What Are You Reading Now?

[YOhio]

Everyone go pre-order this book. It's the least you could do for someone who has brought us so much entertainment over the years. It's like a dollar and ten cents for every year he's made a fool of himself on this board.

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[BigPiney]

will this one also have an overabundance of semi-colons?

[old_gregg]

what pages are the sex scenes on?

[falafel]

will this one also have an overabundance of semi-colons?

full colons only: it's weird

[happyone]

I finished The Ship Beneath the Ice

I found it fascinating, the author was the chief archaeologist on the two attempts (2019 and 2022) to find Shackleton's ship, The Endurance, He gives a day by day account of what was going, the problems, solutions and just unforgiving Antarctica is. They were successful on the 2022 expedition and the Endurance was is amazing shape, sitting upright in 3000 meters of water.

For those who don't know, Ernest Shackleton led an expedition to Antarctica in 1914 to attempt to cross the continent. The previous expeditions to the south pole had been out and back. The ship became icebound and later crushed by the ice and sank. Shackleton was able to lead his men to an island and later under took an 800 mile journey over some of the stormiest seas on the planet to the Falkland Islands in an open boat (one of the life boats) arriving on the wrong side of St. George Island. He then scaled a serious mountain range in snow weather to get to a whale station to get help. He was successful and all 28 members of his party survived the winter on the Antarctic Ice.

While relating his story of the search, the author also tells Shackleton's story.

Solid 4 stars, just for Shackleton's story

[BigPiney]

what pages are the sex scenes on?

I see you also read the first novel.

[SeattleUte]

Everyone go pre-order this book. It's the least you could do for someone who has brought us so much entertainment over the years. It's like a dollar and ten cents for every year he's made a fool of himself on this board.

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Thsnks, brother.

[falafel]

My 19 year old son who I’ve always struggled to connect with (football is our main shared love) recently texted and asked if I wanted to read this with him and share our thoughts together. So needless to say I’ll be reading the hell out of Dune starting today.

Hey SB, how has this gone? If you don't mind me asking...

[SteelBlue]

Hey SB, how has this gone? If you don't mind me asking...

It’s been a good experience. He has slowed down a bit because he’s working a lot but it’s the most we’ve connected in a while.

[happyone]

I just finished an interesting look a Beethoven titled interestingly enough Why Beethoven

The author looks at all of Beethoven numbered compossions, tells the story behind them, what was going on in his life at the time they were written and who has recorded them and which recordings he likes and doesn't like along with his opinion of the piece. In the preface he says he has listened to between 10K and 15K recordings! The dates of the recordings range for the early twentieth century to the late 2020s - roughly 100 yrs

The book is arranged by themes in his music and jumps around cronologicly quite a bit. In discussing the great man, his personality short comings are highlighted along with his talent

Solid 4 star read -esp for classical music lovers

[PaloAltoCougar]

I just finished an interesting look a Beethoven titled interestingly enough Why Beethoven

The author looks at all of Beethoven numbered compossions, tells the story behind them, what was going on in his life at the time they were written and who has recorded them and which recordings he likes and doesn't like along with his opinion of the piece. In the preface he says he has listened to between 10K and 15K recordings! The dates of the recordings range for the early twentieth century to the late 2020s - roughly 100 yrs

The book is arranged by themes in his music and jumps around cronologicly quite a bit. In discussing the great man, his personality short comings are highlighted along with his talent

Solid 4 star read -esp for classical music lovers

I may give it a shot. On my mission I attended a concert in Vienna at the theater where, around 160 years earlier, Beethoven premiered on the same night his Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, his Fourth Concerto, and a couple of other beautiful compositions. A music critic's review the following day called the evening a "disappointment." And I love the story how at the end of the Ninth Symphony's premiere (Ode to Joy), a deaf Beethoven had to be turned around physically to see that the audience was going nuts, a ten-minute standing ovation for a performance he essentially never heard.

[happyone]

That story is in there. I thought it was well written - the author is obviously a music critic and seems to know what he is talking about. He looks at over 100 of Beethoven's compositions - good, bad, indifferent (not many of the last two) as well as great ones.

[SeattleUte]

Everyone go pre-order this book. It's the least you could do for someone who has brought us so much entertainment over the years. It's like a dollar and ten cents for every year he's made a fool of himself on this board.

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The audiobook is now available for preorder.

https://x.com/johnrneeleman/status/1...yER1gbdJexlx5Q

[YOhio]

The audiobook is now available for preorder.

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Great news! Congratulations!

[Uncle Ted]

Thanks for bringing this thread up in the queue... I just finished Walter Isaacson's Elon Musk book. It's another great read from Isaacson.

Elon is a very interesting individual. He was raised by a jerk father and regularly bullied growing up, which may have given him the drive he possesses. It seems he tries to micro-manage most of his companies either assuming the role of CEO or CTO. Because the way he manages people he either drives them out of his companies or gets them to do great things they didn't know they were capable of doing. He is also a very loving father (other than naming his kids weird names) and regularly brings them to work with him. Of course, he has lots to choose from since he has like a dozen.

I have never met Elon Musk in person but I have some connections with him. I use to work with a guy that was hired to head up the computer security of his Tesla ECUs or car computers. He did some great things making the Tesla ECU one of the most secure, if not the most secure, in the industry but Musk drove him away from the company. Also, I use to work for the company that provided the data center space for Twitter (and met a lot of the early founders of that company including Jack Dorsey). The book mentions the company and one of the data centers that housed the majority of Twitter's servers around the time Elon purchased the company. I had been to that data center a number of times. The book describes how Elon ended the $100m+/yr contract with my former employer which I found interesting. Finally, on my last road trip I was filling up my truck at a gas station and talking to a guy on the other side of the pump who was doing the same. We both had our dogs in our respective trucks which prompted a conversation. It came out that he worked for SpaceX and was actually hire #9 for the company. He handled a lot of the logistics and personal security for the management of the officers of the company including Elon. When he learned what I did and was from Texas he gave me his business card. I told him I wasn't interested in relocating to that part of Texas but thanks. I was in the middle of this book and had learned a lot about Musk's management style but didn't tell him that.