What Are You Reading Now?

[BigPiney]

Yeah, that was nuts. Really felt sorry for those kids, especially the Schultz grandson.

yeah, that was crazy. Grandpa was a mean idiot.

[SteelBlue]

My library copy of Killing Commendatore was paged wrong. Finally got the new copy and am getting back into it, coming up on the halfway mark. Really is the best I've read from him since Wind Up Bird.

[Jeff Lebowski]

My library copy of Killing Commendatore was paged wrong. Finally got the new copy and am getting back into it, coming up on the halfway mark. Really is the best I've read from him since Wind Up Bird.

I assume this is another Bill O'Reilly book.

[BigPiney]

I assume this is another Bill O'Reilly book.

[Scott R Nelson]

This weekend I read the Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame) book Win Bigly.

I gotta say it’s kind of an essential book for understanding the Trump phenomenon.

Just finishing up this book now. Whether you love Trump or hate him, this will help you understand him. The book was definitely worth the time to read.

[clackamascoug]

Finished today "Where the Crawdad's Sing." Was looking for something a little different than my normal book. This delivered different, but I'm not gushing over it like all the five star review... written by women. Was interesting early - then it became predictable as it reached to sell the screen rights.

[happyone]

I just started A World Ablaze
A newish look a Martin Luther and the beginnings of the Reformation. If it means anything, it's by BYU history professor, Craig Harline and is published by Oxford University Press.

I finished A World Ablaze

Good read - not very long and Harline keeps the Theology down to the minimum needed to understand the why of Luther's arguments with the Church. The main focus of the narrative is the 5 yrs between when he put the 95 Thesis on the church door at Wittenberg (1517) and to when he returned to Wittenberg after the Diet of Worms (1522). In addition to the Church politics, and just why it took so long for Rome to excommunicate him, there is quite a bit about politics of the Holy Roman Empire.

Harline is a bit irreverent, he always calls Luther - Brother Martin or Prof Martin, never by his last time and a bit humorous in the way his tells the story.

I thought it was a good overview of the beginnings of the Reformation. 4 stars on GR

[Jeff Lebowski]

Recently finished A River in Darkness: One Man's Escape from North Korea by Masaji Ishikawa. He was a Japanese citizen and his mother was Japanese and his father was Korean and they were living in Japan. His father was brought to Japan during WW2 as a forced laborer (slave). He was originally from South Korea. Times were rough getting decent work in Japan and they were told that they should go to North Korea because it was paradise on earth. As the ship was pulling up to dock, they realized they had made a huge mistake. Life was absolute hell in NK.

Incredible true story. Short read.

[clackamascoug]

Started SAINTS today... maybe I'll learn a thing or two that I didn't know or appreciate.

[happyone]

I just finished a biography of one of the movers and shakers in the Cold War CIA - James Angleton

Ghost

I first heard about him in Ben McIntyre's book on Kim Philby

He was head of counter intelligence for the CIA during the 60s and almost destroyed it due to "Mole hunts" after the new broke that Philby was a Soviet Mole in MI-6

In addition to the mole hunt information, there is a lot of what the CIA knew about Lee Harvey Oswald. He was on the CIA's radar staring in 1959 and Angleton kept it a very close hold on the info and lied to the Warren Commission about what the CIA knew about him.

To sum up Angleton, he was a man to whom the ends definitely justified the means. According to the author he was up to his neck in most the illegal activities of the CIA during the 50s and 60s - domestic spying and surviellence, opening peoples mail, assassination plots, the LSD experiments, successful and unsuccessful coups, foreign election meddling etc - all in the name of protecting the values of the US and defeating communism.
Solid 4 star read on GR

[happyone]

I'm currently reading Philbrick's new book on Washington - In the Hurricanes Eye

Somebody (JL?) mentioned it a few pages back, I'm too lazy to look it up

Philbrick is one of my favorites, so I have high expectaions for this one.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'm currently reading Philbrick's new book on Washington - In the Hurricanes Eye

Somebody (JL?) mentioned it a few pages back, I'm too lazy to look it up

Philbrick is one of my favorites, so I have high expectaions for this one.

Not me, but I love Philbrick. Will check this out.

[hostile]

The Butchering Art. A history of Joseph Lister and his quest to find the cause and cure for surgical infections and then convince the world of the efficacy of his antiseptic methods.

A quick read and interesting to me from a professional perspective. There are so many things that are accepted as routine now that were routinely criticized.

[CardiacCoug]

The Butchering Art. A history of Joseph Lister and his quest to find the cause and cure for surgical infections and then convince the world of the efficacy of his antiseptic methods.

A quick read and interesting to me from a professional perspective. There are so many things that are accepted as routine now that were routinely criticized.

I read that one. It was great.

Interesting how hospitals were so dangerous because of infections and how people were better off having their surgery at home and that hospitals in America took decades to come around on the importance of sterile technique.

When I read about any pioneer like Lister I think of this quote that is often misattributed to Gandhi:

First they ignore you. Then they ridicule you. And then they attack you and want to burn you. And then they build monuments to you.

[hostile]

I read that one. It was great.

Interesting how hospitals were so dangerous because of infections and how people were better off having their surgery at home and that hospitals in America took decades to come around on the importance of sterile technique.

Obviously we still fight infections but do a much better job of preventing and treating. They are still a still a source of significant cost and morbidity. The book reminded me of a conversation I had with one of my senior colleagues, now retired.
Me: Dr. H, can I ask your advice about a patient?
Dr H: Of course. Is the patient infected?
Me: No.
Dr H: Then you have already won.