I had a thought the other night, while reading a book that I found very interesting and engaging, I had a thought.... (I read a lot, Kindle has been a wonderful tool for me to read more without taking up more space in my house with lots of books, for which my wife is grateful).....
The thought was, 'I wish I could discuss some of these books I'm reading, and recommend some of them, and get other's recommendations'. And then I thought, there are a lot of very intelligent individuals with a diversity of opinions and insight on AO, who probably read a lot, and could steer me to interesting things to read. And I read a wide variety of books, historical, fiction, social and political, philosophy, technical journals on occasion....pretty much anything but junk romance. I even read the odd western on occasion. I still like Max Brand better than Louis L'amour (let the flaming begin!).
Anyway, as such, I thought it might be of interest to share what you are reading, maybe a brief Cliff's notes and recommendation or not. I'm hoping this could be done within the boundaries of the AO Forum rules, inasmuch as a book on political or religious topic could be mentioned without it turning into another One Of Those Threads. Just civil discourse, an "I'm reading this book by X and it's about topic Z, I liked/hated it but found it engaging because....". Something like that. As an avid, lifelong reader I'm always looking for a recommendation on a good read. I could probably put up dozens right now that are springing to mind, that are maybe on or off the beaten trail but that I really enjoyed.
I'm going to limit myself to current and last three reads, too start off, so that I don't go off the deep end immediately. So, with visions of a friendly, interesting Book Club type format in mind, and looking forward to contributions, here goes.
I am currently reading "Vision of the Anointed", by Thomas Sowell, and am halfway through. I've read the odd commentary of his, and someone on this forum has a quote of his as his signature line (can't remember who)...and I am thoroughly enjoying it. Sowell is an economist and political commentator, and this book is of a political nature as such. I haven't finished it, but totally recommend it. A brief synopsis here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Vi...f_the_Anointed
Very engaging, revealing and readable, and though it was written 20 or so years ago it is absolutely current events material.
Prior to starting that, I spent the last five weeks reading the entire collected works of Jack London, for $2 whole dollars from Kindle. I had read Call of the Wild and White Fang as a teen, and thought to re-read them after 30+ years as I remember I enjoyed them. I was completely drawn in by his works, and there is way more too it than Klondike gold rush dog mushing stories (which I enjoyed btw). Everything from riding trains as a teen, to sealing, to sailing the South Pacific, to political treatise as fiction. I was very surprised at the socialist leanings he had (very common and fashionable for his time, especially among writers and intellectuals). He is quite articulate, and his grasp of philosophy was surprising....though I wasn't convinced on his politics I still enjoyed the fictional format of them. He also seemed to have a preoccupation with suicide, which I found a bit uncomfortable, more than a touch of nihilism in his writings. All a bit surprising from what I expected to be a good yarn of the Klondike kind of thing. My favorite three books of his would be Martin Eden (brilliant I thought), The Sea Wolf, and John Barleycorn (a book on temperance promoting prohibition which I totally disagree with but found compelling, as it predated prohibition).
And to round it out, I read Jordan Peterson's 12 Rules for Life recently. I won't go into it in depth, suffice to say I really enjoyed the down to earth, practical, common sense of the book, though I did find that on occasion he got into the deep end of the pool a bit. I suppose that is to be expected, he is an obviously highly intelligent man, he thinks things through on a deep level. I completely recommend this one, it's a best seller for a reason. My son is reading it and enjoying it currently.
So AO....any other readers on here who can contribute and make this an interesting thread?
AO Book Club
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