What Book are you currently reading?

[heist]

1984 - which I read many moons ago. But this time around I'm really taking my time with it. 

[JamesE]

On 6/23/2021 at 8:11 PM, BKKTCD said:

I am a big science fiction fan. Currently, I’m reading We Are Legion (We Are Bob) by Dennis Taylor… I am very pleased.

Thanks for this rec. Almost done with the first book and it's much better than I was expecting.

[Objectivance]

Animal Farm.

[Nate]

1984 by Orwell and Atlas Shrugged by Rand.

[Bluesofa]

3 minutes ago, Nate said:

1984 by Orwell and Atlas Shrugged by Rand.

Careful! Just don't read it in public:

 

In June 2014 we had the PM hating George Orwell's 1984, with those reading it charged with 'eating a sandwich with political intent' 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTd_FJbiRq0

Yet more recently, he gave Animal Farm the thumbs up.

 

[HappyExpat]

Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert Heinlein.  It's been decades since I read it, and how different it is now from my crusty perspective.

[TheDirtyDurian]

The Koran.

There's no need for any other books.

[billybob]

On 6/3/2021 at 10:15 AM, King Cotton said:

Hi, Lorraine

I'm currently trying so hard to be a writer that I have no time for reading. I'm presently in the process of submitting my latest effort, 'Many Bad Words', to publishers' agents, so it's a case of fingers very crossed.

Appropriate to my present involvement with the new T-T forum, 'Many Bad Words' is about me bad-mouthing the Thai PM - yes, really! - on a similar forum and ending up getting hired by him to help with his PR profile, only to be so disgusted with his ethics that I team-up with a Thanathorn clone, with whom I plot and bring about the PM's overthrow. Yes, exciting stuff!

The last book I read was one I borrowed from my youngest son, when I tripped back home 4 years ago, namely Lee Child's Jack Reacher novel, 'One Shot', which I can only say I 'half-enjoyed', finding the plot just too complex for me to keep tabs on the various characters.

I'm sorry that's the best that I can do in your 'current read' survey!

I'm in sounds exciting though a somewhat niche market.... last book I read was Tom Bowyer's biography on Boris Johnson - now there's a rally f&cked up individual - his dad Stanley was/is a right bastard. 

[billybob]

4 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

The Koran.

There's no need for any other books.

Allahu Akbar ....

 

 

[billybob]

I shouldn't mention "library genesis" but I just did... 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library_Genesis

[billybob]

On 6/30/2021 at 10:58 AM, Andrew Reeve said:

After a quick look at my Book shelves, I have put together a short list of some of my favorite classics that you might enjoy reading at some point.

·         Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

·         The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger

·         East of Eden by John Steinbeck

·         Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

·         Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell

All great books that I read when I was a much younger man - 1984 stands out as a thread favourite and it's easy to see why. We are all living in a version of it some obviously much more intense than others. Scoop was my O'level English lit book so probably spent too much time analyzing and not reading it. Crime and Punishment I always remember the door being open bit - that has fueled many a paranoid side trip. Not that I have anything to be paranoid about - he says looking nervously out of the window. 

[billybob]

4 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

The Koran.

There's no need for any other books.

I've just read the ending which sort of spoils the whole plot - might give it a miss. 

SPOILER ALERT 

 

O you who believe! If you contract a loan for a stated term then write it down, and let a scribe faithfully write it down between you. A scribe should not refuse to write as Allah taught him, but let him write, and let he who owes the debt dictate; but let him fear Allah his Lord and not diminish anything of it. But if the debtor was a fool, weak, or cannot dictate himself, then let his agent faithfully dictate. And call to witness two witnesses from amongst your men, but if they were not two men then a man and two women, from those whom you deem fit as witnesses, so that if one of the two [women] should err, the second may remind the other. Let not the witnesses refuse when they are summoned. Do not tire of writing it, be it small or great, with its term. That is more just in the sight of God, more upright for testimony, and best for avoiding doubt, unless it is a ready-money transaction between you, which you arrange between yourselves, then it is no offence by you that you do not write it down. Have witnesses when you sell one to another, and let not either scribe or witness come to harm, for if you do it will be an abomination in you. Fear Allah, for Allah teaches you, and Allah knows all things. (2.282)

//THE END// 

 

[King Cotton]

4 hours ago, billybob said:

I'm in sounds exciting though a somewhat niche market.... last book I read was Tom Bowyer's biography on Boris Johnson - now there's a rally f&cked up individual - his dad Stanley was/is a right bastard. 

Ughh . . . your mention of Bo-Jo has ruined my day already! That someone so inherently indecent became the UK's PM is a truly sickening thing. As much as I disliked Theresa May, there must surely have been someone better than BJ to replace her.

But that's the strange world of politics, with reflections here, on the current talk of Thammanat Prompow rising up the popularity charts within the ruling coalition regime. Horribly strange!

[gummy]

Just now, King Cotton said:

Ughh . . . your mention of Bo-Jo has ruined my day already! That someone so inherently indecent became the UK's PM is a truly sickening thing. As much as I disliked Theresa May, there must surely have been someone better than BJ to replace her.

But that's the strange world of politics, with reflections here, on the current talk of Thammanat Prompow rising up the popularity charts within the ruling coalition regime. Horribly strange!

Isn't it rather just a sad reflection that most of the world, as we knew it, has gone totally bonkers now ?

[King Cotton]

10 minutes ago, gummy said:

Isn't it rather just a sad reflection that most of the world, as we knew it, has gone totally bonkers now ?

Yes, bonkers is the word. You, me and billions of others can only hope that things will become less so.

[thaifarmer]

just found Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged in one of my storage boxes. going to read it for the 2nd time...

[thai3]

9 hours ago, TheDirtyDurian said:

The Koran.

There's no need for any other books.

The book of hate from the lips of a 7th century illiterate caravan robber, slave owning killer and child abuser who married a 6 year old and raped her when she was 9. 

Religion of Peace:
"Slay them wherever you find them...Idolatry is worse than carnage...Fight against them until idolatry is no more and God's religion reigns supreme." (Surah 2:190-)

 

[JamesE]

1 hour ago, gummy said:

Isn't it rather just a sad reflection that most of the world, as we knew it, has gone totally bonkers now ?

One of the compelling pieces of evidence that we all are part of a simulation. I just hope I'm not an NPC.

[Ubon2530]

I'm re-reading through all of my Terry Pratchett collection, but I highly recommend these two books.

[Benroon]

On 6/4/2021 at 1:29 PM, Lorraine said:

No judgement from me Alice and my two youngest are listening to me reading "Giraffes can't dance"

It is the story about Gerald a friendly, yet clumsy giraffe

Surely thats Peter Crouchs biography ?

Currently reading Every Thing Is F*cked by Mark Manson. Gets heavy in places, but enough humour to keep it going with many eyeopeners as to why people are so bleedin miserable when they have nothing to be miserable about. Clever guy.

[Metaluna]

A number of things. I've just finished reading what is available online by David Dodge, who wrote expat adventure and crime stories set in Mexico, South America, and Europe. He wrote, for example, To Catch a Thief, which Hitchcock adapted.

Also something I just picked up because of the title, Operation: Bangkok, by Edward S. Aarons and written in 1972. A very odd book. It is filled with passages trying to grasp the atmosphere of Thailand. Some things he gets. Others seem very, very wrong. No real Thai names--they seem Vietnamese or Burmese, mislocates the Meo (Hmong) in Isan. Does notice the everpresent scent of jasmine bushes. Part of a series of 42 Operation (fill in the blank) titles. Most of these novels are available online for downlaod, if anyone is interested.

Finally, James Carlos Blake and his Borderland novels, set in Texas and/or Mexico. Especially like his In the Rogue Blood.

[MrStretch]

On 8/9/2021 at 10:24 PM, TheDirtyDurian said:

The Koran.

There's no need for any other books.

You're right if you want to know what a petulant 12-year old pedophiliac thinks and dreams. I have never understood why people follow this book after reading it.

[TheDirtyDurian]

59 minutes ago, MrStretch said:

You're right if you want to know what a petulant 12-year old pedophiliac thinks and dreams. I have never understood why people follow this book after reading it.

Live and let live brother.

[JamesE]

I'm about halfway through After the Fall by Ben Rhodes, who was one of Obama's minions. It looks at the growing authoritarian movements around the globe and their underpinnings. At first blush I thought it would be dry and pedantic but because he weaves the stories behind all the countries together, is actually a compelling read.

(Next up Foundation. I need to remember the story so I can watch the series...)

[thaifarmer]

just started, for the 2nd time, reading Atlas shrugged, from Ayn Rand. First time was 15 years ago..