What BOOK are you reading right now?

I love when people list what they've read/are reading here. I've gotten some good titles that way. Do you read just one book at a time? I used to, but lately I've found myself enmeshed in 2, 3 or even 4 at a time. It's summer lol.

I'm in the same boat; reading several books at once - with some going on for months, while others can be finished within the week. I love my Kindle, but also still purchase soft-cover books to read.

Mr.Irish is now referring to those as my 'dead-tree' books lol.

When I think of all the trees that's been "sacrificed" for newspapers around the world, we must wonder how fast man is destroying our environment.

Books, magazines, and all printed materials doesn't help.

Depends on the books. I'm slower with non fiction and sometimes put those down to procede with a crime novel. I've always got a stack at hand, some just sitting there for quite a while.

I do like seeing what others are reading here and sometimes act on what sounds interesting to me.

I just finished Jeremy Bentham's Handbook of Political Fallacies, first published in 1824. The book interested me for two reasons. For one, its author is credited with inventing my own political and moral philosophy, utilitarianism. Moreover, discussing politics on A2K and elsewhere has exposed me to such a bounty of fallacious reasoning that I got curious to read a systematic exposition of it.

Bentham's approach to this exposition is straightforward: Having quickly defined how he uses the word "fallacy" (nothing surprising there), Bentham walks us through the various categories and explains their mechanics. A quick look at the chapter headings gives a pretty good overview: Broadly, he categorizes them as "fallacies of authority", "fallacies of danger", "fallacies of delay", and "fallacies of confusion". (Sound familiar?) The subsections, too, reintroduce us to lots of old acquaintances. I especially liked "The Wisdom of Our Ancestors", the "Self-Assumed Authority", and the "Infamy Must Attach Somewhere" fallacy. The book concludes with a chapter "On the Causes of Fallacies". Given how obviously silly they are, and how obviously important it is that public policy be rational, why are fallacies so pervasive? What's in it for the politicians who utter them, and for the voters who fall for them?

Having digested Bentham's take on all this, I'd give two cheers to the book, but not three. I found the book rewarding because it showed me how the phenomenology of bad arguments endures over centuries. While reading political discussions on websites and in newspapers, I could always find a chapter and section in Bentham for each fallacy I encountered. Conversely, every fallacy in the book still occurs, and occurs frequently, in political discussions today.

Bentham's explanation for the pervasiveness of bad reasoning also endures to this day: The benefits of sound political reasoning are public; its costs are private; therefore, a society of rational egoists will under-provide it. This encapsulates the public choice theory James Buchanan got the 1986 Nobel Prize for---not bad for a book published in 1824. In this sense, Bentham's Handbook is compact, comprehensive, and still up to date.

So why am I withholding my third cheer? Because of the book's language. It's pedantic, polluted with academic mannerisms, and a drag to read. I wish someone could translate the book into plain English some time. Bentham's insights deserve it.

Sounds like a good task for you, should you choose to accept it. I'd read that.

I've just finished A Popular History of the Reformation by Mgr Hughes. That nun Luther must have had the hots for to go to all that trouble he did to spring her from the convent, where her Father and Mother had placed her to protect her from the likes of him, must have really felt wanted. There was a shortage of eligible young men for the daughters of the upper crust due to military activity and it was out of the question that the rustics be allowed to mingle their blood with the lightly browned side. ( A mixed metaphor I know--but still--I like it. And it's the the first rule of metaphor, indeed, the only rule, that the creator of one likes it.)

So the convent it was for the less attractive, or sometimes, I presume not so often, a precocious and wayward daughter who has reached an age where she finds that a toy is not something you play with but is what you use to toy with the opposition with. The convent's solo song sister noted for her chromatic range and subtleties of sensibility. What she would have thought if she could have heard Freddie Mercury sing that "I wanna break free" riff. She's his. He has her spellbound with his mesmeric rhetoric about chastity being "impossible". All he has to do is get the Pope off his back. And there were thousands of other nuns and priests to whom such words were as sweet as the Songs of the Sirens and an uprising was planned. An organised one I mean. There had been a lot of individual uprisings up to that point where they found a leader to give them a voice. It made perfect sense to them that if the Holy Ghost was balderdash they should be allowed to shag all these nuns. It's understandable. I bet they were "drop-dead" gorgeous some of them.

There would be a few in the convent who had a nervous disposition.

After that I'm in the mood for another look at Opus Pistorum by one of America's true sons. Anyone American who doesn't know his name ought to be ashamed of themselves and doubly so if they have an 'ology major.

I must admit I hadn't heard of the book until just now.
I've heard of Henry Miller, of course.
That said, I remain unashamed.

Just finished The Three Musketeers.
About to start a re-read of Titus Andronicus.
Continuing Talking Hands.
Skimmed through bits and pieces of Game of Thrones at the bookstore.

I did say "Anyone American" George. I edited to insert "American" after I had written that post. But I meant it in a literary sense. Or psychological. I suppose the word changes its meaning every day. I wonder if the aboriginal Indians had a word for "insurgents".

He's worth studying is 'Ol Henry. And somebody who doesn't know much about him is in the best position. Somebody with no baggage out of the prints or off the talking heads.

Did you ever see that documentary about tracing the author of The Stones of Summer. He was eventually found a night-janitor at a school stoking the boiler so the yikkle kiddiwinks won't be cold when they arrive. I've never read it but I felt like doing.

What happened there happened to me today. Moving books, half a ton I did three miles with and twice as many to follow. Up to my chin through the house and into the trunk. Drive three miles and out of the trunk up a garden path into a narrow hallway round two corners and into the only room I'm allowed to put books in. The guy on the docu. was shifting his books and started reading one. One he had forgotten he had. He got really distracted with the Stones. He chased all over America to track the author down.

But I've never seen a copy for sale.

Books are heavy.

For the Harry Potter fans -- big announcement this past week from J. K. Rowling that she will be offering her books in ebook form (after resisting for a long time, I guess). Apparently, they'll only be available on pottermore.com...with tons of bonus material (no new book from what I can gather, though).

This is from one of the CNN articles...

nice

finally got back to a book i started ages ago, Andre Norton's The Magic Books (omnibus 1988 contains Fur Magic, Steel Magic & Octagon Magic)


FUR MAGIC (1965) Cory Alder has been uprooted to spend at least a summer with his foster uncle in Idaho (his father having shipped out to Vietnam) and is learning that bragging about a Nez Perce foster uncle who raises horses for rodeos is a long way from living up to such a macho standard yourself. He begins developing a fear of large animals, but receives drastic therapy for it after accidentally interfering with a medicine bundle watched over by a traditional-minded elder. To set things right, Cory is sent on a vision quest, and experiences the world 'before it turned over' - living not as a human, but as an animal spirit in the body of a giant beaver, acting as a scout in the midst of a war.

STEEL MAGIC (1967, a.k.a. GRAY MAGIC) The picnic basket and cutlery won by Sara at the Strawberry Festival at first were just a good excuse for her and her brothers to have a picnic while exploring the half-wild estate where they're spending the summer with their uncle. They find more than they bargained for - a gate into Faerie, where a picnic basket packed with ordinary food and steel cutlery is worth far more than any fairy gold. Each sibling must confront his or her fears on a quest to help the people of Avalon retrieve various stolen magical objects: Sara, her fear of insects as she searches for a magic ring in a wood guarded by giant spiders; Greg, his fear of the dark as he seeks to retrieve Excalibur from the Witch of the Mountains; Eric, his fear of water as he searches for an enchanted horn on an island reachable only by sea.

OCTAGON MAGIC (1968) Lorrie Mallard has had to move to a new home with an unfamiliar aunt due to her grandmother's failing health. Her new environment is strange in almost every way: Maryland rather than Canada; having a working woman, inexperienced with children, as her guardian rather than a stay-at-home grandmother; American public school (including unpleasant boys) rather than a Canadian girls' school; having trouble catching up in class rather than being praised as a good student. She still grieves for her parents, cannot confide in her still-recuperating grandmother even by letter as she must not have any more stress, and has no close ties until by chance she meets the old ladies of Octagon House, who keep to the routines familiar from their youth, including Octagon House's tradition of sheltering refugees from the storms of the outer world. Lorrie experiences some of their stories through an enchanted dollhouse, while in the present day her mentors help her to gain perspective on her new life, and her guardian is drawn into a struggle to preserve Octagon House from destruction to make way for new development. Nice characterization, as Lorrie is generally a good kid but not a plaster saint, while the troublesome people in her life aren't out-and-out villains.

just finished

and



about to start



also working my way through pieces of the Amelia Peabody series

http://ameliapeabody.com/bookshelf.htm


I didn't realize I'd skipped the first 3 or 4.

I'm in the middle of Jerry A. Coyne: Why Evolution is True. Compared to Richard Dawkins, my favorite evolutionary-biology author, Coyne writes slightly less about evolution as such, but more about creationist arguments and how to counter them. ("So you believe in Intelligent Design? How do you explain the following examples of utterly stupid design in nature?") Why Evolution is True is an entertaining, interesting, and fairly easy read. I recommend it.

Everything in nature is either utterly stupidly designed or nothing is.

Finished reading The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society the other night -- a fun, quick read that I'd feared might be overly sentimental. It's not, IMO. If you enjoyed 84 Charing Cross Road, you might enjoy this one as well, written in a similar format of letters between friends.

Have a lot of sci-fi and mystery/crime in the to-be-read pile, but just received a note that Room is now available for download from the library (after a very long wait), so that's up next.

finished this on the way in to work this morning

from the Quill and Quire review



good read

Yay! Will be reading it soon for my book club. (I try to read close to the actual meeting so I have better recall -- details fade within a couple of weeks.)

And thanks to your thread (and dj's suggestion for the book)! I also put Tsar's suggestion -- Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie -- on the TBR list...so many books, so little time, but Summer fun reading is shaping up nicely!