What book(s) are you reading?

nsisk157

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Aaron Franklin's, "Frankling Barbecue: A Meat Smoking Manifesto."

It is glorious.
 

zelezo vlk

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As do I. It's often dense enough that I can only read a bit at a time. He's truly a brilliant man.
Undeniably so. I'm jonesing for more of his writing. Spe Salvi rocked my socks and is incredibly powerful. Let's see if I allow it to change my life.

Before I can buy any more Benedict, I need to finish my other recent purchase: Chesterton's biography of Aquinas, The Dumb Ox. It came highly recommended by Bishop Barron.

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Legacy

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Vatican library digitises 1,600-year-old edition of Virgil
Seventy-six pages and 50 illustrations from the great Latin epic made available to all, part of a project to put all its 80,000 manuscripts online


The Vatican Apostolic Library has digitised one of the world’s oldest manuscripts, an illustrated fragment of Virgil’s Aeneid that dates back 1,600 years.

Created in Rome around 400AD, the Vatican Virgil consists of 76 surviving pages, and 50 illustrations. The fragments of text are from the Latin poet’s Aeneid, his epic tale of Aeneas’s journey from the sack of Troy to Carthage, the underworld and then Italy, where he founds Rome. It also contains fragments from Virgil’s poem of the land, The Georgics, but the original manuscript is likely to have contained all of Virgil’s canonical works. According to Fine Books magazine, it is “one of the oldest [copies of The Aeneid] to survive the centuries”.

Digital Vatican Library
 

BGIF

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I jut finished The Fox Effect yesterday and started 9th Infantry in Vietnam today. My family recently developed and digitized my father's Vietnam War footage, maybe 5 hours or so, and I figured I should actually read about what his division went through.

Earlier this week on National Geographic I saw a documentary on 160 young men, all draftees, that trained together and the,n as Charlie Company in the 9th Infantry Divison, went to Vietnam's Mekong Delta to fight with the U.S.N. Riverines.

You can read a review of the documentary here.

‘Brothers in War’ Revisits Vietnam | Under the Radar

There's also on book on the group.

There are other websites about the 9th Division.
 

BGIF

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I just finished Eric Rutherfurd's Dublin saga: The Princes Of Ireland and The Rebels Of Ireland. They cover the history of Ireland from about 400 AD through the early 1900's through the eyes of several families and their descendants over the centuries. Very good look at the country's history, culture, etc. Good novels that are very historically accurate.

Just finished The Princes of Ireland. I enjoyed it. Rutherfurd's style is similar to Michener and Uris.

I'm ordering The Rebels of Ireland.

Thanks for the recommendation.
 

Whiskeyjack

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Currently reading the Great Ordeal by R Scott Bakker.

I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow morning, and I've been debating whether to stop at Barnes & Noble on my way home to buy that in hardcover, or whether to just wait for the paperback. Leaning toward the former. Have you read the previous 5 books?
 

Veritate Duce Progredi

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Data Visualization: A handbook for Data Driven Design - quality book if you're at all interested in presenting data to others.

I have another bulk order purchase that I'm waiting on, I'll be posting more after I've begun to chew.
 

pkt77242

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I'm flying to Chicago tomorrow morning, and I've been debating whether to stop at Barnes & Noble on my way home to buy that in hardcover, or whether to just wait for the paperback. Leaning toward the former. Have you read the previous 5 books?

I have read the previous 5 (though I buy mine for the kindle).
 

pkt77242

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Data Visualization: A handbook for Data Driven Design - quality book if you're at all interested in presenting data to others.

I have another bulk order purchase that I'm waiting on, I'll be posting more after I've begun to chew.

That book looks very interesting but expensive. Then again I have an $100 credit on Amazon. :idea:
 

pkt77242

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What's your opinion on the series so far?

I think that it is a very good to great series. I thought that the first 3 were a little better than the last 2 (it is too early to judge the Great Ordeal as I am only about 25% in).

What are your thoughts on the series?
 

Veritate Duce Progredi

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That book looks very interesting but expensive. Then again I have an $100 credit on Amazon. :idea:

It's been a good book. He presents a system for evaluating the data and finding the best options for your data and intention. I'm only a quarter of the way in, so there's a lot I haven't explored.

The bulk order I made had a number of graphic design and data books. I'm looking to pivot my current work into something that involves aesthetics and design. If you get the book, I'd be interested in hearing your thoughts. (and your experience/plans for data).
 

Emcee77

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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. About 40% of the way through. It's good, but not sure yet whether it's gonna live up to the hype.
 

zelezo vlk

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The Great Divorce. I picked this up and a few other books last night at a Half Price Books. It took me only a few hours, but Lewis really gives you a lot to think about. He really was quite prophetic, or maybe he just understood man.

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zelezo vlk

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The Power and the Glory. What writing! When I find books I actually like, I tend to tear through them.

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ACamp1900

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Gerald's Game... Not a huge King fan but felt like something fall/creepy... so far it's okay...
 

Veritate Duce Progredi

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The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

This is a compendium of images with a cross-cultural examination of their significance/meaning. Oddly, the authors have greatly minimized the Judeo-Christian in favor of "the exotic" but I can look past it since I can turn Pope Benedict XVI/Cardinal Ratzinger for all the Christian imagery I can handle.


Great book for those who have an interest in psychologist CG Jung. I'm trying to read an image or two/day to hopefully remember some of it.
 

zelezo vlk

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The Book of Symbols: Reflections on Archetypal Images

This is a compendium of images with a cross-cultural examination of their significance/meaning. Oddly, the authors have greatly minimized the Judeo-Christian in favor of "the exotic" but I can look past it since I can turn Pope Benedict XVI/Cardinal Ratzinger for all the Christian imagery I can handle.


Great book for those who have an interest in psychologist CG Jung. I'm trying to read an image or two/day to hopefully remember some of it.
Looks pretty interesting.

I'm onto more Benedict.

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Emcee77

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The Power and the Glory. What writing! When I find books I actually like, I tend to tear through them.

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What a great novel that is. I recall reading that in college. Knew nothing about suppression of the Catholic Church by the Mexican government at that time.

If you liked that, you might also like Silence by Shusaku Endo. It's about a persecuted Jesuit missionary in 17th century Japan, if I recall correctly. I remember really liking that one too.
 

zelezo vlk

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What a great novel that is. I recall reading that in college. Knew nothing about suppression of the Catholic Church by the Mexican government at that time.

If you liked that, you might also like Silence by Shusaku Endo. It's about a persecuted Jesuit missionary in 17th century Japan, if I recall correctly. I remember really liking that one too.
I'll get to it. I'm also looking forward to Scorsese's adaptation, which at this rate, will come about 2 weeks after the trumpets sound and the dead are raised.

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ShawneeIrish

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Recently finished Salem's Lot. Really enjoyed it, I have been on a Stephen King kick lately, mostly audio books though.

Now I'm reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I'm about 100 pages in and have not enjoyed it at all. I know this is a beloved book, but not catching my interest at all. Just trying to slog through it at this point.
 

Emcee77

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I'll get to it. I'm also looking forward to Scorsese's adaptation, which at this rate, will come about 2 weeks after the trumpets sound and the dead are raised.

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Oh, amazing! I didn't know he was doing one. I'll definitely look forward to that.

Recently finished Salem's Lot. Really enjoyed it, I have been on a Stephen King kick lately, mostly audio books though.

Now I'm reading Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy. I'm about 100 pages in and have not enjoyed it at all. I know this is a beloved book, but not catching my interest at all. Just trying to slog through it at this point.

I think Cormac McCarthy might be a love-him-or-hate-him author. He has a unique idiolect, and from the standpoint of style he's one of the few truly virtuosic authors of the last few decades, but the brutality puts a lot of people off.

For my part, I loved Blood Meridian. I'd recommend pushing through. When the Judge takes them up on the mountain ... oh man that's good stuff.
 

ShawneeIrish

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Oh, amazing! I didn't know he was doing one. I'll definitely look forward to that.



I think Cormac McCarthy might be a love-him-or-hate-him author. He has a unique idiolect, and from the standpoint of style he's one of the few truly virtuosic authors of the last few decades, but the brutality puts a lot of people off.

For my part, I loved Blood Meridian. I'd recommend pushing through. When the Judge takes them up on the mountain ... oh man that's good stuff.

I am going to push through and still holding out hope that I like it, or at least appreciate it by the end. Did you finish Narrow Road to the Deep North?
 

zelezo vlk

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Oh, amazing! I didn't know he was doing one. I'll definitely look forward to that.

Well it was supposed to be released in 2014. He keeps pushing it back.

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Emcee77

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I am going to push through and still holding out hope that I like it, or at least appreciate it by the end. Did you finish Narrow Road to the Deep North?



Yes. Damn good. I do think that "Nobel Prize" review I linked in this thread blew it a little out of proportion, but I still really liked the book. That theme of the impermanence of memory ... That's something that's generally out of a place in a book about traumatic events, but something about it really rang true for me. I was fascinated by all the POW and POW-aftermath chapters. The love story chapters were less successful for me, but I appreciated how they tied into that theme of fleeting memory or ephemerality at the end.
 

Veritate Duce Progredi

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Creativity, Inc. - A deep dive in the practices at Pixar. Shows how they maintain a creative environment that pumps out work. Fascinating story on their early formation/development as well.

Presence - This woman's Ted Talk resonated with me, felt like someone flipped a switch in my brain. I had to read the book to see if there was anything else I could glean. About 100 pages in and it's been good
 

ACamp1900

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Got back into Jeff Sharra lately... really enjoy all of his Civil War stuff.
 
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