Summer I tend to want to revisit old favorites. Just finished Tapping the Source for probably the 40th time. Next jumping into LOR trilogy, again probably for 20th time.

Have my 10 y.o. reading Hobbit for first time.....getting them thru the first 30 pages is the challenge, then the hook is set. For. Life.

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"There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." John Rogers

Just finished "Moonshot: JFK and the Great Space Race." Overall, a bit of a meh. It was a bit boring, and frankly the fawning over JFK continuously got to be a bit much. The author was perfectly happy to rake Von Braun over the coals for his Nazi past and probable war crimes (as well he should), but JFK got a complete pass on his various transgressions.

Currently 136 pages into "Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch," by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Love it. Absolutely hysterical. Highly recommended.

Also read "Craig and Fred." Story about a Marine who rescues a dog from Afghanistan and ends up being "rescued" by the pup later as he deals with PTSD. Well written and a quick read, thoroughly enjoyed it.

Slowly working my way through "The Norse Myths."

On tap for later this summer is "Normandy '44: D-Day and the Epic 77-day Battle for France" by James Holland. He did an excellent job with "Big Week" and so am looking forward to this one.

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Taco cat spelled backwards is....taco cat.

This month I read Stamped From the Beginning: A History of Racist Ideas. It was phenomenal. Well researched, fantastic approach, inarguable factuality.

Yesterday I finished The Misunderstood Jew by Amy Jill Levine. Pretty good on the whole. She's a great bridge thinker between Christianity and Judaism, helping correct misconceptions.

I'll finish Brene Brown's Daring Greatly in about an hour. It's phenomenal.

I also read The Big Moo (Seth Godin & others), God Help the Child by Toni Morrison, Anne Lamott's Bird by Bird (soooooo good!), and Mike McHargue's Finding God in the Waves.

Tomorrow I'll start a book from a debut author, Emily Jefferies, titled Through the Kaleidoscope. It's about the cellular response to spiritual practice.

I'm not creative at all and have no musical talent but I've become somewhat fascinated by process of songwriting. Just starting this:

What draws you to the subject matter? Are you religious?

Just finished Rick Atkinson's new history (Vol 1) of the American Revolution

https://www.amazon.com/...ding=UTF8&btkr=1


This is the first volume of will be a three part history of the American War (wherein we won our independence thru force of arms against dick heads like: CG, Capt Canada, and Sanuk

Atkinson's three volume history of the US Army at war in the European Theater was just plain great history well written.

He is off to a great start with volumn1 of our war against our evil English overlords/oppressors.


/r

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Steve

Religious, no. I grew up in a fundamentalist home and was hyper religious, conservatively so. At some point my religious beliefs started to become deconstructed. It forced me to look at what I believe and value. A deity wasn't integral to my value set and I'm quite agnostic about a god, leaning toward lack of belief in one. An ideology that this world and our relationship to it is greater than me drives me, though; it forces me to live in constant reflection of what I can do to give back and live beyond my own existence. Some would call that a sort of spiritual humanism. Given my fascination with a literary reading of religious text and the question "what does it mean to be human?," others would say it means I'm probably Christian. And I suppose in the pursuit of self improvement the labels of others don't matter to me, but they also won't deter me from a constant seeking of ideas helping me shape what the human experience means to me so I can better relate to others.

I suppose a long way of saying, "Good question. I don't know."

My book club is reading “Life After Death” by Damien Echols. He was one of the West Memphis Three and this is about his time on death row. I just recently started it but I can tell it’s going to be pretty intense.

Also, is anyone on Goodreads? I keep a list of everything I read and an even longer list of my “want to read” stuff.

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clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

finished "Stalker" by Lars Kepler, and a couple mysteries by Sophie Hannah
re-reading the Bridig Quinn series (Becky Masterman)

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maybe she's born with it, maybe it's chlorine
If you're injured and need some sympathy, PM me and I'm very happy to write back.
disclaimer: PhD not MD

I am reading Adaptive Markets along with Constitution Book 1 of the Legacy Fleet and Infinity Born. The last 2 are decent Scifi.

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"The great pleasure in life is doing what people say you cannot do."