the library for reference in the same class and read it (not that there was much to read) before finishing The Winter's Tale. Now, I'm finishing Bannerman's The Church of Christ, a massive book that I probably started (and posted here) like two years ago, but put down for long periods (and only recently decided to read a hundred pages at a time between quicker/funner books).