What Are You Reading Currently?

[Jim Boylston]

I know that most of our members are bibliophiles, and I'm always interested to know what everyone is currently reading, or what's in your "To Read" pile.

Seems like every time I'm getting ready to leave on a business trip I spend a lot of time scratching my head trying to decide what books to bring along. I've generally got a non-fiction and a fiction title going at any given time. For light or escapist reading, I gravitate toward a couple of "guilty pleasure" authors, notably Lee Child and his Jack Reacher series, or something from James Lee Burke or John Sanford. My taste in literary fiction includes a lot of southern authors like Flannery O'Connor, Faulkner, and Larry Brown. Recently, I've been reading Bill Bryson's sort-of-travel-books.

Right now, in my carry on, I've packed Child's "Nothing to Lose," and Sanford's "Invisible Prey." For non-ficiton, I've been enjoying Mike Cox's book on the Texas Rangers that I picked up last week in Texas.

What about anyone else? Care to share your current list? Dare to share your guilty pleasures?
Jim

[Allen Wiener]

As an offshoot from our Crockett research, I finished off Remini's "Andrew Jackson's Indians Wars" and started "The Birth of Modern Politics: Andrew Jackson, John Quincy Adams, and the Election of 1828" by Lynn Parsons. I plan to go back in time after that and read "The Spartacus War" by Barry Strauss, just published in March. Although I've been sticking pretty much with history, I also enjoy Bill Bryson's books. If anyone's new to him, I recommend starting with "Neither Here Nor There," which covers his travels through Europe, and then maybe "I'm a Stranger Here Myself," which covers most of the United States. Bryson's not only informative about the places he visits, but he puts a personal, often hilarious, spin on his travels. My pile also contains a good many yet-to-be-read issues of "National Geographic" and "Colonial Williamsburg" mags. Somewhere down there are "Blood and Thunder" and Gary Roberts' "Doc Holliday" too.

AW

[ranger2518]

Theodore Roosevelt: A Life by Nathan Miller.

[bobdurham]

My stack of "to read" books is rediculously high -- actually several stacks. I've read a few of the John Sandford "Prey" mysteries -- he's a great fast read, among my "guilty pleasures." I mainly read non-fiction though -- am currently reading Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded and In Camp and Field with the Washington Artillery of New Orleans -- I like primary historical accounts. I'm on the book review staff of Civil War News so a lot of things I read are for that -- just finished Invisible Hero: Patrick R. Cleburne and sent in my review yesterday.

Allen -- have you read American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House? I've heard a lot about it but haven't added it to my stack yet.

[Jim Boylston]

Bob, I read "Lion," but was disappointed. Meacham is a good writer, but I thought the book was far too concerned with the more sensational side of Jackson's presidency (The Eaton affair, for example). I'd have preferred more on policy and its aftereffects.
Jim

[TRK]

I'm well into With Zeal and With Bayonets Only: The British Army on Campaign in North America, 1775-1783, by Matthew H. Spring (University of Oklahoma Press, 2008), an analytical study of the British combat experience in the American Revolution. It reads like a doctoral dissertation, which is indeed what the book started out as. Another one I'm working on is Steven J. Zaloga's new and excellent history of the Sherman tank, Armored Thunderbolt. I read about one novel a year; the last one was James Ellroy's Black Dahlia.

[Allen Wiener]

Bob,

I didn't finish "American Lion," but may return to it later. From what I read, I agree with Jim; as far as the historical events are concerned, there's nothing new and it's essentially a rehash of what we already knew about Jackson. I read somewhere that Meacham got access to a lot of letters in the Jackson Letters Project that hadn't been seen before, so he may have built his text around what he found there. There is one reference to a letter Jackson wrote about the Alamo, which I'd never seen before, but nothing really significant. Frankly, I don't know why the book won a Pulitzer and books like Remini's "Andrew Jackson's Indian Wars" didn't.

Allen

[Jim Boylston]

I read about one novel a year; the last one was James Ellroy's Black Dahlia.

I read novels for "dessert." I've read most of Ellroy's stuff. Very dark.
Most of his novels about LA are inter-related.
Jim

[TRK]

When my s/o came back from a trip to NYC last week, she pulled a book out of a shopping bag and said, "Here, I hope you don't already have it." It was Meacham's American Lion, and I didn't already have it. I figure I'll work on it evenings while she's under the spell of NCIS or CSI.

Jim: I've read some but not all of Ellroy's other novels, including American Tabloid and The Cold Six Million, which I thought were pretty great. I also need to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and reread Blood Meridian. Then, I need to figure out how to sit down and enjoy a lighter novel.

[Allen Wiener]

Tom, let us know what you think of the Meacham book.

For my escapes, I still rely on John Mortimer's "Rumpole" stories, and Conan-Doyle from time to time. I still enjoy Poe and Dickens, but rarely read fiction.

[Allen Wiener]

May 15, 2009 13:37:26 GMT -5 Jim Boylston said:

I've been enjoying Mike Cox's book on the Texas Rangers that I picked up last week in Texas.
Jim

Ha! There's a coincidence! Mike was interviewed just before Bill and I were last night on "Way Back When." You can hear both interviews here:

www.blogtalkradio.com/Way-Back-When/2009/05/15/Texas-History

Just click "Music of the Alamo" under "Episode Notes" and you'll hear the whole show. You also can download the program to iTunes and then skip through the first half-hour (which is the Mike Cox interview) if you want to hear Bill and I.

Allen

[Jim Boylston]

Jim: I've read some but not all of Ellroy's other novels, including American Tabloid and The Cold Six Million, which I thought were pretty great. I also need to read Cormac McCarthy's The Road and reread Blood Meridian. Then, I need to figure out how to sit down and enjoy a lighter novel.

I tend to take the lighter stuff on business trips where I can only read for short periods, or on planes where I'm too often distracted by the screaming kids.

I haven't read any of the newer McCarthy's (I think I stopped with "all the Pretty Horses"), but I'm a fan of his earlier work. "Blood Meridian" is a great book, I've read it a couple of times. I'm also especially fond of "Sutree."

For non-fiction, I also recently finished "The Ten Cent Plague," about the battles against the comic book industry in the 1950's. It's decent, but I was hoping for more info on the early artists and writers.

Jim

[Allen Wiener]

May 15, 2009 19:56:58 GMT -5 bobdurham said:

-- am currently reading Thomas L. Friedman's Hot, Flat, and Crowded

Bob,

I find this also at the bottom of my pile; how do you like it so far?

Allen

[Kevin Young]

Shadows at Dawn: A Borderlands Massacre and the Violence of History by Karl Jacoby.

And right in the middle of this is a one of the Alamo couriers, William Ourey.

[TRK]

May 18, 2009 10:02:26 GMT -5 Kevin Young said:

And right in the middle of this is a one of the Alamo couriers, William Ourey.

Sometime soon when I get the time, I'll start a separate thread elsewhere in the forum concerning William Sanders Oury's claims to have been an Alamo courier.