Books you're currently reading???

[DanaC]

" Ooooh, the White Gold Wielder. That takes me right back. I found Thomas Covenant a very entertaining anti-hero."

Man, I loved that whole sequence. I read the First Chronicles when I was 12 and the second Chronicles when I was about 14. It had a huge effect on me, because my whole family read it and passed the books around. It was just before my Mum and Dad split up so it sticks in my mind as the very last "family" thing we did together. Thomas remains my favourite ever Anti hero

Anybody ever read Donaldon's Gap series? Awesome Space Opera on the grandest of scales

[Aliantha]

Originally Posted by DanaC

" Ooooh, the White Gold Wielder. That takes me right back. I found Thomas Covenant a very entertaining anti-hero."

Anybody ever read Donaldon's Gap series? Awesome Space Opera on the grandest of scales

Dana, I'm a huge Donaldson fan. I think the Gap series is his best work ever. Even better than Thomas Covenant. I also loved Mordants Need. Has anyone ever read that one?

[Troubleshooter]

Speaking of space opera, who here has read the Lensman series?

[SteveDallas]

I just finished Mozart in the Jungle: Sex, Drugs, and Classical Music by Blair Tindall. This book is part memoir, part indictment of the classical music industry. Tindall, an oboist who grew up in North Carolina and moved to Manhattan after graduating from the North Carolina School of the Arts' high school program, played a lot of oboe between the ages of 15 and 40, and by her own admission played very, very few jobs that she didn't obtain by sleeping with someone. By all accounts she is a good oboist, though I was amused by her constant harping on her inability to produce good reeds. I also wondered how she managed to learn anything about the oboe as her primary teacher for almost her entire life was, according to her description, useless at best. (Except for the fact that he could recommend her to play as a sub in the NY Philharmonic.)

Although I don't disagree with much of what she writes about the state of the discipline, she seems oblivious to the fact that the same circumstances apply in many fields. (If she thinks classical musicians enjoyed an artifically created boom in the 1960s and 70s, and that music schools turn out far more graduates than there will ever be jobs for, she should consider the career opportunites her own father, a history professor at the University of North Carolina, faced in the 1960s compared with those of a 30-something humanities PhD today.)

[mrnoodle]

Hey TS, is the 11th book of WOT a prequel, or are they still going forward? I forced myself through the first 10, but wasn't really paying attention after 6.

I'm going to the used-book store after work. I'm all out of stuff to read.

[glatt]

I found the whole Earthsea series by LeGuin at a library book sale. Very cheap. Hadn't read it in 20+ years.

I'm just about finished with Wizard of Earthsea. It started off a little slow and wasn't as good as I remembered, but now it's sucking me in.

I'll pass these off to my kids when they get a little older.

[Happy Monkey]

Did you see the SciFi miniseries?

If not, don't.

[bluecuracao]

I'm about halfway through Lipstick Jungle by Candace Bushnell. It's pretty much the same story as Sex and the City, et al, except with different women...sort of.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by mrnoodle

Hey TS, is the 11th book of WOT a prequel, or are they still going forward? I forced myself through the first 10, but wasn't really paying attention after 6.

The prequel is called "A New Spring," and it's not called anything except "the prequel" and its title. The "eleventh book" is called "Knife of Dreams," and it is indeed the next in the series.

[wolf]

Bhagavad Gita

[Urbane Guerrilla]

The Savage Wars Of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power, Max Boot. It's about America's small wars, exclusive of the Indian Wars and other military actions inside the North American continent and around the national frontiers, starting really with the Barbary Wars beginning 1802, as it really doesn't get into the conflict-that-wasn't-quite-a-war with France of 1798-1800. Packs a lot between two covers. Persons interested in the history of the US Marines should give this one a look -- I never knew Smedley Butler had a middle name (and it sure doesn't look like he had a first name). It outlines American interventions in Central America and the Caribbean -- there was one dustup where the US Marines were fighting to defeat a coup instigated by United Fruit!

[lookout123]

how to win friends and influence people... by some guy.

yet another series of books for yet another professional designation that geniuses like tw will scoff at.

[elSicomoro]

Books for my first graduate class...I start in 2 weeks:

--Management Mistakes and Successes
--The Time Trap
--Effective Teamwork
--a management textbook published by Houghton Mifflin

[Cyclefrance]

Originally Posted by sycamore

Books for my first graduate class...I start in 2 weeks:

--Management Mistakes and Successes
--The Time Trap
--Effective Teamwork
--a management textbook published by Houghton Mifflin

Get yourself a copy of Goldratt's 'The Goal' - it won't cost you much second-hand but it will be one of the most useful management books you read, being the entry novel to a management and business process concept that stands up to scrutiny and that really does work and deliver. I'll be surprised if you don't get hooked.

[elSicomoro]

Originally Posted by Cyclefrance

Get yourself a copy of Goldratt's 'The Goal' - it won't cost you much second-hand but it will be one of the most useful management books you read, being the entry novel to a management and business process concept that stands up to scrutiny and that really does work and deliver. I'll be surprised if you don't get hooked.

Thanks for the tip...I'll have to check it out!