Currently reading "The Poet" by Michael Connelly. Very good author for those that like mystery/crime fiction.

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I recently finished Ham on Rye by Bukowski. Easy read and enjoyable. Boy, growing up back sounds really tough.

Currently reading Midnight's Children by Rushdie. Really enjoying so far even though I am not that far into it. I can already tell it deserves the praise it always gets.

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“It is the job of thinking people not to be on the side of the executioners.”
― Albert Camus

Currently reading "The Poet" by Michael Connelly. Very good author for those that like mystery/crime fiction.

He has been one of my favorites since the 90's. He and John Sandford can write some stories. Same genre and similar jobs for his main guys but with completely different characters and stories but excellent writing IMHO. I used to like Patricia Cornwell but somewhere along the way she either got too full of herself or something else happened. Whatever it was her writing suffered in a big way and she became unreadable.

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Deacon, have you read the novella "The Slow Regard of Silent Things" yet?

I have not. But! I did hear that Showtime is going to take over the story and turn it into a TV series!

That should be good.

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Original Season Ticket Holder - Retired  1995 - 2020


At some point you just have to let go of what you thought should happen and live in what is happening.
 

Just finished V for Vendetta. Good stuff.

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60% of the time, It works Everytime...



 

The entire Sword of Truth series (if you're into fantasy TOR stuff)
Terry Goodkind did a helluva job, especially the first 3 books. (There's like 19 now I haven't even caught up with.... but the original story was just the first 6 followed by spin offs and prequels of sorts)
Of course the first novel Wizard's First Rule was my favorite

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Currently reading "The Poet" by Michael Connelly. Very good author for those that like mystery/crime fiction.

He has been one of my favorites since the 90's. He and John Sandford can write some stories. Same genre and similar jobs for his main guys but with completely different characters and stories but excellent writing IMHO. I used to like Patricia Cornwell but somewhere along the way she either got too full of herself or something else happened. Whatever it was her writing suffered in a big way and she became unreadable.

Yeah my two main authors I read are John Grisham (since I'm from Mississippi) and I just started up with Michael Connelly a few years ago. Read every book by Grisham but still have a lot to go with Connelly. Just finished the Poet today and will start with Trunk Music next (going in chronological order). The Poet was confusing at the end though lol! But very good.

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Nerds. (Smh)

Last book I read was..


..damn, I don’t know. Although, I do remember I was a pretty smart kid in school and I was in the moron ‘literature’ class. The last book I recall was in my senior year, when our teacher (also one of the pe coaches) read us Beowulf. I’m not even sure what it was about. Too busy checking out the girl’s butt that sat in front of me. Now, that, I can recommend to all of you. Go to the library and check out butts.

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He has been one of my favorites since the 90's. He and John Sandford can write some stories. Same genre and similar jobs for his main guys but with completely different characters and stories but excellent writing IMHO. I used to like Patricia Cornwell but somewhere along the way she either got too full of herself or something else happened. Whatever it was her writing suffered in a big way and she became unreadable.

Yeah my two main authors I read are John Grisham (since I'm from Mississippi) and I just started up with Michael Connelly a few years ago. Read every book by Grisham but still have a lot to go with Connelly. Just finished the Poet today and will start with Trunk Music next (going in chronological order). The Poet was confusing at the end though lol! But very good.

It's been a long time since I read The Poet. I might have to reread that one. Did you know Amazon has an original series based on the Harry Bosch series? I began watching it when it came out but got sidetracked then forgot about it. Now there are two seasons to catch up on. Titus Welliver plays Bosch. I'm not sure who I would have imagined playing the character but he wasn't it, but he doesn't suck at it from what I remember.

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I'm reading the book about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.

If you think politics is mean and nasty these days, it's nothing compared to how it was right after Washington left office. Those guys were way down in the gutter. I'm talking about famous founding fathers who were just ripping each other a new one, making all kinds of wild and scandalous accusations about each other.

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I'm reading the book about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  

If you think politics is mean and nasty these days, it's nothing compared to how it was right after Washington left office.  Those guys were way down in the gutter.   I'm talking about famous founding fathers who were just ripping each other a new one, making all kinds of wild and scandalous accusations about each other.

That sounds intriguing. We always seem to hold these fellows up to such lofty standards, and for good reason for the most part, but they were just as human as we are. I may have to look into this. I haven't read a book based on history in a couple of years.

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I'm reading the book about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  

If you think politics is mean and nasty these days, it's nothing compared to how it was right after Washington left office.  Those guys were way down in the gutter.   I'm talking about famous founding fathers who were just ripping each other a new one, making all kinds of wild and scandalous accusations about each other.

That sounds intriguing. We always seem to hold these fellows up to such lofty standards, and for good reason for the most part, but they were just as human as we are. I may have to look into this. I haven't read a book based on history in a couple of years.

If you want to read a good history book, read "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow.   It's a very long book, but the life of George Washington is so impressive, really an astoundingly impressive life of great courage, sacrifice, and achievement.  Chernow makes him a real human being, warts and all, brings him down off that marble statue.  But after reading that book I was convinced that George Washington was one of the greatest people ever.  He led a rag-tag army against the greatest superpower of the age for eight years, held the American revolution together through enormous hardships by sheer force of will and great leadership, then willingly gave up power when people were offering him a crown, which set us up for the elected civilian leadership we have today, then went on to become unanimously elected first President, and set all the precedents that our Presidents operate under now, and then willingly gave up power again and retired. He was the greatest American ever.

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That sounds intriguing. We always seem to hold these fellows up to such lofty standards, and for good reason for the most part, but they were just as human as we are. I may have to look into this. I haven't read a book based on history in a couple of years.

If you want to read a good history book, read "Washington: A Life" by Ron Chernow.   It's a very long book, but the life of George Washington is so impressive, really an astoundingly impressive life of great courage, sacrifice, and achievement.  Chernow makes him a real human being, warts and all, brings him down off that marble statue.  But after reading that book I was convinced that George Washington was one of the greatest people ever.  He led a rag-tag army against the greatest superpower of the age for eight years, held the American revolution together through enormous hardships by sheer force of will and great leadership, then willingly gave up power when people were offering him a crown, which set us up for the elected civilian leadership we have today, then went on to become unanimously elected first President, and set all the precedents that our Presidents operate under now, and then willingly gave up power again and retired.  He was the greatest American ever.

Thanks man. I will definitely have to check that out.

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I'm reading the book about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  

If you think politics is mean and nasty these days, it's nothing compared to how it was right after Washington left office.  Those guys were way down in the gutter.   I'm talking about famous founding fathers who were just ripping each other a new one, making all kinds of wild and scandalous accusations about each other.

Makes me chuckle when people A. talk about how terrible and unstatesman-like politics is today, and B. lament how awful and biased the media is today. It's been a LOT worse in the past among some of the very best of us.

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“An empty vessel makes the loudest sound, so they that have the least wit are the greatest babblers.”. - Plato

also a good read

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The entire Sword of Truth series (if you're into fantasy TOR stuff)
Terry Goodkind did a helluva job, especially the first 3 books. (There's like 19 now I haven't even caught up with.... but the original story was just the first 6 followed by spin offs and prequels of sorts)
Of course the first novel Wizard's First Rule was my favorite

Hmm, didn't think anyone else here would have read this sort of stuff. I read lots of novels back in highschool. Also loved Tom Clancy, J.R. Tolkien, and another fantasy set of books I just can't remember right now. 

I also want to give a shout out to the Harry Potter books, I was not the target age range for them but they are an excellent example of how to make an engaging milieu, I never understood why people were so obsessed till I read them. I always thought that if I wanted to write a book I would base its style on them cause they were done so well. 

Lately I do not read any fiction or fantasy. If I do extra reading, its articles online or my Bible commentaries. School keeps me busy reading anyhow, so its almost hard to read anything else besides my devotionals and quick 'articles' to get my Jags fix etc. I actually feel like I am getting dumber in some ways tho thanks to school forcing me away from enjoyable reading.

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Yes, it's improvement, but it's Blaine Gabbert 2012 level improvement. - Pirkster

http://youtu.be/ouGM3NWpjxk The Home Hypnotist!

http://youtu.be/XQRFkn0Ly3A Media on the Brain Link!
 

Peyton must store oxygen in that forehead of his. No way I'd still be alive after all that choking.

 

Thread resurrection.

I just finished The Taking of K-129. It's about project Azorian. In the early 70s the CIA designed and constructed a huge ship to raise a sunken Soviet sub from nearly 3 miles down in the Pacific Ocean. It was only partially successful when part of the apparatus used to grapple the sub broke apart only 3000 feet from the surface. They were able to recover only about a third of the sub. 


What is so amazing is they were able to accomplish this tremendous task in secrecy using a Howard Hughes company as a front. It was eventually leaked out (allegedly by the Navy, ironically enough). An absolutely amazing chapter in espionage history. Even the Soviets couldn't believe it once the story got out. It's incredible what this country can accomplish when it has the will.

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I'm reading the book about Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow.  

If you think politics is mean and nasty these days, it's nothing compared to how it was right after Washington left office.  Those guys were way down in the gutter.   I'm talking about famous founding fathers who were just ripping each other a new one, making all kinds of wild and scandalous accusations about each other.

Makes me chuckle when people A. talk about how terrible and unstatesman-like politics is today, and B. lament how awful and biased the media is today. It's been a LOT worse in the past among some of the very best of us.

No one alive today remembers the incivility and inability to compromise being worse than it is now.  There's a continuum.  At one end you have times of very high consensus like 1815-1825.  At the other end you have civil unrest and civil war like 1854 to 1877. We are somewhere in the middle, and still far from the edge, but it is not wrong to be concerned about the overall trend.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.

I think the public at large was more divided in the late 60s and early 70s than they are now. That time marked a huge cultural clash between the regimented WWII generation and their free-thinking children. It was a culturally and socially tumultuous time when you think about how much this country changed between 1960 and 1970. It was a cataclysmic shift In almost every aspect of American life.

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In the past few years I've read a lot of sci fi. Altered Carbon, Starship Troopers and Orphans of the Sky by Heinlein, the Ender saga including Ender in Exile, the Worthing Saga also by Orson Scott Card, Project Hail Mary, Rite of Passage. The shortest ones are Rite of Passage and Orphans of the Sky, and they're also the two that left me with the most interesting thoughts and questions. So those are the two I would recommend to anyone who hasn't read sci fi in a while.

I've also gotten into satire recently. Gulliver's Travels and the Adventures of Huck Finn are the main ones.

I also did most of Institutes of the Christian Religion which was dry but very surprising. Calvin's name today is shorthand for a few protestant theological positions, and those are in the book, but they are not the main idea of the book. The point Calvin keeps looping back to is that the popes and the priests of his day were using dubious theology as an excuse to intervene in political affairs however they wanted. They would change their theology to suit their goals. Calvin did not think every Christian needed systematic theology, nor did he think his opponents were wrong about everything. He agreed with them about a lot of things. He was only hoping to build an elite of systematic thinkers that would be able to spot and resist the new stuff, the type of new stuff that would be used to justify a new interference in the political process somewhere. However if you look at Calvin's life, he also interfered in politics. His defenders would say that the judges and civil ministers begged him to, and he only did so reluctantly, we will never know if this is true. But he did do it.

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My fellow southpaw Mark Brunell will probably always be my favorite Jaguar.