With apologies to Ed Miller, your favorite read of the last year

[sfer]

For me, it's not really close. Middlesex.

[fsuplayer]

the davinci code.

im a sheep.

[ThaSaltCracka]

DaVinci Code, I am a sheep too.

[nolanfan34]

This book isn't new by any means, but I'm in the middle of reading Ball Four, by Jim Bouton, and I'm really enjoying it.

[spamuell]

I thought Middlesex was excellent as well.

I'm still going with Harry Potter 5 though.

[Rick Nebiolo]

[ QUOTE ]
This book isn't new by any means, but I'm in the middle of reading Ball Four, by Jim Bouton, and I'm really enjoying it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Read that in my youth. I think one of the first books written by an ex-jock that wasn't pap. Cool to learn that Mickey Mantle was really into training and game preparation /images/graemlins/smirk.gif.

~ Rick

[Rick Nebiolo]

I started the Patrick O'Brien series beginning of course with "Master and Commander". Right now am on book five of twenty ("Desolation Island") and three more (six thru eight) are on my Christmas list. All are great reads.

Anyway, put Middlesex on my post Christmas list /images/graemlins/grin.gif

~ Rick

[nicky g]

Does it have to be a book published in the last year? If so, I'm not sure I read any. Otherwise:

Reading "The Magus" by John Fowles at the moment, very good. First proper novel I've enjoyed in years (I went off fiction shortly after finishing an English Literature MA). Although a botched ending could let it down badly, let's hope that doesn't happen. Assuming that doesn;t happen, it's my book of the year.

"A Spy's Life" by Henry Porter was a good thriller.

"Al Qaida" by Jason Burke is excellent; should be required reading.

"Peddling Prosperity" by Krugman was pretty good. His collection of columns was good but they're nothing on his proper work, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I spent twenty quid on the hardback version.

As was "Rogue Nation" by Clyde Prestowitz.

"Travels With A Tangerine" by Tim Mackintosh Smith was good until I lost it, about half way through; should really get another copy.

"Eastward To Tartary" by Robert Kaplan was very good on the Middle East.

Steven Kinzer's book on Turkey was OK, a bit disappointing.

"Iraq" by Dillip Hiro was very good but felt a bit rushed; a post-war update would be welcome.

"After Jihad" by Noah Feldman was worth reading but a bit flimsy; regret buying it in hardback.

"Globalisation and Its Discontents" was worth rerading and finishing this time round; very good. "The Roaring 90s" had some very good stuff in it but wasn't that coherent as a book.

I was really enjoying Balthazar's Odyssey by Amin Malouf but somehow put it down and didn;t pick it back up about 2/3 of the way through. Should definitely finish it/start it again.

Books I'm looking forward to reading: "Arafat: From Defender to Dictator" by Said Aburish, "The Fight" by Norman Mailer (bought these two yesterday), "Why Globalisation Works" by Martin Wolf, "In The Rose Garden of the Martyrs" by someone whose name I forget (Economist Tehran correspondent).

[bwana devil]

"Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief" by Bill Mason

Autobiography about a man who robs the rich over a 30 year period. Just found out the movie rights got bought by Paramount a few weeks ago too.

[edtost]

This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
For me, it's not really close. Middlesex.

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm always looking for something good to read so I checked this one out. I'll pass... Hermaphodites freak me out, man.
[ QUOTE ]
"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor...{/quote]

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
This Side of Paradise - F. Scott Fitzgerald

[/ QUOTE ]

You go to Princeton, right? Ugh, that's so incestuous it's sick. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[sfer]

Okay. Thanks for the info. I'll put it to good use.

[stabn]

Taiko. It's basically a samurai movie in book form. It's huge as well, 700 pages of very small type. It was origionally written in japanese by Eiji Yoshikawa and has been translated into english. I'm probably going to try musashi next (same author, 97 reviews on amazon and still 5 stars).

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
Taiko. It's basically a samurai movie in book form. It's huge as well, 700 pages of very small type. It was origionally written in japanese by Eiji Yoshikawa and has been translated into english. I'm probably going to try musashi next (same author, 97 reviews on amazon and still 5 stars).

[/ QUOTE ] I haven't read Taiko, but maybe I'll read it. Musashi was awesome on a lot of levels. Very deep on the Zen side. Probably lost some of that in the translation though. I've been watching the movie trilogy, and it's terrible by comparison.

[Paluka]

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield. It is about the Battle of Thermopylae between the Spartans and the Persians.

[wayabvpar]

Cryptonomicon. Great book. Clarke's Against All Enemies was good too.

[spamuell]

Hermaphodites freak me out, man.

This is exactly why you should read this book.

[TazQ]

Game of Thrones

[daryn]

i should read more books

[Sundevils21]

The Bible and it's not close
oh and "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brennen Manning
and Tournament Poker for Advanced Players by David Sklansky

[Zeno]

Ed Millers book was very, ah, good - in a poker sense. Being the kind, gentle soul that I am, I will refrain from saying anything more.


Favorite read of last year had to be Lonesome Dove. Surprisingly good. I think I made a post about it.

Right now I'm on light reading, I have a set of P.G. Wodehouse novels about Life at Blandings Castle. All ripping good fun.

For more devilish reading, I just picked up a book called: The Book of Poisonous Quotes, Compiled by Colin M. Jarman. Right up my alley.

A sample:

As for you, little envious Prigs, snarling, bastard, puny Criticks, you'll soon have railed your last: Go hang yourself. - Francois Rabelais

Good breakfast material.

-Zeno

[Evan]

50th Anniversary issue of SI

[plaster8]

They're not exactly classics, but I really enjoyed these:

Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs -- Chuck Klosterman
Dry -- Augusten Burroughs
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- can't remember author
Big Deal-A Year as a Professional Poker Player -- Anthony Holden
Stiff -- Mary Roach

[the42]

Mr Nice. Great book about an ex hippie who went to Oxford and then got into dealing weed and hash on huge global levels. Although he never lived in the US and didn't really sell dope there. The DEA bagged him after years and sent him to prison. Great book.

[sfer]

[ QUOTE ]
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- can't remember author

[/ QUOTE ]

Mark Haddon. I couldn't get through it, myself. Not even in the summer, on the beach. Along a similar vein, I'm reading Motherless Brooklyn (Tourette's ~ autism in my mind, I guess) now and having a good time.

[jakethebake]

[ QUOTE ]
As for you, little envious Prigs, snarling, bastard, puny Criticks, you'll soon have railed your last: Go hang yourself. - Francois Rabelais

[/ QUOTE ]
Francois who? I was gonna guess Stuey from Family Guy. /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[John Cole]

Curious Incident of a Dog in the Night-Time

[GrunchCan]

Disgrace, by J.M. Coetzee.

Also read Animal Farm for the first time /images/graemlins/blush.gif, thought it was a great book.

[wayabvpar]

[ QUOTE ]

Favorite read of last year had to be Lonesome Dove. Surprisingly good. I think I made a post about it.


[/ QUOTE ]

Streets of Laredo is good too. The other two in the series are decent, but not the quality of Lonesome Dove and SoL.

[goofball]

Against All Enemies - Richard Clarke

[private joker]

"Lullaby" -- Chuck Palahniuk
"Dry" -- Augusten Burroughs
"Glamorama" -- Bret Easton Ellis